This screen shot is from the book, “Why The Rich Are Getting Richer”, by Robert Kiyosaki.

According to Kiyosaki, the people who have mastered money live in the “I quadrant.” For those who haven’t read any of his books (what are you waiting for??), the “I quadrant” is the quadrant for investors. Investors live off the income from their investments.

The basic journey through Kiyosaki’s quadrants is as follows:

Start as a employee. Move into the S quadrant when you become self-employed working for yourself. Hire and train others to generate revenue for your business without your involvement and you’ll move into the B quadrant. Sell the business, or use the income from the business to invest into income producing assets where the majority of your income is investment income and you’ll finally move into the “I quadrant.” Because your income comes from your investments, you won’t need to work for money.

Here’s a summarized conversation with Rich Dad from the book:

What is the end game? How do I know I’ve won as an entrepreneur?”

Rich Dad smiled and said, “When you reach the I Quadrant.” What happens in the I Quadrant?” Kiyosaki asked.

Rich Dad answered, “You become a Master of Money. You are no longer a slave to money. Masters of Money do not need money to make money. Masters of Money are alchemists. They turn ideas into gold. They turn ideas into international businesses.”

The I quadrant is where we graduate. We’ve won the game when we make it to the I quadrant.

We’ve mastered the E, S, and B quadrants. We’ve learned many valuable lessons and these lessons can be easily leveraged when we arrive in the I quadrant. Kiyosaki wrote:

“It is the ability to build a business out of nothing that makes a person a Master of Money.”

This is the game we should be playing. This is the game we can truly win. This is the game we should be teaching our children to play.

If we stop and think about this for a minute, we’ll see that the typical path we’ve been taught to follow is to get a good job and save a portion of our income so we can retire in our 60s. When we retire, we are actually supposed to be in the I quadrant where we live off of our investments. The end goal is the same for both journeys.

However, one path leads to a life of scarcity and the other leads to a life of abundance.

If you’re an employee and you retire at 65 living off a fixed income, what happens when the cost of your medication triples? This happens all of the time for seniors. They can’t afford the price increases so they cut their pills up and spread them out over time to save money. Why do they do this? Because they don’t have the ability to turn ideas into money. They don’t have ability to easily increase their income.

What would someone who has graduated into the I quadrant through their businesses and active investments do if the cost of their medication tripled?

They would quickly create a new monthly income stream by buying or creating a new asset. They would NOT cut their pills in half.

The other issue is that the average employee doesn’t save nearly enough in their retirement accounts for retirement. Check out this article by Tim McAllenan Jr. and you’ll see the average 401k balance by age.

The average 50 year old has $64,087 in their 401k. The average 60 year old has $90,383 in their 401k.

How is someone going to live in the I quadrant, who hasn’t developed any business or investing skills, going to make it with less than $100,000 saved when they retire? They’re in serious trouble.

One more question – how much money does someone who is a Master of Money need in their 401k account to retire?

$0.00.

A Master of Money is someone who can turn ideas into money. They don’t need a 401k account and this is because they can create income producing assets. They can turn ideas into money.

Building businesses and buying assets is hard. We make numerous mistakes. We lose money. We get the shit kicked out of us every once in a while. However, what we learn in the process is priceless. The skills set we develop are invaluable. The thick skin we develop is like body armor.

In my humble opinion, it would be far better to arrive at the age of 65 with the skill set of a Master of Money and $0.00 saved than it would be to have $100,000 saved an no money mastery.


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