Читать книгу Second Chance - Robert T. Kiyosaki - Страница 17
Оглавление“I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I’ve invented.”
– R. Buckminster Fuller
It took me awhile to realize that Bucky Fuller’s ability to predict the future had nothing to do with picking stocks, timing markets, betting on horses, or predicting who will win the World Series. His vision of the future had to do with god’s view of the future.
Bucky was hesitant to use the word god because, for many people, that word carried a lot of “religious dogma,” emotion, and controversy. Fuller did not think god was a white guy, a Jew, an Arab, or an Asian. Rather than use the word god, he preferred the Native American term, the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit is the invisible energy that binds all things in “universe,” not just heaven and earth.
Whenever I use the term god in this book, please know I am not making religious references. I respect a person’s right to choose—to believe in god, or not to believe in god or follow any religion. Simply said, I believe in religious freedom and the freedom to choose whether or not they believe in god.
The same is true for politics. I am not a Republican or Democrat. I have no dog in that fight. In fact, I like my dog more than I like most politicians.
Human Evolution
Fuller was not a futurist in the arena of money. He was a futurist on the Great Spirit’s wishes for humanity’s evolution. He believed humans were god’s long-term experiment, placed here on “spaceship earth” to see if humans could evolve… if they could, or would, turn planet earth into a heaven on earth, or hell on earth.
Fuller believed Great Spirit wanted all humans to be rich. He often said, “There are six billion billionaires on earth.” (That was in the 1980s. Today he would say “seven billion billionaires.”) In the 1980s there were fewer than 50 documented billionaires. A far cry from the “six billion” that Bucky cited. By 2008 there were 1,150. Today that figure’s projected at 1,645.
Fuller predicted that humanity had reached a critical evolutionary point. If humans did not evolve from greed and selfishness to generosity and abundance, humans—as an experiment on earth—would end. He often referred to the rich and powerful who hoarded “god’s abundance” only for themselves as “blood clots.” He believed that if humans did not “evolve” we would not only kill ourselves, but also kill the ecology of planet earth.
The reason Fuller sought to identify the Generalized Principles is because they are the invisible forces that run the universe. In other words, the Generalized Principles were the operating principles of the Great Spirit, and the Great Spirit wanted all humans and all life on planet earth to thrive. Fuller believed there were 200 to 300 Generalized Principles. At the time of his death he had discovered about 50. I am aware of and use about five of them.
In his writing and talks, he was critical of a few greedy, powerful people who used humans and the resources of planet earth only for their personal wealth. He believed that if humans did not shift from greed to generosity—humans working for a planet that worked for everyone and everything—humans would be “evicted” from “spaceship earth.” The Great Spirit’s experiment would be set back a few million years. He also said that god was patient and willing to wait for humans to evolve. Unfortunately, you and I do not have the luxury of waiting another million years for our fellow humans to “get the message.”
Serving More People
As stated in the previous chapter, one of the Great Spirit’s Generalized Principles that Fuller identified was:
“The more people I serve, the more effective I become.”
As part of my own second chance, I do my best to follow this Generalized Principle when making business decisions. Rather than just work to make myself richer, I began to condition myself to think about how to enrich others while I was enriching myself.
That Generalized Principle was instrumental in our decision to sell the seminar business that Kim and I founded to our partner. Although that seminar business was successful, it was limited in terms of the number of people it could serve.
In 1994, it was difficult for us to sell that seminar business, a business we loved, were successful in building and making profitable. Yet, intuitively, we knew it was time to move on. It was time to seek ways to serve more people.
In 1994, we were financially free. That freedom came not from Bucky Fuller’s lessons, but from following rich dad’s lessons. Financial freedom gave us the time to develop our next business. In 1996, the first commercial version of our CASHFLOW® game was played in Las Vegas and, one week later, in Singapore. The next step was to develop a marketing plan to sell that game.
The CASHFLOW game had two inherent problems that made it difficult to sell. The first problem was that it was too complex. A game expert we hired advised us to “dumb it down” or it would not sell. We decided against that recommendation. The CASHFLOW game was designed to be an educational game, not a game for entertainment.
The second problem with the game was that it was very expensive to produce. The same game consultant told us the game should retail for $29.95. At $29.95 retail, our cost of manufacturing had to be no more than $7.00 per game. Our problem was that the first production run of the game cost over $50 per game to produce in China, landed, and warehoused in the United States. Against the advice of the game expert, we set the CASHFLOW game’s retail price at $195, making it one of the most expensive board games on the market.
