Take the Best from EACH, not ONE.
Ok, so for the last few weeks I’ve been hanging around the richdad.com business forums. They’re pretty neat and full of information from all types of people. I’ve met a handful of fellow entrepreneurs on the site. Robert Kiyosaki (you know, the guy who had a rich dad and a poor dad) is the owner of the site along with a series of books that he’s written on various business topics.
Richdad.com is cool, but there’s one thing that really bothers me about many of the people who read and write in the forums. The problem is many of them seem to be in some type of cult that basically sucks up every word that has ever came out of RK’s (Robert Kiyosaki) mouth.
Yes, RK is a very knowledgeable person and he has proven himself as a successful entrepreneur, but that doesn’t mean that you have to live your life and plan your business based upon his ideals – com’n guys this isn’t church and RK isn’t the preacher. Entrepreneurs have to be smarter than that.
For instance I once posted an article on why I felt that students should NOT get involved in one of those MLM pyramid schemes and I nearly got my head taken off by a good amount of the board members. It was like a bunch of gang members wanting me off their turf. People were telling me that I didn’t know anything about business simply because I wasn’t a part of the RK coalition (gang).
It was like, well “RK said that MLM is good so you’re wrong” and “RK said that MLM is the best type of business to start off with so you can go to hell with your opinions.” I was waiting for the gun to come through my screen start blasting.
Ha, I was definitely in shock after witnessing this type of mass delusion. I hate to break it to the richdad.com followers, but RK doesn’t have all the answers and his teachings don’t represent the ultimate business encyclopedia. Wake up my friends.
The thing is, there is no one person who has all the answers on how to go about starting a business. I think the best person to listen to is yourself. I’m serious, if you listen to what you feel is right based upon everything that you have absorbed as being an entrepreneur, then you’re on the right track to starting a successful business.
In my writings I am constantly talking about falling into traps and I really feel that if you limit yourself to following one person who has made it big in business, then you’re really in trouble and headed in the wrong direction.
It’s best to learn a little bit from everything and everybody and put the pieces together yourself. The key is to become a sponge and just soak everything up and then just trust your mind to put things into their proper places — just let it flow…
The entrepreneur can’t afford to limit their scope of learning to just one man. F*ck limits! There is an endless amount of possibilities and situations that can work for your business with an equal amount of solutions that haven’t even been created yet.
So don’t get brainwashed into following someone just because they’re successful. Expand yourself and connection with many people who have information to share and take the best parts from each.
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Right on Dave! That’s how my whole interest in business started to develop was with “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” book, but like you, I saw a lot of flaws in it, and didn’t let one man tell me what to do. It allowed me to change my thinking a little bit, but I still continue to read other books besides the “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” book series.
I think he is a great business man though. I love it how he got other people to write books for him under his name: Smart thinking!