This ALWAYS Happens Before A Total Market Collapse | Robert Kiyosaki

22:39Graham Stephan:That's all it is. So where do people go wrong where they get rich and it ruins their life? What makes you different and how have you gone about that? I think they sell their soul. We all have a soul. There's a price on it. And I just don't do that. You've said savers are losers. That's one of my favorite quotes of yours. I'm curious, when you say savers are losers, what is the average person, the person that doesn't have a lot of extra money at the end of the month, supposed to do them? Save. real silver today is 45 bucks a bank gold is 3500 I started saving this when it was a dollar I have boxes of silver and I have boxes of gold I own gold mines I've taken two gold mines public one on Toronto Stock Exchange one on New York Stock Exchange I believe in sound money I don't work for this fake garbage, but that's what schools teach you to do.

23:48This is not money. This is called toilet paper, and they can print as much as they like of it, and it's killing us right now. It's killing this country. So I was just talking to you. I was in Zimbabwe last week. I was in Zimbabwe in 2002. You know, guys may have seen them. Here's 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollars. Everybody was laughing at Zimbabwe. So I was in Zimbabwe in 2002. I'm a hunter. I'm a politically incorrect hunter. So I'm out there in Zimbabwe. I'm looking at this stuff. And the next year, I went back again. The Zim dollar collapsed. And I'm in a truck, a hunting truck. and these truckload full of black guys with AK-47s, they're called war vets.

24:45Why are they called them that? I don't know. They came up there and just went like this. All we can do is this. When the currency collapses, the economy collapsed. So that's why I say to Americans, I said America is doing exactly the same thing Zimbabwe is doing now. We print money to pay our bills. There's no difference between a Zim dollar and a U.S. dollar. So I warn people all the time, don't save this. Save silver, Bitcoin, Ethereum. Go for something that's not printed by the U.S. government. Like I said, I don't have oil stocks, but I own oil wells. And every month they pump oil. Guess what?

25:35they use it every month. Every month they send me a check. And because I'm in a vital industry, oil, I pay no tax. You don't have to, you know, my friends live in Vegas or Puerto Rico. I said, if you knew your tax law, you wouldn't have to live in Puerto Rico or Vegas because the tax laws are written for capitalists. If you're not a capitalist, you pay tax.

26:00Graham Stephan:Do you invest in anything that you can't get depreciation on? Because I know with oil, you could depreciate it. Real estate, you could depreciate it. How do you decide where to allocate your money? And at what point do you buy something like Bitcoin or gold or silver? I'm always moving money. My problem is too much money. If you just buy assets, which don't work for money, what the rich work for are assets. So my first property, I was, was 1974. getting out of the Marine Corps. I was a pilot. All my friends went on to become pilots for the pension. Guess what happened to all their pensions? Gone.

26:43They took all the pensions of the pilots. Bunch of losers. But I said, I'm not going to fall into that trap. So this is 74. So I just, at that point, I took real estate courses, stock courses, technical trading. I go to seminars. and you know what? I met these little seminars and goofy things like that around, this is on the Lulu. I meet guys like you. That's where I met my friends. There were people that were actually interested in learning about money and we became really good friends and my best friend and I became billionaires. I met them at a seminar, you know, let's kick some ass. But if you hang out with losers and poor people, That's your choice.

27:32And they're probably good people, if you're wrong, you know. Like that Uber driver, in his head, I'm quite sure he has a tape or a cassette playing. I'm a good-working, hard-working poor man. Unless he changes that tape, he's a hard-working poor man. I said, have you read my book? He's not, I don't have time. But he has time to drive an Uber. God bless him. I like Uber. You know, saves me from DWI drivers and all that other stuff. And it's a great service. It's fantastic. But if a person doesn't change the tape up here, so that's why you read books and study and go to seminars and YouTube and what you guys are doing, listen in.

28:12Graham Stephan:So at this point, where do you make most of your income from? Just property and oil. And I make a lot of money off of, I've been buying gold since I was not a kid, but basically. basically. So I just paid for my house. They wanted$4.5 million for it. So I just took out some gold from my safe, paid for it. The gold only cost me$450 ,000. The house was$4.5 million. But because I saved gold coins, so I only paid$450 ,000 for the gold. But over the years, it went to 4.5. So I paid for that. And then I only hang out with friends who are rich. I mean, I don't mean I'm selective on that. But we just get along.

29:06We're always doing deals together. So my other friend, Kenny McElroy, one of the smartest real estate guys I know, you know, he's doing billboards now. I said, Kenny, what the heck are you doing in billboards? he says bonus depreciation so that means you put 100 000 to a billboard right you might get five billion 500 000 depreciation so by hanging out with smart guys i get richer and he and i and ken and i are always studying together we get together on a regular basis and we study so when i was with those two uber drivers i mean they just pissed me off the other day Well, I don't have time, man.

29:51Graham Stephan:Tell me what I should do, you know? What percentage of people would you say have that mindset, that they just don't have time? Lazy people. What percentage of the U.S.? Probably 95%. And what separates them from the 5 %? That was that guy. Who was that guy? Sahil Bloom. Everybody should listen to that. Yeah, link to that episode down below. Our episode was Sahil. Highly right. We just posted it. So it's a brand new episode. So chances are you probably haven't seen it yet. So go and see it. It's fantastic. Thank you. Because it's only a choice. Well, how much, people say, well, how much is enough?

30:26I said, I don't think you get it. I go, what do you mean? See, they think money is about the dollar amount. To me, it's the game. I play Monopoly. Four greenhouses, red hotel, oil wells. It's just a game to me.

