Full transcript: Robert Kiyosaki on London Real
7:04 This is London Real. I’m Brian Rose. My guest today is Mr. Robert Kiyosaki was an American investor, businessman, self-help author, motivational speaker, financial commentator, and now podcaster. Podcast, yes. You’ve written over 15 books which have a combined sales of over 26 million copies, including the universally known Rich Dad Poor Dad.
7:22 Robert, welcome to London Real. Thank you, honored. Know thanks so much for being here. I remember you said one time, “I don’t need a paycheck. I don’t want a paycheck.
7:30 I’m a rich man, but I work for free, and when I see you say those words on stage, it’s really powerful, and it kind of just shakes me, and I was wondering if you could explain what do you mean by that?” Well, for those who read Rich Dad Poor Dad, chapter one title says the rich don’t work for money, and most people don’t understand that, because they’ve already been genetically programmed from parents and schools to go to school to get a job and work hard for money. Now, the harder you work for money, the poorer you get.
8:00 And the reason for that is money was designed to steal our wealth. Nothing was a good thing or a bad thing because it makes me richer. But, like the yin and yang of life, everything has opposite sides. So everything that rich dad taught me was opposite of what my poor dad. My poor dad, school teacher.
8:22 He is good people, but they don’t have any of my money. So on one side my poor dads always saying work hard, you know, go to school get a job, save money, and get out of debt. On the opposite side of the yang side was just don’t do that, you know. So when I wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad, it was about the opposites. That’s all it was, and the rich don’t work for money.
8:40 The richest people in the world don’t work for money. But the average people thought part of their consciousness. So you look at Steve Jobs. His paycheck was $1 a year. Right, same embezzles as well.
8:53 Right, yeah, you don’t want money, so the reason I say and I do and I speak and I teach is kind of justice, the yin and the yang. You got to see the other side too. Because so many people, I don’t know about here, but the economy is pretty bad in America. And they’re rushing back to school. That’d be stupid.
9:13 School teaches you nothing about money. There’s fewer and fewer jobs, and taxes are higher. Why would you do that? You know, if you save money you’re taxed, you work harder, you’re taxed, and you put your money in a retirement plan, you’re taxed. That’s not that intelligent, but that’s what they teach you in school.
9:31 So it’s opposite, and that’s why I come up busted. I talk about the opposite just to open your mind a bit. You said that education is not putting stuff in but pulling stuff out of your brain. I have a 10 year old now and I’m looking around London for her secondary education. I’m looking at all these schools.
9:47 And then I hear what you say and I’m thinking, are they going to teach her the wrong things? Should people not go to school or should they go to school, like questioning what they’re being taught? Well, that’s the most important thing: question it. You see, if you just assume all schools are equal, in all schools we’ll do a good job. You’re not doing your job as a parent.
10:06 Obviously, you should question, and then ask yourself, what does my child need to learn? So if you read Rich Dad Poor Dad, they’re not learning what my poor dad, rich dad taught me. Excuse me. You know, it’s like I don’t want a job. He mentioned being in high school.
10:21 You know, I grew up in the 60s going, but I don’t want a job. Now they go, and it violates all the Puritan beliefs, going to work hard and be a taxpaying person, but I don’t want to do that. And in most schools that type of philosophy or thought is not allowed. You know, I got spanked, scolded, thrown out of school for having what they call radical ideas. But again, I said Steve Jobs made $1 a year.
10:50 Bezos $1 a year. I don’t want a paycheck, and I’m not giving the answer. I’m just saying, why don’t they want a paycheck? And that’s when you start to learn. When you ask the question, you start to learn.
10:59 And as a parent, because ask yourself, what are they going to teach my child? Yeah, you know, will they damage my child or whether they educate my child? Education comes from the Greek word educere. Educere means to draw out of a person, but what schools too oftentimes do is they put in, not draw out. So they’re kind of giving her a subconscious message that you’re doing all this training so you can work for someone someday.
11:26 And you know, corrected it. And buy a house, that’s not an asset but a liability, and work up these school loans and then you pay them off. And it’s almost, I don’t know, I guess it’s not a slave mentality, but it really is. It’s a paycheck mentality. A paycheck mentality.
