The Biggest Mistakes Young People Make In 2026

0:00Somebody young told me something the other day. She said, Robert, I've got time. I'm still young. I call today's show, The Biggest Mistake Young People Make in 2026. I'll show you why. Next, don't go anywhere. This is the Rich Dad Radio Show, the good news and bad news about money. Here's Robert Kiyosaki.

0:26Welcome to the Rich Dad Radio Show, the good and bad about money. This is Robert Kiyosaki, and today is just you and me. And we're talking about what the rich are teaching their kids about money. Somebody young told me something the other day. She said, Robert, I don't have to worry about money yet. I'm still young. That word young is going to cost her. Time is one of the greatest assets you will ever have, or it's your biggest liability. Most people treat it like it's free, like it never runs out. I just turned 79. I have friends who made millions and have nothing left. Nice house, nice car, nothing that pays them while they sleep.

1:14Being young feels great. That's the problem. When you're young, everything is new. New job, new apartment, new everything. Nobody wants to think about their 70s when they're 25. I understand. I didn't either. But time doesn't wait for you to feel ready. So you chase what feels good instead of what pays you later. And it shows up in the same sentence every time. I want a career. or I'm going to start my own business or lately I'm building something with AI. That one sounds like ambition. It sounds like the future. It's the same trap in a new outfit because the real question was never what you build.

2:05It's which quadrant you build it in. There are four quadrants. Most people spend their whole life in two of them and they wonder why they're tired. Let me show you the boxes. Four boxes, ESB. Employee, self-employed, business owner, investor. That's it. That's the whole map. Employee works for a paycheck. Self-employed owns a job and can't stop working or the job disappears. Doesn't matter if that job is a law office or a laptop and an AI subscription. Same quadrant, same problem. A doctor can be an employee. A doctor can also be self-employed. Same title, different quadrant. Business owner owns a system.

3:04People work. The system doesn't stop. Investor owns nothing you can see, just money making more money. Most people live here in the E &S quadrants. That's where do what you love lives. That's its home address. And here's what they don't tell you at the career fair. E &S pay the highest taxes in the world, 40%, sometimes 60 once you add it all up. They take it before you ever see it. Move to B, the number drops. Move to I, in some cases it hits zero. Same dollar, same hour of work, different quadrant, different rules. That's not an accident, that's the game board. And most people never see the board, They just play.

4:04In 2026, the board looks the same. Only the props changed. It used to be a briefcase. Now it's a laptop and a dashboard full of charts. Same four quadrant. Different screens. This isn't about being smart either. Some of the smartest people I know are stuck on the left side. I knew this before I was 25. I didn't know I loved writing books. I still don't. I hate it. But I knew I wanted to live over here on the B and I side. It took years. It's the hardest quadrant to reach. Nobody hands it to you. So the mistake isn't loving your work. The mistake is loving your work in the box that keeps you poor.

4:58Let me say this again. It's not what you love. It's where you love it. And there's a man who taught me this the hard way, not in a classroom, in Peru. Four quadrant. Two of them pay almost everything to the system. Two of them keep almost all of it. and when we come back, I'll tell you about a man named Frank, a plane ticket to Lima, and a gold mine that wasn't there. Don't go anywhere. I've got a neighbor, retired guy, smart guy. For years, he's been telling me about this business he wants to start. He's got the idea, he's got the plan, he's even got the name picked out, but he never launches.

5:45You know why? The setup. Which website builder? Which domain company? Which email tool? He'd open five tabs, burn three hours, and have nothing to show for it. So the business stayed in his head where it made him exactly zero dollars. Last week, he finally launched. I asked him how. He said, Robert, I didn't build a website. I had a conversation. He went to Hostinger and just told their AI what he wanted, plain English. Minutes later, the first version of his website was done. And here's a part I like. The domain, the hosting, the business email, all of it, one place, one account. No duct tape, no tech guy, and it costs less than what most people waste on coffee.

6:27So I can't afford it, won't work here. Rich Dad taught me, the poor say I can't. The rich ask, how can I? Here's how. Go to hostinger.com slash richdad20 and use code richdad20 for 20 % off. That's hostinger.com slash richdad20. The people who change their financial future aren't the ones who almost did something. Go now. It's a great first step. Thank you for listening to my show. Listen to this carefully, please. Thanks to an obscure 112-year-old law, President Trump recently made a critical move that could impact your financial future, and it could create an explosion of new wealth for you and every hard-working American citizen.

7:14In fact, according to my friend Jim Rickards, a former advisor to the CIA and the Pentagon, with close contacts inside the Trump White House, the President's move could help unleash $100 trillion in new wealth. To find out how to stake your claim, go to the2026law.com for all of the details. That's the2026law.com. I'll add the link in the show description. Paid for by Paradigm Press. We're back. I was telling you the E and S pay the highest taxes. B and I keep the most. And I told you the mistake isn't loving your work. It's loving it in the wrong quadrant. People say, but Robert, I want to do what I love.

