Rich Dad Poor Dad is a starting point for anyone looking to gain control of their financial future

A Different Education
In 1973, in my last year of active duty flying for the Marine 
Corps when I was stationed near home in Hawaii, I knew I wanted 
to follow in my rich dad’s footsteps. While in the Marines, I signed 
up for real estate courses and business courses on the weekends, 
preparing to become an entrepreneur in the B and I quadrants. 
At the same time, upon a friend’s recommendation of a friend, 
I signed up for a personal-development course, hoping to find out 
who I really was. A personal-development course is non-traditional 
education because I was not taking it for credits or grades. I did not 
know what I was going to learn, as I did when I signed up for real 
estate courses. All I knew was that it was time to take courses to find 
out about me.
In my first weekend course, the instructor drew this simple 
diagram on the flip chart:
SPIRITUAL
EMOTIONAL
MENTAL
PHYSICAL
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With the diagram complete, the instructor turned and said, 
“To develop into a whole human being, we need mental, physical, 
emotional, and spiritual education.”
Listening to her explanation, it was clear to me that traditional schools 
were primarily about developing students mentally. That is why so many 
students who do well in school, do not do well in real life, especially in the 
world of money.
As the course progressed over the weekend, I discovered why I disliked 
school. I realized that I loved learning, but hated school.
Traditional education was a great environment for the “A” 
students, but it was not the environment for me. Traditional education 
was crushing my spirit, trying to motivate me with the emotion of 
fear: the fear of making mistakes, the fear of failing, and the fear of not 
getting a job. They were programming me to be an employee in the E 
or S quadrant. I realized that traditional education is not the place for 
a person who wants to be an entrepreneur in the B and I quadrants.
This may be why so many entrepreneurs never finish school—
entrepreneurs like Thomas Edison, founder of General Electric; Henry 
Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company; Steve Jobs, founder of Apple; 
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft; Walt Disney, founder of Disneyland; 
and Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.
As the day went on and the instructor went deeper and deeper into 
these four types of personal development, I realized I had spent most 
of my life in very harsh educational environments. After four years at 
an all-male military academy and five years as a Marine pilot, I was 
pretty strong mentally and physically. As a Marine pilot, I was strong 
emotionally and spiritually, but all on the macho-male development 
side. I had no gentle side, no female energy. After all, I was trained to 
be Marine Corps officer, emotionally calm under pressure, prepared to 
kill, and spiritually prepared to die for my country.
If you ever saw the movie Top Gun starring Tom Cruise, you get 
a glimpse into the masculine world and bravado of military pilots. I 
loved that world. I was good in that world. It was a modern-day world 
of knights and warriors. It was not a world for wimps.
CASHFLOW Quadrant
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In the seminar, I went into my emotions and briefly touched my 
spirit. I cried a lot because I had a lot to cry about. I had done and 
seen things no one should ever be asked to do. During the seminar,
I hugged a man, something I had never done before, not even with 
my father.
On Sunday night, it was difficult leaving this self-development 
workshop. The seminar had been a gentle, loving, honest environment. 
Monday morning was a shock to once again be surrounded by young 
egotistical pilots, dedicated to flying, killing and dying for country.
After that weekend seminar, I knew it was time to change. I knew 
developing myself emotionally and spiritually to become a kinder, 
gentler, and more compassionate person would be the hardest thing 
I could do. It went against all my years at the military academy and 
flight school.
I never returned to traditional education again. I had no desire 
to study for grades, degrees, promotions, or credentials again. From 
then on, if I did attend a course or school, I went to learn, to become 
a better person. I was no longer in the paper chase of grades, degrees, 
and credentials. 
Growing up in a family of teachers, your grades, the high school 
and college you graduated from, and your advanced degrees were 
everything. Like the medals and ribbons on a Marine pilot’s chest, 
advanced degrees and brand-name schools were the status and the 
stripes that educators wore on their sleeves. In their minds, people 
who did not finish high school were the unwashed, the lost souls of 
life. Those with master’s degrees looked down on those with only 
bachelor degrees. Those with a PhD were held in reverence. At the
age of 26, I knew I would never return to that world.
Editor’s Note: In 2009, Robert received an honorary PhD in 
entrepreneurship from prestigious San Ignacio de Loyola in 
Lima, Peru. The few other recipients of this award are political 
leaders, such as the former President of Spain. 
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