I’m finally reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, and it’s surprising to find out that it’s more of a mindset book than a personal finance book.

At least so far, there’s very few details of how to live a rich life.

What there are instead is a lot of lessons about how to think about money, contrasted between the rich dad capitalist mindset and the poor dad communist mindset.

There are a lot of lessons that I would have completely missed had I read the book when I first heard of it a few years ago, and I was pretty alert back then.

I’ve always been struck by this fact:

Money isn’t real 

But Rich Dad Poor Dad takes that concept to the next level.

Poor-thinking me, believing that money isn’t real, considers it therefore not worthy of time or attention. Money becomes this unknowable thing – and the unknowable is in effect not real. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Rich-thinking says that if money isn’t real, all the easier it is to bend it to your will. So what if it isn’t real, people agree that it’s real and that’s enough for now.

Instead of hiding from what you don’t know, go out and find that knowledge and fight back.

There are also sections on fear, risk-taking, and government education.

It’ll require some supplemental reading after I’m done (since RDPD does not provide many specifics on plans) to formulate what kind of financial moves are right for me, but so far this is a great book.

It shows that the mindset shift from poor to rich is not difficult, and can be done by anyone.

If that isn’t something we all need to know and apply, I don’t know what is.