The RICH Vs POOR Mindset EXPLAINED! - Robert Kiyosaki & Dave Ramsey | Lewis Howes

Your mindset is different than an employee. That's rich dad and poor dad. Yeah. Rich dad, employee. Rich dad, entrepreneur.

We get wake up calls in our finances. Some people, the phone's ringing off the hook right now. Are you gonna answer the phone? Are you gonna change your life where.

You say, this crisis should inspire people to get wealthier or you can be a loser? The biggest crisis coming up right now.

After this pandemic, my life changed forever when I decided to change a poor mindset into a rich mindset. And in this video, I'm bringing you Dave Ramsey and Robert Kiyosaki. Usaki to teach you how to have that rich mindset. Almost 25 years now, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, right? Are you sick and tired of talking about Rich Dad, Poor Dad or is it still something you enjoy talking about?

No, it's kind of what we were talking about. This is what I'm supposed to have done anyway. You know, it was, so I got on my path. I meet a lot of guys who, something tragic happens in their life, but it was the best thing that ever happened to him. I had a friend who was an Olympic snowboarder and he did one of those goofy things those guys do and he shattered his body and nobody could heal him. So he became an acupuncturist. And the guy is great as he found this real gift. It's not snowboarding or whatever he was doing, is he's a healer. and he uses acupuncture, you know, and he heals people. He's unbelievably good, but if he hadn't crashed, he wouldn't be where he is today.

Yeah.

What was the big tragedy in your life?

Oh, this every other day.

What was the big tragedies? What was like the big aha moments where something bad had to happen for you to say, oh, let me wake up and take down this path.

There's a lot of them. I really was, as an entrepreneur, my biggest failure was that I was successful in my first venture. This is, I don't know, I was about 25 years old and I started a nylon and for all called Surfer Wallet business. And everybody said, well, why are you doing that? I said, well, I don't know what else to do. And I used to make nylon wallets. I went to school in New York at a military school. sailing school. So I used to sell these nylon wallets out of sales. So when we're looking for an idea for a product, you know, the product sucks. The product doesn't really count. I just needed to start a business. So I was working at Xerox at the time in Holland, Lillo, and I gave my. I showed this little wallet to my. To partners, to criminals. But anyway, so we came out with these nylon wallets. We had them manufactured in Korea. and nobody would buy them. So I have 100,000 wallets in a warehouse in New York. I'm in Hawaii and my friend and I are going door to door trying to sell these to- no way. And everybody kept saying, you shitting me? What are you guys doing? And what happened was because we failed at the wallet business, I was sitting in our offices in Honolulu and somebody says, Hey, Jogging had just started. Baby boomers are first getting into hell. And they started jogging. They had the Nike waffle and all these other good shoes. And so this guy in Golden Gate Park goes for a jog. He didn't know what to do with his keys, so he put his key on top of his car tire. He went for a run and guess what? He came back and his car was gone. And so the headline says, San Francisco Times, What does a jogger do with their key? Oh my God. So since I have kind of a quasi-engineering background, I designed with a hook and tear method and built the shoe pocket that went on a runner's shoe. So I had this nylon wallet, not how to run her shoe. I'm in a shoe pocket. So I go around the world again, so I'm going broke so fast. We had no money, we were borrowing money, raising capital. But it was all good because I was learning how to raise capital.

Yeah.

So finally, we're desperate. We buy a full, those days, it took four months for an ad to come out. So we had to shoot the stupid shoe pocket on a New Balance 320 shoe. And we get it into Runner's World magazine. I think it was 16,000 bucks.

Oh my gosh. A lot of money.

And then we waited for the phone to ring. So we had to wait till like January, February, March, you know, the phone didn't ring. So we want to quit. We're out of money, can't pay the rent, the repo man is my heart. And it was getting so bad. So let's give one more shot, just one more shot. So we go to New York City at the Sporting Goods Show at the Coliseum. And I'm setting up my booth in the basement because that's all I could afford. And this guy goes walking past and he goes, my company must be called Rippers. So I'm putting my big sign up, Reppers, you know? And he goes, Reppers? Reppers? Where have you been? And I turn around and I said, I'm here. No, no, no, no, no. He says, Where have you been? I'm like, what do you mean? He says, I saw your ad. I said, Good. My store is filled with people coming in looking for the shoe pocket.

Wow.

I said, Call me. That's what I said. I asked him, why didn't you call me? He says, you, idiot. You don't have your address or phone number on the ad.

Oh my goodness. Wow.

And then what happened is Playboy put a pic, you know, they featured this young thing with nothing on but a shoe bucket. And our sales went through the roof. I looked like a genius, but this is where it went broke. We couldn't keep up with demand. Wallets took off, shoe pockets took off. We were borrowing and borrowing and borrowing just to finance inventory. We were shipping all over the world. And we went broke because I kept raising money in one day, but we were already like $850,000 in debt, which was a lot of money back then. Wow.

That's a lot of money right now.

Yeah, well it's relative. Anyway, so I go back to my partner, Stanley, the accountant, the CPA, the CFO, and I said, how much more do I have to raise? He says, I think a hundred thousand will do. I said, good, so I go raise another hundred thousand, right? So I hand the check to Stanley, because he couldn't, you know, accountants, accountants, can't sell. So I give him a hundred thousand dollars, says, well, let's take care of the problem. And Stanley said, yes. He took care of his problem. He paid off his investors.

