One weekend can make you a millionaire-- seriously

Ninety minutes into a recent speech on his life and how he lives it, Robert Kiyosaki called a break. Except it wasn’t a break because Kiyosaki hates breaks. He asked his listeners to review with their neighbors what they had learned so far. Mitch, a big fan of Kiyosaki and Rich Dad books, said that for him, “The key for me is: Don’t say ‘can’t;’ say ‘can.’ I’ve heard it before, but I can’t hear it enough.” Which works because Kiyosaki can’t say it enough.

Kiyosaki is the fabulously successful author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and a shopping bag full of sequels. His speech to Mitch and about 400 of his fellow members of the New York City Cashflow Club was a warm-up of sorts. Two days later, Kiyosaki would arrive at Manhattan’s Javits Center, where a crowd of nearly 50,000 would mass for the Learning Annex Real Estate Wealth Expo. There made headlines drawing a $1.5 million fee for a one-hour speech. But if Trump was the star of the show, Kiyosaki was the lollapalooza’s workhorse, appearing three times over the course of the weekend, the last time to introduce the Donald.

Kiyosaki has transcended real estate guru status. He has become an all-purpose dispenser of wisdom. In a nutshell that wisdom is: The rich are different because they think different. Folks like his “poor dad,” a school administrator, may work hard and earn a good salary, but are perennially broke. His “rich dad,” actually the father of a friend, was unschooled, but amassed enough real estate to become one of the richest men in Hawaii. Poor folks say, “I can’t afford it.” The rich decide what they want, tie it up, and then figure out how to pay for it.

This is the lesson he taught the members of the Cashflow Club—a group devoted to Kiyosaki’s Cashflow 101 board game, which he says will transform your mindset in just a few sessions. He preached the same sermon to a crowd of 5,000 at the Real Estate Wealth Expo, many of whom were hard core Kiyosaki fans as well They’d heard it before, but they loved hearing it again.

Entering the Real Estate Wealth Expo was like walking into the vortex of the real estate bubble and visiting the seeds of the bust at the same time. With Trump drawing the masses, Learning Annex CEO Bill Zanker fielded an undercard that included legendary success coach Tony Robbins, hypnotist and “master of persuasion” Marshall Sylver, and all manner of real estate expert. The experts covered diverse specialties, everything from buying real estate cheap at probate, to buying at real estate cheap at auctions, to buying real estate cheap and flipping it quick. Then there were generalists like Robert Shemin, whose seminar was entitled simply and directly, “How to Be a Millionaire Real Estate Investor,” though in fairness pretty much every speaker was teaching that one.

Downstairs was an overflow room, where the big stars appeared on big screens, and smaller rooms for lesser lights. These were flanked by nearly a hundred exhibitors selling real estate, financing, services and still more advice. Developers from sunny climes like Florida and Las Vegas pedaled pre-construction condos. The condos were easily financed and ripe for flipping, one developer told me, because they were priced below market and the market was sure to rise since fresh retirees were arriving daily and bidding it up. It turned out finding below-market real estate was easier than I thought as here it was looking for me.

The gurus explained that there is plenty of property everywhere available from “motivated sellers” at “below-market” prices. That the gurus were surrounded by thousands of motivated buyers, representing millions more who had already bid up property prices seemed not to register. A good guru stays on message. “We do not buy retail,” intoned Scott Scheel, a specialist in commercial properties. “Do you think Donald Trump, buys retail?” he asked, invoking the man himself.

The key was finding it soon and selling it fast, and that could be done by learning a few “secrets.” Some of the secrets were aired to the thousands in the Javits Center. But the good guru withholds just enough to sell pricy courses a few weeks hence. There, in the company of just a few hundred, the more secret secrets would come to light.

Scheel for instance offered a course valued at $10,476, and a bargain at that. But then he priced it well below market himself-- at $1497 to the first 200 to sign up. At first, there were few takers. But as he moved to the back of the room, braying his pitch, he was joined by a few, and then man, an unruly mob clamoring for the bonus available to those at the front of the line.

If Scheel and folks like Ron (“How to Quick Turn Real Estate in NY with No Money Credit or Risk”) LeGrand were infomercials for themselves, Kiyosaki mastered the soft sell. While he punctuated his speech with examples drawn from his various books and lessons from his board game, he didn’t scream it. Still, pupils were drawn to his exhibit booth, which did a brisk business in books and CDs by Kiyosaki and by advisors to Kiyosaki, as well as in the cash flow game, which was selling for $175.

Though it’s easy to denigrate self-help authors in general and the Learning Annex in particular, finding a dissatisfied customer at the expo was like looking for an atheist at a revival meeting. Part of the reason: despite the grandiose claims of the gurus, expectations of the acolytes are generally modest.

Fans—and they were everywhere—were vague about their desires, but certain they’d been met. Michael Bressler, who works “in commodities” said, “He’s probably the only person who puts it in a simple message,” and added, “I look at assets the way he looks at assets. He’s just amazing.” Marie Menerville, a real estate agent and investor, said simply, “All his books are very informative, very motivational.” Many fans said reading Kiyosaki and playing his board game did indeed spur them to take control of their financial lives.

Although his message goes beyond real estate, most of his wealth, he says, is from property. Given his propensity, it’s natural to ask him whether real estate prices are at bubble levels. “Absolutely,” he told me, going so far as to compare the U.S. today to Weimar Germany. But with a bust imminent, his wife Kim advised, it’s more important than ever to separate good real estate deals from the bad.

How to know the difference? One way is to read a book just written by his own real estate advisor, Ken McElroy, and published in the Rich Dad series, or he can listen to Kim, who spoke on “How to Spot a Good Deal from a Bad Deal.”

Though Kiyosaki seeks his counsel in-house, the ordinary gurus do seem to learn from each other. LeGrand cited the wisdom of Sylver. Probate specialist Mark Gonsalves referred repeatedly to Kiyosaki. Everyone involved cited the example of Trump and the word of Robbins to the effect that you must “take action” especially with regard to signing on for additional seminars.

Only Trump himself refused to play the game. Not to denigrate the speakers who came before him, but “it’s all about instinct,” Trump said. His instincts, for instance, led to “The Apprentice” and success after success. He also advised the aspirants to be nice to their bankers so they won’t screw you. But if they (or anyone) do screw you, “You screw them back ten times harder.” Do what you love, stay focused and never quit, he said. Finally, “Be lucky,” he advised. The crowd stood and cheered for the man who Kiyosaki called “the world’s rich dad.”

On the way out, one man who would be Trump bellowing into his cell phone, reviewing the billionaire bromides. The man paused to listen. Then he said: “Sure I’ve heard it before, but it’s good to hear it from another perspective.”