(upbeat music) - [Announcer] This is
The Rich Dad Radio Show: The Good News and Bad News About Money. Here's Robert Kiyosaki. - Hello hello hello,
this is Robert Kiyosaki at The Rich Dad Radio Show: The Good News and Bad News About Money. And that's the oldie but goodie. It's "The Wall" by Pink Floyd. And we have a very special show for you. It's about education, one of
my favorite favorite subjects. So let me ask you this question. When you were in school, were you an A student or a C student? You know, were you the star of the class or the flunky of the class? And if you weren't the A student, then did that mean you
couldn't be successful? Is that what it means to you? If you didn't go to a great school, you're never gonna be successful? What if you drop out? What if you drop out like
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates? That means you've had it. Jack Ma, who was the
founder of a little company called Alibaba, he just recently said if you're 35 and you're
not rich and successful, you'll never be successful. Of course Jack Ma is a schoolteacher, former schoolteacher who struck it rich. But naturally, they have this idea that if you're not successful in school, you'll never be successful in life. And my contention has always been it almost damages you in school. You know, school damaged my brain, and my father was the Head of Education for the state of Hawaii, PhD. And I hated school. I mean I sat there getting pounded all the time for being stupid. So anyway, we have a very special show for those of you who were
either A students or C students. But most importantly, if you
still have children in school, what is school doing to your kid's brain? Any comments, Kim? - Well this is right up our alley. And we have a very special guest today, and he's the author of
the book "Late Bloomers" which just came out in April of this year. His name is Rich Karlgaard,
and he is the publisher of Forbes Magazine, and he
has done extensive research on really what the school
system is doing to kids. And what we've been
saying for so long is that there's only about 20% of
kids that actually learn the way the school system teaches. But now it's actually, as Rich is saying, it's actually been
accelerated and everybody wants their kid to get the
trophy and be the A student and succeed and get into
college of their choice. And everybody's pushing for
this achievement early in life, and Rich is saying hey,
maybe that's not the way. So all you losers like me in school, this is your program, because
if you're not successful yet, this is your last chance 'cause
you might be a late bloomer 'cause if I, if you judged me at 35, there was not much hope, right, Kim? (both laugh) So anyway, welcome to the program, Rich. - [Rich] Well thanks for having me. That's quite a knowing laugh, Robert. (Robert and Kim laugh) - No you know what, it's
one of the questions, was an FAQ, you know,
Frequently Asked Question. What is your biggest failure? What is your biggest failure, you know? And these people are terrified of failure. And I said well, I don't think I've made my biggest failure yet. I'm gonna make another one coming up. And it's, for me, it's always been how you address the subject called failure. And I failed out of school,
I failed in business, I failed this way, but I just kept going. And that's the only difference. - Well look at "Rich Dad Poor Dad". You wrote that when you were 50 years old. That says something right there. So Rich, what, your book is called "Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience "in a World Obsessed
with Early Achievement". What drove you to write this book? - [Rich] Well I've
always thought of myself as a late bloomer. At age 25, despite having a
degree from a good university, I was watching all of
my roommates going off and doing extraordinary things, beginning high powered legal careers, high powered engineering careers. One was getting his PhD in divinity, in theological seminary. And at age 25, I was
capable of holding a job no greater than security guard,
temp typist, and dishwasher. And I always wondered whether-- - And that pretty good school was called Stanford, wasn't it? - [Rich] Yes, but it was
a lot easier to get into in the 1970s than it is now. They took about 25% of applicants. Moreover, they really
looked for a geographic mix within the United States, so
if you were from North Dakota as I was, it was easier to get into. And then I was a junior college transfer who was a decent runner,
and I filled a spot on the cross country and track teams, not as a scholarship athlete,
but as sort of a placeholder. And all of that allowed me to get in. Now, but I just goofed off. I mean I goofed off because
I couldn't do the work. When my roommate who went off
to be a very successful lawyer in Silicon Valley and I
would walk to the library, he'd sit down and study
for three hours straight. And after about 15 minutes of fidgeting, I would walk off into the library and read back issues
of Sports Illustrated. (Robert and Kim laugh) - Well that's 15 minutes
longer than I could handle. (all laugh) So you're saying that just,
you know, success in school and all that is not a
precursor for success in life. - [Rich] Well I have never believed so. But here in Silicon Valley where I live, and I think you would find it true in all of the high
