Listen to the full podcast
Get this episode on iTunes
Download this episode
Stream this episode
Partial Transcript
[The following is a partial transcript of this episode of The Scott Alan Turner Show. Listen to the full episode to hear this story, listener questions, money hacks, and inspiring stories of people that are changing their financial lives. Subscribe to the free podcast on iTunes or Google Play]
In This Episode
- Rich Robert, Poor You. Don’t take my word for it, do your own research like I did.
- Do you think you know what to wear during a job interview?
- Watch out for this Amazon email scam.
Listener questions:
- Where should we focus next – student loans or the mortgage or the next house (Kelly, New Jersey)
- Which is better a Roth 401(k) or Roth IRA (Margaret, California)
- My wife isn’t open to giving up credit cards and using the envelope system (Jamie, Wilmington, Delaware)
- I’m finally sticking with my spending plan (Alex)
- Trying to decide which debts to pay down with our tax refund (Paul)
- I’ve had two surgeries and am trying to keep myself afloat (Allistair)
- I have $1.1M and am trying to figure out when I can retire (Steve)
Resources/links:
- Pound Foolish, The Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rich-dad-education-the-ultimate-emotional-investment/
- https://www.marketwatch.com/story/rich-dad-academy-a-poor-choice-for-investors
- https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/79/topics/316902-my-experience-of-rich-dad-elite-legacy-event-scam
Robert Kiyosaki’s advice is for losers, I’ll tell you why today.
There is a YouTube video that popped up on my feed, the title was ‘GETTING A JOB IS FOR LOSERS – LESSONS WITH ROBERT KIYOSAKI, RICH DAD POOR DAD’
Well since there are over 168,000 401(k) millionaires Fidelity alone – that’s just Fidelity! – there seems to be a lot of losers out there that worked regular jobs, saved up for a long time, and became a rich. What loser’s right? I’m a loser baby, and I hope you are or will be one someday too.
But you probably won’t get there shelling out tens-of-thousdands of dollars for over hyped products.
I’ve attended one of the Rich Dad Seminars, more on that coming up, stay tuned.
Robert Kiosaki is best known for his #1 personal finance book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Listen to what other people had to say:
MarketWatch
“In general, Kiyosaki’s philosophy revolves around generating passive income through investments and continuing to build up these investments until their passive income can support you. In other words, look for and buy investments that can generate income for you, using leverage to turbocharge the process.”
Which makes sense, because if you told people to work at a job they like (a good thing), find some fulfillment in what they do (a good thing), put some aside in some simple investing strategy over a working career to become a millionaire (a good thing) – THERE IS NOTHING TO SELL THEM! There is no business model there.
It’s like trying to sell ocean water to someone with a house on the beach.
I made money in corporate life, I enjoyed it. You probably have a j-o-b. I know we have more career listeners than business owners. Which makes sense, because in the world there are more employees than employers. Guess what?
- Not everyone wants to or should own a business.
- Not everyone wants to or should be a landlord.
- And certainly nobody should pay money or get involved in these ridiculous investing POS – that’s piece of something – being pitched by the get rich quick crowd.
It’s insulting to hard working families. And the children.
In June 2016 I attended a scaminar, excuse me, I mean real estate seminar in Dallas put on by Rich Dad Education. That episode of the show is no longer available but oh they got me! Yes, even as brilliant as I am, because good marketing and advertising can get anyone. The seminar was free and a couple hours into it we were pitched on a 3-day real estate seminar for $495.00.
$500 for 3-days worth of expert training – any kind of training – is a pretty good deal. So I was on the phone with my wife Katie during a break saying ‘let’s do this, we’ve been wanting to get into real estate and it’s pretty reasonable.’ Man, I was excited. But Katie tells me we already have plans for the weekend of the seminar. That idea was over.
The next day I start doing some online research for an episode of this show. Let’s just say I’m glad we had plans, or I’d be out $500.
There are hundreds of reviews on the loser advice from Robert Kiyosaki, here’s a few I found.