11:42 Look at this side that says, don’t get into debt. I’m in debt up to my balls, you know. Because as a businessman you want some leverage. Well, there’s a good debt and bad debt. See, bad debt is that I have to pay for some of my house.
11:52 I have to pay for it, so it’s bad debt. Mortgage was bad debt. The same time I have about 300 million in debt, but it’s good debt because my tenants pay it off. I’m a landlord. So I say, okay, so a good debt is debt that somebody else pays off for me, right?
12:15 And so that was the lesson on Rich Dad Poor Dad. And by the way, my Rich Dad began teaching me at age nine was play Monopoly. You know, for green houses, one red hotel. Love that game. Yes, today I want red hotels.
12:28 And I’m like, and I go back home to my family. They’re all school teachers. Oh, Robert, have you found a job yet? I go, no. Oh, too bad.
12:42 Too bad. He’s the cone. Let’s see, one side of the yin and the yang. The rich or the other side, but my point is the reason it’s hard for the poor, the middle class to get rich is because the philosophy of the thoughts, the actions, education is opposite. I don’t save money.
12:58 I borrow money. Okay, once you understand why would he do that? Well, if I can borrow money, I never, I never have to say I can’t afford it. You know, I have for anything I want, also I can borrow for it. So debt is good, but it takes education.
13:12 Okay, you said once that inside every one of us as a poor person, inside every one of us is the one that goes to the supermarket and things are better, buy the cheaper this and buy the cheap of that. That’s true. I’m in this hotel. And they want eight dollars for a bottle of water. I said I’d rather drink tap water the pay eight dollars, you know what I mean?
13:33 And I can afford the eight dollars, and just insulting that they want eight dollars for a bottle of water. But you’re saying that mentality can hurt you as well because it had you put you in a frame of conserving my income as opposed to going out. It’s just being conscious. You know, being conscious of who’s talking at this moment. Is the poor person?
13:52 So that, so like I really was last night, my wife and I got check of their hotel room, and I said I want a bottle of water. I don’t want to pay three dollars for the bottle water, but I date. You know, so there was a battle going on between the rich person and poor person inside of it. Finally, the poor person was, I’m a drink tap water. You know, it kills my health.
14:07 That’s the same problems anybody else does, right? And then that poor person is the conservative person, the person that doesn’t want to take risks, the one that wants to conform? That’s one’s the middle class. Oh, that’s middle class. See, the middle class person who middle-class believes in a big paycheck, good education, job security and a pension.
14:28 You know, so they, like when I was in the house, a Marine pilot, most of my friends stayed in the Marine Corps, not because they love the Marine Corps but was good pension as well. That’s not very spiritual, you know, or most school teachers want the steady paycheck. Now my point of view is psychically that’s what they broadcast on to a child. So if the teacher believes on a steady job and steady paycheck and no risk and job security, any idea child may have, like your child may say, well, I don’t like that idea, they got crushed.
14:59 Right. That’s the risk. Okay, and also subconsciously they’re getting this message that these people are happy to kind of have these jobs for life and collecting these paychecks, and yeah, and then when I say, well, Steve Jobs goes paying a dollar a year, it doesn’t compute because it’s not inside their little box. Right, right, outside the box thinking. Well, that’s not possible, you know.
15:19 You know, you go around the world, you give up and you give these huge talks. I know your parents always said it was important for you to be of service, and is that something that’s always on your mind? Oh yeah. Because you don’t have to do this. I mean, you can stay in Arizona, you know, you’ve got your books and everything.
15:32 Is that, do you feel like that’s something we all need to do? I don’t like to speak to all people, but I do think that service is important, like I served the Marine Corps not because I wanted to fight in Vietnam but because it was service, you know, and once I got there glad I went there, but I’ll never do that again. The US government lied to us in Vietnam. I know at that point is I’m out of here. You knew that at the time or you realize that later?
15:56 I realized that that goes off the top secret officer. Okay, once I could see the truth coming across the messages what they’re lying to us. We weren’t there for the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese. We were there because of oil. So if you look at Vietnam today, there’s a war on in Vietnam yet, and it’s for the oil rights off of yet.