performance affluent cities around the country like
Seattle and New York and Boston and many others, there is this belief that kids need to get
on the track for success at a very early age. In New York City, there are preschools that charge $50,000 a
year for three year olds to immerse them in language, participate in a multi building
campus, et cetera et cetera. And the not-so-subtle
message to parents is that if you don't do this now,
you'll only have yourselves to blame 15 years later when your kid doesn't get in to Harvard. - At three years old, wow. - I went to a school where
I had three of my classmates go to Stanford, and I didn't
even know what Stanford was. That's how backward I was, you know? But they were all obsessed with it. And then went to Dartmouth and Yale. And that was my class. - [Rich] Well one of my classmates was a fellow Hawaiian, Guy Kawasaki, and he did pretty well, too. - Oh yeah, we know Guy, we
know Guy very well, yes, yes. - [Rich] He was not a
spectacular student either. But he was a really good organizer of intramural sports and things like that. - You know his father-- - I really think what's going
on here, Robert and Kim, is that if you look at the US economy over the last 20 years, but
particularly in the last five to 10, the two most reliable sources for creating very rapid
wealth happen to be in Silicon Valley kind of technology. It isn't limited in
Silicon Valley, of course. It's around the world and in many cities. And in high finance, so the Wall Street, venture capital, and hedge funds source. And when you really delve into those, you see that Silicon Valley,
which used to be hospitable for people like Steve Jobs, who
dropped out of Reed College, now has become this almost exclusive club where if you didn't go to MIT, Stanford, Harvard Business School, a
handful of schools like that, you're really behind the curve. You're gonna have a hard time getting venture capital funding
if it's your first venture. Hard time getting that first
job at Google or Facebook unless you had some
other extraordinary thing that you can show them. And the same is true of
Wall Street hedge funds, venture capital firms. They're clubs populated mainly by people who went to a handful of schools. I think that's crept back into the culture and created this kind of panic that if we aren't getting
our kids on a fast track at age three, and they
aren't demonstrating that they're really good
at standardized tests or they're really good at
getting A pluses, you know, that somehow they're, somehow
they'll never get a job at Google or Kleiner
Perkins or Goldman Sachs or some place like that. Now it's a very narrow
view, but it's a view that's kind of swept everybody else up. - So you're saying, though,
this fast track actually can be damaging kids. - [Rich] Well it is. There are rising rates of
depression, anxiety, suicide. Two public high schools in
Palo Alto in the 2014-2015 year had six suicides and
more than 40 treatments for suicidal thoughts. I interviewed Carol Dweck, who teaches freshman
Psychology at Stanford. She wrote a bestselling
book called "Mindset". Wonderful book.
- Love that book, yes it is. - [Rich] Oh yeah, yeah, you know, Sachsen Adel at Microsoft
recommends it to everybody. It's that good a book. And I said congratulations
on the success of your book. And she said thank you, it succeeded where I didn't think it would
succeed, which is in business. But it's not succeeded where
I hoped it would succeed, which is in the education industry. And I said well do tell. And then she leaned forward. You know, she's a tiny woman. I don't even know if she's five feet tall. And she leans forward and she says the kids I see at Stanford today are brittle, exhausted,
and they don't want to mar their perfect records. So we're not creating people. We're not, the system
isn't producing people with a joy for learning,
with a bounce in their step, with an idea of going out
and experimenting and failing and experimenting and failing. It's producing people that
because they had straight A's and near-perfect SAT scores,
they don't want to do anything that's gonna expose them. - That's correct. There's another book called "Tailspin". I forgot the author's name. But he was Yale and then Yale Law. And he says that one of the
reasons we have such huge, Steven Brill, right, Steven Brill, "Tailspin", fantastic book. He says one of the reasons we
have such a horrible economy is because of what our top
schools are pumping out. People who all they do
is care about themselves and they create this, CDS
has credit the false swaps and derivatives that damage everybody. And then there's that woman
who wrote about the Fed. She was, was that DiMartino Booth. She has two Masters degrees,
and she says the Fed, if you didn't have a PhD from Harvard or MIT, you didn't count. And she said during the
crash when all the markets were crashing, these thousand
economists at the Fed had no idea the market was crashing. And she says I cannot believe
people are so highly educated but they're so unaware of the world. And I think that's what we're saying. - [Rich] I think that's absolutely true, because what the SAT does is measure sort of narrow, rapid
algorithmic giftedness. And in my book "Late Bloomers",
