943 Robert Kiyosaki: How to Become Wealthy in a Down Economy (The Rich Dad Poor Dad Guide)

“Some people are looking for the challenge, some are looking for security.”QUESTIONSWhat were some wake moments for you as an entrepreneur? (1:25)Can one get rich without being bold? (11:28)What’s the next step to get through this pandemic market? (16:18)What does “define benefit” mean? (40:51)What’s your projection of real estate right now? (48:17)YOU WILL LEARNWhat Robert learned from his first big success and failure (6:42)How young people have a lot of opportunity due to the pandemic (14:21)The three types of people in this world (18:15)The difference between peacetime and wartime leaders (24:13)Robert’s feelings about the stock market (28:10)What the pandemic is doing to the economy (36:18)LINKS MENTIONEDWho Stole My Pension? Rich Dad Poor DadCashflow Classic GamePatrick Bet-DavidGeorge GammonThe Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward GriffinInvestment Biker by Jim RogersDave RamseyAntifragile by Nasium TalebIf you enjoyed this episode, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/943 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 943 with international bestselling author, Robert Kiyosaki.

• 0:08Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:34Lewis Howes?

  Steve Jobs said, "If today were the last day of your life, would you want to do what you are about to do today?" I love that question and quote because it gets you thinking. It gets you thinking about where you're at in your life, where you want to be in your life, and if you are in the right direction of your dreams, of your goals, of your desired future self, your greater future self. Are you doing what you want to do today? Yes, there are going to be tasks and things that you don't want to do. I don't want to do everything that I do every minute of the day. But are you in general happy with the things you're doing? And are you excited about them? Are you uplifted by it all?

• 1:15Lewis Howes?

  Or are you down and out and constantly frustrated and depressed and unhappy and unsatisfied? If so, take inventory, start making the changes. And I'm so glad you're here today to learn how to make some changes in your financial situation in a down economy, or really any type of economy, but how to optimize this situation. We've got one of the icons in this space, Robert Kiyosaki, to share his wisdom and his personal perspective. He's an entrepreneur, investor, motivational speaker, author, and also a financial knowledge activist. And his book series, Rich Dad Poor Dad, is an international bestseller and has been sold all over the world in massive amounts.

• 1:58Lewis Howes?

  It is a comparison between his two dads. One was his poor biological father and the other fictitious rich dad. The poor father was in fact, very educated. But had no money and the rich father was a high school dropout and was in fact Hawaii's richest man. He's got a new book out which is called Who Stole My Pension and How You Can Stop The Looting. And in this interview, we talk about his talks about his toughest lessons learned in business from experience, lessons that are hard to teach unless you live through them, the importance of choosing your teachers wisely to come out on top of a financial crisis,

• 2:39Lewis Howes?

  the difference between wartime and peacetime leaders and business owners, and why this is the best time to make money despite what most people are thinking right now. Yes, this is the best time to make money. We also discuss some of the biggest companies that were started between 2008 to 2010 recession and some advice Robert has about business in contrast to some of the popular business leaders today. I'm excited about this one. Robert has a unique perspective. He has his opinions, his advice that's worked for him. It's not for everybody. There are other people out there you can learn from, but this is definitely one opinion that has done extremely well in his perspective. And I'm super excited to be a part of this.

• 3:22Lewis Howes?

  If you love Robert, if you're a fan of his books, then make sure to share this episode with a friend, LewisHowes.com/943. Subscribe to the School of Greatness podcast and leave us a review. I'm so glad you're here and pumped to get into this episode. Let's dive in with the one, the only, Robert Kiyosaki.

• 3:46Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got the legend, Robert Kiyosaki in the house. Thank you so much for being here. Super excited about this.

• 3:54Robert Kiyosaki?

  Well, thank you. People say I'm a legend in my own mind, you know? And my reply is you may as well be a legend in your own mind because you're not a legend in anybody else's mind.

• 4:07Lewis Howes?

  Hey, you gotta believe in yourself if you wanna create great things in the world. At least you've gotta believe. Uh, it's almost twenty-five 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?

• 4:19Robert Kiyosaki?

  No, it's kinda what we were talking about. This is what I'm supposed to have done anyway. You know, it was, uh, so I got on my path.

• 4:26Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 4:27Robert Kiyosaki?

  And what I was saying, what you and I were talking about before we started is I meet a lot of guys who something tragic happens in their life, but it was the best thing ever happened to them. Like I had a friend who was a Olympic, uh, snowboarder. And he did one of those goofy things those guys do and he shattered his body.

• 4:47Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 4:47Robert Kiyosaki?

  And nobody could heal him. So he became an acupuncturist. And the guy is the greatest. He found this real gift. It's not snowboarding or whatever he was doing. Cause he's a healer.

• 5:00Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:01Robert Kiyosaki?

  And he uses acupuncture, you know, and he heals people. He's unbelievably good, but if it hadn't crashed, he wouldn't be where he is today.

• 5:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What was the big tragedy in your life?

• 5:14Robert Kiyosaki?

  Oh, this every other, every other day this. Every day.

• 5:18Lewis Howes?

  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?

• 5:26Robert Kiyosaki?

  Oh, there's a lot of, I mean, I really was, uh, as an entrepreneur. Uh, my biggest failure was that I was, I was successful in my first venture.

• 5:36Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 5:37Robert Kiyosaki?

  And I was, uh, this is, I don't know, I was about twenty-five years old. And I started a nylon, I'm a vocal surfer wallet business. And everybody said, well, why, why are you doing that? I said, well, I don't know what else to do, you know?

• 5:49Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:49Robert Kiyosaki?

  And I used to make nylon wallet. I went to school in New York, a military school, a 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 Harlem, little. And I, I gave my, I showed this little wallet to my two partners, two criminals. But anyway, so we, we came out with these nylon wallets. We had them manufactured in Korea and nobody would buy them.

• 6:25Robert Kiyosaki?

  So I have a hundred thousand 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 stupid.

• 6:34Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 6:35Robert Kiyosaki?

  And everybody kept saying, you shit me, what are you guys doing?

• 6:42Robert Kiyosaki?

  And what happened was because we failed at the wallet business, I was sitting in our offices in Honolulu and somebody says, hey, these 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.

• 6:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:58Robert Kiyosaki?

  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.

• 7:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 7:10Robert Kiyosaki?

  And so the headline says, uh, San Francisco Times, what does a jogger do with their key? And I went, 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, now I had a runner's shoe, I mean a shoe pocket. So I go around the world again, so I'm going broke so fast. I had no money, I was borrowing money, raising capital. But it was all good because I was learning how to raise capital.

• 7:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:40Robert Kiyosaki?

  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 this stupid shoe pocket on a New Balance three twenty shoe. And we get it into Runner's World Magazine.

• 7:57Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 7:58Robert Kiyosaki?

  It cost me sixteen thousand bucks.

• 8:00Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh, a lot of money.

