Most people are asked as children, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" If you notice, 124 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing most children will reply with such things as 'a fireman,' or 'a ballerina,' or 'a doctor,' or 'a teacher.'" "So most kids choose the E and S side of the Quadrant," I added. "Yes," said rich dad. 'And the I quadrant, the investor quad- rant, is an afterthought, if any thought is given to it at all. In many families, the only thought given to the T quadrant is when parents say, 'Make sure the job you have has excellent benefits and a strong retirement plan.' In other words, the idea is to let the company be responsible for your long-term investment needs. That is changing rapidly as we speak." "Why do you say that?" I asked. "Why do you say it's changing?" "We are entering a period of a global economy," said rich dad. "For companies to compete in the world, they need to get their costs down. And one of their major costs is em- ployee compensation and employee retirement plan funding. You mark my words, in the next few years businesses will begin shifting the responsibility of investing for retirement to the employee." "You mean people will have to provide for their own pen- sion instead of relying on their employer or the government?" I asked. "Yes. The problem will be the worst for poor people, and they are who I worry about," said rich dad. "That is why I re- minded you about sitting across the table from people whose only financial support was a job. By the time you are my age, what to do with people without financial and medical support when they are older will be a massive problem. And your gen- eration, the Baby Boomer generation, will probably be tasked with solving that problem. The severity of this problem will be very prominent sometime around 2010." "So what should I do?" I asked. "Make the T quadrant the most important quadrant, not On Which Side of the Table Do You Want to Sit? 125 the others. Choose to be an investor when you're grown up. You'll want to have your money working for you so you don't have to work if you don't want to, or cannot, work. You don't want to be like your dad at 50-starting all over again, trying to figure out which quadrant he can earn the most money from, and realizing he is trapped in the E quadrant," said rich dad. "You want to learn how to operate from all quadrants. Being able to sit on both sides of the table allows you to see both sides of the coin," rich dad said in summary, referring to his two-sided coin story. The Most Important Quadrant Rich dad explained to me that one of the differences be- tween rich people and poor people comes from what the par- ents teach their kids at home. He said, "Mike already had a personal investment portfolio of over $200,000 by the time he was 15. You had nothing. All you had was the idea of going to school so you could get a job with benefits.