Transcription
The most obsolete idea is: go to school, get a job, work hard, save money, get out of debt, and invest for the long term in the stock market. So why would you save money when they're printing trillions of dollars? The gap between the one percent and 99 is massive. You see, it's not just money; you have to step back and look at the bigger picture. So what do you do?
And every one of us is a poor person. There's still a poor person inside me. There's also a middle-class person, and the middle-class person wants security; they want that steady paycheck. And there's a rich person, and they're all inside of us. Except that it's not taught. That you're taught to go to school, get a job, and get a paycheck. You're not taught how to get rich. If you're read Rich Dad Poor Dad, my rich dad refused to pay me. He said the paycheck was one of the most damaging things you can take in your life. He says the moment you take a paycheck, you're an employee, and that's the mindset. So my rich dad never paid me. He drew up my poor dad, you know, government employee nuts. You got to pay people, you got to pay people. And rich dad was not saying that the paycheck was bad. He says you air, he didn't want to be a slave to money. So as an entrepreneur, you know, if rich dad folded, I just start another company. I don't need a paycheck; I don't need anybody to take care of me. If my government doesn't like me, I move to another country because they need entrepreneurs.
So the entrepreneur is not so much the business; the entrepreneur is really the mindset and the skill sets and the different set of rules. You see, I don't operate; small business does not operate in the same roles as big business. Entrepreneur is a mindset first, a skill set and rules, and depending upon whether you're employee or small business, the roles are different, the mindsets are different, the skill sets are different. Do the rich people cringe and say, "Don't tell them that"? Yes, yes, yes. Don't tell people, but what you know, keep them poor. [Music]
My father was the head of education, PhD, all that stuff. I go home and ask him, I said, "Why don't we learn about money in school?" And he looked at me, says, "Because the government doesn't let us teach that subject. The government tells us what we can teach and what we can't teach." And I thought that was strange, and I said, "But aren't we going to school to learn about money?" He says, "No, your job is to get a job." I said, "But you get a job to earn money." He goes, "No, you're supposed to just get a job." I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no. Isn't the purpose of a job to earn money?" He goes, "You're correct." I said, "So why don't I just learn about money? I can skip the job part," you know. And he got flustered, and he said, "You want to learn about money? Why don't you ask your best friend's father about money?" And I said, "Why?" That's Mike. So I asked him, he says, "Because Mike's father is an entrepreneur." And I said, "What am I? What are you?" He says, "I'm an employee; I'm a government employee." I went, "Oh, what's the difference?" This is the difference: an entrepreneur must know about money or that they're no longer entrepreneurs. And he says, "An employee doesn't have to know anything about money because the government will take care of the company will take care of them." So I'm a kid, I'm all confused, but I took my dad's advice, and I trundled over to Mike's father's office and knocked on his door, and I said, "Hey, I'm here, nine years old, teach me about money." He says, "Beat it, kid," you know. But that's what this toy refrigerated poor dad started. And finally, through persistence, my rich dad started teaching me about money on one condition, and that condition was he would never pay me. He says the moment I pay you, you think like an employee. He says that's the trap. Entrepreneurs work for free. And now I'm nine years old; my head's going cracking in half. He says, "You never want a paycheck, you understand that, kid?" He said, "Okay, I got it." And he said, "Well, how do I make money?" He says, "That's what entrepreneurs figure out." It's like, so how do I learn about money? So he would just break out a Monopoly game board, so I would work for free and pick up cigarette butts and get hotels and restaurants, and I would clean and do menial tasks. And as I got older, I started getting into office work and marketing and accounting, and I was an apprentice basically, but I always worked for free, and he would teach me about money. But the way he taught me about money was playing Monopoly. And that's finally one day I got upset. I said, "Well, when are you going to teach me about money?" He says, "What do you think we're doing?" [Music] "We're playing Monopoly." He goes, "No, no, no, no. What do you think we're doing? We're playing Monopoly." Says, "What do you think we're doing?" Because I don't know, I'm teaching about money. [Music] And then that's when you know you have one green house, you know. He says, "There's many formulas for great success and money; there's thousands of them, but one of the best ones founded on the game of Monopoly still is today: four greenhouses, one red hotel." Said, "What?" He says, "One of the greatest ways to acquire great wealth is playing Monopoly in real life: four greenhouses, one red hotel." But is that all there is? He goes, "That's it." And he says, "What do you think I'm doing?" And I went, "I don't know." So then he took me out; he showed me his greenhouses. And 10 years later, when I was 19, I was now in school in New York, and I come back to Hawaii, and rich dad had bought the biggest piece of land smack dab in the middle of Waikiki Beach. And when you go to Waikiki Beach today, you'll see the Hyatt Regency Hotel; that was his hotel, just like the game of Monopoly, just like the game of Monopoly. Acquired assets, and they became bigger assets. He just kept what's called an assemblage because that property wasn't that big at the time, so he had to buy out all the small guys because Waikiki was a little dirt water little town, so he'd buy out this shop owner, buy that shop owner, and it took him a while, but he finally assembled this large piece of property, and then he then he and Hyatt put up this giant hotel, you know. I just, and it just sold for 800 million dollars. So that's how I learned about money.
