Scaling Happy with Rich Dad Poor Dad
I watch a few Financial Freedom Teachers on youtube, and many of them recommend a common book. So this weekend, I listened to the audiobook. Watch any Financial Personality like Dan Lok, GaryVee, Graham Stephan, and you’ll see Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki come up. So I ask, will reading Rich Dad Poor Dad help Scale your Happy?
Overall I fell in love with the details of this book. I’m proud to say, it has made its way into the library of Scaling Happy. If this is a book you are considering owning, let us go over why I think this is an EXCELLENT book to help you Scale your Happiness.
The book is told from the point of view of Robert as a young child who wanted to make money. Robert and his friend were partners from a young age, and his friend had a Rich Dad. Where his own dad he considers the Poor Dad.
You see, Poor Dad had a college education, and tried to specialize in his field. He worked hard to buy a house and try to be a good employee and make as much money as he could.
However, Rich Dad owned a business, invested and put forth the work to make more money. Rich Dad, however, wasn’t always rich. He learned how to make his money, and this was appealing to Robert.
So the story picks up with Robert going to Rich Dad and asking for training on how to be rich. But, through his journey he is forced to learn a lot of lessons, like working for free.
Through Roberts story telling, he relates the lessons he learned as kid into lessons we can all take to improve our own financial well-being. I’d definitely recommend reading/listening to this book, because it very well may just open your eyes on how to get rich.
How this Book Will Improve my Finances
This book taught me a few important lessons. While not all of them were new, it helped me realize how a change in my perspective could ultimately make a big difference in how I grow as a person.
In the book, Robert talks about how the most important thing is to own more assets than you do liabilities. This seems like a no brainer, but he provides so many examples of misconceptions people have about assets. For example, a house, so many people look at a house as an asset. Myself include, I figured as long as the house appreciates and I pay my mortgage off in a timely manner I’m good right? But, he made it very clear there are more expenses than I was thinking about. Things like property tax and hoa fees are nothing more than a reoccurring expense turning what could be viewed as a asset into a liability.
He refers to this as controlling your cash flow. You can turn a liability into an asset so long as that liability has a method to pay for itself. So a house could turn into an asset, if you have a renter that pays the mortgage and all the fees.
The second major viewpoint shift Robert gave me, is to stop working for money. This might seem counter-intuitive, but the more you think of being an employee, the harder it is to take a step back and see how you can scale yourself.
While I can’t speak for everyone’s skills, so many skills could be used to turn your problem into a solution that others can help you grow. For example, this blog, I write in it today, but who says in 2 years from now I can’t use the fruits of my labor to pay others to write me enough articles to have months worth of articles to keep the good times rolling. That could increase the amount of affiliate and ad revenue paying back those fees in excess.
A freelancer on fiverr who does photoshop edits, could get a few people together to do it as an organization and bump up the amount of edits they can do as a group. From there you could scale your operations to grow even more edits coming and with your consistency possibly raise your fees to grow more.
There is so many options, but you have to have the perspective and drive to get yourself there! But here at ScalingHappy, we’re not wanting to greedy. We do things because they make us happy, and well, money alone does not make me happy.
How this Book Will Improve my Happiness
So does Rich Dad Poor Dad improve my happiness? Yes! For me personally it has improved my happiness in a few different ways.
First, its motivated me to spend more time reading and listening to audiobooks. Since I was a kid, I’ve really never enjoyed reading. I didn’t have the patience, and I wasn’t finding the content to be what I really loved. Listening to Rich Dad Poor Dad, I realized I love to learn, and this book is a teaching tool. I plan to expand my list of read books which I intend to track in <The Library of Happy>.
Second, its given me a new found perspective of reaching financial independence. So long I’ve lived and worked thinking, oh I’ll be an employee to get higher and higher salaries. And then I’ll develop an awesome product that is going to make me hundred of thousands, maybe millions. Then someone will buy my business, or I’ll get a huge salary just for name recognition alone.
That mentality screwed me for a few reasons. So I’ll list them out.
- I wasn’t a good salary negotiator
- I wasn’t getting my name out there
- I had no existing product to sell
- I WASN’T WORKING ON ANYTHING
So, how can someone who wasn’t working on anything, turn nothing into something massive? Well, they can’t, that is how. Listening to this book inspired me to start blogging. Both on here and on a few other sites, you can see them at tylercoil.com. I don’t expect to hit it big with this blog, or any of my other sites. And that is okay! But, the moves I make now will push me closer to where I want to be in 5 years. If I can make $10 a month on this website, that easily will pay for the domain and allow me to funnel money into another adventure.
This new found knowledge on financial independence scales my happiness in an upward trajectory big time. Being financially independent allows me more time to do the things that I want, and visit places with my fiance more regularly. This book itself, does not grant me financial independence on its own though. Instead, this is a tool that inspire me to work on the mission I have to work towards that goal through a long term approach.
But, this is all about me.
Will this Rich Dad Poor Dad Scale Your Happiness
So, what about you? Will Rich Dad Poor Dad help you scale your happiness? Short answer, no. Well, not on its own. The long answer is, it could be a great tool to use to help you become a happier person! It really depends on your motivations in life though. I know the things I want to enjoy in life will consume a reasonable amount of money, you might not have those same needs.
My recommendation for someone who is going to read this book, is to keep an open mind. Realize Robert doesn’t have all the answers on how to get rich, but he may give you new ways to look at the problem that is money. This is a double edged blade though, for me personally, there are lessons he gives that I don’t want to apply to myself. So I recommend evaluating what you read very strongly to determine what is right for you.
Ps. In the book, Robert touches a bit on taxes. I want to go over what some of his notes were, but sadly I need to learn more myself before I feel confident talking about it. But, he’s motivated me to stop being afraid of learning about taxes and the law as it relates to business.
Good luck and have fun growing!
-Tyler C