Ten years later, in 1994, when we sold that business to our partner, Kim and I were financially free. Kim was 37 years old and I was 47. We achieved financial freedom without jobs, without government support, and without a retirement plan filled with stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.
When people began asking us how we achieved financial freedom without the traditional investment and retirement plans, Kim and I knew it was time for us to begin our new second chance.
Following one of Buckminster Fuller’s generalized principles—a principle that is true in all cases, no exceptions—we began our next business. Today that business is known as The Rich Dad Company.
The generalized principle we followed was:
“The more people I serve, the more effective I become.”
With the intent on serving more people, Kim and I began developing our CASHFLOW® game and I began writing Rich Dad Poor Dad.
On my 50th birthday, April 8, 1997, The Rich Dad Company was officially launched. Our mission:
“To elevate the financial well being of humanity.”
A Second Chance for The Rich Dad Company
As I stated in Chapter One of this book, the world of money is changing and, unfortunately, millions of people are not. The reason Kim and I continued on with The Rich Dad Company, although we are both financially free, is because of the company mission, a mission of offering more people a second chance at money and life. Today, through the development of electronic games and apps, The Rich Dad Company finds itself poised for yet another second chance, a chance to serve more people using the tools and technology of the Information Age. The beauty of second chances is that you can have as many as you need or want… without any limits. Each of us has the power to choose to pursue a second chance, as opposed to whining about what might have been. And the more we learn, and the more aware each of us is about the ever-changing world we live in, the better our odds of succeeding as we commit to a second chance.
Dr. Fuller’s last book was Grunch of Giants. GRUNCH is an acronym, which stands for Gross Universal Cash Heist.
Grunch was published after his death in 1983. Grunch was Fuller’s only book to focus on many of the same things my rich dad was concerned about, specifically how the monetary system is designed to steal our wealth.
Reading Grunch of Giants in 1983 pushed me over the edge. I knew I could no longer be a manufacturer. Although I did not know what to do, I knew I had to do something. I knew too much and I could no longer stay silent. Fuller had taught us how to see the future and even then I could see this crisis coming, a financial crisis that began in our educational system.
In the following chapters, I will explain what I learned and why we are in a financial crisis we face today.
This cash heist is not new. It has been going on for a long time. For those who seek a second chance, understanding what Fuller calls the Grunch of Giants—and what he saw for the future—is essential to creating a brighter future for you and your family.
“I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I’ve invented.”
– R. Buckminster Fuller
It took me awhile to realize that Bucky Fuller’s ability to predict the future had nothing to do with picking stocks, timing markets, betting on horses, or predicting who will win the World Series. His vision of the future had to do with god’s view of the future.
Bucky was hesitant to use the word god because, for many people, that word carried a lot of “religious dogma,” emotion, and controversy. Fuller did not think god was a white guy, a Jew, an Arab, or an Asian. Rather than use the word god, he preferred the Native American term, the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit is the invisible energy that binds all things in “universe,” not just heaven and earth.
Whenever I use the term god in this book, please know I am not making religious references. I respect a person’s right to choose—to believe in god, or not to believe in god or follow any religion. Simply said, I believe in religious freedom and the freedom to choose whether or not they believe in god.
The same is true for politics. I am not a Republican or Democrat. I have no dog in that fight. In fact, I like my dog more than I like most politicians.
Human Evolution
Fuller was not a futurist in the arena of money. He was a futurist on the Great Spirit’s wishes for humanity’s evolution. He believed humans were god’s long-term experiment, placed here on “spaceship earth” to see if humans could evolve… if they could, or would, turn planet earth into a heaven on earth, or hell on earth.
Fuller believed Great Spirit wanted all humans to be rich. He often said, “There are six billion billionaires on earth.” (That was in the 1980s. Today he would say “seven billion billionaires.”) In the 1980s there were fewer than 50 documented billionaires. A far cry from the “six billion” that Bucky cited. By 2008 there were 1,150. Today that figure’s projected at 1,645.
Fuller predicted that humanity had reached a critical evolutionary point. If humans did not evolve from greed and selfishness to generosity and abundance, humans—as an experiment on earth—would end. He often referred to the rich and powerful who hoarded “god’s abundance” only for themselves as “blood clots.” He believed that if humans did not “evolve” we would not only kill ourselves, but also kill the ecology of planet earth.
The reason Fuller sought to identify the Generalized Principles is because they are the invisible forces that run the universe. In other words, the Generalized Principles were the operating principles of the Great Spirit, and the Great Spirit wanted all humans and all life on planet earth to thrive. Fuller believed there were 200 to 300 Generalized Principles. At the time of his death he had discovered about 50. I am aware of and use about five of them.
In his writing and talks, he was critical of a few greedy, powerful people who used humans and the resources of planet earth only for their personal wealth. He believed that if humans did not shift from greed to generosity—humans working for a planet that worked for everyone and everything—humans would be “evicted” from “spaceship earth.” The Great Spirit’s experiment would be set back a few million years. He also said that god was patient and willing to wait for humans to evolve. Unfortunately, you and I do not have the luxury of waiting another million years for our fellow humans to “get the message.”
Serving More People
As stated in the previous chapter, one of the Great Spirit’s Generalized Principles that Fuller identified was:
“The more people I serve, the more effective I become.”
As part of my own second chance, I do my best to follow this Generalized Principle when making business decisions. Rather than just work to make myself richer, I began to condition myself to think about how to enrich others while I was enriching myself.
That Generalized Principle was instrumental in our decision to sell the seminar business that Kim and I founded to our partner. Although that seminar business was successful, it was limited in terms of the number of people it could serve.
In 1994, it was difficult for us to sell that seminar business, a business we loved, were successful in building and making profitable.