16:14 Now, doesn’t that’s why? Well, Dutch/Shell is there. That’s where Conoco is there as well. Those guys are there. We fought for oil.
16:24 Always remember that all wars are about money. Right. And power. Look at ISIS. I think that’s kind of it.
16:32 I know I don’t agree what they’re doing, but they took what we know. They capture the oil fields which were bombing right now and then buy our weapons, they come kill us. Just doing what we do to them. Right. You know, they’re not stupid.
16:50 Would say that a lot of this generation has this entitlement mentality where they kind of expect things, expect the job and expect the paycheck. What do we do about this generation? You know, should they go to the military or how do we get people to kind of snap out of that entitlement frame? That’s hard to say. The entitlement mentality is alive and well in America.
17:11 Before, I used to be the American dream. You know, you’re from San Diego all that. Yeah, it was the American dream. Yeah, it’s in your blood, yeah, when you grow up there. And today America is the entitlement dream.
17:19 You know, that I’m going to get somebody to take care of me. If you look at America today, 47% don’t pay any tax. No, I’m not saying it’s good or bad, because the rich don’t pay tax either, but what’s happening in America is, you know, is that the government should take care of it, which is socialism, and I’m not saying one is right or wrong, but I’m a hardcore capitalist. You know, I don’t. I think I should work for my money.
17:42 I mean, I should provide for myself. I don’t want the government to take care of me. It’s just philosophy. It’s at warm right now. Right.
17:50 And on your podcast recently, you had the UFC fighter Myles Jury on, and you talked about this theme of fighting your inner wimp, and I was wondering about you, what you were trying to say by that? And I’m surprised to hear you admit you have to fight your hello-web sometimes, because we see you on stage and you know you’re kind of a hero. Fistman hero? You know, every morning does a classic battle, like I got up this morning, right? And it’s a battle between the fat boy and the stud Rambo.
18:19 Enjoy this fat boy that wins because should I go to the gym? Nah, nah, don’t go to the gym. Have a cup of coffee, or cup a cup of coffee. You know, that’s the battle. So the wimp wins are the same as in business, you know, the moment I have enough money, it’s really hard to get motivated again because if I just make more money, just more money, I don’t need it, right?
18:39 And then I give a lot of it away, which is nice, but there’s really got to be the juice in the fire, you know, a sense of measures. I don’t work for money. I work to solve problems, and may the biggest problem I see in this economic crisis is lack of financial education. And it starts at the top. Excuse me, so we have a lot of highly educated poor people running our government.
19:06 President Obama is one of them, right? He’s a, he’s a poor man who is highly educated, not saying it’s a bad man, but his philosophy is a poor man’s philosophy, and he’s very academic, right? Law degree. That sounds like my like your- Poor Dad – right. I had this guy George Bush who was a rich kid born with a silver spoon in the mouth.
19:24 Hey, stupid. Till I mean, how can he lose the oil company? You know, I mean, he, his daddy gave him an oil company, lost it. That’s almost impossible to get a permit, so I look at who’s running our country we go, then it’s got Clinton. Yeah, he’s doing the real thing on the office called the point, almost having sex, and he lies about.
19:43 Okay, what is that? What is that teaching our kids? You know, so our leaders are not necessarily leaders. You know, they’re disappointing. -Do we need to start teaching financial education and you know, eighth grade or fifth grade or fourth grade, do we need to have small business classes when the children are young? Well, the good news is happening.
20:04 Yeah, slowly, right? Yeah. CNN, this is the way it works. Okay. It takes 50 years for a new idea to enter the school system.
20:11 50 years. Yeah, same as construction industry. It’s a very slow industry, construction. You have a new idea like, you know, do XYZ. It’s 50 years before it’s fully implemented.
20:23 Now in technology, look at these cameras around us. It’s about 18 months, right? So different industries have different, what they call, lag times. So education and construction are the longest lag types. So I wrote my first book in 1992, and the title was “If You Want To Be Rich And Happy Don’t Go To School”.
