The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 254: Robert Kiyosaki—What the Hand Does the Mind Remembers

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

Robert Kiyosaki talks about how he voluntarily got into Vietnam, how he almost got kicked out, and why he wrote his Capitalist Manifesto to combat Marx's manifesto.  

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Assuming you're okay with that title, Chuck. It's a great quote. Yeah, it's absolutely good. We wrestled with calling it, I'm alive today because of what? Because dead men kept fighting. I'm alive today because dead men kept fighting. He's a guy who fought in Vietnam,

and I believe he was shot down as well. He flew an attack helicopter. Robert Kiyosaki has a lot of stories, and you're going to hear a few of them in this conversation. He, of course, is the author of what many claim to be the best-selling financial book ever written, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. You read it Chuck back in 2000.

I read it in the late 90s. For me, it really drew a bright line not just between being an employee versus being an entrepreneur, but an employee versus a freelancer. Rich Dad, Poor Dad became part of my explanation for why I love freelancing and gigging as much as I do. It introduced me to a way to think outside of the box. I mean, what his rich dad did for him and his best friend. was to open up their minds, to make them think like entrepreneurs instead of employees, make them think outside of the box of different ways that they can make money.

And they played monopoly to learn about money, which I think is pretty crazy. Yeah, his rich dad insisted they play monopoly. And to this day, Robert says it informed a lot of what he did in the world of real estate. You know, I should have asked him because I thought about this is a game where you roll dice. I mean, you're really going to base your entire financial model on the role of dice. But the truth is, the game of life is a role of the dice. And whether you're playing the cards you got or doing the best with the snake eyes that pop up, he's navigated an interesting path.

And I learned some things about the guy I didn't know. And in particular, I was struck by the degree to which he cares about the future of this country. He's deeply, deeply concerned. And the degree to which he does not care about the offense he might cause by the things he says. I mean, this is a 75-year-old man with over a billion dollars in debt and far more in assets, who has always, over the course of his career, distinguished himself by saying controversial things with regard to the conventional. wisdom surrounding basic economics, debt in particular. Savers or losers is a quote from.

Yes. Savers are losers. He's not afraid. Your house is not an asset. Right. Now, Robert and I don't agree on everything economically, but look, it's done of my business. The guy's a gazillionaire, and he's done great things for a lot of people, including me.

But I got to tell you, his new book is not necessarily a financial. book. His new book is an answer to a very famous book written over 100 years ago by Karl Marx called The Communist Manifesto. Kiyosaki's written a book called the capitalist manifesto, and he sounds the alarm bells, he cries emergency, he believes that our country is headed in the wrong direction, and he simply is not pulling any punches. I was surprised by a lot of the things. I was surprised by a lot of the as he said. I didn't really want to argue, honestly, because I was so surprised to hear a guy, a guy who's trying to sell a book doesn't talk the way Robert Kiyosaki is about to talk. Yeah, it's not about selling the book, it sounds like to me. Yeah, it's about saving the country in his mind.

It's not. I'll leave you with this. He's a fourth generation Japanese American whose relatives were imprisoned in California. during the Second World War. He's a guy who enlisted to fight in Vietnam, join the Marines, learn to fight a gunship, a pilot of a helicopter, court-martialed,

adventures and misadventures one after the next, built a giant empire, wrote one of the most popular financial books of all time, and today, in the conversation you're about to hear, speaks with the level of partisanship

and candor that I've honestly I didn't expect. But he is who he is. He believes what he believes. He's earned the right to be as candid as he wants. He's on his way to a Pilates class right now because one of the last things he said to me was, I'm not flexible,

which wouldn't be a bad title either. Also another good option for a title. Yeah, right. But he looks like he's still in good shape. It's not a fundamentally optimistic look at the immediate future. But he is a true patriot. He believes what he believes. And he's earned the right to say whatever the hell he wants.

Because one thing I can tell you for sure that he believes that I think you and I can concur with, what the hand does, the mind remembers. Robert Kiyosaki. You won't remember this, but I think it was in 2000, back when I was freelancing, like a maniac. And I went into a booth like the one I'm in right now, and I read copy for a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I did the voiceover for an infomercial for a book I would read years later. Oh, is that right? Yeah.

I don't want to overstate it, but I'm pretty sure I'm the reason that book was such a success. It's all yours, man. So you're welcome. Thank you. Don't mention it. Thank you for doing this. I know you're busy. You've got a new book out.

You've got your radio show. I have so many questions and forgive me, but it seems like the only place to start is the place where we started with Rich Dad. Your story. Let me just ask you this. Is there anything you don't want to talk about? I'm an open book. I'm doing a, you know, Patrick Bet David?

Sure. We're going to do a show. with my friend, Lieutenant General Jack Bergman, Congressman Bergman from Upper Michigan. Yeah. And myself and Patrick. And the reason that's interesting is because we all served in the U.S. military. Jack Bergman and I were lieutenants on an aircraft carrier. And I'm very proud to say that I got kicked out as a lieutenant and he became a lieutenant general and we're still best of friends. And his only comment to me was, this is Kiyosaki, the only difference between you and me

is you get caught and I don't. Isn't it funny, though, how those bonds forged all those years ago really never go away? We've had a lot of folks who have served on this podcast, and at some point in the conversation, that always comes out. You did. your time back in the early 70s, you flew an attack helicopter, right? Vietnam? I first went to Vietnam in 66 as a midshipman, a student for the academy, and then the Vietnam war was still on when I graduated in 69. And I was draft exempt because I worked for standard oil of California.

And draft exempt is spelled O-I-L. You didn't have to fight. And my conscience got to me. And so I was sailing for standard oil up and down the California coast on a tanker. And I said, I can't stand it. So I raised my hand and said, I do. And two years later, I was flying in Vietnam. So did you go in through the Marines or through the Merchant Marines?

