Page 175 - Why We Want You To Be Rich - Donald Trump, Robert Kiyosaki.pdf

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WHAT DID You LEARN FROM YOUR FATHER? I 169

against the political machine that grips Hawaii), but his very own people, the
men he brought up with him over the years, turned against him because
they were so afraid oflosing their jobs. More than not working, it was the
cowardice ofhis friends and their betrayal that destroyed his spirit. My dad
was about SO years old at the time of his political defeat, and he never
recovered from the loss.
In 1974, I returned from Vietnam and found my dad sitting in his home,
only in his fifties, a broken man. He had tried to make some money by
purchasing a national ice cream franchise. He rook an early retirement and
withdrew most ofhis savings and lost it all on the franchise. Ifnot for the
small check he received from the State, and later from Social Security and
Medicare, he would have been destitute.
That was a defining moment for me. Seeing my dad, a man I loved and
looked up to, sitting in his living room and watching television all day shook
me. Here he was in the prime oflife, highly educated but with a broken
spirit. As time went on, he got angrier at himselfand at the one-time friends
that he felt had betrayed him.
He was sitting there watchingTV iHS
when he gave me the advice I talked
about earlier: "Go back to school, get We all have defining
your master's degree, then your Ph.D.
moments. It is in
and get a job with the government."
these moments that
He was sincere in his recornmenda-
tion. That was what he had done. we find our true
After all, he believed in education. He characters. We become
had dedicated his life to it.
heroes or cowards;
At that moment, I realized that
truth tellers or liars;
education was missing something
vital. Our traditional education did we go forward or
not prepare us for the real world. It we go backward.
prepared us to be employees. It was
then that I knew I would follow in the - Robert T. Kiyosaki
footsteps ofmy rich dad(the father of

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