Robert joins Xerox to learn sales

Robert’s move to Xerox is a purposeful break from conventional career security: after returning from Vietnam in 1973, he sought the company’s sales training to overcome his fear of selling. The four years he spent there taught him to knock on doors, withstand rejection, and rise consistently among the company’s top five salespeople, after which he resigned again and moved on.

From Military Service to Sales

After serving in Vietnam, Robert resigned his commission in 1973, despite loving flying. His next choice was Xerox, and he joined for one reason: its sales-training program, which he regarded as among the best in America. The decision was not about benefits. Selling—and especially facing the possibility of rejection—was the subject he found most frightening.

That choice followed a broader pattern of learning through varied experience. Rich Dad had encouraged Robert to know a little about many areas rather than confining himself to one specialty. Robert had worked across company departments and roles, and had studied international trade while traveling through Asian and Pacific countries. At Xerox, the challenge was narrower but personally direct: to acquire a skill he feared by practicing it in a setting equipped to teach it.

Learning Through Rejection

Robert worked at Xerox for four years. During that time he overcame his fear of knocking on doors and being rejected, eventually placing consistently among the company’s top five salespeople. The account presents that ranking not merely as a sales result but as evidence that he had mastered the difficulty that brought him there.

The episode embodies Rich Dad’s distinction between seeking security and seeking learning. Robert’s educated father was ashamed of his son’s choice, regarding salespeople as beneath him; Rich Dad was proud. Their opposing responses make the career choice part of a larger contrast between status-conscious employment and deliberate skill-building. Robert’s success at Xerox did not settle him into a secure career: once he could sell effectively, he resigned from another excellent company and moved on.

What the Xerox Experience Led To

Robert’s departure from Xerox preceded his first company, which he formed in 1977. Its first product, a nylon-and-velcro wallet, was manufactured in the Far East and shipped to a warehouse in New York. The transition from employee to founder extended the education Rich Dad had encouraged: Robert had learned sales at Xerox, but now had to learn how to form and assemble a company.

Seen alongside his later choices, the Xerox period establishes a recurring method rather than a single career destination. Robert describes leaving a high-paying Standard Oil job for broader learning, joining the Marine Corps to learn leadership, and then choosing Xerox to learn sales. In each case, immediate benefits or established status gave way to a skill he considered necessary for what came next. The Xerox job mattered because it converted a private fear into practical competence—and because Robert left once that lesson had served its purpose.