Rich Dad Poor Dad: Why is the first book recommended to introduce you to finance?
When we try to learn from the world of entrepreneurship, we are often advised to read a book: Rich Dad Poor Dad. Why is it the best work to introduce you to finance?
Rich Dad Poor Dad is the most successful book by Robert Kiyosaki, an American businessman, and writer (with Japanese ancestry), who is considered an eminence in the business world, to the point that he wrote a book with Donald Trump, who occupies the maximum position in the Presidency of the United States, entitled Why We Want You to Be Rich: Two Men, One Message, published in 2007.
When we usually ask for recommendations on a book that introduces us to the theme of business entrepreneurship, the first thing we usually get recommend is this author's top work, although we don't understand the reason. To understand it, we must make a small analysis of the structure of the book, where a truly interesting story is told and with clear messages that anyone can understand in a simple way.
Why is this book so successful?
Published in 1997, Rich Dad Poor Dad is a renowned work around the world. Even those who do not know it, automatically identify its cover or know that it is the most recommended book to get you started in the business world. Its fame has transcended, even over the years. This caused a word of mouth-to-mouth popularity, where everyone recognizes that it is a book that should be read at some point in your life.
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Now, one of the secrets of the success of this book is its dynamic and simple way of speaking to the reader. The first thing we should know is that it is an alleged life story of the author, where he tells us about financial education and how educational and family institutions do not teach us to make the "economic difference", but that we are satisfied with being someone else's employees.
Therefore, the first thing we recognize is that the reader will surely feel identified in this situation. After all, he is a dependency worker. However, the fact that this work is written almost in the first person, narrating the adventures of his childhood (which, in the words of the author, was the moment where he discovered what he wanted to do with his life in the future) creates a feeling of hope. After all, if a child changed his mind from a young age to become a millionaire, anyone can do it.
In the same way, the fact that Robert Kiyosaki talks about his anecdotes as a son, makes you understand that you always learn from whom we take an example from. With this, it makes people understand that what has touched them in life has not been their own decision, but of those who instructed them. That is, the author knew that he had to choose well who would be his source of inspiration: his rich father or his poor father, opting for the first, even though the second was his true parent.
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How do you talk about financial independence in the book?
Financial independence is explained by Robert Kiyosaki, although in a way that will not please everyone. According to Cultura Colectiva, Rich Dad Poor Dad is the perfect example of the "myth of the entrepreneur", where there is an idea that we all have opportunities in life, we just have to know how to take advantage of them.
From this point of view, the anecdotes told by the author, if true, would only be reinforcing a stereotype in which there is no absolute truth to make a difference when investing. Even from another perspective, Kiyosaki seemed so obsessed with becoming a millionaire that he even neglected his ties with his true father (the poor) to follow only what his mentor (the rich father) did.
Then, we notice that the idea of being "financially independent" is faithfully associated with the idea of the entrepreneur who is "adventurous" and is "brave", crystallizing an idea thanks to the opportunities, which are just around the corner. As in Rich Dad Poor Dad, some of the efforts that the author had to go through are also discussed, people immediately relate it to the situation in which they find themselves in life, because the idea of generating assets is the dream of everything American.
However, macrosocial contexts in which those opportunities appeared are never reproduced, so that more than one could be disappointed to observe that he will not have the same results as Kiyosaki, although he can work even harder than him.
