About the book
Author : Robert T. Kiyosaki
Genre : Self Help
Pages : 336
Published : 1997
Goodreads : 4.1 / 5
Summary of Content
“The poor and the middle class work for money. The rich have money work for them.”
This is from Lesson 1 of Rich Dad And Poor Dad, and probably the single best quote that explains everything this book is trying to convey. Author Robert T. Kiyosaki gives invaluable advice on money, the importance of education and financial literacy, and how we should see money and make it work for us instead of spending all our life working for it.
The book starts off with the Author saying he has two dads, a Rich Dad and a Poor Dad. The Rich Dad never finished eighth grade while the poor dad was highly educated with a Ph.D. But the rich dad went to become the richest man in Hawaii while the educated dad struggled financially throughout his life. The entire book is based on how his two dads, or in contrast how the rich and poor view money and why there exists a social hierarchy in the first place
The book is divided into six lessons, which spans over ten chapters. These lessons are :
1) The Rich Don’t Work For Money
2) Why teach Financial Literacy?
3) Mind your own business
4) The History and Power of Corporations
5) The Rich Invent money
6) Work to learn, Don’t work for money
The book has some great advice like the importance of owning assets and not liabilities, the importance of education, the obstacles that we might face along the way and how to get past them and at the end some steps to get started.
Here are some inspiring quotes I found throughout the book :
“Rich people acquire assets. The poor and middle class acquire liabilities, but they think they are assets”
“Education is more valuable than money in the long run”
“It’s what in your head that determines what’s in your hands“
My Thoughts
This book really opened my eyes on how I viewed money and made me ask questions that I didn’t really know I could ask. I’m an Engineering major and have zero financial IQ because I was never taught any of this in my school. I completely agree with the Author’s complaint about our educational system being insufficient in teaches us this. But since reading this book I have taken it upon myself to educate myself on the topic of finance, accounting and how I can make money work for me. I’ve also gained interest into investing and started learning about the stock market. This is, in my opinion, a great book if you want to start learning about investing, as it is a great introduction on how to view money and changing your mindset.
One gripe I have with the book is that the Author has been redundant in some parts of the book, explaining the same concept over and over again.
Lesson 3 is probably the chapter where I finally understood how I can implement all this into my own life. Up until then I was thinking, “Well I’m currently doing my Engineering degree, what do I do now?” but when the Author said “There is a difference between your profession and your business” , I finally got it. You can have your day job (your profession) until your business is up and running (your assets). Also, he goes into how he ran his business while having a profession and was able to retire at the age of 47, which was inspiring. I would recommend this book to everyone, even if you don’t take action from this book, it provides a perspective on money that I personally did not get from my parents or from my education system.
