What Schools Will Never Teach You About Money By Robert T. Kiyosaki

Cash Flow
The cash flow of a business is often managed by a CFO, chief 
financial officer, an accountant or a bookkeeper. Cash flow is just 
above mission and is often called “the bottom line.”
If the leader has done a great job, there should be plenty of cash 
flow for salaries, profits, dividends, and capital to keep the business 
going forward.
If the leader has done a bad job, there are cash shortages, cutbacks, 
layoffs, and diminishing working capital.
Communications
Communications is positioned just above the cash-flow section of 
the B-I Triangle because communications, both internal and external, 
directly impacts cash flow—both positively and negatively.
There are external communications to customers, often called 
PR (public relations), marketing, advertising, and sales. There are 
internal communications to employees, suppliers, management, 
and shareholders. Organizations with poor internal and external 
communications suffer in all eight integrities, especially the bottom line.
Looking at the B-I Triangle, you will see the outer integrities: 
mission, team, and leadership. This is what military schools teach.
One reason I do well as an entrepreneur, even though I did not 
go to a traditional business school, is because of my military school 
training. The first day at the Merchant Marine Academy, we had to 
memorize the mission of the school. The next day we began learning 
to become leaders and to operate as teams.
Today, I hire graduates of traditional business, accounting and 
law schools, specialists who are much smarter and better trained in 
business than I am.
Military school gave me an unfair advantage over graduates of 
traditional schools in the world of entrepreneurship. In the corporate 
world, business-school graduates have an unfair advantage over 
me. That is fine with me because I have never wanted to live in the 
corporate world.
This is why GEO puts such an emphasis on mission, team and 
leadership. If you are a strong leader, you can hire people smarter and 
better trained than you are.
LE
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MISSION
Cash Flow
Communications
Systems
Legal
Product
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MISSION
Cash Flow
Communications
Systems
Legal
Product

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Bonus FAQs
Unfair Advantage
249
248
Legal
Contracts, agreements, and knowledge of the laws are essential
to business success.
Legal agreements create and define assets. For example, when
I write a book, the legal contracts turn the book into an asset, a piece 
of intellectual property. Without legal agreements, it would be nearly 
impossible to do business on a global scale. 
Real estate is a mass of legal agreements. The same is true for 
trading stocks and raising capital. Without legal agreements and 
respect for the law, there would be chaos. 
Your relationships and agreements with the employees of your 
business or the tenants in your rental units are also defined by
legal contracts. 
Many entrepreneurs build a great business and wind up turning over 
their hard-earned money to an attorney because of stupid mistakes the 
entrepreneur did not know he or she had made.
Legal is an important component of any entrepreneurial venture. It 
is near the top of the B-I Triangle to remind you to have sound processes 
and systems in place for agreements—and a good attorney to guide you.
Product
The least important integrity is product. This does not mean 
products aren’t important or should not be of the highest quality. 
Products are important from the consumer’s point of view. The 
business that delivers the product is important to the entrepreneur
and investors in the business.
I believe everyone has a million-dollar idea or product. The
problem is that they lack the entrepreneurial skills and talents to turn 
their idea into a million-dollar business.
From the B/I perspective, the business is far more important than 
the product. The product is just a product. The business is the asset. 
Sales are included in communications. Sales equal income. One 
reason why so many new entrepreneurs fail is because they cannot sell 
enough to cover the costs of running a business and the cost of their 
personal living expenses. 
In 1973, when I returned from Vietnam, my rich dad told me to 
start looking for someone to train me to sell. That is why I went to 
work for Xerox for four years, before starting my first business.
The most important skill of an entrepreneur is the ability to raise 
capital. If an entrepreneur cannot sell, the business will die. And the 
primary reason most businesses fail to get off the ground is because the 
entrepreneur cannot raise capital.
Systems
A business is a system of systems, just as a car or the human body is
a system of systems. 
A car has a fuel system, ignition system, brake system, hydraulic 
system, steering system, and many other systems. If one system goes
out, the car struggles to function or stops running completely. 
The human body has the circulatory system, respiratory system, 
digestive system, skeletal system, nervous system and more. Like a
car, if one system is weak or out of order, the entire body suffers or
stops functioning.
A business is the same as a car or a body. It is a system of systems, 
including phone systems, web systems, accounting systems, marketing 
systems, legal systems, production systems, and distribution systems. 
Like a car or a body, if one of the systems is out or damaged, the business 
falters or dies.
For example, let’s say the business is strong, but accounting systems 
and processes are weak. It will not be long before the business suffers due 
to shoddy record keeping, poor reporting, unpaid (or overpaid) taxes, and 
ultimately, a lack of cash flow.

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Bonus FAQs
Unfair Advantage
251
250
Studies show that many entrepreneurs earn less than their employees 
when you compare the gross dollars earned and the number of hours 
put into the business.