Rich Dad Poor Dad
Robert T. Kiyosaki
>2. The management of systems (including yourself and time with
family).
>3.
The
management
of
people.
>The most important specialized skills are sales and understanding marketing.
It is the ability to sell--therefore, to communicate to another human being, be it a customer,
employee, boss, spouse or child-that is the base skill of personal success. It is communication
skills such as writing, speaking and negotiating that are crucial to a life of success. It is a skill that
I work on constantly, attending courses or buying educational tapes to expand my
knowledge.
As I have mentioned, my educated dad worked harder
and harder the more competent he became. He also became more trapped the more
specialized he got. Although his salary went up, his choices diminished. Soon after he was
locked out of government work, he found out how vulnerable he really was professionally. It is
like professional athletes who suddenly are injured or are too old to play. Their once high-paying
position is gone, and they have limited skills to fall back on. I think that is why my educated dad
sided so much with unions after that. He realized how much a union would have benefited
him.
Rich dad encouraged Mike and me to know a little about a lot.
He encouraged us to work with people smarter than we were and to bring smart people
together to work as a team. Today it would be called a synergy of professional specialities.
Today, I meet ex-schoolteachers earning hundreds of thousands of
dollars a year. They earn that much because they have specialized skills in their field as well as
other skills. They can teach as well as sell and market. I know of no other skills to be more
important than selling as well as marketing. The skills of selling and marketing are difficult for
most people primarily due to their fear of rejection. The better you are at communicating,
negotiating and handling your fear of rejection, the easier life is. Just as I advised that
newspaper writer who wanted to become a “best-selling author,” I advise anyone else today.
Being technically specialized has its strengths as well as its weaknesses. I have friends who are
geniuses, but they cannot communicate effectively with other human beings and, as a result,
their earnings are pitiful. I advise them to just spend a year learning to sell. Even if they earn
nothing,
their
communication
skills
will
improve.
And
that
is
priceless.
>In addition to being good learners, sellers and marketers, we need to be good
teachers as well as good students. To be truly rich, we need to be able to give as well as to
receive. In cases of financial or professional struggle, there is often a lack of giving and
receiving. I know many people who are poor because they are neither good students nor good
teachers.
Both of my dads were generous men. Both made it a
practice to give first. Teaching was one of their ways of giving. The more they gave, the more
they received. One glaring difference was in the giving of money. My rich dad gave lots of
money away. He gave to his church, to charities, to his foundation. He knew that to receive
money, you had to give money. Giving money is the secret to most great wealthy families. That
is why there are organizations like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation. These
are organizations designed to take their wealth and increase it, as well as give it away in
perpetuity.
My educated dad always said, “When I have some extra
money, I'll give it.” The problem was, there was never any extra. So he worked harder to draw
more money in rather than focus on the most important law of money: “Give and you shall
receive.” Instead, he believed in “Receive and then you give.”
In
conclusion, I became both dads. One part of me is a hard-core capitalist who loves the game of
money making money. The other side is ': a socially responsible teacher who is deeply
concerned with this ever-widening gap between the haves and have nots. I personally hold the
