[Financial Education for Kids | Part 4] Is a Ramen Shop an Employee? Self-Employed? Business Owner? Investor? — 'Another Way to Choose a Career' That Schools Don't Teach

In the previous article, we discussed the idea of 'having money work for you,' starting from the question, 'If you had 100 million yen, would you still need to work?'

・Working yourself.
・Having people or systems work for you.
・Having money itself work for you.

In this world, there are ways to generate money other than 'working at a company and receiving a salary.'
To delve deeper into that, let's think about it through a quiz.

A 4-choice quiz right away. How do you receive money: Which one is a ramen shop?

...
...
...

The answer is,

All of them.

You might think, 'Wait, all of them, even though it's a ramen shop?'
But even in the same world of ramen, it is completely different depending on 'how you earn money.'

There are four ways of life even for the same ramen shop

1. E (Employee)

Getting a job at a popular ramen shop and working while receiving a salary. This is E (Employee).

I think being an E when you are young is a very good choice. You get taught how to make ramen, how to serve customers, and how to run a shop, and on top of that, you even get paid. Depending on how you look at it, it is 'a school you can attend while getting paid.'

2. S (Self-employed)

If you gain experience there and decide,
'Alright. I'll open my own ramen shop!'
and go independent, then you are S (Self-employed).

You make the soup yourself, and you make the ramen yourself. If it goes well, you might earn more than when you were an employee. But if you take a month off, the shop also closes. Your revenue stops.

3. B (Business Owner)

Then, what if you train a shop manager and staff so that ramen sells even when you aren't at the shop?
If you open a second shop, a third shop, and people or systems work instead of you, that is the world of B (Business Owner).

4. I (Investor)

Furthermore, there is a way to own shares in a ramen company without making a single bowl of ramen yourself.
If the company grows, you may be able to receive the benefits as a shareholder.
This isI (Investor).

In other words,

E = Working at a ramen shop
S = Running your own ramen shop
B = Creating a ramen shop that runs without you
I = Investing in ramen companies, etc.

Even with the same ramen, it's so different.

This is the concept of the 'Cashflow Quadrant' introduced by Robert Kiyosaki, famous for 'Rich Dad Poor Dad'.

So, which quadrant do you want to be in?

I'd like to ask you here.

E, doing a job you like at a company?
S, earning with your own skills?
B, building a company or service?
I, having money work for you?

Actually, you don't have to choose just one.
But before that, there is one more thing I want you to think about.

What if you are asked, 'What do you want to be in the future?'

If asked, 'What do you want to be in the future?',
what kind of things would a child think about?

A doctor? A teacher? A civil servant? An office worker?

I think they would first consider the 'job title'.

If they are an office worker,

'What industry do you want to enter?'
'What kind of company do you want to work for?'

They would think about the 'industry' or 'company characteristics'.

And the adults asking those questions
are likely expecting those kinds of answers, aren't they?

Of course, that is also important.
But there is something I want you to realize here.

Whether it's a doctor employed by a hospital, a teacher employed by a school, or an office worker employed by a company, the content of their work is completely different, but in terms of working for a salary, they are in the exact same category and are basically the same E.

In other words,

even if you think hard about 'what kind of work to do,' you might not have chosen anything regarding 'how to earn money.'

In short, you are only thinking about the job type or industry, and not thinking about the quadrant. I think this is quite important.

Why don't schools teach much about ways of living other than E?

So, why aren't we asked at school, 'Where do you want to live in the future: E, S, B, or I?'

One reason is that many school teachers also work as E in their main jobs. Of course, this is not to say that teachers are bad. However, running a business yourself, starting a company, earning income from a system, or earning income from investments—these things are hard to teach concretely unless you have actually experienced them.

It is the same as how it is difficult to learn how to become a professional baseball player from someone who has never played baseball. That is why I believe that
listening to stories from people who have actually experienced the world you want to go to
is also an important part of learning.

The reason I want to talk to children about E, S, B, and I is that I have actually experienced these four things myself. I want to hand them 'another map' that is rarely taught in school.

There are actually two questions when choosing a job

That is why I want children to think about two things when choosing a job.

The first is,

It could be medicine, games, cooking, or education. First, I want you to choose a world that you truly want to be a part of.

And the second is,

For example, even as a doctor, if you work at a hospital, you are an E. If you open your own clinic and see patients, you are an S. If you create a medical corporation that can operate without you, you get closer to being a B. And if you invest the money you earn there, you can also become an I.

In other words, 'what kind of work you do' and 'how you earn money' are separate matters.

You don't have to live in just one quadrant

This does not mean that you cannot become wealthy because you are an E. Even as an office worker, you can earn a high income, and you can build assets to achieve financial freedom. However, if you rely solely on an E salary for your whole life, your dependence on your own labor will increase.

So,

you can be an E+I who invests while working as an employee.
You can be an E+S who works as an employee while doing a side job as a YouTuber.
You can be an S+I who earns living expenses from investment returns and only works at a job they love three days a week.
You can be a B+I who invests while running a company.

Of course, you can span all of E+S+B+I.
(By the way, I currently have income from all quadrants.)

You can also change your path throughout your life.
In your 20s, learn to work hard as an E. In your 30s, become independent as an S. Once your work grows, build a B system, and keep growing your I all the while.

Of course, you can stay an E forever.
What is important is knowing that
'I can choose this way of living too.'

At 18, you start directly from 'I'

This leads back to the 1 million yen story from Part 1.
The 1 million yen I give to children at 18 will be invested in a global stock index fund.

In other words, by the time you turn 18,
'I = Investor'
you will have a small seed.

The seed of I is a gift from your parents.
So when you are young, you can gain plenty of experience in the worlds of E and S. If you ever come up with an interesting idea, you can try B.
All the while, the 1 million yen seed you planted at 18 will keep working for you for decades.

I think that is a good way to do it.

What combination do you want to live with?

Finally, here is this session's assignment.

Getting a salary from a company?
Earning with your own skills?
Owning a small business?
Having the 1 million yen you invested at 18 grow?

You can have it all.
There is no right answer.

Don't just imagine 'what job to do,' but also 'what form of income you want to live with.'
Just doing that will change how you see work quite a bit.

Freedom is not about not working.

What kind of work will you do?
What kind of work style will you have?
How much will you work?
Being able to choose that for yourself is freedom.

Now then.

Next time,

Is someone with an annual income of 10 million yen rich?
We will think about this.

Even with an annual income of 10 million yen, some people struggle with money. Conversely, there are people who live freely even without such a high income.
Why does such a difference arise?

Next time, we will think about the reason why 'earning a lot' does not equal 'being rich'.