Why the Rich Don't Work For Money

0:00This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. The richest man I ever knew took a dime away from a nine-year-old kid, and it changed my life forever. Today, why the rich don't work for money and what they work for instead. If you live paycheck to paycheck, this one is about you.

0:40Let's go. This is the Rich Dad Radio Show, the good news and bad news about money. Here's Robert Kiyosaki.

0:54Welcome 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. When I was nine years old, the richest man I knew paid me 10 cents an hour, 10 cents, to stack cans in his little store. And when I asked him for a raise, he did something nobody saw coming. He didn't give me more money. He took the dime away. He made me work for free. And that was the most valuable payday of my life. He took the dime away. Every Saturday, three hours, stacking cans in the Hawaii heat, 30 cents a day.

1:41By the fourth week, I was ready to quit. And my poor dad, the school teacher, the PhD, he was furious. He said it was child labor. He said demand 25 cents an hour or walk. That's what school thinking does. Ask for a raise or quit and find a better job. That's the whole playbook. That's all they give you. But my rich dad wasn't stealing a dime from a kid. he was breaking an addiction before it could form. The addiction to a paycheck. Think about it. The paycheck comes, the fear goes away for two weeks. Then the fear comes back, so you go back. That's not a career, that's a fix. And here's where people get angry with me.

2:29The rich don't work for money. I know, sounds wrong, sounds backwards. You went to school so you could work for money. They told you that's the purpose of life. But the rich don't work for money. The rich have money work for them. That's lesson number one. My rich dad gave it to me at nine years old, standing in that little store. Most people never get it, not at nine, not at 59. So if the rich don't work for money, what do they work for? Hold that question because there are four answers, and I'm going to give you all four. And one more thing. At 25 years old, I asked myself a single question.

3:07One question. It set me free for the rest of my life. I'll give you that question before we're done today. But first, I have to tell you about the kitchen table. My poor dad had every credential school can print. Ph.D., Stanford, University of Chicago, head of education for the entire state of Hawaii, the smartest man in town. And I have a memory from when I was nine years old that I have never shaken. My mother, sitting at the kitchen table, crying softly over bank statements printed in red ink. Red ink. In the house of the most educated man I knew. Nobody talked about it. Nobody explained it.

3:52But a nine-year-old can read a room. The man had every answer school could give, and the numbers at home were red. Now fast forward. That same man gets fired late in life, and he loses the thing he built his whole existence around, his pension. Let me say this again. His pension was the plan. Not assets, not businesses, not cash flow, a promise from an employer. That was the plan. And when it disappeared, I watched the most educated man I ever knew become the most terrified man I ever knew. But here's what most people don't realize. The terror didn't start the day he got fired. It started at that kitchen table in red ink decades earlier.

4:45And before this episode is over, I'm going to tell you exactly what his terror was made of, because it's probably living in your house too. Red ink at the kitchen table, a PhD with no plan but a pension. When we come back, I'm going to show you the one piece of paper your banker actually wants to see. School never showed it to you. They gave you a FICO score instead. And wait until you hear what FICO really measures. Because right now, today, you are being graded by the wrong report card. And you don't even know it. 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.

5:29He'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. Minutes later, the first version of his website was done. And here's a part I like.

6:05The 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. The stock market has been downright violent recently. Stock prices swing up and down every day.

6:50Volatility is near all-time highs. and opening your brokerage account is enough to give you a panic attack. But through it all, one asset has been quietly crushing the competition. Gold. Not only was gold the best-performing asset for all of 2025, but according to world-famous economist Jim Rickards, a man with close connections to the White House and one of the most renowned gold experts on the planet, gold is about to go parabolic. In fact, he predicts gold will hit at least$10 ,000 per ounce over the next several years. And today, he's revealing one tiny$2 gold company he believes will skyrocket as the gold price marches higher.

7:31All thanks to what he's calling Donald Trump's$2 gold mine. For all the details on this little-known$2 gold company, go to off.air.26.com. That's off.air.26.com. The link will be in the show description. Paid for by Paradigm Press. We're back, you and me. We just watched the most educated man in Hawaii lose everything but his diplomas. Now I'm going to show you why the good job almost got me too. 1969. I graduate from the academy, and my classmates and I were the highest paid graduates in the world. Guys I sat next to were making$120 ,000,$150 ,000 a year in 1969 money. You know what we did with it?