8:01I know. Everybody says that. Here's what nobody tells them. Passion is greedy. Passion says, give me what I want. Let me feel fulfilled. Let me chase what excites me. Purpose is different. Purpose says, who does this serve? I hate writing books. I've said it before. I'll say it again. Sitting along with a blank page is not my passion, but it fulfills my purpose. My purpose was never write a book. My purpose was to reach people my rich dad never got to reach. That's why I did something I hated to get somewhere I loved. Most people never make that trade. They think if it doesn't feel good, it must be wrong.

8:50So they quit the class. They quit the license. They quit the boring part. And the boring part was the door to success. I had to learn taxes. I hated taxes. I had to learn debt. I hated debt. I had to learn lawsuits. I really hated that. None of it was my passion. All of it was my purpose. And purpose builds something passion never can. Purpose builds a business, employees, a team, people whose lives get better because you showed up. I have a president. I have accountants. I have attorneys. None of that happens if I only chase my passion. It happens because I chase my purpose and built something bigger than my own feelings.

9:40Passion only builds a mood. It feels good for a Tuesday. It doesn't feed anybody on a Friday. You can ask an AI to write you a business plan in 10 seconds. It still can't feel the purpose behind it. That part is still yours. Let me say this again. Passion asks what you feel. Purpose asks who you serve. One of those keeps you small. The other one grows. So if it's not do what you love, what is it? Here's the flip. Say it with me. Invest in what you love. Not do, invest. There's a very big difference. Doing what you love keeps you an employee of your own passion. Investing in what you love makes your passion pay you.

10:35Let me show you what I mean. I love business, so I own businesses. I love real estate, so I own buildings. I've never bought a piece of land or a building I did not love. I love food, so I invest in food. I own avocado farms. I love avocados. I'm not kidding. Somebody laughs at that every time. I love oil. I love gold. I love silver. So I invest in the ground itself. Business first, real estate second, commodities third, paper, stocks, bonds, mutual funds comes last, if at all. That's the order. Most people do it backwards and wonder why it's slow. Notice what I didn't say. I didn't say I love accounting, so I became an accountant.

11:29I have accountants. They work for me. I didn't say I love law, so I became an attorney. I have attorneys. They work for me. This is the flip most people never make. They chase a career around their passion. Some of the richest people alive did the opposite. They built a system and let other people chase the career. I built a life around my passion by owning it instead of working inside it. Most people invest in what makes them comfortable. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, a savings account. That's fine for some people. It's liquid. It's safe. It's boring. It's also not my game. I actually hate it.

12:14But I don't need to love it. I only need to love what I own. That's the whole flip. Do what you love and you'll work for it forever. Invest in what you love and eventually it works for you. Say it again in your head right now. Not do, invest. Now let's talk about 2026 because there's a new version of do what you love. It's called chasing the shiny object. When you go fishing, you throw a lure in the water. It flashes. It spins. It looks alive. The fish doesn't know it's fake. It just sees the shine. That's crypto right now. That's every hot coin your cousin is texting you about. In 2026, it's not just a coin anymore.

13:08It's a bot trading while you sleep. It's an app promising to double your money with one tap. Same lure, faster water. It's a lure. People aren't building an asset. They're chasing a shine. And here's a rule nobody teaches at the career fair. The higher the risk, the more education it takes. I flew a little Cessna once. Not much risk in that. Then I flew in Vietnam. The risk went up. So the study went up, the training went up, everything went up. Most people skip that part. They see the lore, they buy the coin, they skip the education. That's not investing, that's gambling with better lighting.

13:54I own crypto. I'm not telling you it's evil. I'm telling you it's advanced. It sits on the same side of the board as real estate and business. High risk, high reward, high education required. You don't get to skip the studying just because the app is easy to open. This is what worries me about young people right now. It takes no intelligence to buy a coin at midnight on your phone. It takes years to understand what you actually bought. Most people would rather feel like an investor than study to become one. That's the trap, not the coin, the shortcut. Most people stay stuck chasing shiny objects for one simple reason.

14:39They don't want to do the studying it takes to go where the real money is. That's why we built Rich Dad, not to sell you a dream. To close that gap between owning something and understanding it. And there's one word that decides whether you survive that risk or get wiped out by it. It's not the word you think will get to it. Passion is greedy, purpose serves. Invest in what you love, don't just do it. When we come back, a man named Frank puts me on a plane to Lima, Peru to test something money can't buy. And I'll give you the one word that decides if you survive the risk you just took. Don't go anywhere.

