All Forum Posts by: Leonard L.

Welcome Christopher!

If you haven't heard already, there's a Raleigh BP meetup tonight.

Hope to see you!

Welcome John!

I just moved to Raleigh from the DC area myself a few weeks ago! In case you missed it, here was the link to the Raleigh BP meetup that Michael posted.

Hope to meet you soon!

Lenny

This post will consider Chapter 2 of Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. The chapter is entitled, "Lesson 2: Why Teach Financial Literacy?"

For this discussion, I will post five excerpts from the chapter that I liked. Please use the excerpts to start discussion of the chapter, or please feel free to share your own favorite passages. Thanks.

1. In 1923 a group of our greatest leaders and richest businessmen held a meeting at the Edgewater Beach hotel in Chicago. Among them were Charles Schwab, head of the largest independent steel company; Samuel Insull, president of the world’s largest utility; Howard Hopson, head of the largest gas company; Ivar Kreuger, president of International Match Co., one of the world’s largest companies at that time; Leon Frazier, president of the Bank of International Settlements; Richard Whitney, president of the NewYork Stock Exchange; Arthur Cotton and Jesse Livermore, two of the biggest stock speculators; and Albert Fall, a member of President Harding’s cabinet.Twenty-five years later, nine of these titans ended their lives as follows: Schwab died penniless after living for five years on borrowed money. Insull died broke in a foreign land, and Kreuger and Cotton also died broke. Hopson went insane. Whitney and Albert Fall were released from prison, and Fraser and Livermore committed suicide.

2. I am concerned that too many people are too focused on money and not on their greatest wealth, their education. If people are prepared to be flexible, keep an open mind and learn, they will grow richer and richer despite tough changes. If they think money will solve problems, they will have a rough ride. Intelligence solves problems and produces money. Money without financial intelligence is money soon gone.

3. Rule #1: You must know the difference between an asset and aliability, and buy assets. If you want to be rich, this is all you need to know. It is rule number one. It is the only rule. This may sound absurdly simple, but most people have no idea how profound this rule is. Most people struggle financially because they do not know the difference between an asset and a liability. “Rich people acquire assets. The poor and middle class acquire liabilities that they think are assets," said rich dad.

4. Mike and I learned more sitting in on his meetings than we did in all our years of school, college included. Mike’s dad was not book-smart, but he was financially educated and successful as a result. He told us over and over again, “An Intelligent person hires people who are more intelligent than he is.” So Mike and I had the benefit of spending hours listening to and learning from intelligent people.

5. So while I’m not yet rich, I am wealthy. I now have income generated from assets each month that fully cover my monthly expenses. If I want to increase my expenses, I first must increase my cash flow to maintain this level of wealth. Also note that it is at this point that I’m no longer dependent on my wages. I have focused on, and been successful in, building an asset column that has made me financially independent. If I quit my job today, I would be able to cover my monthly expenses with the cash flow from my assets.

Awesome Michael!

I'll plan to be there! Let me know if there's anything I can do to help!

Hey Chris,

Thanks for the comment! Just for clarification, although we're calling it the "BP Book Club," it's not a formal thing that anyone needs to join or be a member of. It's just a forum for people to share their thoughts and learn together. Both readers and audiobook listeners are welcome to participate.

If you have any other thoughts, observations, or questions about the book, please feel free to share!

Hi all,

On Sunday, we began our book club discussion of Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Here's the link to the post about the book's introduction, in case you missed it. Even as we move on to subsequent chapters, please feel free to go back and comment on previous chapters. You can read at your own pace.

Today, we will be discussing chapter 1, which is entitled, "The Rich Don't Work For Money." Instead of posting multiple questions to answer, I'll ask just one question. We'll call this "The Obvious One" in honor of Josh and Brandon's "Famous Four."

So here's the question, which I'll ask you to answer below: What did you think???

Here are my responses. 

• Share your favorite quote or passage from the reading.

"I noticed that my poor dad was poor, not because of the amount of money he earned, which was significant, but because of his thoughts and actions."

• Share one lesson or insight you gained from the reading.

