Book Reviews:
Title: Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Authors: Robert Kiyosaki with Sharon Lecher
Publisher: Warner Books, 1998
You may have already read this book or may be a late discoverer like myself. I just read it. I know, shame on me, but, I made up for it – I devoured it in 2 sittings as I just couldn’t tear myself away. It’s a bestseller for that reason It’s an enlightening address to a major concern for a lot of people in the current belt tightened, laid off and downsized economic climate we face today.
Robert, a self made millionaire-turned teacher, has written a textbook on money. What it is and how to create it.
At the beginning of his education on money from his friend’s father, his “Rich Dad,” he came very close to the truth – that money is made. He found out at 9 years old, in a slightly funny way that he and his buddy’s attempts to make lead nickels was not quite the correct way to “make money.”
But according to Robert, they were close. Money is an idea.
A 9 year old accused of counterfeiting? Yep, that’s the young and ambitious Robert and his friend, Mike. Their subsequent first and successful attempt at entrepreneurship was a comic book library, created out of the challenge given to them by his “Rich Dad.” Don’t work for money, work to learn. Make money work for you.
This, in a sentence is the start of a career of leaning how to use money to create money, the secret that the rich teach their kids.
He teaches straightforward lessons such as: the rich buy assets and the poor and middle class buy liabilities. They poor stay poor because they don’t know what an asset is. Astounding in their simplicity, but profoundly missed by the masses. Why? Robert tells why – schools don’t teach students about money. The real deal is hidden and kept a close secret by design.
The difference between the poor and middle class versus the rich were repeated to him over and over by his Rich Dad (his best friend’s father), while his real father (his Poor Dad), suffered the penalties of not knowing how money worked.
This is Robert’s mission in this book; to remedy the lack of real life education on what money actually is, how to manage it and channel it to work for you. He has donned the hat of abolitionist – this is elementary instruction on how to prevent becoming a slave to money. If you don’t know and practice these simple secrets you are, yes, just a slave.
Al, Components of Success