30:47Graham Stephan:It's not serious. What's your best investment that you've ever made? I wrote a book. Sold 45 million copies of it. That's the biggest asset I've ever made. How much did you make from the book? I don't know. I have accountants do that shit for me. I'm always moving money. I'm always moving my money into the next thing, next thing. So you can ask my friends, like Kenny McElroy, And he says, hey, when's that billboard deal coming together? Good, good, good. Another friend, man. When's this property coming together? Good, good, good, good. I invest with other entrepreneurs. I don't invest on Wall Street.

31:32Graham Stephan:Have you ever lost money with an investment? And what's been your worst investment? My own company. But losing is part of winning. I think that's the thing that gets most people. because most frickin' school teachers tell you don't make mistakes. The reason school teachers are poor is you don't learn unless you make mistakes. You know, I flew for the U.S. Marine Corps. And as we got ready to fly into Vietnam, I was in Camp Pendleton getting ready to go. I flew a gunship. Every day we had to practice crashing three to five times a day. We practiced crashing. because the odds are you're going to crash.

32:17So I went down three times in Vietnam. But every time the engine quit, I got automatic. There's a book called The Big Print by Lawrence Lepard. Everybody should read The Big Print. It talks about traditional education versus military education. I went to military school. First word we learned at military school, mission. What's your mission? So he talks about, Lepard talks about in military school, you're always preparing for something to go wrong. That is very, very true. Whereas in traditional school, oh, everything's, you know, sunshine and roses. In a perfect world, this will happen. but you cannot handle it.

33:12Like that first time I lost my engine, I tell you, it's terrifying. We're flying a Shrike into Vietnam. I think it's got 18 rockets on it, machine crew boxes of ammo. We're all strapped in. We got leather. We got, you know, vests. We're heavier. That engine quit. The reason pilots die is they pull back. What we're trained to do as Marine Corps pilots, when that engine quits, you push forward. They call out, look, you look at the eyes of death. So I was only at about 1 ,500 feet. When that engine quit, boom, nose forward, cut power. The team was already prepared. Rockets were being kicked out. canisters of ammunition kicked out, vests going off and all this, boom, into the water.

34:12I went over to Vietnam with 16 men. Lieutenant Kiyosaki, I came back with 16 men, all alive, all in one piece, because we prepare for bad times.

34:26Graham Stephan:Although really quick, I just want to say that when it comes to business, they say that you could have better, cheaper, or faster, but you could only pick two. Well, what if you could have all three at the same time? And that's exactly what Cohere, Thomson Reuters, and Specialized Bikes have since they upgraded to the next generation of the cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI. OCI is the blazing fast platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs, where you could run any workload in a high availability, consistently high performance environment, and spend less than you would with other clouds.

34:56Graham Stephan:How is it faster? Well, OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second. How is it cheaper? Well, OCI costs 50 % less for compute, 70 % less for storage, and 80 % less for networking. And when it comes to better, OCI customers report consistently lower latency and higher bandwidth than other clouds. This is the cloud built for AI and all of your biggest workloads. And right now with zero commitment, you can try OCI for free at oracle.com slash iced. Guys, that is oracle.com slash iced. There's also a link down below in the description. Completely free to try it out with zero commitment.

35:29Graham Stephan:Thank you so much to Oracle for sponsoring this episode. Now really quick here, real talk, short form content has been one of the biggest drivers of growth for the iced coffee hour. We'll take our best moments and then clip them up for platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and more. But let's be honest, it takes a lot of time to do it correctly. That's why tools like our sponsor Opus Clip are a game changer. Opus Clip isn't just a clipping tool anymore, though. It's a full AI-powered video editor built for creators. It can automatically pull in your long form YouTube videos, find the best moments, add captions, B-roll, and even schedule clips to post while you're away.

36:00It's like having a full-blown editing team, but powered by AI. Top creators like Jubilee and Darman are already using it. In fact, we already use it on the Ice Coffee Hour. If you see this clip that Togi's reacting to right now, it was made by Opus Clip. So sign up today. All you have to do is go to opus.pro slash iced coffee hour to get started. Again, that is opus.pro slash iced coffee hour, or click the link down below in the description. Seriously, guys, I could not recommend it more. Thank you so much to Opus Clip for sponsoring this episode. What is the most important failure you've experienced?

36:28I was court-washed twice. and um you ever see that movie a few good men with nicholson it's been a long time yeah yeah he's colonel jessup because you can't handle the truth so what i was doing for some reason i like pretty women you know i just find them very attractive i always got in trouble with my helicopter and pretty women so i'd i was in hawaii a station at kaneohe marine corps air station. I'd gone to Waikiki. I had shaved, you know. And back then, everybody had long hair. So they knew you were a Marine right away, and they spit on you, you know. I came back from Vietnam. I got hit with rotten eggs and spit on her, called names.

37:15Terrible coming back as a Marine, as a serviceman. And so we couldn't pick up any women. So I said, well, I got this thing called a helicopter. So I talked to these young women. I said, want to go for a helicopter ride to a private island? They go, so mom, they don't see your hair anymore, you know. So I used to fly from Kaneohe Air Station to the Air Force Base next door to us, pick up the ladies, and we'd fly to this private island loaded with beer. And I was drinking. Oh my gosh. We were partying, going for the Mile High Club, everything. And so I'm having the best time. And so everybody hears about my little ventures I'm doing.

38:11So my commanding officer says, can I go with you? Sure. He's a colonel. I'm a lieutenant. And he goes, sure. So we go, we're partying away on this island, drunk as skunks and all this stuff. And one day I come taxiing back in to Oahu, the main island, and I shut my engine off and MPs are out. They open the door of my helicopter. The first thing that falls out is beer cans. So that's federal offense right there. Then I fell out. I had no flight suit on. I was in swimming trunks and rubber slippers. In the back they find cans of beer, diving gear, everything illegal. And the mistake I made was I started to lie.