The reason I wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad was because I knew this time was coming, and we have as a world, I've never been here before. And so is it a spooky time? Damn, yet it is. It is probably the most dangerous time ever, ever, ever, ever. There's nothing to compare it to because there's never been a world economy before. For example, you know, 100 years ago, if there was a stock market crash in England, didn't affect anybody, but now the U.S. market goes down, the world goes down. So plus with social media and all this we're doing now, and so we've never been here before, and uh, you know, I I'm excited about it because I make more money in crashes than I do when they go up. So but for the average person, they'll get wiped out. I'm afraid that the worst, I hope I'm wrong, but I think we're heading for a global depression.
How does this play out for the average worker, Robert? For the small business owner, I mean, what does the next three months look like? Because it doesn't look pretty. I mean, people are already being laid off, made redundant; businesses are, there's no cash flow in most of these businesses. How does that play out? Well, let me give one one more step just to give you the size of it, okay? The national debt for World War II was 25 billion. Every day today, every day they're printing 125 billion, every single day. That's like five World War II's per day. They're printing so much money to keep this boat, this thing of a hot air balloon with a tear in it, and they're doing desperately trying to fix this tear, but no matter how hard they try, the tear has gone beyond; it's coming down. So in in financial terms, it's called our debt to deep GDP has now gone from 60 to 90 to 105; it's going to 120. We're bankrupt, and they're going to print more and more money, which means savers are losers, just as I predicted. Your money is going to be worthless in a few years. So my message is the same as some of your other guests: this is metamorphosis type financial education in rich dad's terms is really financial transformation, and the definition of metamorphosis is very important. Metamorphosis, the definition is the evolution or the transformation from an immature form to an adult form, an immature form to an adult form. Metamorphosis is the same as a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. And Fuller always says there's nothing to predict a butterfly inside a caterpillar. So everybody listening right now, if you're struggling financially, just look at yourself as a little caterpillar, and this crisis is your cocoon. The question is what do you emerge as? Do you emerge as a victim, you know, the world did to me, and the capitalists are crooks, and the rich are bastards, and all this stuff? Or do you say, "Oh, this is the best thing that ever happened to me"? The same as my health; I am ground zero for the coronavirus; all that it does is inspire me to get healthier. You're either gonna get healthier and wealthier, or you're gonna go bust. Your choice; it sits between your ears, your heart, your body, your mind, your spirit, your attitude. This could be the best thing that ever happened to you physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, if you turn on to a butterfly, or somebody will step on you like a little worm. It's your choice. [Music]
You could say one thing to somebody who's never been an entrepreneur, and they're thinking about making the leap of faith into becoming an entrepreneur. What could you tell them? Well, I'll just tell them the same thing that happened to me, you know, my last paycheck; I still remember it clearly. It was one of the worst and the best days of my life, and I was in Puerto Rico; I was in I was working for Xerox, and my boss gave me my last; it wasn't a paycheck; it was a bonus check. I think it was about 30,000 bucks taxable; it's the only problem with that. So I got this check, and I went, "Holy mackerel," you know what I mean? So I was excited, but I was also disturbed. And so this other guy comes up to me; his name was John, and John says to me, says, "You're going to be back." I said, "Why?" He says, "Because you're going to fail." I looked at him and said, look, a few expletive words because that's what he did. He left Xerox, failed; he came back, and I said, "Look, you failed, and you came back, but I'm gonna fail, and I'm never coming back." And that's the attitude. Do I mean, if if you say, "Well, if I fail, I'll go back to mommy and daddy," then that's what you'll do. So if you fail, that's when I became an entrepreneur because I had no money; I had no money for years, you know, I didn't have a paycheck. But that's what my rich dad encouraged me to do is when you're when you don't have this paycheck, you get hungrier, smarter, and use a test of your character. Will you become a crook where you become dishonest? Will you cheat and steal? Or will you become a better human being? So really, that's the benefit of becoming an entrepreneur is you really find out who you are when you don't have anything. You always have to look at the big picture. Too many people look at, "Well, what's going to happen to me?" Well, you look at the big picture; you're also going to know that when something bad happens, something good is going to happen, but you got to prepare for whatever is coming. If you think the next 20 years will be like the last 20 years, you got creamed. You know, when you and I go to the supermarket and we buy a carton of milk, we always check for the expiration date, but most people do not check for the expiration date on their brains. Instead of get out of debt, I get into debt. I just refinanced 300 million in debt; I went from five percent to two and