8:20We spent every penny. Every single penny. Because a big paycheck doesn't make you rich. It just makes you a higher class of broke. Most people don't realize this. The raise never fixes it. The bonus never fixes it. More money in, more money out. Bigger house, nicer car, same red ink. My poor dad made good money his whole life. The bank statements were still red. And people love to tell their kids, get a good J-O-B. You know what job stands for? Just. Over. Broke. That's the design, not the accident. Just enough to keep you coming back Monday. Never enough to set you free. I had the best job in the world in 1969, and I was standing in the same trap as everyone else.

9:13Now, the piece of paper I promised you. School gave you a report card, grades, A's and B's. Then you grow up, and they hand you a new one, a FICO score. And everyone treats it like it's sacred. FICO is BS. You know what FICO actually measures? How reliably you pay their bills. That's it. That's the whole score. It should be called the FIDO score, good dog. Your banker doesn't care about your diploma, never ask for your GPA. The paper your banker wants to see is a financial statement, income, expenses, assets, liabilities. That is the real report card of an adult, and school never showed it to you.

10:00Not one class, not one day. Now look at the expense column of your financial statement. What's the first line? The very first thing taken from you. Taxes. Before you feed your kids, before you pay your rent, they get paid first. And here's something else about my financial statement. I'm 1.2 billion dollars in debt. 1.2 billion. And I sleep like a baby. Hold that thought because it's not what you think. First, the four answers I owe you. If the rich don't work for money, what do they work for? Four things. Here they are. Businesses, real estate, paper, commodities. That's the whole board. Every rich family you've ever heard of is playing on those four squares.

10:56Businesses, that's the company working while you sleep. Real estate, that's rent coming in whether you get out of bed or not. Commodities, gold, silver, oil, land, food, real things. And then there's paper, savings, stocks, bonds, 401ks, mutual funds. Notice something? Paper is the one they sell to you. The rich own the businesses, the rich own the buildings, the rich own the gold, and they package up the paper and sell to everybody else. They call them mutual funds. Think about it. You put up all the money. You take all the risk. Market goes up, they collect fees. Market crashes, they collect fees.

11:42What exactly is mutual about that? So here's what I work for, not a paycheck. Cash flow. Money that comes in every month from things I own, whether I show up or not. A paycheck stops the day you stop. Cash flow doesn't care if you stop. That's the difference. Let me say this again. The rich don't work for money. The rich build and buy things that send them money. Now, in 1972, I bought my first real asset, the first thing I ever owned that wasn't paper. And here's the part they don't teach you. It was illegal for me to own it. Four things the rich work for, and the one they sell to you is the one they don't want.

12:29When we come back, the asset the government made illegal for Americans to own, and why I'm$1.2 billion in debt on purpose, because that 401k you're stacking, that's the column they built for you, and you deserve to know why. 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. 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.

13:11So 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. 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?

13:50Here's how. Go to Hostinger.com slash Rich Dad 20 and use code Rich Dad 20 for 20 % off. That's Hostinger.com slash Rich Dad 20. The people who change their financial future aren't the ones who almost did something. Go now. It's a great first step. The stock market has been downright violent recently. stock prices swing up and down every day volatility is near all-time highs and opening your brokerage account is enough to give you a panic attack but through it all one asset has been quietly crushing the competition gold not only was gold the best performing asset for all of 2025 but according to world famous economist Jim Rickards a man with close connections to the White House and one of the most renowned gold experts on the planet gold is about to go parabolic.

14:43In fact, he predicts gold will hit at least$10 ,000 per ounce over the next several years. And today, he's revealing one tiny$2 gold company he believes will skyrocket as the gold price marches higher. All thanks to what he's calling Donald Trump's$2 gold mine. For all the details on this little-known$2 gold company, go to off.air.26.com. That's off.air.26.com. The link will be in the show description. Paid for by Paradigm Press. Welcome back. It's still just you and me. We're talking about the four things a rich work for. Businesses, real estate, paper, commodities. Now, if the asset the government didn't want me to have, 1972, I bought my first real asset, gold.

15:34And in 1972, it was illegal for Americans to own gold. Illegal. Think about it. Land of the free, and you could not legally own real money. Ask yourself why. Why would a government make gold illegal and paper dollars mandatory? Sit with that one. Because once you see it, you can't unsee it. After gold came oil. Now, my wife and I don't own oil stocks. We don't own shares of Exxon or Chevron. We own oil wells. Same asset, completely different rules. Paper oil, no tax breaks, nothing. Real oil, huge tax breaks. The government rewards you for owning the real thing and gives you nothing for the paper version they sold you.