39:00And so they caught me. They put me under house arrest. I had a nice condo in Mikey Key. They put this Captain Abrams, nice Jewish attorney, prosecutor, on my butt. Oh, he was good. I thought I was good. I'm trying to cover my—it was exactly like a few good men. They took the fuel logs. and so they were checking my fuel logs and all this stuff and I was lying through my teeth and finally I was like I couldn't stand it anymore he caught everything I did this Abrams great attorney I mean I respect him a lot so I'm sitting in the room and he goes so lieutenant on this day did you do this sir I'm going to tell you the truth the whole truth other but the truth I told about every stupid thing I ever did.

39:58On this day, I flew women here. On this day, I did this here. This day, we did this here. At the end of it, I think I lost 30 pounds because I was just so upset, you know, lying, tracking me down and all this stuff. I sat there like this on the stand. And I looked up at Captain Abrams and I said, how many years, sir? And he smiled at me and says, you're free. Hmm. I said, what? This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks.

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40:57Graham Stephan:Compatibility and availability varies 18+. Let's get the f*** out of here. Honorable discharge. Thank you, Marine. I said, what? He looked at me and he says, son, I'll tell you something. We all f*** up. We all mistake. We all make mistakes. Just don't lie. Because when you lie about your mistakes, you become a liar. And that's the worst thing you can do. And it was one of the best lessons I ever had. So to this day, I have tremendous respect for the U.S. Marine Corps because they pounded me. They pounded me. And this Captain Abrams, man, he was one smart dude. dude, I don't know how he caught all my, I mean, I was cheating every, I was a top secret officer.

41:55So I had a lot of top secret files and all that, he tracked me down. And so when I saw a few good men with Nicholson and so Jessup Nicholson goes, you can't handle the truth. I said, that was it.

42:07Graham Stephan:How did that change your mindset afterwards? Don't lie. You f*** up, you f*** up. God designed us to make mistakes. the way a baby learns to walk is to fall down the way you learn to ride a bike is to fall down we make mistakes so God does, I'm not really religious, I'm not preaching here the way humans were designed to learn is by making mistakes so I'm an entrepreneur, I made a lot of mistakes but that's why I'm rich today and those Uber drivers didn't want to go through that process You know, I crashed three times of a broken back because of it. But we practice making mistakes. And I think our academic system is screwed up because most school teachers sing from the Bible of don't make mistakes.

42:59Because mistakes make you stupid. The facts are humans are designed to make mistakes. And that's how we learn. how has only ever being honest and telling the truth positively affected your life we had kevin o 'leary on this podcast a while ago i'm sure you probably know who he is he would say he's a smart dude boy he is a smart guy and and he was saying the exact same thing that you're saying right now which is one lie can destroy your life exactly one lie and so he has made a pledge to only ever be honest and that's part of why he is the way that he is he's known as mr wonderful because he's so blunt and cut and dry and honest yep he he only says the truth and uh and he credits that towards his i would say understanding that you should only ever be honest and never lie yeah we all make mistakes you know that's how i lost so many companies we make mistakes but don't lie about it so i've paid my bills you know i've lost several million dollars i paid it off but that's why i'm rich today but those uber drivers didn't want to go through that process they went what's a quick fix i said buy bitcoin so i can't afford it's a good problem you know Bitcoin is brilliant, by the way.

44:24I think it's really an Ether. Ethereum?

44:26Graham Stephan:Ethereum. Fantastic. You don't have to be that smart and you get rich. Yeah. A lot of people compare real estate with Bitcoin. They say Bitcoin is like a digital real estate in a sense that you're buying something that's fixed. What is your thought on... That's bullshit. What is your thought on real estate today? Real estate's a tough game. Do you think that prices for real estate are elevated to a point where it just no longer makes sense to buy? It doesn't make any difference to me. If it's too expensive, you don't buy it. I love crashes. When the markets crash, that's when I get rich. Everything goes on sale.

45:05So people, well, today was September 2025. The S &P is at all-time highs. I'd be out because I want to go one more direction down. Do you expect a crash in the near future? And how do you get rich during a crash? Well, that's what I was talking about. I was talking about Zimbabwe when I was there. When I saw that crash, I said, this is great. The sad thing what happened in Zimbabwe was I was talking to this young entrepreneur about your age. He lost his nerve. I could tell. He was smart. I said, you live in one of the richest, Zimbabwe is one of the richest countries. It's a gold country. Man, there's my gold mines here and all this.

45:51I'm being on like a cheap suit. He lost his nerve. I've seen it happen. When a pilot loses their nerve, we take them off the line. They can't handle it. They just can't handle it. I mean, people, it's tough. You know, when I was flying into combat, we used to put rock and roll music on because we had to jack ourselves up. when you see your friends go down and you never see them again. It just takes your heart out. You know, your friends don't come back to the carrier, gonna cry. But the next day, you're strapped in, going back at it again. That's what I loved about the military. It was mission first.

46:42You didn't count. So I meet young men, especially, I go, you know, where's your testicles? Get up there and fight hard. But they don't do that to them, you know. My friends who are now like generals and things like this, they can't fight men. So the Marine Corps is having a tough time finding men. So on the topic of a possible incoming crash, do you expect some sort of a stock market crash? And how can you get rich during the crash? Everything goes on sale. See, I don't save dollars. I only serve gold and silver and Bitcoin and Ethereum. I don't save this stuff. So in a crash, gold, silver, and all that, what they do is they print more money.

47:34When they print more money, those go up in value. So my gold goes up, silver goes up, Ethereum goes up, Bitcoin goes up. So you've got to know in a crash, this goes up, crashes goes down. It's the same as flying an aircraft. So I like crashes. The reason I'm in Phoenix, Arizona, is in 2008 when it crashed here. The best real estate on earth went on sale. I bought so much. It was incredible. The banks were happy to see you.

