This week's book: "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki.
"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it."
Henry David Thoreau
It's Saturday, so let's pull the week together.
This week we took on one of the best-known, and controversial, personal finance books ever written. I told you at the start I'd hand you the ideas worth keeping and be honest about the parts I'd be careful with. Take the gold, leave the rest. Let's do that one last time as we wrap up the week.
We started with the two dads, the paycheck mindset and the entrepreneur’s mindset, and my own two examples: my father, a Navy pilot with a steady career, and my grandfather, an entrepreneur from day one. We looked at lessons 1 and 2, the rich don't work for money, and the financial literacy most of us were never taught. We talked about my grandfather's little bicycle rental that earned money around the clock whether he was awake or asleep. And we spent time on lesson 3, minding your own business, the difference between an asset that pays you and a liability that you pay, and the steady discipline of building your asset column over time.
My honest take on the book: the core ideas are genuinely valuable, pay yourself first, understand assets versus liabilities, and get financially literate because a formal education won't do it for you. That’s the gold. Where I'd be careful is the specifics. Kiyosaki can make it all sound easier and faster than it is, some of the real estate and tax details are dated or thin, and his later work and public statements are, in my honest opinion, a real step down from this original. But the 1997 book that started it all? It's earned its place. Take the mindset, respect the risk, and when it's your money on the line, get advice from someone who knows your full picture.
Now here's where the book left me, and it isn't where Kiyosaki meant to leave me.
The whole book is built on one question: which dad was rich, and which was poor? And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I honestly couldn't answer it about those two men in my own life.
Was my grandfather rich, with his businesses and his patents and his bicycle rental? Sure. But was my father poor, a Navy pilot who landed planes on carriers, who lived in Italy and Japan and Hawaii, who served his country and built a steady life and a solid retirement, and who shaped me every bit as much? Not by any measure that matters to me.
And once you go down that path, the whole who was rich and who was poor thing falls apart. Was the teacher who shaped a thousand kids poor? Is the firefighter with a modest pension and a firehouse full of brothers who'd literally walk into a fire for him poor? The cop, the nurse, the union tradesman with steady work, good friends, and a family that loves him, are they poor?
Kiyosaki measures wealth in the asset column. I've lived long enough to measure it in something else. Thoreau had it right in the quote above: the price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. So the real question isn't how big your asset column is. It's whether the life you're exchanging for your money is one you're glad to be living.
Build your assets. Please! Financial independence is real and it's worth pursuing, mostly because it hands you back your time, the one thing you can't earn more of. But don't ever let a book, or anyone, tell you that the size of your bank account is the measure of a life. It never is and never was.
One challenge for the week ahead
Two columns this week. In the first, one small step toward financial independence, an account to open, a liability to cut, an asset to start. In the second, one thing that makes you rich in the way that doesn't show up on any statement, a person, a place, a practice. That's the balance we’re all looking for.
When you look past the money, what actually makes you feel rich? Hit reply, I read every one.
I'll go first: three grown sons I'm proud of, a wife I’d still choose every day of the week and twice on Sunday, and work that finally means something. I'll take that portfolio.
Next week
We're reading "Greenlights" by Matthew McConaughey. If you like listening to books, this one's one of the best. McConaughey narrates it himself, and his voice and delivery add a lot. We spent this week on money. Next week we turn to living, one man's honest, funny, hard-won lessons about catching life's green lights. If you'd like to read along, this weekend's a good time to grab a copy.
If someone forwarded you this, you can get the daily insights free at www.allstarmentors.com.
I'll be back Monday,
Mike
Practical wisdom for the life you're building