a half percent interest. I made a fortune every month; more money comes in because my cost of money has gone down. So while some financial experts are saying, "Get out of debt," I'm saying, "Learn how to use debt." So when I came back from in Vietnam in January of '73, the first thing my rich dad said to me was, "Go to school to learn how to invest in real estate." It wasn't real estate; it was how to use debt and taxes. Debt and taxes make the rich richer; debt and taxes make the poor middle class poor. So all the rich guys who are doctors and lawyers or you know those guys, they're getting creamed, and they don't know why. Doctors are getting creamed. Oh yeah, they're making more money, but the take-home is less. Sure, you know, my doctor just yelled at me; he's happy. He says, "Oh, guess what? I finally made a million dollars." And I said, "Yeah," this was just three weeks ago. And so I said, "Yeah, well, how much you pay in tax?" He says, "750,000 in taxes." So his net was about 400,000. That's not bad, but when I make a million bucks, I keep a million bucks. And the reason is because I don't make it by working for money. See, if you work for money, you're taxed. So that's why lesson number one in Rich Dad Poor Dad is the rich don't work for money. What we do instead is we create businesses as entrepreneurs; we acquire real estate. I don't invest in the stock market. So the reason is because as entrepreneurs, I have more control over my income, how much I make and how much I pay in taxes. And because I'm an entrepreneur as well as an investor in real estate, I pay zero tax. So every time I make, let's say a million dollars as an entrepreneur, I immediately invested in real estate; I have a four-to-one step up. So I put a million dollars in real estate; I get four million from the bank. That's why I love banks, but the banks are screwing everybody else, you know, terrible, but it's good for me. That's why you say when you print, it's good for you, but when you print, it's bad for people that work for money because when you print, savers get creamed, and people who work when they get creamed when they print, debtors get rich. You see, debt and taxes make the rich richer, and debt and taxes make the poor middle class poorer.
When we have obsolete ideas, we get obsolete results. So what's happening for most people? The idea of going to school, getting a job, working hard, saving money, getting out of debt, buying your house because it's an asset, investing for the long term is obsolete. The world has changed. The world changed in 1971 when President Nixon took us off the gold standard, and money became debt. What if we get rid of school? Then what would happen? Would it be better if we had no educational system at all? No, I'm saying education is more important before it's just obsolete. You know, there's Moore's Law, that Moore's Law, which states information doubles every 18 months. In other words, everything's obsolete 18 months. So, and this is a recent phenomenon. So when you come out of school, you're already obsolete, and that's why I'm the old guy, you know. I meet my friends who went to Harvard. See, I went to Harvard. I said, "Yeah, that was how long? 50 years ago?" Today, the banks are charging you interest to save money. In other words, banks don't want your money because they printed too much of it. And that's why this is bubbles and stocks and bubbles and real estate, and all this, people are dumping the cash because, as I said in here, savers are losers, and cash is trash. And yet people want a high-paying job. Well, that's an obsolete idea. Get out of debt is an obsolete idea. You should learn how to get into debt, how to use debt to get rich, and they'll never teach you about taxes. The reason the one percent is way up here and the 99 are going this way is because when you print money, two things happen: inflation and taxes. It's crushing. And any entrepreneur thinks, "I'm just going to make money; I'm going to start a business and make a lot of money." Because we talk about they really have got to smell the roses, man, you know. That's not what the real entrepreneurs are doing. Most entrepreneurs, there's 28 million small business owners in America; 24 million are what are one-person entrepreneurs; they're called non-employee entrepreneurs. So because and that's what happens is when people don't really understand what an entrepreneur does. So most big people are self-employed, but they're not really entrepreneurs. The self-employed paid the highest taxes of all, and nobody tells them that. Yeah, it's also called the entrepreneurial spirit, but what we were actually talking about was there's no such thing as a bad economy. You know, those external, you and I, we all have an external economy, but we also have an internal economy, and the willpower is to change our internal economy. So for me, I can see the good, and I can see the bad; I don't really give a damn because I'm going to be rich anyway. But a poor person with a poor personal economy, all they're going to see is a bodyguard because they don't know how to make money in any economy. And a middle-class person, they have a middle-class economy, you know, that what they want is a nice house, a steady paycheck, and the job and the car. And so when you take their job away to them, that's disaster. Well, since an entrepreneur doesn't have a job anyway, it's no big deal. So all I'm saying to people is what Bucky Fuller taught me is always two sides, you know, I mean, you know, to use plural, at minimum two. So if you think the economy is bad, it's because your economy is bad. If you think that steady, you know, employment is important, then you'll see an an economy without jobs, your economy