I’m surprised how, so many years later, Robert Kiyosaki’s philosophy and teachings, and even his catchphrases, still resonate. Since we keep getting more and more emails asking us to “translate” what Kiyosaki really meant, we’re getting down to work with this first article on how Robert Kiyosaki got his first capital on the road to financial freedom.
I should say that I read his first books a long time ago, but I haven’t read them all, because at some point I felt I was reading more or less the same thing in different words. We’ll see why later, since at certain points I either failed to understand some things or noticed a contradiction, which I’m sure has a logical explanation.
At one point Robert Kiyosaki said something like “investing is better than saving.” That’s clear enough, but before you invest, you have to save the money.
Make money work for you. I completely agree, but you have to work very hard to earn the money that will later work for you.
There are no magic formulas and no shortcuts, unless you win the lottery. To get your first capital, you first have to work and save. Read: the only real secrets to getting rich.
You have to read Robert Kiyosaki “between the lines,” because at times he suggests that he made his money just by investing in stocks and that this freed him from having to work. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Robert worked very hard for many years and, as he himself says, went through hard times in poverty until he seized an opportunity. That opportunity was property speculation. That was his first glimpse of an asset.
Kiyosaki mastered the art of buying a property with no money and selling it. How? In a very simple way:
You find a buyer for a home that isn’t yours, sell it to them with a preliminary contract stating that it’s yours, and once you have the deposit, you buy it. It’s a strategy that worked years ago, in some countries. He knew how to take advantage of it.
He also bought homes on sale to rent them out. As long as the difference between the rent and the mortgage payment was in his favor, he considered that an asset. He waited for the property to rise in value and then sold it.
That’s how Robert Kiyosaki got his first capital. Some say that if he hadn’t taken advantage of property speculation, and hadn’t been in the right place at the right time, Kiyosaki wouldn’t be who he is today. My answer to that is: maybe, maybe not, but a person like Robert would probably have spotted business opportunities somewhere else or in some other product.
He had a dream: to achieve financial freedom. And when you put all your effort, energy and drive into your dream in this life, sooner or later, if you never give up and treat failures as part of learning, getting up quickly after each fall and trying again and again, you end up making your dream come true. That’s not Kiyosaki saying it; any of today’s business leaders and millionaires will tell you the same.
Featured image: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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