Rich Dad Poor Dad is a starting point for anyone looking to gain control of their financial future

Cash flow tells the
story of how a person 
handles money.
flaws, putting a spotlight on what we don’t know. That is why, all too 
often, a person who comes into a sudden 
windfall of cash—let’s say an inheritance, 
a pay raise, or lottery winnings—soon 
returns to the same financial mess, if not 
worse, than the mess they were in before. 
Money only accentuates the cash-flow pattern running in your head. If 
your pattern is to spend everything you get, most likely an increase in 
cash will just result in an increase in spending. Thus, the saying, “A fool 
and his money is one big party.”
I have said many times that we go to school to gain scholastic 
and professional skills, both of which are important. We learn to 
make money with our professional skills. In the 1960s when I was in 
high school, if someone did well academically, people assumed this 
bright student would go on to be a medical doctor because it was the 
profession with the promise of the greatest financial reward.
Today, doctors face financial challenges I wouldn’t wish on my 
worst enemy: insurance companies taking control of the business, 
managed health care, government intervention, and malpractice suits. 
Today, kids want to be famous athletes, movie stars, rock stars, beauty 
queens, or CEOs because that is where the fame, money, and prestige 
are. That is the reason it is so hard to motivate kids in school today. 

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Rich Dad Poor Dad
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They know that professional success is no longer solely linked to 
academic success, as it once was.
Because students leave school without financial skills, millions 
of educated people pursue their profession successfully, but later find 
themselves struggling financially. They work harder but don’t get ahead. 
What is missing from their education is not how to make money, but 
how to manage money. It’s called financial aptitude—what you do with 
the money once you make it, how to keep people from taking it from 
you, how to keep it longer, and how to make that money work hard 
for you. Most people don’t understand why they struggle financially 
because they don’t understand cash flow. A person can be highly 
educated, professionally successful, and financially illiterate. These 
people often work harder than they need to because they learned how 
to work hard, but not how to have their money work hard for them.