From a young age, I have always been told to get good grades, get a good job, your home is an asset, save for retirement, find a financial planner, diversify and debt is bad. This advice had always made sense because everyone I talked to said the same thing. We are all taught the same formula for investing and at times it is difficult for most of us to be disciplined enough to stay on track with all of this advice. It was not until I read Robert Kiyosaki’s book Rich Dad Poor Dad that I began to look at investing from a completely different perspective. This formula is great if you want to invest like the majority of investors. The question is, can you become wealthy with this advice? I would say it is possible, but it is more difficult if you follow the pack of the majority.

• Good Grades – Good grades are necessary in order to be accepted into the best schools. Getting into the best schools may open doors that are not available for the Average Joe. This can come at a price. School teaches our children that less than perfect is a negative characteristic. If getting good grades comes easy for the individual, they may not learn how to apply themselves. When they face difficult problems out of school they may not know how to handle being less than perfect. Even though many doctors and lawyers earn a high income, many of them still struggle with finances because they consume too much. Some consume too much simply to maintain a certain "status" in their community or they do not know how to control their impulses. They may have a very high IQ but they may not have mastered their emotional intelligence.

• Good Job – Everyone needs a good job to gain life’s experiences and if you are lucky, excess cash to invest. The problem with a job is you are working for a paycheck. What happens if you lose your job or heaven forbid you get sick and cannot work and the money goes away with the job? Rather than working for money, we need to find a way for money to work for us. I know that is easier said than done.

• Home Asset? - We hear all the time that our home is an asset. The simplest way to explain the difference between an asset and liability is that an asset puts money in your pocket and a liability takes money out. If your expenses such as mortgage, property tax, and maintenance exceed the revenue you generate from your house, then your house is a liability. Actually, your house is an asset for your mortgage lender.

• Saving for Retirement – Saving money is always better than consuming material possessions. The problem with saving money in a savings account is that it is possible that you will lose money everyday that it sets in your account. If inflation is higher than the interest that you earn by putting your money in savings, you will be able to buy less with your money the day you withdraw it from your savings account as compared to the day you put the money in your account.

• Financial Planners – There are good Financial Planners that can make your money work for you. The problem is you will not know if you chose a good planner until you are ready to withdraw your money or retire. Most investors use Financial Planners because they do not take the time to learn how to invest their money or because they are too busy working for a paycheck. If you choose to use a Financial Planner, only use a planner that puts their money where their mouth is. If a planner does not invest their money into the investments that they recommend for you, then you probably have the wrong Financial Planner. I made the decision to take ownership of my investments. I do not intend on failing at investing because I intend on learning from my mistakes.

• Diversify – Investors that diversify try to limit their risk or lessen their losses. Warren Buffett sums it up perfectly "Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing."

• Debt – I thought that all debt was bad. There is a difference between bad debt and good debt. Bad debt is the debt that you pay for and good debt is debt that someone else is paying for. For example, if you obtain a loan to buy a house and you live in the house, the debt is bad because you are paying the loan out of your account. If you rent the house to a tenant, then your tenant is paying the debt.

I have just begun my journey to financial freedom. I am working on reading, learning and building my experience on investing. I am focusing on increasing my passive income so that I will not have to work for a paycheck. Although there are many vehicles to achieve financial freedom, I am going to focus on rental properties and rental houses.