Excessive cash Yes_ No_ If the answer is no, then the remainder of this book may not be of much value, nor could I in good conscience rec- ommend any of the investments I will be writing about, which are the investments of the rich. If you are uncertain or are curious about some of the re- quirements involved in the education and experience that can lead to acquiring excessive cash, then read on. At the end of this book, you can decide whether or not you want to go after the 3-Es, if you do not already have them. Along the way, you may discover that your plans to be fi- nancially safe, and then financially comfortable, will allow you to "raise the bar." Just as a high jumper or pole-vaulter raises the bar after succeeding at each level, you can suc- ceed financially at the safety and comfort levels. You can then "raise the bar"-and your goals-and focus more of your time on becoming rich. As rich dad said, "Investing is a subject where you can study the basics for the rest of your life." What he meant was that it sounds complex at the start and then it gets sim- ple. The more simple you can make this subject, or the more basics you learn, the richer you can become while re- ducing risk. But the challenge for most people is to invest the time. Chapter 15 Investor Lesson #13: Reduce Risk Through Financial Literacy It was still early in the spring of 1974.1 had but a couple of months to go before I was discharged from my military con- tract. I still did not know what I was going to do once I drove off the base for the last time. President Nixon was in trouble with Watergate and the trials were about to begin, so I realized that he had larger concerns than I did at that moment. We all knew the war in Vietnam was over and we had lost. I still had a very short military haircut and I stood out each time I went into the civilian world, where long hippie hair was the style. I began to wonder what I would look like in shoulder-length hair. I had worn a military hair cut since 1965, ever since I en- tered the military academy for college. It was the wrong pe- riod of time to have short hair. The stock market had been going down for the past four days and people were nervous. Even in the pilots' ready room on base, the few pilots that did play the market were nervous and edgy. One had sold all his stock to stand aside with cash. I was not invested in the stock market at the time, so I could Reduce Risk Through Financial Literacy 147 watch the effect of the ups and downs that the market had on people without emotion. Rich dad and I met for lunch at his favorite beachside hotel. He was happy as ever. The market was falling and he was mak- ing even more money. I thought it strange that he would be calm and happy and everyone else, even the commentator on the radio, was nervous. "How is it that you are happy and everyone else I meet who is in the stock market is nervous?" "Well, we talked about it earlier," said rich dad.