Robert Kiyosaki: The Truth About Money Most People Never Learn

You think Donald Trump pays taxes?

I know him. He's my friend. We don't pay taxes. That's the question. How is it we do that?

Money will never make you rich. It's your experience, how much you've learned, the mistakes you make, the people you make.

The most important thing is change the neural pathways in your brain. And the brain is driven, driven by your heart. And when I meet somebody with an employee's brain, they say, I want job security.

I want a good pension. Do they have medical benefits?

That's their brain. It's them speaking. I can't help them. They got to rewire the brain. So the change begins It begins when you question, go to school, get a job, work hard, pay taxes, save money, get out of debt, and invest in the stock market. Until you question that one, nothing changes.

When you look at the 7 deadly sins, the biggest tragedy is ego. So ego or vainglory is the road straight to hell.

If you're really gonna learn to be rich, you have to learn how to sell, how to use debt, and how not to pay taxes. That's the game.

You have to fail more.

He says you got to step up your failure rate. All you entrepreneurs out there, that cell phone is your lifeline out of this mess. Use it.

If you do not change that talk in your head, you will always be the poor person.

Need motivation?

Watch a top ten with Believe Nation. Top ten. I got a top ten. Got my motivation high for my top ten. Gotta learn from the wise women and men. All my life. Nine nine nine nine nine. From the top ten, top ten, top ten.

Hey, it's Evan Carmichael, and I make these videos because you are probably the most ambitious person in your circle, but you know you're capable of more, and you get that push by surrounding yourself with the best. So today, let's learn from one of the best, Robert Kiyosaki, and my take on his top ten rules for success. Enjoy. Okay, let's kick it off with rule number 1: fail more.

I got a job with Xerox because they had sales training, and then for 2 years I was the worst salesman they ever had. I was gonna get fired from Xerox, and so I went to my rich dad and I said to him, I said, why? What's wrong? He says, how many sales calls do you make a day? I said, on a good day, 3. He says, that's why you're not successful. Same formula. He says, You have to fail more. He says, you got to step up your failure rate. So I found a nonprofit, and at night after working at Xerox, I would go to the phone bank up the street from where I was working in Honolulu.

And I had a goal.

I had to fail 35 times that night. So I just failed 35 times. Now, interesting thing happened. My numbers at Xerox went up. You see, I was handling that fear. I was handling the wimp in me, the coward. And most people don't want to go through the wimp. And that's why I don't really have— I don't have much time for them.

Rule number 2, borrow and buy assets.

Do you know why they tell you to save money?

I don't know.

Because the system of banking, it's nothing to do with communism. or capitalism. It's the banks run the world. The rich run the world. They don't care if you're communist or capitalist. So when you save, so let's say you save $1 US or €1 or ¥1, the banking system can lend out 10. So the entire system is called the fractional reserve system. The fractional reserve system is also printing money. And then they tell you to save money. So they want you to save money so they can lend out your money 10 times. So your dollar became worthless 10 times over.

And then they used to pay you 10% interest on your money.

Now it's at best 1%, and they're still lending it out 10 times. So that's why you don't save money, is because your money is becoming worth less and less and less and less and less. The banks are getting richer and richer and richer. Then they tax you on that interest you— they pay you, that 1% interest, if they pay you that much. Japan is zero. And the The Japanese are so stupid, they still save money.

We also have zero.

Yeah. And they still save money. How stupid is that? So that's what I would question. So how come that happens? Now, if I borrow money, guess what? Do I pay taxes on debt?

I guess no.

Why is that?

I know—

This is what I'm saying, okay? Question everything.

Okay.

So when they lend out money, that's how money is created.

Money is debt.

And they lend out to— why is debt tax-free?

I don't know.

Because that's how money is created. And so the banks love it. They love people who borrow lots of money. So how do I get rich? I borrow money and I buy assets with it. The poor person borrows money and buys liabilities like purses, cars, houses, and they get poorer and poorer and poorer. I use debt. I borrowed $300 million after the crash dollars in 2000. By 2010, I had borrowed $300 million to buy real estate that made me rich. And the interest rates kept coming down so that my cost of money kept coming down. And so everybody else is saying, oh, you should get out of debt. You know why? Because they don't question the hypnosis they're under. You've been hypnotized to work hard for money, to save it. The fractional reserve system prints it. And then you pay taxes after taxes. So I get— I have all this debt and I get rich.

Rule number 3, keep your word.

It's a great time to be an entrepreneur because if you're smart, you have a good spirit and you, you'll learn quickly. See, the greatest, the greatest thing about entrepreneurs, how fast can you learn? You know, when you look at the 7 deadly sins, the biggest tragedy is ego. He said ego or vainglory is the road straight to hell. And so, you got to be— I tell you, I've made mistakes. I tell you, I screwed up. I'm definitely not on the shortlist for saint. But you'd better be honest and people trust you and you better keep your word. You're only as good as your word.

Yeah.

Actions and words must be in integrity.

Rule number 4, rewire your brain.

That's why in 1997 I created the Cashflow— '96, created the Cashflow board game. It's the only game that teaches you accounting by having fun. So the Cashflow game, I play at least 10 times because each time you play, you learn something new. Well, what, what the game is doing, because you have to move, move pieces and write and all this stuff, It's moving your neural pathways. You have to train. You know, the most important thing is change the neural pathways in your brain. And the brain is driven by your heart. And when I meet somebody with an employee's brain, they say, I want job security. I want a good pension.

Does that have medical benefits?

That's their brain. It's them speaking. I can't help them. They got to rewire the brain. Yeah, because the economy takes place between this ear and this ear. That's where the economy takes place, and in your heart and in your guts. I started playing Monopoly. I was 9 years old, and everybody's played Monopoly except I played in real life. You know, 4 green houses, 1 red hotel, tax-free. And if you're really, if you're really going to learn to be rich, you have to learn how to sell How to use debt and how not to pay taxes. That's the game.

