other recipients of this award are political leaders, such as the former President of Spain.
Finding My Path
I know some of you are now asking: Why is he spending so much time talking about non-traditional education courses?
The reason is, that first personal-development seminar rekindled my love of learning, but not the type of learning that is taught in school. Once that seminar was over, I became a seminar junkie, going from seminar to seminar, finding out more about the connection between my body, my mind, my emotions, and my spirit.
The more I studied, the more curious about traditional education I became. I began to ask questions such as:
• Why do so many kids hate school?
• Why do so few kids like school?
• Why are many highly educated people not successful in the real world?
• Does school prepare you for the real world?
• Why did I hate school but love learning?
• Why are most schoolteachers poor?
• Why do schools teach us little about money?
Those questions led me to become a student of education outside the hallowed walls of the school system. The more I studied, the more I understood why I did not like school and why schools failed to serve most of its students, even the “A” students.
My curiosity touched my spirit, and I became an entrepreneur in education. If not for this curiosity, I might never have become an author and a developer of financial-education games. My spiritual education led me to my path in life.
It seems that our paths in life are not found in our minds. Our path in life is to find out what is in our hearts.
This does not mean a person cannot find their path in traditional education. I am sure many do. I am just saying that I doubt I would have found my path in traditional school.
Why Is a Path Important?
We all know people who make a lot of money, but hate their work. We also know people who do not make a lot of money and hate their work. And we all know people who just work for money.
A classmate of mine from the Merchant Marine Academy also realized he did not want to spend his life at sea. Rather than sail for the rest of his life, he went to law school after graduation, 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.
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