The Merchant Marine Academy gives you multiple commissions. So one is an ensign, which is easily converted to a lieutenant. But the biggest thing I went there for was a third mate's license. So I can drive tankers, oil tankers. And so my background is oil. And I was up on the Alaska pipeline, you know, dragging oil out of, I think, Prudeau Bay or something. So today when Biden cut off the Keystone XL pipeline, I went nuts. I bet. You know, I own oil wells. I don't own stocks, you know. When he did that, the price of oil went from $30 a barrel to a hundred, 130 and he's killing us because it's inflation that's killing us and he's killing the working guy

he's just killing us so i got rich i'm getting richer today because oil is now 150 in a barrel but it's crushing the working class guy i realize how politically fraught all of this is and i get at this point in your career you're not terribly concerned you're going to break a few eggs you're going to make your point. You've certainly done that in your new book. But I will say this, whatever your views are on the environment and whatever your concerns are for the genuine health of the planet, I truly understand that. But to make energy the enemy, to make fossil fuels the enemy, that seems to me, well, it seems like you write a lot about unintended consequences. there are going to be some huge unintended consequences of vilifying the very thing we rely on.

We're all environmentalists. None of us would say, no, I want to pollute the air. But until you come up with something better, don't kill us too, you know. Years ago on a... Sorry, Mike, before we move on, I think you're talking into the wrong side of the microphone. Turn your microphone. No, no, Mike, where the light is, talking to that part. There you go.

Now just... There you go, Chuck. Now you sound kind of hot. Back off just a little bit. There you go. But that's the thing. Yeah, I was wondering, because every time you went over to the left side,

it got better, and now I've figured it out. I don't know why it's like that, but yeah. Allow me to twist your concern into a perfect metaphor. As I was going over to the left side, Robert was drifting over to the right side. And it seems like our whole country is off mic, right? Right? It seems to me like everybody has such a deeply held opinion and everybody has permission to share it. But we're just talking past each other in so many different ways.

Good for you, Chuck. See the way I brought that around. An awkward moment turns into a metaphor for the podcast. We're all off, Mike. I'm amazed and delighted. What do you think, Robert? Are we blowing ourselves up with this whole relationship with energy? Well, I think it's a Trojan horse.

They got environmentalism into schools. And I'm in environments. We're all environmentalists. None of us want to kill the planet. So they go in as we're environmentalists and they speak out against capitalism. It's a bait and switch. But I think the biggest thing that really pisses me off is critical race theory. You know, what really disturbs me, because I'm Japanese, fourth generation,

and they say that America is a systemically racist country? How dare they teach our kids that? How dare they teach us that? Do you know what I mean? Because my family was locked up in California in internment camps, but we're not racist. It's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen to split us apart by race. First, I agree. Secondly, let's go back a little bit then. I think it'll be important for people to understand a little bit of your origin story, your fourth generation Japanese. As I recall from the forward of the first book that I helped you sell, you're welcome. You got a commission check soon. That's what this whole thing is about. I'm going to collect a 22-year-old commission. You grew up in Hawaii, and obviously I think most people know you had two. dads, as it were. But if you could just walk me through the short strokes from then to your service in the military, I think that would inform a lot of what you've already said.

Well, if I could piggyback on what you're doing, the reason to say congratulations and all that, is you speak for the man and woman who think with their hands. Do you mean? They work with their hands. And that's the backbone of the world economy. And what's happening is our damn schools pump out these pencil heads who want a white collar job because both my dads required me to work. My poor dad says you're completely worthless. I'm not going to give you an allowance. So I had to go do something. I meet kids today who don't work. So I went to pick pineapples. And so I spent my summers picking pineapples like a labor with all the other guys. And then my rich dad had me work construction.

I had to work for him for free and construction so he would teach me about money. And everybody expects a free education today. As my rich dad says, if you don't work for me, I'm not going to teach you. So what was the logic behind not paying you to work construction? because he didn't want me to be a pencil-pushing white-collar guy. He didn't want you to be an employee. No, it wasn't even that. It was just to be a man who didn't work with his hands.

He says, your hands, these are intelligent things. You know what I mean? Look at a pro golfer. This is their intelligence here. Right. We have too many people coming out of school right now. They have a college education. They've been indoctrinated into Marxism.

And they think they have all the answers. So the teacher tells them that we're a racist country. They just parrot it. They don't ask questions. They haven't worked in the field. When you know when Chavez was pushing the United Farm Workers and all that? I was with them. I picked pineapples for two summers.

Holy mackerel. I meet some interesting characters. I wasn't a rich kid. I wasn't part of their kids. So I get to meet these kids, these men, who are taking me under the wing and teach me to pick pineapples. And then when I worked construction, hanging drywall and plaster apparel and framing, I learned how to work with my hands. And that's why I commend you. You give credibility to the people that think with their hands.

To be honest with you, we kind of touched on it earlier with the energy thing. I've tried to never grow resentful of anything that I depend on because there is a tendency, I think. It's the fault in our stars. We resent the people who are providing us with energy because we need the energy and we're tortured by the fact that maybe we're somehow participating in the demise of the planet. And Dirty Jobs was just an attempt to say, look, you can't separate the pineapple from the construction. You can't separate the hand from the head any more than you can separate heads from tails. You need, as a society, we need to be able to do both. But as an individual, it seems like you've also done both as well.

So much of what you say is a duality, right? Yes. It's not this or that. It's you need both. Yeah. You know, Maria Montessori is a great school system. She says what the hand does, the mind remembers. That is powerful.

Because, you know, I learned to be an investor playing monopoly. I'd sit there and I went, oh, my God, four greenhouses, one red hotel. And then my rich dad took me and showed me his hotel. It's called the Hyatt Regency today. Down on the main island, right? Why don't Waikiki Beach? I saw a man with no education teaching his son of me to work. We had to clean ponds and do all the dirty jobs, you know, thick, clean rooms and all this stuff.

And then we got older, we were our constructions. I wore a bag, you know, a belt and all this stuff and pounding nails. So both dads wanted to make sure I could work. And that's the time. difference. When I look at my brothers and sisters, I was kind of into forced labor. Well, look, if you don't know what's good for you, you can only hope somebody around you does. The thing I took from your book was that you learned some valuable lessons from your poor dad and from your rich dad. But in the end, you just decided, in a very matter-of-fact way,

that given a choice, you'd prefer to be wealthy. And so you are. Is that an oversimplification? It's a little bit more than that. It was when I could sense the gap between rich and poor increasing. And everything my father was telling me, poor dad, was going to make me poor. Get a safe, secure job. You know, da-da-da-da-da-da.

