The Lessons I Learned From ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’
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If I’d never read ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ by Robert Kiyosaki, my outlook on life would be so different. I’d still believe that the job I have should go to support my lifestyle, and that any budgeting I do should be for the purchase of my next toy, like a jet-ski or a motorbike. No way, not me, not now… here’s why.
I’d never been much of a finance or business oriented person – I was always more interested in history. But what I know now wasn’t really taught in schools anyway. Schools teach kids to be workers – it’s blunt but it’s absolutely true. The school system is not designed to make us all comfortably well off. It’s designed to benefit rich industrialists. Having a job is not freedom, it’s not certainty, it most likely won’t make you wealthy, and odds are it won’t help you fulfill your dreams for the future.
These sort of ideas are promoted by Robert Kiyosaki in ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’, and they really speak to me. He tells the story of having been brought up with two father figures giving him conflicting advice. The two also came from different backgrounds, and were going different places. The examples used in the book illustrate Kiyosaki’s points perfectly. It’s such a well written, well rounded text, it should be mandatory reading in all schools.
Kiyosaki turns concepts of finance and assets upside down. Let me give you an example. Kiyosaki believes- and I do too now that I’ve read his explanation – that the house you live in is not an asset, it’s a liability. The conventional thought is that your home is something that features large on the assets column, but Kiyosaki disagrees. This is because of the amount of money you pay for it.
Let’s say for example that your home is worth $300,000. Your mortgage on the home… well what you pay per week will change depending on your financial institution. But over a 30 year loan term you’ll end up paying almost $600,000 for your $300,000 home. And that doesn’t even take rates, maintenance, repairs and other ongoing costs into account.
There are legitimate ways to make that gloom and doom scenario much brighter – and they’re legal.
Similarly with the stock market: the general consensus is that you need serious cash outlay to be a big player on the stock market – well let me tell you now that’s just not true. You’re not looking in the right place, and I’m not talking hot stock tips here. There are tried and true ways of making ongoing income from the stock market that don’t involve outlaying large amounts of money.
That’s all legal too – and practically anyone can do it.
The thing that astounds me about Robert Kiyosaki’s book is that the ideas and concepts are explained so plainly, and the most complex of notions is clearly laid out for interested persons or all levels of investment knowledge to be able to understand. The ideas he espouses are easily transferable to the real world you live in. Don’t waste another minute of your life. This book is right up there with Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”.
