Keith said it was one of the most important lessons in his life. Today, Keith owns car washes, but his business is the real estate under those car washes. The previous chapter ended with the diagrams illustrat- ing that most people work for everyone else but them- selves. They work first for the owners of the company, then for the government through taxes, and finally for the bank that owns their mortgage. As a young boy, we did not have a McDonald's nearby. Yet, my rich dad was responsible for teaching Mike and me the same lesson that Ray Kroc talked about at the Univer- sity of Texas. It is secret No. 3 of the rich. The secret is: "Mind your own business." Financial struggle is often directlylhe result of people working all their life for someone else. Many people will have nothing at the end of their working days. Again, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is a diagram of the income statement and balance sheet that best describes Ray Kroc's advice: Our current educational system focuses on preparing today's youth to get good jobs by developing scholastic skills. Their lives will revolve around their wages, or as de- scribed earlier, their income column. And after developing scholastic skills, they go on to higher levels of schooling to enhance their professional abilities. They study to become engineers, scientists, cooks, police officers, artists, writers and so on. These professional skills allow them to enter the workforce and work for money. There is a big difference between your profession and your business. Often I ask people, "What is your business?" And they will say, "Oh I'm a banker." Then I ask them if they own the bank? And they usually respond, "No, I work there." In that instance, they have confused their profession with their business. Their profession may be a banker, but they still need their own business. Ray Kroc was clear on the differenceBerweehTiis profession and his business. His profession was always the same. He was a salesman. At one time he sold mixers for milkshakes, and soon there- after he was selling hamburger franchises. But while his profession was selling hamburger franchises, his business was the accumulation of income-producing real estate. A problem with school is that you often become what you study. So if you study, say, cooking, you become a chef. If you study the law, you become an attorney, and a study of auto mechanics makes you a mechanic. The mis- take in becoming what you study is that too many people forget to mind their own business. They srjend their lives minding someone else's business and making that person rich. To become financially secure, a person needs to mind their own business. Your business revolves around your asset column, as opposed to your income column. As stated earlier, the No. 1 rule is to know the difference be- tween an asset and a liability, and to buy assets. The rich. focus on their asset columns while everyone else focuses on their income statements.