As Peter Drucker once said, few products ever succeed in the market for which they were originally designed. This is becoming true for my latest book, “Getting in Touch with Your Rich Kid.”
To be honest, I wrote the book primarily to share what I thought was a truly odd experience. But now I am realizing it was not odd at all. It only “felt odd” because, even though it is a common experience, it is not commonly discussed.
People who “grew up poor” tend to be ashamed of it. The only time people mention it is if they are running for Congress and want to “bond with the common folk.” It’s not something you generally want to mention when you are trying to fit in with the “rich kids.”
So the big unexpected payoff here came totally out of left field for me: I am coming across all sorts of extremely successful people who, by reading the book, feel that they have permission to finally admit that they were “poor kids.” The book also gives them vocabulary with which to talk about it in a fairly objective and collaborative way.
This has been good for me as well, to realize that many people (who are ostensibly “rich”) are often quietly struggling with the same issues of having angst over inconsequential dollar amounts.
The relentless lesson here has been that money is not a physical/mechanical entity; it is merely a reflection of the vast maelstrom of human emotional energy. If we are going to discuss finance and economics, let’s understand that we are really talking about emotional energy, much of which is in complete conflict with logical rational thought.
© Justin Locke
