Book Club | Rich Dad Chapter 9
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Welcome to the Effortless English Show with the world's number one English teacher, A.J. Hogue, where A.J. 's more than 40 million students worldwide finally learn English once and for all, without the boring textbooks, classrooms, and grammar drills. Here's A.J.
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Effortless English Club dot com. Effortless English Club dot com. Join my VIP program at Effortless English Club dot com. Book club show today. We are finishing our second book.
Finishing our second book for book club. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki. Today, we finish the book. Yay! The end of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. You will all be rich after this, right?
That's the plan. As always, for the Book Club Show, I'm live on Facebook. It's a video show this time. Live on Facebook. Saturday night here in Japan.
People are joining live now. A lot of our familiar names, Fernanda in Brazil, Kurdistan, Ukraine, Russia, etc. Hello, hello, hello. Asthma, hello. Welcome, welcome, welcome.
Live. Last chapter today. The last chapter. The end of Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Good book. I hope you've enjoyed this book. I have, I've enjoyed reading it again.
Lots of useful ideas, good ideas for me too, just to remind me of some of the fundamental ideas. There's our word again, fundamental. I'm doing well, thank you very much. People asking me how I'm doing.
I think we should get started, huh? Let's see how many people have joined now. Yeah, we got a good audience now, live. Okay, live audience, you know how this works.
First, I will go through, do the chapter, I'll teach you everything in the chapter, basic ideas, we'll discuss them a little bit, and then I'll come back and I'll look at your comments and questions.
If you're watching live right now, relax, listen for a little bit, I'll be back. Let's go. Time to begin. Chapter 9. Chapter 9, still want more? Question.
Here are some to-dos, to-dos, things to do. So this chapter is, it's the last chapter of the book. Basically, in this chapter, he just tells you a few practical tips. He gives you some tips, 10 steps, he says, but 10 tips, like what to do next.
The book is finished. You've learned these ideas. How do you start? These are 10 action items, we might call them. Action items, things you must do because you have to do it.
It's not enough just to think about this. If you want to be rich, if you want to be financially free, you have to take action. Let's talk about these 10 that he is recommending.
First one says, stop what you're doing. Stop what you're doing now. In other words, you have to change. If you do the same thing, you get the same result.
If you want a better result, more money, more success, more freedom, then you have to do something different. So he says, take a break and look at your life now. Look at your financial life.
And decide what's working, what's not working for you. Are you happy with your financial situation or not? Next, look for new ideas. So suggestion two.
Look for new ideas. Look for new investing ideas. He says, I go to bookstores and I search for books on different and unique subjects. I call them formulas.
He talked about this in the last chapter. Because now you're ready to take action. Now you need more specific information. So you need to go read some more.
He gives an example of this. He read a book called The 16% Solution. about a very specific kind of real estate investing in America. He read the book and then he immediately took action and he started to do what the guy suggested.
He started to follow exactly the formula from the book and he made money. Step number three, find someone who has done what you want to do. So a mentor. Find a mentor if you can.
Not always possible. But if you can't, find a mentor. Find someone who, if you're interested in stocks, then find someone who is successful trading stocks. Maybe someone you know or maybe online.
Next, action item, suggestion for action. Take classes, read and attend seminars. So more financial education. In other words, don't stop learning now
Continue to learn, learn, learn, learn, learn about investing and business. Good advice. Next suggestion. Make lots of offers. So make a lot of offers.
What does that mean? It means business offers. Do a lot of investments. Do a lot of deals is what he's saying. When I want a piece of real estate, I look at many properties and I write an offer.
He offers money to the person to buy the real estate. If you don't know what the right offer is, neither do I. So he's like, that's the job of the real estate agent.
So he's like, you know, get help if you're doing real estate. Ask the real estate agent. agent for their advice and make a lot of offers get out there in other words take action take action do investments you learn by doing also so he's saying on one hand you need to learn read more take do seminars but on the other hand you need to start get out there make lots of deals make lots of deals get in there start doing it build your business or start buying investments
To limit your risk, he says, shop for bargains in all markets. Shop for bargains. So look for good deals, in other words. Don't just pay for the first price.
Look for good deals, good investments that are maybe low price right now. It's a good deal. So he's like, always be looking, looking, looking for good deals. Or if you want to do real estate, constantly be looking in your area for good deals.
Think big and limit your risk. Start small and think big, he says. Start small and think big. So when you first start, I've said this in a few of these Rich Dad shows, don't do a gigantic huge deal your first time.
Don't try to start a big business your first time. Don't risk all your money the first time. Or never do that, actually. Limit your risk. Start small and then think big.
You know, your long term, you can think big, but start small. And then his final one, his final suggestion or point is, action always beats inaction. Inaction means not action.
So doing something beats doing nothing, right? Doing something beats doing nothing. The biggest problem most people have for financial freedom, for investing or starting a business, is they don't start.
They don't do anything. They think and think and think. They read and read and read, but then they never actually do anything. Just taking action will help a lot.
Then there's a little section at the end, just after chapter nine, called Final Thoughts. And he teaches us one more thing. He says there are three types of income.
