Developing financial intelligence pays off huge returns. If your mind is trained well, you can create enormous wealth in what in the grand scope of things is an instant.
In contrast, an untrained mind can also create poverty that lasts lifetimes.
Robert Kiyosaki believes financial intelligence is made up of four broad areas of expertise:
Taken together, financial intelligence allows you to construct creative ways to solve financial problems, vet the ones that are more likely to work, then have the technical ability to execute them.
Consider that spending money on financial intelligence is like buying yourself life - you may save on years of working because of making the right decisions.
Great opportunities arise in a changing world. (Shortform note: Put technically, markets are less efficient and less at equilibrium when things rapidly change, like through new technology.)
300 years ago, land was the basis of wealth. Then factories and industry became the new basis for wealth. Today, it’s information. And by its nature, information changes more rapidly than land or manufacturing. So it’s even more important to keep learning and adapting, quickly, as it’s ever been.
(Quote from Charlie Munger: “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none, zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren [Buffett] reads.”)
This doesn’t have to be difficult or intense. Robert Kiyosaki mentions jogging through his neighborhood to spot which houses were listed for sale for longer than others, and making low-ball offers for these houses.