versus the external economy, will you control versus where you can't continue. I can control. Yeah, it's called it's called an internal focus versus an external focus. So the real entrepreneur has an internal focus that if they fall down, they say, "Oh, this is good because I'm going to go up higher." You know, the average person will fall down, say, "Oh, I'm going to take some Prozac or or or somebody has the mistakes." All the mistakes don't matter. Well, mistakes, mistakes matter; it means you didn't know something. But a real entrepreneur, whether they fall down, they go, they're always can go up; they can stand back up and go higher. But no matter what happens to them, they get stronger and better and smarter and happier. But a person with a weak internal mindset is that they're so afraid of what happens, it generally happens. Like, you know, people are afraid of losing their jobs; they generally lose their jobs. I mean, yeah. So it's that so you can control you. Yeah. So the entrepreneur's first job is a control inside here, not outside there. The moment you take that paycheck, you're an employee; you've got to be stronger than that. It's about inside control. I've had financial crashes; I've had people stab me in the back, but they're all good because I grow from it. That's spirituality, you know. People who are afraid of making mistakes, like they teach in school, they don't ever grow because spirituality is there's good and there's bad, there's right and there's wrong, there's up and there's down. Most people only want to be right; they only want to be positive. Well, you can't have that; that's not reality.
Well, I wasn't poor by most people's standards, but I came from a family with a poor attitude, if you know what I mean. Because rich, poor, middle class, poverty starts with a fundamental attitude. Poverty is passed on; it's taught in your families. And middle class is taught in families. And so the people right now who are sitting at home who are struggling financially or worried about money or unhappy, they may be making a lot of money, but unhappy with what they're doing; it was probably taught to you. You know, your superego was taught, "Get a job, work hard, or or you'll never be rich, or the rich or evil, or whatever." The school system will never teach you about money. The school system was designed to teach you to be an employee, which is important, or a doctor or a lawyer, a specialist, but never about money. And what most people lack is real business knowledge, like accounting, you know, like debt, like taxes. You gotta know that stuff, but they don't teach it in school to anybody. So and then when people ask me, "How did your rich dad learn this when your poor dad a?" They didn't. And the answer is very simply, my rich dad was my best friend's father. His father died when he was 13. So his so rich dad had this family business at 13 to run. So he had to drop out of school, which was his blessing, you know, those blessings. And you know, sometimes the blessing doesn't look like a blessing, but it turned out to be a blessing. And then his teachers became his bookkeeper, his accountant, his attorney, his bankers, his real estate agents. So he has what I call real teachers, not these fake teachers in school. You see, most teachers in school, they're out of ethics; they teach subjects; they don't they themselves don't practice. I asked the teacher, I said, you know, I'm in my third year of calculus now; it was called it was called strength of materials. I said, "Am I ever going to use this stuff?" He goes, "No." You know. I said, "Why do you teach it?" As I get paid. He said, "Do you ever use it?" He goes, "No." [Music] And that's why, you know, you have to in life, one of the things I suggest to people, you gotta find a real teacher versus a fake teacher. And a fake teacher is somebody doesn't do what they teach, and a real teacher is doing what they teach every day. So my accountants, my attorneys, they're in it every single day. That's how I learn because every day I'm solving problems in my business. So I have I have accountants and attorneys and bankers and all these people on speed dial because I'm I'm solving problems with my team.
I see you giving this knowledge out, and yeah, do the rich people cringe and say, "Don't tell them that"? Yes, yes, yes. Don't tell people, but they what you know, keep them poor. But you know, unfortunately, the poor, as was in the Bible, I'm not real religious, the poor will always be amongst us because it starts up here, right? It's that fear mentality; it's it's in their words, you know, and the words become flesh. God, not really religious, I flunked out of Sunday school also. But when they say, "I can't afford it" or "I can't do that," they go down; they become what they say. My PhD daddy says, "What do you think I am? Made of money? I can't afford that." And my rich dad would say, "That's why he's poor." Poor people say, "I can't afford it; I can't do that; I don't have time." Because this is escape; it's an escape, you know, I mean, it's easy to say, "I can't afford," and your rich dad used to say what? Instead of "I can't afford it," "How can I afford it? How can I do that? You know, what would it take? Or why should I do that?" He says, "A question opens a mind; a statement closes the mind." See, when you say, "I can't afford it," your mind shuts down, and you become what you say. Rugby is a team sport, but so is soccer. The roles are different, and other people are golfers; they play by themselves. And so everybody's different. So my game financially is business number one, second is real estate. So what I say to young people is you find your game. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]