Three types of income. Ordinary earned income. That's basically from a job. Ordinary earned income. Number two, portfolio income. And number three, passive income.
So what's the difference? Ordinary earned income, that's what most people do. That means you work for it. You're working for it. It's your salary or you're from a job usually.
Passive income, he says, is usually from real estate. It's usually income from real estate. People are paying you rent. That's passive income. It's passive because you don't really need to do anything.
You buy the house. You pay a company to manage it. You just collect the rent every month. That's it. Portfolio income is income from paper assets. For example, stocks and bonds.
That's also fairly passive, right? You buy stocks and you get dividends every month. So he says, the key to becoming wealthy, this is his last advice in the book, the key to becoming wealthy is to convert, to change,
Earned income into passive income or portfolio income as quickly as possible. So that's interesting. That's the formula. You get earned income. Most people do, right?
It means the money's coming in. The money's coming in. It's a paycheck, basically. So you have money coming in from a job. Money coming from a job. How do you become wealthy?
How do you become free? You change that, you take that money and you invest it so that you get real estate or a business or stocks. So you're changing, you're changing your job income, right? Your job payment.
And then you're changing it, you're converting it, you're investing it in income payments from real estate or stocks or a business. That's how you become rich. That's how you become wealthy. That's how you become financially free.
You don't become financially free from your job, is what he's saying. And that is all. That's the end, really. It's kind of a short ending. It's mostly a summary of the points of the book at the end here.
And encouraging you to get started, basically. Take action, is what he's saying. All right. I just saw a comment, the most difficult thing to do is to start acting.
Well, indeed, indeed it is. So here we are at the end of the book. We've learned some good things from this book. We've learned the difference between assets and liabilities, income and expenses.
And you've learned the key points. How are you going to get rich? How are you going to become financially free? Now you have to do it. Reading a book is the easy part.
Taking action, that's the thing, right? Nothing happens. If you don't take action, nothing happens. If you don't start investing, nothing happens. If you don't create a business, nothing happens.
You have to do one of those. That's the only way. If you just keep doing exactly what normally people do, just go to work, get a paycheck, go to work, get a paycheck, go to work, get a paycheck, you'll never be financially free, probably.
You probably never get rich. Even if you don't want to be rich, if you just want to be free, you've got to take action and start doing these things. So there you go.
Are you going to do it? That's what I want to know. Are you going to take action? I hope so. That's why we did this book. Not just to read it, but for you to take action.
Here's what I recommend now. Now that we finished the book, I recommend get the book and read it yourself in English. Some of you are already doing this. which is great.
It's good for English learning too, especially business English. So get the book. If you don't have the book already, please get the book. Robert Kiyosaki is the writer.
The book is Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I recommend get it in English. Get it in English and then read it in English. You can watch all of the videos.
You can go back and review all of my videos. They're on YouTube. They're on my blog too, effortlessenglishclub.com. So go review them. Review them and then read the book.
Read one chapter, review that show, read chapter two. But most important of all, I hope you will actually take action and become financially free. All right, let's see some comments and questions.
Luisa says, there is a risk in renting a house to somebody dishonest. You might lose money. That's right, there is. All investments have risk, every single one.
There's a risk in buying stock. The price might drop. There's a risk in starting a business. It might fail and lose some money. So there's no way to completely avoid risk, right?
Or everybody would be rich very quickly if it was that easy. It's not. Managing the risk is a big part of this. The key is you can't avoid losing money.
That's impossible. But what you have to do is to limit the amount of money you could possibly lose. And I don't do real estate business, but there are methods for, you know, you can get insurance, for example, to cover some of these things.
And you, of course, to avoid renting to people who are dishonest, you do background checks and you check their references and you got, you know, there's lots of things you can do.
So you got to look into it. Each different kind of business or investing has its own risks. And you have to learn about that. That's why you have to learn specifically each of these areas of business.
All right. All right. Someone asking, why do I get notifications from your page while I blocked it? I don't know. Unfollow. Unfollow my page if you don't want to get this stuff.
AJ, I'm from Indonesia. How can I get the books? Well, the Rich Dad, Poor Dad book is an international bestseller since, I don't know, like the year 2000 or something like that.
It's a very easy book to find. I know it's popular in Asia also. Robert Kiyosaki is very popular in Asia. I've seen his books in Southeast Asia, around Thailand, Malaysia.
I'm sure you can find his book in Indonesia. I'm sure you can. You can try online. There's online booksellers. Kobo.com is a good one. K-O-B-O.com. Kobo.com.
Just go to Kobo.com and search Rich Dad Poor Dad. You can probably just get the e-book, immediately download it. It's cheaper and it's faster. That's what I recommend.
But you should be able to find his book everywhere in the world, really. It's a big, big, big bestseller. Very popular. To be rich is not my aim. My goal is to be financially free.
Well, indeed. Me too. I think most people, that's what they want. They just want to be free, free to live your life how you want to live. That's the key point, right?
And then Asma mentions, it's first hard in the beginning to start. After that, it becomes easier after the first step. For sure, for sure. With a lot of things in life, that's true.
