Robert Kiyosaki is best known as the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad—the #1 personal finance book of all time—which has challenged and changed the way tens of millions of people around the world think about money. Rich Dad titles hold four of the top ten spots on Nielsen Bookscan List’s Life-to-Date Sales from 2001-2008 alone. Robert has been featured on shows such as Larry King Live, Oprah, The Doctors, Bloomberg International Television and CNN.
And he recently completed a mini-documentary, Shooting the Sacred Cows of Money, centered on debunking the destructive myths about money and teaching the 5 essential elements of financial education. The film can be viewed for free at ShootingTheSacredCows.com.
Kiyosaki stresses financial literacy as the means to obtaining wealth. He also developed the phenomenal game of Cashflow to teach people financial literacy, and we’ve used that to help many of our partner entrepreneurs understand how to easily ‘escape the rat-race’ of the J.O.B. (just off broke). We invite you to join us for free in the next Cashflow Club experience, just email info@savv-team.com for where and when! You can have time freedom and be wealthy too.Kiyosaki says that life skills are often best learned through experience and that there are important lessons not taught in school. He says that formal education is primarily for those seeking to be employees or self-employed individuals, and that this is an “Industrial Age idea.” And according to Kiyosaki, in order to obtain financial freedom, one must be either a business owner or an investor, generating passive income.
Recent reports state that Australia’s top earners have increased their share of income more than three fold over the last three decades, according to new research from The Australian National University. “The income share of the richest one per cent (in 2007 this meant those earning more than $197,000) declined from 1921 to 1980, and has risen since then to it’s current level. In 1980 the top one per cent had five times their share of household income. Now, the same group has 10 times their share of household income. I’m sure the GFC has accentuated this even more.
“This pattern is even starker among the top 0.1 per cent (those earning more than $693,000 in 2007) whose share of household income has more than tripled since 1980,” said Professor Leigh. He added that the patterns reflected figures about the pay of the country’s CEOs, High Court judges and top public servants.
“From 1993 to 2009, the pay of top-100 Australian CEOs rose twice as fast as the salary of ordinary workers. In that period, the average earnings of CEOs rose by an average of 7.5 per cent per year. Over the same period, average salaries across the economy rose by an average of 3.7 per cent per year. “In 1993, the average earnings of CEOs in the top 100 Australian firms was about $1 million. By 2009 this had risen to around $3 million. The salaries of High Court Judges and the country’s top public servants have also risen faster than average earnings,” he said.
So where does that leave you? A large part of Kiyosaki’s teachings focus on generating passive income by means of investment opportunities, such as real estate and businesses, with the ultimate goal of being able to support oneself by such investments alone, however over recent years he has become a big proponent of network marketing. He says network marketing allows people to leverage their time and at the same time develop skills with great coaches, with minimal risk.
“If you want to invest 10 to 20 years of your life and risk millions of dollars learning to do what I have done, then go ahead. Start from scratch. But if you want to keep your daytime job and learn ow to do it in your spare time, learning with much less risk and expense, then find a network marketing company, with a system that educates you to think like a person in the B and I quadrants.”
In tandem with this, Kiyosaki defines “assets” as things that generate cash inflow, such as rental properties or leveraged businesses—and “liabilities” as things that use cash, such as houses, cars, and so on. Kiyosaki also argues that financial leverage is critically important in becoming rich, and Neways is one of the best ways you can leverage the money you are currently spending in your household budget already, and turn it into an asset!
With perspectives on money and investing that often contradict conventional wisdom, Robert has earned a reputation for straight talk, irreverence, and courage. His point of view that ‘old’ advice—get a good job, save money, get out of debt, invest for the long term, and diversify—is ‘bad’ (both obsolete and flawed) advice, challenges the status quo. His assertion that “your house is not an asset” has stirred controversy but has been proven to be accurate in our economy’s current financial crisis.
If you’ve ever toyed with the idea of starting your own company, what the heck is stopping you? The possibility of failure? Zero job security? The potential of going into debt? Lack of funding? Cluelessness about running a business? Sure, those are valid fears. But self-employment is always going to have its risks.
You might believe you just weren’t born to be the Henry Ford of your time, but the truth is that anyone can be an entrepreneur, according to Robert T. Kiyosaki, author of ‘Rich Dad’s Before You Quit Your Job: 10 Real-Life Lessons Every Entrepreneur Should Know About Building a Multimillion-Dollar Business’ (Warner Business).
