The Business of the 21st Century

I had previously read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Kiyosaki and wasn’t a huge fan.

I was advised to read “The Business of the 21st Century” and decided to give Kiyosaki another shot.

I did find some good advice and ways to think about wealth in this book.

The topic of this book is “network marketing”.

Network marketing, in a nutshell, is when a company gives information and products to individuals who create their own business by selling products and recruiting more people to sell the product (which they receive a financial incentive for).

The idea is to create a network for people selling products for you (regardless if you sell them or not) to build an asset that works while you do other things.

The writing style of this book was a little difficult for me to handle. Kiyosaki humble brags his way through the book and often leaves out details which make fact-checking his claims difficult.

The interview style writing he did with some guy named “John” came off as inauthentic, cheesy, and poorly executed.

Again, there were some good bits of information from this book.

Biggest Insights

I loved Kiyosaki’s way of breaking down the different ways people think about money and how to make it.

He breaks it down into a quadrant with the following acronym.

ESBI

Employees – people who enjoy the security of a paycheck and the benefits a company can provide.

Small Business Owners – those who think they can do a better job than their boss but are still a slave to living paycheck to paycheck and are often more stressed and overworked than employees.

Business Owners – people who own a business with 500+ employees and it generates consistent money whether or not you are present. This is ultimately where you want to be as a business is a wealth asset that allows you to achieve financial freedom.

Investors – these people are worried about the returns on their money and generally have a successful business that allows them to deploy cash to work for them as they sleep.