First step can be the most difficult. It's the most scary because it's the most unknown. But when you take the first step, you find a lot of the fear will drop away, will go away. And then everything feels a lot easier after that first step.
Ong asks, should I start an online business because it costs almost nothing but a new idea? You can. That's what I do, dead obviously. Started an online business, but you've got to learn about it.
A lot of people think, oh, online business is easy. Just start a website and start making money. It's not so easy. You've got to learn a lot. You've got to learn a whole lot about marketing, probably about advertising too.
You have to know who your market is and you have to have a service or a product that people want. But it's yes, if you want to start an online business, if you've got a good idea for one and you really want to do it, yes, absolutely. You're right that it is possible to start an online business fairly cheaply.
One of the advantages, there's lower risk. So yes, it is a perfectly good kind of business to start if you want to. Oh, Vanya again, checking in. Wow.
Okay, Vanya, if you remember, those of you who've watched the show before, Vanya, a little while back, left some comments about possibly taking a gap year, not going to university, taking a break first in order to travel.
And he did it. He decided to do it. And now we're getting updates from his travels. Let's see the recent update. Ponyas says, well, I have really got great news for you.
It's not related to the topic of business. That's okay. Since I started doing a gap year, I have convinced more than 20 students to try your system. Well, thank you.
That's fantastic. I do realize that the most effective way to persuade someone is leading by example. Uh-huh. And these students notice that my English is quite good, and I speak without thinking or translating.
That's why they eventually decided to use your method for learning English. I'm pretty sure you'll be happy about my achievement. I am very happy, Vanya. Thank you so much.
Well, that's great. You're out there promoting Effortless English. Thank you. Great. Great. And I hope you're still having a great gap year and having a great time.
You're such a great example for everybody, really. Talk about taking action, okay? Here's a good example. So, when Vanya first commented, he wasn't sure.
I think I might want to take a gap year. I don't want to go to university immediately, but I'm not sure, right? A lot of people say this kind of stuff.
But then, oh, they're afraid to do it. They're afraid to take the risk and take action. He just did it. I'm doing it. Right? Next thing, started getting comments that I'm doing it.
I'm traveling now. It's really great. Really great. I mean, that's what you do. You just take action and look at the great results. Look at the great results.
Having a great time. I appreciate the promotion of Everett Singlish for sure. But even more importantly, took control of his own life and took action. Despite the unknown, he had no idea what was going to happen, but he just took the first step and now he's having a great year, doing great.
Such a good example. That is the great example. And that connects to anything. That's true for anything. It could be travel. It could be starting a business.
It could be investing. It could be anything at all. I know it's scary sometimes in the beginning, but you know because you've done things in your life.
can often be scary in the beginning. And then you just take the first few steps and then you realize, ah, you know, so much of that fear was crazy. Why was I so afraid? I don't know.
No need to be so afraid. Min says, would you encourage a student to stop learning from their university and start a business? It depends, yeah, I mean, overall, generally, it's a great thing. But it depends on each individual.
It depends what they want in life. If they said, you know, I want to be, I always use this example, but it's a clear example. I want to be a doctor, a medical doctor. I want to operate, be a heart doctor, maybe, let's say.
Then no, I would not recommend it because they got a lot of school to do to become a heart doctor. But if someone says, I want to be an entrepreneur, that's my dream. My goal is to start my own business and be an entrepreneur. Then yes, I would 100% tell them, quit school.
Stop wasting your time. What are you doing? Get out there and start a business. Or at least get out there and work and get experience and then start a business.
So see, it depends on your goals. It's not for everybody. Every single person in the world is A lot of people don't want to be entrepreneurs. That's okay.
It's fine. You know, like Robert Kiyosaki saying in the book, some people prefer just to invest in stocks and bonds. You could have a normal job, take your extra money and buy stocks and bonds, but you need to learn about it. You know what you're doing.
Or you could get a job and take your extra money and buy real estate and invest in real estate. That's a perfectly good strategy. That's totally fine.
Or you could become an entrepreneur and build a business. That's another way to do it. That's my way. That's my favorite way. I think it's a great way for a lot of people, but I can't say that for everybody, right?
Everyone's different, so you have to know yourself, too. You have to know what you want in life, and you have to know your personality. Saddam's asking, my aim is to be rich. That's fine.
How can I start my own business? Well, you have to decide, and there's many things to decide, but the first thing is what kind of business do you want to start?
Starting your own business, it sounds like you want to be an entrepreneur. Well, you have to, you know, I've said this in several shows, so I'll say it again, a kind of an easy answer to this question. People are like, what kind of business should I start?
My simplest answer is to solve a problem. that people have. Solve some kind of problem and then charge money to solve the problem. I gave the dog walking example.
That's one. There are many. Look at your own life. Maybe as you go through the day, every day for a week or a month, every time you have some problem that's annoying to you, really annoying, you're like, I hate this.
Write it down. I hate doing this. I hate dealing with this. Write it down. Write it down. Write it down. You'll have a list of problems in your life. And then look at the list and think, which of these problems, which are common?
