welcome to interviews the show about everyday people with extraordinary stories I'm your host Abigail minky we are on the web at interviews live.com and on Facebook at facebook.com/ inters live my guest today is Keith Cunningham while you may not know his name you have likely heard of rich dad from the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert kosaki Keith is Rich Dad in the sense that the wealth ideas presented in the book are based on a personal finance course that Keith wrote for kosaki Keith helped to create one of the largest cable TV companies in the United States in the 70s and 80s in 1983 though he turned his attention to real estate building a huge portfolio but when the bottom fell out just three years later it crushed him financially as he had personally guaranteed over $100 million in debt Keith filed for bankruptcy in 1991 got divorced lost his sense of self-worth and took 18 months to find himself he has since amassed a new fortune and now helps others to create and run businesses Keith is also author of keys to the Vault lessons from the pros on raising money and igniting your business he has signed two copies stay tuned to learn how you can win one Keith welcome to interviews thank you Abigail glad to be here it's really a pleasure to have you on the show thank you you spent 10 years in the cable industry and you were extremely successful why in 1983 did you switch from cable TV to real estate you know one of the things that I um it's a mistake that I made and it's a mistake that I see a lot of people make is I call it the shiny penny syndrome right when we get really really good at what we do uh or what we know we tend to get a little bored and we start looking around for something that would add some excitement and so I had been in the cable television industry for 10 years uh we had done very very well we were very successful and I got a little bored and what I found in my own life is as well as people that I coach and work with today is that you know boredom H is one of the causes of self- sabotage and when you look at people who are really really good at what they do who are Masters At what they do you find over and over again that they've been able to manage this tendency to stop doing what they're really good at right when they get really good at it and it it starts coming naturally so so I got bored and started looking around for something that would add some excit in real estate was hotter than a pistol at that point so I said okay good we're going to we're going to start doing real estate so give us an idea of how big your portfolio was at its peak well I mean I had well over $100 million of real estate I had uh well over $100 million of personal liability debt um and and you know that that's one of the one of the good things about real estate is that you can borrow a lot of money when times are good one of the bad things about real estate is that they always require your personal guarantee and you know one of the mistakes that I made looking back is that I didn't value my personal guarantee like I should have you know it never dawned on me that real estate values could fall as precipitously and as quickly as they did describe exactly what did happen to your portfolio when the real estate market just crashed well you know people people I've heard somebody say one time history may not repeat it itself but it sure does rhyme and you know what what H what's happened recently over the last two or three years with the economy and and credit the credit markets is is not dissimilar to what happened in the late uh 1980s you know specifically there was an abundance of easy money there was an abundance of credit and when there's an abundance of credit people start doing stupid things and and you know they start believing that that it's always gone up before it's going up now I need to participate in this you know was that your mindset that's it that's it did you feel Invincible you know what I I was beyond Invincible I was close to Invisible H you know one of the problems with I heard uh Bill Gates said one time that the problem with success is that it lulls smart people into believing they know what they're doing and and there's a lot of Truth to that you know I I was I I was not only Invincible I started smoking my own exhaust you know I started thinking I was really really good at what I was doing and and the problem was you know the market allowed me to feel like I I knew what I was doing and I did know what I was doing but you know when when when you start letting your ego and emotions run your business and investing decisions it's usually a prescription for disaster and that's what happened to me Keith in retrospect was it something you could could have seen coming and done something about absolutely no question about it ju just like the people who were paying attention over the last three or four years um in this most recent economic debacle anybody that was paying attention anybody that was looking at the fundamentals knew that this could not continue and I'll tell you something I I learned the lesson so well in the 1980s that I started liquidating uh real estate and assets that were tied to debt in 19 uh9 sorry in 2006 so a full year or 18 months before this mess started that we're currently dealing with I was busy battening down the hatches because I said I've I've read this book I've seen this story I've watched this movie and this is going to get ugly well congratulations on learning your lessons from the last go round you spent several years trying to to