But adversity leads to innovation. To sell the game-$195, Kim and I had to be innovative. We went to our past seminar clients and offered a $500, one-day seminar featuring our game. During the seminar, the participants played our new game twice. The first time was to get familiar with the game. The second time was to get into the game. The one-day seminar worked. Participants were excited, most claiming they learned more about money in one day than they had learned in a lifetime. When we announced the “used” games were for sale for $150, they were gone instantly. In fact there was a fight for used games, even though there were new games available for $195.
The business model worked and the “CASHFLOW Club” concept was born. In 2004, The New York Times ran an article, “The Rising Value of Play Money,” on CASHFLOW Clubs and told us that they had identified over 3,500 clubs—all over the world. Many clubs are still in existence today, teaching and serving more people than Kim and I could ever do on our own.
Q: If you want to serve more people, why didn’t you offer the game for free?
A: We considered using government grants to fund the manufacturing of the games, but that would have been following my poor dad’s mindset, rather than my rich dad’s entrepreneurial way of thinking.
Also, giving people things for free often keeps them poor. It encourages the “entitlement mentality” that destroys initiative and personal responsibility.
In spite of the high initial cost of the game, the online game is free to millions of people. One game can and has taught hundreds of people… for free, through CASHFLOW Clubs. Many CASHFLOW Club leaders around the world support the mission of Rich Dad, which is to elevate the financial well being of humanity, and teach the game to others. For them, not only is teaching spiritual, but the more they teach, the more they learn.
Most CASHFLOW Club leaders I have talked with report getting back far more than they give. They follow the religious principle of “give and you shall receive.”
Unfortunately, there are clubs that only present the game to sell other products or business opportunities. If you encounter one of those clubs, just know that while I support free enterprise, I do not support people using my games as marketing tools.
Other Points of View
For about six months, I sat in the quaint, artist’s town of Bisbee, Arizona… in an old jail that had been converted into an apartment. At one time, John Wayne owned that old jail, as a rental property. He loved Bisbee—and Southern Arizona, where he owned a large ranch.
During the day, I was working on my small ranch, converting an old stagecoach depot (a stopping point between Bisbee and the infamous town of Tombstone, where the gunfight at the OK Corral took place) into a one-bedroom home. At night I would sit in the jail, writing a book. It was a painful process. There were many starts and stops, fits and starts. Finally, late one night, exhausted from working on my property and tired of struggling with a book concept, my fingers began typing the opening lines of a new book. It began with the words “I had a rich dad and I had a poor dad.”
And that’s how the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, was born. Most people don’t know that Rich Dad Poor Dad, the book that started the Rich Dad series, was written as a “brochure” to market the CASHFLOW game.
On April 8, 1997, my 50th birthday, Rich Dad Poor Dad was launched and The Rich Dad Company was born.
Rich Dad Poor Dad floated around in the world of self-published books until early in the year 2000. It was selling virally, by word of mouth and one day it made The New York Times bestsellers list. It was the only self-published book on that prestigious list.
Soon after that, a producer from Oprah Winfrey’s TV show called. But before she would book me for Oprah, she wanted to talk with rich dad’s son. As soon as she verified the story of rich dad and poor dad, my guest appearance on Oprah was confirmed.
I was in Australia when the invitation came. It was a tough decision: should I stay in Australia, or fly to Chicago for the interview. Again the principle of “The more people I serve, the more effective I am” kicked in. Cutting my trip short, I flew directly from Australia to Chicago. I still remember walking onto Oprah’s stage, sitting next to her for an hour, and talking about the need for financial education.
In that hour, my life changed completely. In one hour I went from an unknown to a world famous voice for financial education. It had taken only 55 years, years of many successes and failures and many second chances, to become an overnight success.
I tell you this story, not to brag or pat myself on my back, but as an example of the power of following Bucky Fuller’s Generalized Principles and my rich dad’s lessons on money.
The Rich Are Generous
A reporter once asked me if Oprah made me rich. I replied that I was already rich the day I stepped on her stage. I was rich financially because I had spent my life gaining knowledge, knowledge not taught in schools. All I was doing was sharing, being generous with what I knew.
