Last week I was on a cruise ship sailing around the Caribbean with some really amazing people.
Believe it or not it wasn’t vacation. I was speaking at an investment conference.
At first glance it seems pretty lame to hold an investment conference on a cruise ship that’s sailing around the Caribbean… but it’s actually a spectacular venue.
While the rest of the passengers are drinking themselves into a stupor and participating in the daily ‘hairiest chest’ competitions, the rest of us are feeding our minds.
This was the fifth year in a row that I’ve been a keynote speaker at the event, and it’s one of the favorite things I do all year.
Not because I particularly love speaking at conferences. I don’t. I’m more of a do-er than a talker.
But… one of the big attraceach year out of the 200 or so attendees, the organizers (my friends Russ and Robert at Real Estate Guys Radio, btw) have a pretty big group of “under-25s”.
And for the past two years, Robert Kiyosaki and I have had a closed-door session with these young adults to talk about entrepreneurship.
It’s a tremendous privilege for me. Robert’s a great guy, and I’m fortunate to have become close with him over the last half-decade or so.
And tag-teaming an entrepreneurship mini-camp with him is as wonderful as it sounds.
This year our remarks covered a LOT of ground.
If you know Robert’s EBSI chart (Employee | Business Owner | Self-Employed | Investor), I spent some time talking about my experiences in each of the quadrants.
[If you’ve never seen this before, look it up. Or better, read Robert’s book Cashflow Quadrant.]
I told the audience that I am simultaneously in all four quadrants.
Given that I sit on the Boards of nine different companies and charitable organizations, including one publicly traded company on the ASX, I’m essentially an employee. The dreaded “E” quadrant.
At the same time I’m also in the “S” column, which is also code for ‘small business’. My bank, for example, is still in its early growth phase, so I take an active role in all of its various operations.
I’m also in the B and I column, having started and acquired entire businesses… some of them quite large.
The agriculture company I founded in Chile has more than $100 million in assets and 500 employees, with a full C-suite of executives who run the day-to-day operations.
And then there are the dozens of VC and private equity deals I’ve invested in.
So- E, S, B, and I… all simultaneously. And to be honest, there are advantages and disadvantages to each.
The “E” quadrant (Employment) is the most maligned.
I wish I could count the number of times I hear- especially from young people- how they don’t want to have a job. They’re not going to work to make someone else rich. They ‘owe it to themselves’ to start a business.
What a misguided perspective.
Having a job can be absolutely wonderful. As long as you have the right job, and the right boss.
Think about it. People spend tens of thousands of dollars on their education all for a useless piece of paper churned out en masse by a university printing press that confers neither skills nor real education.
Or — instead- you could work for someone who’s REALLY smart and talented, and learn tangible skills and gain valuable experience from them while getting PAID to do so.
How is that possibly a bad deal?
Yet employment seems to be the most vile activity imaginable. Everyone wants to jump straight to the B or I quadrant, i.e. starting a business or buying some cash-flow rental home.
B&I can be great. But they’re also great ways to lose tons of time and money if you don’t have the prerequisite skills.
That’s the funny thing about business and investing. Everyone thinks they can do it.
No one assumes they know how to land an airplane or assemble a Swiss clock. Of course not. Those activities take years of specialized training, practice, and mentorship.
But business and investing? Apparently everyone is born an expert.
Obviously this is total bullshit. They both take a serious amount of hard work and education… education that can be made a LOT easier if you check your thinking and start viewing employment as a gateway to serious, debt-free skill building.
If you currently have a job and feel like you’re wasting your time, that’s not a condemnation on the entire institution of employment.
Rather, you might just be in the wrong position, at the wrong company, working for the wrong people.
Or perhaps → you ← haven’t been proactive enough in voicing your desire to grow.
How many times have you gone to your boss and said, “Here’s the direction I’d like to grow… here are the skills I’d really like to learn, and here are my suggestions for additional tasks and responsibilities that could get me there-”
It would be a pretty cold, heartless human being who would outright reject an energetic young worker who brings a genuine desire to grow AND a plan to achieve those goals.
If they do, it’s clearly time to find another job… and to make the next decision based on who can teach you the most… not who is going to put the most paper currency in your pocket.