Anyway, I was the first to comment on that review (Site #4), and here is what I had to say. This essentially provides my review of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but mostly, it is building on top of the review in Site #4. So go read Site #4 first.
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Hi Trent. I would say, you wrote a great review. I like that you pointed out the good, the bad, and the ugly. I agree with everything you said.
Sometimes one person might be the holiest person in the world, but if he does one wrong thing, he gets all the crap in the world. The thing is, I did find “the good” in Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad (and in his other books and even games), but I would like to think there is no perfect book or any other product. Rich Dad Poor Dad has its many flaws, and considering that not everyone can see them as flaws (some may see them as inspiration), I guess that’s the really ugly thing about it. To me, I just take the good lessons, and leave out the bad.
Now if I may add something… The first time I read Rich Dad Poor Dad, I also got inspired. But at the same time, I felt like I was in an MLM (multi-level marketing) seminar all over again, where some guys who only held high school diplomas told us college and master’s degree holders, “You don’t need a college degree to get rich. Look at us!”, almost implying we’re stupid to even study in college. And in that same MLM group, there was also this one guy with a Lamborghini saying “I got this car after just a year working for this MLM company!”, implying that we’re stupid to be working for some other company, and not their MLM company. And did I mention, we were “fooled” by a friend who told us that seminar was just going to take an hour, and it took three hours?
Anyway, I guess that part of the book that made me feel like that, is that part you refer to as “the ugly” part.
And then in this book, Kiyosaki also suggests to go into MLM. Overall, while I was inspired by this book to do something, I had some questions that lingered in my mind. I did think I was definitely still not going into MLM, after all that insult I got from them.
If I may say something about MLM, it is also flawed in a way. It’s about selling, and expanding the network, the larger your network, the better your sales and commissions. But what if everyone became part of that MLM network, who will buy and who will sell? And who will become rich? The answer to that last question might be, the one who produces the product. So again, there’s the lesson that you also pointed out. Create a product or profit from your intellectual property.
But fine, I forgot if it’s in Rich Dad Poor Dad or in his other books, Kiyosaki somehow says that if there’s one good thing about MLMs is that, they could teach you how to sell. And I agree with him that business is all about selling, whether it’s your product, your service, your self, the business itself, and so on. And if there’s one thing that I am not good at, it’s at selling.
And fine, I might consider entering into an MLM just so I could learn how to sell (as opposed to, say, working for a company like Xerox). So I guess that’s his main selling point for joining these MLM companies.
In Kiyosaki’s last part, as you mentioned, he suggests to do some further reading and education. And then he somewhat recommends his other books, and his Cashflow games. His other books cost twice as much as Rich Dad Poor Dad (back when I first read it), and his Cashflow 101 game costs US$200 (US$300 here in my country)! Back then I thought, “This is a scam!” But I also admired the fact that it was such a great marketing tactic for his company, for himself, and for his other products. Rich Dad Poor Dad was written somewhat to appeal to many (who were not one of them “hamsters”), and it was also written to sell his other more expensive products. He indeed was a “bestselling” author, not a “best-writing” author.
Now I re-read Rich Dad Poor Dad just recently, and only because I’ve met actual people who are now earning significant passive income, courtesy of them getting inspiration from Kiyosaki’s book. But it was not without problems or risks, and without help from experienced friends and lawyer- and accountant-friends.
In fact, these guys are now doing something with practically no-money-down deals on real estate via this one technique that Kiyosaki himself has never mentioned (as far as I know). One of these people is someone who is a famous spiritual/Christian leader, and together they’re professing that God wants to bless us abundantly, that God wants us to be rich and to be able to handle being rich, and that God wants us to be rich so that we could have more to give away to those who need it more. This spiritual leader I’m talking about has goals of giving away up to 90% of what he’s earning to the poor.
So anyway, that’s them. The thing is, there are some people who are now earning more in passive income thanks to inspiration from Kiyosaki’s book. And they’re teaching and inspiring others also, they’re expanding their own network also. They have dreams of helping make 1 million millionaires in our country by 2020.
They took the good from Kiyosaki’s book, and made it even better. They did not anymore look at the bad or the ugly side; they must have just tossed it aside.
And that’s how I look at Kiyosaki’s book. And I guess thanks to this review of yours - and again I think it’s a great review - I don’t have to re-read Kiyosaki’s book all over again (except if I want to re-read his “parable”), plus I could easily see which is the good, the bad, and the ugly. Because for me, I just take the good, and leave out the bad, and the ugly.
Again, thanks to this review of yours!
[sub-labels: CPC blogs, CPC books]
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