Which of these are really common problems? I'll give you a famous example that everyone probably knows now, Uber. Uber and Lyft, their competitor, both of them.
So there was a problem. They started in San Francisco, those companies. I used to live in San Francisco, so I knew exactly what the problem was. The taxis in San Francisco suck.
They're terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Not reliable. It's hard to get a taxi. And they're not reliable. Sometimes you call a taxi, for example, you have to go to the airport to get a plane.
You call the taxi company. They never come. They say, we're coming. And they never come. You can maybe miss your plane if you do that. It happened to me many times in San Francisco.
So super annoying. So somebody... said, well, this is really annoying. This is a problem. And a lot of people have this problem. How can I solve this problem?
Well, what if we have an app on the phone and you just press a button and then somebody just drives around? And we can just let anybody do it. So we can have lots and lots and lots and lots of drivers. So really easy to get a driver.
Very convenient and cheaper too. Uber, Lyft. They started a business and they're... I don't know if they're profitable, but they should be. Lots of money.
It's a big business. Lots of investors, certainly, investing in that business. That's a big example, but you can do that in a small way, too. But you see, solving problems, because people have problems, a lot of people are happy to pay you to make their life easier.
So I think that's a really easy way, a good way, to start looking at a business to start. Tung. Tung says, this is Tung from Vietnam. I've read Rich Dad, Poor Dad in Vietnamese.
Great. And I think it's a great book. The best book, the greatest book I've ever read. Fantastic. Glad you enjoy it. Hey, give it, try to get the English version.
Try to read the English version now. Might be a good, good practice. Ma Di A says, A.J., Can we add how to win friends and influence people to our book club?
Yeah, good idea. I will add it to the list. Let's see. Cliffy, hey, Cliffy. When can we, I guess you're probably asking too, when should we believe our fears?
And choose not to act. Well, you have to use your logical brain for that. Obviously, sometimes fear is smart. Fear is useful in general. It's giving you a message.
The message of fear is there is a risk. There is a risk. Potentially, possibly a risk. It's just sometimes the fear is not rational. Sometimes the fear is really big, but the risk is actually very small.
This is not a rational, logical fear, right? The fear is too big and the risk is very small. And I guess sometimes maybe the opposite. Sometimes people make a mistake.
It's very dangerous, but they're not very afraid. That's also bad, right? Right? So we have to use our brains a little bit more and we have to look and see what is the risk.
There are some things that are physically risky. Swimming in the water with great white sharks. Not in a cage, just swimming around with them. Yeah, I wouldn't do it.
You'd probably be afraid and you should listen to that fear because if you think about it, oh, these things eat people. So it would be smart to listen to your fear and not take that action. But the problem is that in things like this,
Things like traveling to safe places, not travel to some area with super high crime and war and all that. No, you got to be smart. But just, you know, basic traveling around or taking a break from school or starting a business. These are really not life or death decisions.
OK, you're not going to die if you start a little small business or If it fails, you're not going to die. But a lot of times we will feel a lot of fear, this huge fear about something like this to start a business. But the actual risk is very, very, very small.
This is the problem. We don't take action. When the risk is small, that's not a good fear. So you have to judge this. This is what your logical brain is for, to look at the situation clearly, to try to push away the fear and look at it clearly and decide, is this risk really that bad?
Is it really that terrible or not? That's what our brains are for, our higher brains. AJ is the king. Thank you. Luis again with money nobody is alone money buys everything not sure about that I think there are some lonely rich people actually I think there are I think there are a lot of lonely rich people so you just have to realize again we've said this almost every week but money is a tool and tools have you can use them for some things and for other things you cannot right
Money can't buy love. It's true. It can't buy love. It can buy people who pretend to love you. It can buy fake friends. But real love and real friends, it doesn't buy that kind of stuff.
No. But it's very useful. It solves a lot of problems. It makes life a lot easier when you have more money. For sure it does. You have more choices. You have fewer stressful problems that are caused by money.
It definitely helps. It definitely helps in many areas of life. You just have to be smart about it. It's not going to solve every problem in your life.
Let's see. Are there any recommended books that are easier than Rich Dad, Poor Dad to read? This is from Hung. For business or just generally in English?
In just general English, yeah, of course there are. There are children's books, Hardy Boys books. I recommend those a lot. They're more for younger age, so they're simpler.
For business, Rich Dad, Poor Dad is pretty easy. It's one of the easier business books I've read. I can't think of a business book that's easier, actually.
So if it's too difficult for you, that's fine. Just don't read business books. Read something like Hardy Boys or read books for young people, kids in America.
That's okay. Huang says, please make more shows about American football. Oh, I'm going to. Don't worry. It is August 18th. And football season starts September 1st.
I already talked to my dad about this. So my dad is a big football fan, Georgia fan, huge Georgia fan, more than me. He agreed we're going to do a show together about Georgia football.
So the season starts, the first Georgia's first game is September 1st. What I'll do is it's a Saturday. They play on Saturdays. There'll be the Saturday game.
