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“One of the biggest lies perpetuated in society today is ‘we all hate rich people.’ In actuality, we don’t. We hate rich people, until we become rich ourselves.”

When I was coming up in Compton, California, a banker came into my classroom and taught a course in financial literacy. I remember like it was yesterday. The entire world opened up to me when this man taught me and my classmates what I now call the "global language of money."

He wore a blue suit, a white shirt, and a red tie. And I remember that it was a good suit! He happened to be caucasian, but that didn’t matter to me. He might as well have been green as far as I was concerned, as in the color of U.S. currency.

I remember asking him, “sir, what do you do for a living, and how did you get rich, legally?” And I was dead serious. You see, almost no one in my neighborhood of Compton, California wore business suits, or had a professional job with a salary for that matter. Almost everyone was an hourly wage worker. 

No one in my neighborhood had a business card, there were no entrepreneurs, and small business owners were in very short supply. Anyway, the gentleman told me he was a banker, and that “…he financed entrepreneurs.” All I remember thinking was, “I don’t know what an entrepreneur is, but I want to be one!” 

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