• 8:02Robert Kiyosaki?

  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, you know, can't pay the rent, the repo at my Harley. And it was getting so bad. So I, let's give one more shot, just one more shot. So we, we go to New York City. At the sporting goods show at the Colosseum. 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, Rippers, you know, and he goes, Rippers, Rippers. Where have you been? And I turn around and 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.

• 8:46Robert Kiyosaki?

  My store is filled with people coming in looking for the shoe pocket.

• 8:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 8:51Robert Kiyosaki?

  I said.

• 8:52Lewis Howes?

  Call me.

• 8:53Robert Kiyosaki?

  That's what I said. So 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.

• 9:00Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 9:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 9:08Robert Kiyosaki?

  And then what happened is Playboy put a pic, you know, they featured this young thing with nothing on but a shoe pocket. And our salesmen, I looked like a genius. But this is where it went broke. We couldn't keep up with demand. Wallets, 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. And one day, but we were already like eight hundred fifty thousand in debt, which is a lot of money back then.

• 9:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow. It's a lot of money right now.

• 9:43Robert Kiyosaki?

  Yeah, well, it's relative.

• 9:47Robert Kiyosaki?

  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, accounts can't sell. So I give him a hundred thousand dollars. Well, this take care of the problem. And Stanley said, yes, it took care of his problem. He paid off his, he paid off his investors.

• 10:14Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 10:15Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 10:21Lewis Howes?

  Stealing Stanley.

• 10:22Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 10:27Lewis Howes?

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

• 10:31Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 10:41Lewis Howes?

  Until you learn your lesson, right?

• 10:43Robert Kiyosaki?

  No, no, every, every, every entrepreneur I've talked to, I've had somebody steal them. You know, I, I, I go to my doctor.

• 10:53Robert Kiyosaki?

  And this little cute, little cutie working for him, this beautiful young woman, you know, as sweet as this, everybody loved her, dah dah dah dah dah dah dah. And so one day I went and said, well, where is she? And he was, you know, where is she? Well, what she did, because she's tech savvy, she rigged the invoicing on their computer. So, you know, twenty, you know, like ninety percent went to the doctor and ten percent went to her.

• 11:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 11:17Robert Kiyosaki?

  And so she heist it. I said, that little sweetheart?

• 11:21Lewis Howes?

  Smart.

• 11:23Robert Kiyosaki?

  And then, so he, 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.

• 11:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 11:35Robert Kiyosaki?

  So then that was the next thing you'll learn. Is it better to send her to jail? Or take, take the-

• 11:41Lewis Howes?

  Take the money? Wow.

• 11:44Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 11:49Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 11:50Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 11:53Lewis Howes?

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

• 11:55Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 11:57Lewis Howes?

  Man, what was the, what's the lesson you've learned in the last two to three years that you thought you'd already learned? That you, you, you keep learning? That comes the hard way? Is there anything that you still learn or have you seen it all?

• 12:11Robert Kiyosaki?

  No, it's, it's that, as, as you know, a rich dad poured out the story of my rich dad who had no education. But he, he grew up in business for real, you know, he, he, he took over the family business at thirteen. 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, Northwestern, Northwestern, you know, very smart guy, good guy and all this. But as you know, teachers don't know shit.

• 12:38Robert Kiyosaki?

  They teach stuff, they teach stuff that are nothing about.

• 12:41Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 12:48Robert Kiyosaki?

  Don't defend them, don't defend them, I don't like them.

• 12:52Robert Kiyosaki?

  Anyway, you know what happens, when do I get in the most trouble? Is when I criticize going to school.

• 12:59Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 12:59Robert Kiyosaki?

  Because to many people, it's their only hope and salvation.

• 13:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:03Robert Kiyosaki?

  So if I say, well, I don't think school teaches you much, I may as well piss on the Pope. You know, they said.

• 13:09Lewis Howes?

  I know.

• 13:10Robert Kiyosaki?

  Religion, if, if you don't go to school. And then it tells us, well, you know, Steve Jobs dropped out, he did pretty good.

• 13:17Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 13:17Robert Kiyosaki?

  It's dropped out, Dell dropped.

• 13:19Lewis Howes?

  Zuckerberg.

• 13:19Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 13:26Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:26Robert Kiyosaki?

  No. So anyway, religion is, I mean, education's religion to most people.

• 13:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:32Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 13:34Lewis Howes?

  What, 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 a 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

• 14:15Lewis Howes?

  deal with a breakup in a relationship, a tragic time, like the, the emotional side of things, the, the education that I wish they would have taught us, I was like, I'm gonna go create it. And I'm gonna find people like Robert and teach us the ways. So, you know, you're doing that through your, 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.

• 14:41Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 14:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:49Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 14:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:54Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 15:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:05Robert Kiyosaki?

  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 either, because it wasn't challenging anymore.

• 15:15Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:16Robert Kiyosaki?

  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.

• 15:23Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 15:24Robert Kiyosaki?

  They're very, very, they're extremely different people.

• 15:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you talk about, you know, 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, you know, these big chances? Or can you keep this security mindset and really gain true wealth?

• 15:46Robert Kiyosaki?

  Well, many people have. You look at Cuomo and all those guys, they were born rich kids to their father.

• 15:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:52Robert Kiyosaki?

  Now, Trump could have taken that path too. He was, he was born a rich kid. So it's not, it's, I think it's either an entrepreneur or you're not.

• 15:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:00Robert Kiyosaki?

  It does.

• 16:01Lewis Howes?

  You know what's interesting? I never thought I was an entrepreneur until I had a, 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 two hundred fifty bucks a week. My dad got in a tragic car accident. He was in a coma for three months. Um, I didn't have a college degree. It was two thousand eight. The economy went down. Uh, 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.

• 16:47Lewis Howes?

  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

• 17:32Lewis Howes?

  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 gotta learn some stuff.

• 17:46Robert Kiyosaki?

  And that's what, that's what I say to young people today. Look at this pandemic, this coronavirus pandemic, you know, it's really tragic because it attacks the old guys. But this, but even worse is the baby boomers had it the easiest of all generations. But now their, their pensions are gone, their 401ks are gone.

• 18:06Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 18:06Robert Kiyosaki?

  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 spare Univac mainframe computer. And then, so when I meet people that say, oh, the economy is bad. I said, there's the only economies between this era and that era. You know, there's an 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.

• 18:46Lewis Howes?

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

• 18:48Robert Kiyosaki?

  The way is clear for you. Now, the old guys are gone. They're dead.

• 18:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:52Robert Kiyosaki?

  What are you going to do about it? You know, so it's really a great time. But exactly as you're talking about, the bad times are leading to the best times.

• 19:01Lewis Howes?

  That's it. Yeah.

• 19:02Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 19:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:09Robert Kiyosaki?

  They're gonna see it as the worst of times.

• 19:11Lewis Howes?

  I know, and they're gonna, they're gonna reflect back 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 gonna take for me to learn a new skill or get more creative or be hungrier in this time?"