48:09Graham Stephan:There's this belief now, though, that we're not going to see a crash anymore, that if we see the markets drop, the Fed can come in and just print more money and bail us out. That's right. How does that change your investing philosophy? Because when you print money, the rich get richer and the poor middle class get poorer. The reason we have homelessness today is because we have a Federal Reserve Bank. It's a criminal organization. Anything that's a central bank is Marxist. So the Fed is Marxist, if you understand that. So Thomas Jefferson said, if we allow somebody to take over our money, which the Fed did, people wake up homeless in their own lands.

48:51Look at homelessness as exploding. People can't afford homes. Your age is having a tougher time because prices are so high. When you print fake money, which this stuff is, you make life harder on people. But guys like me who have assets, You print this, this goes up. But if you print this, the price of coffee also goes up. So inflation is going to wipe out my generation. The boomers don't have enough money to get through inflation. The boomers are going to be homeless all over the place.

49:32Graham Stephan:What about the argument that AI is going to help bring down the cost of a lot of items and that we might not see as much inflation over time because we could start doing things for less? AI's going to cause unemployment. So what happened was the industrial age took out the manual worker, you know, the guy who worked with his hands. AI's going to take out the doctors and lawyers. I don't need a lawyer anymore. AI does it for me. So there's going to be good and bad to it. But I don't really give a shit. If you understand money, that the way the Fed operates, which is a Marxist organization, they're going to print.

50:17Like I said, I was in Zimbabwe. They printed to solve their problems, and they kept printing, and it collapsed. I went to watch how they couldn't trade because the Zim dollar was worthless. Samin Harare, no Zimbabweo, Zimbabwe. And then they had a thing called United Nations. And in the back of this garage, all these people were coming together. It was like a big swap meet because the money was no good. They're saying, I got this for sale here. I'll trade you my watch. Oh, I got some tomatoes for sale here. And they went to a barter economy that fast. So when I tell you guys I was in Zimbabwe, everybody goes, well, where's Zimbabwe?

51:07but America is following Zimbabwe right now so you never prepare for it. What Zimbabwe did was they printed money to pay their bills. We print two trillion a year. That's what Trump is trying to stop. But there's people who will take him out for that.

51:27Graham Stephan:Do you think for the average person, given what you've just said, should buy or rent a house? It's an expense to me. That's all it is. if you don't, the problem is if you don't make enough money, like that Uber driver, those two of them, right in a row. I don't have time to read your book, so thank you, bye. But if the average person needs to live somewhere and they say they're going to print more money, there is the belief that real estate as a result of that is probably going to be worth more. Don't ask what-if questions. Look, I own 1 ,500 rental properties. I'll just go sleep in one of them.

52:03How many guys do I own? seventh so just keep buying no it's a serious yeah thomas jefferson said if a central bank takes over which the fed is people wake up homeless in their own lands and that's what's happening today i look at the people who are homeless now you can say well they're on drugs they're mentally deranged and all this stuff which is probably true but it's getting harder When you print money, the rich get richer, and the poor and middle class get poorer. So if you own a house and you print money, you feel, oh, the price of my house went up. But the average person's worth the price of chicken and eggs and yogurt goes up, and inflation wipes them out.

52:55So mark my words, I'm the first of the boomers. We're going to get wiped out via inflation. your mommy and daddy may be on the street because inflation is going to wipe out the social security. When's the last time that you were wrong about a prediction that you had made? Never. Never wrong? As long as they're printing money, you can predict what's going to happen. It's happened throughout time. The Romans did it. The Chinese did it. Hitler did it. They all do it.

53:27Graham Stephan:What are your price targets for something like Bitcoin, gold, silver? I have no price target. I have an entry, and I don't sell. So like right now, to me, the biggest bargain is silver. So silver's about 40, 50 bucks. And Ethereum, I think, is very good right now. I stopped buying Bitcoin. Why? Too high. I've seen so many predictions that Bitcoin's going to hit a million, five million.

54:02Graham Stephan:So if it's too high, why not sell? I don't need the money. I don't need money. I get 1 ,500 rental properties. I own oil wells. Money keeps pouring in. I got to keep moving my money around. I invest in assets. Let me give you the three rules on rich debt, poor debt. The rich don't work for money. the rich work to acquire assets. And an asset is in that puts money in your pocket whether you work or not. So my little oil wells, you know, I'm investing in billboards now. And the billboards are going to be outside of Las Vegas, right? And they pay, every month they pay you money for those billboards and I get bonus depreciation.

54:52Graham Stephan:So I'm always moving my money. What's the ROI of a billboard? I'm always, what's the ROI? I have no idea right now. It's just being put together now. It's bonus depreciation. So I put a million dollars in, I get five million depreciation. That means I don't pay tax. What would you say is the worst financial advice you've ever heard? Warren Buffett. What's for average people? Smart man. But I listen to him, I go. So we actually have a video I'd love for you to react to. Warren Buffett speaks for the average man. And my saying to you guys is don't be average. You want to be the best at what you can do.

55:36Graham Stephan:I want to get your thoughts on what Warren Buffett said on leverage. This is what he said. They risked what they did have and did need. And that's foolish. That is just plain foolish. It doesn't make any difference what your IQ is. If you risk something that is important to you for something that is unimportant to you, it just does not make any sense. I don't care whether the odds are 100 to one that you succeed or 1 ,000 to one that you succeed. If you hand me a deal with 1 ,000 chambers, a million chambers in it, and there's a bullet in one chamber, and you said, put it up your temple, how much do you want to be paid to pull it once?

56:09Graham Stephan:So that's on leverage. That's why take a risk in anything if you don't need the extra money. What was he talking about? He has the biggest leverage of all. He has an insurance company. That's massive leverage. The reason you own insurance companies is because insurance companies have to keep placing their money. You want to get rich, you buy an insurance company. He's full of shit. He's a smart guy in his field. My whole message to everybody is this. Find out the best field for you. for me is real estate and oil. I'm very good in those two fields. And now billboards. I love gold and silver. I have a gold mine in Utah.

