6 ms·

I disagree.. the most important message in the book is that business and entrepreneurship is the path to success, NOT being an employee and staying in the rat r

by zavulon 15y ago

I disagree.. the most important message in the book is that business and entrepreneurship is the path to success, NOT being an employee and staying in the rat race. While it may be common sense to someone who's been in business for a while, or read a lot of similar literature, it's far from obvious to most people. I'm not ashamed to say Rich Dad Poor Dad has been one of the most influential books I've read in my life. At 20, I had very little idea about business - I thought my path was clear: graduate with a degree, get a job, work up corporate ladder, etc. Reading this book was completely mind-blowing and eye-opening. Yes, most of the advice is trivial, as I look at it now.. But there's certainly great value in the book - business vs "rat race", building assets vs liabilities, learning to sell, active vs passive income, what you can't afford your business can, value of financial literacy, and much more. But most importantly this: you can very rarely get rich working for someone else.

dkarl 15y ago
Sounds more like inspiration and self-help than personal finance. You could point to any number of career paths and say, "This is a well-established route to wealth, and if you work very very hard and manage your money well, you can become wealthy this way." For example, there are high-paying specialties in law and medicine where the rat race really does lead to wealth. You have to outcompete 95% of the people in your field to become wealthy, but the same thing is true of entrepreneurship.
- firichapo 15y ago
  It is more about self-help that anything else, and the people who swear by it use it as an argument of why it is such a crappy personal finance book. But then they promote it as a personal finance book. Nice loop there.
huxley 15y ago
"the most important message in the book is that business and entrepreneurship is the path to success" No, it may be one of the best paths to wealth and independence --unless you're born into wealth already -- but it's not necessarily a path to success. My parents worked themselves to the bone in business, were repeatedly screwed by business partners and banks. It didn't give them one bit of gratification. My mother went back to university and got into not-for-profit microcredit and was reborn as a happy person. My dad spent time with his kids and neighbours, when he passed away he had three times as many people come to the funeral as we had space for. Entrepreneurship has a lot going for it, but it is very hard and given the barriers that can be thrown in your face, it can be just another rat-race for lots of people.
- jhamburger 15y ago
  I think history tends to be written by the winners when it comes to entrepreneurship. It's a lot harder- and a lot more luck involved- than many would admit.
  - jisaacstone 15y ago
    I think the problem is not the failure to admit - most entrepreneurs would admit the struggle with honesty. It is more like an availability heuristic - success stories make the news, failures usually do not, and so many people have no idea what the success rate is.
  - SkyMarshal 15y ago
    Survivorship bias and narrative fallacy pervade almost everything, it seems.
    - moonchrome 15y ago
      Not necessarily. Only a very naive entrepreneur would fall for this and they would be sorted out rather quick. People fail or know/realize the huge amount of uncertainty and still choose to do startups. Different people have different levels of risk aversion and there is no common goal/value system.
    - AutoCorrect 15y ago
      in the long run, we're all dead - so better we go ahead and die now?
  - rmgraham 15y ago
    It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure all of his books point out that 9/10 attempts result in failure; the trick being to see the failure early enough to recover and move onto the next attempt before it is too late.
    - paulhauggis 15y ago
      Exactly! You need to fail fast and keep tweaking your idea until it becomes a success. You also can't be married to one single idea. Many people have a problem with this.
brador 15y ago
"what you can't afford your business can" Any more details on what this one means?
- carguy1983 15y ago
