When it comes to financial “gurus” or infomercial giants I am often skeptical of the messages they preach.  Most of my skepticism comes from an old slogan someone told me a long time ago and it still sticks with me today.  “Those who can do, those who can’t teach.”  Now I am in no way trying to make light of teaching as a profession because I think teaching is a very noble profession that requires a lot of skill and training to master.  When it comes to financial “gurus” my question is do they make their money doing what they say or do they make their money teaching other people to do what they say.

Robert Kiyosaki has made a fortune off of his Rich Dad, Poor Dad series, so as a marketer Kiyosaki is brilliant.  The question is can you survive by following his financial advice.  Well obviously you would need to know the crux of his financial advice so I am going to give you what I call the Kiyosaki classics.  By the way when it comes to financial advice you should follow the one thing Kiyosaki said that makes sense, “beware of who you get financial advice from”. 

The Kiyosaki Classics:
If you’re going to go broke, go broke big
Education is a waste of time
Diversification and investing for the long term are bad advice
401(K)’s are the biggest scam ever
One of the ways to make money is through real estate investments
Believes network marketing is a good way to develop long term residual income

If you boil it all down here is what Robert Kiyosaki is.  A motivational speaker – yes!   A best selling author – yes!  A great salesman – yes!   A great financial mind, not at all!  So really then how does Kiyosaki make his money?  My personal opinion is his income is driven by book sales and seminars, again a great PR machine.  Does he even practice what he preaches?  Well it is hard to tell because he refuses to come clean about his actual income.  He estimates it’s between $50-$100 million but there is no verification of that.  And by the way where are the real estate properties he owns, good luck in finding those.  Personally I have nothing against him because I don’t know him, but I see a man capitalizing on an industry full of people who are financially un-educated.  His audience isn’t the wealthy but people who want to become wealthy and unfortunately these can be some very gullible people because they want to believe and change their situation so desperately.  I am not alone in my views of Mr. Kiyosaki’s financial advice, here are some other Kiyosaki detractors:

Get Rich Slowly
The Simple Dollar
John T. Reed

 In my final analysis of Mr. Kiyosaki I will use his own words to sum up what I have been saying.  “We go to school to learn to work hard for money. I write books and create products that teach people how to have money work hard for them.”  I don’t think my own words could do any better justice.  SO if you need motivation his stuff is good, if you need financial advice, take action at your own peril after all remember those who can’t teach.