20:47 Now, the reason I did that was just a stop to start the clock. The moment I published that book, and it was trademark and all that legal, a trademark, the 50 years began. And that’s kind of my logic. All right, so now it’s, let’s say, you know, 2014. We’re now at 10, 20, 30 years into it.
21:01 So the clock is now starting to run. So I know another 20 years there’ll be financial education and schools. Irbil said, well, why didn’t we do that? It’s so obvious, but today it’s not obvious. Whereas in technology, if I told you I have a, you know, you have a gold pearl right there, that guy kicked butt.
21:21 Yeah, a billion plus company named after its float. He took technology, made it smaller, better, and cheaper. That’s what we’re supposed to do as entrepreneurs. Make it smaller, better, cheaper. That’s why the web is kicking ass right now because the smaller, better, cheaper than, you know, mainstream broadcast like the BBC or ABC.
21:40 So we’re in this world of complete upheaval today because technology is, you know, changing the world. Yeah. Well, our tagline is we’re putting the BBC out of business. -That’s good business. So now we’re, yeah, we’re broadcasting and independent media. Because I’m not doing what the people want, right?
21:57 This is too expensive. It’s too slow to comprehend. It’s imploding. So GoPro, Emanuel, strap that baby on your into the world. You know, I’m not, I’m not tech savvy, but I love the idea.
22:07 Yeah, there’s a fantastic, we love them. Your poor dad was here, an education for Hawaii, is that right? And you obviously wrote a book with, you know, his name in there, and your family is all academic. When you go back to Hawaii, have they forgiven you for the Rich Dad Poor Dad, for, an arm phenomenon? Do you have any of them acquiesce to your viewpoint? – No.
22:28 Do you speak to them still? – Still. OK. I am basically the black sheep of the fair That sheep still. – Well, I said I go home today, and my family has no. I have no idea what I’ve done, and they still ask me “have you found a job yet”? -Still ask you that. Yeah, and when I say I don’t want a job, because I take a paycheck.
22:48 What’s wrong with the paycheck? You see, in their mind that is their world, and what you know, it’s called, you call it a paradigm shift or the paradox of life is, sometimes what you think is not true. But if my mother and father, my uncle and aunts, my cousins, they all think that I’d never have a paycheck, and the richest guys in the world don’t have paycheck. That’s the paradox. What you said, it’s the most exciting a time to be alive right now for young people.
23:14 There’s so many opportunities. You speak to entrepreneurs like today. What is the most common sticking point? You see, if I’m entrepreneurs when they come to you, what do you see right away or that they’re just not doing? Well, I think the most important thing is that they’re working for money.
23:30 Because the Rich Dad Poor Dad, just go to chapter one. The rich don’t work for money. Then the question is, well, if they’re not working for money, what do they work for? But too often, they just dispel that. He succeeds of saying that but they never go into study and, you know, figure what the heck is he saying.
23:49 So the answer, give people the answer: the rich don’t work for money. They work for assets. You know, an asset produces cash flow, not a paycheck. Cash flow is not taxed. Paychecks are taxed, right?
24:01 You know, the guys that pay, pay the highest tax on a self-employed small business case, but they keep some ways he says don’t work for money, but you know I have a business. But you’ve got to convert your cash into an asset, not the stock market into an asset. So I have a friend 50 years ago, his old guy now, but he was like twelve, fifteen. It’s grabbed by the get some chickens and start producing brown eggs. You know, yes, this is in the States, and he started selling his eggs.
24:36 That one day decided to sell a chicken that he was, I see, he cocked. He says, if I killed chickens, I don’t have eggs, but if I reinvest my egg money into more chickens, I have more eggs. And which came first, the chicken or the egg? You know, I mean, he realized egg has got to come first. So today is in a six days of 70s, he produces ten million eggs a day, and his whole focus is to serve more people and produce more eggs.
25:07 So now his, his huge acres of chickens producing eggs, shipping eggs all over the US. The guy is a Multi multi Multi multi billionaire, because he’s not only selling chickens, selling feather fertilizer. All because he saved the chicken. He understood the concept of an asset. Yeah, yeah, the chicken was awesome.
