Robert Kiyosaki
Robert Kiyosaki | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 8, 1947 Hilo, Hawaii, United States |
| Occupation | Investor, entrepreneur, author, motivational speaker |
| Spouse(s) | Kim Kiyosaki |
Robert Toru Kiyosaki (born April 8, 1947) is an American investor, businessman, self-help author and motivational speaker. Kiyosaki is best known for his Rich Dad Poor Dad series of motivational books and other material published under the Rich Dad brand. He has written 15 books which have combined sales of over 26 million copies.[1] Although beginning as a self-publisher, he was subsequently published by Warner Books, a division of Hachette Book Group USA, currently his new books appear under the Rich Dad Press imprint. Three of his books, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Rich Dad's CASHFLOW Quadrant, and Rich Dad's Guide to Investing, have been on the top 10 best-seller lists simultaneously on The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the New York Times. Rich Kid Smart Kid was published in 2001, with the intent to help parents teach their children financial concepts. He has created three "Cashflow" board and software games for adults and children and has a series of "Rich Dad" audio cassettes and disks. He also publishes a monthly newsletter.[citation needed]
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[edit] Personal life
A fourth-generation Japanese American, Kiyosaki was born and raised in Hawaii. He is the son of the late educator Ralph H. Kiyosaki (1919–1991). After graduating from Hilo High School, he attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in New York, graduating with the class of 1969 as a deck officer. He later served in the Marine Corps as a helicopter gunship pilot during the Vietnam War, where he was awarded the Air Medal.
Kiyosaki left the Marine Corps in 1975 and got a job selling copy machines for the Xerox Corporation. In 1977, Kiyosaki started a company that brought to market the first nylon and Velcro "surfer" wallets. The company was extremely successful at first but eventually went bankrupt. In the early 1980s, Kiyosaki started a business that licensed T-shirts for Heavy metal rock bands. In 1997 he launched Cashflow Technologies, Inc.[2] which owns and operates the Rich Dad[3] and Cashflow[4] brands.
[edit] Family
He is married to Kim Kiyosaki. He has one sister, Emi Kiyosaki, a Tibetan Buddhist nun and known by the name Ven. Tenzin Kacho. He has co-authored one book with her.[5]
[edit] Teachings
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. In tandem with this, Kiyosaki defines assets as things that generate cash inflow, such as rental properties or businesses—and liabilities as things that use cash, such as houses, cars, and so on.
Kiyosaki stresses financial literacy as the means to obtaining wealth. He 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 important, but is not enough as it is an Industrial Age idea.
Kiyosaki often refers to "The Cashflow Quadrant," a conceptual tool which he developed to categorized the four major ways income is earned. Depicted in a diagram, this concept entails four groupings, split with two lines (one vertical and one horizontal). In each of the four groups there is a letter representing a way in which an individual may earn income. The letters are as follows.
- E: Employee — Working for someone else.
- S: Self-employed or Small business owner — Where a person owns his own job and is his own boss.
- B: Business owner — Where a person owns a business to make money.
- I: Investor — Investing money in order to receive a larger payout in the future.
[edit] Rich Dad brand
[edit] Books
Kiyosaki is best known for his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the #1 New York Times bestseller. Kiyosaki followed with Rich Dad's CASHFLOW Quadrant and Rich Dad's Guide to Investing. He has now had at least a dozen books published. The best known of these include:
- Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad's Guide to Financial Freedom (2000)
- Rich Dad's Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not! (2000)
- Rich Kid, Smart Kid (2001)
- Rich Dad's Prophecy (2002)
- Why We Want You To Be Rich (2007, with Donald Trump)
- The Business School
[edit] Games
Kiyosaki stresses the value of games, particularly Monopoly, as tools for learning basic financial strategies such as "trade four green houses for one red hotel." Kiyosaki has created several games to reinforce the information in his books.
- Cashflow 101
- Cashflow 202
- Cashflow for Kids
- Cashflow The E-Game
- Cashflow 202 The E-Game
[edit] Appearances
[edit] PBS
Several local stations of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), including WTTW of Chicago, KAET of Phoenix, KOCE of Orange County, California, WLIW of the New York/New Jersey area, and WGBH of Boston, have featured Kiyosaki during fund-raising drives. During this television special, Rich Dad's Guide to Wealth with Robert Kiyosaki, he provides viewers with financial education, as opposed to academic or professional education.
