In other words, you needed two different professionals to get the real picture. The good news is that if you take your time and invest the time to learn the ins and outs of what goes on behind the scenes, you will find investment opportunities and great wealth, wealth that very few people ever find. You will find out the truth about why the rich get richer, and the poor and middle class work harder, pay more in taxes, and get deeper in debt. Once you know the truths, you can then de- cide which side of the Quadrant you want to operate from. Financial Literacy Made Simple 187 It's not hard; it just takes some time ... time that people who just want a hot investment tip do not want to invest." I did not have to think about which side of the Quadrant I wanted to operate from. I knew I wanted to invest legally from the inside, not the outside. I wanted to know what the truths were, regardless of if I became rich or not. I now wanted to know how and why the rich got richer. The Need for Financial Education In the early 1980s, I began teaching entrepreneurship and investing to adults as a hobby. One of the problems I ran into immediately was that most people who wanted to start busi- nesses or invest with greater confidence lacked the basics of financial literacy. I believe that this lack of financial education is why nine out of ten new businesses fail in the first five years, and why most investors think investing is risky and do not make or keep much money. When I recommended that people take classes in account- ing, finance, and investing before starting a business or invest- ing, most groaned and did not want to go back to school. That is when I began to search for a way that individuals could gain the basic knowledge in an easy and fun way. In 1996,1 created CASHFLOW, Investing 101, a game that teaches the basics of financial literacy, accounting, and investing. Teaching Versus Learning CASHFLOW is a board game because investing and financial analysis are subjects that you cannot learn by reading. My poor dad the schoolteacher often said, 'A teacher must know the dif- ference between what can be taught and what must be learned." He would go on to say, "You can teach a child to memorize the word 'bicycle' but you cannot teach a child to ride one. A child needs to learn how to ride a bicycle by doing." La the past three years, I have observed thousands of 188 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing people learning to be investors by playing CASHFLOW, Investing 101 and 202. They learn by doing things I could never teach by writing or by lecturing, just as I could never teach you to ride a bicycle. The games teach in a few hours what my rich dad took 30 years guiding me to learn. And that is why this book is titled Rich Dad's Guide to Investing be- cause that is what he did. He guided me because that was the best he could do. Investing and accounting are subjects that he could not teach me. I had to want to learn.