Book Reviews: Unfair Advantage by Robert Kiyosaki

 

Book Description & Review
Publication Date: April 12, 2011
Why do the rich get richer even in a financial crisis? In his new book the bestselling author of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" confirms his message and challenges readers to change their context and act in a new way. In this timely new book, Robert Kiyosaki takes a new and hard-hitting look at the factors that impact people from all walks of life as they struggle to cope with change and challenges that impact their financial world. In "An Unfair Advantage: The Power of Financial Education", Robert underscores his messages and challenges readers to change their context and act in a new way. Readers are advised to stop blindly accepting that they are "disadvantaged" people with limited options and challenge the preconception that they will struggle financially all of their lives. Robert's fresh approach to his time-tested messages includes clear, actionable steps that any individual or family can take, starting with education. Education becomes applied knowledge, a powerful tactic with measurable results. In true "Rich Dad" style, readers will be challenged to understand two points of view, and experience how financial knowledge is their unfair advantage.

Review:

Personally I really appreciate Kiyosaki's work.  I have all of the RDPD books and their affiliated materials and use several in teaching projects I do.  I've learned an amount of financial intelligence that rivals all the official college level work I've done at universities. That being said I would like to suggest a way to engage his work---digest all of it.  Look at it as a year long course of study to give a breadth of understanding to the variety of financial instruments and context changers he has assembled.  

The thrust of his work is about changing your context, mainly.  This will teach you what a map is, what a map should contain, where to get map paper but it won't give you a direct route to whatever your persona definition of success and financial freedom are.  For instance I used the materials to innovate for myself into stock/securities investments and online stores.  Those two areas expanded into this very blog, the TV show, online videos, teaching, consulting, starting a school, etc. but the fundamental concept came from thinking about myself and my work differently.  By changing my mental context about business and my own capabilities and what skills to gain, I've been able to produce some pretty interesting projects that have brought me both money (enough to live off of) and a sense of joy.

There is an unfair advantage though that knowledge brings and Kiyosaki hits that full force.  When you learn all of this stuff  your mind, your intentions, your relationship to money will never be the same.  By the same token it also teaches you how to see beyond sound bites on TV or clips in newspapers and to delve more deeply though websites and books and yes, useful TV shows on finance.  That insight then becomes your ability to, if you choose,decide your financial future, take responsibility for it.  It can also bring about a level of depression because you suddenly realize that financial success/wealth is a mindset/a practice. The cliche pushes that it's about family or connections or superior intellect is the like the front of the magic trick on stage---the real mechanics behind the scenes inform the illusion but are generally mundane and disconnected from it.  All of those elements help but they aren't the "magic" and that's another unfair advantage that the financially successful have.  Paris Hilton has us convinced that she's a bubble-head because that's what sells---the glitz, the glamour, the vacuousness.  But most importantly, it sells.  That bubble-head gets upwards of 100k per party, just to show up.  She's also in control of several brands/product lines and averages $7 to 10 million a year without touching any of the Hilton family fortune/trust.  Her advantage is how she views money, which is so vastly different from how the middle class do.  

Kiyosaki's work of explaining the advantages in taxes, intelligence and usage of the knowledge is what this short but informative book outline.  Wherever you are on your path to financial control and freedom---whether that be novice or experienced business owner this will push you to your own next level because it will help you see yourself as both advantaged and disadvantaged from your knowledge or lack.  He's got about 30+ books going now, as I review each one individual, I recommend you just make a shelf in your library for him.

Enjoy!!!
Thank you for reading,
Kyle Phoenix
Email: kylephoenixshow@aol.com
Website: http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Blog: http://kylephoenixshow.blogspot.com/2012
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The Advanced Guide to Real Estate Investing

Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the stellar brand that teaches normal people how to focus their thoughts and finances towards greater financial strength has spawned a host of ancillary/supporting materials.  Because Robert Kiyosaki has leveraged his fortune into real estate it's only natural that he create a universe of materials around real estate.  This advanced guide follows half a dozen books that lead the reader step by step through the process.  In order to maintain full disclosure I want to say upfront that I have all of the RDPD books (over 30) and the Cashflow 101 and 202 games, and the Cashflow 101 E-Game, plus various cd's and dvds.  So I am biased.  To say the least.

This book, written by Ken McElroy goes into the use of multi-family apartment buildings as an addition to one's portfolio.  The strength of an apartment building has to do with the amount of tenants who are consistently bringing in rent.  The road to wealth has to do with getting others to contribute to your finances.  Being able to discern one's Income Statement and Balance Sheet allows an adult to understand the difference between Liabilities and Assets.   Once you understand this and begin experimenting with purchasing Assets and limiting Liabilities it becomes a natural step to purchase an Asset where multiple individuals lend their resources into increasing your net worth.  It might sound predatory but if you're currently renting looking at your rent receipt, that's the name of the holding company owned by a family somewhere that you're making rich.  How so?

Say your rent is $1000 a month.  The rent is generally higher than it actually needs to be to cover miscellaneous costs and repairs as well as a profit margin.  Your apartment may actually be market worth about $750 a month with a buffer in case of unforeseen repairs.  However it's more than likely that it won't happen so that $250 is profit.  The management company might get about $150 of that to manage your apartment, pay the landscapers, the janitor, paint the hallways, etc.. The leftover $100 is pure profit to the owner.  Now multiply that by the other 11 apartments in your building and the owner is making $1200 a month just for owning the building.  Multiply that by 12 and you have $14,400 in profit.  The building itself is probably worth about $1 to $2 million and is slowly  appreciating in value.  That $14,440 can be applied to purchasing another building.  To purchase the building from the get go might only require a $25,000 to a $100,000 down payment.  Are you starting to see the value of good credit?  It's the road to financial security and potentially wealth.