[edit] News
Kiyosaki has been seen giving financial advice on various network television news channels.
[edit] New York City's Madison Square Garden (October, 2002)
This speech was the subject of a CNN story.[6]
[edit] CBC Marketplace
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation consumer affairs program Marketplace aired a documentary piece on Kiyosaki on Jan 29, 2010. It includes interviews with Kiyosaki.[7]
[edit] Financial advice
[edit] Mutual funds
Kiyosaki wrote in one column that investors in any mutual fund with a 2.5% annual fee would, over a long time period, surrender 80% of the earnings to the fund.[8] Kiyosaki expanded on his criticism of mutual funds in another column by stating they are for "losers."[9] He has drawn much criticism for comparing investing in mutual funds to playing the lottery, and for discouraging 401(k) investing, contrary to the advice of most professional financial advisers.[10] In contrast to these statements, Kiyosaki wrote in his book Prophecy that while mutual funds are not great investments, they remain one of the few acceptable investment vehicles available to those who will not educate themselves financially.
Kiyosaki's criticisms are supported by the founder of the mutual fund Vanguard, John C. Bogle. In a Frontline episode titled "401(k)s: The New Retirement Plan, For Better or Worse", Bogle stated that management fees and trading costs gobble up approximately 2.5% of an investor's annual returns and approximately 80% of an investor's long term gains. He says management costs reduce the value of a $1,000 investment over 65 years from approximately $140,000 at 8% compounded annually to a mere $30,000 at 5.5% compounded annually. Bogle's solution is to utilize index funds, which charge as little as 0.09%, to substantially reduce or eliminate management fees.[11]
[edit] Criticism and controversy
Kiyosaki's books and teachings have been criticized for focusing on anecdotes and containing little in the way of concrete advice on how readers should proceed.[12] Kiyosaki responds that his material is meant to be more of a motivational tool to get readers thinking about money, rather than a step by step guide to wealth. He also says the books are supposed to be "interesting" to people, which precludes involving a lot of technical material.[13]
ABC ran a 20/20 segment on May 19, 2006 in which Kiyosaki was to advise three entrepreneurs on how to make money. They were given $1000 and 20 days to try and make the most money possible. One earned a return of 24%, the second earned a return of 54% and gave it all to charity, and the third lost 100% because she invested in machines that could not be delivered in 20 days. The contestants alleged that Kiyosaki never gave concrete advice. "All he [Kiyosaki] does is, I guess, is open your mind to the possibility. He doesn't tell you how to do it." Kiyosaki responded that failure is important to learning.
[edit] Partial bibliography
- If You Want to Be Rich & Happy: Don't Go to School? : Ensuring Lifetime Security for Yourself and Your Children (1992). ISBN 0-944031-38-2.
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad - What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money - That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! (first published in 1997), by Robert Kiyosaki & Sharon L. Lechter. Warner Business Books. ISBN 0-446-67745-0.
- Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad's Guide to Financial Freedom (2000). ISBN 0-446-67747-7.
- Rich Dad's Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not! (2000). ISBN 0-446-67746-9.
- The Business School for People Who Like Helping People (2001) - endorses multi-level marketing.
- Rich Dad's Rich Kid, Smart Kid: Giving Your Children a Financial Headstart (2001). ISBN 0-446-67748-5.
- Rich Dad's Retire Young, Retire Rich (2002). ISBN 0-446-67843-0.
- Rich Dad's Prophecy: Why the Biggest Stock Market Crash in History Is Still Coming… and How You Can Prepare Yourself and Profit from It! (October, 2002). Warner Books, Incorporated. ISBN 0-641-62241-4.
- Rich Dad's The Business School (2003)
- You Can Choose to be Rich (2003) 12-CD Audio series with booklet.
- Who Took My Money (2004)
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad for Teens (2004)
- Rich Dad's Before You Quit Your Job : 10 Real-Life Lessons Every Entrepreneur Should Know About Building a Multimillion-Dollar Business (2005). ISBN 0-446-69637-4.