• 19:28Robert Kiyosaki?

  Or more important, who's your teachers?

• 19:31Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, who are you listening to?

• 19:33Robert Kiyosaki?

  Well, you know, that's why I keep saying to the young, the millennials, you know, they're pack of wimps. You know, I meet millennials who are just horrifyingly weak. They're taught trigger events or whatever, you know, the, the, I don't know what they say today, but they've gotta have special rooms where there's no whatever. I'm going, "Holy mackerel, welcome to the real world," you know? And the other millennials who are as tough as nails, I mean, this is the biggest opportunity they've ever had.

• 20:01Lewis Howes?

  Huge.

• 20:02Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 20:06Lewis Howes?

  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, or 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?

• 20:28Robert Kiyosaki?

  Well, I always say quit your job, but that's not, you know, I don't have a job. I never, I've only had one job, and I never wanted a job after that because I had to be hungry. Not to say, you know, but we're all different, we're humans, we're different beings. If I show this diagram here, you know, it's why I created my cash flow bargaining. Because we have four 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, you know, all and all that.

• 20:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:59Robert Kiyosaki?

  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.

• 21:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:09Robert Kiyosaki?

  You know what I mean? Because you're putting your life on the frickin' line.

• 21:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:14Robert Kiyosaki?

  You know, so Nazim Taleb, you know, wrote the book The Black Swan. He also wrote Anti-Fragility, so there's three kinds of people in the world. There's fragile, and that's what our school systems are putting out, fragile. And that's your choice, you wanna be that way, have a good life. The second type is that so fragile is like a champagne flute.

• 21:35Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 21:36Robert Kiyosaki?

  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.

• 21:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:47Robert Kiyosaki?

  They take it. But that's all they do. They take it. And that anti fragile is somebody like you where they pound the crap out of you. And you get smarter and better because of it. So I love Nazir M. Talib, and a lot of people call him Doctor Doom. But the way I look at this whole thing, this economy is probably going into a depression. You know, we're not going to get out of this.

• 22:13Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 22:14Robert Kiyosaki?

  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 I'm going to get poor. And if they're baby boomers, they're going to blame it on this coronavirus. Oh, my health, you know, the, 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.

• 22:59Lewis Howes?

  Right, corpse, not core, yeah.

• 23:01Robert Kiyosaki?

  A corpse man, no, a corpse man. A corpse man is a person who's dead but doesn't know it.

• 23:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:06Robert Kiyosaki?

  They're so afraid of dying, they're already dead.

• 23:10Lewis Howes?

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

• 23:15Robert Kiyosaki?

  This is the best time to be alive right now.

• 23:17Lewis Howes?

  I did an interview with Dave Ramsey last week, and he said, you know, the last three or four recessions or down economies, whatever you want to call it, crashes. He said, I made more money during those times than I do in, in good times. So I'm hearing him say that, I'm hearing you say that. How did you make more money then? And how are you planning to turn this into an opportunity to make more money now for you? What are the things, the actual like action steps? Is it investing more in the stock market? Is it real estate? Is it buying other assets? What does that look like for you?

• 23:49Robert Kiyosaki?

  Dave Ramsey says live debt free. When the market crashed in 2008, guess how much money I borrowed?

• 23:55Lewis Howes?

  A lot.

• 23:55Robert Kiyosaki?

  Three hundred million.

• 23:57Lewis Howes?

  No way. From private investors, the banker, how does that, how does that work?

• 24:01Robert Kiyosaki?

  Because interest rates were dropping and real estate prices were going to the toilet. And when I walk into my banker, this is what Rich Dad, Poor Dad about, Rich Dad, Poor Dad is about a financial statement. Income statement, balance sheet, statement of cash flow. It's a book on accounting. People don't even know it's a book on accounting. So I walked into my bank with my partner and had all this property that was floating to the surface. And I say, I'll take them off your hands. I just give me, give me the money to buy the property.

• 24:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:28Robert Kiyosaki?

  That's gahonious.

• 24:29Lewis Howes?

  Three hundred million.

• 24:31Robert Kiyosaki?

  Give me the money and I'll buy your properties for you.

• 24:34Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 24:35Robert Kiyosaki?

  So it depends, and this is my whole thing. I'm now seven hundred million, almost a billion in debt.

• 24:41Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 24:42Robert Kiyosaki?

  You know why? Because I don't pay any taxes. The more debt I have, the less tax I pay. And the average guy goes, how do you do that? Because you have bad teachers. And so it's this whole thing that you gotta choose your teachers wisely. That's why I wrote the book Fake, Fake Money, Fake Teachers, Fake Assets. I don't touch that garbage that Wall Street puts out. I don't have a 401K. I don't have stocks, mutual funds, ETFs. Doesn't mean you shouldn't, but I don't need them. Okay?

• 25:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:09Robert Kiyosaki?

  And the other part is, look, for young guys, the best teachers are not in colleges. The best teacher are on YouTube. The best teachers are on YouTube. Wake up. You know, this guy, George Gammon, he's fantastic. Patrick Bet David, fantastic, you know?

• 25:24Lewis Howes?

  He's great.

• 25:25Robert Kiyosaki?

  Records. The fake teachers are in colleges. They're telling you to get a job.

• 25:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:30Robert Kiyosaki?

  The corporate ladder. You know, Patrick Bet Davidson is the best, and I love that guy. He says there's two kinds of leaders, wartime and peacetime. And a peacetime leader is a guy like my poor dad. He goes through all the right schools. He has all the pedigrees, credentials. He does all the right things. He climbs the corporate or the government ladder and all that. Where wartime leader goes, goes to war. So Jobs, Steve Jobs, I'm a wartime leader. I'm a wartime leader. Difference is I went to war. I went to war twice on the front lines.

• 26:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:03Robert Kiyosaki?

  And I changed, what happened? So I joined the Marine Corps. I got a flight to Los Angeles. I learned to fly. I got to Camp Pendleton. I strapped on my weapons. I go to advanced weapons in Camp Pendleton. I go to Okinawa and then they send me into Vietnam. And I I came out of Vietnam about four months later, back to back to backstage in Okinawa. And I thought everybody had changed. I looked at the fellow Marines and I thought they were pussies. And it wasn't that they were pussies. I had been to war.

• 26:31Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. You got tougher.

• 26:33Robert Kiyosaki?

  No, no, it's different. When somebody's trying to kill you, every single mission, I went down three times.

• 26:40Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 26:41Robert Kiyosaki?

  Yeah. And I came back stronger and tougher. So I come back to Okinawa, I get like a week off. And they're gonna ship me back into Vietnam again. I said, what happened to these guys? And it wasn't that they changed, I changed. So what happens to entrepreneurs who go out and they get their hands handed to them and they survive. If you survive, you see the world differently. So that's what happened to you when you get injured and all this.

• 27:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:06Robert Kiyosaki?