I go through the history of IQ testing in the United States and how it led directly to the SAT test. A man named Carl Brigham at Princeton developed the SAT in 1926. But it was really an extended version of Lewis Terman's Stanford-Binet IQ test, which is the US adaptation
of the French test. But the French developer,
Binet, believed that the IQ test could be a very useful diagnostic tool that might help us
create remedial programs for children who were
struggling in school. Never did he say or imply that it would predict lifetime outcomes. Lewis Terman believed it would predict lifetime outcomes. In fact, he launched a longitudinal study, the Stanford Study for Giftedness, and it turned out to be an early, these early gifted test
takers reverted to the mean. They weren't any better or
any worse than all of society. And one more thing. There was a poisonous seed in all of that. All of these US early IQ
testers and developers of the early 20th century were part of the eugenics movement. I mean it just, that alone
should tell you how biased their thinking was as they
constructed these tests. - What's eugenics? - [Rich] Well eugenics is the belief that people of certain races
and cultures and ethnicities are superior to others. - Well all Asians are superior. I bring the curve down there. That was the problem, you know? Everybody looks at me like I
must be Asian, I must be smart. But I bring the curve down wherever I go. (all laugh) - [Rich] Well back when it was developed, it was the belief that people
of Northern European heritage were brilliant and as you worked your way to the Equator, IQs dropped. And Carl Brigham had profound regrets about his test, by the way. He died in the 1930s and
he said we've committed a grave, a grave error. But anyway, this is the
dilemma that we've gotten into. And when you're overrating
narrow rapid algorithmic skills, what you're missing is
all the other great skills that make people
tremendously creative people throughout their lives, and many of them tremendously gifted entrepreneurs. - Once again, this is Robert Kiyosaki. We're speaking to Rich Karlgaard. His book is "Late Bloomers" Fabulous fabulous book,
very simple, easy to read. And it's very important
for two sets of people. Number one it's, well actually, three. Number one is if you have kids in school, he's gonna talk about
how you protect your kid from the insanity of the academic system. Number two, if you're an
A student and you're still a screw up, I think
Rich can help you there. And if you're like me,
a screw up until age 50, there's still hope. Basically that's what it is, okay? So those are the three types
of people he'll be talking to. It's a very important
book, it's "Late Bloomers". But I know from my own
personal experience, you were talking about
you get near the Equator, I never studied in school
and I could pass every test. Didn't mean I was smart, I
just understood the tests. But there are a lot of what you would call darker skin kids who
just didn't have that. They didn't know how to
just understand the test. And I saw this one girl named Martha. She was a great hula dancer,
she's a Hawaiian girl. Man, she got crushed in
school, she just got crushed. And I sat there and I was watching this white teacher just crush her. You know, you'll never amount
to anything, you know ongoing. So Martha did very well. She runs a hula studio now. She's doing quite well in Hawaii. - But that's kind of what you're saying is there's all these other
skills and talents and creativity that are just kind of by the wayside. There's no more trade schools,
none of that, right Rich? It's like, it's all-- - [Rich] Oh yeah, I think
the loss of trade schools in public schools in the United States, only one out of 20 public
schools teaches skilled trades, or what we used to call
shop class and home ec-- - That was my favorite
class, shop, wood shop. I was an A student in woodshop. - Well there you go. - [Rich] Yes, well there you go. I mean I think Mike Rowe,
the Dirty Jobs Mike Rowe is absolutely right about this. He should be elevated to
a Cabinet position really for bringing these issues
up, because these jobs have changed, they
intersect with technology, and they provide great incomes for people. And by the way, people who don't, people who go into a skilled trade can always go back to college later. Who wouldn't want somebody,
who wouldn't want somebody who'd been an electrician or a welder then going back and getting
a civil engineering degree? What employer wouldn't want somebody with that broad based training? - Hey Rich, we're gonna-- - [Rich] And I will
tell you something else. Every, a week after Christmas,
my wife and I traditionally go down to Indian Wells near
Palm Springs, California, and we rent a condo, and
we rent it from a plumber. Well the plumber of course is a guy who built a plumbing firm. So you can always take
those skilled trades and build firms out of them, too. - He probably read my
book, "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and he invested in real
estate, that's what he's doing. - [Rich] Well he did, he
owns a bunch of places in Newport Beach and all the-- - It's like the window
washer that Robert met in New York City who now has
his own window washing company and owns a lot of rental properties. - Yeah, in New York City.
- So exactly what you're saying.