56:59I took it public on New York Stock Exchange. So one of my goals was to list a company on the New York Stock Exchange. So that's what entrepreneurs do. Our goals are different. The average guy says, oh, I think I'll have a ball-diversified program in a 401k. That's not my goal. It takes no intelligence in a 401k. To me, it's a waste of time. I can beat the 401k all the time. I'd rather have oil wells that pay me every single month. Guess what? Every month, they're going to burn that oil. Every month. and every month because of burning that oil, I get a depletion allowance, which means I pay less tax.

57:49So I make more money and I pay less tax. To me, that's smart. To put my money in a 401k, I must give it to Warren Buffett. Nothing wrong with that. Buffett's a smart boy, but his thing on leverage, he's talking about the average guy, yet he bought an insurance company, I think it was Geico or something like that. insurance companies are the biggest leverage of this because they have to leverage their money. You know, if you're going to put$200 in, they have to be able to pay you your money back later on. So he doesn't tell the whole story. He also, he didn't call, he called gold rat droppings or something like that.

58:31Graham Stephan:That was, I think, Bitcoin. He called Bitcoin rat droppings. He's entitled to his opinion. Fine. But each of us has to find the way that makes the most sense to them. I like Bitcoin. I like Ethereum. I like gold. I like silver. I like real estate. I like oil. I don't like stocks. If you like stocks, invest in them. But be good at it. You've got to be very, very good at it. The most important thing, don't lie. You make a mistake, mistakes are very good ways to learn. Oh, I screwed up here. Yeah. People who lie about their mistakes don't learn. When it comes to investing in stocks, what do you think about investing in index funds or ETFs that don't track the market?

59:14For losers. My opinion. Yeah. But if you're a loser, have a good time. Graham's a loser. Graham was. I like index funds. But don't get me wrong.

59:27Graham Stephan:It's not exciting. It's boring as shit. That's why I like it, though. I know. Because I don't have to worry. I don't have to think. It fits you. Because here's the thing. When you're talking about owning all these rental properties and billboards, to me, that just seems like mental energy that gets tied up. And again, you've said before that you do what works for you. Yes. And when I think about something like my rental properties, I can't stand them because when something gets fixed, I look at the bill and I think, how could I have done this for less money? Is this a good bill? I start itemizing every little thing and thinking.

59:59You're missing property management. I have a property manager. Yeah. Yeah, I don't do that shit.

1:00:05Graham Stephan:See, here's what bothered me. I had a refrigerator. I don't do that shit, okay? I'm not a laborer. But how do you know that you're not getting ripped off? Because I have good property managers. Yeah. Kenny McElroy is my partner. You should read his stuff, you know. We've been told by a few people we should have him on this show. Yes. The man is a freaking genius. I mean, the thing I love about Kenny, he's funny, you know. but he's one of the smartest entrepreneurs I've ever met. So when I have a question, I talk to him. The same as my tax guy, Tom Wheelwright, Tax-Free Wealth, interview him. I want to find out oil.

1:00:49It's my friend Mike Maselli. He said, I just want the cash flow. I don't want capital gains. I don't want that. I want cash flow. I want as much debt as I can get, and I don't want to pay taxes. That's my game. I'm with Washington. This is Snap Judgment from KQED. When everything is falling apart, what do you do? Hurricane Helene shut everything down. No roads, no cars, no way through. But his daughter was getting married. And somehow, someway, he was going to walk her down that aisle. All systems down. A new Snap Judgment miniseries from KQED. Tap to listen now.

1:01:58Graham Stephan:And so I said, we spent$1 ,200 to save a$700 refrigerator. That doesn't make sense. Where did we go wrong on this? And that little discrepancy took my focus away from doing anything else that would have yielded a higher return than me focusing on the refrigerator. And you could say, don't worry about it. You know, it doesn't matter in the big picture. It really doesn't. But stuff like that, I can't help it. It's just how my mind works to optimize every little thing. and so the less I have on my plate and the more I could just focus on doing something like this that gets a way better ROI than that refrigerator or the property.

1:02:35Graham Stephan:That's the way I think of things. So I just want to outsource and just index funds. Okay, I will say the mentality of I can't help the way that I believe that my mind is going to react that way is a complete cop-out. You absolutely can. That's true. So you can choose at any given moment to feel however you want to feel. You can choose right now to be like, okay, I'm never going to think about that again. So that's a cop out. I just want to say that. I'm not going to let you say that. I'm just the type of guy to get really upset when something happens. You can choose to not get upset. That's fair.

1:03:03I agree with that. You're looking at the property management side. I look at real estate, the finance side. So who else is going to lend me? Like I borrowed, how much did I borrow last week? Oh,$25 million. Who's going to give me$25 million to buy the S &P? But real estate, they do. debt is the way i get rich so buffett saying debt is no good that's buffett's plan this is a great program because what we're saying is find the way that works for you you know you're fighting with a refrigerator i'd rather get 25 million dollars in cash to buy the damn place and hire a property manager speaking of debt i would love to hear your opinion on this.

1:03:50We had Dave Ramsey on this podcast and I asked him a question. I want to hear your thoughts on his response. If you could borrow$1 billion, 0 % interest for 10 years, would you do it? No.

1:04:04Graham Stephan:Even though you could put it in treasuries after the 10 years, you could lock in 10 year treasury right now, 5%. It's not worth it. I don't borrow money. There we go. What do you think about that? That's Dave Ramsey's formula. Unfortunately, he's really short-sighted. What he doesn't understand is 1971, the U.S. dollar became debt. If you stop borrowing money, the U.S. economy stops. So he says live debt-free. He's actually unpatriotic. I borrow money as a patriot because when I borrow money, I create money. Money only comes into existence after 1971 when we borrow money. But it's his formula.

1:04:57But he and I have gone around and around on this live debt free.

