Speaking of Real Estate/Stock Mkt. Guru Wade Cook....Wikipedia says "On September 4, 2008, Cook was taken into custody at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac, Washington, where he will await transfer to a prison where he will serve his 88-month sentence." Income Tax evasion.
Robert Kiyosaki, basically makes his money "selling the dream" which is a product that always sells. I bought cashflow 101 for something like 200 bucks only to end up getting a letter about every couple of weeks trying to sell me on going to a 5,000 dollar seminar. I guess they use that extra cash they make from the game to pay postage to spam people that have purchased from them before. I normally would'nt pay 200 bucks for a silly board game, but its pretty easy to resell on ebay for 75% of what you paid for it as long as you have all the parts to the game. The game was fun for a few days until you figured out how far from the truth it really is. In cashflow 101, you quickly figure out, that if you have the lowest paying job, you are most likely to win the game faster, which is completely opposite of real life.
Well I don't know about anybody else, but his book was what caused the scales to fall from my eyes as far as the power of money goes. You can use it, or be used by it - the choice is yours. That's the gist of RDPD, and like a previous poster said, that's lesson #1 if you don't want to die broke. Once the mind is set, the rest is just implementation.
One of biggest problems in this country (USA) mentality wise is the belief that economic performance in the 20th century is to be used as a baseline for the future. Because of it, people have unrealistic expectations for the growth in real estate and equities markets. When people say your house is your asset they are only right if it is paid off. Otherwise a house that you will pay 30yrs for will destroy your cash flow for most of your productive life and in the end it is not going to make you money it can only save you (SOME) money. People would be better served looking at the 20th century as a fluke for US.
Actually the board game might not pay for anything. In a lot of business the first product is a money loser, especially the ones that have very expensive back end products. They use the first product just to get qualified people onto the list.