- Rich Dad's Escape from the Rat Race - Comic for children (2005)
- Rich Dad's Increase Your Financial IQ: Get Smarter with Your Money (2008)
- Rich Dad's Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money (September 21, 2009). ISBN 0446559806 (free online edition)
Cash Flow Quadrant – Robert Kiyosaki
The “Cash Flow Quadrant” is a very popular concept credited to Robert Kiyosaki. If you’ve ever read Rich Dad Poor Dad or Cash Flow Quadrant: Rich 
Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom you’ll be familiar with this. Actually, nearly all of his books make reference to this. In short, the Cash Flow Quadrant is a basic and visual way of showing how all the money in the world is made.
E: Is for Employees- These individuals work for someone else to make someone else wealthy.
S: Small Business Owners- A person owns a small business, franchies, or basically works for themself.
B: Business owners: They own a ”system” of making money, rather than a job to make money.
I: Investors: Real estate investors, stock market, etc. Spending money to earn interest on investments.
The whole idea he’s focusing on here is the idea of ”passive income”. Income that will keep coming in even if you don’t work any additional hours. Passive income earners would be your B or I, or your business system owners or your investors. The idea is to build a system or a series of investments that will give you financial freedom because income will keep coming in. Robert Kiyosaki encourages investing in real estate and joining a network marketing company or an MLM (Quixtar, Amway, etc). With an MLM, you build a business system by recruiting other individuals to sell your products or service and then the income keeps coming in because they recruit more folks and then those folks recruit more folks, etc, etc, etc. Investing in real estate is the same way because you’re owning a property that you can rent out to people month after month after month. 
I think the idea of passive income is great. Owning real estate investment properties is something I plan to do in the future. I hope to own multiple condos, townhomes, multi-unity properties, etc. and rent them all out and structure the deals for positive cash flow. The problem with the Cash Flow Quadrant is, if you don’t have a buttload of cash to throw into down payments on investment properties, you can’t really pursue ”passive income” unless you start a business system like an MLM (borderline pyramid scheme). I don’t see myself joining an MLM and, to be honest, the thought of starting a company that’s my own, growing it myself, creating my own culture, etc. is very appealling to me. I think I can make more money growing a business than I can with an MLM or just working and putting my money saved into the real estate market off the bat. The idea of freedom is great, don’t get me wrong. But I’m young, aggressive, and motivated and I want to build something huge.
In conclusion, I respect Robert Kiyosaki and his books are very informative and motivated me greatly. Also, the cash flow quadrant is great, but only for the wealthy and the aggressive/financial illiterates that join MLM’s following their dreams of freedom.
Who Wants to Be an Entrepreneur?
"20/20" Challenges Three Contestants to Turn a Profit in 20 Days (A TV Program - Source ABC News)
How easy is it to make money? If someone handed you $1,000 and gave you 20 days to turn a profit, would you have any idea where to start? "20/20" challenged three would-be entrepreneurs to find out. To give them guidance we brought in famous get-rich guru Robert Kiyosaki to offer them his secrets for money-making success.
Kiyosaki is one of the hottest financial advisers today. His 18 books have sold some 26 million copies. The first title in the "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" series has been on The New York Times Best Seller List for five years, and has sold more than 11 million copies.
Kyosaki says his books can put ordinary people on the fast track to a life like his -- working for themselves, not someone else. He says there are four basic types of people: workers, small-business owners, investors and entrepreneurs. If you want to make money, Kyosaki says, invest in real estate or start a business. "I don't like being told what to do and kissing you know what to get up the corporate ladder," he said.
But does Kiyosaki's method -- short on specifics but long on pep talks and salesmanship -- work? We decided to put the guru to the test with our would-be entrepreneurs: Cheryl, an ad sales rep and amateur theater stage manager from Queens, N.Y.; Julie, a store construction coordinator and new mother from Minneapolis, Minn.; and James, a father of four and school counselor from Tulsa, Okla.
Nine Out of 10 Fail
The three came to New York for a crash course from the master.
Kiyosaki personally challenged the contestants: "I want to find out who among you has the most potential of becoming a great entrepreneur," he told them.
The objective was simple: Take $1,000 in cash and see who could make the most money in 20 days.
