035: Surgical Investing with Tom Burns!

The elegance of Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad is in its simplicity. You invest for cash flow. An asset is something that puts money in your pocket while a liability is something that takes money out of your pocket.

That simplicity was frowned upon by Kiyosaki’s critics when the book came out. Financial critics found nothing useful in his book and felt that it was actually an over-simplification of the investing process.

There was one major problem with that critique of Kiyosaki’s book. People had been investing for cash flow for years before Robert Kiyosaki was even born. Real asset investing predates stocks, bonds, and mutual funds by a long shot. In fact, my own father was investing for cashflow via single family homes and duplexes shortly after he came to this country as an immigrant in 1967 and he certainly didn’t invent the concept.

Dr. Tom Burns is another guy who was investing for cash flow before Kiyosaki’s work. He was finishing orthopedic surgery training in the early 90s when he realized that, despite loving his profession, his profession was being attacked by HMOs and other external forces and that reimbursement would likely suffer over the course of his career. He was right. So after training, he began investing in real estate.

Tom is an interesting guy. In fact, he was one of the first to even read Rich Dad Poor Dad and is even acknowledged in the second edition of Kiyosaki’s classic (for more on that, listen to the episode).

If I have not been able to do so with my own track record, Tom will hopefully reassure you that investing in real assets that cashflow is, indeed, the path to enduring wealth. Listen to this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast to hear about his exciting journey over the last two decades.

Enjoy the show.