My comment on being generous disturbed the reporter. His view was that a person had to be greedy to be rich. When I attempted to explain, the generalized principle of unity is plural and, at minimum two—that a person could be rich by being greedy and that a person could be rich by being generous—his eyes glazed over. His brain was rigidly locked around the idea that the only way to become rich was by being greedy. In his mind, it is not possible to become rich by being generous. In his mind, there is only one kind of rich person: a greedy rich person.
Q: What happened after you became famous? Was it smooth sailing after that?
A: No. Far from it. Fame and money made life harder, not easier. Many friends became jealous. Partners became greedy and began to steal. And many people came around to see how they could “help.” It was tough trying to determine if people were coming to truly help with the mission or only to “help themselves” to what we had created.
The good news is that over the years many great people have come into our lives. Again: Unity is plural and we had to learn to take the good with the bad.
Bucky’s Last Words
As I’ve said, Fuller died on July 1 in 1983. His wife Anne died 36 hours later. Both were 87 years old. Even in death, his life was supernatural.
He was speaking at an event, which would be his last, when he abruptly stopped and sat quietly for a moment. I was not at that event, but I did listen to an audiotape of his final words from that event. I will paraphrase his final words.
Bucky said he was cutting his talk short because his wife was gravely ill. He mentioned he’d had a premonition a few days earlier. His premonition was that he and his wife were to die together. Realizing death was near for both of them, he said “There is something mysterious going on.” He encouraged everyone to continue on with the work, ending his talk with his usual parting words, “Thank you, darling people.”
I later learned that he and his wife had made a pact that neither of them would ever see the other die. They kept their pact. Rushing to see her, Bucky sat at her bedside, where she was in a coma. As if on cue, he put his head down next to her, and silently passed on. She followed, 36 hours later, keeping their pact to never see the other die. He was a futurist who predicted how he and his wife would die. I guess he could hear the Great Spirit calling them home.
I was driving on a freeway in Honolulu when the news of their deaths came over the radio. The news so overwhelmed me that I pulled over on the side of the highway and cried. Looking back, it’s clear to me that, as I was sitting on the side of the highway that emotional day, one phase of my life had ended and another had begun. I was given a new second chance. I was no longer to be an entrepreneur in manufacturing. I was about to become an entrepreneur in education.
Grunch of Giants
A few months later, Bucky’s final book, Grunch of Giants, was released posthumously. As I’ve mentioned, GRUNCH stands for Gross Universal Cash Heist and refers to how the rich and powerful steal our wealth via our money, government, and banking system.
As I read this tiny, yet potent book, many pieces of the puzzle began to fall in place. My mind drifted back in time… when I was nine years old, in the fourth grade, and I raising my hand to ask my teacher, “When will we learn about money?” and “Why are some people rich and most people poor?”
In reading Grunch, the answers slowly seeped into my head. Fuller was very critical of the educational system, not only because of what it was teaching, but how it taught children to learn. He had this to say about every child and his or her special genius:
“Every child is born a genius, but is swiftly degeniused by unwitting humans and/or physically unfavorable environmental factors.”
And…
“I observe that every child demonstrates a comprehensive curiosity. Children are interested in everything and are forever embarrassing their specialized parents by the wholeness of their interests. Children demonstrate right from the beginning that their genes are organized to help them to apprehend, comprehend, coordinate, and employ—in all directions.”
Fuller recommended that students take control of their education process. In essence: do what Steve Jobs did at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Steve Jobs dropped out of school so he could drop back in, studying only subjects that interested him. Steve never went back to school.
Q: Did Bucky Fuller say everyone has a genius?
A: Yes.
Q: But I don’t feel very smart. I don’t think I have a genius. Why is that?
A: As Bucky says, schools and parents often degenius children. Fuller used the metaphor of school being a diamond mine. Teachers dig into the mine looking for “diamonds”—the kids they think are geniuses. The “tailings,” or the dirt and rubble that were tossed to the wayside, are the students the teachers believe have no genius potential. That is why so many students leave school feeling that they’re not smart, not bright, not special… even angry at school and the school system.
Q: So how does a person find their genius?
A: There are many ways. One way is by changing their environment.
Q: What does environment have to do with my genius?