  You see a different world. Whereas who's climbing the corporate ladder right now, they just lost their job. They're sucking their thumb. You know, this is the worst time for them. Yet for a wartime leader, this

• 27:17Lewis Howes?

  They're excited. They're excited about it. Yeah.

• 27:19Robert Kiyosaki?

  It's the best of times.

• 27:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:21Robert Kiyosaki?

  If you're an entrepreneur right now, the world's open to you. If you're an employee, your world's dead to you.

• 27:26Lewis Howes?

  What, yeah.

• 27:28Robert Kiyosaki?

  An entrepreneur can create their own success.

• 27:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:31Robert Kiyosaki?

  See, watch Patrick Beck David, you know?

• 27:34Lewis Howes?

  He's great.

• 27:34Robert Kiyosaki?

  Later, peacetime leader. Which one are you? So this is the best of times for the wartime guys. Horrible time, peacetime.

• 27:41Lewis Howes?

  Right. And and for the people that are the wartime people, what is the the best advice you would give them now for the next year, two years to capitalize on how do they make more money? How do they make their millions during this time? What would you say?

• 27:56Robert Kiyosaki?

  You can't, you can't make money now. You should hang it up. I I tell all you fricking millennials, man. You got, you know, I don't know where it is. I got, I got this iPhone. If you can't make money with that, hang it up. You know, like we used to say, hang up the jockstrap. You're not the team. You can't make money with an iPhone through social media, through marketing. You have the world at your fingertips and you can't make money? The problem is between this era and this era. It's not out here, it's in here. That's why you've got to choose your teachers wisely.

• 28:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:29Robert Kiyosaki?

  So let me just say it again, the best teachers are on YouTube. So it's the best porno. Take up your mind, make up your mind what you want to listen to. So I'm just being real to you.

• 28:39Lewis Howes?

  I hear you, man.

• 28:40Robert Kiyosaki?

  No.

• 28:41Lewis Howes?

  I hear you. What's, what's the best investment people can make then to, to op- uh, capitalize on this opportunity? Is the investment in education?

• 28:49Robert Kiyosaki?

  Left ear, look, if you're poor right now, it was called look in the mirror. That's what Rick always said to me, says, if you're looking in the mirror right now and you see a loser, that's what you are. Can't make money in this economy.

• 29:06Robert Kiyosaki?

  You're gonna change, you're gonna think, you know, hindsight is 2020, as I said.

• 29:10Lewis Howes?

  Yes, yes.

• 29:11Robert Kiyosaki?

  I was, if you're looking, you know, you don't have any money, you don't have a job, your boyfriend or girlfriend has left you. And soon they go, so, well, how did I get here? How did I get here? There was a, there was a great book called, uh, you know, Gulag Archipelago by Sylson Nathan. So he gets thrown in this, in a, um, concentration camp or a gulag in Siberia. And he says, how did I get here? You know how you got there? Cause he was a peace time leader.

• 29:42Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 29:43Robert Kiyosaki?

  Didn't fight back. So people are being sold that they'll go to school, get a job, pay taxes, save money, get out of debt, buy a house, the house is an asset, and invest for the long term in a well-defined portfolio of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs. And I do none of that.

• 30:07Lewis Howes?

  And why do you recommend the opposite?

• 30:10Robert Kiyosaki?

  Cause I don't have to do that crap. That's, that's Kool-Aid. Go to school. Go to school. What do they teach you about money? Nothing. Get a job, you pay the highest taxes. Pay your taxes. I don't pay taxes. Get out of debt. Well, debt, money is debt after 1971, if you know your history of money. Your house is not an asset, house is a liability. And why would I invest for the long term in the stock market when I can make my own assets? I don't need the stock market. I'm not saying you shouldn't. But I create my own assets. I create my own cash flow. Every day I can.

• 30:40Lewis Howes?

  You mean through your, you mean through your business, through your, your, right, your creativity?

• 30:46Robert Kiyosaki?

  I'm, I'm an entrepreneur.

• 30:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:48Robert Kiyosaki?

  Most people are employees. They're looking for jobs. I'm just looking for. So like right now.

• 30:54Lewis Howes?

  Should entrepreneurs invest in, in the stock market? You think if you're entrepreneurial, you should invest?

• 30:58Robert Kiyosaki?

  Look, find a stupid teacher's gonna tell you what to do.

• 31:03Lewis Howes?

  I'm asking your opinion. I'm curious as a teacher.

• 31:06Robert Kiyosaki?

  I don't give advice. You know, I wouldn't follow Warren Buffett either. You know why? Cause he invests the money. Why would I let him invest my money? I want the fun.

• 31:17Lewis Howes?

  So what's the, what's the investment you make the most in?

• 31:19Robert Kiyosaki?

  Look, please hear what I'm saying.

• 31:21Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 31:21Robert Kiyosaki?

  I made a fortune in two thousand eight. Twenty twenty, I'm making more money and paying less taxes. It doesn't mean I don't have problems, but I'm prepared for this. My biggest problem right now is because everybody's taking a vacation. I can't get enough product. I'm selling out, you know, my cash flow gain is sold out. It's selling out constantly all over the world. All over the world, I get royalties from my book sales. My book sales are going through the roof right now. You know, I, I was gonna become a captain in the Marine Corps, but I had some disciplinary problems. And those were the best things that ever happened to me. So I have discipline, I have disciplinary problems, but I'm very disciplined. And the people who are sick or poor right now, they lack discipline. There's two kinds of discipline.

• 32:05Robert Kiyosaki?

  There's internal or self-discipline. And then there's external discipline. So right now, if the world's kicking your butt, that's external discipline. And if you're self-disciplined, the world's kissing your butt right now. It's up to you. So that's why I love the Marine Corps. That's why I love going to military school and not a university. Cause I got my ass kicked every single frickin' day. First word I had to learn at the Marine, at the academy, mission. Mission is spiritual. What's your mission? And my mission has always been to serve people. Most people, all they give a is making money and growing people. That's called the Federal Reserve Bank, Wall Street and all that. I wanted them to do with them.

• 32:49Robert Kiyosaki?

  I just don't play their game. But you have to get smarter not to play their game. So that's why YouTube has the best teachers. This guy, George Gammon, man, he's a great teacher. Patrick David, fantastic teacher. You know, Cardone, fantastic teachers. So choose your teachers wisely. That's all, that's what I say, because I have to choose between my rich dad and my poor dad. My poor dad, PhD, poor, helpless and desperate. And that's what he wanted me to do when I came back from Vietnam was get my masters degree, get my PhD and fly for the airlines. If I had done that, you know, my friends who flew for United, they're broke. You know why they're broke? Because Wall Street stole their pensions.

• 33:30Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 33:30Robert Kiyosaki?

  You know, it's called an ESOP, Employee Stock Option Plan. The biggest crisis coming up right now after this pandemic is pensions are going to crash. That's right. You got it, man.

