I recently started reading a book titled “Why “A” Students Work for “C” Students and “B” Students Work for the Government,” written by business author Robert Kiyosaki.

Essentially, Kiyosaki explains that in today’s world we are raised in school as one of three kinds of people: “A” students, people who focus on and excel in academics, “B” students, also known as bureaucrats, or “C” students, who are capitalists.

“A” students are those who excel at all fields in school, which is the reason why when they get out into the real world they will not succeed in a focused field. They can’t focus their attention on one thing. When “B” students get into the real world, they end up with jobs where they get paid no matter if they fail or succeed, just as their grades in school reflect that they sometimes did well and sometimes didn’t but were still rewarded.

Then there are “C” students, the ones who end up being the entrepreneurs and the business owners, because throughout their school career they did whatever they wanted to do.

So why is there such hatred these days toward capitalism and entrepreneurship? Is it because most of our parents failed at Amway Global and Mary Kay, or is it because we’ve lost what this country was founded on, the true American dream?
What is the “American dream” these days? Go to high school to get good grades, go to college to get good grades, make a resume, then beg someone to hire you, work for forty years of your life, maybe retire before 60, then go to Europe once with your spouse, and die?

When we were growing up, how many of us were asked what kind of employee we wanted to be? I think that’s where so many people turn away from capitalism. Sure, it’s about money. Sure, it would be nice to see seven figures in your bank account. But I think what people are missing is the desire to dream.

A dream is something that you create in your mind and attempt to go after. Most people excel at that, but what separates that 97 percent of the world from the other three percent is the fact that the three percent, or the capitalists, create that dream in their head, but instead of just staring at the picture of that plane ticket, they take that dream from scratch and nurture it as it grows.

There are ups and downs, but what makes that dream happen is never deserting it. Because if you do, you fail, and when that happens these days, you will die with regrets.

Capitalists are the people who put in more sweat equity than the others, who had more drive than the others, and who wanted it more than the remaining 97 percent of the world. They realized that the majority of the people that have been successful in the past two decades have been their own bosses. Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerburg, Bill Gates all dropped out a pursued their dream even when they thought they were crazy. So be the three percent, get your degree, but don’t forget how to dream, and don’t ever quit.

braber@mavs.coloradomesa.edu