Page 183 - Rich Dad's Increase Your Financial IQ: Get Smarter with Your Money

Finding Your Genius

I built and rebuilt several businesses from 1974 to 1984. I was determined
to become an entrepreneur. Just like a baby who stands and falls a number
of times before learning to walk, I stood and fell a number of times before

walking as an entrepreneur. I did this because I wanted to learn to be an
insider, not an outsider.
From 1984 to 1994, I became an educational entrepreneur because I
became interested in how people learn. Although I disliked school, I

enjoyed learning. Also, I wanted to know why I always felt stupid in class.
During those ten years, Kim and I built an education company that taught
entrepreneurship and investing from our offices in Australia, Canada, New
Zealand, Singapore, and the U.S.

During this period of time I did things differently, almost the opposite of
the way traditional schools teach. Instead of creating an environment where
only one or two students were smart, I created an environment where
everyone could feel smart and learn. Instead of competing, the class

cooperated. Instead of having students listen to me lecture, I created
different games to teach specific subjects. Instead of being bored, adult
students were actively challenged, and participated.
I went on to develop my educational board game CASHFLOW from

what I learned as an entrepreneurial educator, the first game to teach both
accounting and investing at the same time. As you may know, accounting
can be the most boring subject on earth and investing the most frightening.
By combining the two subjects into one game, learning became

challenging, and fun. A person could play the game a thousand times and
still learn something new about accounting, investing, and themselves. The
game was officially launched in 1996.
As I learned more about the human mind and how we learn, I found out

a number of things about our school system that were disturbing. I found
out that our current system of teaching actually damages a child’s brain. In
other words, even an A student can be slowed up by the educational system.
The more I studied and practiced different teaching techniques in my

classes, the more I began to find the answers I was looking for, and I found
why I had constantly been labeled stupid or, at best, average.