- In New York City. And I'm going holy moly. He says, he thanks me
for writing the book. I said I better read my own book now. Anyway Rich, we'll be right back. - [Rich] I'll just say, among
the richest of my friends is somebody who is a grocer,
but he started investing in apartments and now he
has several hundred of them. - Once again, it's Robert Kiyosaki. Our guest today is Rich Karlgaard. And his book is called "Late Bloomers". It's for those of you
who have kids in school, for those of you who were A students and still not doing well,
and for you old guys like me who are still hoping the ship comes in. We'll be right back. Welcome back, Robert Kiyosaki
at The Rich Dad Radio Show: The Good News and Bad News About Money. Today we have a very special
guest, Rich Karlgaard. Before I get to Rich, you know, this is especially for those
with students still in school or you're struggling
financially and you're over 35 or you're an old guy and
you still haven't made it. It's a very important program for you. Once again, you can listen
to The Rich Dad Radio Show anytime anywhere on iTunes or Android, and all of our programs are
archived at RichDadRadio.com. We archive them because
one of the best ways to learn is via repetition. Like you don't learn to play golf from taking one golf lesson. So you can listen to this program again and then especially if you have friends, family or business
associates, 'cause this is a very very important program. The book is called "Late Bloomers". And listen to this again
with friends, family, and business associates
on RichDadRadio.com. And Rich Karlgaard is
author of "Late Bloomers: "The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed "with Early Achievement". Also "The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies "Find Lasting Success", and "Team Genius: "The New Science of High
Performing Organizations". And his website is RichKarlgaard.com. Last name is K-A-R-L-G-A-A-R-D. So any comments, Kim? - No, I think this is fascinating, so let's get back to Rich. - So Rich, you're talking about, you know, can you talk about how school,
I have a lot of friends that say school damages people's brains. I knew it damaged mine with
let's call extreme boredom. So what do you have to say about that? (Robert laughs) - [Rich] Well I think
that's absolutely true. You know, one of the scandals
in the United States, and I mean it is a scandal
of huge proportions, is our overdiagnosis of ADHD. And then even worse,
how we prescribe Ritalin and other drugs like that to people who were probably falsely
diagnosed as having ADHD. We-- - You actually say that 95%
of the drug prescriptions for ADHD is given in
the United States, 95%. - [Rich] In the United States. Yeah, and that comes from Dr. Leonard Sax who wrote a couple of
great books, "Boys Adrift" and "Girls on the Edge". It's an absolute scandal
that just, you know, let's just take boys because
more of the diagnosed are boys. Boys have always been boys. Read Mark Twain to understand
how boys will always be boys. And because they can't sit in school, suddenly they're diagnosed with a problem. It's like we've made a pathology
out of a kid's inability to get 800 on their SATs. - Well that was me, I just
couldn't sit in the classroom. - But you say, you mention the college, you know, the scandal of the
college admission scandal. That all feeds into this obsession with the early achievers, right? Got to get into the right college, and I'm gonna pay for, to, go ahead. - [Rich] I think that's just
the extreme manifestation of a certain logic that's at work. And I'm sure these
extremely affluent parents who bribed admissions directors
or bribed country clubs sports coaches to get
their kids into school had no idea that they had crossed the line and were committing a felony. - Well you mentioned that,
but they were bribing kids into USC, a state school, I mean my God. I could see bribing somebody
to get into Stanford. - [Rich] Well yeah, USC is private, and USC has really come up in the world. - Oh it is? - [Rich] Yeah, since the OJ Simpson days. And it really has the best alumni network in all of Los Angeles. It's very valuable, very valuable-- - That's where Nixon's guys
went, all of those guys. That's why I never liked USC after that. - [Rich] Yeah, yeah. - Smart guys with no morals. - So you also, you talked, go ahead. So you talk in your book,
Rich, about the neuroscience or the brain research that
goes along with your analysis. What is brain research telling us? - [Rich] There are three quick
things that you should know about some of this
fascinating brain research. One is what car rental
companies already perceive in the way they charge
people under 25 higher rates. The prefrontal cortex in our
brain is not fully developed on average 'til 25, and
there's some neuroscientists that believe that with each generation, it's being extended
another 18 months or so. And that's sort of where
our executive functioning, our ability to look ahead, see consequences from
actions, really results. Number two, that this is
a really important one. 2015, a study led by Harvard and MIT in conjunction with
Massachusetts General Hospital asked the simple question at
what age do we cognitively peak and the answer is very
intriguing, very complex, and very hopeful, because the answer is what cognitive abilities
are you talking about? There are certain things
where we peak early. Rapid cognitive processing
speed, working memory, the things that might make
you a high frequency trader on Wall Street or a software
programmer in Silicon Valley. But all of those brain
functions that support executive functioning,
leadership, communication skills, all begin to flower in our
thirties, forties, and fifties. The average age of entrepreneurship
in the United States believe it or not is 47. That's the median age. People think it's much
younger, but it makes sense when you look at the brain research. And then finally, the
neural networks that connect the left and right
hemispheres of our brain keep developing throughout
