Review: Rich Dad Poor Dad

I was motivated by a friend to read more about Robert Kiyosaki. He posted a video about Kiyosaki. Kiyosaki was talking about the four different quadrants of people. I didn't finish watching the video. Instead, I read the book.

My friend asked for my opinion and to him, I responded in a poor dad way. I said that opening a business is too risky for me. I am obsessed with security. I believe that businesses are risky and not worth the risk.
Sure, you can get very rich but the time and the risk are too overwhelming. I want freedom but I value stability too!

Kiyosaki understood that being a business owner is one of the toughest thing a person can do. I agree. This is especially so for big businesses! Honestly, I think it is hard to be on the Rich Dad's column as a business owner; I would rather be a Investor.

When I graduate, I would be a specialist. Maybe open my own firm; but if I were to remain in my industry, it would most likely be a small one. However, I think that small businesses could generate enough passive income to fund my doodads too! I just need to hire people who are smarter than me!

Actually even before I realised it, I was exercising some of the lessons of financial intelligence that kiyosaki advocated.
I am a geek and I wanted a iPhone 4. DOODADS are bad but irresistible! I know that my Mama would not buy it for me because it was simply too pricey.
To afford my iPhone 4, I started doing a small business. I realized that Singapore was one of the first few countries to get the iPhone. So what I did was to buy from apple store and sell it to people online. Through that, I earned my iPhone without much effort.
The phone cost $888 but I was able to sell it for >$1000, sometimes even $1100. The ROI was pretty good for the effort and time.

Now, my primary aim is to get enough positive-assets (a house is not a positive-asset if it doesn't generate a positive income! Kiyosaki does not even recognise houses that are not income-producing as assets!). I WANT FREEDOM! I do not have the $ to buy real estate. All I can do now is to put my money in stock indexes or a few good stocks. Diversity is only for idiots who do not know what they are doing. There is no risk if you are financially literate.

I realise that the Finance courses in school do not teach you about such stuff. All I remember from my Finance course was a hell lot of graphs and risk being measured by beta. Thats all.

I am still in the midst of reading Adam Khoo's Secrets of a self-made millionaire. Will update once I am done! :)

Quotes/Ideas from the book

• One of the wonders of the world is the power of compound interest 
• Show me a happy loser, and I'll show you a loser. 
• Most people dream of being rich, but are terrified of losing money.
• so it is the fear of the government or other people you owe money to that motivates you?
• Use the fear of the bully to make myslef stronger 
• Their friends who have no money have never come to them to ask how they did it. But they do come asking for one of two things, or both: 1. a loan, or 2. a job.
• Being an Indian giver -what and when can I get my money back. 
• Tying up cash is okay if I can get the asset for free. ( If the ROI is good enough, the passive income collected from the Asset exceeds the initial investment and the Asset becomes 'free' )
• Put money in a stock which the company is about to make a move that will add value to the stock (announcing a new product) (maybe IPO?) and taking out the initial money after a week to a month while the stock moves up. This way, dont have to worry about fluctuations.
• seems like it will only work if the increase is huge. 
• Money is a powerful force; unfortunately, people use the power of money against them
• make an offer with the words, subject to approval of business partner

If you just google, you can find a lot of analysis into the book. Most aren't too nice about it tho. 

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