1:05:02Graham Stephan:Although really quick, if you're looking to cut back on expenses without really changing your lifestyle, looking at your phone bill is one of the best places to start. Most people are still paying$60,$80, or even$100 or more for something they barely even think about. That's why we're excited to be partnering with today's sponsor, Helium Mobile, because they're doing phone service completely different. I kid you not, Helium has a plan that is literally$0 per month. It gives you 3GB of data, 100 minutes of calls, and 300 texts, no contract, no credit card, and yes, it actually works. It's absolutely perfect if you're just a light user or you want a cheap second phone line.

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1:05:43Graham Stephan:You could redeem those cloud points for gift cards to places like Amazon, Apple, Target, Starbucks, and more, right from the Helium mobile app. It's one more way that Helium helps you save and earn at the exact same time. They also just launched the Sprout plan made specifically for kids. For just$5 per month, your kid can get their own line. You monitor their usage, and you can even manage how they spend their rewards within the app. And if you need more data, they've got the AirPlan for just$15 a month for 10 gigabytes, or the InfinityPlan at$30 a month for unlimited. Still way cheaper than other carriers.

1:06:15So guys, we've left a link down below in the description to try Helium Mobile today. Just make sure to use the code COFFEE to get$10 in cloud points, which can be redeemed for gift cards to your favorite brands after 90 days. Once again, guys, there's a link down below in the description. Thank you so much to Helium Mobile for sponsoring this episode. Although really quick, let's be real.

1:06:30Graham Stephan:no one is starting a business for the joys of calculating tax withholdings or keeping track of payroll deadlines. But that's the stuff that has to get done. And thankfully, our sponsor, Gusto, is there to help. It's so funny, but I've actually used Gusto long before they decided to partner with us on this episode. In fact, when I created my first ever S-Corp, Gusto was there to help because I had no idea what I was doing. From tax filings to benefits to deadlines, it was extremely overwhelming. But Gusto walked me through everything step by step, and I've been using them ever since. Gusto is an online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses.

1:07:02It's all-in-one, remote-friendly, and incredibly easy to use, so you can pay, hire, onboard, and support your team from anywhere.

1:07:09Graham Stephan:They've got automatic payroll, tax filings, direct deposit, health benefits, workers' comp, commuter benefits, even 401k options. Everything you need, but without the headaches. And they have options for practically every budget. You also get unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price. There are no hidden fees, no surprises. Plus, they have certified HR experts you can reach out to if anything tricky comes up. It's quick and simple to switch to Gusto. Just transfer your existing data to get up and running fast and you don't pay a single cent until your first payroll. Try Gusto today at gusto.com slash iced and you can get three months for free when you run your first payroll.

1:07:44Seriously, guys, I've used Gusto for five years. All of my friends that have created S-Corps and need to run payroll, I tell them all to use Gusto. It's amazing they're sponsoring this episode because I really do love the service.

1:07:53Graham Stephan:That is gusto.com slash iced. Again, gusto.com slash iced with the link down below. in the description to get started today. Thank you so much, Gusto, for sponsoring this episode. And now let's get back to the podcast. Have you ever spent time with Dave? A little bit. I had dinner with him one night and I said, how do you think this guy pays for this building? He says,

1:08:18debt. Debt, 1970, when the dollar became debt. So just understand that. So in my point of view, when I'm borrowing money, I'm creating money.

1:08:32Graham Stephan:Do you think there's any peace of mind that you have owning a paid-off house, no debt, no credit cards, everything you buy is yours? Yeah, but that doesn't make me peace of mind. I like my game. Yeah. I like buying something as big as I can, using other people's money as much as I can. It's my game. Don't do what I do. I like my game. the first you know when i came out of the marine corps i had to learn several things i had to take sales courses so my rich dad says if you can't sell you can't be an entrepreneur then after that was how to raise capital debt and that's when i found out he says you better get to know your banker and so i plan my future by you know what i did every day i don't just jump into it.

1:09:26So I got to know my banker fairly well. Then I got to know my accountants. And then some I liked, some I didn't like. So today we have the Rich Dad advisor team. My accountants, Tom Wheelwright, I asked all of them to write books to tell people what they do for me. My accountant on the corporate side is Garrett Sutton. Because I use corporations to shield always protect my wealth, but also limit taxes. So I don't come into this just guessing.

1:10:01Graham Stephan:Do you think money buys happiness? That you become happier the more money you have? I do. Is there... Have you ever been poor? I wouldn't say poor, poor, but definitely growing up, things were paycheck to paycheck. Yeah. It's not happy. I buy like I want to buy. At what point do you think money slows down? If you sell your value system, your soul, you're doing what you hate to do. I love what I do. Like I went back to Zimbabwe to teach. I work for free. I don't need money. I have so much money coming in. I can work for free. I would hate it if I couldn't go back to Zimbabwe and have to charge them money.

1:10:52I work for free because I have so much money coming in from assets, not from a job. Have you seen many people sell their soul? And when they do, what does that typically mean? Every day is called a go to work. I see them on the highway every morning.

1:11:05Graham Stephan:Yeah. I don't disagree with you. I remember I went to a doctor's appointment recently and I went right after lunch. And so I'm watching some of these doctor's assistants coming in and they say, oh man, it was Friday. They said, only four more hours until we could get off work. What are you doing this weekend? They're all talking. And I remembered briefly, I was working like this nine to five job doing data entry when I was 18. And I remember that same feeling where you would dread Sunday because you had to go to work on Monday morning. And I remember thinking on Fridays, oh, great, one more day left, only three hours to lunch.