25:31 Okay. You know, your famous quadrant system is all about minimizing tax, and like you said, self-employed people the ones that start businesses in this country shouldn’t be the highest taxes in my brain, but some people say it’s unamerican not to pay taxes. What do you say about that? Well, because they don’t know what they’re talking about. See, America, we’re here in England today.
25:48 Do you remember this recently in Scotland? There was a yes or no vote. Yeah. Yes, to go independent. No – no – stay with England.
25:58 Well, America went through the same yes and no vote back in 1776. It was it, hey, screw you, England, we’re not going to pay your taxes. Eddie, well, that was the new vote, right? Yeah. And then that was a terrible thing called American Revolution.
26:12 And, you know, once the revolutionaries were just a small group, they weren’t, I’m there were no majority, but they kept fighting under George Washington. Kept fighting, and a lot of Americans fought the revolutionaries. They fought George Washington, but when George Washington won, I think about 400,000 were kicked out of America. It was that you guys went against the colonies, out of here. So when people say America is an American, to not pay taxes is really on America to pay taxes, because America was founded on no tax basis.
26:49 Right, there was no federal income tax until the 1900s. Right, nineteen thirteen, ritenour, 1916. So when you avoid taxes, you’ve said you’re doing what the government wants you to do, and that’s why there’s tax incentives. Yeah, for example, if I’m an employee, I pay higher taxes than being an employer, right? So the more employees I have, the less tax iPad.
27:10 Now my employees got all upset. Well, how can you not pay tax? Well, the reason is, is I government wants and wants jobs, so the entrepreneur and, you know, creates jobs. So because I create jobs, like a tax break, they also want me to produce housing. So my wife and I have about 4,500 housing, low-income housing.
27:29 We get massive tax breaks for that. You know, free money basically. The other thing we invest in is food. You know, invest in farms and all that because we produce food. We get tax breaks.
27:44 Government wants food, and the other thing is oil, because oil is energy. You know, build well, the greenhouse effect. Oil is using plastics and everything around us. Oil is use fertilizer. So because the tax programs are stimulus for entrepreneurs to do certain things, we pay no tax.
28:00 But if you do what the government doesn’t want you to do, which is have a job and work hard, protects you. If you save money, you’re taxed. You go into debt, you’re not taxed. Think about that. I’ve never heard anyone presented the way you do.
28:11 It’s all, you draw that quadrant. You’re like, what is going on? And I am the fool. Well, is he a good egg? You know, the yang of the egg, there’s always one side.
28:25 The hard part for the poor middle class is the rich or opposite. You know what I’m saying. Don’t pay tax, they think I’m criminal, but I’m not. I mean, I can only do it because the government grants me the power to do that, because I’m doing what the government wants me to do. See, I drive my car like anybody else, but I also have about 400 oil wells.
28:49 I produce oil, and I get huge tax breaks for oil, because if there was no oil economy, would collapse. No, no, the grayness go nuts, but let them, let them create solar power, and then you won’t be arguing me. You know, but you’ve been talking about going inside yourself and looking into inside yourself about what you want. I think you’ve been talking about meditation since the beginning, and you’ve been talking about how someone needs to find their element to figure out what they’re going to do, and if something’s come up on our show every now and then, have you ever thought about, you know, this, this latest fascination with ayahuasca or the psychedelics, about people going inside their brains and like you said, you shouldn’t be as scared of what’s inside your brain, but so many people lock that trauma deep inside.
29:28 Have you thought about any of that, and do you think that’s appropriate for anyone to explore? Well, I don’t know really. Ayahuasca is to all this, but I’m constantly going into my subconscious. And it’s a choice. Like, I don’t do drugs.
29:39 I never did LSD. I thought about him, I didn’t do it in the 60s, and you didn’t. Yeah, but I just wanted to find out what’s in there, so I have specially trained people who guide me into my subconscious. You know, it’s Pandora’s Box in there that’s alive and well. Yeah, it’s what it is.
29:58 Is wacky. You know, some people are scared of their own brain. Yes, and they should be, right? It, be careful, somebody messes with your brain. But for about 30 years now, I just been digressing into it.