The above quote was interesting to me because Kiyosaki mentions that his poor dad earned a significant amount of money. This quote whet my appetite in terms of learning more about how someone with a high income but an unhealthy mindset could end up poor, whereas someone with the right mindset (but maybe not a lot of money) could become rich.

• Share any agreements or disagreements that you might have with the author.

I've heard many people say that Rich Dad Poor Dad is a "mindset" book but that the specific advice Kiyosaki gives can be dangerous. This chapter did open my mind in terms of having a new perspective about money, but I'm not sure I'd practice my business in the same way that Kiyosaki does. I'll also admit that it felt like Kiyosaki was throwing his poor dad under the bus a bit, which made me slightly uncomfortable.

• Share any questions that you may have about the reading.

The first time I read this, I was new to the whole investing world. The biggest question I had at the time was, "Who were this guy's two dads and how were they so different?" I found out the answers later, though I also learned that "rich dad" might not even be real ... As a narrative device though, I appreciate him :)

• Share one personal application that this reading helped (or will help) to encourage in your life.

My one big life application was that I needed to improve my financial education. This book is what started my business book kick and was the impetus for starting this book club. As an aside, I'll also say that one reason I haven't become a Bigger Pockets Pro member yet is because I'm asking, "How can I afford it?" While I can technically afford it, I'm challenging myself to not upgrade until I can generate an "assset" that will pay for it :)

• Piggyback off another person's comments (For this, feel free to use the BP "quote" function).

I'll do that later :)

Hi Luis,

Welcome! You can get involved by being the guy to kick off our discussion about the book :) In this thread, we will be discussing the Introduction of the book. I've suggested some prompts above. Feel free to respond to any or all of them and get this party started!

Welcome to our first BP Book Club discussion. We will be discussing the Introduction of Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Next time, we will discuss chapter 1, entitled, "LESSON 1 - THE RICH DON'T WORK FOR MONEY."

For this discussion, I'll start by encouraging the following types of comments. Please feel free to respond to some or all of these prompts.

• Share your favorite quote or passage from the reading.
• Share one lesson or insight you gained from the reading.
• Share any agreements or disagreements that you might have with the author.
• Share any questions that you may have about the reading.
• Share one personal application that this reading helped (or will help) to encourage in your life.
• Piggyback off another person's comments (For this, feel free to use the BP "quote" function).

Hey everyone, 

Tomorrow at around 12 PM PST, I'm going to launch our first book club discussion. We will be covering the Introduction of Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I don't know if this is useful, but I thought I'd share some different ways of obtaining and accessing books/audiobooks. Perhaps this can save you all some money.

Buy It: This is self-explanatory. You can buy a hard copy of the book at Barnes and Noble or off Amazon. If you use digital devices, you can buy and download eBooks from a variety of sources, such as Amazon (Kindle),  Apple (iBooks), Barnes and Noble (Nook), etc... If you're into audiobooks, a site like Audible is popular.

Borrow It: When I can, I prefer to borrow instead of buy. A library card is a powerful thing. Some of you may not know this, but in many cases, your library card will also let you check out digital books/audiobooks. How to do this depends on your library system. The library system in Montgomery County, MD, for example, will let you check out and read books on the Overdrive and 3M Cloud Library apps. It will also let you listen to audiobooks on the Overdrive and OneClickDigital apps. I've borrowed many books and audiobooks like this. Setup takes a little time to figure out, but it's worth it in my opinion. I'd check with your local library to find out more.

On Demand: My current preferred way of getting books is to use a Netflix-like on-demand service. The three big ones that I know of are Scribd, Kindle Unlimited, and Oyster. They all have their positives and negatives. I currently use Scribd because unlike Oyster, it also has audiobooks. In my opinion, it also has a better selection than Kindle Unlimited in terms of big publisher books, though Kindle Unlimited might have more real estate investing books (many of the $0.99 - $2.99 type). These services often offer free trials, and I know that Scribd has an offer where if you refer a friend using your referral code, your friend gets two free months, and you get an extra month added to your subscription. Strategically utilizing these free offers, I've been able to read/listen to 50+ books this year without paying a single penny out of pocket. As it pertains to our first book club book, Rich Dad Poor Dad is available on both Scribd and Oyster, as is Cashflow Quadrant and a number of the Rich Dad Advisors books.

Hope that helps.