Oh.

So we're still broke. We had no money. Stanley hits the road. And that's how it went down.

Stealing Stanley.

I love that guy. He did me the biggest favor of all. You know what I mean? I learned so much, man.

What was the greatest lesson you learned from that big success slash failure?

Well, just because they're smart doesn't mean they're not dishonest or crook. And I've run into more crooks. I think I hire them on intention.

Until you learn your lesson, right?

No, no, every entrepreneur I've talked to have had somebody steal from them. I go to my doctor. And this little cutie working for him, beautiful young woman, you know, sweet as, everybody loved her, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And so one day I went and said, well, where is she? And he goes, Where is she? Well, what she did, because she's tech savvy, she rigged the invoicing on their computer. So, you know, 20, you know, like 90% went to the doctor, 10% went to her.

Wow.

And so she heisted. I said, that little sweetheart, he goes, Smart! And then so he called the police. And this was the interesting part. Her father was already a rich guy. And he comes in and says, I'll pay you anything, just don't send her to jail.

Wow.

So then that was the next thing you learned. Is it better to send her to jail or take the money?

Take the money.

Wow.

So she's in jail. No, no, just not.

What?

But I'm saying, you can't teach that stuff.

Yeah, you gotta experience it. You gotta go through it.

It's right in front of you all the time.

I think when hope gets gut punched the way it has for folks right now, the answers fall, a lot of them fall in the category of this is not going to last forever. Because there's this sense that stock market's down, do I take my investments out? Well, only if you think it's going to stay down forever.

Right.

Because you're 35, you're going to be investing for 30 more years. You don't think it's going to come up? in 30 more years? I mean, really, you're predicting the end of America? I mean, that's silly, but your emotions tell you lies when they're based in fear and when they're based in anger and they tell you lies and they tell me lies. We believe those lies in situations like this. So, you know, I lost my job. I know, but that's happened before and it probably happened again. Just get you another one.

Well.

There'S a lot of people hiring right now.

There are a lot of people hiring.

Amazon's hiring 100,000 people right now. so, I mean, there's jobs. It may not be the one you want, but you can get some food.

Yeah.

I mean, get you a leaf blower. And rich people are afraid of leaves. You know, I mean, you can make some money. So there's some stuff to do out there. But the. So the thing that the sense that, that, that the thing you're afraid of is going to last longer than it is.

Yeah.

Whether it's the actual virus, whether it's the shutdowns, whether it's the economic repercussions of the shutdowns, whether it's the employment situation, uh, whether it's the quarantine. It feels like it's going to last forever. But I mean, the chances of you being in the exact situation you're in in a few months is almost zero. Your life is not a snapshot. You're not trapped in this moment. It's a film strip. The story is going to continue to unfold. And so that when hope takes a gut punch though, and we get down in that fear or we're mad or however it is we manifest that stuff, that those negative things, the emotions that we all have in these situations, that's where a lot of my questions are coming. They're all built in that. And I'm spending all my time going, yeah, but it's not gonna last forever. Yeah, but it's not gonna last forever. Yeah, but let's visit this in May. I think you're gonna be okay. By June are you even gonna remember this? It's the great toilet paper shortage of the supply chain.

I don't know.

I mean, what is it? Some people are gonna have devastating, horrible things. that are going to be life changing. But that's a very small percentage compared to the number of that are worried about it. And so, you know, you- and you're.

Going to get out of it. You're going to get out of it.

You're going to be okay. I mean, you're going to be okay.

I like Preacher Dave, man. This is a preacher show. You know, I like this. What is the worst investment people should be making during this time? And what's the best investment they can make?

In my life, when I have become desperate, right after that's when I become stupid.

Yeah.

And explain the other one. The other one is when I get scared and you go rushing towards something out of fear, that sense of desperation, this thing, When you do that, you're getting ready to screw up. I mean, just count on it. And the other time you do that is if you're greedy. If you think you, okay, I got this one. I can take advantage of this. And I mean, greedy as a lack of virtue greedy, I don't mean greedy in a positive way where I'm being ambitious, okay? I mean the negative sides of greed. And so if you're functioning in desperation, or in this no holds barred, I'm going to just clean up on other people's pain thing, that's when you're getting ready to screw up and you're getting ready to make a major mistake. And so you're set up also for con artists when you do that. And so if you're functioning in high emotion, your brain just doesn't work good. My friend Art Laffer says, when you're panicked and when you're drunk, you don't make good decisions. and so, you know, you're, when you're on high emotion, your brain is, it's your critical thinking skills shut down. And, and so that's when I've made the biggest mistakes in my life is when I was desperate. And the few times that I was greedy where I thought, oh, I'm gonna slip in there and that's gonna be easy money.

What was that? Easy money. Can you share a story of one.

Of those greedy times where you tried to jump in and, yeah, a buddy of mine, a buddy of mine, I was in my 20s and a buddy of mine was buying gold. and now this is in the 80s, okay, it's a million years ago, and he's buying gold and he had this friend that was a gold, he was a gold bug, he was picking gold, and this guy had picked the gold prices where they were going within a dollar, like 14 times in a row. And so we both dropped five grand into this thing, and if we had hit, it was a margin deal, and so I would have made 50 grand and I thought, I'm putting 1,000 bucks in here, I'm going to make 50 grand. But it's a margin play, which means you're either going to make 50 grand or you're going to make zero. And so he picked it right 14 times. The time I got in, the 15th time, missed it. I got zero. Turned 5,000 bucks into zero instantly. Last time I bought gold, last time.