16:29Most people never learn that because most people never get past the paper. And here's something funny. That gold in 1972 wasn't my first brush with illegal money. My first business age nine, same year as a dime, was an actual crime. I'll tell you about it in a minute. But first, that 1.2 billion dollars I owe. Everyone says get out of debt. Your parents said it, your teacher said it, the TV money experts scream it. Get out of debt! Cut up the cards! Debt is dangerous. And here I am,$1.2 billion in debt on purpose. Here's the problem. School never taught you there are two kinds of debt. Bad debt takes money out of your pocket every month.

17:15Credit cards, car loans, the boat, the vacation, you put on plastic. Good debt puts money in your pocket every month. I use debt to buy real estate. The bank's money buys the building. My tenants pay off the bank's money. and every month cash flows to me, other people's money, buying assets that pay me for life. And it gets better. Because I use debt, I pay almost nothing in taxes, legally. The tax code isn't a punishment, it's an instruction book. Buy real assets, employ debt, create housing and jobs, and the government rewards you. Work for a paycheck, and they take it off the top. First line of the expense column, remember?

18:00So the school teacher says all debt is dangerous. The rich use debt to get richer. Same word, two different worlds. The average person can't pay off one credit card. I'm 600 million in debt and sleeping fine. That's not luck, that's education. Now, the crime, nine years old, before the dime, before the store. My best friend Mike and I wanted to make money, so we took it literally. We collected empty lead toothpaste tubes from the neighbors. Back then, the tubes were made of lead. We melted them down over a fire, poured the lead into plaster of Paris molds, and out came nickels. We were making money in the driveway.

18:44My poor dad came home and found two nine-year-olds running a mint, and to his credit, he didn't yell. He taught us a brand new word that day, counterfeiting. So my first business opened and closed on the same day. But here's a part that matters. Years later, my rich dad heard that story, and he didn't laugh. He said, you boys were close. Close? He said, the rich do exactly what you did in that driveway. They make money. They invent it. They just do it legally. Build a business, you've invented money. Buy a building with the bank's money and rent it out, you've invented money. Create an asset when nothing existed before you've invented money.

19:29Two dads, same driveway, same melted nickels. One saw a crime, one saw the formula. Most people go their whole lives believing money is something you earn from somebody else. The rich now money is something you create. That's the difference. Now let's talk about the life they program for you. Step by step, it starts with the house. They call it home ownership. Okay, stop paying the bank for three months. Find out who owns the home. Your house is not an asset. I know that makes people angry. But look at the cash. Which way is it flowing? Out. Every month. Out. And the house is just one square on the board.

20:16Look at the whole sequence. Student loans, the one debt in America you cannot escape. Even bankruptcy won't erase it. Then the car payment, then the credit cards, then the bigger house, the bigger car, more plastic, and at the end of all of it, the 401k, paper, the column they built for you. 40 years of that sequence and most people never buy one single asset, not one. They never get across the page. And while you're running that program, look at what the system does with you. The department that hires you is called human resources, not human beings. Resources, like oil, like coal. And what do companies do with resources?

21:05They burn them. Cities beg Amazon to move in. States hand Tesla billions to build the factory. Why? Because employees come with them. And employees pay the tax. You're not the customer of that system. You're the fuel. The rules are written for the rich. I didn't write them. Getting angry doesn't change them. Learning them does. Now, the question I promised you, the one I asked at 25, everybody has goals, go to the moon, cure cancer, make a million dollars. Here was mine. When do I never need a paycheck again? That's it, that one question. Not how do I get a raise, not how do I find a better job.

21:51When do I never need a paycheck again? From an employer, from a pension, from the government, from anybody. Because the moment you ask that question, everything reorganizes. The job stops being the destination. The job becomes a tool. Work for experience. Learn to sell. Learn to lead. Learn how money moves. Then take the paycheck and buy assets with it. Every dollar becomes an employee sent out to work, ordered to come home with friends. Most people spend their lives asking the dime question, more per hour, more per year. Free people ask the other question. The rich don't work for money, money works for them.

22:37Ask yourself the question tonight, say it out loud. When do I never need a paycheck again? One last thing, The Kitchen Table. I told you my mother cried over bank statements printed in red ink. I told you my poor dad ended his career terrified. Here's what his terror was actually made of. It was never the firing. It was never the red ink. It was that his entire life, every bill, every meal, every plan depended on a paycheck somebody else controlled. His boss controlled his income. The government controlled his pension. He was a brilliant man who never owned his own life. That was a terror. Dependents.