So probably on Sunday, I'll do a show, the American football show, and I'll review the highlights. And I can't do the whole game. It's much too long. But I'll just do the highlights, like the best plays of the game.
And I'll show you some of the highlights of the game. And I'll explain more of the rules and more of the strategies. We can talk about some of the players and the teams. And we'll follow one team this year, my team, Georgia Bulldogs.
Definitely coming in just a couple of weeks. Football season's almost here. Go Dawgs! People saying hello. Hello from Italy, Albania, India, Brazil, Vietnam.
Mohammed. A little joke here. Girlfriends or wives are liabilities or assets? Depends on the girl. My wife's laughing. Some are liabilities and some are assets.
Choose carefully. Right? Right? Okay, let's see. Here's a comment. IJ, I love your teaching. Could you please speak like an American speed? Because most of your audios are simple and slow.
Most of your natives don't talk like that. We want to hear a real native and accent of American. Well, you know, I naturally speak fairly slowly. I'm not a fast speaker, just naturally.
Really, this is about my normal speed talking to anybody. I'm not going super slowly. I'm from the south, the southern part of the United States. It's kind of famous that people generally from the south speak a little more slowly.
On the other hand, people from, for example, New York City are famous for speaking fast. I do avoid slang. I don't use a lot of slang. I don't use a lot of idioms.
But I'm not speaking unnaturally. This is my natural way of speaking. But of course, there are people who do speak faster than I do. It's just natural.
But for me, it's not natural to speak really fast. If I get really excited, I'll speak faster. But right now, this is my normal speaking speed. Min's got another good question.
When you created Effortless English, when you started your business, did you obsess? Did you focus about earning a lot of money or just focus on the course? I just focused on...
I wasn't focused on a lot of money. I just wanted to make a little money. My focus when I started the business was just to improve it and just to get some customers, some members...
And just not, really my focus was don't lose money. Don't lose money. That's all I really cared about. Of course, you know, yeah, I was hoping it would become successful, I'd be more free, but I had no idea.
I certainly didn't plan for it to become really big and super successful. It's much, much, much more successful than I imagined in the beginning, which is great.
In the beginning, you just don't know. You don't know. So the smart thing to do in the beginning is just do the best you can and try to avoid losing money. Avoid losing money.
Manage your risk. Keep the risk very limited. That's the key thing in the beginning. I mean, it's still important always, but in the beginning especially.
Do that. Really, your focus in the beginning is just to survive. Just survive, survive. Don't lose money. And then you start improving, improving, improving.
Okay, Muhammad Yusuf says, it's all about the first step. Then anything becomes easy once you start. There's no coming back. Just don't stop and think and picture your future.
Am I right, AJ? You're exactly correct. That's right. You just got to picture your future. You take the first couple steps. Then it's easier. But then don't stop.
Just keep going forward. That's the main thing. Don't stop. Keep going forward. There's no guarantee that maybe you'll have some failures. Probably. Will you have some problems?
Yes. Challenges? Yes. Just keep going. Just keep going. It becomes easier, though, each step. He's exactly right. It's those first steps. Just picture your goal.
Picture the life you want. And just take an action and go. Have some faith. It does require faith, maybe. Maybe you just need faith in the beginning. That's okay, too.
Okay, here's a job search question. Ishan says, I'm jobless, but I have many interviews in aviation, in the aviation sector. Please suggest to me how do I improve my English? Well, in general, you want to listen, listen, listen, listen.
You're doing a good job. Listen to my podcast every single day. That's the first thing you can do every single day. You can try to copy my pronunciation if you want.
That helps sometimes. If you want to, you can join one of my courses, join my VIP program, read books. Since you're trying to go into aviation, you might focus on books and podcasts that are about that topic. So you learn some of that specific vocabulary, all of those things.
You want to be listening to English at least two hours a day and then doing extra reading also. That's my general advice. Rita says, good morning from Brazil.
Here's a nice comment. Hasina always has great comments. Here's Hasina's comment. The most common mistake young people like me make is that they say, I'm young.
I'll have time to do it later. Hmm. And then they wait and wait until they become old. And then they say, oh, I'm very old, I can't do it. Yeah, you're right.
Therefore, I'm trying to take action, even if I'm afraid. I don't quit trying to find solutions. Yes. In other words, people use age as an excuse. They use it as an excuse to avoid action.
Young people say, I'm young, I can wait. And then, you know, middle-aged people say, oh, I'm busy right now. In my life, I'm too busy. I'm middle-aged.
Maybe it's too late for me. Or I'll do it when I retire. And then old people say, oh, I'm too old to do it. I'm too old. It's too late. Just an excuse.
The age doesn't matter, okay? You can start a business when you're old. You can start a business when you're young. You can invest when you're old. You can invest when you're young.
Just do it now, right now, whatever. It doesn't matter your age. Stop using that as an excuse. If you're young, do it now. None of this, oh, I'll do it in 10 years.
No, you won't. Why avoid it? What's the point of avoiding it? Take action. And if you're 70, do it anyway. It's fun. This is the other part about it. It's enjoyable.
