Editor’s note: This article was first published in July 2014, before Donald Trump’s political career. The Trump University lawsuits mentioned as ongoing were settled in 2016.
I know this article is going to bring a shower of criticism, but in a way we are here to talk about the truth from every possible point of view and angle. Let me tell you something. From the age of 14, my biggest musical idols were Alejandro Sanz, Sergio Dalma and the Mexican singer Luis Miguel (I know, “teenage girl” music, but I thought they were true geniuses).
To me, Alejandro Sanz didn’t make music; he made musical works of art. Somewhere along the way he lost himself, and ironically he has won the biggest music awards since he stopped making works of art and started making commercial crap. In other words, what he does now has nothing to do with what he used to do. Something similar happened to me with Sergio Dalma. Luis Miguel, on the other hand, has stayed true to his style in my view, and that’s why I still buy his records.
Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump inspired me, as I suppose they inspired many people. Donald Trump’s advice is priceless, just as Robert Kiyosaki’s book Rich Dad Poor Dad is a gold mine, which we still recommend as one of the best books on financial education.
But Trump and Kiyosaki started to become the double act of wealth inspiration (a bit like Zipi and Zape, the mischievous twins of Spanish comics), changing their message and beginning to use their celebrity status to make money by creating false hopes among their legions of followers. Being polite doesn’t mean you can’t be blunt, so I will keep recommending their early books and their original advice, just as I would keep recommending those old records where Alejandro Sanz made musical magic.
These days, many people use a Robert Kiyosaki talk to sell the Amway multi-level marketing system. In an interview on an American TV network, when the presenter asked him what he would advise people who wanted to succeed, Kiyosaki replied that if he were starting over, he would work in a multi-level business like Amway. Although he said it laughing, many people have twisted that message into “Kiyosaki got rich thanks to multi-level marketing”. That is almost true in Kiyosaki’s case, but it is false that anyone will get rich by joining a multi-level company.
In fact, before creating his own multi-level system, Kiyosaki had never recommended working for a multi-level company. What he did recommend, as an asset that generates passive income, was creating your own multi-level system, not going to work inside one, because working inside a multi-level company is not working in your own business but in its creator’s. And mind you, working within a multi-level system is honest and respectable work. But you should know in advance that you are not going to buy a yacht with the earnings.
On the other hand, Kiyosaki stooped low by declaring bankruptcy to avoid paying someone money they were legitimately owed. It’s that kind of small detail that means I no longer see this person in the same light. Those same details are what lead you to dig into Kiyosaki’s story, until you find that the only profitable companies known to belong to Kiyosaki are The Rich Dad Company, Cashflow Technologies Inc (the company that made the board game) and Amway.
In other words, Kiyosaki didn’t make money until his book Rich Dad Poor Dad became a bestseller. Put another way: “Kiyosaki got rich by teaching others how to get rich. And he did it before he was rich.” After that success, everything went smoothly for him.
He then took advantage of a series of new book releases that were bordering on a joke:
- If You Want to Be Rich and Happy, Don’t Go to School (1992).
- Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! (1997).
- Rich Kid Smart Kid: Giving Your Child a Financial Head Start (2001).
- Retire Young Retire Rich: How to Get Rich Quickly and Stay Rich Forever (2001).
- Rich Dad’s Prophecy (2002).
- Rich Dad’s Who Took My Money? (2004).
- Rich Dad Poor Dad for Teens (2004).
- Rich Brother Rich Sister (2009).
- Rich Woman, by Kim Kiyosaki.
All that was missing was “Rich Grandpa”, “Rich Baby” and “Rich Auntie: How Aunt Margaret Became a Millionaire”.
And what about Donald Trump, Mr “Think Big”?
Donald Trump really is a multimillionaire who has earned every dollar he has through real estate speculation. He is also one of those people who, after going bankrupt and falling into debt, inexplicably managed to take off again and rebuild a fortune worth billions.
But Trump is starting to be sued for using his celebrity status to deceive people he promised would get rich investing in real estate if they paid $35,000 for his miracle courses. 5,000 students of his “university” are suing him because they feel cheated, while another student testified that he paid $35,000 for something he could have got for free.
Donald Trump knows better than anyone that nobody is going to get rich in a few days, because, as a millionaire, he knows better than anyone that wealth is a slow process of constant effort. Yet he promised to turn out new rich people within months if they bought his course. And of course, who wouldn’t want to learn the secret of Donald Trump, a hugely successful businessman?
In the same way, after becoming a close friend of Kiyosaki and writing several books with him, he also discovered that, by using his authority in the business world, the most profitable move for him was to partner with a multi-level marketing system. In Trump’s case, the system is ACN, which is also respectable, but don’t expect to sail your own yacht to a private island bought with the profits either.
So, since we have talked before about the many biases that trick us into making mistakes, let’s not fall for this one. Idols are idols until they take advantage of their fans and followers. You have to know when to let your idols fall, which doesn’t mean you can’t go back to what they said when they were worth listening to, back when they were giving sincere advice rather than advice driven by their own interests.
This is probably not the kind of article that will make us friends, but sometimes someone has to say what people really don’t want to hear.
Further reading
- The secret of millionaires, told by millionaires
- 12 things millionaires know
- 5 steps to getting rich, by Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s right-hand man
Featured image: WMrapids, CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