pay everyone back and ultimately you had to file bankruptcy how did you feel I mean that must have been a really cruddy time it was the worst it it was the worst possible time of my life the interesting part is that looking back on it today is the best thing that could have ever happened to me uh somebody told me one time that that I'm going to have good times I'm I'm going to have bad bad times I'm just not going to know which is which when it's happening and there's a lot of Truth to that and you know I I look at at some of the best times of my life and it turned out those were actually not very good and some of the worst times of my life turned out to be the best thing that could happen the the problem for me is I think like a lot of people and it doesn't matter whether you lose you know 100 million or you lose 10,000 when you've lost it all you've lost it all you're at bottom and and the problem for me really was that I had my net worth and my selfworth entwined and so anytime you know and this a lesson I had to learn the hard way is that anytime you have you know your identity connected to something external to yourself anytime that that who you are is dependent upon something in the environment when the environment changes which is inevitable it's inevitable that the environment is going to change somebody told me that that the only constant is change and people today who are experiencing a change where they've lost a significant amount or lost everything I promise you they're going through a process of trying to re-calibrate who they are in light of the fact that they've lost you know had had a loss Keith I know you got divorced during this period was the stress of the financial woes like just too much for your marriage to handle well you know the reality was I was a lousy husband uh I mean that's the truth uh certainly you know economic stress was was you know added fuel to the fire but when you boil it down I didn't do a very good job of being a a good husband or a good dad uh you know I look at myself you know at that particular time and one half of me look like Arnold Schwarzenegger and the other half of me look like PeeWee Herman and you know the Arnold Schwarzenegger half is the business half I had spent 20 years at that point I was 40 years old when that happened uh in 1990 and you know I I I'd spent the prior 20 years doing nothing except focusing on how do I become a successful wealthy Rich business owner as opposed to you know how do I become a great father and a great husband and a great human being so I I very much had my my uh my thought process was that we were human doings and not human beings and that's a mistake Keith you took an 18-month sabatical after your bankruptcy first off you know how could you afford to do that I mean just how broke were you at that point well I was broke I mean I I had lost everything you know Texas has some very favorable bankruptcy laws in comparison with a lot of other places and in Texas at the time you could you could keep your house you could keep a couple cars um you know I had prepared for bankruptcy so that I had everything paid off and it's remarkable how little money it takes to really live when you don't have any debt and so you know I didn't have credit card debt I didn't have a you know a lot of of my my big problem was I I just owed too much on my real estate I you know I I thought I had real estate that was worth several hundred million dollars and in reality it turned out to be worth you know 25% of that and so you know at one time I was probably 4 or $50 million upside down I owed that much more than what the what the property was worth and and you know so it it reminds me of of something I heard WC Fields say one time I sure hope I break even on this deal I really need the money and and you know that's kind of the way I felt so you know it it it at the time that that happened I had zero debt everything was paid for and it it really don't need very much to live um when when everything is debt free what did you do during those 18 months well I grew a ponytail I got my ear pierced um I I began a very intense um time I didn't know that it was a sabatical I didn't know that it was going to last 18 months all I knew is that I was was in severe pain um I mean the pain at one point was so severe that that and I don't talk about this a lot but but at one point I started looking for a permanent solution to a tempor temporary problem really you considered suicide I did and I mean my world as I knew it had collapsed uh the environment um who I thought I was my identity was totally eradicated and and and I had I had nothing I had to start over and the only way I knew to do that was um was to begin reading some of the Masters of either philosophy or psychology or Theology and I kind who was meaningful to you oh gosh probably the most meaningful uh book I've ever read in my life is called a course and miracles I've heard of this book so it's interesting because I would say that's sort of an Ary Fairy book for like a big Macho Texan right you know what I don't know that it's Airy fairy um for me it saved my life uh you know if somebody said is it is is there some theology some psychology some philosophy in that book yeah but you know what the reality is that book gave me a different way of thinking it gave me a way to reframe my my thoughts and that's really what all of the reading and all the studying and all the meditating and the world's religions all of the work that I did during that 18 months was simply a mechanism to allow me to reframe my