Here were the ground rules: Choose any venture, as long it's legal and ethical, and don't tell anyone it's being done for a TV program. Any profits they make, they could keep.
Kiyosaki was careful to lower expectations. He told "20/20" he wouldn't be surprised if all three of the contestants failed to make a profit or even lost all their money.
"I hate to say it, but nine out of 10 do fail. The thing I always say to people is this: If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
Who Will Win the "20/20" Challenge?
With the clock ticking, all three went to work. Cheryl decided on party planning, throwing a fundraiser for a nonprofit theater company. She used its mailing list, in return, for a split in the profits.
Halfway across the country, James had a direct, simple plan. "What I'm going to do is buy boxes of candy, put it into jars and sell it for a profit," he said.
He, too, chooses charity as a selling tool, promising customers he'll split any profits with the Tulsa public schools.
Julie from Minneapolis is off to a much slower start. The entire first week ticks by as she struggles for an idea. Finally, she begins the second week with a decision.
"I'm going to go into over-the-counter medical vending," she said.
She spends our $1,000, and then adds another $1,000 of her own money to buy 10 vending machines that sell small packets of aspirin and other drugs. The machines are only in a brochure; she has to start making sales calls without a product to show. She is in trouble.
Before the contestants know it, the 20 days are half over, and "20/20" asks Kyosaki to give each a midterm checkup. None of the contestants have any real cash in their hands yet.
Julie's up first, and Kiyosaki is not sympathetic.
"When do you expect these vending machines to come in? Because you have a deadline," he says.
Her answer is not good. "I think they will come next week."
Kiyosaki says Julie is out of time already, and will not recover before the contest is up.
"You're going to lose this whole thing," he tells her.
It's then that Julie points out the most frustrating part of the exercise: Kiyosaki never gives the contestants any detailed help.
"I still wish I had more information on how to sell better," she says.
It's not much better for James, the recipient of the next checkup phone call. He is making money, but he is giving it away to charities almost as fast as he collects it.
Kiyosaki is flabbergasted. "You're giving the money away," he asks, adding, "Now why are you doing that? You can't take care of charity unless you take care of yourself first."
Back in New York City, party planner Cheryl also gets a stern warning from Kiyosaki. "I would say right now you have an emergency on your hands. And I would start promoting heavily because this is the last shot you got," he says.
Cheryl takes the pep talk to heart and steps it up, inviting friends and imploring them to bring others.
While she is stressed when her party starts out dangerously slow, by night's end Cheryl brings in a profit.
So how did they do? Julie's reckoning comes first. The vending machine business never got off the ground. She lost our $1,000 and $1,000 of her own and didn't sell any machines before the deadline. Kiyosaki criticized Julie for being unrealistic.
"You have to deliver on time and you have to come within budget," he tells her.
Then came James. He actually made a $540 profit. Again, however, he gave it all away. Kiyosaki was unimpressed. "You gave away 100 percent of it? Pay yourself first. If the business is weak, everything else loses," he says.
And that brings us to the winner of our little contest: Cheryl.
Her party turned out to be a moderate success and left her with a profit of $243.
Teaching People to Learn from Failure
Two out of the three contestants actually made a profit. So how did Kiyosaki do? Was he much help?
Julie was not convinced. "All he does is, I guess, open your mind to the possibility. He doesn't tell you how to do it," she says.
So we asked Kiyosaki straight up: In your books and in your speeches, the seminars, you're not really giving a road to follow these things and you'll become rich?
His answer was straight too. "No," he says.
He's a motivational speaker, hoping to educate novices in the world of business -- not a strict how-to-get-rich guy.
And what did he teach our contestants? Kiyosaki says they learned to fail. He says they also learned that desire is 99 percent of the process.
But doesn't everyone want to get rich? Aren't there specific instructions in his books?
"I try and tell them that there is no answer, there's only a mistake. When I lost my first company at the age of about 29, it was painful. But, in retrospect, it was the best thing that ever happened to me because that's when I really learned what I needed to learn."
Which led to my final question for the biggest self-help book salesman in the United States today.
If I read your books, what am I going to come away with that's going to help me get rich?
His answer: "Start a part-time business and make as many mistakes as you possibly can while you still have your daytime job."
Which begs the question: Does anyone really need 18 books to learn to fail?
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