Owning a home is one of the largest single investments a person can make in their life. It takes time, and effort and we need assistance along the way. This article seeks to disprove the belief that owning a home must be the ultimate goal in life.
Rich Dad Poor Dad is a seminal book on financial independence. The idea is, you create a passive income from the revenue your assets create. The balance here is to ensure your expenses are below your passive income. And you reinvest the difference to create wealth. As a working person, when your passive income stabilizes and surpasses your expenses, your goals also shift from survival to self-actualization.
According to Rich Dad Poor Dad, a house you buy to live in that doesn’t allow you to earn a passive income is not an investment but a liability. In fact, most of the things we call investments, like cars, clothes, holidays, as long as they are not building your passive income, are liabilities.
The 21st century has taught us that nothing is as unsteady as a steady job. The concept of paying for a house that you eventually call your own, through a mortgage, based on the salary you earn monthly needs to be rethought.
Investing in Yourself
Truth be told, most people know that professional credentials are a good investment, especially in climbing the traditional corporate ladder. This investment guarantees more opportunities and better pay. But does this belief stand on solid ground?
Sir Ken Robinson, a renowned educationalist, believes the value of university degrees has dropped dramatically over the decades. You are no longer guaranteed a job when you come out of university. Even worse when you pursue a master’s degree. Despite the sacrifices made, the expenses incurred, and job prospects only being available in specific fields.
If you are looking out of the window wondering what’s next, be bold. Take a stand. It’s time you let yourself be who you really want to be. Now.
Sir Robinson recognizes the drop in creativity and the ability to innovate among the educated. He states that schools don’t teach life skills essential for building thriving careers and businesses. He believes that the education system is broken – churning out degree holders that conform when we need people who can change, adapt, and innovate, in a fickle world, with unstable economies.
The traditional business models that guaranteed us income for so long are becoming obsolete. We need to investigate and adopt new business models similar to what technology-first organizations like Google, eBay, and Amazon rolled out to great financial success.
In 2017, IBM made news when their vice-president of talent, Joanna Daley, stated that 15 percent of their hires don’t have a four-year degree. Instead, they look for candidates with hands-on experience through book camps and vocational classes. Apple and Google followed suit while introducing certification courses primed for the skills they needed. This may primarily affect technology companies in the short term but it is a sign of things to come as technology companies compete and take over markets from traditional brick and mortar companies.
The quest should be in developing 21st-century skills in learning. To this end, the Partnership for 21st Century Learning or P21 was founded. It is a non-profit comprising some of the world’s largest technology companies and several US government departments. They developed the P21 framework, essential for learning institutions and individuals.
The P21 framework holds the ‘4Cs‘; a category of skills comprising Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, and Creativity. Skills we traditionally don’t gain in school yet so essential to operate in a brave new world.
Measuring your Success
How well then, do you measure against these skills? Are you able to work with one or more people to successfully complete a task? Are you able to combine verbal, non-verbal, and written forms of communication to share a message concisely? Are you able to analyze facts and form a sound judgment? Are you able to collect evidence, examine reasoning and assumptions, and analyze basic concepts? And do all these in a transparent, rational, open-minded, and informed way? Finally, are you able to create something new and valued?
If answers to these questions are in the affirmative, you are on the right track with the 4Cs. If not, the number of degrees you have is a smokescreen. An investment in yourself means increasing your ability to take and hold information and use it to bring about results and cause impact. To do this, your reading and listening capabilities have to increase. Jim Kwik says, “If knowledge is power, learning is your superpower.”
Take a Risk, Leave your comfort
Now more than before, we need people who take risks in themselves to discover who they were meant to be. This opens us to discover multiple streams of income.
The Johari window has four window panes. Two of them are very compelling.
The first one, your blind spot, is things unknown to you but evident to the people around you. Meaning to know yourself, you have to get feedback. That is not a very comfortable thing to do, but if you make it a habit, you become a better person.
The second window, the unknown or mystery self, is a portion that neither you nor anyone else knows. To get there, you must grow, you must learn, you must discover. This mystery self is usually discovered at the abyss’ edge where the pain is a constant companion filled with life-altering situations. This requires a growth mindset that embraces change and picks habits that stretch you beyond your current self.
Finally, become comfortable with failure.
In everything new, start small from the point of interest and passion. Fail fast, and learn fast. Don’t repeat the same mistakes, and don’t fail because you didn’t prepare adequately. Be disciplined, focused, and humble. This should be the most significant investment you make in your lifetime.
