“…when the Indians sold Manhattan Island, New York City, to Peter Minuit of the Dutch West India Company for $24 in beads and trinkets, they did not get a bad deal. If they had invested that money at an 8% annual rate of return, that $24 would be worth $27 trillion dollars today. They could today buy Manhattan back and have plenty of money left over. The problem was not the amount of money but the lack of a plan for it.”
Robert T. Kiyosaki, Rich Dad Poor Dad

This might surprise you but the key element in the previous scenario is not the percentage of return on investment but the amount of time over which the investment is calculated. If you are expecting God to give you some hot, new, never-thought-of-before, high return financial investing ideas…get over it! He might give you some unique ideas eventually as you learn to apply the basic, common sense principles in this book, but for now he just wants you to start somewhere. To deaden your excitement even more let’s look at another quote about investing from Robert T. Kiyosaki:

“…many people think investing is this exciting process where there is a lot of drama. Many people think investing involves a lot of risk, luck, timing and hot tips…to me investing is a plan, often dull, boring and almost mechanical process…”

For most of us it will likely start with the difficult discipline of saving some money so we have something to invest. Not only will it be dull and boring, but it might be painful as we limit spending to set money aside for investment opportunities that come are way. The wealthy practice a principle called “delayed gratification” which I think is self explanatory.