• 33:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:41Robert Kiyosaki?

  Thanks.

• 33:42Lewis Howes?

  Why? Why are they going to crash?

• 33:43Robert Kiyosaki?

  Because they're empty. Wall Street looted them. My God, wake up, wake up. You know, there's a better book than that. It's called The Creature from Jekyll Island by, by G. Edward Griffin. It's a big book. Get it on audiobook and listen to it, you know, a couple of, couple of 10 minutes a night or something. The Federal Reserve has only one prop, 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 market, they pump the prices up. The rich exit and the poor and middle class who listen to Dave Ramsey and Suzy Orman, and their advice is good for the middle class. Don't get me wrong. They're told to invest for the long term.

• 34:27Robert Kiyosaki?

  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 of the Titanic. It's going down. Meanwhile, the rich have got their G5 flying in to pick them up and get off the boat.

• 34:45Robert Kiyosaki?

  They're out.

• 34:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:48Robert Kiyosaki?

  Because the problem isn't in the stock market, the problem, you know, the problems in the repo market.

• 34:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 34:53Robert Kiyosaki?

  Corporate credit market, the consumer, uh, commercial paper market. They don't tell you that. They don't teach you that in school. So suddenly, voila, you know, in September, the corp, uh, shadow banking, which is corporate credit and the, uh, commercial paper and the commercial, I mean, corporate credit and commercial paper market started to go bad in September. Oh, suddenly pandemic. Oh.

• 35:21Robert Kiyosaki?

  That was interesting. Funny how that appeared, you know?

• 35:24Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 35:27Robert Kiyosaki?

  So I'm not saying the pandemic isn't real.

• 35:31Robert Kiyosaki?

  I'm saying the real crisis, it's a smokescreen for the real crisis going on right now.

• 35:36Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 35:37Robert Kiyosaki?

  They're stealing your wealth through your pensions, your 401K, your IRA, through social security, through your taxes, through Medicare.

• 35:46Robert Kiyosaki?

  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 under, if you really have a financial education, we're going from capitalist, which I am. And nothing wrong with the socialist, you know, there's, there are some people, eighty, twenty percent of the people need to be given money because they're that unable, what a poor reason, they're not able to. So we should give some people money, but not everybody.

• 36:14Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 36:15Robert Kiyosaki?

  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.

• 36:33Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 36:34Robert Kiyosaki?

  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, and 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?

• 36:56Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 36:58Robert Kiyosaki?

  You know, that's, you're taking away the first amendment. The right to assemble.

• 37:06Robert Kiyosaki?

  PC, political correctness is freedom of speech.

• 37:11Robert Kiyosaki?

  Okay. 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 assemble, which is why there was a revolutionary war back in seventeen seventy six. You know, the, uh, the Americans were, had to go hide in a church because the British would kill them if they were caught assembling. History repeats. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but you know, most people are taught this.

• 37:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:51Robert Kiyosaki?

  That's why I love going to military school versus university.

• 37:55Lewis Howes?

  They teach you a lot of history, probably.

• 37:57Robert Kiyosaki?

  We're taught military history.

• 37:59Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 38:00Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 38:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 38:12Robert Kiyosaki?

  That's called his story.

• 38:16Robert Kiyosaki?

  You know, the loser doesn't get to tell their story.

• 38:21Lewis Howes?

  Funny.

• 38:22Robert Kiyosaki?

  So anyway, that's where we're at. And

• 38:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:25Robert Kiyosaki?

  I just leave it to your generation. You guys are in the best position ever because you're still young. You're tech savvy, which, and baby boomers aren't. So they're all, a lot of them are feeble.

• 38:38Robert Kiyosaki?

  And they're gone.

• 38:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:41Robert Kiyosaki?

  So you guys have the world ahead of you.

• 38:43Lewis Howes?

  And use this time to be creative and, and

• 38:45Robert Kiyosaki?

  Yes.

• 38:46Lewis Howes?

  Action and be bold. And I think I saw something about in two thousand eight to two thousand ten. Some of the greatest companies or the biggest companies of today were started then Airbnb, Uber, uh, you know, all these other companies.

• 38:59Robert Kiyosaki?

  Bitcoin.

• 39:01Lewis Howes?

  Bitcoin.

• 39:02Robert Kiyosaki?

  Two thousand nine.

• 39:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:04Robert Kiyosaki?

  See, I love Bitcoin.

• 39:07Lewis Howes?

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

• 39:10Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 39:15Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. You don't like the Fed?

• 39:19Robert Kiyosaki?

  The creature from Jekyll Island, the Fed. The Fed is not a bank. It's a cartel. All by the richest guys on earth.

• 39:28Robert Kiyosaki?

  Okay, you guys just 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 I, my whole objective is I go through my system of business, but I'm buying gold and silver. I store it in 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 want 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 gonna see lawsuits are gonna go up because people are desperate. They don't have any money. So when the economy gets bad, that's why they, you know, have you been in an accident? Have you been hurt?

• 40:12Robert Kiyosaki?

  Let me, I'll come out sue them for you. So if you don't have the right corporate, corporate into like LLCs, C corporations, S corporations, offshore accounts, you got, money is gonna be stolen. It's the real game. It's not this Dave Ramsey stuff, man. It's not the Suzy Orma stuff. Not that they're bad. I mean, they're friends of mine. I just wouldn't follow their advice. Choose your teachers. Okay, your pensions, watch in a few years, oh, he did tell us our pensions are gone. You know what's gonna happen? They're gonna bail them out again. Because if you read this book here, A Creature, it says bailout is a name with a G. Back in the eighties, there was a guy named Neil Bush. Let's see, the Bush family.

• 40:58Robert Kiyosaki?

  George, George, Silverado Savings. When Neil Bush got in trouble, George and George bailed him out.

• 41:07Lewis Howes?

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

• 41:18Robert Kiyosaki?

  Well, defined benefit is industrial age. That was my poor debts, you know. So what happens, I got a job with Ford Motor Company. And I get defined benefit, which meant defined benefit means you got a paycheck for your for life. But they promise you a thousand dollars a month to get that for the rest of your life guaranteed. Well, the problem was, as you know, right around the seventies, that's when China and Japan and all of my Japan and Germany came on. So they had to get rid of pensions because pensions are a drag on the on the business. So they came up with a thing called ERISA, which today is known as a 401k. So a 401k type is a defined contribution. So you have defined benefit,

• 41:59Robert Kiyosaki?

  which is industrial age, defined corporation is the 401k contribution. So defined contribution means you only get what you put in. If it's not enough there, aloha. It's not our problem today. So I meet all these millennials, they go, oh, I have a 401k. And I said, do you like bending over and picking up the soap? You know what I mean?

• 42:25Robert Kiyosaki?

  They don't know the difference.

• 42:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:28Robert Kiyosaki?