I'm going to follow him. He was actually on Marxist because, as Mark said, the purpose of communism is the abolition of private property. So he was anti-rich, and rich dad owned a lot of property. And today you have this, what's that group, Klaus Schwab or something? Davos, yeah. You'll own nothing and be happy about it. And that's quote Marx.

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the lines or read the tea leaves. I mean, hit me with that quote, if you would, Robert, because he seemed to spell it out pretty simple. I don't have the book because someday your kids will grow up under communism, something like that. I'll pull it up. He really walks you through it. I mean, I hadn't seen it in years, Chuck, but we were talking about this earlier. I've got a copy. Here it is right here. You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you'll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands.

Nikita Khrushchev in 59. Are you worried that we're a frog in the boiling water that Khrushchev was right? More than that, it was in 65 when I graduated from high school. I went to school in New York, Kings Point, March Marine Academy. And my economics teacher didn't have me read Keynes and Adam Smith and all that. He had me read Marx and Hitler and Stalin. He says, you've got to know your enemy. So I'm reading Communist Manifesto.

It's only 50 pages written 1848, most popular books ever written. I'm reading this. Like, oh, my God, my family's communist. I mean, so what do you do with that? What do you do with the realization like that? How does your life change? I joined the Marine Corps. I went to Vietnam.

God, this is just amazing. Twice. Two tours? One was a tour. One was I was a midshipman. And they put me on a bomb carry, a little victory ship. And we carried bombs from Port Chicago, California, to Cameron Bay, Vietnam. And that's when I saw the war.

I went, oh, my God. This communist manifesto was coming true. So it was from 65 to 66. that's how fast it was for me. I read Communist Manifesto in 65. In 66, I'm in Vietnam going, oh, my God. Oh, my God. When did you get out?

You were there through the early 70s, right? I graduated from the King's Point in 69. That's what I was saying. I got hired by Standard Oil of California, Chevron shipping, some driving oil tankers, making about $50,000 a year, which was pretty good in 69. In 1969?

It's half a million dollars a year today. Yeah. You could buy two houses for that. Yeah. Yeah. And then the war got to me. You know, we all had friends who went. One guy didn't come back.

And they drafted people who shouldn't go, if you know what I mean? This guy named was Lopresti. And the rumor comes back is Lieutenant shot him because he ran. First sign of fire, the kid turned and ran. and so the bullet came from the back. And he said, he should never have gone. And that's when I said, I better go. What did it feel like to affirmatively choose you enlisted?

I'm assuming it was your parents or your grandparents or were your family in internment camps? On my mother's side of the family, they lived in California. So they lived in the, you know, the Fresno area, the valley there. and they had everything taken. So when Kamala talks about reparations, I get a little hot because our family lost everything. You never got anything back.

Did the Japanese Americans get something back? I don't know. My cousins, the guys my age became attorneys just to fight to get the land back. So I don't know how much they got back. And then today, we want to give this reparations thing is nuts. It's just though extraordinary. I could understand if my parents or grandparents had been incarcerated against their will unjustly, how that might persuade or push me into a place of resentment. And even if it didn't push me into a place of resentment, I don't know that I'd have it within me to actually volunteer to fight for the very same government and the very same country that did that thing. So the question is, what, what, if anything, did your rich dad or your poor dad do to instill in you that absence of self-pity?

Well, my family had, during World War II, had five uncles fight because our heritage is samurai. And so I had five uncles fight, three in Europe and two against the Japanese in the Pacific. And when I talked to my uncles who came back, so the 442nd was the most highly decorated infantry battalion in U.S. history. They're in North Africa and Italy. So they came back and they kicked ass. They saved the lost battalion, the Texas battalion and all that stuff. They opened up Dachau.

So I'm growing up. And I talked to my uncles that don't push on you. They say, it's up to you. and all five uncles came back, which is amazing. And then two fought against the Japanese. So it's part of the DNA. And one uncle got captured, and he was on the baton death march. Oh.

And you know what they did to him, Mike? No. What? When he went to a POW camp, castrated him. Was that because he was a, of, Japanese descent and they were extra special pissed? He got into an argument with the, not an argument, but the Japanese harassed him because he was Japanese. So it just made him more angry.

The ultimate punishment, the guy publicly castrated him. Good grief. So you mentioned the samurai. I don't know a lot about it, but from what I recall, the defining attitude in battle, anyway, was that the samurai would go in already believing he was dead. Yes. Yes. And so if you truly embrace that, I wonder if you could talk about that, not just as a soldier, but as an investor and as a citizen and as somebody who is just trying to navigate these extraordinary times, what might we learn from the samurai?

Well, I think it's kind of the culture of the general. Japanese also, it's the culture of education. And we have no financial education in our schools. And so I had to find out, when I came back from Vietnam, I'm going, what are they not teaching us? How come I know more than my peers? And that's where rich dad, poor dad came up because I already had a rich dad. I knew more about money than most. I went from my MBA program, returning Augustation back in Hawaii, Marine Corps Station, Kaniyoje.

and I went for my MBA program. And of course I got spit on and all that stuff, you know. But I'm sitting the MBA program. I said, this guy has no idea what he's talking about. So it was a blind meeting the blind. And I went, holy mackerel. Sorry, but when you say, of course, I got spit on, I think we need to remind some of our younger listeners

that returning home from the Second World War, was a very, very different thing than returning home from Vietnam. Correct. People may have read about it or heard some stories. I mean, first of all, you enlist to fight for a country who incarcerated your relatives. Secondly, you return from that fight. You're flying an attack helicopter. And you are literally egged and spit on.

Again, that doesn't seem to turn you into a bitter, angry, broken person. but it must have done something to you. It must have done something, Robert. What did it do? Well, you know that guy, David Coggins? He's a Navy SEAL. Sure. You're right.

