I realized that my rich dad had been work- ing hard for years pouring a solid foundation of wealth. They had started on the poor side of town, living frugally, building businesses, buying real estate, and working on their plan. I now understood that rich dad's plan was to become very wealthy. While Mike and I were in high school, rich dad had made his move by expanding to different islands of the 38 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing Hawaiian chain, buying businesses and real estate. While Mike and I were in college, he made his big move and became one of the major private investors in businesses in Honolulu and parts of Waikiki. While I was flying for the Marine Corps in Vietnam, his foundation of wealth was set in place. It was a strong and firm foundation. Now he and his family were en- joying the fruits of their labor. Instead of living in the poorest of neighborhoods on an outer island, they lived in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Honolulu. They did not just look rich on the surface as many of the people in that neighbor- hood did. I knew that Mike and his dad were rich because they allowed me to review their audited financial statements. Not many people were given that privilege. My real dad, on the other hand, had just lost his job. He had been climbing the ladder in the state government when he fell from grace from the political machine that ran the State of Hawaii. My dad lost everything he had worked to achieve when he ran against his boss for governor and lost. He had been blacklisted from state government and was try- ing to start over. He had no foundation of wealth. Although he was 52 and I was 25, we were in exactly the same financial po- sition. We had no money. We both had a college education and we could both get another job, but when it came to real assets, we had nothing. That night, lying quietly on my bunk, I knew I had a rare opportunity to choose a direction for my life. I say rare because very few people have the luxury of comparing the life paths of two fathers and then choosing the path that was right for them. It was a choice I did not take lightly. Investments of the Rich Although many things ran through my mind that night, I was most intrigued by the idea that there were investments only for the rich, and then there were investments for every- Pouring a Foundation of Wealth 39 one else. I remembered that when I was a kid working for rich dad, all he talked about was building his businesses. But now that he was rich, all he talked about was his investments ... investments for the rich. That day over lunch, he had ex- plained, "The only reason I built businesses was so I could in- vest in the investments of the rich. The only reason you build a business is so that your business can buy your assets. Without my businesses, I could not afford to invest in the in- vestments of the rich." Rich dad went on to stress the difference between an em- ployee buying an investment and a business buying an invest- ment.