A: Let me give you some examples. Many students feel stupid in the environment of a classroom, yet their genius comes alive on a football field. Tiger Woods’ genius comes alive on the golf course. The Beatles’ genius came alive, with guitars and drums, in a recording studio. Steve Jobs dropped out of school, yet his genius came alive in his garage, where he and Steve Wozniak developed the first Apple computer.
Q: So why don’t I feel smart? Why can’t I find my genius?
A: Because most people go from home to school to work, environments that are not always the right environment for their genius to bloom. Many spend their lives feeling unfulfilled, untested, unappreciated, simply because they did not find the environment in which their genius could blossom.
Think of genius as three words, genie-in-us… the magician in us. The words genius, magician, and inspire are all related. Do you know someone who is a magician in the kitchen, someone who can take ordinary ingredients and create gourmet meals?
Q: Yes.
A: Do you know someone who has a “green thumb?” Someone who can take dirt, water, and seeds and create a magical garden?
Q: Sure.
A: Have you ever watched the Special Olympics, an event for physically-challenged children, and been inspired—spiritually touched—when they compete with all their hearts, undaunted and in spite of their disabilities and challenges?
Q: I have.
A: Those are examples of “genie-in-us,” when the magician in us inspires others. We feel inspired when the spirit in someone else touches the spirit in us.
That is what genius is. When someone inspires us, we’re reminded of the “genie-in-us.”
Q: So why don’t most people find their genius?
A: Because being a genius is not easy. For example, someone could be the next Tiger Woods, but if that person does not dedicate their life to developing their genius, their talents, their genie will never show its magic.
More Questions than Answers
For me, reading Grunch only raised more questions. And for the first time in my life, I wanted to be a student again. I wanted to go back to the fourth grade and find the answers to the flurry of questions I kept asking my teacher about money. I was hungry to learn, and I wanted answers to my questions: “Why is money not a subject taught in school?” and “What makes rich people rich?”
As I finished reading Grunch and went on to read Fuller’s other books on education, I realized my questions in the fourth grade were caused by my natural curiosity. Money and why the rich are rich were my subjects of study. And, in my opinion, it’s not by accident that the subject of money had been “sanitized” from academic study.
In 1983, the student in me came alive again and I did exactly as Fuller described. The student in me got back to my studies.
Over the years, my own studies verified Fuller’s findings that the monetary system was designed to steal our wealth, making the rich richer, but not making you and I rich. This enslavement of others and theft of another’s wealth has been going on ever since the first humans walked the earth. Fuller believed that intense greed and desire to enslave fellow humans was humanity’s evolutionary test, a test to see if we could use our hearts and minds to create heaven on earth or if we would turn earth into a living hell and environmental wasteland.
In Grunch of Giants, Fuller described how the rich and powerful used money, banks, government, politicians, military leaders, and the educational system to implement their plans. Simply said, money is designed to keep people slaves to money and slaves to those who control the monetary system.
Ironically, and although Bucky Fuller and my rich dad would be polar opposites on the subject of money, they both would have agreed on the concept of money enslaving people. And their polarity supports and validates the generalized principle of unity is plural, both men disagreeing on substance, but agreeing in principle.
The Power of Knowledge
Soon after I appeared on Oprah, a mutual fund company offered me $4 million to endorse their mutual fund. While I like money as much as the next guy, accepting their money would have been selling out to GRUNCH. One of the great things about financial education is it gives people the power to choose… and to never need to sell their soul for money.
What Can You Do?
You and I both knew this was coming…
Q: So what can I do?
A: The answer is there are many things you can do. The world is filled with problems. A better question might be: What problem do you want to solve? What problem do you think god gave you unique gifts to solve? You can do it by yourself or you can join a group or an organization in solving the problem that causes you concern.
When you look at the world from the point of view of problems to solve, you will see that there is a lot to do and a lot you can do.
A more important question is: Are you willing to work on solving the problem? Or are you willing to work only if someone will pay you money?
In the next chapter, you will learn what I learned while looking for the answer of how our wealth is stolen via our money system and why there is no financial education in our schools.
By creating the CASHFLOW board game and writing Rich Dad Poor Dad, our wealth, income, and recognition went up exponentially. I mention this for those of you who are wondering when I will get around to what you can do for your second chance in life.
For those of you considering a second chance with your money and your life, you may want to ask yourself:
“How can I serve more people?”
rather than:
“How can I make more money?”
If you ask yourself how you can serve more people—rather than simply make more money—you are following one of the Generalized Principles of god.