Suffering leads to something. So the longer you can endure the suffering, you find your greatness and your suffering. And I think that's what's missing on a lot of young people. They're coddled. Everybody gets a trophy. My friend was a lieutenant general,

now a congressman, he says about 10, 15 years ago, they couldn't find Marines. The young men aren't strong. Do you know how many people you're pissing off these days, Robert? I hope a lot. Okay, I'm really getting a sense that you wrote what you wrote decades ago, and you went on this crusade of sorts to inspire a level of entrepreneurship. Yes. in people. And now it just feels like you're looking around going safe spaces. What are you talking

about a safe space? We need an unsafe space. We need an uncomfortable space. I haven't read anything that you've written that led me to conclude that, but just in the last 20 minutes, it's clear that you're looking around and wondering, who moved my cheese, what's changed? What's changed in our country? Well, can I give you one more thing that disturbed me? As I came back from Vietnam and stuff, I got discharges. Actually, I got court-martialed out twice. What? Would you do? Disciplinary problems. Oh, really? Hard to believe. I had women problems. Do tell. I'm certainly curious.

Back at that era, Marines had no hair. And every guy who was a civilian had long hair. And so I was having trouble picking up chicks at Waikiki. So I said, well, what advantage do I have? This is the disco area, remember. And so I didn't look like John Travolta or anything. So I have no hair. So I'd go up to these women and say,

you don't go for a helicopter ride? I bet that worked. It worked like a charm. Yeah, right up to the court, Marshall. Yeah, up to the point the government found out. Official charge, misappropriation, a garment vehicle. They left off flying drunk on top of it. Well, now we're getting to somewhere.

So the author of the best-selling financial book of all time is telling me that once upon a time he'd have a few pops, fire up a multi-million dollar government helicopter, and invite girls on a date. They said yes, off you went. For some reason, our leaders looked askance at that. I wasn't like Clinton, you know. I didn't do it in the White House. I did on the beaches of Hawaii. trying to imagine it you're flying around hawaii you're like you know that's a pretty beach down there maybe we'll set this thing down for a couple minutes and then what you spread out the picnic table cloth right and you open you know a nice basket with fruit and wine and next thing you know

it's from here to eternity starring robert kiosaki yeah and then i got caught so how'd you get caught i don't know i came in came in hot was a sunday afternoon i'm taxing in and the MPs come up around me and the next thing you know I'm in handcuffs going off I always laugh is when they opened the door of my Huey the first thing that fell out was beer cans and the second thing that fell out was me wow and then some girl shaking sand out of her hair well what a night we had well then they found oh god it got words from there but anyway it was fun I do it again. This is kind of amazing.

You have the biggest lesson I got out of that whole thing? No. This is in Waikiki. I'm looking at the Iliqai Hotel, my first investment. And they send this guy Captain Abrams after me, prosecutor. That guy left no stone unturned. And I was lying through my teeth, lying through my teeth. So finally, I go.

in there and I said, so I sat down and said, Captain, I'm going to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So he deposed me. It was a three hours. I think I lost 10 pounds doing it. And then he said, thank you. You're free. He just wanted to hear the whole truth? Yeah. So wait, did you avoid the court marshal because of this? you let me go. Mike, that was as clear an example of the truth that you're free. So that's how I'm up front with you, everybody. Not everybody.

If I do my best to not hide anything. Well, I think the first thing you said to me was I'm an open book. Yeah. And your books are certainly open, and they've certainly been read by a lot of people. But I am super interested about this latest book. I mean, I'll just say it as plainly as I can. You didn't have to write this. Obviously, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do.

You've paid every amount of dues a man can pay in this country and more. And you could sit back very comfortably and dispense whatever financial advice you want to dispense and just call it good. You're affirmatively poking the bear. I guess I just want to ask you why. Well, the bear is the Fed, Wall Street, and the Treasury. And in 74, when I got out of the Marine Corps honorably, thank God, a thing came up, it was called ERISA, Employee Retirement Income Security Act, today known as a 401K. And the moment I saw that, I said, my generation, the boomer generation has just been set up. So you look at what's happening today, you know, June of 2022, stock market is crashing.

How many baby boomers are now sweating their retirement? So I could see that coming, if you know what I mean? I was like, oh my God. So they started all these so-called securities like index funds, mutual funds, whatever they do. And now my generation, our generation's gone. That market goes down, they're going to have to pump more money to save them, plus Social Security, plus Medicare. So the biggest expense of America today is a government run by those white-collar workers. And so how do you advise people who want to provide for their future?

I think I know the answer. I think I understand philosophically where you're coming from, but in that environment, with a market crashing, with inflation soaring, with supply chain issues everywhere, and with a real lack of trust, with the whole country off-mic, as it were. By the-ish. Yes. Okay. So what is the solution? What can Joe Six-Pack do to affirmatively provide for his family in the coming weeks and years? Well, that's a great question. I don't know if it's too late, but in 1996, I created the cash flow board game. Again, because of what Maria Montessori said, but the hand does the mind remembers.

And the cash flow board game has three financial statements in it. Income statement, balance sheet, statement of cash flow. And the name of the game is cash flow. Because can you control your cash flow? And so when somebody loses their job, as you know, they have a house, a mortgage, the cash sucks out fast. So the most important lesson is how do you control your cash flow? And that's why I created the cash flow board game.

And the board game didn't sell. So in 97, I wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad. That was a sequence. You wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad essentially as a marketing brochure for a board game? Exact words, a brochure, a pamphlet. That's the most extraordinary thing I've ever heard. Wait a minute. Let me say it a slightly more gobsmacky way.

The best-selling financial book of all time was written, as a marketing device to sell a board game that nobody wanted to play. Yeah. Okay. So now you're bringing the board game back, the solution? It's been there. We have cash flow clubs all over the world. It's just not well known.

Well, let's change that then, because I'm starting to see a theme. You're telling me that the original understanding for financial wisdom began by playing Monopoly. Yes. And that led to a cash flow game. Right. And so as a guy who crawls out of an attack helicopter and beer cans precede him as a guy who's poking the bag, it just, do you look at so much?

