But if you want to be rich, you have to be closer to the inside than the professional to whom most people entrust their money." And that was the focus of rich dad's plan to be rich. That is what he did and that was why he was so rich. To follow his plan, I needed the education and experiences found on the right side of the Quadrant, not the left. To do that, I needed to invest a lot more time than the average investor... and that is what the rest of this book is really about. This book is about what it takes to move from the outside to the inside. Before You Decide I realize that many people do not want to invest that much time into the subject of investing just to get to the inside. But before you decide, and before getting into a little more detail about rich dad's plan, I thought I would give you a very sim- 116 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing plified overview of the subject of investing. Hopefully, after reading the next few chapters, you may learn a few new ways to reduce your investment risk to become more successful as an investor, even if you do not want to be an inside investor. As I said earlier, investing is a very personal subject, and I completely respect that reality. I know that many people do not want to commit the time to the subject of investing the way rich dad and I did. Before going into rich dad's educational plan to teach me to be an investor at the rich level, the next few chapters are dedicated to offering the reader a simple overview of rich dad's investment plan. Mental Attitude Quiz The business of investing has many parallels to the busi- ness of professional sports. For example, let's use the game of professional football. At Super Bowl time, the en- tire world watches. On the field are the players, the fans, the blimp overhead, the cheerleaders, the vendors, the sports commentators, and the fans at home watching the event on television. Today, for many investors, the world of investing looks like a professional football game. You have the same cast of characters. You have the TV commentators describing the play-by-play battle of the blue chip giants on the field. There are the adoring fans purchasing shares instead of tickets, cheering for their favorite team. You also have the cheerleaders, telling you why the stock price is going up; or, if the market goes down, they want to keep cheering you up with new hope that the price will soon rise. There are the bookmakers, called stockbrokers, who give you stock quotes over the phone and record your bets. Instead of reading the sports page, you read the financial pages. Why Investing Isn't Risky 117 There are even the equivalent of ticket scalpers, but in the financial world they don't sell over-priced tickets to late- comers; they sell over-priced financial tip sheets to people who want to get closer to the inside game. Then there are the hot dog vendors, who also dispense antacid pills, as well as the people who sweep up the mess after the trad- ing day is over.