Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa Real Estate Investor Magazine - July 2017 | Page 11

Real Estate Investing Kiyosaki’s Way R Best Advice In the Current Economic Climate obert Kiyosaki is an American businessman, entrepreneur and author well known in South Africa. If you mention his name, you immediately associate it with the number one best- selling and most read personal finance book of all time, called ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’. Kiyosaki is also the founder of the ‘Rich Dad’ company, which is a private financial education company that provides personal finance and business education to people through seminars, books, videos and educational games. He created the ‘Cash f low’ board game and has authored around 26 books in the ‘Rich Dad’ series translated into 51 languages, available in 109 countries with over 27 million copies sold worldwide. Kiyosaki told REIM recently that he has personally implemented, invested and done all the things he writes about in all of his books and is not writing or speaking as an academic as most authors do. A lot has been written and spoken about this financial guru, both good and bad, and like any detractor he challenges the norms. What you can’t challenge him on is his powerful, practical message on financial education. He has been telling people to invest in themselves and their own knowledge first. He is a great motivator, impacting everyday people to change their mindset, financial habits and their financial independence. Many of his perspectives on building wealth f ly in the face of conventional wisdom. He is critical of the traditional education systems that have been teaching us antiquated and outdated financial advice, which has been benefitting governments and institutions for years. Most financial advice, he says, is bad advice. Advice such as, save money, get out of debt, and invest in a portfolio of well-diversified mutual funds are not the way to go if you want long-term www.reimag.co.za financial success. Investments that have always worked well for him include real estate, leveraging debt, gold, silver, oil and he is now a big proponent of using crypto currency to your advantage as a new asset class for financial success. He says people should not live below their means only by reducing their spending, but it is important to spend less than what you earn, but at the same time as you raise your earning power. People need to stop working for money and start acquiring assets. Kiyosaki is back in South Africa hosting multiple events spreading his message of preparing yourself for the next financial crash. Over the years, the financial icon has made hard-hitting statements about topical political and economic issues here in South Africa. We share some of his more recent thoughts and principles, explain how they relate to our current economic climate, and how we can use it to improve our personal financial situation. ABOUT ROBERT KIYOSAKI Age: 70 years old Occupation: Businessman, author and investor Married: Kim Kiyosaki Qualifications: Bsc. Degree (USMMA); MBA University of Hawaii Residence: Phoenix, Arizona, USA Estimated wealth: $80 million Kiyosaki’s Business interests Kiyosaki operates various business ventures and investments. Many are concentrated in the information technology (mobile apps and internet), publishing, retail, education, mining, energy, financial market, and real estate industries. Kiyosaki has been in the oil business since the late 1990s. He owns a JULY 2017 SA Real Estate Investor 9