The Time I Didn’t Listen to My Own Advice…

“The Hypocritical Barber” Do as I say, not as I do!

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“Dave, do you follow your own advice? Have you stuck to all the principles of ‘The Wealthy Barber?'” I get asked that a lot. And for the most part, yes. But hey, no one is perfect. I must admit I REALLY broke with my own teachings on one occasion. Way back in ’89 — a lot of you weren’t born yet — I was just finishing the writing of “The Wealthy Barber” and then made the decision to self-publish.

Control freak. Costs a lot of money to print books! No bank was gonna lend money to a geeky kid publishing a book out of his basement about a barber giving financial advice. Could have spoken to my parents but they didn’t have a lot in the way of savings. Plus, my dad felt, and I quote directly here, “That story idea seems quite odd, David.

I don’t think readers are going to like it. Careful here.” Not a good lender candidate. So… I cashed out my RRSP to pay for the printing. The whole book says, “NEVER touch your RRSP. Never, ever.” And then I cashed out my own RRSP to print it. Hypocritical, yes. But best business decision of my life. Now, the lesson here is not, “Cash out your RRSP to publish a book.”

Don’t do that. I got lucky. No, the lesson here is, once again, never listen to my dad!