“We go to school to learn to work hard for money,” says Kiyosaki. “I write books and create products that teach people how to have money work hard for them.”

When Kiyosaki was nine years old, he approached the father of his best friend, Mike, to teach him how to make money. The dad gave the young Kiyosaki a menial job in one of the convenience stores he owned. It was not exactly what Kiyosaki had had in mind. After three weeks of dusting cans and making just ten cents a week, Kiyosaki told his friend’s dad he wanted to quit. Kiyosaki had not learned how to make a fortune, but what he had learned was a lesson far more valuable, said the father. At the age of nine, Kiyosaki was beginning to understand the futility of working a job he hated for a meager salary that would not get him anywhere in life.

That lesson formed the basis of Kiyosaki’s later career, and is one of the major components in his teachings. Kiyosaki did not get to where he is today by going to work every day, being frugal, and saving his money. Instead, Kiyosaki learned to take risks – managed risks – and make his money do the working. “The poor and middle class work for money. The rich have money work for them,” says Kiyosaki. “The rich buy or create assets that work for them so they don't have to.”

In
the Industrial Age, the formula for success was to go to school, get good grades and find a secure job for life. Either the company or the government would look after your financial wellbeing once you decided to retire. Today, says Kiyosaki, times have changed: “We are in the Information Age and more than job security we all need financial security…You can no longer rely on your employer or your government to take care of you.”

According to Kiyosaki, key to achieving financial security is in understanding the difference between an asset and a liability, and learning to leverage that difference. “An asset puts money in your pocket and a liability takes money from your pocket,” he says. “The rich understand the difference and buy assets, not liabilities.”

In his very blunt words, “Savers are losers.” Kiyosaki sees money just sitting in a bank account as money wasted. Your financial goals should not be to save money, get out of debt, or invest for the long term, unless you are content being one of the middle class, he says. But, if you want to be a part of the rich kids’ club, that kind of thinking is obsolete.

“Today, ‘save money’ is bad advice,” says Kiyosaki, who has made most of his fortune in shrewd real estate investments, and teaching the rest of the world how to do the same. “I have a problem with too much money. I can't reinvest it fast enough, and because I reinvest it, more money comes in. Yes, the rich do get richer.”