to give you lots of advice and opinions. But advice is very different from education. Advice is being told what to do, whereas education is receiving real understanding—the kind of understanding that allows you to make your own decisions as to what to do. Education is transformation.
Today, you have the chance to choose the path of education and all of its rewards.
Transformation Is Evidence of True Education
For me, serving as a Rich Dad Advisor is a much different experience than many people might think. Frankly, my experience has been far more about my own learning and personal development than that of being a teacher. I have the gift of spending a lot of time with Robert and Kim Kiyosaki, and the other Advisors, so my opportunity to learn is both precious and humbling.
Robert, of course, is a very skilled teacher, yet he is also an insatiable student. His passion for education runs deep and is a fundamental part of who he is. He often reminds me of what education is and where the word comes from.
e·duce /Id(y)oōs/
Verb: Bring out or develop (something latent or potential).
Notice the word potential in that definition. To reflect upon all that we can choose to become is an exercise that is both exciting and staggering. You and I have the potential to land a 747. We can learn to play a musical instrument. We can learn to prepare a gourmet dish. We have the potential to build a house or sail a boat or speak a foreign language. The list is endless. In this light, the idea of education is elevated beyond the idea of merely transferring information from teacher to student. True education is about a transformational process that changes potential into real power.
Education is the process of empowering us to be able to do something we could not do before. Transformation is at the heart of the Rich Dad Mission:
To elevate the financial well being of humanity
Context and Content
Put simply, context is the big picture, content is the details. Information can be understood in various lights depending on the context in which it is held.
The more you learn about investing, the more convinced you will be of the importance of context. What I mean by that is that many people want to be taught what to do before they are taught how to think. This is backward.
Our context is often revealed by the questions we ask. The kinds of questions we Rich Dad Advisors often hear are along the lines of:
“If you had $10,000, what would you invest in?”
or
“What was the most recent stock you purchased?”
Yet almost no one ever asks these questions:
“Andy, what are you studying right now?”
or
“What is the last investing class that Robert signed up for?”
The first two questions show a context (or mindset) where the key to successful investing is nothing more than parking money in the right place. The wiser person sees investing in the context of being a student and learning and getting better at investing as a whole.
Robert Kiyosaki is a master of teaching context. For example, the CASHFLOW Quadrant does not teach how to buy real estate or how to invest in stocks. Yet it’s a very powerful teaching tool because it helps people shift their context. It helps people examine their philosophy and how they approach earning money, whether it’s as Employees (E), Self-employed professionals (S), Business Owners (B), or Investors (I).
Part of the power of the CASHFLOW Quadrant is that it invites each of us to examine who we are today and who we would like to become tomorrow. In many instances it suggests a profound transformation. Shifting context means improving perspective (the big picture). Studying content suggests expanding what we know (or the details) and the how-to instructions.
Of course this book contains content, which will help you learn more about the nitty-gritty of paper assets. But every bit of instruction must be applied within the proper context.
The Education Hierarchy ™
It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I’d say that the same is true with value. The value of some information might be priceless to some and worthless to others. Some education is important to everyone—reading, for example. I don’t think there are many of us who can achieve success in life without knowing how to read. But the importance of most education is more subjective than we normally think. What is vital to know and what isn’t really depends on your circumstances and your goals. For example, had I actually wanted to become an exercise physiologist like my college counselor had directed, knowing the difference between a tendon and a ligament would be really a big deal. But in my current life as student of investing? Not so much.
It bothers me that those on school boards have the power to impose their opinions on the rest of us. The school curriculum is based on what they think is valuable, and those assumptions can be inaccurate for your life’s goals. Some education really matters to the school board but doesn’t affect your financial life. Dissecting a frog comes to mind. The school board thought it was vital I learn to dissect a frog in high school. Well, I’ll tell you, I’m living proof you can live a good life without being an expert at dissecting a frog. I’ve done ok. I have a great family. I’ve made a good life. And the frogs of the world are just going to have to go on their merry way undissected.
Now, if I were going to be a biologist, it might be a different story. It might become vital I know how to dissect a frog. But that’s because of my circumstances and my goals, not some universal dictate of a bureaucracy. If I wanted to be a biologist I would be vitally interested in frog innards. I would want to know how the insides of a frog work. It would be a driving passion. I would be burning to cut open any unsuspecting frogs I could find. I’d be reading all about frog biology, watching frogs be dissected by experienced practitioners, practicing on fake frogs—anything I could do to learn. Just as it has been for me with stocks.
Perhaps some of the most vital education you can receive doesn’t even register on the school board radar screens, but is critical to your financial life. You might never have had a class on living a life without a job, but it may be one of your goals. You have likely never even had a class on the basics of the stock market, but the stock market is what millions of people are depending on for retirement. Evidently, these are trivial matters to the average school board. But these are subjects of vital interest to you and me.
Is that a problem? No. You don’t need to wait for someone else to dictate what is vital to your education. Not anymore. Not when you become a serious student, because being a serious student is being an active student. Your financial success is too important to leave it to someone else and their opinion of what’s important. I stopped being passive when it comes to education a long time ago.
I submit that becoming a successful investor begins by becoming a serious student. This is my invitation to you. It is an invitation to develop your own education hierarchy. You and I are now free from the school board’s assembly-line approach. You do not need to be force-fed from their “like it or not” menu anymore. Value is in the eye of the beholder, and you get to decide what knowledge is valuable