Rule number 5, transform.

That's why I said when I saw that iPhone come out, I said, all you millennials or all you entrepreneurs out there, that cell phone is your lifeline out of this mess.

Use it.

So what we're doing today is antifragile. You know, we're wartime leaders and we're going to come out of this better.

I don't know how.

But it's called metamorphosis. You know, metamorphosis is like when a butterfly— I mean, a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. That's metamorphosis. And the definition of metamorphosis, you can look it up in the dictionary, is the transformation from an immature form to an adult form. Immature form to adult form. In other words, grow up. So for some of us, this crisis will grow up. We'll come out of it antifragile. We'll come out stronger. And that's why I've been watching my tweets. I say, you know, the best teachers are on YouTube, not in school. Because most school teachers— and this is what Jordan Peterson is saying. Jordan Peterson is being attacked by his own school teachers because they are pussies. There are all these guys and they tend there, they need job security, they need protection. The world's a terrible place, capitalists are crooks, and all this stuff. And it's a free country. You can listen to those guys if you want, or you can listen to Patrick McDavid. So your thing on the military leader versus the peacetime leader was prescient. It was one of the most important lessons everybody should look at. They have to ask yourself today, Am I going to be a military leader and come out of this antifragile and stronger, better, healthier? Or am I going to be crushed by what Fuller called grunch, the gross universal cashless?

Rule number 6, focus on infinite returns.

I encourage anybody listening to this or any entrepreneur, get to the point where you don't need money. It's called the infinite return. And that's my, my next book coming out next year. Yeah. When you get to the point where you don't need money, you're home free. You'll never need money. You don't care. You could always put a deal together. You can always create an asset out of nothing. You know, it's like, I don't know what else. It's the power of God-given power. So like I said, when I write a book, I'm selling 50 copies, 50 licenses day one.

Hmm.

And let's say I got $10,000 a license. How much is that? 50 times $10,000. Is it $500,000?

50 times $10,000?

Yeah. That'd be $500,000. Yeah. So I'm in, I'm in the black immediately. What does it cost me? Maybe $10,000 to write a book, you know. So I'm in the black. The same thing if I trade a stock. I'll buy a stock at a dollar, it goes up to $10, and I sell. So I have all free trading stock. I have no money in it. That's what Buffett's doing. They're all infinite return guys.

Sure.

You have no money into the deal. And you can do it with anything.

Rule number seven: question things.

Today, if you know people complain, I don't make enough money in Romania. Well, you have a cell phone; you can make money all over the world. You can make money in dollars, yen, flatnik, pesos. You know, it's just limited thinking. If a person doesn't change what's inside their head, the actual thoughts running their brain, which are words, they'll never change. So the change begins when you question go to school, get a job, work hard, pay taxes, save money, get out of debt, and invest in the stock market. Until you, until you question that one, nothing changes.

Rule number 8, use tax breaks.

There's 3 kinds of income. There's ordinary, portfolio, passive. So when you say to some poor kid, go to school, get a job, they're working for ordinary income, the highest tax income. in the world. I don't work ordinary income. I don't want a paycheck. Passive income is generally what happens when you invest in the stock market. I mean portfolio income. So they say, well, I bought Tesla at $100, it went up to $200, I sold it, so I made $100. That's portfolio income. That's taxed at the next higher level. So when I have passive income, It's tax-free. Getting passive income, you have to know what you're doing. So that's why I have the best— first of all, bookkeeper, accountants, attorneys, bankers. I operate as a team, just like my— when we flew into combat, we're a team. And most people are trying to do it self-employed way. You know, I'm a good computer programmer.

Good.

You pay the highest taxes, you work the hardest, you don't get ahead that way.

But that's what most people—

they want to do it on their own. You know, if you want it done right, do it by yourself. And an employee is always saying the same words, you know, this year and this year. I'm looking for a safe, secure job with benefits and a paycheck and a pension. You got that? That's what they're looking for. So if I have a job, I'll help. And a self-employed person says, how are you doing? I'm the best.

Good.

I'll hire the best. But the government's going to penalize you for that because you're working for blended income, where it's more passive income. It's actually ordinary income, but pay the highest taxes. The tax law is nothing but incentives, not punishments. So if you donate— if I just donated money to the food bank because they're out of food. So it's $10,000. I get a tax break. I don't donate money to the food bank, no tax break. So because I have 7,000 rentals in apartment houses, I got a tax break. You know why? Because I'm providing housing. And because I have thousands of employees, the tax break— the government even sent me money to pay my employees.

Rule number 9, consider currency.

What do you recommend people do in a market that is potentially heading into depression? Should they be saving cash and thinking about, you know, becoming more liquid? Like, what are some of the things that they should do?

Well, it depends upon the cash. If you're— if you're in Argentine pesos, yeah, I wouldn't touch it. I'd save gold and silver. So what's, what's his name? Uh, what's his head— Edgewater's Hedgeway? No. Bridgewater's guy, Ray Dalio. Yeah, he says it depends upon the currency you're in.

Sure.

He says, so like Zimbabwe, their debt is financed with external money. Japan is internally financed, so that's why the depression doesn't hurt them as badly. So you have to learn so much about that. So I own millions and millions and millions and millions and millions in gold because I started buying gold in 1973 when it was illegal for Americans gold. And I like gold and silver because there's no counterparty risk. There's no other party to it. Gold and silver are God's money. So people say, well, it's not a good investment. I said, yeah, but I sleep at night. What's that worth?

You know?

Sure.

So I don't care if the dollar— the dollar is corrupt, the US dollar is corrupt, but it's the strongest currency in a horrible currency world. Yeah. So if you're US, save dollars. You're in Argentina, don't save gold.

Right.

Save Bitcoin.

You think Bitcoin would be—

I mean, Bitcoin's got its problems too. But I'm saying I would— so when you say save money, you got to say what currency? Yeah, what currency?

And rule number 10, the last one before some very special bonus clips, is understand the game.

