Rich Dad, Poor Dad is one of the best selling personal finance books of all time for its ability to teach the secrets of wealth building through an interesting narrative read. The book tells the story of the financial lessons a young Kiyosaki learned growing up with the contrast between his own dad who was an employee and the father of his best friend who was a business owner. The lessons contained in this book can be aha moments or eureka moments for those readers never exposed to higher financial thoughts.
This book does a great job filling the gap for young people that never received a proper financial education in school or from their parents. Most people learn only two financial lessons in their early years, got to college and get a good job. The author does a great job showing that this is not the best path for financial success, financial independence, or wealth building. Readers must understand cash flowing assets, business building, and the power of asset ownership if they ever want to escape the rat race.
Here is a summary of ten key lessons from the book:
- Schools train students to be employees not entrepreneurs or investors.
- Working to learn new skills is more important than working to earn a paycheck.
- Assets pay you to own them, debts cost you to own.
- Pay yourself first before you pay your bills.
- A financial business plan is more important than a resume.
- The poor and middle class look for a job, the wealthy create jobs.
- Being broke is temporary for someone with entrepreneurial skills while a poor mindset can be permanent.
- Your financial IQ is your courage, creativity, and financial knowledge that creates skills, assets, and wealth.
- The middle class focuses on school, specialization, job security and retiring with benefits which is not as safe a path as they believe.
- The primary lesson of the book is to learn how make money work for you instead of selling your time for money in a never ending rat race. Book Link