It's fun to do this. It's fun. After you get over the fear, the first few steps, right now it's not fun because you're afraid. Oh, I don't know. But then after you take a few steps, you get into it, you start to realize it's kind of a game.
It's fun. It's fun. At any age, it's fun. You don't need to become super billionaire. Just get in and play the game and enjoy it. Fernanda with a follow-up comment.
I've been changing my mind after this book club. So many lessons for life. I'm not an entrepreneur. That's okay. But I will start to increase my income fairly.
I've learned a lot. I will read Rich Dad again, listen to the audio book, and watch the shows. Perfect. Yes, and Fernanda, good point. Everyone is not an entrepreneur.
I understand that. That's why I can't tell everybody, be an entrepreneur. Because many people should not be an entrepreneur. They don't really want to.
It just doesn't fit them. That's fine. There's no problem with that. No problem at all. Robert Kiyosaki is not saying you have to be an entrepreneur. You don't have to.
But he's saying what you can do, what anybody can do, you can have your job normally, and you have your paycheck, but then take your extra money, cut your expenses, you have extra money, save extra money, and then use it, invest it. You can buy real estate and rent it to make passive income, or you could buy stocks and bonds and to get that portfolio income.
And in this way, you will grow your financial freedom, even with a job. It's good advice. Good, good, good, good, good advice. So you don't have to quit your job and start a business.
It's not necessary. There are other ways to do it. Some people, that's a great thing to do. Some people don't want to do that, and that's okay too. You have to know yourself and decide which path is right for you.
Okay, question about pronunciation. I'm from Nepal, Dharmendra. Hello, Dharmendra. I've benefited a lot from this group. I like the way you speak. I want to have my accent be like a foreigner, more of a native accent.
What should I do for this? Well, one thing you can do is you can just play and pause, play and pause, and copy my pronunciation using this show. Or I also have a pronunciation course. You can get my pronunciation course.
It's at my website there, effortlessenglishclub.com. It's designed for exactly that. Hello from Europe. Kate says hi from Ukraine. Hello to you. Oh, and someone else from Nepal.
A few Nepalese today. Okay, yeah, here's a good point. Yeah, it's really not good when you try to start a business without knowing anything at all about it. Yeah, good point.
You need to learn and get the basic information about the business you're dreaming to open. And then with time, you'll realize if this business suits you or not.
Is it Gaith, Omari? Well, that's exactly right. Remember last week we talked about this, that The next step, you have to decide the specific area, investing, real estate, business, and you have to learn more details about it.
You don't just start a business knowing nothing. That's crazy. You have to learn the business. If you want to do real estate, for example... There's a lot to learn about that.
You need to read a lot of books about real estate. You might take a class or a seminar about real estate. You need to learn everything possible, everything you can about real estate and real estate investing. Yes, exactly.
Good advice. Don't just take a lot of money and start throwing it around blindly. That's a bad idea. Good point. Good point. Keep learning. Never stop learning.
Imran says, two years ago I didn't speak English, but now I can tell stories in English. I read books in English. I'm having fun. Thank you. AJ, you're a great teacher.
Well, thank you very much, Imran. Thanks for sharing your success story. I appreciate it. Yussi says... AJ, you have a lot of students around the world.
It's nice. It is nice. Many different countries we've got. Countries in South America there. I know North Americans too. All through Asia. Europe. Africa.
I get this question sometimes. What do you think about learning from the audio recordings during sleep? Hmm. I don't think it works very well. You think you need to be awake.
I wish it worked. That would be great. Just go to sleep, right? Listen to foreign language, listen to English while you're sleeping. And then six months later, you speak fluently.
But I just don't think it works. You can try it, but I don't think it works. Okay, Nasser has another question, another example. Would you recommend start working as a freelancer and stay in university at the same time?
Yes, good. That's also another choice, another solution. Some people have done this. Some very famous people have done this, right? They have been at school, like in the tech industry, for example, in IT, the computer industry.
There are a lot of examples of people who they started... university right especially in california at stanford and they were in school and they started a business they started their computer business their software business while they're in school and many of them quit school many of them only go to school a couple years the business starts growing and becoming successful and they realize ah well goodbye school and they just quit and then they go and do their business but it's You could do both like that. That's right.
You could work as a freelancer or you could start a business while you're at school at the same time. And then if the business starts to grow or your freelancing business, your freelancing job grows and grows, then you could just quit school once you have an income.
That's another solution. See, there are many. If you're just flexible with your mind, there are many, many, many ways to do this. Many opportunities. Many, many opportunities.
Alessandro says, I think first problem is to make money you have to use your talent and not your passion. Or both. But it's a good point. Talent is something you're good at.
Passion is something you are excited about. Sometimes it's not the same. A lot of people will give the advice to just follow your passion only. Which is pretty good advice, but you also need some ability.
I think that's what Alessandro is saying, and it's a good point. For example, let's say if I love music, and I decide I'm going to be a musician, but I try to learn. This is kind of a true story. I've tried, I've tried a few times, and I'm not good at music, really.
I'm just not very good. And while I like it, I don't like it enough to practice a lot. So that's a bad thing for me to do for a career. even though I might really like it.