  Because you know what 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 nineteen seventy four, just as out, just as the baby boomers entered the workforce. So today, the average baby boomers 401k has sixty five thousand dollars in it. The guy with the four with the defined benefit, their their annual, you know, they have something like a million in it.

• 43:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:10Robert Kiyosaki?

  The trouble is, they're empty. That's who stole my pensions about my co-authors and Ted Sedell. He was an SEC attorney and he became a whistleblower because he saw how much Wall Street was sucking the cash.

• 43:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:24Robert Kiyosaki?

  Pensions. So that's who must stole my pension.

• 43:29Robert Kiyosaki?

  So he then he made, I think, thirty nine million last year blowing the whistle on all these on these Wall Street firms, Bullman Sachs and those guys.

• 43:40Lewis Howes?

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

• 43:47Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 43:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:51Robert Kiyosaki?

  Because I can tell, you know, I don't need money. Like, I write a book, right? And I get royalties from fifty different book companies throughout the world.

• 44:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:01Robert Kiyosaki?

  So let's say I write a book, I make, they pay me ten thousand dollars and write 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 Cash Flow Board Game, which unfortunately sold out right now. But every time somebody buys one, I get a royalty, whether I work or not.

• 44:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:25Robert Kiyosaki?

  And then I borrow money, I buy real estate, and then I use the accounting laws, appreciation, depreciation, amortization, and pay no taxes. Trump doesn't pay taxes either. That's why he won't show his financials.

• 44:37Lewis Howes?

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

• 44:42Robert Kiyosaki?

  Because taxes are incentives. Taxes are, government wants you to do certain things. For example, if I donated, 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 five hundred 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.

• 45:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:12Robert Kiyosaki?

  So that's why Dave Ramsey, you know, I must, 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.

• 45:21Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:22Robert Kiyosaki?

  Now, real estate's going down right now. But that's why I have LLCs and C corporations, because then I, they can't get me, because I'm protected by a corporate entity. Besides, if you read this book here.

• 45:36Lewis Howes?

  The creature. You gotta get the creature.

• 45:38Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 45:49Lewis Howes?

  Really? Wow.

• 45:50Robert Kiyosaki?

  Free money.

• 45:51Lewis Howes?

  So they'll bail you out. Wow.

• 45:52Robert Kiyosaki?

  I love this country.

• 45:55Lewis Howes?

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

• 45:57Robert Kiyosaki?

  But you can't do that as an employee.

• 45:59Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 46:00Robert Kiyosaki?

  Out of school, get a job. Your mindset is different than an employee's. That's rich dad and poor dad.

• 46:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:05Robert Kiyosaki?

  Poor dad, employee. Rich dad, entrepreneur.

• 46:09Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 46:09Robert Kiyosaki?

  That was the choice I had to make.

• 46:11Lewis Howes?

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

• 46:20Robert Kiyosaki?

  You shouldn't ask us, you know? All kinds of entrepreneurs, if you know what I mean.

• 46:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 46:25Robert Kiyosaki?

  There's drug dealers are entrepreneurs, hookers are entrepreneurs. There's a young girl who works in our neighborhood. She's a babysitter. She's an entrepreneur.

• 46:33Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 46:34Robert Kiyosaki?

  So everybody can be an entrepreneur, hopefully be a legal one.

• 46:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:39Robert Kiyosaki?

  The trouble is it's hard to make enough money if you're not a good entrepreneur.

• 46:43Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 46:44Robert Kiyosaki?

  So anyway, it's, it's just up here.

• 46:47Lewis Howes?

  Find the teachers, find the right teachers. You, 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.

• 47:02Robert Kiyosaki?

  Why would you save?

• 47:03Lewis Howes?

  Fear.

• 47:04Robert Kiyosaki?

  No, but you know, that was, that worked before nineteen seventy one. You know, they printed four point five trillion after two thousand eight. The estimate they're gonna print another six to eight trillion, maybe ten trillion.

• 47:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:18Robert Kiyosaki?

  After twenty twenty. At the same time, they're gonna pay zero, zero interest rate policy. So you're saving money while the feds printing money and they're gonna pay you no interest on it. Why would you save it? So that's, that's all I say. And so that's why when Suzie 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.

• 47:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:41Robert Kiyosaki?

  You just have to know money, that's all.

• 47:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And, and what's your prediction with real estate over the next few years? You think it's gonna 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 is, continues to grow, but eventually it's got to, right?

• 47:56Robert Kiyosaki?

  I wouldn't invest in LA for one reason, taxes.

• 47:59Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:00Robert Kiyosaki?

  You know, I, I just wouldn't, that's your choice, you know, people says it's a nice place to live and it is. But I don't like paying taxes.

• 48:08Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:08Robert Kiyosaki?

  I don't move there. Plus you have, you have what's called, uh, they try to pull it. Uh, I forget the name of it, but you can't raise the ransom people. So I don't like.

• 48:18Lewis Howes?

  Rank, rank control, yeah.

• 48:19Robert Kiyosaki?

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

• 48:28Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 48:29Robert Kiyosaki?

  Yeah.

• 48:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 48:31Robert Kiyosaki?

  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 going to be strong because everybody, eighty percent of the debt is measured in US dollars. So everybody needs dollars to pay off their debt. Okay. But in the meantime, the guys for a week, their houses are going to come up for sale, their Lamborghini, you know, their real estate. I wouldn't touch, I wouldn't touch commercial real estate. I mean, uh, office buildings, office buildings, you know, they're fine.

• 49:04Lewis Howes?

  No one, no one can go work anymore. The people who work from home for a while or, yeah, whatever.

• 49:09Robert Kiyosaki?

  Okay. Now, now. You know, I, I go to South Africa a lot. South Africa, the office buildings became low income housing.

• 49:20Lewis Howes?

  Whoa.

• 49:21Robert Kiyosaki?

  It's the future. Do you know those homeless people? Century City here, they come.

• 49:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I know. I gotta get, I gotta get out of here now.

• 49:30Robert Kiyosaki?

  I'm a little, you know, I just think different. That's all.

• 49:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:34Robert Kiyosaki?

  That was your job's like, think different.

• 49:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I got a few kind of final questions for you. I really appreciate you sharing and giving us this tough love, which, which I think a lot of people need right now.

• 49:43Robert Kiyosaki?

  Not politically correct.

• 49:44Lewis Howes?

  Uh, it's all good. We all, we all need different teachers and I appreciate your perspective. Um, this is a question I ask everyone towards the end of their conversations. I call it the three truths. It's a hypothetical question. Uh, but I'd like for you to imagine for a moment that many years from now, it's your last day on this earth. And you've accomplished everything. You've accomplished all the things you want in your personal life, your dreams. It's all happened. But for whatever reason, hypothetically, you gotta take all of your, your work with you. Your books, your content, your board games, all the teachings you've ever given to the world. It goes with you and you got to leave only three lessons behind for the rest of us to learn from.