1:11:44Graham Stephan:And then after lunch, oh, great, only three hours left until I'm off. I'd be so happy on Friday. And Saturday, I would think to myself, oh, man, Sunday, I have to go to bed early because Monday I have work. And I remember just thinking I never wanted to experience that ever again. I've thought about that a lot, too. And my best friend, he and I both became billionaires together. and he taught me a very valuable lesson. He says, you start work on Sunday. I went, what? He just reframed it. You know, so we'd go into, we worked at Xerox together in Honolulu. We'd go to work with our own key. We'd do all of our work on Sunday night because we got more done.

1:12:32And we submitted our proposals Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. we had Friday, Saturday, Sunday off.

1:12:40Graham Stephan:What do you think is the best use of spending money that you found? Education. Like I said, I'm, you know, I got one of the benefits of my job is people want me to come and speak for them. So I get to go, oh, I can attend a seminar. And I get to hang out with some really smart people, you know, in the green room. That's how I met Trump. Yeah. Trump and I hang out in the back room going, and he goes, who are you? And we just, he's the best guy. He and his sons, Don Jr. and Eric. Man, they're good kids. And we became best of friends sitting in the back room together. When was this? Oh, years ago now.

1:13:29What was your first impression of him? I think the same as everybody else. It was kind of a presence. You know, he exudes power. He's a very powerful man. Don Jr. and Eric Trump were hunters. And we go, this is Private Allen. I should take women to in Hawaii. We do it legally this time. And we fly there. We have no toilets, no running water. Those young boys ask no quarter. They're extremely well-raised young men. I can, you know, if I had sons, they would be like those two guys. They're the best. Tough, mean, not mean, but strong, strong men.

1:14:14Graham Stephan:What have you learned from Trump? That's a good question. Just I can call him. He's very accessible. How often have you called him? Very rarely. And when you do, what do you ask? Well, generally I say, hey, where's Don and Eric? We're going hunting together. No, it's just fun. We're just friends. We wrote two books together. And we'd write, and as he'd say, so I got to understand how he thought. I said, here's a problem, you know, and the book was called The Midas Touch, How Entrepreneurs, Why Some Entrepreneurs Get Rich. So I had to sit with asking, so how would you do this? And he's most generous.

1:15:00He's a very generous man. His whole staff in New York City, Just the best people. There was Rona and Meredith and all this. His bodyguard, Keith. He and I had the body, just a great, just really good people. They're not arrogant. They're not cocky. That was the most surprising thing about hanging out with them.

1:15:25Graham Stephan:How do you think Trump raised such strong children? They said that, I asked that question. Yeah. so their mother kicked her ass just now and they had a sister you know certainly in Bono they're just good kids just really solid young men really really solid I mean you you're sitting out there there's no toilet you know you gotta do a whole we had to eat what we killed and they don't they don't Not wimps. They're just solid, good guys. What was your last conversation with Trump like? It was, we were supposed to write a third book together. And I said, he says, Robert, can't do the book deal with you.

1:16:19You're going to let me out of it. We have a three book deal. I said, sure, you're out. Why am I going to hold it? He says, what are you doing? He says, I'm running for president. president i said good luck that's all i could say to him the next thing you know he's coming down the stairs you know would you ever want to be president no that's a he is you know the guy

1:16:46Graham Stephan:jordan peterson yeah we've had him on the podcast he's like man he's a smart dude jordan is but uh i that's i got to hang out with those guys now in green rooms so i was hanging out with jordan Peterson and all this stuff. And he was talking about Trump, you know, and Jordan has that saying. He says, you think tough men are bad, weak men are the worst. Something like that. Jordan says something like that. And so he says, Trump is a strong man. That's what we needed this time. Could you imagine if Kamala had won or Joe Biden's crime family? My God. so we needed a tough man at this time i know people hate him my family hates him but he's a tough man right now how do you think politics affect the average person when it comes to their money well they pay taxes that's true no i mean it's to me it's really simple because i was in zimbabwe last week they went bust because they printed money to pay their bills the United States was at 36 trillion in debt 37 now 37 it's almost 38 and we have 200 million 350 Americans 200 million are on some kind of government subsistence and my whole family not all of them their idea of a good job is getting a government pension so it's in your value system I don't want a government pension but there's so many of our school teachers they want that government pension and that's the 200 million that are part of this social security disaster we have coming and so I said young people like you You know, study in Zimbabwe, 2002.

1:18:52I had my hands up like this. Law and order breaks. Law and order broke down. If you were the average person, let's just call them in their 20s today, and you were starting from zero, what would you do? I learned how to sell. You know, I like network marketing. I tell people to join network marketing. I say, why is that? Because you learn to take rejection. You know, if you can't take rejection, you can't be an entrepreneur. You know, it's probably the, you know, everybody likes to be liked. I like to be liked. But, man, you can handle rejection. You got it made. So network marketing, the guys I hang out with, they're just really good.

1:19:36Other guys are really good. Mormon missionaries. Man, those guys take a lot of rejection. I hang out with several of them and go, how'd you guys do that, you know? How'd you do that, you know? and he said, man, you knock on the door. I'm from the Mormon church.

1:19:52Graham Stephan:Yeah. I said, Jesus, the best training you could have. How do you not take that personally and how do you become a good salesperson? That's the trick. That's the trick. If you're out, they call it a snag, a sensitive new age guy. It's hard to get ahead. But there's so many people, they take things so personally. And I told, I, I should have mentioned the names, but I won't mention it. I told this one person, you charge too much money. They got so upset with me. So my friends are complaining about you. They can't take feedback. Feedback is how we learn. How often do you get feedback where people come to you and say, here's my thoughts about what you're doing?

1:20:40Graham Stephan:And how do you know whether or not to listen to somebody? That's a tough, that's a good question because a lot of times I have such a nice temper. It's not good, it's not healthy. So I've got to learn to control my temper and actually seek the feedback. It's a discipline I have. Things change as you age and do better and all this stuff. So life's always about change. Change and growth, personal development. um i like what you guys are doing like i said and i love youtube because a lot of characters on there you know a lot of a lot of but i listen to them too you know just keep your mind open and chug along but how do you decide what to listen to and take to heart and maybe make changes versus someone just giving you advice that's maybe incorrect it's a rescue take i think the most important lesson I learned was I studied with a man named Dr.