It's just not good for me because I'm not good at it. So you do need to choose something you're also good at. I think you should like it and be good at it. Really, both is the best.
You should be excited about it, really love doing it, and you need to be good at it too. So that's what you... In your life, you have many things you're interested in, right? Many things that you're excited about, I hope.
And you also have many things you're good at. Look for the things where you have both Those are good areas to look at for starting a business. That's another way to look at it for starting a business.
You look for problems to solve. Another thing is you look where you're both excited and you're good at it. So I'm pretty good at teaching English and I really love talking to people and meeting people and traveling around the world and sharing my language with everybody. So boom, that's a good fit.
I'm excited about it and I'm good at it. And it's also true, sometimes we're good at something and we don't like it. This is also true. Sometimes there's some things in our life where we're pretty good at it, but we just don't really enjoy it that much.
We don't want to do it all the time. So that's also probably a bad business idea because you might, in fact, that's possibly the worst situation because then if you're good at it, you might grow a business and then become a prisoner of your business. You grow it, but then you hate it.
That's no good. So I think you want both. All right. Marty says, my parents tell me to study and become a doctor. Then you're going to have a great life.
I also like to study and be a doctor, but I want to hear your advice also. Well, you just answered the question, the second sentence. That's the key point.
Do you want to do it? Is it something you love and you're good at? Just like our last question. Are you excited about being a doctor? Do you really love it?
And are you good at it? If you love it and you're good at it, yeah, probably you will be happy. But it's no guarantee of a great life. Not at all. I don't know about other countries because every country has the laws and the rules and everything about being a doctor and the medical industry.
Very different, each country. So I can only really talk about the United States, about America. In America, I would not be a doctor unless you really loved it and you're really good at it because it will not guarantee you a happy life, not at all.
There's so much bureaucracy. It's just, eh. There are a lot of very unhappy doctors. So there's no guarantee. I think no. I think this general idea that, oh,
Anyone who becomes a doctor is going to be happy and have a great life. That's not true. It's also not true that becoming a doctor means you will automatically be rich and financially free. Not true also.
Does that mean it's bad to be a doctor? Of course not. It just means, but you should be interested in it and you should be good at it. This is the key thing, right?
There's not a right or wrong answer. Doctor, I'll give you a very different example. A plumber, a plumber. These are the people that fix the pipes in your house, the water pipes, right?
Like if your toilet has a problem, a plumber will come and they fix it. Or just the water, any of the water in your house, they fix it. So this job, like very few parents, we don't have the idea. Become a plumber and you'll have a great life and be happy and rich.
Because it's seen as a lower job than doctor in most places. A doctor is such a high job. But think there's so much debt, so many years of school for that.
It's not necessarily a good deal to be a doctor. Plumber, you can learn to be a plumber in a much shorter time. But you can still start your own business. You can still be very independent.
You could become much, much, much richer than a doctor. If you're good, if you're good especially at the business part, There are some very, very, very rich plumbers who own very successful businesses.
So this idea that doctor is better than plumber is absolutely wrong. It's not correct at all. It depends on you. It really depends on you, how you do it, how good you are at it, how much you love it, and how good you are at the business part.
Some doctors are not good with money. Some plumbers are really good So it totally depends. I don't like this advice. I think that's old advice from parents.
Become a doctor, become a lawyer. As just general advice, I think it's bad. I would never say that. Just as I will never say you must be an entrepreneur because that's also not good advice for everybody.
It depends. It depends. But become a doctor, become a lawyer is also not good advice. just to give to every single person. It's really bad to try to push your child to be a doctor or lawyer if they don't want to.
Forza Juventus Football Club. Yes, in Italy. Hey Jay, what are the most important books in business and politics? Marketing. Ah, well, businesses, that's a big topic.
Marketing books. Hmm. I would say Seth Godin has some very good books. They're about more like online marketing, but they're very good. Seth Godin. Seth Godin.
He's got a lot of books. They're really quite good. The Basic Fundamentals of Internet Marketing, Online Marketing, which is really important for all businesses now.
Dan Kennedy. Dan, D-A-N, Kennedy, another great writer for marketing. That's more general marketing. Excellent books. He has several. I'd start there.
Don't give you too many. Dan Kennedy and Seth Godin. Hi from the Dominican Republic. Hello. Hello, Sudan. Bangladesh. Kurdistan. Nice. Thanks for everything.
Yep, you're welcome. Hello from Egypt. Iraq. Lots of things. Dominican Republic. Yeah, so Banya, here's a nice thing. Success is not about the money or the fame.
It's about becoming the best version of yourself. Right. And... Being the master of your own life. I like to say that phrase a lot. You have to be responsible for your own life and figure out in your own life.
For me, I don't care about being rich, but I do want to be free. For me, the motivation for money or for business, the money part has always been financial freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom.
I don't really care about expensive stuff that much. But some people do. I don't care. If someone else likes rich cars and expensive cars and expensive houses and expensive clothes, like Robert Kiyosaki likes those things, that's fine.
