Why you should read Rich Dad Poor Dad

You should read the book, ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ by Robert Kiyosaki because it teaches you about money and how to use it!

The book was written about 20 years ago and was a first in its time for educating people on how the poor continue to be poor and how the rich seem to always get richer. This is a common theme throughout the book as it explains how the poor and the rich handle their money and the differences between them.

‘The poor work for money, the rich make money work for them’

The title of the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, is a reference to the author’s two father figures. The author’s biological father explained to him the traditional career path - getting a safe and stable long term job to work hard for someone else, so you collect your pay at the end of the week and hope when your old you can retire somewhat comfortably. This became known as the Poor Dad Perspective.

While growing up the author also was close with his friend’s father who turned out to be a type of mentor to him. He became known as Rich Dad. The Rich Dad theory focuses on working for yourself and not for someone else. It emphasises to make money work for you, not the other way around. Making money work for you refers to investing your money in stocks, bonds, real estate etc, so it ‘goes to work’ and ends up returning more money for you – rather than just sitting in the bank or being used to buy general expenses.

Think of each dollar bill in your bank account as an emplyee>                Put your emplyees to work by allocating them to shares and bonds and in time, they will bring you more money.

While reading this book and understanding the above perspective you start to realise the importance of investing. The author also raises the question of assets Vs liabilities, stating:

‘The poor buy liabilities, the rich buy assets’

Liabilities are something that takes money out of your bank account, like a car or a pet. You have to constantly put money into it and likely don’t get any type of financial return. Assets are things like, stocks, bonds and real estate investments – they put money into your bank account. This is another reason why the rich always seem to get richer, while the poor stay where they are. Simple and clear information like this is extremely valuable to the average reader thinking about how to spend their money more wisely.

‘The study debt in US education is about $1.3 trillion!’

The problem with school is that they teach the Poor Dad method. They preach to get a good education so you can go to university and graduate with a degree to get a good stable career. They completely bypass teaching about becoming an entrepreneur, working for yourself, starting up your own business. On top of this, they actually don’t teach you about money! Schools will teach you general maths and calculations, but they completely disregard the importance of investing and having a shares portfolio and how to manage your own personal finances.

‘Failure Inspires Winners – Failure Defeats losers’

In schools, mistakes are discouraged and often the individual is punished for them, but in the real world, mistakes are often essential in development and learning. The great thing about this book is that it gives you a beginner level education of money and finances that you just never got in schools.

A long term problem that a lot of people are facing is struggles with money. In a lot of cases, it’s simply not having enough of it to do the things you want to do. Getting a better job or even a second job is a short term solution to a long term problem. This book raises the alternative, why not get educated on money to better understand how to use it and manage it. Instead of working harder to get more money, you could learn how to better manage your current financial situation and to invest the money you already have to make even more. Therefore, this book is perfect for anyone that struggles with money in general – which I’m guessing is a hell of a lot of people.

 ‘In the real world, it’s not the smart that get ahead, but the bold’

This book reinforces the idea that you don’t have to be super intelligent or skilled in a specific field to get ahead, you just have to be bold enough to take action and small amounts of rich. So many people fail to get ahead because they put themselves down and say they are not good enough. Rather than pursue a career or new job to make more money, first understand how money works.

Entrepreneurs get ahead because they think outside the box. If anyone is thinking about starting their own business or working for themselves, this book is a great introduction to becoming an entrepreneur.

The book is written in simple to understand plain English. It’s ideal for anyone that wants to understand money and finances just a bit better without all the complicated jargon. I would completely recommend this book to everyone as I believe the topic of money is something that is greatly neglected in schools.

After reading this book, I began to expand my knowledge of making money online. If you would like to learn more about how to make money online and what I do, check out my website:

www.myworldwideoffice.com

Have you read the book yourself and what did it do for you? Let me know below!