Your Ideas Are Your Reality Lyrics

So, as I said, those are the first two lessons as a child, and those lessons made all the difference in the world.

I like to say the biggest advantage I had by having two dads was that I got to listen to two different realities.

By having two dads, I realized that it was just the way they thought.

They didn't think differently; they thought oppositely.

My poor dad always said, "Get a safe, secure job," and my rich dad said, "Build a business."

My poor dad always said, "Buy a big house because it's an asset," and my rich dad said, "Buy big apartment houses."

My poor dad said, "Work hard and save money," and my rich dad said, "Don't save, invest."

Then my poor dad said, "The rich are greedy," and my rich dad said, "The rich are generous."

One of the most important ideas I want to pass on to you right now is that money is just an idea.

So the first thing in choosing to be rich is really choosing the ideas that sit in your head.

For example, ideas form realities.

So whatever idea you think is real becomes your reality.

My poor dad, one of his main ideas was, "I'll never be rich."

So that idea was real to him, and it became his reality.

He also said, "I'm not interested in money."

So that idea was real to him, and so that became his reality.

He always said, "Investing is risky," and that became his reality.

So the point I'm making here is this: it starts with your ideas.

Money will be anything you think it is.

Going back to the differences between my rich dad and my poor dad, again, I'll say they're not different.

They were exactly opposite.

What forms your reality?

The two most important words are what you think is smart and what you think is risky.

Let me say that again because it's very important.

What forms your reality is what you think is smart and what you think is risky.

My poor dad thought that having a safe, secure job was smart.

And when I told him my rich dad said, "Build a business," he says, "Oh, oh, building a business is very risky."

In other words, those two ideas were real for him.

So a safe, secure job was smart, and that's what he did and got.

And he thought building a business was risky, so he never built one.

My rich dad, on the other hand, thought that having a safe, secure job was risky, and he thought building businesses was smart, and that formed his reality.

When it goes down to the big house, my poor dad said, "Son, our house is our biggest asset, and we have a big one."

He thought that was smart.

And when I told him that my rich dad was buying apartment houses, he says, "Oh, oh, oh, those are very risky.

You know, toilets break."

My rich dad, on the other hand, thought that owning a big house was risky, and he thought owning apartment houses for their income was very smart.

Again, what you think is smart and what you think is risky forms your reality.

The other part that my poor dad always said was the difference between saving and investing.

My poor dad always said, "Work hard and save money," and my rich dad said, "The rich don't work for money."

The rich invest their money, and their money works hard for them.

So when I told that to my poor dad, he says, "Oh, oh, investing is risky."

Saving is smart.

Again, that was his reality.

And my rich dad, he just shook his head and went, "That's strange," you know, he couldn't understand it.

Now, the thing I want to say is there are many middle-class and poor people out there who spend their lives saving money because they think it's smart.

For instance, my mother would drive all the way across town to save 50 cents on a pound of pork butt.

You know, she would drive for an hour, save 50 cents on a pork butt and eat it.

Or my dad would drive all the way across town looking for a used car, so he'd go in the newspaper, shop, and he'd call all these people up, and he'd spend two or three days going to different people's houses trying to save a few dollars.

He didn't like dealing with the large car lots.

He wanted to save money.

So he worked very hard going through the papers, doing his market research, reading up in Consumer's Digest and all this other stuff to buy a car.

The point I want to make here is this:

The actions and the thinking between saving and investing are the same.

In other words, my rich dad, he never drove across town to save 50 cents on pork butt, but he would read the papers looking for houses that were for sale, that were bargains, businesses for sale.

He'd read the stock market to find out what was on sale.

So he would shop sales just the way my poor dad and my poor mom did.

The difference was my mom and dad saved money on things that went down in value.

And my rich dad tried to save money on assets that put money in his pocket and also went up in value.

The point I'm making here is the thought patterns and actions and the amount of time involved is exactly the same.

The difference is, over a lifetime, the differences are staggering.

My rich dad became richer and richer.

My mom and dad became poorer and poorer, yet they still tried to save money.

Now, the irony of this whole thing is, let's say the supermarket had a sale, my mom and dad would run in and they'd be saving money on canned goods and pork butt, you know, having a wonderful time trying to save money.

Now, if the stock market has a sale, which is called a crash, they'd run away.

Whereas my rich dad would not bother shopping sales at the supermarket, but he would shop sales of real estate crashes and stock market crashes.

So the point here, again, it goes back to the word, your reality.

Whatever you think is real becomes your reality.

Because my mom and dad thought saving was smart, that's what they did.

And they thought investing was risky.

And because they thought it was risky, they never saw the millions and billions of dollars of opportunities right in front of their eyes because their reality blinded them.

My rich dad, on the other hand, his reality was working hard to save money on things that went down in value was not very smart.

He thought that was extremely risky and he thought it was very, very smart to look for bargains and assets in real estate, businesses, or stocks and bonds.

And that made a big difference over their lifetime.