The very guys that went to the schools, the best schools, created these fake assets to make themselves and the 6 major banks Richer than ever before. They produce sugar highs of immediate profits, but separated those taking the risk from those who would bear the consequences. So the way out of it is through financial education. And you can do it. Everybody can do it. But you have to understand the game. After 1971, this is what happens to people who save money. The purchasing power of the dollar is going down because they're printing money. And our school teachers, these fake teachers, again, they're good people, All these financial planners still tell you to save money. Well, why would you save money when these guys are printing it faster than you could ever, ever save it? That's bad teaching, bad financial advice, horrible. So he says, and then the second thing, they tell you to save money and invest for the long term in the stock market. This guy is saying, are you nuts? This is Stockman. He was Reagan's budget director. He's a real teacher. He was there. Is that the whole stock market is rigged for the rich. Again, it's a casino, and a casino is based, depends upon all these losers coming in so those at the top can win. So the losers started coming in right around here, 1974. It was a thing called the 401. They needed more losers to enter the market. And what did the financial What do the financial planners tell you? Save money and invest for the long term in the stock market. They needed people to come in here and push this up. Again, it's a casino like Las Vegas. A lot of losers walk in, winners walk out with the money. That's the game. That again was Glass-Steagall. They organized hedge funds that turn owning a stock into a minute-to-minute bet rather than invest for the long term. it's a casino. We don't know when, but it will come down. Then all those guys with those 401s, toast. That's why the Rich Dad Company was formed. That's why I catch so much hell saying savers are losers, you know. Why invest for the long term in the stock market when it's a casino? My concern is, my, the old guys like me are sitting there with their retirement plans, which are broke. You know, the California retirement system is broke, Hawaii retirement system is broke, Chicago's retirement system is broke. And if and when this baby comes down, my generation is toast. The way out is through real financial education. The property was a little condominium One bedroom, one bath, $18,000 US. It was on the beach of Maui. The reason the price was so low is the market had crashed. Smart investors always wait for the crash. So this thing crashed. I had to look at 100 properties once I left the class, 3-day class. I had to look at 100 properties in 90 days and write a 1-page report on each of those properties. As my instructor said to me when I left that 3-day class, I was 26 years old, and the instructor says, your education begins begins when you leave the class, as your education will begin when you leave this class, not now. So you have a chance to talk to Carlos, you have a chance to talk to Alvaro. Talk to them, find out, learn. Doesn't cost you any money. Change your ideas. So with this here, the instructor said, I had to borrow, buy the investment for zero money. Okay? Zero money. Most people will tell you, I can't invest because I don't have money. That's a loser. Please understand this. This was 1975. The dollar had just gone off the gold standard. Everything was coming up fast. So I had to figure out how to buy it for zero. And the reason I say that is most poor people, like Padre Pobre, always says, "I can't afford it." I know some of you right now saying, "Well, I can't afford it. I don't have time. I have children. I have a job. I have bills." And it is those excuses that keep you poor. If you do not change that talk in your head, you'll always be the poor person.

I just think about the economy, business, world affairs. I want to— my job is to make complex financial systems simple enough so the average person can understand it. That is extremely difficult because most people are Brainwashed when it comes to money. Go to school, get a job, work hard, pay your taxes, save money, get out of debt, buy a house, and invest in the stock market. Everybody who follows that program has been brainwashed. I don't even care about money. I make a lot of money because I understand the system. I would never go to school, get a job, work hard, save money, get out of debt, buy a house, and invest in the stock market. I do everything exactly opposite.

You wake up tomorrow morning— let's have some fun with this. You wake up tomorrow morning and you're on the street and you have nothing. You don't have a single contact in your network. All you have is the knowledge and experience that you've had throughout your career. How do you build up from there? Well, I've been there many times. So it's no big deal. You just figure out what's needed and wanted and you go do it. You know, people always kind of dump on, what do you call it, fast food industry. If I had to do it again, I'd go work for McDonald's. And the reason I'd go work for McDonald's, you know, whether it's $7 an hour or $15, I don't really care. I don't really like McDonald's food, but they have the best business systems in the world. You know, how else can a company take virtually non-college-educated people and build a fast food industry across the world? And they have the best systems. So right inside a little McDonald's, you can learn everything you need to learn about business except for the management side of it. So I just go work at McDonald's so I can learn So I look at life as learning. I'm constantly learning, you know. I'm reading constantly, studying constantly. I spend most of my time with entrepreneurs. I don't spend my time with people who complain about the economy, you know. So nothing would really change. I'd just go back to being an entrepreneur. You know, if you want to stay small, be the smartest guy on the block. block. And that's why most accountants, most attorneys, most doctors never get rich, is because they're too narrow. You know, they're experts in toenail removal or something, you know what I mean? Or my attorney, that poor guy is an A student, but he knows jack about outside of that. Whereas I never had— I flunked out high school twice because I can't write. It's ironic I'm a writer today. But the reason I'm pretty good is because in the military we're taught to be generalist, not specialist. So when I sit down with my team, I have accountants, I have attorneys, I have media guys, I have IT guys, I have graphic designers and all this. So I operate as a team since I don't know anything. So in actuality, being a great entrepreneur means I could be the laziest guy and I can know the least, but I have to have a very smart team, which is the ring finger around me. So because I was never smart, I had respect for people who are smart. And a lot of times I meet A students and they think they're the smartest guys on planet Earth. And that lack of respect is what keeps them small. And that's what most corporate guys want to do. Stay small. You know, you got to climb that corporate ladder. You got to beat the other guys for the job. And it's all that stuff. It's not the way an entrepreneur really works. It's corporate. It's school system. You know, you got to beat out You gotta have the best grades. I don't have to be the best, but I have to hang out with the best. Well, the thing is, you see, when people, you know, economies go up, economies go down, we might go into a depression worldwide. Like I said, France is in very big trouble. Germany's okay. England's in big trouble. China's in trouble. So if we go to that, we go to a worldwide depression, and it might take 10 years, you know, to come out of it. But during these These times is the best time. I have made more money in the last 3 years than ever before in my life. I bought 5 golf courses last year out of banking.

