Insights from the popular money book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki

So why now, nine years after it was first reported?

It was partly curiosity – why exactly is it considered one of the best personal finance books of all time? – partly a task (I recently started reviewing popular books on money) and partly convenience: I was given “Rich Dad Poor Dad” as a gift a few years ago and it happened to be on my bookshelf.

Kiyosaki originally self-published the book in 1997. What became a cult classic was rejected by “every book publisher,” he writes in the introduction.

It is told from the perspective of nine-year-old Kiyosaki. He is ambitious, has an impressive vocabulary for an elementary school student, and after being excluded from a beach trip because he is considered a “poor kid,” he decides he wants to learn how to be rich. He and his best friend Mike embark on a quest to do just that. They approach Mike’s father, whom Kiyosaki refers to as his “rich dad,” and he agrees to teach the friends about money: how to earn it, how to keep it, and how to grow it.

There’s a lot of advice to be found between the iconic purple dust jacket, much of it contradicting popular opinion, but here are my three key takeaways.

1. Financial education is everything. Kiyosaki introduces his two father figures on page one of the introduction. His biological father, whom he refers to as “poor dad,” graduated in less than two years, earned a doctorate, and studied at prestigious universities such as Stanford, while his “rich dad” never finished the eighth grade. His poor father earned a substantial income but always struggled financially; his rich dad became one of the richest people in Hawaii largely through running businesses.

Financial education creates equal opportunity. Although my rich dad had no education in the traditional sense, he knew something about money – and agreed to pass that knowledge on to Mike and Kiyosaki.

Talk about money at mealtimes – with your kids, your kids’ friends, nieces and nephews, and grandkids – because most teachers don’t. The earlier you start teaching financial literacy, the better.

2. Your attitude towards money is important. An important lesson from Rich Dad is to never think or say, “I can’t afford it.” Instead, ask yourself, “How can I afford it?” The former, says Rich Dad, “turns off your brain” and creates a “lazy mind,” while the latter forces you to be solution-oriented and get creative.

How you think about money is just as important as how you manage your money.

3. It makes you hot. This isn’t your typical personal finance book. Kiyosaki won’t walk you through the steps to paying off debt, explain credit scores, or recommend index funds to buy. He’ll give you insight into how he built his wealth and retired at 47 (real estate and small-cap stocks), but he won’t tell you what to do. Instead, he’ll inspire you to think differently, challenge conventional financial advice, take risks, make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes.

He firmly believes that “life is the best teacher of all” and that “reading and lectures are the least effective methods of learning.” I couldn’t miss the irony, but he’s right: a book can inspire and excite you – and this book does – but it’s up to us, the readers, to ultimately put that energy into action.