I am going to share the review of the famous book which I recently read – “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. I don’t want to really call it as a book review, rather my intention is that by reading this blog, all readers should have some interest to read this book if not read already and should try changing the attitude towards life.

Rich Dad Poor Dad is a book which inspired me highly or a book which will make us think about what we achieved financially in life by working in an organization for many years. It was really an eye-opener. For a long time I was thinking of reading this book, but for some reason did not get a chance or did not try to read.

Last week, I ordered this book online and I finished reading this in a week time. Yesterday I completed reading this and I lost completely on the thoughts, like, how to be financially intelligent, how to settle financially, which book to read next to gain investment/financial knowledge etc etc. I was least interested in money topic till yesterday, but after reading this book, I am feeling like I lost many years already by being financially illiterate.

The subtitle of the book is “what the rich teach their kids about money that the poor and middle class do not.” It misled me when I saw this in the bookstore few years back. I thought the contents will be emphasizing on some rules/philosophy that rich kids learn from their parents. I did not read the summary though. 😜

In the whole book, the author talks about Money. Generally, People including me feels like talking about money is bad and we may often label the person as greedy when a person talks about money. But in reality, everybody wants to become rich and have a luxury lifestyle, but nobody likes to talk about it. The author says, When we work under an organization, we are constantly in the Rat Race – Go to work, get salary, pay liabilities, salary hike/promotion, buy house/car etc, again liabilities, fear of losing job/ status and the pattern continues. The problem is that after certain years of experience of working, people are just continuing the profession as there is no other option left for us. As all are in this so-called Rat Race, life continues, some may quit by starting up, maybe successful or failure.

Having 15 years of experience in IT industry, if I ask myself, “is my investment produce a second income and in a position to be jobless/ready for retirement?”, the answer is ‘NO’, so is the case with other colleagues too. In the career even if we climb up the ladder and being in the top position also if we don’t know to manage money properly, we will be in the same boat in the future too.

Rich dad in the book says Don’t work for money, instead, let money work for you. By being Financially intelligent, you can make money work for you. This book gave me insight into having an asset which produces income and how to retiring early or how to have a second job even if I am jobless tomorrow. Though I dreamt about becoming an entrepreneur, I never thought about money working for me and I now have a realization that how stupid it is to be financially illiterate.

Being a salaried employee, a certain percentage of the income goes as tax. Whenever I pay tax, there used to be slight pain always and think like why should I give my hard earn salary to Government, but then, again continue to do the same in each year without having much idea on how money works. Till these years what most of us are actually doing is, we work hard for the employer and to the government in the form of tax, and only lastly to the self. The author is not suggesting to quit the day job, but to have a second income in the form of assets by keeping a portion of the income as an investment and let that asset produces another income. We might have had an investment in the form of property, house, etc but equally, we have liabilities too. That’s the point.

Interesting quote from Rich Dad Poor Dad – “Rich people acquire assets. Poor and middle class acquire liabilities which they think are assets. “

Financial intelligence:

The author suggests Financial intelligence is the key to become rich. I truly believe it is true.

To being financially intelligent we have to have a fair understanding of four things.

Accounting/Financial Literacy: Ability to read numbers and evaluate the strength and weakness of any business

Investing: Science and strategies of money making money

Understanding market: The science of supply and demand, and market conditions

The law: Tax advantages and protections

Fear:

Fear is the main obstacle to achieve anything in life. If you learn to overcome fear, you can feel the success. But it’s not that easy as it sounds. One, need to work hard towards overcoming fear. Every individual goes through different kinds of fear in life such as fear of failure, stage fear, fear of losing job, etc. Now you can relate why overcoming fear is difficult.

No Pain, No Gain. As mentioned by the author, if you look back and see how you have learned a new skill in your life, you must have felt little hard in the beginning. Severity varies but its sweet when we overcome.

The author says the main reason for the poor to be poor and middle class to be middle class is the fear of losing money. With this fear, we usually play safe by just saving money, rather than trying money making money. He says everybody including rich has fear of losing money. How we manage that fear matters.

Learn & learn & learn:

we always have to be a constant learner and upgrade our skill to be successful. Do always invest in good seminars and training which helps in acquiring/enhancing a new skill. Manage your asset by hiring highly skilled people which not only helps to increase the asset but also to learn from those people.

The author says, Our education system does not teach how to be financially intelligent, so we must acquire these skills at home/from parents. When you read the book, you can find many similarities with Robert’s poor dad and your dad and can relate easily his point of view.

Book review:

Many critics of the book say the author is questioning our education system. But I completely agree with the author on this. The reason is that I am surrounded by a group of middle-class people and I am pretty sure that these people which includes me lacks financial intelligence. It’s doesn’t mean that all are dump, it is just that we did not learn either from school or from home about financial intelligence. If there was a rich dad like the Author had in his childhood, we would have planned our asset and would have produced some income from these assets.

I have already started reading the book “The Intelligent Investor” by Benjamin Graham, shared by my friend last week. Hoping to increase my skills/ideas on investment ☺️. If this book excites me, you can expect another blog on this book review too. Looking forward to see your comments, that inspires me to write more blogs.