our healthy lives. As long as you stay healthy and as long as we stay mentally
engaged, then we're capable of tremendous insights into our sixties, seventies, and beyond. So there's hope for Robert here. - Oh thank God, thank God. (all laugh) - [Kim] You just made his day. - Hey Rich, let's keep our promise. Let's say I'm a parent
with a kid, boy or girl, who just hates school. What would you say? - [Rich] I would say listen to that kid and really get to know that
kid and don't outsource your parenting responsibilities
to the professionals, to the educators, to the
counselors, to the psychologists. I'll give you an example. A friend of mine that
I went to college with is a clinical psychologist
who has a family practice. And it's often because of a
boy who's not paying attention to school that brings the family in. And so he gives the example of
these sort of countless times but this is sort of representative. The family brings in a kid
who's checked out at school. He's like a sophomore in high school. The family's very worried about him. But the family is high
pressure, they're white collar, they're very aspirational, they believe that all kids should go to college. And they thought their kid
was getting into trouble. The friends he's hanging
around with were the, they didn't look like the friends that you're supposed to have in Pasadena. And all it turned out was the kid had developed a love of cars. And he was so embarrassed
to tell his parents that he wanted to be a car
mechanic that he just checked out and they had no conversation at all. So the parents thought he was screwing up, and in fact, he was just expressing a love with his new friends that he was afraid to share with his parents. - Yep, very good, that's my kid brother. My brother John is a genius
when it comes to cars. But my mom wanted him to be a dentist. So-- - But, and as you say in your book, Rich, and we've said this many
times, is kids go into school and then they're told they're stupid because they don't fit the system. So they're told they're stupid, and then they believe it and
then it's downhill from there. - [Rich] Yeah, and there
used to be more ways to catch kids like that, you know? It's hard to get into the military today. JD Vance wrote a bestseller
in 2016, "Hillbilly Elegy". And he was a poor kid from
a very dysfunctional family. The only functional one at
all was his grandmother. And he went off to the Marines. He got male role models
for the first time, and he came back, went through Ohio State in two and a half years
while holding two jobs. And so you know, but
what I was kind of struck by that book that it, they
used to be more commonplace. You know, it used to be more commonplace that society had more ways to catch the kid who had mentally checked out, he wasn't, didn't really do well in school and then went to the military
or something like that. Got a job, got confidence,
and began to bloom. - That was my story, I was
in the Marine Corps, too. Got shaped up. Hey, so what about somebody let's say they're 45 and they're
still the boring loser? What do you say to them? - [Rich] Well, I think that 45 year old has to look at, you know,
really do a self examination about where, why they
might not be achieving the things that they want to achieve. All of this assumes, of course, Robert, that that person really
does want to achieve and make a mark and fulfill
certain financial expectations and so on and is not an overgrown Big Lebowski or something. But you know, you have to look at whether you're in the right place.
- You have to want it. - [Rich] You have to look at
whether you're hanging out with the right set of people. You have to look at
whether you've developed mental habits that are undermining you. You have to look at, you
know, have you let self doubt creep into your self
worth and tow you down? So there are, I think
there's some rigorous self examination, and I'm a big advocate of joining peer groups. And peer groups, you know,
most of them are free. I mean the grand daddy of peer groups is probably Toastmasters. All the 12 step groups are peer groups. But you can go to your church. One of the good reasons
to join a large church is you have peer groups
to talk about your career or parenting challenges. It's good to be around
people who are facing the same challenge as you,
but then to hear from people who have overcome the same
challenges you're facing. - So the last question is
let's say an old guy like me. You know, like when Jack Ma
was saying if you're over 35 you haven't made it,
you're never gonna make it, and I talked about Colonel Sanders, it was after he was
retired and the highway went over his chicken shop that
he created Colonel Sanders. And then he became a success at 70. So what do you say to older people? - [Rich] Well I would say to older people, lean into the person you're becoming. Don't go back and try to reclaim what you thought you missed. Because when you go back
to the brain research, you see that you're becoming
someone new all the time. Elkhonon Goldberg is a 72 year
old neuroscientist at NYU. And he noticed in his late
sixties that his intuitions turned out to be as accurate as his rigorous logical processes. He would come to the same conclusion much faster with his intuition. And he did a bunch of research around it. So you have gifts in
your sixties, seventies, and even eighties, that
you didn't have before, including really well-informed intuition. So follow your intuition. - And for parents, I love
that, follow your intuition. That's, I like that a lot. - That's all I got. - [Rich] Not something,
maybe not something you would tell a teenager. - True, true true true,
they're not there yet. But for parents, okay, so
let's say you're a parent and you're pushing your
kid and you want them to be that A student, you
want them to get into Harvard and their kid is just not making it, and now they feel like they're failures. What do you say to those parents? - [Rich] Well we've got some neighbors who just raised their boy excellently. He was a B student in a part
