What Does it Take to Succeed as an Employee, Self-employed, Entrepreneur or Investor?

Dear Friends,

As I write to you about cash flow quadrant as explained by Robert Kiyosaki is taken from a book originally published by him in 2015 by Plata Publishing. While he explains that left side of the quadrant is comprising of Employee and Self Employed, right side of the quadrant is occupied by Business Owners and Investors.

E = Employee

S = Self- Employed (Also referred to as Smart)

B = Business Owner

I = Investor

The left side of the people are comparatively less wealthy compared to right side of the quadrant. Employees typically trade their time for money and get wages and salaries by working for others or business owners. Self Employed people are usually smart and they believe they are the best when it comes to doing whatever is needed to be done, hence are referred to as smart by Robert.

Right side of the quadrant is housed by business owners, defined to as people having 500 or more employees and investors having a sizable portfolio, where the income of theirs coming from investments, rather than they actually having to actively involve themselves to earn the same.

Now, let us understand. Everyone cannot be on the right side of the quadrant. It is like expecting fishes to fly and eagles to swim. Wealth generation is possible in all the four quadrants. However, it is essential for a person to identify the characteristics with each of the profession of the quadrants. Successful employees who generated tremendous wealth are CEOs of fortune 500 companies. Many athletes, sports stars, movie actors and famous doctors are in the “S” category who have generated immense wealth – but are all of them able to manage their wealth effectively?

Of course, you have internet full of examples of people like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch, and others who have become wealthiest people on this planet on the right side of the quadrant. And you would observe that most of these business owners or business investors are in complete control of their finances which enables them to multiple their wealth!

However, the fundamental question here is that:

Who do YOU identify yourself with?

ü Are your traits that of an ideal Employee?

ü Are YOU smart enough to do all the activities needed to carry out your profession by yourself?

ü Do you have the demeanor to get work done from people smarter than YOU?

ü Are you a strategy and number experts who can identify right investment opportunities which can generate a return higher than market expectations?

The idea of becoming rich and generating wealth becomes way clearer when you are able to identify yourself with one of the four roles within the quadrant. Each role has a different route to the same destination.

For every employee, upskilling and climbing the corporate ladder is the way forward to becoming wealthy by taking up a leadership role. For every self-employed, it is becoming the best at what s/he specializes in doing. For every business owner, it is about making best use of other people’s time and money. And for every investor, it is identifying right set of investment opportunities to generate a higher than market return on investment.

And one thing common across each of the quadrants is the importance of learning and mastering business finance! Good financial acumen is one skill that will be required by you to succeed at a fast pace in each of these four quadrants – do YOU agree?

Let me know your thoughts about Cash Flow Quadrant. Would love to read your thoughts in the comments.

Keep Learning, Keep Growing!

CA Vishal Thakkar

Note: I am working aggressively to bring out finance learning products to aid your aspiration of becoming a successful person belonging to either of the four quadrants discussed above! Check out couple of my recent finance learning video series below:

https://contetra.com/web/fffnf-video-series

https://contetra.com/web/putting-cash-flow-first