Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

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Most of us are living under this financial paradigm: go to school, earn high grades, look for a stable job, earn, save, and then retire. This perspective has been brought about by our educational system, history, and culture; in other words, this is due to way our environment is designed. We are designed to think this way and we live according to this scheme.

Unfortunately, this kind of mindset created legions of individuals who remain financially insecure until they get old and leave this mortal world.

In his book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki shares his remarkable story on how he learned to be financially intelligent with the help of his Rich dad. He tells us about his two dads,
namely, Rich Dad, who was his best friend’s dad; and his Poor Dad, who was actually his real dad. The two dads have remarkable influence on him but the one whose teaching resonated on Robert was his Rich Dad.

It was not easy to learn with his Rich dad for at the very young age of nine, Robert tasted a glimpse of how real life was. Rich dad was a tough teacher for he taught Robert and his best friend how to learn in real life compared to the comfort of lectures, reading and
memorizing inside the schools. At first Robert felt anger towards his Rich dad because it seemed that his teaching method was harsh. Fortunately, with an attitude to learn, Robert was able to understand not just only about the way to get financial freedom but also why
it is important that every one of us learn it properly.

This book was an easy read owing to the skills in writing that the author learned as he traverses his own path in life. Even though the author confessed that he dislike writing for he failed his English subject twice when he was a student, he was able to produce a book with engaging style. The book started with his story then followed by series of chapters about the lessons he learned from his Rich dad such as “The Rich Don’t Work for Money”, “Minding Your Own Business”, “Work to Learn and Don’t Work for Money”, etc. The book is written in a way that would make a lot of sense to anyone who cares about financial freedom. It is easy to understand while the books gives the readers philosophical taught about money as well as practical actions.

However, if you are looking for specific book about what financial instruments should you start investing on, this book is not for you. This book teaches the foundation that one of your greatest assets is your mind. All of the technical details about investing, accounting, marketing, and business law will not make sense if one is still stuck to the old paradigm which keeps the poor getting poorer.

For the skeptics, this book will not make you greedy. In fact, one of the teachings here is to give so that you can receive. Rich here is defined as someone who knows how to become financially independent not those who have lots of money at the expense of other people.

Although this book will not give everything that you need to know to be financially independent, it is detailed enough for someone to understand the reasons why and how to start having the right mindset of being a rich person. The author repeatedly asserts that one has to continuously learn and along the way commit mistakes that will lead to more learning. Fear of making mistakes is one of the greatest obstacles of people aiming to be rich. Even the author himself lose some money and committed mistakes in the past and probably will in the future. They key here is to never stop learning from those mistakes and be humble enough to admit those to yourself.

I would recommend this book to every person who receives compensation income. He or she should start using his income not just to defray his or her expenses but more importantly in building income producing assets early on. People should start believing that they should pay for their future first before paying for other expenses.

Just like me, you will learn a lot from this book. You will get the most benefit from this by doing what you've learn as soon as possible. You don’t have to start big since that is the mistake of most investors. You can start small and then learn how it works.