  I suspect it's referring to losing a job (a very big deal to most people) vs. losing a customer (not a very big deal to most well-run businesses). Same with losing any resource that is concentrated in one supplier as an individual but spread out among multiple sources in a business. Could be cash flow/income or could be the loss of any number of real or financial or relationship assets that a diversified business inherently protects against.
- ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
  Tax breaks. A surprisingly large portion of the book is in praise (what's the opposite of a screed?) of having a company you control pay for your meals, car, and house so you avoid personal income tax.
  - aculver 15y ago
    Anyone familiar with this able to give a quick overview of the legality of this? I've looked into this before and it sounded to me like doing this too much (e.g. all your meals?) is dishonest and/or illegal.
    - spqr 15y ago
      One common method to convert business money to personal money is to personally buy the building your company is in and have your company rent it from you. You're given significant latitude to set the rent
    - Czarnian 15y ago
      It's legal until you get audited. Then, depending on the quality of your attorneys and accountants, it may still be legal.
ThomPete 15y ago
I think you are confusing your success with the books ability to help you. I am pretty sure the number of people who read the book dwarfs the number of people who actually are successful of those readers.
- gm 15y ago
  What you say may be true, but it's no indicator (at all) of a weakness or invalidity in the book's message. Just look at any book that advocates healthy eating as a way to lose weight and be healthy. That's why the saying "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" exists.
  - ThomPete 15y ago
    Not that I want to defend any kind of selfhelp book but when it comes to loosing weight you are wrong. Those two are by no metrics the same. One of them gives you step by step advice (eat this apple, eat this brocoli don't eat fat) things you can act directly on and that can be measured the direct effect of. If you follow the advice in most of these books you will loose weight. There is no external factors involved. With RDPD the external factors are extreme. Actually following the advice of the book wont make you rich. Following a diet will make you slimmer.
jarrett 15y ago
"But there's certainly great value in the book"--I don't think there is. Here's why I don't think Kiyosaki offers anything useful in the categories of knowledge you've identified: - "business vs 'rat race'": As others have pointed out, business is certainly not better than the rat race for everyone, or even most people. Based on every study I've ever seen, the reality seems to be that starting a business is only appropriate or beneficial for a small subset of the population. I.e. people with certain unique skillsets, a high tolerance for risk, and boatloads of time to invest. - "building assets vs liabilities": In other words "make lots of money, and try not to borrow too much." Well, duh. Anyone who would even think to buy a personal finance book can probably appreciate that income is desirable and debt undesirable. They don't need Kiyosaki's help with that. - "learning to sell": I don't think Kiyosaki offers anything close to a practical guide on improving your sales skills. - "active vs passive income": Passive income is not a realistic goal for the vast majority of people. Even if you found a successful business, chances are, you will continue to invest large amounts of effort to keep it running profitably. You pretty much have to win the startup lottery if you want passive income. As the term "startup lottery" implies, it's a pretty rare occurrence in the real world. - "value of financial literacy": This is just the same as saying "it's a good idea to know how to make money." Telling people to have financial literacy is worthless if you don't offer any useful education on finance. It's even worse if you instead offer patently wrong advice, such as ignoring your taxes in order to "pay yourself."
13rules 15y ago
"the most important message in the book is that business and entrepreneurship is the path to success, NOT being an employee and staying in the rat race." The best book that I have read that emphasizes this point is "The Millionaire Fastlane" — awesome, awesome read ... a must for anyone starting, running, or thinking about creating a business. http://amzn.to/millionairefastlane http://amzn.to/millionairefastlane

