That is what your dad thought was important." Rich dad reminded me that his son Mike knew how to be an investor before he left high school. "I never tried to influ- ence him in his choice of careers," said rich dad. "I wanted him to follow his interests, even if it meant he did not take over my business. But whether he chose to be a policeman, politician, or a poet, I wanted him to first be an investor. You'll become far richer if you learn to be an investor, regardless of what you do to earn the money along the way." Years later, as I met more and more people who came from well-to-do families, many of them said the same thing. Many of my wealthy friends said that their families started an invest- ment portfolio for them when they were very young and then guided them in learning to be investors-before deciding what type of profession they wanted to enter. 126 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing Mental Attitude Quiz In the Industrial Age, the rules of employment were that your company would employ you for life and take care of your investing needs once your working days were over. In 1980, the average length of retirement before death was only one year for men and two years for women. In other words, all you had to do was focus on the E quadrant and your employer would take care of the I quadrant. That message was very comforting, especially to my parents' generation, since they lived through a horrible world war, and the Great Depression. Those events had a tremen- dous impact upon their mental attitude and financial pri- orities. Many still live with that financial attitude and they often taught that same attitude to their children. Many people also continue to believe that their home is an asset and their most important investment. That idea is an Industrial Age way of thinking. In the Industrial Age, that was all a person needed to know about money manage- ment because the company or labof union and the govern- ment took care of the rest. The rules have changed. In the Information Age of today, most of us need greater financial sophistication. We need to know the difference between an asset and a liability. We are living much longer and therefore need more financial stability for our retirement years. If your home is your biggest investment, then you're probably in financial trou- ble. Your financial portfolio needs to be a much bigger in- vestment than your home. The good news is that the I quadrant is a great quadrant to place first-to learn to be responsible for-because free- dom comes from this quadrant. On Which Side of the Table Do You Want to Sit? 127 So the mental attitude questions are: 1. Which quadrant will you place first (is the most impor- tant to you)? E_ S_ B_ I_ 2. What side of the table do you eventually plan to sit on? I have asked question two and left it without an answer be- cause of this phenomenon: You may have noticed that when a major company announces a lay-off of thousands of employees, the company's share price often goes up.