It feels like you look at a lot of what's going on as a game to be played in one. It also feels like you're looking at what's going on in the country is just deadly serious business. Can it be both? I wrote capitalist manifesto. The positioning statement in there is how to counter communism taught in our schools by teaching capitalism in our homes. We're not going to change the schools.

And the cash flow game is part of that. That's it. How to teach capitalism in our homes. And that was my target. The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap. They have an important role to play for sure, but if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trades on a national level, we need more organizations like Skills USA making a real difference on a local level.

These guys have been around since 1965, and today they are relevant like never before, with hundreds of chapters in schools all over the country and hundreds of thousands of students participating and competing every year. Nobody is doing more to train the next generation of skilled workers than skilled workers. USA. And I'm encouraging you to at least consider being a part of this movement. Skills USA advisors and volunteers aren't just teaching trades. They're launching careers and strengthening the backbone of our country by mentoring the next generation of industry leaders. In high school, you could be among the people who are making this movement explode. Join the skilled trades movement. Support

career and technical education programs through Skills USA. There's a no better way to do it. You can volunteer at a local chapter. You can start a chapter in your own town. Or you can just go to their website and see the impact for yourself and see too how easy it is to get involved. Thousands of kids are being introduced to the trades in a way that's absolutely positively moving the needle. The goal is a million members by 2030. I think it's doable. I'm doing what I can to help them. Learn more at skillsusa.org slash Mike. That's skillsusa.org I'm talking skills, U.S. Skills, U.S.S.S.S.A. Interesting. Okay, so here's a thing I think we also have in common.

Going back to the lack of financial literacy in terms of what we teach in schools, that's your thing. My thing is what happened when we took shop class out of high school? And if you look at our schools today and conclude, I think quite logically, we're not teaching vocational arts and we're not teaching financial literacy, I wonder if maybe that's the one-two punch that has the whole country off Mike. You're honored, and that's why I commended you for dirty jobs. You honor the people that think with their hands. and that was the key to being an entrepreneur. I think with my hands, I do things. That's where I meet so many young people that they're going to start their own Bitcoin or something

and become a billionaire and going, well, good luck, you know. But we've lost our work ethic. Can we talk about that? Yeah. Because, you know, I know you know Dave Ramsey. He was on the podcast. a few months ago. And part of what our foundation focuses on is trying to stay out of debt and not letting a college loan or so many other things overwhelm you. And you write a lot about

liking debt and wanting to have the right kind of debt. I wonder if you could expand on that. Well, macroeconomics is historical and big. So every time in history, the Chinese empire came down when the Chinese printed paper money. They were the first guys. Then the Roman Empire came down when they took their coins and debased them. And so in 1971, I was in Vietnam, and that was August 15th, 1971, Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. And part of financial education and macros understand when Nixon did that in 1971, the dollar became debt.

It was no longer backed by gold. That was one of the biggest changes in world history, but nobody notices it. So Dave Ramsey is a friend of mine and all this, but he always talks about live debt-free. I'm a billion two in debt, but I had to learn how to use a billion dollars to make me rich. So that's why my rich dad, you know, had me take real estate courses and all this, not for the real estate, but to learn how to buy real estate with debt. All coins have three sides, heads, tails, and the edge. Ramsey's on one side. I'm on the other.

And all I ask people to do is look at both sides. Well, full disclosure, Robert, that's ultimately why I wanted to have you on, because I agree. instinctively with a lot of what you've written, but a lot of people who listen to this podcast have heard me say for years, as Dave has said, that debt is the only four-letter word that can really F things up, right? But I am interested, and I wonder, maybe the way to ask it is to say, if you think like an employee, like so many people do, then debt really can be your enemy, but if you think as an entrepreneur, as fewer people do, then maybe there's another way to think about it that could really work to your advantage. Correct. But if you understand

that the U.S. dollar is debt. Today, the U.S. is the biggest debtor nation in world history. We're not going to pay off this debt. And what the Fed does and the Treasury does and Wall Street do, they just keep propping up that stock market for the rich. And that's what's coming down today. And that's why I go back to 1974 when the 401k came out. I'm going, oh my God, we've been set up. And so that's why the world economic former, and Claude Schwab is talking about the Great Reset. Someday you'll own nothing and you'll be happy as today. So that's why I wrote Capitalist Manifesto. I read the other day somebody who was both complimentary and critical of you at the same time,

which is a neat trick, by the way, but this guy said, Kiyosaki is 100% right. The market is going to crash, but he can't know when, which is just another timing observation, I suppose, but you think we're going to live to see it go splat? Right now, we don't know what's going to happen because, It's an election year, as you know. When I'll look at CNB, I call it CNBS. The walls are bright red. And what every one of those talking heads say, well, stay for the long term.

Don't worry this will pass. And I'm going, but that's what they're trained to say by Wall Street. So I have a friend coming on next week. He used to be a financial planner until he found religion. And he says, they're trained to keep you in the market at all costs. It's called AUM, assets under management. So they all claim that I have $20 billion under management. So Wall Street's paying these guys to say that.

And the firms like Black Rock and mutual fund guys, they've got to keep you in there. I think that's tragic. Well, there's the long term, the generational long term, and then there's the term of your life, which might be long, might be short. Do you temper your advice when you're talking to a 70-year-old, a 60-year-old, a 20-year-old? Does it concern you at all that sometimes it worries me, you know, when I say something very, very broad, like college has outlived its usefulness, it's become way too expensive.

I have to check myself sometimes because I think, you know, I'm not really sure who's listening. Your situation might vary. So, I don't know, do you temper your advice based on the age of the person listening? Well, I do my best, but there's something else that's happening is part of macroeconomics, you have to understand demographics. So what's the fastest growing demographic group in America today?

old 40 and up 90 plus yeah and the question is who's going to take care of them oh god if the market goes the kids grandkids on the bright side i invested in old age homes i'm making a lot of money way to make lemonade luxury old age homes i'm making a lot of money way to make lemonade God, it's true. Mike, there's always an opportunity. You just have to look. There's always a girl standing by willing to take a ride in an attack helicopter. That's correct. With a drunk violent.

