Book Review – Rich Dad Poor Dad

Book Review – Rich Dad Poor Dad

Rich Dad Poor Dad is a personal finance book written by Robert Kiyosaki back in 1997.  Since its release, it has sold more than 26 million copies.  It recounts Robert’s upbringing in Hawaii with two different Dads: his biological “poor dad” and his great friend’s “rich” dad.  The book covers some great lessons he learned as a child by juxtiposing the advice he received from both of his “Dads”.

Book Review – Rich Dad Poor Dad – What I Loved About the Book

I really enjoyed the first section of the book that covered Robert’s childhood.  There were plenty of great examples where he covered different lessons that his rich dad taught him.  My favorite was when he was working in his rich Dad’s grocery store and ended up taking the unsold comic books.  He and his friend setup a comic book “library” and charged their friends an entrance fee to read the comic books for 4- hours.  He found this to be much more lucrative than the $0.10 an hour his Rich Dad was paying him.

The other key concept that Robert got across in this section of Rich Dad Poor Dad was to stop yourself from saying: “I can’t afford that.”  In Robert’s words, this shuts down the brain and prevents you from really expanding into new opportunities.  Instead, if you say to yourself: “how can I afford this?”, it gets your brain working and you will often find a solution if you’re willing to word hard enough to get it.

All in all, I really felt like I was there along with Robert and his Rich dad for many of the stories from his childhood.  They were great and really entertaining.

Book Review – Rich Dad Poor Dad – What I Hated About the Book

The later sections of Rich Dad Poor Dad recount more of Roberts philosophy that he’s lived his life by.  These sections of the book are filled with plenty of thoughts and opinions, but light on actual details on how one could implement the ideas in one’s own life.  I did not really enjoy this section of the book for two reasons.  As I already mentioned, this second half acts more like a motivational book than a “how to” book.  I feel that most readers would not really find this terribly helpful.

Also, he gets more into his philosophy about taking high risk, high reward types of chances to get ahead financially.  I felt overall that this is very bad advice for most people.  True, you may not get super-rich by taking a more steady and balanced approach to investing and planning, but you’re also mostly sure that you aren’t going to lose everything.  I feel that Robert’s balls-to-the-wall advice could be quite damaging to most people that are inclined to “bet the farm on red” (to use a gambling analogy).

Book Review – Rich Dad Poor Dad – Rating

3/5 Stars – You may want to pass this one over unless you’ve read just about every other financial book out there.

Book Review – Rich Dad Poor Dad – Final Thoughts

Overall, I thought Rich Dad Poor Dad was merely just OK.  The biggest take-away that I had was to not get in the mode of saying “I can’t afford that,” but to trick your mind into saying: “how can I afford this?”  I think that this advice/trick will serve me well in the future.

However, I think most of the advice in this book is generally pretty bad.  I wouldn’t recommend this book over more practical personal finance books that give you more hands on financial advice like: I Will Teach You to Be Rich.  I’d place  Rich Dad Poor Dad further down on your financial reading list if I were you.

Check out these other great MoneyAhoy posts:

Book Review – Think and Grow Rich Book Review – I Will Teach You To Be Rich Book Review – Secrets of the Millionaire Mind Book Review – The Millionaire Next Door