of the world in Silicon Valley near Stanford where the
expectations are A's. But the dad came from a blue
collar family in Philadelphia. He's now you know, a
Chief Operating Officer at a publicly traded company. So but a father with common sense. And they decided they
would encourage their kid to be well rounded, so in addition to B's, B's are good enough, he said. The kid went to Boy Scouts,
became an Eagle Scout. He launched a T-shirt business. He didn't get into Stanford or Cal. He's going off to the
University of Colorado, and they couldn't be happier for him. They have raised a really good boy. - And is there any proof
that going to a great school like Stanford or Harvard
or MIT is a guarantee or precursor of success? - [Rich] Well you can't deny the advantage of being in that network in
a part of the world that, parts of the world like Wall
Street or Silicon Valley, that value those sorts of things. - Pedigrees. - [Rich] But that's where
the value, the pedigree, that's where the value stops. Google, which is founded by
two Stanford grad students who scored perfect math SAT scores, Sergey Brin and Larry
Page, had the belief, Jeff Bezos had the belief too, that whatever you scored
on your math SAT, you know, that's something we the
company want to know when we're interviewing you. And yet when they tested
that, when Google tested that to see whether you had an elite degree and what your SAT scores were, the correlation was very weak
about how well you were doing at Google three years later. And after five years,
it disappeared entirely. So the answer is yeah, there's
an advantage at the start and it completely gets competed away. - So one last, I love
your story about this. You were struggling at
Stanford and you were bored and you went to read magazines, and now you're the publisher
of Forbes magazine. How does that link together? - [Rich] Well it does link. Thank you for asking that,
because a friend of mine and I had the opportunity to start what became Silicon Valley's first business magazine. And the technology, the
disruptive technology of the day was a Macintosh and desktop publishing. But we did it, and it was the blank slate. And I had the idea that
business magazines were boring, that they needed to have
the bounce in their step and the cheek and the
willingness to be funny and punch people in the face
like a good sports magazine. And so I created Upside
Magazine, as it was called, after Sports Illustrated,
except it was about Silicon Valley business. It was a big hit. Steve Forbes, caught
Steve Forbes's attention, and he hired me, and so this is how I went from being a security
guard to 10 years later reporting directly to Steve Forbes. - Congratulations,
that's a fantastic story. But you naturally gravitated
towards magazines. Would you say that's part of intuition or divine intervention, or what? - [Rich] I just like sports,
I like the great writing, I liked, there may have
been divine intervention. My dad was the high
school athletic director, so we grew up in a home
that was full of sports. As far as I was concerned
growing up in North Dakota, you know, I never had
any interest in business because I thought the local,
I thought business people were people who managed
the local JC Penny's. You know, I had no idea
about how business is really competitive, creative, to
bring out the best in you, would expose you to risk in a good way. I had none of that idea. But I knew it existed in sports. And so my whole orientation was sports, oddly enough until I
created a business magazine. - You know, my favorite
magazine was Playboy, but that never translated for some reason. - [Rich] Well I know you
read it for the interviews. - I did, I did. - I do have one final question,
Rich, 'cause you talk, we talked earlier about this
crippling fear of failure. Kids don't, they have a
fear of being evaluated, yet the internet and all the
digital world is evaluating, everybody is comparing
each other to each other. We have a daughter, a
friend's daughter who was 17. She had an ulcer and she's always trying to keep up with everybody. How do you make that shift
from this fear of failure and being evaluated and judged to being a regular human being? - [Rich] Well I think it's hard to change. I think it's hard to change
because the schools' belief that we have to have great test scores and great grades in
order for to create kids that are gonna prosper in a
technology driven economy. You add in the pressure of social media, where everybody makes the mistake of comparing their
insides to other people's curated outsides, and this is why parents need to get involved and need
to really love their kids, and love them unconditionally. So they can listen and they
can find out by listening what the kid is really interested in and what the kid might really be good at. I think that's the mistake that's made is that parents are living
in this state of fear and they outsource all
these critical issues to school, to counselors,
to psychologists, et cetera. - That's the best advice
of all, because my story "Rich Dad Poor Dad", my poor
dad was the head of education of the state of Hawaii. He also attended Stanford, PhD. But when I flunked out of high school, my father just fired the
teacher in front of everybody. And all of a sudden, they left me alone after that for some reason. But my dad was always on
my side, no matter how screwed up I was. I think that's the best
advice you can give, so thank you for that. Once again, I want to-- - [Rich] The best. - Thank you, Rich. I'd like to have you back on, 'cause this is a very hot subject, very very important subject. 'Cause what is more
important that education? I don't know if much. So anyway, thank you for writing
your book "Late Bloomers: "The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed "with Early Achievement", thank you. - I think this should be a-- - [Rich] Thank you so
much, Robert and Kim. - Oh thank you, I think
your book "Late Bloomers" should be a Bible for parents
and teachers and kids, and anybody that was told they were stupid and came out of school
