" And in minding your own business, the plan that works best for you will slowly appear. So take your time, yet keep taking one step a day and you will have a good chance of getting everything you want in your life. Mental Attitude Quiz My plan has not really changed, yet in many ways, it has changed dramatically. What has not changed about my plan is where I started and what I ultimately want for my life. Through many of the mistakes, the learning experi- ences, the wins, the losses, the highs, and the lows, I have Chapter 10 Investor Lesson #8: Decide Now What You Want to Be When You Grow Up In Investor Lesson #1, which was the importance of choice, there were three financial core valu6 choices offered. They were: 1. To be secure 2. To be comfortable 3. To be rich These are very important personal choices and should not be taken lightly. In 1973, when I returned from the Vietnam War, I was faced with these choices. When rich dad discussed my option of taking a job with the airlines as a pilot, he said, "A job with the airlines may not be that secure. I suspect that they will be having a rough time in the next few years. Yet, if you keep your record clean, you might find job security in that profes- sion ... if that is what you really want." He then asked me if I wanted to get my job back with Decide Now What You Want to Be 97 Standard Oil of California, a job I held for only five months ... the five months before I went to flight school for the Marine Corps. "Didn't you receive a letter saying that Standard Oil would take you back as an employee once your military duty was over?" "They said they would be happy to have me reapply," I replied. "But they guaranteed nothing." "But wouldn't that be a good company to work for? Wasn't the pay pretty good?" asked rich dad. "Very good," I said. "It was an excellent company to work for, but I don't want to go back. I want to move on.'! "And what do you want most?" asked rich dad as he pointed to the three choices. "Do you want security, comfort, or to be rich the most?" From deep inside me, the answer was a loud "To be rich." It had not changed in years, although that desire and core value was pushed down quite a bit in my family, a family where job and financial security was the highest priority and rich people were considered evil, uneducated, and greedy. I grew up in a family where money was not discussed at the table because it was an unclean subject, a subject not worthy of intellectual discussion. But now that I was 25 years old, I could let my personal truth out. I knew the priority of core values of security and comfort were not first on my list. To be rich was core value number one for me. My rich dad then had me list my core financial priorities. My list went in this order: 1. To be rich 2. To be comfortable 3. To be secure Rich dad looked at my list and said, "OK. Step one is to write out a financial plan to be financially secure.