BOOK REVIEW: Business Of The 21st Century by Robert Kiyosaki (Part 1)

Many must have read this book from the author of the #1 New York Best Seller Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki. This book which was co-written with his wife Kim Kiyosaki and his friend John Fleming, shows you why you need to build your own business and exactly what kind of business.

Although so many books written by foreign authors whose ideas and concepts isn’t implementable in the Nigerian context. This book is with a difference. It talks about financial meltdown which is a global phenomenon which Nigeria especially can relate to.

“The economy is in tatters; your job is in trouble- if you still have a job. And you know what? I’ve been saying it for years. It took a global financial meltdown for most to hear.

But this book isn’t about how or why everything has gone to hell in a hand basket. It’s about why this bad news turns out to be very good news – if you know what to do about it”…excerpt from the book.

Now talking about troubling jobs, we can related to that, with over 40 million people jobless, over 65% being underemployed and with over 80% stuck with a job that’s choking their future.

This is really a troubling time to be job seeker but it’s also a good period to be a business owner.

“In this book, I’m going to show you why you need to build your own business, and exactly what king of business. But this isn’t just about changing the type of business you‘re working with; it’s also about changing you. I can show you how to find what you need to grow the perfect business for you, but for your business to grow, you will have to grow as well.”…excerpt from the book.

In this country there are so many reasons to start your own business, financial freedom, personal excellence, etc, but nothing beats wealth, genuine wealth. Having a job or owning a business, all boils down to having a rich life, where you can have and do thing that makes you happy.

What every human desire, is happiness in every sphere of life. Many jobs pay well yet the employees are still not fulfilled cause they are not happy.

Happiness, this can be the overall effect of what building your our business can do and overlooking all the troubles with unemployment it has its silver lining. One of the questions which time magazine asked Robert Kiyosaki in July 13, 2009 was “Are there opportunities to create new companies in this turbulent economy” and he answered;

“This is the best time. When times are bad is when the real entrepreneurs emerge. Entrepreneurs don’t really care if the market’s up or down. They’re creating better products and better processes. So when somebody says, “oh, there’s less opportunity now,” it’s because they are losers.”

Talking about the losers, these are people without ideas or self discipline, who have been brainwashed by circumstances to think employment is not just normal but it also permanent. They will give anything for that monthly alert, even though there alert are like sigh, when others, the thinkers, are having alert as loud as a mosque call-to-prayer.

I say ‘thinkers’ cause us, Nigerians are a slave of our mindset, and with the level of unemployment and rampant layoffs many are still in queue to fill their space. But the thinkers are worried about what the future holds, soberly evaluating their finance and realizing that if they want to have a secure future they can count on, they are going to have to come up with a plan B, for the thinkers this is a business plan, for a losers this is a better paying job.

It’s all about mindset, people today are hungrier than ever to earn extra money because of that the thinkers are more receptive and more inclined to open their mind to new avenues.

Now here is one place in the book where I find it not synonymous with the Nigerian context. “Here is what the U.S. Chambers of Commerce said in a 2007 report titled Work, Entrepreneur and Opportunity in 21^st century America “Millions of Americans are embracing entrepreneurship by running their own small business.”

“72% of all adult Americans would rather work for themselves than for a job, and 67% think about quitting their jobs regularly or constantly”

Am not an economist, rather is Robert Kiyosaki but Paul Zane Pilzer is. Paul talks about in the book a 180-degree shift in cultural values around the nature of career paths, with the conventional corporate-employees career structure giving way to the entrepreneur path.

“The traditional wisdom in the second half of the 20the century,” says Paul, “was to go school, get a good education, and go to work for a large company. The idea of going into business for yourself was most often regarded as risky. Admirable perhaps, but risky and maybe a little crazy. Today it’s completely the other way around.”

Now what’s the take here in Nigeria? According to the statement above Americans had changed from the traditional wisdom of being job seekers to job creators. That’s what good thinking does, it revolutionizes your mentality, and it breaks the chain of slavery in every form and level.

Ideas, teaching and even environment makes us slaves to ancient ways of life. Until we can change our thinking only then can we change our lives. Re-orientation is very important for change and most especially for growth. These maybe an economically hard times for many but that’s not the bad news, the bad news is that it’s going to get worst, so am just saying, being employed is not a bad thing, but it’s one extremely limited way of generating income.

As they say when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Now that brings about two questions in my mind.

 First question is; Are you will to be tough? if yes , that good, then you want to get going doing what exactly? That’s question two. So find answer in this book “TheBusiness of the 21st Century” by Robert T. Kiyosaki.

Watch out for the second part of this review, where we analysis exactly what kind of business Mr kiyosaki thinks is the business of the 21^st century, why it so or why not, and how it relates to the Nigerian environment.