believing they were stupid. This is a very valuable book. - [Rich] May I quote you,
I'm gonna ask the two of you to write the foreword for
the paperback version. - Oh we'd be honored, we'd be honored. (Robert and Kim laugh) - That would be an honor,
it would really be an honor. So Rich, thank you very much. - Thank you for your gift. - [Rich] Yeah, thanks so much. - All right, take care. - And when we come back,
we'll come to the most popular part of our program, Ask Robert. We'll be right back. Welcome back, Robert Kiyosaki
at The Rich Dad Radio Show, The Good News and Bad News About Money. Special thanks to Rich
Karlgaard, K-A-R-L-G-A-A-R-D. He's the author of "Late
Bloomers: The Power of Patience "In a World Obsessed
with Early Achievement". And his website is RichKarlgaard.com. One set of words,
R-I-C-H-K-A-R-L-G-A-A-R-D. Please get his book,
it is a fabulous book. And once again, you can listen
to The Rich Dad Radio program anywhere on iTunes or Android. And all of our programs are
archived at RichDadRadio.com. We archive it 'cause repetition
is how we learn best. Listen to this program
again, but most importantly, have friends, family, or
business associates listen to us and discuss it, because as
much as I dump on education, Rich Dad is an education company. And I think education
is the most important attribute somebody should seek, right Kim? - Yeah absolutely, it just
depends on what kind of education and just as Rich is saying,
find out what the kids are interested in, find out
what you're interested in, and then seek the education to that. - So anyway, he's, I like
it, love love love this book. - [Kim] You know one of the-- - Melissa, what did you think of the book? - [Melissa] Robert, I
thought it was one of the best books that I've ever read. As you know, we do a lot of
research here for the show and we see a lot of business books. And I really must say,
I thought Rich's book was by far one of the best. I think his message is very
critical really for everyone. - And the hardest thing for me was I was always labeled stupid. Now the good news was the
more they labeled me stupid, the more inspired I
got to prove 'em wrong. So actually it worked in reverse. But I also saw other
kids got labeled stupid, and they believed it. - Yeah, when they believe
it, that's dangerous. - Yeah, and it's just a tragedy. You break that child's
spirit, the desire to learn, because you know, he talked
about AD, whatever HD is, it's called acute boredom. Why do they hire the most boring people in the world to be teachers? I just don't understand that. They're just boring people. They couldn't make it in real life, so they become teachers. God, I hated it. Anyway. - Well and I think we talked about this at the break with Rich. One of the keys and one of
the trade offs that's happened is trade, everybody's
so driven to get that A and to get into the right school, and they're scheduled every
single minute of the day and they've traded this
drive for early success and they've given up curiosity,
they've given up creativity, they've given up discovery. These kids don't discover,
and they're not curious because they're told you have
to do this this this this. I think that's a crime. - Another thing, too,
is I see these parents driving their little precious darlings from this event to piano lessons, golf lessons, soccer lessons. Give them a bike, tell
them to ride, you know? Tell them work for that money. They just spoil those little,
just spoil 'em rotten. Anyway, I'm just jealous
'cause I got nothing. Anyway, so you can submit
your questions to Ask Robert at RichDadRadio.com. Melissa, what's the question? - [Melissa] Our first question today comes from Brianna in Salt Lake City. Favorite book, "Rich Woman". - Thank you, Brianna. - [Melissa] Said her question is this. "My husband and I are
trying to give our kids "some base financial education. "We see the differences in how they each "learn and handle money. "Do you have any suggestions
on what steps we should take "to continue their
education so they will find "learning about money fun?" - Well I hope you have
a Cashflow board game. Because a Cashflow board game
is the best teaching tool, much better than a boring
old school teacher, because you know, cash
flow involves your brain, your emotions 'cause you hate losing, you have to physically do something, and it inspires the
spirits because you know, losing is a wonderful thing
if it inspires you to win. But so many kids, like
Rich said, they're brittle. They have no resilience to 'em. They just want everything handed to 'em. What a pack of losers,
man, what a pack of losers. So that's why he talks about the guy Vance and "Hillbilly Elegy", Marine
Corps straighten him up. Send the kid to the Marine Corps. But the most important thing is have fun. That's why I still play Monopoly. My Rich Dad just started
playing Monopoly with me. The other thing it did, he then took me to his four green houses red hotel, he took me to his green houses. I went holy moly, that it was
more than just a board game. So if you're, I'm not saying
it has to be real estate, but if it's stocks, you know,
I look at the guy Ray Dalio of Bridgewater, the biggest
hedge fund in the world, he started buying stocks at a young age. Same as Warren Buffett. You want to do it when the brain is still malleable and pliable. So take the child, you know,
go look at real estate. Donald Trump had to go collect rent. He had his boys collect rent. He said you want adventures in psychosis? Go collect rent. You'll hear more BS than
you ever had before. I remember when I had to go
knock on a door to collect rent. It's terrifying. Got this adult and they're lying to you, telling these sob stories. I tell you, that's real education. So this stuff you learn in school, in my opinion, waste of time. Any comments, Kim? - Yeah well we know the
two best ways to learn, the best way to learn is to go out there and do the real thing. So like you're saying, go
buy a couple shares of stock of something and watch it and let the kids learn.