• 50:27Lewis Howes?

  What would you say would be your three lessons or what I like to call three truths?

• 50:32Robert Kiyosaki?

  Well, I think the most important lessons probably, I think I said this way, my rich guy said all the time. My Richard always said, you know, knowledge is finite stupidity is infinite.

• 50:45Robert Kiyosaki?

  So stay stupid.

• 50:48Lewis Howes?

  That's a great truth.

• 50:49Robert Kiyosaki?

  Because that's how you get knowledge. He used to always say that to me because my dad always hid behind his diploma, PhD. He didn't know anything. Most school teachers don't know much.

• 51:05Robert Kiyosaki?

  You know, when, when people ask me about the Fed, what is the Fed? I said, have you ever watched the Wizard of Oz? And they go, yeah, well, you know how Dorothy and the Tin Man and the Lion and the Straw Man? They went down the Yellow Brick Road. They were hoping to find the wizard and the wizard was gonna give the lion a heart or, or, you know, Dorothy, whatever she wanted and all this stuff. And when they get to the wizard or the Fed, it was a midget behind it. There was nothing behind it. That's the Fed. That's the PhD. They're hiding behind this thing called diploma.

• 51:37Robert Kiyosaki?

  That's obsolete. And so that's the second lesson, you know, be careful where your teachers are. Make sure your teacher actually practices what they teach. So my tax guy is Tom, we all write. This book is tax free wealth. You really want to stop paying taxes? Get that book, it's 20 bucks. You'll probably save a couple of million dollars over your lifetime. But if you don't change, you know, the, this left ear and right ear, that gap between there, you're screwed.

• 52:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:01Robert Kiyosaki?

  And then you have my other friend, mother advisor, Andy Tanner, he wrote the book, uh, uh, Stock Market Cash Flow. Instead of investing for the long term, he makes money in markets going up or down. I'd rather do that than buy, pray and hold and listen to Suzy Orman and Dave Ramsey. But it's your choice.

• 52:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:18Robert Kiyosaki?

  Other guys, uh, Kenny McElroy, he writes all my real estate books. He's my real estate partner. We've made fortunes together, you know, this, it's just fortunes, tax free. Why would you go to school? Just buy some books, study them, get their YouTube.

• 52:36Lewis Howes?

  Make some mistakes on your own, right?

• 52:38Robert Kiyosaki?

  Oh, you don't have to just get stupid. But blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit. Meek means ego loss. I'm gonna learn. So I watch YouTube. So I know what goes on in the stock market. That's why I stay out of it. But if you don't know, might be the best place for you. So if you want us to end the stock market, that's Andy Tanner, Stock Market Cash Flow and 401 Chaos. They tell you what's really going on because they're real. They're in the market every day. You know, Jim Rogers wrote The Investment Biker or all that. He lives in Singapore. He basically says the problem with the Fed is they don't know what they're talking about. They're idiots. And we listen to them. They're the Wizard of Oz.

• 53:21Robert Kiyosaki?

  Everybody thinks they know something because they got this piece of paper. Like my poor dad, call a PhD. Rich dad, poor dad, had a financial statement. You cannot lie in your financial statement because that's fraud. PhDs, diploma. Rich people, financial statements. The other thing is this, I don't have a financial planner. I have a family office. The rich have family offices. So we have money to lend constantly. We make so much money.

• 53:52Robert Kiyosaki?

  So there's a difference in the mindset, the intelligence of what you learn. So I think the most important thing that you're teaching people in the School of Greatness is basically choose your teachers. What path you want to go down. You know, when your football career ended, it was the best thing that happened to you.

• 54:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, start to find a mentors.

• 54:11Robert Kiyosaki?

  Yeah, and that's what you're doing. And so you're a great role model for your generation.

• 54:16Lewis Howes?

  Oh, thank you.

• 54:17Robert Kiyosaki?

  In my generation, they're still baby boomers. What's that? Hello, boomer. What do they say? Hey, boomer. We're idiots.

• 54:27Robert Kiyosaki?

  Jeez, they still, most boomers are still cutting on social security and the stock market.

• 54:34Lewis Howes?

  I hear you. I don't know if you said the third one, you said, knowledge is finite, stupidity is infinite, so stay stupid, number one, which I love that because I've always felt like I'm the dumbest person in the

• 54:45Robert Kiyosaki?

  Mistakes, mistakes is what it means.

• 54:46Lewis Howes?

  What's that?

• 54:47Robert Kiyosaki?

  Be humble and make mistakes, I learned that.

• 54:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. Be careful who your teachers are, and the third one was,

• 54:54Robert Kiyosaki?

  Don't hide to have a diploma.

• 54:57Robert Kiyosaki?

  You know, if somebody says to you, da, da, da, da, show me your financials. So like, that's the sort of a family office versus, everybody has a home office, that's different than a family office. So a family office is like a hedge fund.

• 55:14Robert Kiyosaki?

  But, but rich guys have their own hedge funds, or their own private equity firms, is what it is.

• 55:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:20Robert Kiyosaki?

  So that's where you want to get to. So when you're there, the difference is, people ask me for money, like on Shark Tank. The first thing I ask them for is not their diploma. Show me your financials. If they don't have financials, I won't invest with them. Because they don't, they don't know what they're talking about.

• 55:42Lewis Howes?

  Just because you have a cool degree or fancy paper doesn't mean you can get results.

• 55:47Robert Kiyosaki?

  Oh God. You see, you can lie from behind a diploma. That's what the feds do.

• 55:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:55Robert Kiyosaki?

  Trump has financials. So that's all Rich Dad Porta is about, is about financial statements. And the cash flow game is, you physically, again, like I said, it's physically, yeah. There's four intelligences, mental, emotional, physical, spiritual. The game makes you fill out your financials on these four intelligences.

• 56:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:15Robert Kiyosaki?

  Because you have to move the things, you have to fill out the numbers and all this stuff. So it's max, it's max learning. Unfortunately, the game is sold out, but anyway, that's how I designed 26 years ago, 20, I don't know.

• 56:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, they can go, they can go order it and it'll be out hopefully in the next couple of months, they can get it on a waitlist.

• 56:32Robert Kiyosaki?

  I don't know, everybody's on vacation.

• 56:36Lewis Howes?

  You have, uh, you've, you've impacted millions of people's lives around the world. I remember actually playing the game with my mom. Twenty, twenty-two years ago, I don't know, I was a kid.

• 56:47Robert Kiyosaki?

  Yeah.

• 56:47Lewis Howes?

  Teenager, and I remember, you know, learning these principles. And even though I didn't fully understand it, and even though it seemed like too much for me to understand as a teenager and overwhelming, it planted a seed. And so did the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which I learned about at an early age. So I want to acknowledge you for

• 57:05Robert Kiyosaki?

  Thank you.

• 57:06Lewis Howes?

  Giving, being a teacher in a world of teachers.

