Title: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Author: Robert T. Kiyosaki

Publisher: Plata Publishing, LLC
Rating: 5/5

I will begin my book review by asking you a question. Would you dare to spend your time working
three hours for free every weekend at convenience stores dusting and piling up the cans?

I am certain that most of you would say big NO. But, believe it or not, Robert, the author of the
book, and his friend had accepted that offer and it was their first lesson which paved them the
road to be rich.

“Rich Dad, Poor Dad” is my very first book which talks about money and has got me interested
into digging more about financial literacy. At first, I thought that the book would be boring but I
was totally wrong. It turned out that the first chapter of the book had successfully made me
captivated and grown my curiosity up to read more.

The name “poor dad” actually came from the author’s real dad, while “rich dad” was from his
friend’s dad. The book told about the perspective from both of these dads towards the power of
money and how they educated and raised their children. In fact, poor dad was highly educated
and had graduated from famous universities, and worked as a teacher. Unfortunately, he left bills
to be paid when he passed away. Meanwhile, rich dad did not finish his Junior High School yet he
left million dollars when he died. One of the advices from rich dad which I like was whenever our
children asked something, never told them “We cannot afford it”. Instead we should tell them
“How can I afford it?”. If we said the first, it would make our children stop thinking. By simply
saying the second, we encourage our children to think and to exercise their brain.

There is a myriad of life stories and lessons which I can learn from. One of my favorite stories was
when Robert asked his students in the class if they could cook better hamburger than Mc. Donald.
Some students raised their hands. However, when Robert asked them back about how they could
only make less money than Mc. Donald, everyone became silent. And, when I read about it, my
eyes were wide opened. I had come to realize that the Mc. Donald’s secret of success was not
because of his skill in cooking hamburger, instead it was his business skill.

In addition, this book encourages simplicity over complexity. Therefore, it explains every single
concept in very simple way yet crystal clear. For example, the distinction between assets and
liabilities. The book does not only explain it with words, but it also provides the pictures or
diagram which really helped me to understand the concept a lot. Simply, assets are something
which put money into our pockets while liabilities take money out of our pockets. If people buy
a house but it does not generate money then it will be considered as liability. Otherwise, if it does
put money into income column then it is an asset.
I have met people who assumed that the book devalued the formal education and told others
not to go to school. That is not true. In fact, the book does encourage people to strive towards
higher education. What rich dad tried to inform was that the school nowadays does not teach its
students about money especially on how to make money work for us. Therefore, people usually
end up being in the biggest trap called Rat Race. Once they graduate from higher education, they
will look for good and secured jobs. Further they are trapped in the situation where they have to
get up early, go to work, pay bills, and repeat. Instead of having money work for them, they
struggle and work hard for it.

To conclude, this book is very extraordinary. I never thought that the book which told about
money and economy would be this interesting. Therefore, I highly recommend this book for
everyone especially those who want to widen their horizons about financial literacy.

*These are my favorite quotes from the book

“People’s lives are controlled by two emotions:

Fear and Greed”

“Assets put money in my pocket.

Liability takes money out of my pocket”

“The reason so many people are poor is because

They focus on building a better hamburger and
Know little to nothing about business system”

“Listening is more important than talking.

If that were not true, God would have not given us
two ears and only one mouth”

Dery Athama Putra