Consider that you're living in the most technologically advanced age ever on Earth, you'll potentially live well past your 70s, with regular exercise and no diseases that ravage you, to your 80s and 90s.  The question becomes will you have enough income when you can no longer physically work?  The broader question around race and gender for women and people of color, is the passing on of wealth to the next generation.  Caucasian people have 14 generations of wealth in America, people of color (Black and Latino) 4 to 5.  This affects being able to send your children and grandchildren to college and their subsequent success.  Tangible Assets and accumulation of them are a panacea to many of the social ills we see and might just be the difference between your living a good life and maybe giving up a few luxuries and frivolous spendings now or  when elderly being a Wal-Mart greeter for grocery money.


Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com
http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us/Share this post on FaceBook, LinkedIn, Google+ or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/

Rich Dad, Poor Dad Book Review by Kyle Phoenix

Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a great book with lots of sound practical advice!

I've been very lucky over the years, by that I mean that I've had the opportunity to explore being an entrepreneur. I started when I was 14 years old, a national magazine on a small scale and what I learned from that I would later articulate in other projects for publishing and even now on Amazon. I went to a Rich Dad seminar in New York City.  I expected there to be an exhaustive push to purchase the various products available through his company but instead it was a full on lessons in business. We were actually given workbooks and situations culled from the audience to look at how systems work and their business potential.  This was all done by Robert Kiyosaki himself and his team of RIch Dad Advisor's and his wife, Kim.

I will tell you what all of this has helped to congeal in my head. One, money does not exist.  Now this may seem to be contradictory to the entire concept of what Kiyosaki's books seem to extort on the surface but it doesn't. Again this is a radical concept, but I think that after a certain number, money is simply a concept. The majority of people think of working from paycheck to paycheck and what can be done with that money (after taxes usually 50% of one's annual number salary), unless you make a staggering amount, you can't get ahead.

What I think the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series gives one the insight to do is recognize all of the systems you're in. First what your money is, doing a spreadsheet on yourself and your worth, figuring out your goals and so forth and then the legal areas that affect your money. Most people know how much they make weekly, what that number should be annually but we rarely keep track of WHY those numbers are affected as they are. The difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich understand the power of their tax contributions and how much they absolutely have to make and how much they don't.

Rich people also think about money for sport not only for survival. Here's a mental game I've learned to play: I imagine what businesses I would build in a neighborhood I'm walking in, what I can see that would work, what wouldn't, etc..---cost analysis evaluation of places. I also regularly look at Lotto prizes and figure out exactly how much that money is----10 million after taxes, withholding= 4 or 5 million really isn't that much to last a lifetime.

This is where Rich Dad, Poor Dad becomes interesting and the book delves into this: How to make money make more money?

We all assume that getting a job is the easiest way to make money and then we assume that a business is so difficult to manage that we don't have the ability to do so. And yet amazingly, I started my first business when I was 7 selling papers, I would buy Sunday papers for 50 cents and sell them for 75 cents because I delivered the Sunday paper early in the winter.  That simple.  A month later I had two employees, the babysitter's children and was pulling in profit from three buildings.

Most people want answers. Answers the way your boss tells you to sit there, do this this way, deliver it by this time and then go home. Thats what people miss in this book----being told what to do. But ultimately they want to be TOLD what to do, become rich and then they will have the freedom to be "free to do whatever they want". Being free is everyone's greatest desire and fear. We have become a society that values conformity over creativity.

People want to read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and be told, put 5 dollars in a red box for ten years and you'll be a millionaire. Do this the right way and your life will be perfect. This isn't the way to be successful. There are ways of educating one's self----first books like this. I recommend making a study of the entire Rich Dad Series. You must make a study of first money, then yourself, then what to do with both.
I further recommend Tony Robbins Personal Power, Getting the Edge, Awaken The Giant because you must articulate what you want in the Universe. What if money is similar to the concept of the Matrix? What if the difference between me and John D. Rockefeller is a Universal expression of my potential in material manifestation? Visualization, understanding what money is, how to use it, how to grow, what real estate is, learning to think.

I think I will end this lifetime as affluent. Why?  Because not only have I maintained studying these kinds of books but because my video "games" are HSX.com and  an Entrepreneur PC game.  I think that Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad shouldn't answer questions such as numbers of what to do or how to do because life isn't about hand holding in the concept that people want it to be and honestly every person is different in terms of commitment level and ability. Did Obi Wan teach Luke how to transcend death or lift an X Wing fighter the first time? No.

You have to understand business, law, taxes. Really considering my investment future, what to do with money I may receive NEXT year in my tax returns, looking at my 401k plans and realizing that I could invest the money better, avoiding mutual funds and then designing an exit strategy for invested money---a concept pushed from the get go in Rich Dad, Poor Dad ---Enter Strategies, How Much You Need For the Lifestyle You Want and then business Exit Strategies.
Thinking ahead, critical thinking about yourself and your financial life and desires.  This book will open your mind and then the rest is up to you.


Thank you,
Kyle Phoenix
kylephoenixshow@aol.com
http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us on Face Book or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/