Given that Kiyosaki believes that everyone has the potential to create a thriving organization, it may seem ironic that one of the major motifs of his book is ‘failure.’ Failure, however, is part and parcel to becoming a successful entrepreneur, (“Humans are designed to learn by making mistakes,” he writes) and only those willing to risk failure should attempt to create their own industries.
To help determine whether you should try to become an entrepreneur, he offers 10 lessons he learned on his journey to becoming one himself:
Lesson 1: A Successful Business Is Created Before There Is a Business All too often, new entrepreneurs get so excited about a new product or opportunity that they forget to invest the time designing the operation around the product or opportunity. Before you quit your job, study the lives of industrialists and the different types of companies they created, Kiyosaki advises. Better yet, keep your daytime job while starting a part-time business — for the experience. “Not only will you learn about business, you will learn a lot about yourself,” he says.
Lesson 2: Learn How to Turn Bad Luck Into Good Luck Rather than wallowing in the anger or sadness of making a mistake, take the opportunity to learn something new from that mistake and turn a bad experience into a good one.
Lesson 3: Know the Difference Between Your Job and Your Work Work is what you do to prepare for your job, and doesn’t necessarily mean getting paid. “Do your homework,” Kiyosaki stresses repeatedly. Creating a lucrative enterprise entails five jobs: delivering a good product, knowing your legal rights, establishing a system, establishing communications and managing cash flow. If you aren’t qualified to do all of these jobs, be prepared to work until you are or hire others — such as an accountant and a lawyer — who are.
Lesson 4: Success Reveals Your Failures “Before quitting your job, know that your most important job is to develop yourself,” Kiyosaki says. A business that is initially booming is still inclined to fail if the company does not continue to develop. It’s not enough to cover every aspect of launching a business; you must constantly strengthen those elements in order to maintain the prosperity of that undertaking.
Lesson 5: The Process Is More Important Than the Goal If you approach a business venture as a learning experience, rather than a get-rich-quick scheme, it will be that much easier to bounce back from mistakes and achieve long-term success. “High expenses are an everyday challenge in business,” Kiyosaki says. Consult an experienced accountant before you begin to help you anticipate how much money you will need to both support production and cover additional expenses. If you’re not willing to face these challenges, you should not become an entrepreneur.
Lesson 6: The Best Answers Are Found in Your Heart … Not Your Head Make it your company’s mission to work for others, not just itself. Working towards a mission that goes beyond simply making money will ensure the best quality of work and greater likelihood of success. “If it had been just about the money, there are easier things the three of us [himself, wife Kim, and Sharon Lecter, the founders of The Rich Dad Company] could have done,” he says.
Lesson 7: The Scope of the Mission Determines the Product While designing your business, determine how big you want it to be. Deciding whether you want to own a small business or a big corporation will set the stage for how you produce and market your product.
Lesson 8: Design a Business That Can Do Something That No Other Business Can Do ”Simply put, focus all your efforts on your core strength, your unique product,” Kiyosaki writes. Kiyosaki uses Domino’s Pizza as an example of a business designed around a unique tactical advantage: offering a pizza in 30 minutes or less. By offering something no other pizza vendor did, Domino’s immediately began taking market share from its competitors.
Lesson 9: Don’t Fight for the Bargain Basement “Ultimately, the most important job of an entrepreneur is to be first in the mind of your customers,” Kiyosaki writes. While almost everyone knows that Lindbergh was the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic, almost no one remembers who flew second. Market your product as No. 1. “If you are not first in your category, then invent a new category you can be the first in.”
Lesson 10: Know When to Quit Sometimes it is best to cut your losses. Not everyone should be an entrepreneur, and only those who love it and accept it as an educational process should do so. Understand that becoming an entrepreneur is a process that involves failing. The easiest way to succeed is to have someone beside you when you are ‘learning the ropes’ and that’s why Kiyosaki recommends network marketing for would be entrepreneurs – you get all the support, nurturing and training you need.
Certainly, Kiyosaki’s mission in writing this book is to prevent others from making all the same mistakes he did, but there will be times when quitting will seem like the easiest and best thing to do. If you want to have someone to support you, to help you get up when you fall down, to hold your hand or show the way, contact your Savvy Team support person for their coach’s name. Tap into the programs we provide and you’ll be on your way to a life you have only ever dreamed of.
Oh! Remember, book now to attend the next Cashflow Club game! info@savvy-team.com
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