Page 202 - Rich Dad's Increase Your Financial IQ: Get Smarter with Your Money

The university’s findings were consistent with my findings as an
educational entrepreneur. I found that by focusing on Howard Gardner’s

fourth intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic, students learned more, learned faster,
had more fun, and retained the information longer. Instead of just lectures,
we played different games to make different points. I encouraged playing
and making mistakes, and then we debriefed once the game was over.

The learning was powerful because games involve all three brains. Many
times, participants became upset, angry, or sad. They did not like the
mistakes they made. Some blamed the game or other participants. These
emotions are all part of the learning process, in my classes and in real life.

My job as the instructor was to guide the participant away from blame and
emotions and into learning the lesson the game was teaching. Once
participants got their personal lessons from the game, some broke out
laughing, saying, “I didn’t realize I do the same thing in real life.” Once

there is cognition, a relationship between behavior in the game and
behavior in real life, the participant has the opportunity to make changes if
he or she wants to. At that moment of cognition, the aha! of life, all three
brains are working together. Once that occurs, the participant is often open

to learning more and growing.
One great success story occurred recently at a Boys and Girls Club in a
very poor part of Phoenix. A team from my company set up a CASHFLOW
Club. Once again, teaching financial intelligence via a game was powerful,

profound, and life-changing. One particular participant was a student who
was labeled learning disabled by the school system and placed in a class for
slow learners. After playing the CASHFLOW game a number of times with
his friends, he slowly began to improve his reading and math skills. Today,

he’s in a regular class. This is the power of coordinating all three parts of
the brain in a cooperative, peer-to-peer learning environment.

Change Your Environment . . . Change Your Life

As an educational entrepreneur, it became apparent to me that environment

was the strongest teacher of all. I realized that I could teach and inform, yet
if the participant went back to the same environment as before, the effect of
what I taught was diminished. In other words, if the person went back to the