If you could just wave your magic wand and have financial literacy taught in high school, what's the most important aspect of it in your view? Well, the good news is it's happening, like DeSantis out of Florida, is now going to incorporate in the academic system. But he has to go up against the biggest labor union in America, the NEA National Extortion Association, which my poor dad ran. And so we're up against the labor unions, but again, that's Marx. I'm not against labor unions,

But as Marx said, workers of the world unite and they join labor unions. But I think the worst labor unions are the teachers unions because they control education. They're not rich people. They're poor people. That's my biggest concern. So it's starting to happen. It hasn't been easy because when rich dad, poor dad came out in 1997, I got trashed by the New York Times. Surprise, surprise.

And they said, you don't know what you're talking about. Because I said savers are losers. And you look at today, that's quantitative easing. They're printing, they say they print, what, 25% of all the money in the last five years. They just keep printing to solve the problems. It's not been easy, but you keep saying it. I keep saying it, and I keep fighting back.

And it goes back to that Vietnam era song, it was by Buffalo Springfield, The good news is this, Buffalo Springfield's song was battle lines are being drawn. Everybody's right and nobody's wrong. And I think the line is being drawn right now. The biggest thing that upsets me is when people say Americans are racist, systemically racist. That's not my experience. We should be promoted on qualifications, experience, not because of race and gender.

Do you have reasons for optimism? At this point? You look at the word emergency, E, M-E-R-G-E-N-C-Y. The base word is emerge. And we're in a big emergency right now, so something is going to emerge. That's why I say battle lines are being drawn. I've never been political in my life because it's not on my business. You want to vote Republican or Democrat.

It's up to you. I'm becoming politically active. becoming politically active. You know, Donald Trump and I wrote two books together, but we wrote him as capitalists. We didn't write it as anything else. And he's a good man. He's a very, very good man. So I'm getting more political. I'm actually donating money to campaigns now. But I've got to start doing something instead of standing on the sidelines, you know. That is an interesting shift. I mean, when you're in the book business and when you're in the advice business, you have to talk broadly. And I guess that was the question I meant to ask earlier.

This book represents what feels like a clear and present departure from wanting to be as egalitarian as possible in your views. You sound now like a guy who has seen an emergency and wants to use his platform to be as crystal clear as he can. And obviously, you're no stranger to risk either. Anybody with debt understands risk. But this is a risk you're willing to take. And it's interesting to watch, I'll tell you that. You hit it right on the head of the start.

I have more to lose. When I wrote capitalist manifesto just came out, I had more to lose than to gain. Because, as you know, money, sex, power, religion, those are very toxic subjects, emotional. but somebody's got to say something. Well, Robert, you've said a lot for sure, and you're continuing to say things,

and what is your personal plan for the future? I mean, is it more books? I know you and Kim are doing the radio show. Is that a weekly thing now? It's when it comes up, but it's pretty much in demand. And then Kim and I have made so much money. We're getting divorced, by the way.

We're still good friends. She had enough of my Marine Corps attitude. You know what I'm talking about. Enough helicopter rides. Yeah. But anyway, she's a smart woman. One of the best things I did was meet her and get married to her. Good team.

I always say that I'm like the hunting dog, you know. I'm in the fields looking for the bird, and she walks behind with a shotgun. And when I point and the bird flushes, she shoots it. That's teamwork. Yeah. And she's extremely good at the detail. And she's smart.

She's gutsy. She's kind. She's beautiful. So that's great relationships. Our plan is we're going to set up a trust. It's a lot of money that we're going to pay the money forward forever. We don't have kids. So we're going to put all that money in our trust and give it to where they cause,

especially education and courage and, and freedom. Our money is going to stay going forever. What happens to the $1.2 billion on the red side of the ledger? What was that now? The $1.2 billion in debt you were talking about that underlies the, I guess, the real estate. I mean, forgive me, I'm kind of a neophyte with that, but I think a lot of people are wondering, still fundamentally, how can Robert Kiyosaki have built such an empire and still owe somebody somewhere $1.2 billion.

Well, that's because goes back to 1971. Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. The dollar became debt. And the bank's money does not exist unless you and I borrow. And so when you say live debt-free, you're actually crushing the money supply. So when I borrow, money is created. And so as long as there's an asset, like my old age home, which I'll be living in

soon. The old age home pays off the debt. I think what Mike is asking, though, is if you owe $1.2 billion for the properties that you have, how does that fit into the trust? I mean, that money has to be paid back at some point, correct? No, it never does, just like the Federal Reserve. Touchdown. I think that's what he's saying. It's a bottomless line of credit. What are we now? We're 30 trillion in the hole. And look, we do agree on this, because I've made the point, how are we supposed to instill in kids that debt is the enemy when our governmental parents have racked up a $30 trillion obligation? There's no debtor's prison. I mean, I guess consequences could involve bankruptcy if you don't manage the debt properly. I get it.

How worried are you supposed to be about a billion dollars in the whole when the country's 30 trillion? Wait, is that my phone? Excuse me. No, that's okay. You've got to take a call sometimes, you know. It could be Donald Trump. Creditor. Third book.

Oh, sorry. Jesus, a loud phone. Somebody's looking for that $1.2 billion back. Yeah. I've had that happen, too. It's a good life's lesson. You know what it is? It's a great Saturday Night Live skit.

Somebody gets a call. You know, Mr. Kiyosaki, about that $1.2 billion. We've worked out a payment plan. It's that old saying, if you owe $2,000, you have a problem. You owe $2 million. The bank has a problem. Right. And it's one of the things I had to learn was how to borrow money

and have the asset like the apartment houses pay for my debt. And the more I could prove. to the bankers, say they don't securitize it to be personally. They securitize it to the property. So if I don't pay, they take the property. Right. I'll be dead and in the ground, and they still got the property. So that's what they want.