Constance King, from the Bigger Pockets Forum: My Experience of Rich Dad/Elite Legacy Event Scam
“I want to talk about my experience taking Rich Dad/Elite Legacy Education’s three days Real Estate workshop. The conclusion: it’s a scam. The purpose of this post is to alert people about this $35K scam”. The link will be in the show notes to that review.
Not legit enough? How about Allan Roth over at CBS News:
“If you want to be a millionaire working less than three hours a week, you narrow your options down to a mere two – Be part of a lucky gene pool and inherit it or, if that’s not an option, try creating a sales system that teaches others how to be rich without working hard. You could be the next Robert Kiyosaki, with people flocking to your seminars, because common sense really isn’t all that common.”
Ok, ignore that nonsense about inserting wealth. The book The Millionaire Next Door destroyed that argument. 9% of people inherit some form of wealth.
MarketWatch called Rich Dad Academy the Stupid Investment of the Week
“If you’re paying up because you want to “live the dream,” you should have some idea what percentage of people actually get there. And while it might be losers who think they might fall into the part of the populace that fails, it’s suckers who give their money without doing the background check needed to decide if they truly can be successful with whatever strategy they decide to pursue next. A quick check of the most recent quarterly report on Whitney shows that the company is facing several investigations and lawsuits, including one from the Securities and Exchange Commission, with much of the trouble stemming from advertising pitches and claims promising success.”
First off, nobody gets rich quick. I remember reading in the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I think it’s been revised because I recall the story being a Ferrari but now it’s a Porsche.
Robert says something like ‘I wanted a Ferarri, so I went out and bought a self-storage company, and used the cash flow to make the payment on the Ferrari.’
BOOM! Every 20-something that has ever dreamed of owning a Ferrari or Porsche, just go down to your local self-storage company today, buy it, and you’ll be going from 0-60 in 2.3 seconds by tomorrow morning. Just pick up the Ferrari on the way home from your new business.
If only it were that easy.
From the book Pound Foolish, The Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry – please, read this book from the library, it will save your bacon –
“Kiyosaki claims a fortune in real estate – a fortune, by the way, no one has ever been able to prove existed before his bestselling book turned him into a multimillionaire.”
Another quote from the book
“About 70 percent of the time has been spent on the sales pitch and building up the belief in peoples minds that without them (Rich Dad Education) they won’t succeed in this business.
I’m here to encourage you, you can succeed on your own, for cheap. Read books. The most successful people in the world, wrote down all their tips for you to learn from.
And just who is Rich Dad?
From the video “[00:46] my rich dad was my best friend’s father.”
Yet in a 2003 interview with Smart Money, he said Rich Dad was an invalid recluse whose identity needed to be preserved, then moments later in the interview changed the story to say Rich Dad was seven wealthy men he’d known.
So I guess his best friend had seven dads, all of whom nobody ever saw. Makes you wonder, right?
If your’e interested in real estate investing go listen to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I have no affiliation with them, but I know they started their business like I started mine – too much bad advice, too many ripoffs, to many scams, let’s help people build wealth. You can get more and better info from Bigger Pockets for free than you can from a $35,000 seminar.
At the end of the day, one of us is trying to sell people a giant pile of manure, and one of us has committed to helping other people avoid stepping in it. You’re smart, you figure out who’s who.
If this is your first time listening to the show, you’re probably thinking – ok, but what are you selling guy with weird hair? Unbiased advice, for free. I’ve lost money. Lots of it. It’s sickening, it’s embarrassing, I hated it. And I hate it just as much for other people.
- The show is free.
- My investing book is now free as part of the podcast. There’s no sales pitches in there either.
- It’s my calling
Please, do your research. Read reviews before making purchases. If you attend a scaminar, don’t fall for sales pressure about deals that are only available for a short period of time. That’s your hard earned money, you should keep it. If you want some product or service checked out, let us know and we’ll help you decide.
Quotes

How To Get Started Investing
The international bestseller by CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Scott Alan Turner. Choose the right accounts & investments so your money grows for you – automatically. No jargon, confusion, or pie in the sky promises. Just a proven plan that works.
