There’s got to be a difference between the type of person who strike it rich and the average Joe, but what is it, really? This question is an important one, and it should be given the thought it deserves. There are plenty of easy, oversimplified responses, including, “Their family is rich,” “They won the lottery,” or “They have great careers.” But these factors can’t always be controlled by the individual experiencing them– is wealth really dictated by the luck of the draw?

The truth is that not all of these lucky people can be truly considered to be rich. It is the belief of “Rich Dad” author Robert Kiyosaki that the true measure or wealth isn’t really the amount of money you take in, but how much you manage to keep.

Kiyosaki’s father, the titular “Poor Dad,” was no bum; his work earned him more than enough to live on. The problem was, however, that none of his money was left at the end of each quarter

The good news for you, is that becoming rich has less to do with external factors like your job or whether you were born a Rockefeller, which you can’t control, and more to do with internal factors which you can.

That’s right, folks– becoming rich has more to do with how you think than who you are and what you’ve got.

Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad” used a graph entitled the Cash Flow Quadrant to explain this principle, separating people into four groups. ‘E’s and ‘S’s, or employees and those who are self-employed, occupy one half of the graph. ‘B’s and ‘I’s, or businesspeople and investors were on the other. Robert Kiyosaki claimed that, in addition to representing the source of a person’s cash flow, these categories served as a window into how different type of people think about money.

Are you beginning to see? The people in the four quadrants are not there by chance; they are there because they experience life in fundamentally different ways.

“The four people in the four quadrants are four totally different people,” Kiyosaki says in his book “Cash Flow Quadrant.” “The four people found in the four different quadrants are different mentally as well as emotionally.”

What’s more, Kiyosaki says, it is that emotional difference that determines to which quadrant a person is drawn. And, he says, you can always tell which quadrant a person is coming from simply by listening to what they say. If you hear a person talking primarily about their benefits and job security, then that person is coming from Kiyosaki’s E or employee quadrant. He also goes on to say that it is perfectly all right to live your life in the E quadrant if security is indeed the most important thing to you. But, he adds, the E quadrant is the most difficult quadrant from which to become rich.

Though the revelation that wealth simply depends on your attitude and personality may initially seem rather intimidating, you should take it as encouragement. Even if you don’t see yourself as a lucky person right now, rest assured that you can, if you have the drive, become wealthy.

Real estate is a great place to start for prospective investors; it’s what made “Rich Dad” rich in the first place! In order to become a real estate investor and start building your fortune, all you have to do is make a decision to stop working for a paycheck, and put your paycheck to work for you.