Shamedess plug. Long before she was Peggy Rowe, my mom was Peggy Noble, daughter of Carl and Thelma Noble. Thelma Noble. It was her father, Carl, who inspired me to pitch a show called Dirty Jobs to the Discovery Channel and later start a foundation that honored the kind of work Carl Noble did for a living. Trade work, skilled labor. That foundation is called MicroWorks, and today I'm proud to tell you that we've helped thousands of people get the training they need to begin a career in the skilled trades. In fact, we'd love to help you. You can apply for a work ethic scholarship right now at

microwworks.org. We've set aside $10 million. for this year's applicants, thanks to a number of very effective fundraisers, including the one with my grandfather's name on the label. I refer, of course, to Noble Tennessee Whiskey, K-N-O-B-E-L, which is now available in a variety of delicious mash bills, all of which you can peruse at noblespirates.com. In fact, if you spend 100 bucks and use code Carl, C-A-R-L, you'll get one tube of orange bitter-infused sugar cubes for free.

That's Code Carl with a C to get nine sugar cubes, ingeniously engineered, to make nine perfect old-fashions every time. It's my favorite way to support Microworks and my favorite whiskey to sip responsibly after a long day of interviewing people on this podcast. Pick up a bottle at noblespirits.com, k-no-b-e-l-spirits.com. Soon may the nobleman come to bring a bottle for everyone. One day when the waitin is done, we'll take a drink and go. The hotel, you mentioned, the Hyatt that your rich dad ultimately sold.

Did he develop the hotel or did he just own the underlying real estate? In real estate, it's called an assemblage. So it was a bunch of little little properties along the beach. And he slowly picked one off at a time. And his plan was to take down the whole city block. So, and some of a kid, he started teaching me at nine. And by the time I was in 1967, I was at school in New York, and I come home, and he bought the whole place. And at that time, it was called the Waikiki-Biltmore Hotel.

So in 1967, I'm standing there. I'm about 20 years old. And he dynamites the hotel. He sold it to Hyatt. Good grief. So have you written the memoir yet? Or was that really how you look at rich dad, poor dad? Are you going to look back at all of this at some point and get all the stories in one place together?

I think why my books are successful is they're not theory. They're what I've really done. And so I'm just kind of recounting little stories as I go along, you know, just like playing monopoly with rich debt and him teaching me about debt and things like this and changing the way I think. And again, that's why I say to you what you're doing when you do dirty jobs and that, it's the working man who's getting screwed. They're getting screwed big time.

Do you think I pay taxes? No. legally, because I have good accountants, good attorneys. The reason I buy real estate is because of the tax law, it's called appreciation, depreciation, amortization. So every so often when I make, let's say I make a million dollars, I've got to buy a $5 million property to depreciate it. So it's offsetting taxes.

So that's why when ALC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Biden and common, say, tax to rich, We don't pay taxes legally, but they don't teach that. So that's why I go back to when Biden cut off the Keystone Excel pipeline, and oil went from $30 a barrel to $130 a barrel. I make more money, but he screwed this whole country. He screwed everybody because the economy runs on oil, it provides fuel and provides food. So that's why I speak out,

I can't say quiet anymore. But our school system, my poor dad, PhDs who operate in theory. They operate in theory, not reality. When I talk about being $1.2 billion in debt, it's my debt. It's not the government's debt. I do it every day. When did you know you were rich? I don't think you ever do.

I heard earlier, it was kind of a game. I started playing Monopoly. I said, I'd rather play this game than I worked for my father. Everyone kept saying, you're going to be like your dad, be a school teacher? I said, heavens, no. And my dad, poor dad, when I got out of the Marine Corps, he said, you're going to fly for the airlines? He said, I'm a gunship pilot.

You don't want me flying your plane. Can you imagine me as a pilot for Southwest Airlines? Ladies and gentlemen, strap in. You're going to go right of your life. It's going to be a little rough up there. We're going to land on the beach for an unscheduled picnic. I know. So my paradise is fly for the airlines and then go back, get your MBA and get your PhD.

And I said, I wind up just like you. Robert, it sounds like, I mean, I know you're a contrarian and I know you're irreverent. And I know sometimes, like me, you're deliberately subversive. You have to keep the conversation lively. Is it fair to say that in almost every instance, you're cautioning against security, you're cautioning against convention, you're pushing people and challenging people to resist the comfortable path and to frankly do something that just scares the hell out of you? That's what it looks like. My concern is, Mike, they're taking our freedoms.

Our freedom of speech has been taken. I don't know what else they're taking now. And they're subverting our economy. I just fought for freedom. I'm a U.S. Marine. I didn't go there to kill communists. I went there to fight for our freedom. But it was one of the best educations I ever had

because I saw the Communist Manifesto in real life. I almost got court-marsh from my big mouth. We have to write reports after every bad battle when we lose. So we were fighting at that time in 73, 72, 73. We were fighting the NVA, North Vietnamese, was running across the DMZ. There was a battle called Kwang Tree. So our whole, the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Army, we went to stop them at Kwang Tree. And they kicked our asses.

They pounded us. We couldn't stop them. They just ran south. And when you have friends don't return, you're standing in the deck of your carrier, and one of your best friends' crew doesn't come back, the plane disappears. And so I sat down and get the right and after-action report, all pilots do. And I just asked one question, I said, how come their Vietnamese fight harder than ours?

And that almost got me court-martialed. You know what I mean? But the thing was, the press was already after us because it was a battle of way and all that stuff. They kept writing stories that weren't true. And this was Armed Forces Radio, the Armed Forces Press. It wasn't true. It wasn't true.

They had killing more, you know, atrocities and all this. They never showed the atrocities that the NVA was doing. But they showed our atrocities. And that turned the war against us. So that's why, as you know, I came home, first thing I could do is hit by eggs and then get spit on it. I landed at Norton Air Force Base in 73, January 11, 1973. And the commanding officer stands up, says, gentlemen, America has changed, change into civilian

and close as fast as you can as soon as you get off this plane. And so we come running off and there was all these hippie protests, you know, the Woodstock generation, throwing shit at us, spitting on us, calling us baby killers. And I still remember my friends who don't come back. And just past Memorial Day was a few days ago. And I always remember the saying I remember is, I'm alive today because dead men kept fighting. We fought until we died. We didn't care. Our friends were more important than life. Samurai. And I come home and get spit

on by all these effing hippies and Woodstock guys. So I still have kind of a little raw spot in there, if you know what I mean? I think I do. And this will air right around D-Day. And I wonder, it seems like you're known, obviously, for your business and for your defensive entrepreneurship. But history is such an important part of understanding our country, understanding macroeconomics, microeconomics, and you've made many mentions over the last hour to all sorts of historical steps and missteps that various leaders and various cultures have taken over the years. I wonder with D-Day on everybody's mind right now, what can we learn from that? And what can we learn from the men and women who are still, as you did decades ago, volunteering to wear the uniform?