I played stuff on margin, last time I got greedy. Was there ever a time where, so what's the difference between greed and a great opportunity? of being ambitious. Can you make money fast in certain things? Or is typically most things take a certain amount of time and energy and effort?

The vast majority of people who are successful financially and successful have done it incrementally. There's very few people who you see a meteoric rise in their wealth or their success that's keep it. And I think because you build your character along the way to be able to hold on and be able to do it. I think that's, that's my theory on it. I mean, I got rich quick. I started with nothing. And by the time I was 26, I had $4 million worth of real estate. I built a house of cards, you know, and I had a million dollar net worth. I made $250,000 in 1984. I was making 20,000 bucks a month and in my 20s. So, I mean, but you thought I had it all figured out, meteoric rise to the top. But the very thing that caused me to be the, the, incredible overdrive of ambition caused me to go so fast that I missed the blind spots. I missed the detour signs. I missed the bridge out signs. And so I built this house of cards I thought was a stone house, but I was naive and didn't know. And along comes some regulations changes, a few shifts in the economy, a little SNL crisis, and comes down. All of a sudden, Dave looks like an idiot instead of a genius. And so it turns out, I was a little of both because you don't build something like that at 25 if you're not somewhat of a genius. But I was obviously an idiot in the way I built it. And so I get to do it again. Get the wonderful opportunity to start over.

And build it the right way. Yeah.

Yeah.

But I mean, in the midst of that, as I was falling, it took two and a half years to lose everything we own. I had stuff presented to me. I almost got conned, serious conned, like people just, A real con artist type guy. There's not many of them out there. Most of the time you get screwed by well-meaning ignoramuses. But these were real con artists coming into my path and I was about to give them money because I so desperately needed to turn quick money into big money to save myself. I was desperate. And right about the time you get desperate is when you get stupid.

So don't make those decisions. So there's not really, so what I'm hearing you say is the wealthy, wealthy people It takes time and it's incremental. It's not an overnight thing. It's not a quick rise. There might be some spikes here and there, but it's typically over time.

It's okay to take a spike, but anytime I get a spike, I'm always a little suspicious of it.

Really?

It makes me even more careful. I draw back and I go, well, that's really cool. Is it okay? You know, because it's not normative. Normative is incremental. And so I always tell entrepreneurs, it's okay to be on the COVID of Slow Company magazine.

The biggest crisis coming up right now after this pandemic is pensions are going to crash. That's right. You got it.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Why are they gonna crash?

Because they're empty. Mike God, wake up. Wake up. You know, there's a better book than that. That's called the Creature from Jackal Island by. by G. Edward Griffin. It's a big book, get it on audiobook and listen to it, you know, a couple of 10 minutes a night or something. The Federal Reserve has only one purpose, is to keep the rich rich. That's their only job. So every time the market crashes, as you notice, money pumps in, they pump the prices up. The rich exit and the poor and middle class who listen to Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman, and their advice is good for the middle class, Don't get me wrong. They're told to invest for the long term. Okay, so what's happening to the poor and middle class with their 401k and IRA right now are set. That's like saying, okay, put the handcuffs on the Titanic. It's going down. Meanwhile, the rich have got their GE5 flying in to pick them up and get off the boat. They're out.

Right.

Because the problem isn't in the stock market, the problem's in the repo market. corporate credit market, the commercial paper market. They don't tell you that. They don't teach that in school. So suddenly, voila. You know, in September, the shadow banking, which is corporate credit and the commercial paper and the commercial credit and commercial paper market started to go bad in September. Suddenly, pandemic.

Oh.

That is interesting. Funny how that appeared, you know? So I'm not saying the pandemic isn't real. I'm saying the real crisis, it's a smokescreen for the real crisis going on right now. They're stealing your wealth through your pensions, your 401k, your IRA, through Social Security, through your taxes, through Medicare. That's why we have socialism kicking in right now. We have Bernie Sanders and AOC and Elizabeth Warren, hardcore socialists. But if you can see, if you really have a financial education, we're going from capitalists, which I am, and nothing wrong with the socialists. There are some people, 20% of the people need to be given money because they're that unable, for whatever reason, they're not able to. So we should give some people money, but not everybody. So we're going from capitalism to Bernie Sanders socialism and Hillary and all those guys. And then we're actually going to communism. And you can see it right now, because Boeing is asking for a bailout and all these guys asking for bailouts. But this time, the Fed's going to take percentage ownership.

Really?

Yes, that's communism, central control of the economy. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it's coming. But that's what they should teach us in school. And our school teachers, most of them are socialists, most are, some of them are communists. They want the government to tell us what to do. They're really fascist. You know, they're really fascist. A fascist wants to tell you what to do. So you look at this, look at this stuff, what's it called? Social distancing. You know, that's, you're taking away the First Amendment. the right to assemble. PC, political correctness is freedom of speech. That's what's going on. And then they're printing money under all this scheme. So if you study real world PC-ness, we've lost our freedom of speech. That's what Stalin took away. And social distancing is the right to assembly, which is why there was a revolutionary war back in 1776. You know, the Americans had to go hide in a church because the British would kill them if they were caught assembling. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but most people are taught this. That's why I love going to military school versus university.

