22 Simple Lessons I Learned At 22 From ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’

Read this book to enhance your financial IQ

Ahmad Ali
4 min readDec 17, 2020

After passing out my 12th grade, I took admission in BBA for a bachelor’s degree in business.

During the 4-year graduation period, I studied dozens of subjects related to accounting, finance, and marketing. In my 5th semester, I choose finance as my area of specialization and studied several books from well-known authors like Van Horn and Brigham.

These books were focused majorly on discussing different formulas and principles used in finance. But there was a problem with these books having no clear guidance for solving financial problems we all face.

One day I was searching for finance books on Google and find out the famous Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. At first glance, I think about it as another mediocre book written by a random professor having no practical knowledge and experience.

I was wrong.

When I learned about Robert Kiyosaki, I become eager to read his book. And already 32 million copies of this book were sold out, across 109 countries in 51 different languages. Another plus point.

I downloaded it as a PDF on my mobile and started reading it in the morning. Every day, I used to read 20 to 30 pages and finished it in a week.

After studying, it two times, what I have learned completely changed my thoughts about business and money. Finally, I learned 22 lessons that I’m going to share with you in this article.

  1. Money is not taught in schools. They only focus on your academic and professional education. Mean how you behave and talk like an educated person and how you get a job in big companies and government positions.
  2. Money is an idea. With a small idea, successful entrepreneurs started their businesses and now generating tons of money.
  3. If you have money, but you don’t have financial intelligence, that money soon leaves you. And you will be there where you started.
  4. Three types of people exist in our society regarding the financial position that is poor, middle class, and rich.
  5. The rich invest money, as a result, his money works hard for him, and he enjoys the income. He doesn’t work for money.
  6. The poor and middle-class work for money. As a result, invests their whole life earning money.
  7. The rich build assets that provide income. They always try to minimize their expenses and liabilities and grow their assets as large as possible. Poor and middle-class people get stuck in expenses and liabilities which eat up all their income.
  8. Invest money in yourself for learning skills and enhancing your financial IQ to better solve your financial problems.
  9. The poor and middle-class generate income from jobs and spend it on expenses and liabilities. While rich generate income from assets and then reinvest it to build more assets while easily covering their expenses.
  10. For enhancing your financial intelligence, you need to learn accounting, investing, markets, and the law.
  11. It is better to face being broke in the early 30 years of age because you have time to recover from it.
  12. Business always doesn’t need much money. You can build a massive business from starting with just little to no money.
  13. If you have a little financial intelligence, you can easily solve your money problems.
  14. Money is very smart. If you don’t know how to put it to work or don’t know to manage it, you will be managed by money for your whole life. It drives you.
  15. Consider the failures as a learning opportunity. Don’t afraid of failures, but take them as an opportunity to learn more.
  16. Don’t spend money foolishly otherwise; you will always be struggling for money.
  17. People who are doing jobs pay more taxes as compared to those who are doing business. Rich knows many ways to get out of tax rules.
  18. Most people in the world are financially illiterate, that’s why they cannot solve their financial problems.
  19. Don’t compromise on your life standard for solving your money problems, but find a solution to your financial problem.
  20. Most people consider what is assets as liabilities and liabilities as assets because of lacking financial education. For example, a mortgaged house which a normal person considers his biggest asset, but he pays loan for all his life.
  21. People consider a job as a secure and comfortable way to earn money, but it is not. There are lots of risks associated with it.
  22. Becoming rich is not about how much money you earn but how much money you keep. Lots of people earn huge money, but at the end of the month have zero balance in the bank means they’re not rich.

Final Thoughts

The differentiating factor between rich and poor is financial literacy.

If you want to become rich you need financial education along with your academic and professional education.

Financial education builds your financial IQ and helps to better understand your money problems and plan your finances. And I think reading “Rich Dad Poor Dad” is the first step to start developing financial knowledge and wisdom.

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Ahmad Ali

A writer & dreamer. I write about business, finance, and marketing. @AhmadAl82230443