Dinner With The Millionaire Next Door

Have you ever made a TOTAL fool of yourself – when you were least expecting to? Read on, and learn how I stepped square in the middle of it!

Last night, one of my lifelong friends – Mary Ann Doering – invited Kim and me over to a small dinner party she was having for her neighbors.  Mary Ann is a wordsmith and the woman who proofs my columns.

As much as I like and appreciate Mary Ann, I did NOT want to go to her dinner party.  Frankly, any get-together that doesn’t include real estate investors, capitalists and financial-freedom seekers bores me to tears.  No matter – Kim made it clear that we WOULD be attending.  What I didn’t know was that Mary Ann was setting me up BIG TIME!  She was about to pull off her best practical joke on me EVER!

We got to Mary Ann’s before the other guests arrived.  A few minutes later, the doorbell rang.  Prior to the couple walking in, Mary Ann whispered, “I barely know these people.  They’re pretty boring from what I remember.”  GREAT, I thought: Now I’m really glad I came.

After meeting “Tim” and “Jane,” I began doing what I always do – asking questions.  At one point, Mary Ann mentioned that she was rereading The Millionaire Next Door by Tom Stanley.   Tim asked, “Who is Tom Stanley?”

Now, if you are a regular reader of our newspaper column, then you know how often I’ve written about Tom Stanley over the years.  His books – The Millionaire Next Door, The Millionaire Mind and Quit Acting Rich – have played an enormous role in getting me to switch my thinking from being a wage slave to being a capitalist.

With Tim’s question, I swallowed the bait: hook, line and sinker! I jumped in headfirst and delivered my opinion in my customary manic rant: “WHO is Tom Stanley?  You can’t be serious!  He’s one of the best authors in America.  He’s written numerous best sellers.  He’s improved millions of people’s lives…”

On and on I went about Tom Stanley.  Yack, yack, yack, yack!  Mary Ann just sat there, nodding and grinning.  Finally she interrupted me and said, “Bill, you’re TALKING to TOM STANLEY!!!”

Now I was speechless.  My mouth dropped open.  I just stared at “Tim” – who was REALLY Tom Stanley…the bestselling author.  Kim laughingly told me later that I had the dumbest look on my face!  She thought I was going to drool on myself.

I dropped to my knees and asked, “YOU’RE Tom Stanley, the author of The Millionaire Next Door?”  He smiled a big o’ smile and answered, “Yep.” 

Poor Tom!  For the rest of the night I was latched onto him like a tick on a hound.  Tom’s lovely wife Janet, Mary Ann, her beautiful daughter Maris, and Kim had to fend for themselves and couldn’t get a word in edgewise!

What a wonderful dinner – one of the best evenings of my life!  To meet a lifelong hero – someone who gave me the road map for achieving financial freedom – was a dream come true!