- Or buy silver and gold. - Go buy silver one ounce coin. The other great way to learn is through simulations and games, so by playing the Cashflow
game, I mean you and I created this game because we
wanted education to be fun. We wanted learning about money to be fun. And play it with your kids. It opens up discussion. It changes the way you think about money. So going out there, playing
games, and then going out in the real world and doing it, exactly the best ways to learn. - And I'm glad you're interested in it, but if you make school
boring or home boring like a lot of these Tiger
moms do, these Asian women do to their kids, oh my God. If I went from boring
schoolteacher to boring mom, oh my God, you know, I would just be on drugs immediately
just to ease the pain. Thank God my mother was a
little bit more tolerant to me. And my father was a great guy, you know. Every time I was flunking
out, he says oh well, so what? He didn't care, and he
was head of education. He had no ego in that. And that's what kind of inspired me, and that's like what Rich said. He went and read magazines. My only A subject in school was woodshop. So I built, while kids were
building salad bowls for mom, you know, I built an eight foot sailboat and I was sitting out on
the water with my sailboat. And that took me to the United States Merchant Marine Academy,
number one sailing school in America, and I went off to sea, one of the greatest schools there is. So I learn by doing,
and if not for woodshop, you know, the only A I got, I would never have gone to college. So there's so many things
that a child will tell you they're interested in versus
what the schoolteacher thinks a kid should learn. - Which also goes to the point of if you're teaching your kids about money, what about the subject
are they interested in? 'Cause if they're not interested, you've got to find a way
to get them interested through what hobbies they like or what they focus their attention on. - Yeah, and then look at
my relationship with Kim. Like she's hot, sexy, great looking. But there's a lot of hot,
sexy, great looking women. But when I met her, you know,
she was in network marketing. She was setting up her
little goofy stands-- - Those skin care stands
at the fitness club. - Here she is, she's a
college graduate, you know? But she's still selling network marketing to learn how to sell
and actually do stuff. And I said I like this, she's
got ambition and all that. And then as I got more excited about her, I say this might be a keeper. She didn't think I was a keeper, but then. So my first gift to you was what? - An Accounting course. - Yeah, I wanted to make sure she knew assets from liabilities. Because you look at what
most couples fight about. It's money. - But it wasn't a boring
Accounting course. It was a very interactive. We played games. It was not in the school system. It was outside the school
system, and it was fun, and it really did invigorate
my love of learning. Because I came out of
school not wanting to sit in another classroom
for the rest of my life. - And you're a business major. - Yep, I was a business major. - So that's why the Rich
Dad company, we do not want to be a boring school
that you have to take Ritalin to sit and play around. That's just not worth it. Another thing that Rich said, you know, if you're older, join a different group. You know, one of the
best things you can do is not hang out with the same people. And the reason I got into education was I used to take seminars. You know, Kim and I take
seminars once or twice a year. And I just started hanging
out in the seminar space. I used to sit, move tables, you know, drink coffee with people
and talk to different people who were excited about learning. And there's nothing more horrible than a person who has
stopped learning, right Kim? - Absolutely. A matter of fact, our
friend was writing a book and went around the US interviewing people that had retired and looking
at their keys to success, and he came back and he
said I've made one decision. I'm gonna talk to older people
about who are successful. But if they have retired,
I'm not gonna talk to them because it's boring. They have nothing to
talk about, it's boring. - Yeah, they're brain atrophies just like your body atrophies. - It does, it does,
you're not exercising it. - So you know, just find like every year I go on the Real Estate Guys cruise. I get to hang out with all these people that are interested in real estate. To me, that's heaven. Where other people, the other passengers are feeding their addiction
called the buffet and the bar and they're sucking down all this stuff. Man, there are some,
you don't need to look for whales in the ocean, lot of whales as passengers out there, you know? I'm going holy mackerel. They just sit there eat and drink all day. I'm going holy mackerel. And they wonder what we're doing, and we're studying from
seven o'clock at morning 'til two o'clock in the morning, 'cause we just love learning. And I think that's really the issue. If your life has stagnated and stalled, maybe you should start
learning something new. So once again, thank Rich Karlgaard. Again, his book is called "Late Bloomers". His website is RichKarlgaard,
K-A-R-L-G-A-A-R-D, .com. And you can submit your
questions to Ask Robert at Rich Dad Radio, and thank you for listening to The
Rich Dad Radio program.