That's impressive.

Yeah. Well, the bank— yeah, Donald bought 10. They're giving them away. No one told me. Yeah, but you have to know how to operate them, you know, you have to be an entrepreneur. So the banks just call you up and they say that there was this one, there was 5 golf courses and 1 hotel.

In the States?

In Arizona, yeah, golf mecca, you know. And this Japanese company had it and they asked me if I wanted to buy it about 5 years ago for $260 million. And I said, doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense at $260 million. So they told me I didn't know what I was doing. They said, okay, bye. And then last, one year ago this summer, the Citibank called up and says, you want those golf courses? And they gave me the money to buy 'em. One of the things I stress here at Rich Dad, which I never, I didn't do for much of the time, was because once Kim and I had enough money, the question is, what do you do next? And if Kim and I had continued to work for money, I think I would've died. So when Kim retired, she was 37 and I was 47. But just as we said on this with Vonte, it's one of your primary objectives, especially today, is when do you plan to retire? Because, you know, the idea of having a job and waiting for your 401 or your stock market to save you, I think you're going to be sadly disappointed because what I'm foreseeing is a massive crash coming. It's going to wipe out a lot of people. And I'm coming out with a new book called Who Stole My Pension? And all these guys who think their pension is safe, I think Wall Street has other ideas on their pension here. So when I say to young people like you guys, I said, you know, plan your retirement the day you start working. You know, when do you escape from the rat race? That's the cash flow game there. I only became an entrepreneur because it was the greatest challenge I could take on as far as my personal education, personal development, Yeah. And it wasn't to make money, you know. And as I said, my first business was a nylon and Velcro surfer wallet business. And the mistake I made— I was successful and we grew internationally so fast, I just couldn't finance my success. And so I started borrowing money, and which was good. I started to learn how to raise capital. I learned, I learned how to negotiate, you know, in the reason I was in Korea fighting taekwondo. Was I was out there negotiating anyway for production because we were manufacturing in Hawaii where the cost of manufacturing was too, too high.

Sure.

So I had to fly to Korea and Taiwan to negotiate manufacturing. I tell you, man, you're not stupid until you're negotiating against Koreans and Taiwanese, man. Those guys had me coming and going up one side and down the other. But that's what I did it for.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? It's to learn. And to learn to finance, learn how to factor, you know, how to ship and then factor my inventory and all this stuff. I learned so much as I was going broke, successfully going broke. And so when I explained to young people, that's what I did it for, that's how you get smarter. But in this academic culture, you know, we're just talking about Jordan Peterson, how he rails up against academics. Well, the academic culture, the person who makes most mistakes is a stupid person. But an entrepreneur, the person that makes the most mistakes and learns from them, is the smart— is the rich person. So I always say to young entrepreneurs, it's not— money will never make you rich. You know, it's your experience, your— how much you learn, the mistakes you make, the people you make. And all of those horrible experiences, they're all good experiences if you learn from them.

Sure.

And that's the attitudinal difference of an entrepreneur. Most guys are small business guys, they're not entrepreneurs. entrepreneurs, you know, they open a pizza shop to make money and they get stuck in that pizza shop forever, you know.

Yeah.

Well, that's not me. And the subject of entrepreneur is a massive subject. So you got a drug dealer peddling drugs is also an entrepreneur, as is Jeff Bezos running the biggest product-pushing country in the company in the whole world. They're both entrepreneurs, but the gap between the drug dealer and Bezos, massive. So when I speak to young people, I say, what kind of entrepreneur do you want to be? And if you're just here to make money, you can do that, but it's not exciting. Entrepreneurs have one thing in common. They keep going. They'll change the rules. They'll reinvent the rules. You know, they don't just take one answer. So a real entrepreneur, it really makes no difference which country you're in. That's my belief. I love that.

You know what I mean?

It's just a mindset. If you mess with me, I'll find a way around it. You know, I have a friend, he's multi, multi, multi-family rich guy from France. And, you know, France is as communistic as it gets. 75% top line for million-dollar earners. Yeah, but that's why he lives here. He started buying vineyards in Napa and Sonoma. So he went back to the French government and says it's his wine. He says, I want to ship my wine in bulk to California. And the government says you can't do that. This is the French government saying you can't ship it? And here's a guy who's, I think he's 5 generations, you know, French wine guy. This guy is this guy is entrepreneur entrepreneur. He says, "Okay, I can't ship it in barrels." The guy goes, "Yeah." He says, "Okay, I'll ship it in bottles." So he bottled all of his stuff. It cost him more money, but he still figured out how to creativity. Do you know what I mean? Now he has his wine with his California wine and all this, and so he went back to the French government and said. Try this and see if it's not better. And so now they're all confused because he didn't break any rules. So I'll say it again, entrepreneur is a mindset first, a skill set, and rules. And depending upon whether you're an employee or a small business, the rules are different, the mindsets are different, the skill sets are different. What's your philosophy when it comes to human resources? How do you get the right people, and then how do you keep the right people? It's the most important part of business. You know, that's why I went to military school. Then I went to, I was in the Marine Corps. The reason why when I talk to military veterans, you probably have the most important skill of all, because all we're trained to do, whether you're a general or a private, you're taught to be leaders. It is the number one skill of an entrepreneur is people skills and leadership skills. And unfortunately, most people don't have it coming into it. So when I do my talks to veterans and all this stuff, I really want to encourage them, you know, because they're pretty depressed because they can't get it. You know, they're a Walmart greeter, which is a good job, but they're afraid to take the leap into entrepreneurship. So, but military guys, I don't care what branch of service, just by the indoctrination process and the survival rate, whether you go to combat or not, Is that you learn leadership skills, people skills. You've got to have that. You know, whether you're a team of one, you still have to deal with your customers, and the good customers, bad customers, lawsuits, taxes, government regulations, and all this. They're all people skills. You know, so when somebody says to me, what do I need to learn? I said, boy, you'd better learn how to communicate pretty quickly to to people you don't like and get them on your side. You know, How to Win Friends and Influence People, basic book. The number one skill of an entrepreneur is people skills. Well, most successful entrepreneurs have gone bust, right? You know, Henry Ford, an old-time entrepreneur, he went bust 5 times. Okay, look at Steve Jobs. Yeah, his own board fired him. Yeah, you know, Bill Gates was taken Right. Even my friend Donald Trump went down $1 billion.

