I've been at this Rich Habits thing for 17 years now.
I've written extensively about the habits parents need to instil in their children for them to grow up to be happy and successful in life.
An easy measure of success is money, so you can't dance around the reality that realising success also means, to a large extent, attaining some level of wealth.
Since I've been sharing the discoveries I've made from my research on the daily habits of the rich and poor, I've noticed something that bothers me.
And I started noticing this thanks to Twitter.
On Twitter, if someone does not like what you write, they can block you.
It happens. I've been blocked by about 30 people.
It's a cowardly act, at its core.
Over the past two years I started paying attention (I wrote down the Twitter handles) to those who were blocking me.
And here's what I found.
Almost all of those who blocked me on Twitter were writers for parent blogs or parent magazines.
Now, let me be clear.
There are a lot of parent-writers who do follow me on Twitter and they are wonderful people.
But almost 100% of those on Twitter who decide to block me, happen to be parent-writers.
These parent writers were most definitely offended by my message, which is:
If a parent wants their kids to grow up to be rich and not poor, they need to teach them certain habits.
They need to become successful mentors to their kids.
They need to instil specific habits in their kids to give them the best chance at becoming rich and successful in life.
These habits will help their kids grow as individuals and enable them to become self-sufficient once they reach adulthood.
This way their kids will not be dependent on family, friends or society.
What bothers me is that anyone could take offence to this message.
It's taken me some time to get inside the heads of these anti-Rich Habits parent-writers.
These parent-writers who hate my message seem to hate the idea of instilling in kids the desire to pursue money or success.
I've concluded that they despise the promotion of the American Dream as an ideal.
There are "parenting experts" out there who hate money, hate capitalism, hate rich people and, thus, hate my message.
They see anyone pursuing success as evil.
Instead, they embrace the notion that it takes a village to raise a child; that parents are not to blame if their kids become adults who struggle financially.
It's society's fault and thus, it's society's responsibility when kids fail.
This village mindset is intentional.
It gives parents a free pass if their kids become burdens on society.
It shifts the blame for raising problem kids from the family to society.
So, any message, such as mine, that puts the blame squarely where it belongs, on parents, is offensive to them.
This does not bode well for America.
If parents buy into this collective approach to raising kids, this anti-rich, anti-American Dream and anti-success ideology, then they will be raising kids who will despise the pursuit of wealth, individual responsibility and that can-do spirit that put America on the map.
The thing that irks me the most is that I fear they may have already succeeded.
The rise of Bernie Sanders is a reflection of this new generation's disdain for the American Dream, capitalism, and the pursuit of success and wealth.
It is being replaced, instead, by a desire to punish those evil, greedy, selfish individuals who dare pursue individual success and wealth.
Their punishment?
We will level the playing field by taking your wealth and giving it to those who we think deserve it more.
I remain hopeful that those anti-success, parent-writers are in the minority and will not succeed in manipulating America's parents into naively spreading their ideology to their kids.
While I'm hopeful, I do not intend to sit back.
These anti-wealth, parent-writers have declared war on our kids and our country and I've decided to take a stand.
I've decided to fight back.
Block me all you want. I'm not stopping.
I love and admire those who pursue success.
They should not be reviled but instead referred to as success heroes.