It's okay. Everyone has to decide these things themselves, I think. I think it's just about living the best life you can for yourself. And you have to figure that out.
Focus says... Effortless English is one of the best English courses to progress very fast. Well, thank you. That's very nice. And then the next comment says, I want to get a lot of money.
Well, get to work. Start working. Start investing. Open a business. Hamsa, AJ, I'm from Somaliland. Yeah. Want to be one of your students. How can I be?
Well, you're already one right now. Get my podcast. Get a podcasting app. Subscribe to my podcast. You'll get my audios every day, every single day. That's how you start.
Go to my, if you want to join one of my courses, go to my website there, EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Join a course. Join a VIP program. EffortlessEnglishClub.com.
That's the two ways you do it. Pretty easy. A couple more comments and then we need to talk about the next book. Our next book. We're starting a new book next week.
So a few more comments, final comments about our book this week and then we'll have a short discussion about next week. I'm from China. Hello. I have a problem with English listening.
I want to improve. Start with my show. Start with the podcast, the free podcast. That's easy. Okay, Fernanda has a very specific comment from our Rich Dad chapter.
It's a phrase that Robert Kiyosaki said. AJ, tell us more about this sentence. Profits are made in the buying, not in the selling. Ah, profits. Profits, it means the money you make, right?
The extra money you make. You make it when you buy, not when you sell. What does he mean by that? What he's saying is that if you're a good investor, real estate or stocks or whatever, that you...
We'll figure it out. You'll know if you have a good deal. And you will start making cash flow, making money immediately when you buy. It means when you buy it, it's already a good deal.
When you buy it, it's already profitable. You don't have to buy it and then wait and hope. Oh, I hope it goes up. I hope it goes up. I hope it goes up.
That's waiting to sell. But if you, let's say you buy real estate and you buy If it's a good deal, you've done your homework, you've researched it, and you get a really good deal. It means you buy the house cheaper than its value.
Maybe the house is worth $50,000, 5-0. You buy it for $40,000. You get a really good deal somehow. You've already made money. You already bought it. for less than you could sell it, right?
It's already, you already basically have a $10,000 profit, right? You bought it for 40,000, it's worth 50. It's already profitable the first day. The other way you could think about this is you buy that house and then you rent it and then immediately it's paying you back money.
You're getting cashflow from it right away. You're making money from it immediately. Your first month you get rent and the rent is more than your loan.
So maybe you spend, I don't know, maybe your loan payment is $1,000 a month and you charge $2,000 a month for rent from the person renting. That means immediately from the first month or the first couple months, you're making money every single month profit.
So you're making money right from the beginning. That's what he's saying. That a good investment, a good strategy, you're making money immediately. You're profitable immediately.
This is different than what a lot of people do, which is buy and pray. That's a bad strategy. You buy and then you, oh, I hope it goes up in a few years. I hope, I hope it gets better.
I hope, I hope, I hope, right? People buy it like a house. They buy it for $50,000 and then they hope in 10 years it's worth more. That's not such a good way to invest.
The better way to invest is you buy something now with a loan, and then you rent it, and then immediately you're making money from it every single month.
That's being profitable when you buy instead of selling. That's what he means, I believe. We are a bottle-blowing machine manufacturer in China. Aha, so you have a business.
Excellent. Says Fiverr. Good. What are your special opinions about saving? Well, Amira asks, the best way to save more money and to have more money for investing is, of course, to cut your expenses, to live simply, simply, simply.
Okay, a couple more. All right, I think it's time to talk about next week. Let's talk about next week. My voice is getting a little tired. So let's talk about next week and then time to go.
Okay, so next week, we're starting a new book. What's our book next week? It's called Dumbing Us Down. I'll type it in the comments for those watching.
Dumbing Us Down by, the writer is John Taylor. Gato, G-A-T-T-O. Gato means cat in Spanish. John Taylor Gato is the writer, an excellent teacher, a fantastic teacher.
And this book is about education. Dumbing Us Down is about education and the school systems and the problems with the school systems and the solution to the problems of education.
Dumbing us down. We will start chapter one next week. Chapter one, dumbing us down. The writer, John Taylor Gatto. So I recommend go buy that book. You can find it, again, at online booksellers such as Kobo.com, Amazon.com, probably other ones too.
Dumbing us down. Dumbing us down. What does the title mean? The title means making us stupid. You can guess what his opinion of schools is not very good.
Just from the title, what he's saying is schools make us stupid. Schools are making us more stupid, not smarter. They're doing the opposite. The school should make us smarter.
The school should make us better thinkers. But in fact, what the school systems really do is they make us dumber. They make us more stupid. That's the basic idea of dumbing us down.
It's an excellent book, one of my favorite books about education. All right, it's time for me to go. I'm going to go relax and enjoy the rest of my evening. I hope you have a good evening or day yourself.
I hope you enjoyed the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Go out there. Take action. Get rich or become financially free. I really hope you do it. And join me next week with our new book, our new book club book, Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto.
As always, join my VIP program. Join my VIP program at EffortlessEnglishClub.com Lots of love to you. Join my program at EffortlessEnglishClub.com