1:21:43R. Buck Mr. Fuller. He invented the geodesic dome. So if you go, I went to the Montreal World Expo in 67. The U.S. pavilion was Bucky Fuller's dome. And I'm in there with my classmate. But I had studied Fuller. It considered one of the greatest geniuses of our time. I'm studying with Fuller this one. Look at this thing. So I went to study with him. The lesson I learned, choose your teachers wisely. So once I understood that I wanted to study with Fuller, I tracked him down. So when he gave a seminar, I went to listen to him. So I studied with Fuller for three summers. Once here, once in Hawaii, once there.

1:22:35And I sat there with him. and he asked me a class of about 100 people and I'm sitting there I don't like to share things by myself and he kind of said hey, what's your life's purpose? and here he is the world's greatest genius Buckminster Fuller John Denver wrote songs about him all this stuff I said I'm going to get rich and in front of 100 people he chews me out young man, young man young man, getting rich is a waste of a good mind. I went, what? So here's all his groupies who love him. I'm getting my ass chewed out by Bucky Fuller, you know. And he goes, what am I supposed to do? He says, ask yourself this, young man.

1:23:27What does God want done? I said, what? What does God want? Pros trust the Home Depot for heavy duty storage solutions for any job site or garage. Right now, get up to 15 % off select storage and organization. Impact and water resistant totes and shelving built to hold up to 2 ,500 pounds. Storage systems have space for all your tools and protect them in the garage, on the job site, and everywhere in between. Save time and maximize efficiency with adjustable shelving customized to your business's needs. Shop and save on pro grade storage at the Home Depot. How pros get more done. done. Not what do you want to do.

1:24:09What does God want done? So I'm hurting inside because he chewed me out for a hundred people. You know, nobody's like it chewed out. But the lesson hit me. It says, what does God want done? So this was studying. This is in Reno, Nevada, in the mountains. So I left there and I said, what does God want done? I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it. And I created my cash flow board game, and I wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I said, there's no financial education in schools. I think if I was God, that's what I would want. And that was in 96 and 97. And now those board games have gone all over the world.

1:24:57Graham Stephan:Did you know when you wrote the book that it was going to be a hit? I flunked that high school twice. because I can't write. It's not that I can't write. The teacher didn't like what I was writing. But the question I leave for young men like you, what does God want done? You know, you can see it. And for me, I was kind of naturally interested in money. So I naturally studied money. And so when Dave Ramsey says, live debt free, I said, well, if you understood money, Dave, If you stop borrowing money and the economy stops, what are you going to do? You couldn't answer the question. When's the last time you changed your mind on something?

1:25:43All the time, all the time. In any significant way, any time in the past few years or recently? Recently, yeah. Like going to Zimbabwe. How did that change your mind, though? I realized I made a promise back in 2002. There's a poem by, I wrote about it in Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Frost. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I promise us to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep. The title of the poem was The Roadless Traveled. I said, what am I supposed to do? I said I'm supposed to come back to Zimbabwe and teach I said I could pay zero but I made a promise to those people in 2002 I'd come back because I had promises to keep so now my cash flow board game's there they're teaching everybody I'm doing 120 games and they're going to start clubs all around Zimbabwe to teach people money come up because I've kept the promise.

1:26:59I'm going to teach these people on the possibility of learning because they're not going to learn it in school. One of the richest countries in the world used to be called Rhodesia. Now it's Zimbabwe. The biggest financial disaster in history took place there, the Zim dollar. The U.S. dollar's next. So I'm practicing. How do you now define wealth or success now that you have basically all the money anyone could ever ask for? What does God want, Don? So you ask yourself that, come to an answer, and then pursue that. What emphasis do you place on legacy? Not much. When I'm dead, that's it. Yeah.

1:27:45You don't have any children. No. What are you going to do with your money? That's going to my ex-wife. She's going to manage it. Now, I have, it's going to be a big foundation and all that. But I haven't decided how. That's a project I'm working on now. That's a very important question. What's one daily habit you never will skip? I get up every morning and take, I read, I wouldn't call it spiritual, but the kind of spiritual readings. And I don't just read it, I write it. And I write it three times. so maybe a paragraph because I studied from Maria Montessori in the Montessori school system great entrepreneur she says what the hand does the mind remembers so if I just read spiritual words when I have to write them it embeds so that's one habit I get up and I basically not plagiarize I'm just oh it's a nice passage I write it three times cool And I set the day off with that.

1:28:53Who would you say is the biggest mentor or influence on your life? Buckminster Fuller. The happiest thing about my life is, because I'm not really religious, but I believe there's a God and there's vibrations that we go through in life, you know. Like, I feel good here. Go someplace else, you don't feel so good. So I'm going to do a whole series with another guy on Bucky Fuller now. So like you guys do an iced coffee hour.

1:29:22Graham Stephan:Yeah. I'm going to do one on Bucky Fuller, the greatest Jesus of our time. And that makes my heart happy. So that's God telling me you're on course because the frequent, you know, it feels good. That's a difference. Good. If you were to finish this sentence, money is blank. What would you put in the book? Freedom. Freedom. Cool. Robert, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee hour. This was honestly a blast. This was an honor, a pleasure. Your insights are phenomenal. I love not only like the money and finance conversation, but also just the life and everything. And I think it's also interesting.

1:30:04What would God want? Asking yourself that and then just gearing your actions towards it. Yeah. What does God want done? And then go do it.

1:30:13Graham Stephan:Thank you. This is an honor. Thank you very much. Till next time. Thank you.

1:30:27Graham Stephan:We'll see you next time.

1:30:51For a limited time, go to stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply.