spending three more years becoming a lawyer and entering private practice in the S quadrant.
He died in his early fifties. He had become a very successful, unhappy lawyer. Like me, he had two professions by the time he was 26. Although he hated being a lawyer, he continued being a lawyer because he had a family, kids, a mortgage, and bills to pay.
A year before he died, I met him at a class reunion in New York. He was a bitter man. “All I do is sweep up behind rich guys like you. They pay me nothing. I hate what I do and who I work for.”
“Why don’t you do something else?” I asked.
“I can’t afford to stop working. My first child is entering college.”
He died of a heart attack before she graduated.
He made a lot of money via his professional training, but he was emotionally angry, spiritually dead, and soon his body followed.
I realize this is an extreme example. Most people do not hate what they do as much as my friend did. Yet it illustrates the problem when a person is trapped in a profession and unable to find their path.
To me, this is the shortcoming of traditional education. Millions of people leave school, only to be trapped in jobs they do not like. They know something is missing in life. Many people are also trapped financially, earning just enough to survive, wanting to earn more but not knowing what to do.
Without awareness of the other quadrants, many people go back to school and look for new professions or pay raises in the E or S quadrant, unaware of the world of the B and I quadrants.
My Reason for Becoming a Teacher
My primary reason for becoming a teacher in the B quadrant was a desire to provide financial education. I wanted to make this education available to anyone who wanted to learn, regardless of how much money they had or what their grade-point averages were. That is why The Rich Dad Company started with the CASHFLOW game. This game can teach in places I could never go. The beauty of the game is that it was designed to have people teach people. There is no need for an expensive teacher or classroom. The CASHFLOW game is now translated into over sixteen languages, reaching millions of people all over the world.
Today, The Rich Dad Company offers financial-education courses as well as the services of coaches and mentors to support a person’s financial education. Our programs are especially important for anyone wanting to evolve out of the E and S quadrants into the B and I quadrants.
There is no guarantee that everyone will make it to the B and I quadrants, yet they will know how to access those quadrants if they want to.
Change Is Not Easy
For me, changing quadrants was not easy. It was hard work mentally, but more so emotionally and spiritually. Growing up in a family of highly educated employees in the E quadrant, I carried their values of education, job security, benefits, and a government pension. In many ways, my family values made my transition difficult. I had to shut out their warnings, concerns, and criticisms about becoming an entrepreneur and investor. Some of their values I had to discount were:
• “But you have to have a job.”
• “You’re taking too many risks.”
• “What if you fail?”
• “Just go back to school and get your masters degree.”
• “Become a doctor. They make a lot of money.”
• “The rich are greedy.”
• “Why is money so important to you?”
• “Money won’t make you happy.”
• “Just live below your means.”
• “Play it safe. Don’t go for your dreams.”
Diet and Exercise
I mention emotional and spiritual development because that is what it takes to make a permanent change in life. For example, it rarely works to tell an overweight person, “Just eat less and exercise more.” Diet and exercise may make sense mentally, but most people who are overweight do not eat because they are hungry. They eat to feed an emptiness in their emotions and their soul. When a person goes on a diet-and-exercise program, they are only working on their mind and their body. Without emotional development and spiritual strength, the overweight person may go on a diet for six months and lose a ton of weight, only to put even more weight back on later.
The same is true for changing quadrants. Saying to yourself, “I’m going to become an entrepreneur in the B quadrant,” is as futile as a chain smoker saying, “Tomorrow I’m going to quit smoking.” Smoking is a physical addiction caused by emotional and spiritual challenges. Without emotional and spiritual support, the smoker will always be a smoker. The same is true for an alcoholic, a sex addict, or a chronic shopper. Most addictions are attempts to find happiness in people’s souls.
This is why my company offers courses for the mind and body, but also coaches and mentors to support the emotional and spiritual transitions.
A few people are able to make the journey alone, but I was not one of them. If not for a coach like my rich dad and the support of my wife Kim, I would not have made it. There were so many times I wanted to quit and give up. If not for Kim and my rich dad, I would have quit.
Why “A” Students Fail
Looking at the diagram again, it is easy to see why so many “A” students fail in the world of money.
A person may be highly educated mentally, but if they are not educated emotionally, their fear will often stop their body from doing what it must do. That is why so many “A” students get stuck in “analysis paralysis,” studying every little detail, but failing to do anything.
This “analysis paralysis” is caused by our educational system punishing students for making mistakes. If you think about it, “A” students are “A” students simply because they made the fewest mistakes. The problem with that emotional psychosis is that, in the real world, people who take action are the ones who make the most mistakes and learn from them to win in the game of life.
Just look at Presidents Clinton and Bush. Clinton could not admit he had sex and Bush could not recall any mistakes he made during his presidency. Making mistakes is human, but lying about your mistakes is criminal, a criminal act known as perjury.
When criticized for making 1,014 mistakes before creating the electric light bulb, Thomas Edison said, “I did not fail 1,014 times. I successfully found out what did not work 1,014 times.”
In other words, the reason so many people fail to achieve success is because they fail to fail enough times.
Looking at the diagram again, one of the reasons so many people cling to job security is because they lack emotional education. They let fear stop them.
One of the best things about military school and the Marine Corps is that these organizations spend a lot of time developing young men and women spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically. Although it was a tough education, it was a complete education, preparing us to do a nasty job.
The reason I created the CASHFLOW game is because the game educates the whole person. The game is a better teaching tool than reading or lecture, simply because the game involves the body, mind, emotions, and spirit of the player.
The game is designed for players to make as many mistakes as possible with play money, and then learn from those mistakes. To me, this is a more humane way to learn about money.
The Path Is the Goal
Today, there are thousands of CASHFLOW clubs all over the world.