Page 180 - Rich Dad's Increase Your Financial IQ: Get Smarter with Your Money

Don’t Live below Your Means

Financial experts advise people to live below their means and diversify. To
many people this sounds like smart advice. The problem with following this
advice is that you wind up average because it is average advice. It is not

bad advice. It’s just average financial advice. Besides, who wants to live
below their means?
In high school, students begin focusing on their academic strengths and
taking courses with an eye towards high-paying future careers. Kids are

constantly pushed to be smart, study hard, and get good grades. After
graduating from college, many go on to graduate school, narrowing career
choices to becoming lawyers, doctors, accountants, and MBAs. Many
doctors, after years of grueling medical school, go on for additional training

to become specialists such as surgeons or internists. Artistic students
become artists in clay, oils, watercolors, commercial graphics, and music.
Gifted student-athletes prepare for professional careers in football, tennis,
basketball, or golf. In fact, if you go to athletic events, many parents scream

for blood, demanding their kids play and their team wins. Nobody wants to
play on an average team.
Most of us know that to be successful in school and to have successful
careers we need to do our best to be the best. We need to focus and study.

We need to specialize. Yet when it comes to money, people are advised to
diversify instead of specialize and live below their means rather than live at
a higher standard of living.
When I got out of the Marine Corps I did not want to get an average job

and live below my means. To me, living below your means is how below-
average people live. I did not want to drive an average car or live in an
average neighborhood. I also knew that diversifying would cause my return
on investment to be below average. I knew I needed to focus if I wanted a

higher standard of living . . . a standard of living like my classmates who
lived across the bridge.
When I looked at the world I was about to reenter after four years of
military school and five years in the Marines, I noticed that most people

worked hard to be above average professionally but were below average
financially.