Tom Burns explains why high earners often struggle financially, using a soccer metaphor: talented athletes without the sport's rules fail. The book defines wealth as freedom and choice, not income, and outlines a two-part framework: building mindset and financial intelligence now, then creating passive income and leverage for the future.
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Imagine that you are one of the most gifted athletes in the entire world, and you're asked to play in a World Cup soccer match. The problem is that you grew up in the Amazon jungle and you've never even heard of the game of soccer, never mind played it before or understand the rules. So you're put on the field and the whistle blows. What do you do? Well, you see the ball, you see another player, you tackle them, you pick up the ball with your hands and you run off the field. What's gonna happen? You're going to lose the game and you're going to get penalized because you don't understand the game of soccer, even if you're a gifted athlete. The same thing happens to people with money all the time. If you don't understand the game, you're going to get penalized. If you don't understand the rules, it's very difficult to win, even if you're an intelligent person. That is a fantastic metaphor from this book right here, Why Doctors Don't Get Rich by Dr. Tom Burns. Now, the foreword for this book was written by Robert Kiyosaki, who wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad. And actually, the first copy of Rich Dad Poor Dad ever purchased was by Tom Burns. And so Tom advises Robert now. They work together a lot. And I really enjoyed this book. I, I think this could almost be called Rich Doctor, Poor Doctor, but you can also sub out doctor for any other profession. The rules in this book stay the same. They will teach you how to become wealthy. And so there's a little quote that I'd like to read in this book for anybody who thinks this book might be materialistic, because it's really not. Wealth can be defined in many different ways. So check this out. Quote, wealth is a state of mind and the freedom to make choices without financial constraints. That's the wealth I'm referring to in this book. I'm convinced that you could make $1 million a year and be unhappy, which is something we read about all the time. Wealth isn't money, it's freedom, control, and choices. Wealth is happiness and healthier relationships. It's giving and learning new things. Those are some of the items you're going to learn about in this book, and as you progress through the book, you actually build out what Tom refers to as a wealth pipeline. And so I'll read some of the categories here that you're going to build out as you go through the book. So it's kind of broken into 2 areas, your now and your future. And so in your now, you're going to learn about how to develop a powerful why. You're going to learn about mindset, education, financial intelligence, hard assets, and the action that you could put forth. By the way, this book is full of little action items that you could do and challenges that Tom will give you. And I actually took a big step, something I've been wanting to do for a long time, which is purchase a budgeting software and actually fill it out to understand my financial situation a little bit better. Ever since I read I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi, I've been meaning to do that. After I read this book, I thought, I'm going to actually follow through with this since Tom recommends it. Really, really, really big fan of doing that. And then the future items in your pipeline, your wealth pipeline, your passive income pipeline that you're going to build out are Cash flow, leverage, legal, taxes, fundamentals, and vehicle. So you don't need to be a doctor to find importance in this book. If you're somebody who's looking at 2021 and you say, I want to get my finances under control, I want to learn how to build out passive income, then this book is for you. I didn't read the subtitle yet. I wanted to save it to the end. The subtitle reads, How You Can Create Freedom with Passive Income Investing. These are subjects that all of us need to learn more about. I always say we're all forced to play the game of money, so you might as well be good at it, especially if you're somebody who's talented and interested in investing in your future. We all need money in order to put food on the table and a shelter above our head and provide financial security to our loved ones. This book can help you take a big step in that direction. I would highly recommend that you check it out and go read something.