• 57:09Robert Kiyosaki?

  Yeah.

• 57:09Lewis Howes?

  Educate people on a specific way, not the only way, but a way that has worked for you and worked for millions of people around the world. For constantly creating value, board games, being creative with your content to educate us in this way. And, uh, I'm, I'm really just grateful that you continue to show up and serve and be yourself, because you are a unique human being. And I appreciate you, Robert, for your own, uh, style and approach.

• 57:39Robert Kiyosaki?

  Well, thank you, but you know why you and I are great teachers?

• 57:43Lewis Howes?

  Why's that?

• 57:43Robert Kiyosaki?

  We didn't do well in school.

• 57:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, because we have to be curious and learn.

• 57:48Robert Kiyosaki?

  Well, we just like that television. It worked for my poor dad, didn't work for my rich dad.

• 57:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 57:53Robert Kiyosaki?

  And you see, that's what I mean, choose your teachers wisely.

• 57:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 57:57Robert Kiyosaki?

  And there's millions of ways you can become rich. But you gotta find your way, your teacher, your path.

• 58:02Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. And you've got this book out now, Who Stole My Pension. Uh, make sure to check this out to really educate yourself on what's happening with pensions, 401Ks, and what you can do with your money moving forward. This is great. It's going to help a lot of people who are going to be trapped, uh, if they're not educated on this.

• 58:20Robert Kiyosaki?

  The biggest reason is if you're young, is your age.

• 58:23Lewis Howes?

  Uh-huh.

• 58:24Robert Kiyosaki?

  You know, most you guys will have your parents and siblings moving in with you.

• 58:28Lewis Howes?

  And what to pay for them. My mom is sixty-eight, sixty-nine. I'm already having to figure out, okay, how do I support her?

• 58:34Robert Kiyosaki?

  And if she loses her 401K, you're toast.

• 58:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, she's making a few thousand, I think, from her retirement and pension, or a couple of different things she has from the company she worked for.

• 58:46Robert Kiyosaki?

  In that book is, uh, the pilots like me. You know, my pilot friends were making four hundred K a year. They got nothing.

• 58:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 58:54Robert Kiyosaki?

  And then the other guy's a UPS driver, a Teamster. He was making five thousand a month. I'm making nine hundred a month. UPS.

• 59:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:03Robert Kiyosaki?

  Those are major firms. So you read who stole my pension and it gives you a glimpse more into what's coming. Just the next crisis coming up as a baby boomer crisis. Just like the pandemic is a baby boomer crisis. They're picking on the old guys again.

• 59:22Lewis Howes?

  Um, make sure you guys get this book also 25th anniversary of Rich Dad Poor Dad coming up next year. Go get that book. If you have already read it in the past, read it again because we constantly need to be reminded and educated. And we see. What's that?

• 59:38Robert Kiyosaki?

  Repetition is how we learn.

• 59:40Lewis Howes?

  That's it. We, we constantly got to learn, uh, even if we've learned it in the past. You, you might've forgotten it. You got to relearn and reapply what you learned.

• 59:48Robert Kiyosaki?

  Yeah.

• 59:48Lewis Howes?

  So get that book. Uh, we try to stock ourselves and give them away to people.

• 59:54Robert Kiyosaki?

  How many times I go through this book?

• 59:57Lewis Howes?

  So you're saying you didn't master it after the first time?

• 1:00:00Robert Kiyosaki?

  No, I'm a slow learner.

• 1:00:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:02Robert Kiyosaki?

  You know, and I was a poor reader and a poor writer. But that's why we're good teachers.

• 1:00:08Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. I love it. I've got a one final question for you and I, and people can follow you online. They can get the book. We'll link everything up here. Um, you've got some great stuff on social media on Instagram. So I'd say go follow Robert on Instagram as well. Um, my final question for you, Robert, is what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:00:30Robert Kiyosaki?

  Getting up every day. At my age, you gotta worry about that stuff, you know? I mean, I said, my plan was to die at 72. I almost died so many times. I went down three times in Vietnam and, uh, my days were numbered from the start. I've had open heart surgery. I've had cancer. I've had pneumonia. I've had malaria. And so, you know, when everybody talks about this COVID-19, I said, been there, done that one, you know? But each one of it inspired me to get healthier. And so this crisis should inspire people to get wealthier, or you can be a loser. So I don't know why I'm going with that, but it's just all, everything bad is good. And everything good will be bad.

• 1:01:11Robert Kiyosaki?

  Or that's what Nazir Talib says, you're either fragile, robust, or anti-fragile. And the people following you are anti-fragile, or they wouldn't be following you.

• 1:01:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's it. Robert, thank you so much for your wisdom for sharing today. I can't wait to learn more as one of my teachers, want to continue to learn from you. So thanks for everything, man.

• 1:01:31Robert Kiyosaki?

  Thanks to all you guys who are following you as a teacher.

• 1:01:33Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it.

• 1:01:34Robert Kiyosaki?

  Thank you.

• 1:01:37Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed this special interview with Robert Kiyosaki. He's definitely got his own opinions. He's got his own perspective and the way he's done things to generate wealth during up economies, down economies. We have some other great resources on this as well. Feel free to subscribe to the School of Greatness podcast if this is your first time here. We have other great inspirational leaders, Tony Robbins, Dave Ramsey, and others who have built wealth in other ways. Make sure to check those episodes out as well. Just scroll down on the School of Greatness app over on Apple or Spotify to see the other insights on how to make money, how to build your side hustle, and how to build wealth during this time. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend.

• 1:02:20Lewis Howes?

  Text a friend, lewishouse.com/943, or just copy and paste the link on the podcast app that you're listening to right now and send it to a few friends, a WhatsApp group chat, over on Instagram stories, and make sure to tag me and Robert Kiyosaki so we can stay up to date that you're listening and paying attention. I'm so grateful that you took the time today to really educate yourself, to learn, to develop something new, and to try it on. And the best thing you can do right now is start taking action. Keep learning, keep educating. Go share this with someone else, teach someone else this so that you can learn it even more, and take action and apply something you learned today into your life, into your finances. Use this to your advantage.

• 1:03:03Lewis Howes?

  I want you to use me and this information as much as possible. Abuse it, take advantage of it, go out there and take action and improve your life. That's our mission at the School of Greatness, and I can't wait to see what type of results you create. I love this quote by Steve Jobs. If today was the last day of your life, would you want to do what you're about to do today? Ask yourself that question. Ask yourself, what are the things that you don't like about your life? Things that you want to improve about your life? And go out there and start making small, daily improvements. I want to remind you that you matter. You're an incredible human being, born to do great things in the world. You were born for greatness. It's inside of you.

• 1:03:45Lewis Howes?

  You may not feel great, you may not feel good, you may not even feel average right now, but that's okay. You can change it by doing little actions every day to build your belief and build yourself into the great things you want to do and be. I believe in you, I love you, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.