15:28I've got a neighbor, retired guy, smart guy. For years, he's been telling me about this business he wants to start. He's got the idea. He's got the plan. He's even got the name picked out, but he never launches. You know why? The setup. Which website builder? Which domain company? Which email tool? He'd open five tabs, burn three hours, and have nothing to show for it. So the business stayed in his head where it made him exactly zero dollars. Last week, he finally launched. I asked him how. He said, Robert, I didn't build a website. I had a conversation. He went to Hostinger and just told their AI what he wanted, plain English.

16:05Minutes later, the first version of his website was done. And here's a part I like. The domain, the hosting, the business email, all of it. One place, one account. No duct tape, no tech guy, and it costs less than what most people waste on coffee. So I can't afford it won't work here. Rich Dad taught me, the poor say I can't. The rich ask, how can I? Here's how. Go to Hostinger.com slash RichDad20 and use code RichDad20 for 20 % off. That's Hostinger.com slash RichDad20. The people who change their financial future aren't the ones who almost did something. Go now. It's a great first step. Thank you for listening to my show.

16:50Listen to this carefully, please. Thanks to an obscure 112-year-old law. President Trump recently made a critical move that could impact your financial future, and it could create an explosion of new wealth for you and every hardworking American citizen. In fact, according to my friend Jim Rickards, a former advisor to the CIA and the Pentagon, with close contacts inside the Trump White House, the President's move could help unleash $100 trillion in new wealth. To find out how to stake your claim, go to the2026law.com for all of the details. That's the2026law.com. I'll add the link in the show description.

17:39Paid for by Paradigm Press. Okay, we're back. Higher risk needs higher education. That's the rule. And I told you about a man named Frank and how he tested how badly I wanted it. I wanted to learn how to take a business and turn it into stock. Not a coin, a real company, a real IPO. So I went to see a man named Frank. Frank had taken more companies public than I could count. Frank didn't know me from Adam. I said, Frank, I want to learn to do an IPO. You said, yeah, you and everybody else. You said, most guys don't have it, no guts, no determination. I said, I want to learn. You said, how badly?

18:26I said, badly. This was a Wednesday in Scottsdale. You said, be in Lima, Peru on Saturday. Saturday. I said, on Saturday? You said, how badly do you want it? I said, badly. You said, meet my president in Lima. I'll find out how badly. Frank never traveled, but he sent me. Wednesday night I was on a plane. I paid my own way, full price. Nobody handed me that ticket. I flew into Lama. I looked at three gold mines with his president. It cost me$15 ,000,$20 ,000 just for the trip. I got back. I told Frank, there's nothing there. He said, I could have told you that. I said, then why did you send me?

19:16Here it is, the whole lesson in one line. He said, I wanted to find out how badly you wanted to learn. Not how badly I wanted the money, how badly I wanted the education. Today, people skip that whole trip. They ask a chatbot what to invest in and call it research. An AI can hand you information in a second. It cannot hand you the plane ticket. It cannot hand you Peru. Most people don't have it. They want a job. They want a paycheck. They want security. That's why they never leave the left side of the quadrant. Not because they can't, because they were never willing to pay for the education before they knew if it would pay off.

20:08That's the trade nobody tells you about. Crypto doesn't ask you that question. It just takes your money. Frank asked me that question before he'd let me near his. You pay first. You don't know yet. Now here's the word I promised you, liquidity. Most people have never even said that word out loud, but it's the reason they never leave the left side of the quadrant. A stock is liquid. You buy it. You make a mistake. You sell it. You're out. Same day. An ETF is liquid. A savings account is liquid. That's why they sell it to you as safe. It's not safe. It's just easy to escape from. A business is not liquid.

20:58You're in it. You're building it, you can't just log off. Real estate is not liquid. You buy a bad property, you ride it down. There's no exit button. Gold is fairly liquid. Oil is not. You make a mistake in oil, you ride that one down too. Here's the rule. The less liquid it is, the higher your financial IQ has to be. You don't get to be casual over here. You have to know more, study more, plan for more to go wrong. An AI can run the numbers for you in seconds. A bot can execute a hundred trays before breakfast. Neither one can sit through the meltdown when the deal goes bad. That part is still you.

21:47Most people are capable of that kind of study. They just never choose it. Because doing what you love is comfortable and And comfortable people stay liquid. They stay ready to quit, ready to sell, ready to run. Employees quit and run like little rats when it gets hard. You can't do that in a business you built with your own name on it. You can't do that with a building you sign for. That's not a flaw in the system. That's the price of the right side of the quadrant. Most people won't pay it. Not because they can't, because staying liquid feels safer than staying committed. And that's the real mistake.

22:34Not the career you picked, not the coin you bought, staying liquid in a game that only pays the ones who commit. Thank you for your time. Thank you for caring about your future. Thank you for understanding that you are the only one who cares about taking care of you. Take care.

23:41This podcast is a presentation of Rich Dad Media Network.