Yeah.

I only went down $1 million. So the average person is so afraid of those losses, they never get ahead because at school they teach you if you make a mistake or if you fail, you're a failure. But that's not real life. A baby learns to walk by standing up and falling down and standing up and falling down. standing up and falling down. And our school system punishes you for making mistakes. That's why my poor dad, an academic, was so unsuccessful. He was terrified of making mistakes. Well, as we know, there's fewer and fewer jobs. You know, American corporations say they're hiring, but they're not hiring in America, they're hiring overseas. But more than that is that the reason I endorse network marketing is most people are addicted To the paycheck. And the paycheck is one of the most sinister plots ever pulled upon a human being. If you need a paycheck, you've sold your soul. You know, you sold your body, your mind, your spirit, and your emotions. You sit there in fear of losing your job, or can I get a raise, or, you know, will I get promoted? I mean, and then And then why would you do that? Another thing about the reason we endorse network marketing, we don't think of it as network marketing. We think of it as entrepreneur development. Because if you need a paycheck, this is not your business. You know, we build businesses. So sometimes when Kim and I do a deal, we may not receive a paycheck for 5, 6 years. You know, and so these guys come, oh, am I going to get rich quick?

Yeah.

You know, and some people do. I don't know if you do or not, but that is an employee get rich loser mindset. And so the thing that network marketing does is really kind of cure you of that loser paycheck get rich quick mentality and actually build a business. You know, we build businesses, but, and that's how we're rich, but we didn't get rich quick and I don't need a paycheck and I never want A paycheck. So that's kind of a revolutionary thought to most people up there who went to school to get good grades and get a job. You know, they get a high-paying job, and then the higher-paying job, you pay higher taxes, and you wonder why you never get ahead. That's because you went to school to get a job and a paycheck. You've got to get away from the paycheck, and sometimes it might take 2, 3 years to get away from And that's what network marketing teaches people. It's an entrepreneur's mindset. It's an entrepreneur's spirit, not a loser employee. I need a paycheck mentality.

I'm trying to explain to you, when they tell you get out of debt, that's because the money is debt. And the only way money gets out of debt is via taxes. So all the people who work for money— you read Rich Dad Poor Dad, what's lesson number 1?

Rich people don't work for money.

Correct. Money is debt. I use debt as money, and everybody thinks getting in debt is bad. Well, who told you that? I think the stock market is for losers. Why would you put money in the stock market when it's manipulated? That's what I think about. So I'm always watching the manipulation going on behind the scenes. That's what my brain is focusing on all the time and I don't pay taxes. The question is, how is it I don't pay taxes?

And I can tell you.

That's an important question because most people are so— most Romanians and most people in the United States cheat on their taxes because they hate taxes so much. But you don't have to cheat on taxes if you understood how money was working. You think Donald Trump pays taxes?

No. Nobody has seen his tax returns.

Yeah, I know him. He's my friend. We don't pay taxes. That's the question. How is it we do that? That's an intelligent question. The reason you can't ask me this question, because you don't know how I do it.

That's what I'm thinking about.

I'm constantly thinking about how do I make money? How do I serve more people? How do I create new businesses, make more money, and pay less taxes and serve more people?

I am very shy, very, very shy. You know, I came back from Vietnam, and I could kill people, but I couldn't talk to people. And one day I said to my— when I decided to follow my rich dad's footsteps, I just said to him, I want to be an entrepreneur. He says, you got one problem. I said, what's that? He said, you're shy. I said, what's wrong with being shy? He says, you got to sell. You got to handle rejection. Number one skill, can you handle rejection? Answer is no, I couldn't handle it. So I said, I still want to learn how to sell. So this was in 1973, I was 25 years old, and my rich dad said, how's your love life? I said, it sucks. He said, you getting laid? I said, no. He says, 'cause you can't sell. You guys got it?

Yeah.

So when I talk about what skill do you need, when the shit hits the fan, you better start selling. So I went to work for Xerox in 1974 so I could learn how to sell. Took me 4 years, then I was number 1. And today I'm a best-selling author. You know, most PhDs tell me I can't write. Yes, I said, I can't write, but I can sell. If you can't sell, you don't make money, period. End of statement. You know, just because you have a product doesn't mean jack shit. But the important thing is you start. You know, I don't care what product you start with, but you start. You know, I started off with nylon wallets. Success wiped me out. You know, we couldn't sell, couldn't sell, and all of a sudden it took off. Then I couldn't finance, I couldn't finance, couldn't finance, because the sales kept going through the roof. Now, trouble is, I kept borrowing, and I couldn't sustain the sales. Next lesson. But that's how we learn. Okay. You know, I don't know if you saw me on Patrick Ben David. You know, that guy's a guy's a genius, man. I love working with him.

He's smart.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, he's smart. He's kind of. I used to work with Tony Robbins, and he has that quickness of brain. Yep. I'm a little Hawaiian, a little slower. But anyway, he goes, he goes. I told him, said, you know, during the agrarian age, the church was the center. So every small town had a church. So it was very spiritual and that was the culture. We shifted to the industrial age and then weaponry came up so we could now kill. You know, they went, went from swords to guns, to machine guns, to rockets, to drones, you know? So during the industrial age, they started building statues to war heroes. So that was a, you know, as a Marine, they have the Marines raising, raising the flag on Iwo Jima and they have Robert E. Lee and Grant. And so everybody respected war heroes and stuff like that. Now they're tearing down Robert E. Lee and Grant and all these guys because America is now worshiping the victim.

Victim mentality.

The victim mentality. And that's what I said on Patrick Bet-David. And a couple of my friends called me and said, you're an asshole. And I said, well, you're entitled to your opinion, but I've been called better, you know, and stuff like this. But I said, We're raising victims. Our schools are pumping out victims, and the reason I like this guy Jordan Peterson is he says it's not what a person stands for. You see that? He did this great thing. It's what are they against? He says a lot of times they'll stand up there and say, "Well, I stand for socialism," but they're really against the rich. And so that's why when talk about Andrew Yang. Pete Buttigieg and all this stuff, I wonder what they really stand for. What are they really fighting for? So I'm upfront with you, I'm fighting for capitalism.

Yeah.

You know, I fight for education, that we should have better education. I'm not saying anything else inside that. I don't have a hidden agenda.

Sure, sure.

So when these guys are talking about, we gotta fix the homeless, I said, and what does that mean? And so what Jordan Peterson says, they're against the rich. They're not for the homeless, they're against the rich. And that's where most of the people on the left are. And I don't know that because I'm not political, not Republican or Democrat. You don't have any religious agenda. You know, you want to believe in God, fine. Don't want to believe in God, fine. But it's— I want to know what you really stand for, not what you pretend to be standing for. You see, there's 3 types of ways people work. Number one is a job. Number 2 is a career. And number 3 is a calling. So let's look at it this way. It's not the job you do, it's your point of view on it. So a schoolteacher, I would say probably 30, 40%, it's just a job. You know, they're schoolteachers not because they like teaching, but they like the benefits, they like the pay. You know, for them, the paycheck is the reward for doing something they don't want to do. The second is a career. So a schoolteacher goes in that this is my career, you know, someday I'll be vice principal or, you know, superintendent, things like that. So that's their career. And then we've all had teachers where their whole life soul is in teaching. Those are the best teachers. Well, those are the ones I remember. I also remember the ones who were the job guys. They were the worst, some of the worst I've ever had. You know, I just argue on fought with them. They're the reason I left school. So when I talk to entrepreneurs, I say, is it just a job? Is it your career to be an entrepreneur, or is it your calling? And there's nothing right or wrong, it's just be honest with yourself. You know, right now I'm gonna start a taco shop because I need to make some money. Knock yourself out, you know. But when I started my first business, was not to make money necessarily. Money is important because money is fuel for the business. But I wanted to learn to be an entrepreneur. So I started nylon Velcro wallets. I don't love the product. The product sucks. But I wanted to be a great entrepreneur. So I was willing to do a product that I wasn't passionate about, but I was passionate about learning to be an entrepreneur. And then when I became successful as an entrepreneur, I have enough money. I said, "What do I want to do next?" You know, I retired at 47. I had enough money coming in, and I said, "Well, I hated school. I love education. I just hated school. I love most of my teachers. I just hated school." You know, because every time they said to me, "Go to school and get a job," I said, "But I don't want a job. I want a business." You have to get a job. You know what I mean? It was the programming I didn't like. So with that said, I became an entrepreneur in education. And today I make millions as a teacher, but I make it as an entrepreneur. So when people say, well, don't you have enough money? I said, it's not about the money at this point, because I have plenty. It's about the job. You know, it's what's my calling. What's what Bucky Fuller said? You must trust your intuition. You know, and it's called your gut feeling a lot of the times. And scientists have just recently found out there's actually brain material in your gut. That's why you get a bad feeling. And that's kind of where intuition comes from. It's more from your gut rather than your brain. And my intuition kind of changed because I went to Vietnam twice. I was a good Marine, Marine, U.S. Marine pilot and all this. I was doing doing it for God, country, and America, you know, all this stuff. And one day I was standing on the battlefield in 1972 and I said, what am I doing here? You know, why am I killing these people? I don't hate them. They don't hate me. And that's when my life, you know, you start waking up as you grow older. So I learned to trust my intuition and say what I had to say. Like, this book is about the future also. Fuller was a future So for me to write Rich Dad Poor Dad in 1997, nearly 20 years ago, was about the future. It wasn't about 1997. Question I ask you is, are you following the herd? You know, the herd generally goes off the cliff like a bunch of lemmings. You know, how many are doing what your mommy and daddy told you what to do? Go to school, get a job, invest in a well-diversified portfolio. Is that what you're doing? Are you hoping that the next person elected, whether it's President Trump or one of the other candidates, will save the economy? Well, we have a very important show for people like you because this program is about— you have to do the exact opposite of what everybody else is doing. Because if you keep doing what everybody's doing, you're going to be screwed.

Yeah.

I'm afraid everybody's going to go off the cliff. And that cliff is not too far away right now.

Well, you know, that's why I keep saying to the young, the millennials, you know, they're a pack of wimps. You know, I meet millennials who are just horrifyingly weak. Snowflakes, I call them.

You know, they go to college and—

Doormats.

They're taught trigger events or whatever. You know, I don't know what they say today, but they've got to have special rooms where there's no, Whatever. I'm going, holy mackerel, welcome to the real world, you know?

And there's other millennials who are as tough as nails. I mean, this is the biggest opportunity they've ever had.

Huge.

So it just depends upon what's between this ear and this ear, what's in your heart.

The big question is how much is enough, you know? Because I think the reason Kim and I are successful is we always started small. We actually stayed small.

Kitchen table.

We do keep doing the same thing, but we don't ever try to get big. We got big, but I think we got big by staying small. We did. I mean, our core group is very small.

Yeah.

And then we license out. So for those of you who think you have to start some mega company or be, you know, make millions of dollars, that's not really true. A big part of what makes a company successful is whether or not they have a brand. B-R-A-N-D. I almost misspelled it. And brand, people think, well, it's the communication, you know? But a brand is more than that. The reason Rich Dad is so valuable right now is because it is an internationally known brand the same way as Trump is known as a brand. And the real question on a brand is not just communication. See, a brand makes it easier to sell. When somebody says Rich Dad, they go, oh, I think I heard of that, or I know what the guy stands for, and all this. What a brand really is, is the entire BIA triangle. If you're going to create a brand, especially in a world that's overcrowded with advertising, communication, the webs, iPods, print, blogs, I mean, there's so much competition now for a person's time, it really is more important that you become a brand so there's a shortcut communication. If I say the word Ferrari, you get a picture of something in your mind. It's a whole You get a whole body effect. If I said Hyundai or Kia, car, they're probably just as good a car, but you get a whole different emotional effect just by the brand name. I'm not saying Hyundais are better or worse than a Ferrari, but I'll pay more for a Ferrari than I will for a Hyundai. I don't own a Hyundai, by the way. I own a Ferrari. What does it mean? It's a shortcut communication. If I say the word Apple, you know, some people think of computers and some people think of red apple. But for the guys like me who are— I'm an Apple fanatic, you know, the brand means a lot to me. I love Steve Jobs. He's one of the best entrepreneurs in the world right now. And if I say the word Marine Corps, Marine Corps is a brand. It communicates everything, the mission, the team, the leadership, the style, the message. You know, the Marines have a saying, we're only looking for a few good men. And women. That means we just don't want to be like the Army. We have to position ourselves away from the Army, the Air Force, and the Coast Guard, and the Navy. Brands are so vitally important as a communication tool, especially in today's over-communicated-to world. There are more people competing for your customer's mind, their time. How many blogs can you read? How many magazines can you read? How many television sets can you read? How many games can you play? And all this. So today, if you're gonna be an entrepreneur, it becomes more and more important that you become a brand.

I always say, quit your job, but that's not, you know, I don't have a job. I've only had one job and I never wanted a job after that because I had to be hungry. That's to say, you know, but we're all different. We're humans, we're different beings. If I show you this diagram here, you know, it's why I created my Cashflow board game. 'Cause we have 4 different intelligences. We have mental intelligence, we have, I don't know what that one is, physical intelligence.

You probably have very good physical to make football and all that. Yeah.

Emotional intelligence, but spiritual intelligence.

So I went to military school in New York.

The first thing is spiritual.

You know, I become a Marine, it's spiritual.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Because you're putting your life on the fricking line.

Yeah. You know, so Nassim Taleb, you know, wrote the book, The Black Swan. He also wrote Antifragile.

He says there's 3 kinds of people in the world. There's fragile, and that's what our school systems are putting out, fragile, wimpy snowflakes.

And that's your choice. You want to be that way, have a good life.

The second type is then, so fragile is like a champagne flute.

Yep.

You hit it, it shatters.

Then the second one is called robust, and a robust person is like the rock. You know, you can pound on them, dump on them.

Yeah.

They take it, but that's all they do, they take it. And then antifragile is somebody like you where they pound the crap out of you and you get smarter and better because of it. So I love Nassim Taleb. You know, a lot of people call him Dr.

Doom, But the way I look at this whole thing, this economy, we're probably going into a depression.

You know, we're not going to get out of this one.

Really?

Oh yeah. And so the thing is, is this good for you or bad for you? I'm looking forward to it.

You know, the last, the last crash was 2008, and I made more money in 2008 than in my whole life. So this one here, 2000, you know, what is it, 2020? I'm going to get even richer.

But other people are gonna get poor.

And if they're baby boomers, they're gonna blame it on this coronavirus.

Oh my God, you know that.

Hey, hit the road, put on some running shoes, change your diet, get some sunlight, you know, get healthy.

Don't get— don't be a wimp.

But, oh no, I'm so afraid of dying. I'm going, you're already dead, you don't even know it yet. You know, in the Marine Corps, you know, in the Marine Corps, we used to call them corpse people.

Right.

Corpse, not core.

Yeah. A corpse mind. No, a corpse mind. A corpse mind is a person who's dead but doesn't know it. Wow. They're so afraid of dying.

They're already dead.

Yeah.

It's about taking action, taking control of your life, taking control of your health, your finances, everything.

This is the best time to be alive right now.

I don't know what people think about money, but that's what I get a lot of is kind of this, well, you know, money's not spiritual. I'm just saying it's your attitudes, you know, a person's attitude towards money. I make a lot of money, but I give a lot. You know what I mean?

Definitely.

It goes to biblical principle, the more you give, the more you receive. So when I meet somebody who's not— doesn't have any money, it just means they're not giving something.

Yeah.

You know, so a lot of times there's people who would like more, but they're not giving anything. So they're like my poor dad. You know, he belonged to the labor unions and he wanted to work less and get paid more. Well, that's anti-religious to me. If you want to get paid more, work more, give more. That's how I see it. I'm one of those kids that didn't like school. You know, school is good for people who like school. But here was my poor dad, head of education, PhD, on the governor's board of Hawaii and all this stuff. And his kid, me, you know, I'm flunking out of school because I can't read, I can't write. It's not that I couldn't read, I couldn't write. I was bored out of my mind. You know, I was just, hey. So what I did instead was that's when I met my rich dad, who was my best friend's father. And he used these things called a game. See, games are the best teaching tool. See, when I'm playing this game, this is how the rich taught their kids battle strategies called chess. My rich dad taught me to be a rich man playing Monopoly. We played Monopoly hour after hour after hour. You know, the formula for great wealth in Monopoly is 4 greenhouses, 1 red hotel. So today in Arizona, I own 8,000 green hotel— I mean greenhouses. And several red hotels. I just play Monopoly for real. So that's the power of a game, because a game engages me mentally, physically, because I actually have to move things, emotionally, because when somebody knocks me out, I better wake up. You know, I made a mistake. And spiritually, because it's spirit that wins. Now, if you just saw a golden state Play the— play the— What's that something? Oh, you know, everybody's— I mean, I love LeBron James, I love Cleveland, you know, but one guy cannot take on a team. And I think LeBron scored 60% of all the points and assists and all that, but a better team beat him. So when you look at business, business is the same thing. Business is a team It's a team sport. I have to have good accountants, good attorneys, good marketing guys, good tech guys, great staff. I have to have great leaders, you know. The trouble with most entrepreneurs, they're self-employed. So they quit their job, and you know, in America today, the SBA, the Small Business Administration, says there's 28 million small business owners. 28 million. 24 million are classified as non-employers. employers. Remember, they're a one-man team. You know, they'd be like this guy said, okay, I'm gonna take you on. Are you crazy? But that's what most entrepreneurs are trying to do. 'Cause that's what they're taught to do in school, to be the rugged individual. You know, in school I was very successful as long as I could cooperate at test time. But in school, cooperation at test time is called cheating. In the real world, the guys that have the biggest team win. So all I focus on is putting the best team together. Meanwhile, a lot of time the A students in school, they're the doctors and lawyers, they're sitting there all by themselves. They're sitting ducks, but they're entrepreneurs. Do you know what I mean? It's just a mindset, tactics, strategy. I went to military school. I'm a former Marine. So I think like a military operation, which I love chess. So most entrepreneurs, they have this job and they, okay, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. And this guy just massacred them. That's very good. 'Cause they went to school, they learned to get a job, and they take tests on their own. They have to be the smartest. That's like the LeBron James. I don't wanna be the smartest guy on my team, but I wanna have the best team. And that's why I win most of my games. I think like this and the doctors think like this. I'm going, yeah, I got you, man. For some reason, I get the sense I'm gonna win. I made my usual wiseass remark, only lazy people use their own money. And that's because I have spent much of my life raising capital. You know, today you have crowdfunding and all that stuff, but the reason I had to learn to raise money was because I had no money. And so if you read Rich Dad Poor Dad, in there my rich dad always said, never say I can't afford it. And it was my rich dad and many of my teachers subsequent to that.

Mm-hmm.

This had lazy people always say, I can't afford it. I don't have the money. That's why they're poor. They have a poor Poor mindset. So instead of figuring out how to raise money, it's just really easy to be a loser. And I call losers— it pisses them off because we all have the power, if we wanted to, to not be poor if we learned how to raise money. What I found out, the accountants and attorneys who went to the biggest schools are not the best. I have found what I'm looking for is somebody who may be a private guy who is passionate about entrepreneurship. So they're a great attorney for entrepreneurs. You know, they're not, you know, most attorneys are looking for the big client, like I wanna work for, you know, General Electric. What I want is the attorney and the accountant who are passionate about it being entrepreneurs. So my, my, My guys right here in Phoenix are entrepreneurs. And my accountants are entrepreneurs. Every time I hired the big name corporate and law accounting firms, I have been grossly overpaid and underserved. Because they're so used to doing bigger things, they don't have time for a little guy like me. It's the same with bankers. I'm looking for a banker who loves being an entrepreneur. You know, you gotta have this partnership with the banker. You know, I dump on the financial services industry a lot, and they deserve to be dumped on, but you gotta have one on your team, you know? So my banker is the love of my life, 'cause that's where I get my money from.

I don't know if it's good news, except to be careful. You know, what changed my life was a book, like it did for many people, and it was this book here, it was called The Grunch of Giants. And it's by Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller, and GRUNCH stands for Gross Universal Cash Heist. So when I was, I think, in my 30s, I went to study with Fuller. You know, he's most well known for the geodesic dome, and I first saw his geodesic dome in Montreal, Canada, Expo '67, the World's Fair of the Future. So my classmate from school in New York, we hitchhiked up to Montreal, Just to see Bucky's Dome. It was the U.S. Pavilion, and it blew me away, you know. And, um, but we all have these events and teachers in our lives. And so I think the good news is, is that there's a teacher like you online now. The best teachers are on YouTube, not in schools anymore. And, um, I think that's really the good news, is what we're doing is the news. What's happening in the news today is fake. It's the old This, um, it's tragic, this coronavirus, you know, like, I don't know if it's real. I mean, the virus is real, but the media terrorism is frightening. So I've already been warned many times to stay in my lane. Don't go into medicine. Don't go into this virus. Stay teaching people with my little cash flow game. You know, I'm talking about stay small or we'll stomp on you. So I just remember back in 19— so I first went to the dome in Montreal at the World's Fair in '67. And I studied with Fuller in 1981. And I studied in '81, '82, and '83. And he was predicting the future. He told us what was coming. And as I've said many times to many people, it's not what I want to do. I don't do what I love. I ask myself, what does God want done? And what God wants done is real education, my opinion, and it's financial education. And there is no real financial education in our school systems, and that's not a mistake. So I, um, that was in '81 and '83. I couldn't take it anymore. I read Grunge of Giants and I understood it because my rich dad kept saying, somebody's messing with us. And every time you say that, you know, you're a tin hat guy, you're aluminum hat, you're a conspiracy, you're a spaceship, you're an alien guy. And I'm just saying, no, I'm an entrepreneur. At the time I was in rock and roll. You know, my first date with Kim was to The Place, you know, and she was out front having a good time and I was in back with the attorneys negotiating a contract. So I'm not really a rock and roller, but I'm an entrepreneur. And at that time I said, what does God want done? Not what I want to do. I love rock and roll. And what God wants done is financial education. That was my opinion.

But the—

and so that was in '83. So yesterday, you know, and so I said, I don't know if I'm— if that's what I'm supposed to do, because you'll never know. You'll never know what God wants done.

If you want to learn the 96 ways to improve your life, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there. You keep telling yourself you just need more time, more money, more luck, but billionaires started with the same fear you have right now. The difference is they acted when everything looked like it would collapse.