I was driving on a freeway in Honolulu when the news of their deaths came over the radio. The news so overwhelmed me that I pulled over on the side of the highway and cried. Looking back, it’s clear to me that, as I was sitting on the side of the highway that emotional day, one phase of my life had ended and another had begun. I was given a new second chance. I was no longer to be an entrepreneur in manufacturing. I was about to become an entrepreneur in education.
Grunch of Giants
A few months later, Bucky’s final book, Grunch of Giants, was released posthumously. As I’ve mentioned, GRUNCH stands for Gross Universal Cash Heist and refers to how the rich and powerful steal our wealth via our money, government, and banking system.
As I read this tiny, yet potent book, many pieces of the puzzle began to fall in place. My mind drifted back in time… when I was nine years old, in the fourth grade, and I raising my hand to ask my teacher, “When will we learn about money?” and “Why are some people rich and most people poor?”
In reading Grunch, the answers slowly seeped into my head. Fuller was very critical of the educational system, not only because of what it was teaching, but how it taught children to learn. He had this to say about every child and his or her special genius:
“Every child is born a genius, but is swiftly degeniused by unwitting humans and/or physically unfavorable environmental factors.”
And…
“I observe that every child demonstrates a comprehensive curiosity. Children are interested in everything and are forever embarrassing their specialized parents by the wholeness of their interests. Children demonstrate right from the beginning that their genes are organized to help them to apprehend, comprehend, coordinate, and employ—in all directions.”
Fuller recommended that students take control of their education process. In essence: do what Steve Jobs did at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Steve Jobs dropped out of school so he could drop back in, studying only subjects that interested him. Steve never went back to school.
Q: Did Bucky Fuller say everyone has a genius?
A: Yes.
Q: But I don’t feel very smart. I don’t think I have a genius. Why is that?
A: As Bucky says, schools and parents often degenius children. Fuller used the metaphor of school being a diamond mine. Teachers dig into the mine looking for “diamonds”—the kids they think are geniuses. The “tailings,” or the dirt and rubble that were tossed to the wayside, are the students the teachers believe have no genius potential. That is why so many students leave school feeling that they’re not smart, not bright, not special… even angry at school and the school system.
Q: So how does a person find their genius?
A: There are many ways. One way is by changing their environment.
Q: What does environment have to do with my genius?
A: Let me give you some examples. Many students feel stupid in the environment of a classroom, yet their genius comes alive on a football field. Tiger Woods’ genius comes alive on the golf course. The Beatles’ genius came alive, with guitars and drums, in a recording studio. Steve Jobs dropped out of school, yet his genius came alive in his garage, where he and Steve Wozniak developed the first Apple computer.
Q: So why don’t I feel smart? Why can’t I find my genius?
A: Because most people go from home to school to work, environments that are not always the right environment for their genius to bloom. Many spend their lives feeling unfulfilled, untested, unappreciated, simply because they did not find the environment in which their genius could blossom.
Think of genius as three words, genie-in-us… the magician in us. The words genius, magician, and inspire are all related. Do you know someone who is a magician in the kitchen, someone who can take ordinary ingredients and create gourmet meals?
Q: Yes.
A: Do you know someone who has a “green thumb?” Someone who can take dirt, water, and seeds and create a magical garden?
Q: Sure.
A: Have you ever watched the Special Olympics, an event for physically-challenged children, and been inspired—spiritually touched—when they compete with all their hearts, undaunted and in spite of their disabilities and challenges?
Q: I have.
A: Those are examples of “genie-in-us,” when the magician in us inspires others. We feel inspired when the spirit in someone else touches the spirit in us.
That is what genius is. When someone inspires us, we’re reminded of the “genie-in-us.”
Q: So why don’t most people find their genius?
A: Because being a genius is not easy. For example, someone could be the next Tiger Woods, but if that person does not dedicate their life to developing their genius, their talents, their genie will never show its magic.
More Questions than Answers
For me, reading Grunch only raised more questions. And for the first time in my life, I wanted to be a student again. I wanted to go back to the fourth grade and find the answers to the flurry of questions I kept asking my teacher about money. I was hungry to learn, and I wanted answers to my questions: “Why is money not a subject taught in school?” and “What makes rich people rich?”
As I finished reading Grunch and went on to read Fuller’s other books on education, I realized my questions in the fourth grade were caused by my natural curiosity. Money and why the rich are rich were my subjects of study. And, in my opinion, it’s not by accident that the subject of money had been “sanitized” from academic study.
In 1983, the student in me came alive again and I did exactly as Fuller described. The student in me got back to my studies.
Over the years, my own studies verified Fuller’s findings that the monetary system was designed to steal our wealth, making the rich richer, but not making you and I rich. This enslavement of others and theft of another’s wealth has been going on ever since the first humans walked the earth. Fuller believed that intense greed and desire to enslave fellow humans was humanity’s evolutionary test, a test to see if we could use our hearts and minds to create heaven on earth or if we would turn earth into a living hell and environmental wasteland.
In Grunch of Giants, Fuller described how the rich and powerful used money, banks, government, politicians, military leaders, and the educational system to implement their plans. Simply said, money is designed to keep people slaves to money and slaves to those who control the monetary system.
Ironically, and although Bucky Fuller and my rich dad would be polar opposites on the subject of money, they both would have agreed on the concept of money enslaving people. And their polarity supports and validates the generalized principle of unity is plural, both men disagreeing on substance, but agreeing in principle.
The Power of Knowledge
Soon after I appeared on Oprah, a mutual fund company offered me $4 million to endorse their mutual fund. While I like money as much as the next guy, accepting their money would have been selling out to GRUNCH. One of the great things about financial education is it gives people the power to choose… and to never need to sell their soul for money.
What Can You Do?
You and