Rich Dad Poor Dad : Is the Author's Premise True and Worthy?
by Andrea Rangel
Does school really prepare children for the real world? (1). Robert Kiyosaki’s book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, is a complete description about how the rich get richer and the poor remain the same or worse. Through the book he is able to show the reader the best pieces of advice that his two dads could give him and those even that economically speaking are excellent, precious, and vital laws for life. It is an excellent guide for those who are struggling with any kind of problem if you know how to interpret it.
During his life Robert’s dad was a well-educated person. He went to school, got great grades, went to college, got a safe job, and worked for the government for a long time. He had lived “the dream” during his life. He had everything he wanted or at least what he thought he wanted. His father was not wealthy but he was not poor at all. They were middle class and his dad had a good position in the government. When Robert was little he went to a school where the majority of the student population was rich. However, he found one truly best friend who was in his same socio-economic class. As the story advances he tells how his best friend’s father became his “rich dad.” Also, how he struggled at the beginning to find out which was the best choice for his life. He mentioned that having the two points of view from his fathers gave him a better conception of the world and business.
I will briefly describe his two dads’ opinions. Kiyosaki’s real dad was a great student, who had gotten scholarships in some of the best universities in the country. He wasn’t interested in money. Kiyosaki’s dad was a person with other types of priorities in life. As he said “I chose to be a schoolteacher. Schoolteachers really don’t think about being rich” (16). Poor dad was more worried about family and reaching happiness with everyday living choices rather than with money. He believed in the power of self-knowledge and hard work. On the other hand, his rich dad didn’t finish eighth grade. However his goals were only about money. Money represented power. He was against traditional schools. He said, “if you want to learn to work for money, then stay in school. That is a great place to learn to do that.”
Kiyosaki mentions: "who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past" (1). This is probably the most valuable lesson someone can ever learn. Everyday we care about our future. We live a life that is like a race against time to get our “goals.” Or we remember the past and complain about our actions. But it is hard to find a person who pays attention to the present and his or her actions. I am facing it today. It is hard for me to avoid thinking of college –where am I going to go? What if I do not get into Georgetown? But the reality is that I will not be able to change my future if I do not care about my present. A few weeks ago I was playing in a tournament I could have won but I did not. It was only because of my lack of understanding of what I can control and what I cannot. If I had played on Sunday thinking about my score rather than winning the tournament, I could have shot even but I was thinking about how it would feel if I won my first big tournament –huge mistake. Kiyosaki is right; we need to worry about the present because it is the only thing that we really have. The only way that worrying about another time in life is good for us is when we are figuring out our mistakes to understand our failures and set up our goals, because in order to reach our goals we need to know what our failures are and the way to fulfill them.
Another lesson that his rich dad teaches is that we need to find the difference between assets and liabilities. An asset is something that puts money in your pocket and a liability is something that takes it away from you. This lesson personally touched my heart and mind. Not only economically speaking but mentally talking about sports and time. My biggest investment is my time. Time is my “money.” I figured out that my biggest investment needs to become an asset and stop being a liability. My time should give me more knowledge rather than filling my brain with empty air. I have set up many goals for my life. The closest one is going to college to play golf and learn about economics. If I want to reach my goal, I know I have to pay attention to what I do everyday. I need to practice harder, slower, and deeper. I need to be focused on the moment, not on the result, because the result depends on the moment. To be honest, I know that I need to pay attention to every moment as long as I can.
Robert’s rich dad spoke about what we learn in school. During our era schools are creating a workers’ mentality, where the highest goal you would ever get is to be a manager in a company, but you would reach it only after years and decades of hard work. I totally agree with him when he says, “whenever the teacher said, if you don’t get good grades, you won’t do well in the real world,” Mike and I just raised our eyebrows. When we were told to follow set procedures and not deviate from the rules, we could see how schooling process actually discouraged creativity. We started to understand why rich dad told us that schools were designed to produce good employees instead of employers.” Schools have to change the way they are teaching. They are not teaching to make children better for society but to remain the same. As the world has developed, schools should have developed too.
In fact, as the book advanced I was remembering a short essay that I wrote while I was in eighth grade. I was an excellent student; in fact, the best of my class. The teachers loved me and I loved to learn so I always studied hard. However I knew school was just a way to learn a little bit about general culture. I knew that it was not going to make me more intelligent or richer. School is designed to create responsible people but not smart people. Its purpose is only to generate good citizens not excellent ones. I wrote about it in eight grade. My mom was worried about me because I had gotten to a point where I just wanted to go to a college and validate courses to finish high school earlier and go to university because I was sure school was not going to help me reach my goals. Everybody was surprised that the best girl in the school was the one that did not want to study anymore. I could not got out of school that year but I worked hard to get promoted before everybody else and I got an early promotion during my senior year. The point is school does not teach people how to be smarter, it does not promote imagination, creativity, or intelligence. Schools are places where people definitely go to learn about what really smart people had figured out centuries before. Schools do not promote creativity. I have always said that people during the Renaissance found out so many things and discovered so many laws because they were creative. They were wondering why and how things happened. Nowadays, we only care about what things happen. Furthermore, we are like machines that are trying to save information in the brain.
It is necessary to mention that the differences I could find between rich and poor dad is a lack of creativity and a constant fear. Kiyosaki mentioned: “my soon to be rich dad would explain that by automatically saying the words ‘I cant afford it” your brains stops working. By asking the question “how can I afford it” your brain is put to work” (12). Rich dad was definitely creative. He wanted Robert and Mike to develop a sense of possibilities and creativity so they could figure out ways to solve problems rather than to make them bigger. As he said, “If you find you have dug yourself into a hole… stop digging.” Poor dad was simply afraid of not being able to sustain his family so he followed the normal pattern of life. He was a really hard worker and he was a good father but he had to fight a lot for what he wanted. After re-reading the book I think that the only problem that we face or at least that I face is to be afraid of doing things because I am afraid of losing. I agree with a lot of rich dad’s quotations but I seriously do not believe life is all about money. I spoke with my dad after I finished reading the book the first time –I love my dad. He said to me I need to know there are things much more important than money. Family, for instance, is his biggest reward at the end of the day. He said not even his farm, bank account, golf swing, or beach house was as fulfilling as his family. In fact, I hate that rich dad and Kiyosaki are only speaking about money. They let the family in a side. Their world is like an equation to get richer. In the contrary, poor dad was poor economically speaking but richer than any other personally speaking. His family was his greatest reward.
Finally, I have to recognize many things. I started reading the book as a challenge that my dad proposed to me because he wanted me to learn a little bit about money because I spend a lot –I am a compulsive shopping girl. I did learn about money, investments, and how hard money can make people’s life. However, the greatest lesson I could have learnt is “the briar patch is our fear and our greed. Going into our fear and confronting our greed, our weakness, our neediness is the way out. And the way out is through the mind, by choosing our thoughts” (52). Our mind is our best partner. We need to find out ways to improve it. Time is our biggest investment and we need to learn how to make it improve our thoughts. I am reading a new book, The Talent Code, which is about how to improve skills by having deep practice times. Rich Dad Poor Dad is an excellent guide for people to develop a creative mentality.
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