A few christmases ago, I was gifted 2 books: Rich Dad Poor Dad and The Richest Man in Babylon. Rich Dad Poor Dad had a huge impact on me so I thought I would share my thoughts.
Rich Dad Poor Dad is a book by Robert Kiyosaki. To give a quick summary of the book: Rich Dad Poor Dad tells the story of a boy with 2 fathers one rich and one poor. His Rich Dad is his friends father. Both were very different when it came to dealing with finances. The book says we let two main emotions dominate our decisions: fear and greed which is why we stick to ‘go to school, go to college, get a job, play it safe’.
An example which is found at fourmintutebooks.com:
‘when you get a raise at your job, a wise choice would be to invest the extra money in something that builds wealth like stocks or bonds, which has medium to high risk, but also a very high reward. Maybe you find a good fund with a 60% chance to double your money within a year, but a 40% chance of losing it all. However, most likely your fear of losing the money altogether will keep you from doing so.
But when your greed takes over, you might then spend the extra money on an improved lifestyle, like buying a car, and the payments eat up the money – this way you’re guaranteed to lose 100%. This already gives you a glimpse of how important it is to educate yourself financially. Since we receive no financial education in school or college, sadly, this is entirely up to you.’
Key ideas from the book: ‘Rich people make money work for them’ , ‘The single most powerful asset we all have is our mind’, ‘Financial aptitude is what you do with money once you make it, how you keep people from taking it from you, how to keep it longer, and how you make money work hard for you.’
The book made an extremely big impact on me. RDPD has had some criticism and not everyone has loved it, however the book allowed me to start asking questions about certain things, motivated me to learn more about finance and I learnt a lot from simply reading the book. I’ve read the book many times and highlighted the key points I want to remember.
I have always had a great love for the world of finance and really enjoy learning more about it. From the book, I learnt about stocks, shares and how I can utilise them. It would be interesting to talk about exploring the stock market.
I learnt so much from reading the book and doing further research so I was very confused as to why we never learnt these things at school. As my interest increased, I continued to learn more and began doing things like presenting PowerPoints on what I had learnt to my class. The book really motivated me to chase success. I would also be interested in talking about what success means to me at this moment in time.
My next read is The Richest Man in Babylon as my mum also said that book had a similar effect on her.
Mutsa Pearl 