by zavulon 15y ago

dkarl 15y ago

Sounds more like inspiration and self-help than personal finance. You could point to any number of career paths and say, "This is a well-established route to wealth, and if you work very very hard and manage your money well, you can become wealthy this way." For example, there are high-paying specialties in law and medicine where the rat race really does lead to wealth. You have to outcompete 95% of the people in your field to become wealthy, but the same thing is true of entrepreneurship.

firichapo 15y ago
It is more about self-help that anything else, and the people who swear by it use it as an argument of why it is such a crappy personal finance book. But then they promote it as a personal finance book. Nice loop there.

huxley 15y ago

"the most important message in the book is that business and entrepreneurship is the path to success" No, it may be one of the best paths to wealth and independence --unless you're born into wealth already -- but it's not necessarily a path to success. My parents worked themselves to the bone in business, were repeatedly screwed by business partners and banks. It didn't give them one bit of gratification. My mother went back to university and got into not-for-profit microcredit and was reborn as a happy person. My dad spent time with his kids and neighbours, when he passed away he had three times as many people come to the funeral as we had space for. Entrepreneurship has a lot going for it, but it is very hard and given the barriers that can be thrown in your face, it can be just another rat-race for lots of people.

jhamburger 15y ago
I think history tends to be written by the winners when it comes to entrepreneurship. It's a lot harder- and a lot more luck involved- than many would admit.
- jisaacstone 15y ago
  I think the problem is not the failure to admit - most entrepreneurs would admit the struggle with honesty. It is more like an availability heuristic - success stories make the news, failures usually do not, and so many people have no idea what the success rate is.
- SkyMarshal 15y ago
  Survivorship bias and narrative fallacy pervade almost everything, it seems.
  - moonchrome 15y ago
    Not necessarily. Only a very naive entrepreneur would fall for this and they would be sorted out rather quick. People fail or know/realize the huge amount of uncertainty and still choose to do startups. Different people have different levels of risk aversion and there is no common goal/value system.
  - AutoCorrect 15y ago
    in the long run, we're all dead - so better we go ahead and die now?
- rmgraham 15y ago
  It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure all of his books point out that 9/10 attempts result in failure; the trick being to see the failure early enough to recover and move onto the next attempt before it is too late.
  - paulhauggis 15y ago
    Exactly! You need to fail fast and keep tweaking your idea until it becomes a success. You also can't be married to one single idea. Many people have a problem with this.

brador 15y ago

"what you can't afford your business can" Any more details on what this one means?

carguy1983 15y ago
I suspect it's referring to losing a job (a very big deal to most people) vs. losing a customer (not a very big deal to most well-run businesses). Same with losing any resource that is concentrated in one supplier as an individual but spread out among multiple sources in a business. Could be cash flow/income or could be the loss of any number of real or financial or relationship assets that a diversified business inherently protects against.
ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
Tax breaks. A surprisingly large portion of the book is in praise (what's the opposite of a screed?) of having a company you control pay for your meals, car, and house so you avoid personal income tax.
- aculver 15y ago
  Anyone familiar with this able to give a quick overview of the legality of this? I've looked into this before and it sounded to me like doing this too much (e.g. all your meals?) is dishonest and/or illegal.
  - spqr 15y ago
    One common method to convert business money to personal money is to personally buy the building your company is in and have your company rent it from you. You're given significant latitude to set the rent
  - Czarnian 15y ago
    It's legal until you get audited. Then, depending on the quality of your attorneys and accountants, it may still be legal.

ThomPete 15y ago

I think you are confusing your success with the books ability to help you. I am pretty sure the number of people who read the book dwarfs the number of people who actually are successful of those readers.

gm 15y ago
What you say may be true, but it's no indicator (at all) of a weakness or invalidity in the book's message. Just look at any book that advocates healthy eating as a way to lose weight and be healthy. That's why the saying "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" exists.
- ThomPete 15y ago
  Not that I want to defend any kind of selfhelp book but when it comes to loosing weight you are wrong. Those two are by no metrics the same. One of them gives you step by step advice (eat this apple, eat this brocoli don't eat fat) things you can act directly on and that can be measured the direct effect of. If you follow the advice in most of these books you will loose weight. There is no external factors involved. With RDPD the external factors are extreme. Actually following the advice of the book wont make you rich. Following a diet will make you slimmer.

jarrett 15y ago

"But there's certainly great value in the book"--I don't think there is. Here's why I don't think Kiyosaki offers anything useful in the categories of knowledge you've identified: - "business vs 'rat race'": As others have pointed out, business is certainly not better than the rat race for everyone, or even most people. Based on every study I've ever seen, the reality seems to be that starting a business is only appropriate or beneficial for a small subset of the population. I.e. people with certain unique skillsets, a high tolerance for risk, and boatloads of time to invest. - "building assets vs liabilities": In other words "make lots of money, and try not to borrow too much." Well, duh. Anyone who would even think to buy a personal finance book can probably appreciate that income is desirable and debt undesirable. They don't need Kiyosaki's help with that. - "learning to sell": I don't think Kiyosaki offers anything close to a practical guide on improving your sales skills. - "active vs passive income": Passive income is not a realistic goal for the vast majority of people. Even if you found a successful business, chances are, you will continue to invest large amounts of effort to keep it running profitably. You pretty much have to win the startup lottery if you want passive income. As the term "startup lottery" implies, it's a pretty rare occurrence in the real world. - "value of financial literacy": This is just the same as saying "it's a good idea to know how to make money." Telling people to have financial literacy is worthless if you don't offer any useful education on finance. It's even worse if you instead offer patently wrong advice, such as ignoring your taxes in order to "pay yourself."

13rules 15y ago

"the most important message in the book is that business and entrepreneurship is the path to success, NOT being an employee and staying in the rat race." The best book that I have read that emphasizes this point is "The Millionaire Fastlane" — awesome, awesome read ... a must for anyone starting, running, or thinking about creating a business. http://amzn.to/millionairefastlane http://amzn.to/millionairefastlane