23:20Wearing a suit and tie. My rich dad took a dime away from a nine-year-old to make sure I never caught that disease. Two men, one question. Who controls the money that feeds you? The employee prays the answer never changes. The owner is the answer. and once you see it, you can't unsee it. 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. Welcome back. It's still just you and me. We're talking about the four things a rich work for, businesses, real estate, paper, commodities. Now, if the asset the government didn't want me to have, 1972, I bought my first real asset, gold.

24:10And in 1972, it was illegal for Americans to own gold. Illegal. Think about it. Land of the free, and you could not legally own real money. Ask yourself why. Why would a government make gold illegal and paper dollars mandatory? Sit with that one. because once you see it, you can't unsee it. After gold came oil. Now, my wife and I don't own oil stocks. We don't own shares of Exxon or Chevron. We own oil wells. Same asset, completely different rules. Paper oil, no tax breaks, nothing. Real oil, huge tax breaks. The government rewards you for owning the real thing and gives you nothing for the paper version they sold you.

25:05Most people never learn that because most people never get past the paper. And here's something funny. That gold in 1972 wasn't my first brush with illegal money. My first business, age nine, same year as a dime, was an actual crime. I'll tell you about it in a minute. But first, that$600 million I owe. Everyone says, get out of debt. Your parents said it. Your teacher said it. The TV money experts scream it. Get out of debt. Cut up the cards. Debt is dangerous. And here I am,$600 million in debt on purpose. Here's the problem. School never taught you there are two kinds of debt. Bad debt takes money out of your pocket every month.

25:54Credit cards, car loans, the boat, the vacation you put on plastic. Good debt puts money in your pocket every month. I use debt to buy real estate. The bank's money buys the building. My tenants pay off the bank's money, and every month cash flows to me, other people's money, buying assets that pay me for life. And it gets better. Because I use debt, I pay almost nothing in taxes, legally. The tax code isn't a punishment, it's an instruction book. Buy real assets, employ debt, create housing and jobs, and the government rewards you. Work for a paycheck and they take it off the top. First line of the expense column, remember?

26:40So the school teacher says all debt is dangerous. The rich use debt to get richer. Same word, two different worlds. The average person can't pay off one credit card. I'm 600 million in debt and sleeping fine. That's not luck, that's education. Now, the crime, nine years old, before the dime, before the store. My best friend Mike and I wanted to make money, so we took it literally. We collected empty lead toothpaste twos from the neighbors. Back then, the twos were made of lead. We melted them down over a fire, poured the lead into plaster of Paris molds and out came nickels. We were making money in the driveway.

27:24My poor dad came home and found two nine-year-olds running a mint and to his credit he didn't yell. He taught us a brand new word that day counterfeiting. So my first business opened and closed on the same day but here's a part that matters. Years later my rich dad heard that story and he didn't laugh. He said, you boys were close. Close? He said, the rich do exactly what you did in that driveway. They make money. They invent it. They just do it legally. Build a business, you've invented money. Buy a building with the bank's money and rent it out, you've invented money. Create an asset when nothing existed before, you've invented money.

28:09Two dads, same driveway, same melted nickels. One saw a crime, one saw the formula. Most people go their whole lives believing money is something you earn from somebody else. The rich now money is something you create. That's the difference. Now let's talk about the life they program for you. Step by step, it starts with the house. They call it home ownership. Okay, stop paying the bank for three months. Find out who owns the home. Your house is not an asset. I know that makes people angry. But look at the cash. Which way is it flowing? Out. Every month. Out. And the house is just one square on the board.

28:56Look at the whole sequence. Student loans. The one debt in America you cannot escape. Even bankruptcy won't erase it. Then the car payment, then the credit cards, then the bigger house, the bigger car, more plastic, and at the end of all of it, the 401k, paper, the column they built for you. 40 years of that sequence and most people never buy one single asset, not one. They never get across the page. And while you're running that program, look at what the system does with you. The department that hires you is called human resources, not human beings. Resources like oil, like coal. And what do companies do with resources?

29:45They burn them. Cities beg Amazon to move in. States hand Tesla billions to build the factory. Why? Because employees come with them and employees pay the tax. You're not the customer of that system. You're the fuel. The rules are written for the rich. I didn't write them. Getting angry doesn't change them. Learning them does. Now, the question I promised you, the one I asked at 25. Everybody has goals. Go to the moon. Cure cancer. Make a million dollars. Here was mine. When do I never need a paycheck again? That's it. That one question. Not how do get a raise, not how do I find a better job. When do I never need a paycheck again?