Second Chance. Robert T. Kiyosaki

tells the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who is bored with the daily squabbles over food. Seized by a passion for flight, he pushes himself, learning everything he can about flying, until finally his unwillingness to conform results in his expulsion from his flock. An outcast, he continues to learn, becoming increasingly pleased with his abilities as he leads a peaceful and happy life.

       One day, Jonathan is met by two gulls who take him to a ‘higher plane of existence’ in that there is no heaven but a better world found through perfection of knowledge, where he meets other gulls who love to fly. He discovers that his sheer tenacity and desire to learn makes him ‘pretty well a one-in-a-million bird.’ In this new place, Jonathan befriends the wisest gull, Chiang, who takes him beyond his previous learning, teaching him how to move instantaneously to anywhere else in the Universe. The secret, Chiang says, is to ‘begin by knowing that you have already arrived.’ Not satisfied with his new life, Jonathan returns to Earth to find others like him, to bring them his learning and to spread his love for flight. His mission is successful, gathering around him others who have been outlawed for not conforming. Ultimately, the very first of his students, Fletcher Lynd Seagull, becomes a teacher in his own right and Jonathan leaves to teach other flocks.”

      Leaps of Faith

      One important lesson I got from Jonathan Livingston Seagull is that sometimes a person needs to let go and let the currents of life carry them to where they are supposed to go.

      From the summer of 1983 to end of 1984, I began preparing to let go and let the currents of life take me.

      That process began with informing my two partners in my rock and roll business that I was “letting go” and moving on. When they asked where I was going, I mumbled something about letting the currents of life carry me. When that went over their heads, I simply said, “I’m taking a leap of faith into the unknown” and, in October of 1983, we began the buy-out process that would transition me out of the business.

      In January of 1984, as I was tying up loose ends in Hawaii, New York, Taiwan, and Korea, I met the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her name was Kim and she wanted nothing to do with me. For the next six months, I kept asking her out and for six months her answer was always the same: “No.”

      Finally, she agreed to go out. We spent dinner and a long walk on Waikiki Beach together, talking until the sun came up. From late that night until early the next morning I talked about Bucky Fuller and the possibility of a life’s purpose, a person’s spiritual job. She was the first woman I had ever met who was interested in these subjects.

      Over the next few months, we saw each other regularly. She was part of my “letting go” process. She was with me when I said a tearful good-bye to my partners and the workers in the Honolulu factory. Kim and I knew we, too, would soon be saying good-bye. She had her career in advertising in Honolulu and I was leaping into nothing. One day, as the day of reckoning approached, Kim said, “I want to go with you.” In December of 1984, Kim and I held hands and took our leap of faith into the unknown. Without a doubt, 1985 was the worst year of our lives. Little did we know that, unfortunately, there would be years ahead that would make 1985 look easy by comparison.

      We wish we could say it has all been easy, all peaches and cream. But it’s been hell. Even today, in 2014, although financially and professionally “successful” we still have to deal with life in the real world, a world of greed, lies, dishonesty, legal hassles, and crime.

      In spite of the hardships and heartbreak, the journey has been very much like the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull described. It has been a process to test our spirit and our dedication to our process… to see if we would quit when the going got too tough.

      The great news is that we have met many great people, different types of people we might never have met if Kim had remained with the ad agency and I had remained in manufacturing.

      Wikipedia best describes the people we meet and befriend along the way, in its summary of Part 2 of Jonathan Livingston Seagull:

       “Jonathan transcends into a society where all the gulls enjoy flying. He is only capable of this after practicing hard alone for a long time. The learning process, linking the highly experienced teacher and the diligent student, is raised into almost sacred levels. They, regardless of the all-immense difference, are sharing something of great importance that can bind them together:

       ‘You’ve got to understand that a seagull is an unlimited idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull.’ He realizes that you have to be true to yourself: ‘You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way.’”

      There were many times in 1985 when Kim and I had no place to live and no money to eat. We survived by living in an old, brown Toyota and in a friend’s basement. As I said, our faith was being tested.

      In the fall of 1985, the stream of life carried us to Australia where we found people who loved what we were teaching. We were using games to teach socially responsible entrepreneurship and investing. By December of 1985, we actually made a small profit on a seminar we held in Sydney—and that is one of the reasons why Kim and I love Australia and will always be grateful to the people of Australia. We had let go and the current of life carried us to Australia and Australians gave us the chance to develop as teachers.

      Change of Friends

      One day in 1986, out of the blue, I received a call from John Denver’s Windstar Foundation. John was hosting an event in Aspen, Colorado and wanted to know if I would be one of the guest speakers, along with several other entrepreneurs including Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, founders of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Of course I said “Yes.”

      Being in a large tent on John’s property in Aspen was much like being in Bucky’s dome in Montreal. The feeling of magic, wonder, and possibilities was the same. For some reason, I did not speak on my rock and roll business. It didn’t seem to fit. For some reason—and totally unprepared—I spoke on education and learning. I spoke about the pain I went through in school, about knowing what I wanted to study but being forced to study subjects I had no interest in. I spoke about the emotional pain I went through in failing high school English twice, because I could not write well. I spoke for the kids like me, kids who wanted to learn but didn’t like school. I spoke about how so many children have their spirits crushed in the traditional process of learning. At the end of my talk, I asked everyone in the group to close their eyes, join hands, and listen to Whitney Houston’s latest release, The Greatest Love of All. The opening line of the song fit the mood and the message:

       “I believe the children are our future…”

      There weren’t many dry eyes in the audience as I left the stage in silence. The audience, this group of “seagulls,” were hugging each other, some crying, much as I had cried that day in 1981 when I was in the audience that first time with Bucky Fuller. The tears were of love, not sadness. They were tears of responsibility, not blame. They were tears of gratitude… gratitude for the gift of life. And they were tears of courage, knowing that changing the world requires courage, courage that comes from the heart. Many in this group of “seagulls” already knew that the word courage comes from the French word, “le coeur,” the heart. Windstar was a gathering of gulls, most of whom already knew how to fly. They knew flying took courage.

      Kim was waiting for me as I stepped down from the stage and we hugged silently. We knew we had found our spiritual profession, our spiritual job and our life’s purpose. We knew then that we’d found what was to become, and still is, our life’s work.

      Ironically being a teacher was the not on my list of answers to the question “What do want to be when you grow up?” Being an attorney was “a higher calling” than being a teacher. It is not that I hated school. I hated being forced to learn what I did not want to learn. I hated not learning what I wanted to learn, which was to understand money and be financially free like my rich dad. I did not want to be a slave to a paycheck, job security, and a schoolteacher’s pension, like my poor dad.

      The Business Booms

      Once