Well, it is one thing is to think about D-Day, the ones to stand on the beach of Normandy and look at it. And it's chilling. It's chilling. We fought for freedom. We fight for freedom. And we lost our freedom via our school systems. You see, if you read the Communist Manifesto, it was written in 1848, said that communism would take over America in two steps.

That first step was 1930, when the Frankfurt School sent teachers to Columbia University. And Columbia University in 68 was the hotbed of student violence, protesting. Then there was Kent State after that and all that. So communism spread through academics. So that's why I have post-martyrs education today and all this. So that was 1930. And then in 2020, I have no proof of it, but I suspect that the election was stolen. And when you take the election, you take down my friend Donald Trump.

He's a very good man. Says things they shouldn't say, but he's a good man. That was phase two. That was 2020, and so 2022 had come up with capitalist benefits. which is how to counter communism taught in our schools by teaching capitalism in our homes. And that's why I started in 1996 when I came with a cash flow board game

because as Maria Montessori says, what the hand does, the mind remembers. And we need to teach our kids about money and freedom and don't depend upon the government to take care of me. That's what concerns me. We have a generation of people who are weak and broke. It's tragic. The shopping center next to my home is a very, very high-end shopping center.

I was there just for a few hours. I saw two stores close. Two on a Saturday. I just shut the doors. The crews were in there taking out the drywall. That fast. It's crashing. And those are families, their businesses, their life savings,

all disappearing. And if Biden just opened up the pipeline, it wouldn't solve the problem, but it would cut down the inflation. And inflation is killing us. You know, oil coming in, food coming in, everything. And all these greenies are going there. Oh, yeah, we're going to save the environment. Well, I'm in favor of saving the environment.

I make a lot of money on it called carbon credits. You know, how do we say we get tax breaks saving the environment through carbon credits? But these guys are killing America. They're killing our spirits. They're taking our freedom. Sunday, you'll own nothing, and you'll be happy. And that was Marx, the abolition of private property. That's what they're doing.

Robert, you possess the courage of your convictions. You're saying a lot of things that are going to make a lot of people angry. And I realize that it must feel good to be horrible, but also good, to be at the point. in your life where you know what you're going to say what you believe was there ever a point in your life where you didn't do that where you pulled your punches oh yeah of course you know it's but there comes a time it's like I said that song by Buffalo Springfield battle lines are being drawn you remember the rest of that song battle lines being drawn everybody's right and nobody's wrong young people speak

in their mind so much from behind. It reminds me, there's a poem by Yates called The Second Coming that ends with the lines, the best lack all conviction and the worst are filled with passionate intensity. I think it's another way of saying the country's off mic, everybody's certain, everybody's loud, very few are being heard. and there's just this feeling of certainty on both sides or however many sides there are, not everybody's going to be right on this one. And I guess time will tell.

I'm encouraged because parents are fighting back. Do you know what I mean? Who's teaching our kids? As I always said, why didn't our school teach us about money? They don't teach us anything. You've got to turn that phone off. I'm sorry No, it's okay

If it's Trump, take it Put him on speaker Put him on I'd love to hear what he has to say Oh, my headset's on Shit I wonder I can hear It was probably louder for you

That it was It was It was probably a lot louder for you I'm on that thing 24-7 What is next for you? What are you going to do with your day? What does Robert Kiyosaki do at this point in his life when he's not, you know, defending freedom and...

Borrowing money. Solving the problems of the world. Yeah. I'm taking a Pilates class because I lack flexibility. I'm 75 years old. This young lady puts me through contortionism. You know, health becomes more important the older you get. But thank God I have the wealth to afford it. I lack flexibility. That may be the greatest thing I've heard in the last hour. Yeah.

I'm so stiff, and she has strength, and she can move me through those machines. And she's great. It's health right now. Good. Well, look, we should land the plane, or in this case, the helicopter, as it were. And I think a good place to do it is the words you just used, encouraged. You're encouraged by parents... Fighting back.

who are fighting back. You know, if parents are fighting back, well, then surely other people are going to push back as well. People know that something's not quite right, but I don't think people agree on what the problem is. So, well said. We'll see. That's why I wrote capitalist manifesto

because I read communist manifesto in 1965. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And people can get that at richdad.com, correct? Capitalist manifesto, yeah. I stay away from the Communist manifesto. Yeah, no, Chuck, we're not telling the Communist Manifesto. Don't read that, people. You're not going to.

It's only 50 pages, but it's worth reading. And you'll see a lot of the things that he predicted, Marx predicted, in 1848 coming true today. Someday you'll owe nothing and you'll be happy. How about tax the rich? You know what Marx says? It says an income tax is necessary for the growth of communism. A progressive income tax is essential for the growth of communism.

You quoted another one of my favorites, too, at the beginning of your latest book, Edmund Burke. Yeah. Famous Irish philosopher. The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to stand by and do nothing. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So I appreciate what you do. And like I said, we speak for the guys that think with their hands.

We need more of them. I hope Montessori doesn't mind, but I'm going to use that as the title of this episode. What the hand does, the mind remembers. Thank you, Robert. Thank you. Keep up the good work. I appreciate it. I really do. I will try. You do the same. Battle lines are drawn. I mean.

Everybody's right and nobody's wrong. The best lack all conviction and the worst are filled with passionate intensity. Look at us, quote and famous people. Best of luck with the book. Thank you. This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long, but if it made you smile, then you.

Share your satisfaction in the way that people do. Take some time to go on and leave us a review. I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge. But in this world, the advertisers really like to judge. You don't need to write a bunch, just a line or two. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Not four. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review.

And not three. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Definitely not too. All you got to do is leave a quick five-star review. We need five. All you got to do is leave a quick... Even if you hate it. Five-star...

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