In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk.

Kiyosaki contrasts conventional schooling—where errors are treated as failures—with experiential learning, where trial, error, and correction are the mechanism of growth. By invoking the universal example of learning to walk, he argues that mistakes are not aberrations but essential feedback loops that build competence. The quote also reflects his broader critique of risk-avoidance and credential-focused education, especially in money and entrepreneurship: people who fear being “wrong” may avoid experimenting, investing, or starting ventures, and thus miss the learning that comes from setbacks. The underlying claim is that resilience and iterative practice, not perfection, are the foundations of mastery.