They teach a lot of history probably.

We're taught military history. You know, history is bullshit, you know, through the victor goes history. You know, so the person that writes his, wins a war, writes history to justify their position today.

Wow.

That's called his story. You know, the loser doesn't get to tell their story. So anyway, that's where we're at. And I just leave it to your generation. You guys are in the best position ever, because you're still young. You're tech savvy, and the baby boomers aren't. So they're old, a lot of them are feeble, and they're gone. So you guys have the world ahead of you.

And use this time to be creative and take action and be bold. And I think I saw something about in 2008 to 2010, some of the greatest companies or the biggest companies of today were started then, Airbnb, Uber, you know, all these other companies.

Bitcoin. Bitcoin 2009.

Wow.

See, I love Bitcoin.

What's your thoughts on cryptocurrency? Why do you love Bitcoin?

Listen, Bitcoin is open source. The Fed can't touch it.

Mm-.

You don't like the Fed?

A creature from Jekyll Island, the Fed. The Fed is not a bank, it's a cartel, followed by the richest guys on Earth. You guys just wake up, you know? So anyway, the Fed is a cartel, so when I saw Bitcoin come out, it's open source, it's people's money. Gold and silver are God's money. So my whole objective is I go through my system of business, but I'm buying gold and silver. I store it in other countries legally, because you can't just move that stuff. You have to move it legally and declare it. I move my money illegally. I'm going to get out of this country. So I keep my wealth outside this country. Not because of my government, it's because there's so many people, you're going to see lawsuits are going to go up because people are desperate. They don't have any money. So when the economy gets bad, that's why you've got, you know, have you been in an accident? Have you been hurt? Let me, I'll come out sue them for you. So if you don't have the right corporate entity, like LLCs, C corporations, S corporations, offshore accounts, you're gonna, money is gonna be stolen. It's the real game. Your pensions, you watched in a few years, oh, he did tell us our pensions are gone. you know what's going to happen? They're going to bail them out again. Because if you read this book here, the creature, it says, bailout is the name of the game. Now, back in the 80s, there was a guy named Neil Bush. Let's see, the Bush family. George, George, Silverado Savings. When, when, when Neil Bush got in trouble, George and George bailed him out.

Yeah.

What's, I mean, you say there's two different types of pensions. What's the difference between a normal pension that someone would get and a defined benefit plan pension? What's, and why should people be aware of these things?

Well, defined benefit is industrial age. That was my poor dads, you know. So what happened is I got a job with Ford Motor Company and I got defined benefit, which meant Defined benefit means you got a paycheck for life. But they promise you $1,000 a month to get that for the rest of your life guarantee. Well, the problem was, as you know, right around the '70s, that's when China and Japan and all my Japan and Germany came on. So they had to get rid of pensions because pensions are drag on the business. So they came up with a thing called the RISA, which today is known as a 401K. So a 401K type is a defined contribution. So you have defined benefit. which is industrial age defined corporation as the 401k contribution. So defined contribution means you only get what you put in. If it's not enough there, aloha. That's not our problem today. So I meet all these millennials who go, oh, I have a 401k. And I said, do you like bending over and picking up the soap? You know what I mean? They don't know the difference.

Yeah.

Because you know what a 401k means? Fees, fees, fees, fees, mutual funds, fees, fees, fees, fees. Your money is stolen right out of your pension. Defined benefit, defined contribution. So defined contribution 401k is information age pension. It came about in 1974, just as the baby boomers entered the workforce. So today, the average baby boomer's 401k has $65,000 in it. The guy with a defined benefit, they're annual, they have something like a million in it. Wow. The trouble is, they're empty. That's what who's told my pensions about, my co-author's name, Ted Sidel. He was an SEC attorney and he became a whistleblower because he saw how much Wall Street was sucking the cash Wow. Pensions. So that's who must toll my pension. So he then, he made, I think, 39 million last year, blowing the whistle on all these, on these, Wall Street firms, Goldman Sachs and those guys.

What can people be doing when they have this 401k or this pension already that's going to do nothing for them? What should they be doing?

Well, what they should be doing is choosing their teachers wisely.

Yeah.

Because I can tell, you know, I don't need money. Like, I write a book, right? And I get royalties from 50 different book companies throughout the world. So let's say I write a book, they pay me $10,000 in the right to publish my book. I have zero expenses, but I collect royalties for the rest of my life. I'm still collecting huge royalties off of Rich Dad Poor Dad. So I created my own assets. I don't need an ETF. I created a cash flow board game, which unfortunately sold out right now. But every time somebody buys one, I got a royalty. Whether I work or not. And then I borrow money, I buy real estate, and then I use the accounting laws, appreciation, depreciation, amortization, and paying no taxes. Trump doesn't pay taxes either. That's why he wants to show his financials. Wow.

So you don't pay any taxes right now. Is it because of debt? Is that the main reason?