thoughts so that I could get back on top and regain my confidence really that's what that 18 months was about is regaining my confidence and resetting the dial for Keith so how did that book and other things that you read like how did it do that for you and then what was the reframing well you know somebody somebody there there's a lot of U there's a lot of of psychologies that says there's a sequence and the sequence of events that happens to all of us is that an event happens we give that event meaning based on that meaning some emotion is produced based on that emotion we take we have some behavior and as a result of the behavior there's some Consequence the key to that sequence is is getting control of the meaning what does it really mean and so the question that I began asking myself is not how am I going to win this game the money game The Life Game The Life Game the money game because that was the question I kept asking myself for years and years you know for 20 years I'd ask myself the question how do I win this game yeah it turns out that's a pretty sorry question I I'm not going to win this game the only question and the the question that I began asking myself uh during the sabatical the question I began asking myself was how am I going to play the second half not how do I win the game I was studying with a with a a guru a very very very wise man uh during this time and this guy looked at me and said probably the singularly most profound thing that I've ever heard in my life in fact for the last 20 years there has not been one day that's gone by that I didn't didn't reconnect with this one thought and this one thought was this hell on Earth would be to meet the man you could have been and that one thought has driven me my entire life fact when I talk about it I literally get chills and the reason is because I think what most of us are trying to do is to succeed instead of be fulfilled and to me there's a significant difference between success and fulfillment and fulfillment has a whole lot to do with how do I become the best me that I possibly can be how do I stop comparing myself to everybody else and simply simply become a master at what I know and who I am who was that Guru his name was Guru Dava he is a Hindu Guru and uh he's one of the Masters that I started with studied with over that 18month time period okay Keith we're gonna go ahead and take a break but folks please stay tuned because after the break I will let you know how you can win a copy of Keith's book keys to the Vault welcome back to interviews my guest today is Keith Cunningham who is better known as Rich Dad from Rich Dad Poor Dad and he is sharing with us his riches to rags to riches tale true life tale he has written a book called keys to the Vault lessons from the pros on raising money and igniting your business and he has been so gracious as to sign two copies that we can give away so if you are interested in winning one of these books this is what you have to do you have a choice you can go on Facebook and you can become a fan if you have not already done so but you have to become the 500th fan and the Facebook page is interviews live alternatively you can go to Twitter and again follow interviews live and retweet my latest tweet the winner will be selected randomly from the retweeters I'll give you that information again right at the end of the show all right Keith back to you what finally sort of got you out of that 18 months and back into business well ultimately it was a matter of healing uh it was a matter of getting past the pain of getting past the shame of making a mistake uh one of the things that I did um is I lived in the West Lake area of of Austin uh at that time and I was so afraid that that people were going to find out what had happened to me that I decided to confront that headon I uh went and stood at the intersection of Mopac and bave road from 7:00 in the morning until 7:00 at night uh I had a little sign and a Little Tink Cup and the sign said played my cards wrong and so to me the the things that helped me uh get past the the the mistakes that I made was was did you really do that absolutely in fact I made $20 did I did I needed the money too did you run into people that that absolutely all day long people my friends are going past me honking their horn and and waving and and they're laughing and the reality is you know the thing that causes that for me the thing that has caused me the most pain in my life are the things that I resist and so every time I find myself in a resistance kind of mode the question is how do I how do I embrace instead of resist the thing that is pushing on me and when I do that it tends to release and so you know it required 18 months I mean I I did I did an enormous amount of therapy with a with a guy here in town that that really helped me and and um you know did enormous amounts of reading my job for 18 months was to rebuild Keith and and it finally got to the point where my confidence and my self-worth and my self-esteem was was back to the point where I could gingerly tiptoe back into the to the business world and one of the things that I knew is that you know I had tremendous skills and tools uh from a business perspective the problem was I did I wouldn't I hadn't used them um like I should have in my real estate uh career so this time around I said I'm going to make sure that I pay attention and and use my brain and not my glands you know one of the things that that I believe uh is true is that business and investing is an intellectual Sport and every time I use