Second Chance. Robert T. Kiyosaki

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СКАЧАТЬ A far cry from the “six billion” that Bucky cited. By 2008 there were 1,150. Today that figure’s projected at 1,645.

      Fuller predicted that humanity had reached a critical evolutionary point. If humans did not evolve from greed and selfishness to generosity and abundance, humans—as an experiment on earth—would end. He often referred to the rich and powerful who hoarded “god’s abundance” only for themselves as “blood clots.” He believed that if humans did not “evolve” we would not only kill ourselves, but also kill the ecology of planet earth.

      The reason Fuller sought to identify the Generalized Principles is because they are the invisible forces that run the universe. In other words, the Generalized Principles were the operating principles of the Great Spirit, and the Great Spirit wanted all humans and all life on planet earth to thrive. Fuller believed there were 200 to 300 Generalized Principles. At the time of his death he had discovered about 50. I am aware of and use about five of them.

      In his writing and talks, he was critical of a few greedy, powerful people who used humans and the resources of planet earth only for their personal wealth. He believed that if humans did not shift from greed to generosity—humans working for a planet that worked for everyone and everything—humans would be “evicted” from “spaceship earth.” The Great Spirit’s experiment would be set back a few million years. He also said that god was patient and willing to wait for humans to evolve. Unfortunately, you and I do not have the luxury of waiting another million years for our fellow humans to “get the message.”

      Serving More People

      As stated in the previous chapter, one of the Great Spirit’s Generalized Principles that Fuller identified was:

       “The more people I serve, the more effective I become.”

      As part of my own second chance, I do my best to follow this Generalized Principle when making business decisions. Rather than just work to make myself richer, I began to condition myself to think about how to enrich others while I was enriching myself.

      That Generalized Principle was instrumental in our decision to sell the seminar business that Kim and I founded to our partner. Although that seminar business was successful, it was limited in terms of the number of people it could serve.

      In 1994, it was difficult for us to sell that seminar business, a business we loved, were successful in building and making profitable. Yet, intuitively, we knew it was time to move on. It was time to seek ways to serve more people.

      In 1994, we were financially free. That freedom came not from Bucky Fuller’s lessons, but from following rich dad’s lessons. Financial freedom gave us the time to develop our next business. In 1996, the first commercial version of our CASHFLOW® game was played in Las Vegas and, one week later, in Singapore. The next step was to develop a marketing plan to sell that game.

      The CASHFLOW game had two inherent problems that made it difficult to sell. The first problem was that it was too complex. A game expert we hired advised us to “dumb it down” or it would not sell. We decided against that recommendation. The CASHFLOW game was designed to be an educational game, not a game for entertainment.

      The second problem with the game was that it was very expensive to produce. The same game consultant told us the game should retail for $29.95. At $29.95 retail, our cost of manufacturing had to be no more than $7.00 per game. Our problem was that the first production run of the game cost over $50 per game to produce in China, landed, and warehoused in the United States. Against the advice of the game expert, we set the CASHFLOW game’s retail price at $195, making it one of the most expensive board games on the market.

      But adversity leads to innovation. To sell the game-$195, Kim and I had to be innovative. We went to our past seminar clients and offered a $500, one-day seminar featuring our game. During the seminar, the participants played our new game twice. The first time was to get familiar with the game. The second time was to get into the game. The one-day seminar worked. Participants were excited, most claiming they learned more about money in one day than they had learned in a lifetime. When we announced the “used” games were for sale for $150, they were gone instantly. In fact there was a fight for used games, even though there were new games available for $195.

      The business model worked and the “CASHFLOW Club” concept was born. In 2004, The New York Times ran an article, “The Rising Value of Play Money,” on CASHFLOW Clubs and told us that they had identified over 3,500 clubs—all over the world. Many clubs are still in existence today, teaching and serving more people than Kim and I could ever do on our own.

       Q: If you want to serve more people, why didn’t you offer the game for free?

       A: We considered using government grants to fund the manufacturing of the games, but that would have been following my poor dad’s mindset, rather than my rich dad’s entrepreneurial way of thinking.

       Also, giving people things for free often keeps them poor. It encourages the “entitlement mentality” that destroys initiative and personal responsibility.

      In spite of the high initial cost of the game, the online game is free to millions of people. One game can and has taught hundreds of people… for free, through CASHFLOW Clubs. Many CASHFLOW Club leaders around the world support the mission of Rich Dad, which is to elevate the financial well being of humanity, and teach the game to others. For them, not only is teaching spiritual, but the more they teach, the more they learn.

      Most CASHFLOW Club leaders I have talked with report getting back far more than they give. They follow the religious principle of “give and you shall receive.”

      Unfortunately, there are clubs that only present the game to sell other products or business opportunities. If you encounter one of those clubs, just know that while I support free enterprise, I do not support people using my games as marketing tools.

      Other Points of View

      For about six months, I sat in the quaint, artist’s town of Bisbee, Arizona… in an old jail that had been converted into an apartment. At one time, John Wayne owned that old jail, as a rental property. He loved Bisbee—and Southern Arizona, where he owned a large ranch.

      During the day, I was working on my small ranch, converting an old stagecoach depot (a stopping point between Bisbee and the infamous town of Tombstone, where the gunfight at the OK Corral took place) into a one-bedroom home. At night I would sit in the jail, writing a book. It was a painful process. There were many starts and stops, fits and starts. Finally, late one night, exhausted from working on my property and tired of struggling with a book concept, my fingers began typing the opening lines of a new book. It began with the words “I had a rich dad and I had a poor dad.”

      And that’s how the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, was born. Most people don’t know that Rich Dad Poor Dad, the book that started the Rich Dad series, was written as a “brochure” to market the CASHFLOW game.

      On April 8, 1997, my 50th birthday, Rich Dad Poor Dad was launched and The Rich Dad Company was born.

      Rich Dad Poor Dad floated around in the world of self-published books until early in the year 2000. It was selling virally, by word of mouth and one day it made The New York Times bestsellers list. It was the only self-published book on that prestigious list.

      Soon after that, a producer from Oprah Winfrey’s TV show called. But before she would book me for Oprah, she wanted to talk with rich dad’s son. As soon as she verified the story of rich dad and poor dad, my guest appearance on Oprah СКАЧАТЬ