Because taxes are incentives. Taxes are, the government wants you to do certain things. For example, if I donate it, when I donate money to, let's say, PBS public broadcasting, I got a tax break. Donate money to church, I got a tax break. That's what taxes are. So they tell you, if you do this, we'll give you a tax break. So if I have 500 employees, I get a tax break. If I have real estate because I'm providing housing, I get a tax break. So I use debt to buy real estate and the more real estate I buy, the less tax I pay. Wow. So that's why Dave Ramsey, you know, his advice is good for that person, but I need debt to buy the real estate so I don't have to pay any taxes. Real estate's going down right now, but that's why I have LLCs and C corporations because then they can't get me. 'Cause I'm protected by a corporate entity. And besides, if you read this book.

Here.

The creature, you gotta get the creature.

They're gonna bail me out. So they already bailed me out. They just said, how many employees do we have? So we calculated it up. So they're gonna give me eight weeks of pay to pay my employees. Really?

Wow.

Free money.

So they'll bail you out.

Wow.

I love this country.

You say, don't be a, oh, go ahead.

But you can't do that as an employee. Go to school, get a job. Your mindset is different than an employee. That's Rich Dad and Poor Dad.

Yeah.

Rich Dad, employee. Rich Dad, entrepreneur. That was the choice I had to make.

What if someone's not, like you said, someone's not entrepreneurial minded or they don't have those skills. Can someone become an entrepreneur? Or is it something you're born with?

You shouldn't ask that, you know. All kinds of entrepreneurs, if you know what I mean. Yeah, of course. There's drug dealers or entrepreneurs, hookers are entrepreneurs. There's a young girl who works in our neighborhood, she's a babysitter, she's an entrepreneur. So everybody can be an entrepreneur, hopefully be a legal one.

Yeah.

The trouble is it's hard to make enough money if you're not a good entrepreneur. So anyway, it's just up here.

Find the right teachers. You say don't be a saver, be an investor. Should people be investing even during these times if they're not comfortable doing that? Or this is the greatest time to invest is what I'm hearing you say.

Because the opportunity- why would you save?

Fear?

No, but that worked before 1971. They printed 4.5 trillion after 2008. They estimate they're going to print another 6 to 8 trillion, maybe 10 trillion after 2020. At the same time, they're going to pay ZIRP, zero interest rate policy. So you're saving money while the Fed's printing money, and they're going to pay you no interest on it. Why would you save it? So that's all I say. And so that's why when Susie talks about saving and Dave talks about saving, I wouldn't do that. But for the average person, they should do that. So that's why choose your teachers wisely. You just have to know money, that's all.

Yeah.

And what's your prediction with real estate over the next few years? You think it's going to keep going down now or do you think it's... Like in LA, I feel like it hasn't gone down at all. It's like the place continues to grow, but eventually it's got to, right?

I wouldn't invest in LA for one reason, taxes. You know, I just wouldn't, that's your choice. You know, people say it's a nice place to live and it is, but I don't like paying taxes. I don't move there. Plus you have what's called, they try to pull it, I forget the name of it, but you can't raise to rent some people. I don't like that.

Rank control.

Great place to live, great lifestyle. But we're gonna have the biggest crash. We're going to a depression right now. We're going right past recession into a depression.

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

You can't have every business closing and the stock market is going up, but like I said, the real problems in the repo, the shadow banking market, that's what they're trying to save because it's broke. They're going bankrupt in there. So the dollar is gonna be strong because everybody 80% of the debt is measured in US dollars. So everybody needs dollars to pay off their debt.

I remember watching a clip of yours talking about 2008-2010, that time frame, where you made, you said you made a lot of money in the last recession. And I think while people are struggling to figure out, well, you know, I just got laid off, but how can I see this as an opportunity to make money when it seems like no one's buying anything or no one's investing in things, but why is a time like this a great time to make money?

Well, it's a great time to be introspective and to pivot and to do resets and to try stuff you never tried before. Because you might as well, right? We're all sitting at home, we got to try something. We got those free sites. I mean, we pivoted a whole bunch of product lines here at Ramsey and all kinds of things and we could throw all these offerings out there. Stuff that we might have messed around with split tests for a year or whatever, whatever instead we just dumped it on the street. Let's just try it. Let's see if we can help some people and give some people something to do while they're at home with some digital products. And so that's exciting. You may have a situation where you hated your job. I mean statistics tell us that 68% of Americans hate their job and some of you don't have that job anymore. So you get the opportunity to get one you like now. And you might not have done that on your own. So this could be the best thing that ever happened to you. There's a lot of good that comes out of this much pressure because it It forces you to reset. It forces you to rethink. And two or three, four crises ago, I don't know, back, I'm an old guy now. I had a personal crisis of losing everything. I decided I was never going to be the victim of the things I can control when one of these things that I can't control come at me again. And so we got out of debt and we built an emergency fund. in the last downturn of 2008, we were in a position of we had piles of cash. And so I was able to buy real estate at a nickel and a dime on the dollar. It was a wonderful time. But there were other times I was broke and couldn't take advantage of stuff being on sale. But if you're in a position, you got money right now, the stock market's on sale, real estate's not moved much yet. But if you're buying even consumer items.

Other than toilet paper, most things are on sale.

I know.

How much, how much how deeper down do you think this will take in terms of you said real estate's not on sale yet, but it probably will be. How much farther down do you think things are to go and for how long with your, well, just your guess on this?

I mean, you know, weather forecasters and economists, the only people can be wrong all the time and still keep their job. So I have no idea. But I do know there's going to be a direct correlation between how long we stay out and how long it takes us to recover. No kidding. It's kind of common sense. The obvious is every week that we're out, there's another series of businesses that will never reopen that will close. And so, and that's a recession is two consecutive quarters of the gross domestic product, all the goods and services produced in the US shrinking rather than growing. That's all it is. It receded rather than expanded. And so, recession sounds like a big scary depression type word, but it simply means two quarters. We've not had one quarter yet. shrinkage. So it would have to be up into the fall before you can officially declare this a recession or what results from the Corona shutdowns, a recession. So I don't know. But I'm sure hoping that the folks are not ill and that nobody dies and it's a horrible thing.

And.

The juxtaposition with that is the sooner we can get back to work, the fewer people are going to be affected by the economics of this. And it's not saying I'm trading a dollar for a life, but today actually we've lost about 100 jobs per case of corona right now.

Wow.

So the corona shutdowns affected 100 families jobs for every case, not death, for every case of the virus. And I don't want anybody to be sick. I don't want anybody to die. And I don't want the hospital bills, the beds and the ventilators run out. I don't want any, I don't want any bad stuff. I'm not a medical person. But I am an entrepreneur and I'm, you know, every day we're not working is a trade off and it is a good trade off because you don't want to kill people. Believe me, I'm not saying that. But, man, it's just, it's painful to.

Watch these people lose their businesses.

Yeah.

From your, you mentioned you've been through three or four recessions. I don't want to, I don't want to say your age out here, but it sounds like you've been, you've been around the block. You've experienced some stuff. You know, I only went through really, you know, I guess my adult life when I was 24, I guess it was the 2008 to 2009 time frame. When I was just got out of school and I was trying to figure out my life. I had three credit cards. I was living off of, yeah, living on my sister's couch for a year and a half. I was in college debt and I didn't have any skills that I thought were usable to get a job or do anything. And when I look back, you know, 11, 12 years ago, that was actually the greatest time and the greatest gift for me to develop skills, to work hard, to hustle, to try to see how can I make $100 here and there and then turn that into a business. And it was the greatest, it was the hardest time and the greatest time for me. I'm curious with your experience in watching these over the years, what were the greatest lessons you learned from each one that you applied in the last three weeks with your personal business?

Well, it is cliche, but cliches come from truth. That, you know, it's the greatest time and the worst time in your life. You don't wanna go back there.

No.

Good Lord, no. I don't wanna go back there. I went bankrupt. I lost everything in my 20s. I don't wanna go back there. But the lessons that I learned from that pain were so thorough, pain is a thorough teacher.

Yes.

That, you know, I, I, it was a rich time. The fertilizer was everywhere. Lots of place to grow stuff, you know, lots of poop. So, you know, and, and that's, you know, that's what you had there in 2008. There weren't any jobs. You couldn't like, you could just, I mean, there was a con, a contraction of the economy, a recession, and you're, there you are on your sister's couch. And so you found out that the secret sauce in your life is the guy in your mirror. That it's not some outside variable that's going to come and save you. The Calvary's not coming. Santa Claus doesn't live in Washington, D.C. It's up to you, baby. Get up off the couch. I got to go leave the cave, kill something and drag it home. You found that truth in that moment. I found that truth that, you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. You know, that old saying, I found that truth. And so nowadays, now that I've been through, You know, Y2K or 911 or all these initials come at you, you know, the horrible thing of 2008, now the corona. The only thing I am sure is we're gonna get through this.

Yeah.

You get hope because you go, it's not gonna kill you. Well, I guess you could get the virus. I don't mean that. But I'm saying the economic stress that we're under, the fear that we have, the concern or the worry that we have, it doesn't, you don't die from it. But you feel, you feel like, like there's this hopelessness and the truth is that's unfounded. The truth is there's a lot of reason to have hope. By September, where do you really think we're going to be? By this time next year, are you not 90 something percent sure that the economy will be roaring again and your life will be back to some level of normalcy? You think it's going to be 10 years for you to personally recover from this? No, that's absurd. and you know that once you've walked through several of them. And so it's just to me, it's like, yeah, you're gonna make it. We're gonna be okay.

Yeah.

And so your personal, I guess I'm just curious about your personal thoughts. Do you think to yourself, like, I'm fine because I've, I've followed my seven steps for years and I've got, you know, cash and I feel safe and protected. So now how can I shift and adapt and pivot and serve my community and customers more? or do you feel any, do you feel any anxiety personally at all or.

Oh, no, none. No, I mean, I'm, we're, we're in fabulous Financial shape. It's not a, yeah, I got a lot of money invested in the stock market. It's going down. I'm gonna put some more money in while it's on sale, you know? I mean, it's, if real estate goes on sale again, I'll buy some more.

So, no, I mean, my personal stuff.

It'S, it's, it's not arrogance. It's just, I've been doing this a long time. You're the king of it. Yeah, I'm the, I'm the little pig in the brick house, you know? I mean, huff and puff, baby. And so, but, but I Do, it does put you in a position to serve then, and truthfully, you get more joy even in a crisis and serving than you do in sitting in the basement and counting your coins. I mean, so the opportunity, I got a thousand folks on our team and, you know, the struggle and the scratching and the scrappiness and the clawing to keep this place running and all of them not have their incomes interrupted. in any way during this time. That's an act of service in leadership. The act of service of speaking hope and life into the communities around America right now is an act of service on my part. It's being on the air three hours a day, the Dave Ramsey Show, saying it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay over and over and over again. Right now that's my job, that's what I do. That's just so much more satisfying than counting coins.

Yeah.

Now, I followed your steps when I was, you know, 25-26 when I started making some money, when I was like, it's hard to follow the step when you feel like you're living off credit cards and in debt and you're not making any money. You feel like this sense of helplessness really. And I know I've listened to a lot of your shows with people where they feel helpless. And it takes that initial momentum to kind of kickstart it and see little savings here and there and then pay off one thing here and there. But I tell you, once I finished those, I guess really the, the first five to six steps, I don't have a home still. I still rent for personal reasons, but the first five to six steps and then building wealth and giving and giving, once I got through these, it's just like, man, you feel so much more bulletproof. I feel so much more bulletproof now, after 10 years of building into this recession, I feel safe. I feel fine. I feel protected. And it gives me so much more peace of mind since I did follow your steps. So I would first want to acknowledge you for that, for creating something so simple for us and providing this three hours a day for everybody. I think it's amazing. You sound like a preacher and a motivational speaker to me in the last few minutes. Just speaking life and hope into us. So I appreciate that. What are you telling the people right now who are saying, you know what? I didn't follow your advice. I didn't do what I should have done. I still love off credit cards. I overbought, paid for my house, and I've got this expensive lifestyle and credit cards that I know I'm wrong. I made a mistake. I own it, and now I'm screwed. And I just got 50% cut of my work. I might lose my job in two months. I got all these bills. How do you even respond to something like that?

Well, I certainly don't say I told you so. That's not, that's not the message because I've been there. I've done stupid stuff, too, and that's not helpful. And it doesn't bring, it doesn't bring any healing. The thing is this. We all get wake-up calls. We get wake-up calls in our relationships, our spiritual walk, our leadership Styles. We get wake-up calls in our finances and. Some people, the phones ringing off the hook right now. They're getting wake up calls on a bunch of things. They're at home with their family and they're starting to realize I was disconnected from my family. I haven't been plugged in, they got a wake up call on their relationships at home. They've gotten a wake up call on, you know, I don't have any savings and I'm deeply in debt. This isn't working. And so the cool thing is when you get the call, then you have to make the choice. Are you going to answer the phone? If you pick the phone up, that means, baby, it's time to change. And you can look back and you might be 27 years old right now watching this, and you're screwed. You lost your job. You got no money, you got no savings, and you feel like it's all over. And I remember in 1970, I was 10 years old, and I was in my grandpa's backyard. We were tearing down an old deck. and I pulled some nails out of those old boards as we were taking the boards off. And he taught me to put them down and straighten them with a hammer and save those used nails in a coffee can. Now, my grandpa Ramsey was one of my favorite people on the planet. This is 1970, and he was still answering the phone that rang in the Great Depression. It changed his life. He was Frugal. and careful and wise with money the rest of his life. And so someday, 27 year old, you're going to be sitting on the back porch with your grandkid, and you're going to remember back in alt 20, there was the coronavirus, and it changed my life, you know, and that you're going to be that guy. You're going to be giving dad jokes, you know, and grandpa jokes, right? Like I am now. and you're going to get that opportunity. I was 28 years old when I lost everything. It was my fault. It was the SNL crisis, the banking climate changed, I'd built a house of cards, I was stupid. And the phone rang, and it was my wake up call. Are you going to answer the phone? Are you going to change your life to where you say, never again, I'm going to control the controllables to where I'm the little pig in the brick house. Never. Again, that may be the only thing you get out of this crisis, and if it is, you got enough.

What's the lesson you've learned in the last two to three years that you thought you'd already learned?

As you know, Rich Dad, Poor Dad is the story of my rich dad who had no education, but he grew up in business for real. He took over the family business at 13. So he kind of grew up in the real world of money where my rich dad was a PhD, poor, helpless, desperate. Went to Stanford University in North... Northwestern, you know, very smart guy, good guy in all this. But as you know, teachers don't know shit. They teach stuff, they teach stuff they don't know nothing about.

Right.

Well, some of them are forced, I mean, they're forced to teach that, right? Some of them try to educate in other ways and inspire.

Don't defend them. Don't defend them. I don't like them. Anyway, you know what happens? When do I get in the most trouble? Is when I criticize going to school. Because to many people, it's their only hope and salvation.

Yeah.

So if I say, well, I don't think school teaches you much. I may as well piss on the Pope. You know, I know. Religion. If you're pretty good.

Yep.

It's dropped out. Dell dropped out.

Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg dropped out. Henry Ford, Walt Disney. They didn't, you know, they didn't hurt.

Oh.

So anyway, religion is, I mean, education is religion to most people.

Yeah.

So that's why I step on toes and I get dumb.

What did Mark Twain's quotes say? Like, don't let schooling get in the way of your education or something like that. And the one of the reasons why I started the School of Greatness, I was telling you before we started recording, is that I was in the special needs classes literally every day for as long as I can remember. Since kindergarten until seventh year in college, I had tutor. I was in the special needs classes with a few kids who had learning disabilities. And it was the most challenging thing for me because I wish they would have taught me things that I'm learning now. And the reason I created the School of Greatness, because I was like, what are the things I wish they would have taught me in school to help me get ahead in my finances, to help me get ahead in my health, my mindset, my, you know, how to deal with a breakup in a relationship, a tragic time like the the emotional side of things, the education that I wish they would have taught us. I was like, I'm going to go create it. I'm going to find people like Robert and teach us the ways. So, you know, you're doing that through your work and I'm trying to do that, but I think there's people trying to do good by educating outside of the traditional school system where they're, I think they're more limited.

