Curated Quotes | Mind Your Own Business | Robert Kiyosaki

If someone was to come up to you and tell you that you should Mind Your Own Business, many people will immediately get offended. That's because like most of us, when we use that phrase, what we really mean is, "stay out of my personal life and what I have going on". It is not uncommon that we only understand one meaning of the phrase and do not realize that it can also mean something else.

In the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad chapter four, Mind Your Own Business, starts with a story told by author Robert Kiyosaki about the founder of McDonald's, Ray Kroc. He starts by telling the reader of the conversation Ray Kroc had with a group of students from the University of Texas.

Ray asked the MBA students if they knew what business he was in and thinking he was fooling around, they all laughed jokingly. After repeating the question again, they laughed again, but this time someone yelled out that he was in the "hamburger Business."  He then laughed and stated that he is in the real estate business which he then continued to explain his viewpoint.

What the MBA student did not understand at the time was Ray was not technically the one who was making the burgers but instead Owned the system that created and sold the burgers. More importantly, he owned the land under which every McDonald's is built on allowing him to lease the land to the individual franchise owners and collect rent and royalties.

If you have done any research, you can clearly see that McDonald's has several sources of revenues. Looking at the graph in this article, it shows that while The McDonald's Corporation operates many franchises on their own, the other incomes derives from franchise royalties, rent and other fees from the independent franchise owners. 

The Ray Kroc's conversation with the MBA students was used as an example by Robert Kiyosaki in the book, Rich Dad, Poor dad, to point out one main fact:

Our current educational system prepares students for a Profession (a chef, a police, a engineer, etc) which in part means working for someone else instead of giving students a financial education, which can help them build businesses and acquire assets, making yourself rich or financially secure, hence the phrase, Mind your Own Business.

I think it is only right that we acknowledge the fact that not everyone wants or will be rich nor own a business but at the same time, we all can have a better financial future. We all can have financial freedom but we have to become financially educated.

What we all should take away from the quote, Mind Your Own Business, is exactly what we did not learn in school. That is to focus more on your own business, building and maintaining assets in your portfolio and creating new sources of revenue instead of focusing on making someone else rich.

Origins of this Quote Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

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