30:13 You know, so I go into it. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it’s like a movie goes off when I’m in my subconscious. I think that’s what your dreams come from also, you know, losing, and so I don’t really know about past lives and all that stuff, but I’ve experienced them when I go back in time. You know, I don’t I find out why I’m upset about something. I finally met my partners in business, I’m all upset with one of them, so I go into it.
30:36 I find out what the upsets about it’s nothing to do with them. They just trigger at the opposite ray. It’s it’s you. It’s an issue. Your do your signs in here, right?
30:45 And you lash out in someone on the surface. So like, you know, well, like my wife. I don’t know how she’s put up with you. You love the one where you, with a lot of times you beat up the one you with. – Okay, my wife sees the worst side of me. – So that’s why you’re the biggest lie ever told, and they lived happily ever after. There’s no such thing, because you see the best, the worse of a person.
31:08 It’s easily add on a date, sipping wine for the first time. It’s just pretty cute. He’s pretty cute. You know, you get married, man, the box opens, and what is your secret to keep in a long marriage? Well, my wife and I, and you’re in business together, to which constrained relationship we have an agreement.
31:28 You know, if there’s an upset in our relationship that’s more than 45 minutes long, they call it therapist. Smart. Yeah, I’m a, that’s what therapist get paid for is a handle our garbage. You know, so if I’m angry with Kim, which is most of the time, I mean, that she, that she really gets aggravation, so-called go caller. Okay, okay.
31:49 You know, well, it’s, it’s sometime I’m not an incomplete thought in my hair and complete emotion, like lost time. Co she probably triggers my mom. I saw some of my mom, or I’m her dad. You know, and so the therapist just handles the upset, not better, wrong, right? And I see a lot of relationships with her.
32:12 They died. The marriage is dead. There’s two bodies spending time together, and they don’t talk about it because the last time they talk, they got into a fight, right? So they sit there nice and polite, right? They don’t say what they really want to say.
32:25 Marriage is dead. In the love is a function of communication, right? So you need to communicate. If you have a problem, get someone else involved. Get it out.
32:34 If I can’t communicate well, get somebody else to interpret. You know, okay, support marriage, support, right? What’s next for you in the next couple years? Is it touring the world and talking to people and looking them face to face? Is it another book?
32:46 You know, what what do you feel like you still need to leave the world with? That’s kind of a tough question, because I’m right there right now, because I don’t know. Okay, but I see it this way. Our spirit has many facets. You know, if you have a child, then your maternal paternal facet of your spirit comes out.
33:04 Okay, well, with me growing up in Hawaii, that was a surfer, so I had a free spirit and I think the one school. Yeah, sir, hell, that, and then I went into the military for. It is a military school at six years of the Marine Corps, and developed the warrior spirit. Now the problem is that, so that warrior spirit comes back into the real world that he doesn’t do well. So then I had to take all that spiritual energy of the warrior spirit and diverted him to the entrepreneur spirit, because corporate world is another spirit.
33:39 So when I entered the corporate world for Xerox, I thought I died and went to hell, and I just couldn’t play the games. I’m glad they do. Right. Hi. Yeah, I’m going to get a promotion someday, I’ll be vice president.
33:53 You know, you know, fake. What for me it would be for them they love it. You know, like some people like soccer or some people like rugby. Yes, I love rug because it’s more contact. Soccer, this contact, to, but I just don’t know.
34:09 The said I can’t punch the guy. Okay, so there’s a different difference different facets to are spooked. Okay, so I’m, you know, so the Marine Corps. One day in Vietnam the warrior spirit left. I did want to kill anymore.
34:29 It was over. Okay, and that’s another problem began because I had to fight for, you know, my job was to kill people. And that’s when a lot of problems again, because my spirit evolves out, my body was still there. I didn’t want to do it anymore. OK.
34:45 So the other Sam saying, so we all we all get to these points where it’s time to move on. Okay, spirit says, hey, done enough, move on. Speaking of moving on, you’re heading out to the stage now, Robert, thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it. I guess we see.
34:56 I’m London Real. It’s about the journey, and I wish you well on yours. Thank you. Thanks very much man. All right.
35:02 Take care. – I liked it. Bye.