Right.

And that's why I created the Cashflow Board Game is because I learned about money playing. I learned about money playing Monopoly.

Yeah.

I learned more about life playing Monopoly than I did in four years of college.

Yeah.

I went to a really good school, you know, the best schools in the world, US Merchant Marine Academy. I came out a rich man, but it didn't teach me much about money. I was only a high paid employee.

Yeah.

So then I joined the Marine Corps. Then I have two professions. I can fly for United Airlines or I could sail for Standard Oil. I didn't want to do either because it wasn't challenging anymore. I think if there's a lesson is that I'm looking for the challenge and some people are looking for security. They're two different people. They're extremely different people.

Yeah, and you talk about, you know, rich favors the bold, those that are willing to take risks and willing to put themselves out there. Do you think you can get rich without taking risks and being bold? and taking these big chances? Or can you keep this security mindset and really gain true wealth?

Well, many people have. You look at Cuomo and all those guys, they were born rich kids and their father. Trump could have taken that path too. He was born a rich kid. So it's not, I think you're either an entrepreneur or not.

Right.

You know what's interesting? I never thought I was an entrepreneur until I had a big wake-up call, a tragic experience. And it was kind of like a perfect storm. I didn't know how to make a dollar. I was not like selling baseball cards. I didn't do the lemonade stand. I didn't try to hustle all this stuff as a kid. I literally maybe made a little bit of money in the summers just because my dad put me to work. And I had this dream of playing professional football. And then I made 250 bucks a week My dad got in a tragic car accident. He was in a coma for three months. I didn't have a college degree. It was 2008. The economy went down. I was living on my sister's couch. She was feeding me. I was making no money. I was living off three credit cards with student loans. And I didn't have my dad as that kind of financial safety net anymore because he wasn't able to help me and bail me out. So it was more like, what do I do? No one was hiring people with degrees at that time, even master's degrees. I didn't even get a bachelor's degree yet. And I was just like, how do I survive? So it was, I don't think if the worst thing in my life would have happened, I want to be here learning how to be hungry, how to, like, say, I need to go survive right now and take chances. So I. I think. I think that perfect storm mentality made me into this Survivor creative mindset, willing to risk it all. whereas if I had my father to kind of protect me financially or say, because he was like, you're going to take over the business, you're going to come work with me. And that was my mindset when he kind of left emotionally and mentally. He's still alive today, but not the same from the brain trauma. It made me step up as a human being as a 24 year old and say, I got to learn some stuff.

And that's, that's what I said to young people today, look at this. this coronavirus pandemic, you know, it's really tragic because it attacks the old guys. But even worse is that baby boomers had it the easiest of all generations. But now their pensions are gone, their 401ks are gone. Social Security is broke, Medicare is broke. So I say to younger people, this pandemic, this crisis is the best thing that ever happened to you. You know, you think about that iPhone, you have more power in that iPhone than I had with my Sparrow Univac mainframe computer. And then so when I meet people that say, oh, the economy is bad, I said, the only economy is between this year and that year. You know, there's the economy out here. But this is the best time for your generation. Because you're tech savvy, I'm not tech savvy. You know, you got, this was made for you guys. The old guys like me are being cleaned out by the pandemic.

Unless you have a lot of assets that are bringing you in cash.

The way is clear for you. Now the old guys are gone. They're dead. What are you going to do a bunch? So it's really a great time, but exactly as you were talking about, the bad times are leading to the best times.

That's it.

Yeah.

If you can see it. But some, unfortunately, as you know, there's a lot of your generation are younger. They'll never recover.

Yeah.

They're going to see it as the worst of times.

I know. And they're going to reflect back to this in five years and 10 years and say, that's the thing that screwed me up or hurt me and be a victim to it as opposed to saying, okay, this is happening and how can I make the most of it? And what's it going to take for me to learn a new skill or get more creative or be hungrier in this time?

Or more important, who's your teachers?

Who are you listening to?

Well, you know, that's why I keep saying to the young, the millennials, you know, if they're a pack of wimps, you know, I meet millennials who are just horrifyingly weak. Snowflakes, I call them, you know. Yeah. They go to college and... Dorms. They're taught trigger events or whatever, you know, the, 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 year and this year, what's in your heart.

Yeah. For the, what do you think is the, the num, the next step, the first step or the number one step for the average person with, you know, the kind of the normal job that they might be losing, they have some debt, they got some credit card. What's the next step for them to not only survive but thrive in this market in this time?

Well, 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 not to say, you know, but we're all different. We're humans, we're a different being. If I show you this diagram here, you know, it's why I created my cash flow board game. because we have four different intelligences. We have mental intelligence. We have. I don't know what that one is. You probably have very good physical to make, you know, 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 freaking line.

Yeah.

You know, so Nazim Taleb, you know, I wrote the book, the Black Swan. He also wrote anti-fragile he says there's three 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. Second type is that so a fragile is like a champagne flute.

Yeah.

You hit it, the 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.