my emotions in my gut and my glands in my investing in my in my businesses it always winds up being a mistake so skills and tools and intellect are critical to business and investing so how did you actually get started like what was the first thing you did well I became a turnaround guy um you know I had done a lot I I'd been a doctor on myself unfortunately the patient died but but I but I had been you know I knew a lot about business I knew a lot about turnarounds and and I had uh several opportunities once I finally decided to re-enter the the business world to go in and be the the CEO and the president of of businesses that were in trouble and I did the Lee aoka uh scenario where they paid me a dollar a year uh in salary but they gave me a pretty good siiz chunk of the company and and if the business worked then you know we all got well and if the business didn't work it cost him a buck okay cuz I was going to say that seems pretty risky to go with the guy who lost $100 million the people that the people that that knew me knew that I had just paid a very very high price for an education uh you know to me there's nothing wrong with making a mistake the question is can you learn from the mistake um most people that I know um bury their mistakes they don't want anybody to know about them and as a result of trying to hide the mistake they never get the lesson I I'm in favor of having 20 years worth of experience not one year's worth of experience 20 times so the key to me is not whether or not I made a mistake the key to me is whether or not I make the same mistake more than once and I guarantee you I will never ever make those mistakes again that I made in the 1980s it was just simply too painful Keith tell us what you're doing now well today we own uh Sandy and I my wife and I own a small little handful of businesses um some of them are local some of them are not um we we successfully rebuilt our net worth um so that meaning that so what what is your net worth it it's enough so that I don't need to work um I mean is it is it 100 million is it more than 100 million it's enough so that I don't need to work uh it's a great question but but you know the good news is we're not running for public office and so the disclosure laws for us are different if I was running for governor uh which I would never do I don't think I could ever get elected dog catcher um but but today we own a collection of businesses we we have a portfolio of Investments that we manage we have a little bit of real estate uh a little a little bit little bit of real estate which we owe nothing on uh we learn that lesson um you know real estate raw land eats three meals a day and so you got to be very careful with real estate real EST St can be a great investment as long as there isn't too much leverage and so we're very cautious on that front uh in addition to our businesses uh we split our time between running our businesses and what you know about 20 years ago I got interested in teaching and and about 10 years ago Sandy and I started creating something called keys to the vault which is a business school for business owners and people who want to be business owners and we've developed a bunch of uh whole whole uh different pieces of curriculum that that are different courses that I teach and I teach business owners literally all over the world um so we do a tremendous amount of traveling to Australia and Singapore and and Europe and and and South America literally all over the world uh is where we teach our courses we only have about a minute or two what are like one or two just nuggets of wisdom that you could convey to people who are listening entrepreneurs to benefit from what you've learned here are a couple lessons emotions when mixed with umbral greed produce economic disasters um how you run your business during good times is the only true predictor of how your business will cope with bad times uh here's here's one more a lack of rules and discipline caused every mistake I ever made uh here's one more um all my problems started out as a good idea and and to me that one is very powerful you know that that that nobody gets up in the morning and tries to to run their life with the second or best third ideas that they can come up with everybody is using their best thinking and you know one of the things that I found for me is that having a coach having an advisor having a having somebody around me to watch me swing is critical because otherwise I wind up executing on lots of good ideas that ultimately wind up becoming economic disasters all right Keith thank you so much folks again want to let you know how you can win one of Keith's books signed books keys to the Vault on Facebook become the 500th fan and you go to interviews live on Facebook or on Twitter follow interviews live and retweet my latest post the winner will be selected randomly from among those retweeters Keith that is a wonderful story that you shared with us thank you so much thank you Abigail that was Keith Cunningham you can learn more about him and the courses he offers at keys tothe vault.com this show is recorded live at Co-op radio 91.7 FM Austin thank you to Lisa sheps for engineering Bill guic and Jared Hardy for videography and Mark Goldsmith and Angela Felder for promotions to stay up to date with interviews become a fan on Facebook at facebook.com/ inters live that's i n Neer views live to hear past shows please go to interviews live.com you are listening to Koop Hornsby Austin 91.7 FM stay tuned for reflections of community outreach which is up next