He was right. He needed new answers, and so did I.
My parents' advice may have worked for people born before 1945, but it may be disastrous for those of us born into a rapidly changing world.
No longer can I simply say to my children, "Go to school,get good grades, and look for a safe, secure job.
"I knew I had to look for new ways to guide my children's education.
As a mother as well as an accountant, I have been concerned by the lack of financial education our children receive in school.
Many of today's youth have credit cards before they leave high school, yet they have never had a course in money or how to invest it, let alone understand how compound interest works on credit cards.
Simply put, without financial literacy and the knowledge of how money works, they are not prepared to face the world that awaits them,
a world in which spending is emphasized over savings.
When my oldest son became hopelessly in debt with his credit cards as a freshman in college,
I not only helped him destroy the credit cards, but I also went in search of a program that would help me educate my children on financial matters.
One day last year, my husband called me from his office. "I have someone I think you should meet,"he said.
"His name is Robert Kiyosaki. He's a businessman and investor,and he is here applying for a patent on an educational product.
I think it's what you have been looking for."Just What I Was Looking For My husband, Mike, was so impressed with CASH FLOW,
the new educational product that Robert Kiyosaki was developing,that he arranged for both of us to participate in a test of the prototype.
Because it was an educational game, I also asked my 19-year-old daughter, who was a freshman at a local university,
if she would like to take part, and she agreed. About fifteen people, broken into three groups, participated in the test.Mike was right.
It was the educational product I had been looking for.
But it had a twist: It looked like a colorful Monopoly board with a giant well-dressed rat in the middle.
Unlike Monopoly, however, there were two tracks: one inside and one outside.
The object of the game was to get out of the inside track-what Robert called the"Rat Race" and reach the outer track, or the "Fast Track."As Robert put it,
the Fast Track simulates how rich people play in real life.Robert then defined the "Rat Race" for us."
If you look at the life of the average-educated, hard-working person, there is a similar path.
The child is born and goes to school. The proud parents are excited because the child excels, gets fair to good grades, and is accepted into a college.
The child graduates, maybe goes on to graduate school and then does exactly as programmed: looks for a safe, secure job or career.
The child finds that job,maybe as a doctor or a lawyer, or joins the Army or works for the government.
Generally, the child begins to make money, credit cards start to arrive in mass, and the shopping begins, if it already hasn't.
