When I was bed-ridden a couple of weeks ago, I had the time to read Robert Kiyosaki’s best seller, “If you want to be rich & happy, don’t go to school?”. This was an eye opening read. In the books own sales pitch, “If you don’t read this book for yourself, read it for your kids!”
Robert says that this book was inspired by the epidemic number of adults who are awakening to the fact they are not as financially secure as they would like to be but this book really just takes a good hard slog at the education system - one that has been stagnant since it’s inception hundreds on years ago; one that was designed for people with 30 year life spans; and one where if you a good education in the 1700s, you were indeed guarantee success in life, but this is no longer true.
People are wondering, “If I am so smart and educated, why am I slipping financially and professionally?” and kids are wondering, “Why is there no relevance between what I am being taught in school and real life?”. Most of us would agree that school was a waste of time, but Robert Kiyosaki has translated this frustration into a best seller, and asks How many jails will it take to realise that it is not the prison system but the scoiety and education system that is failing us.
Robert’s theory is that school actually dumbs us down and he had to unlearn what he learnt in order to reach his current financial success. A person’s ability to survive in this world is diminished by educations emphaiss on teaching trough memorisation rather than the natural process of learning. Education makes us rote learn, and punishes those who get answer’s wrong. There is too much emphasis on being right all the time, when in reality, it is learning from your mistakes that makes you a better person. If you’ve never made any mistakes, then you’ve never learnt anything.
Robert also scrutinises the fact that school pushes us to specialise too early. We choose our high school subjects, choose a specialised university degree, and come out with a specific industry to work in. However, in today’s times, the average person will make 5 major career changes before he retires. If this is so, why should we be forced to specialise so early, when we really have no idea what we want to be.
Robert’s suggested path to riches is to generalise, go into sales because at the end of the day, every thing is about sales (whether it’s preaching (selling) a religion, teaching a class (selling course material), or winning (selling) electoral votes - it’s all about sales. To start of with, look for how much you can learn instead of how much you can earn. This means that you may have to take a pay cut, get a job where you can learn more about sales. Once you’ve learnt all you can from that job, move on to the next and learn more. Keep moving from job to job, until you’ve mastered the art of sales.
They key also, is to unlearn what you’ve learnt from school, and embrass your mistakes. You’ll need to make mistakes in order to find what works for you. In Thomas Edison’s own words, “I did not fail 9999 times, I successfully found out what did not work 9999 times”.
Despite this book ending with a couple of chapters promoting his accelerated learning courses, I really did find this a great read so I’m not going to spoil it much more. There’s a whole 350 pages worth of good reading and the book covers more controversial topics like “Are women really the weaker sex?”, “Money is Evil”, “Why most people die poor”, “What do I tell my children”, and of course… “So should I send my child to school?”
And lastly… Robert boasts that he now has three reading modes
- slow 200-300 wpm
- medium 2000 wpm, and
- ultra fast 20,000 wpm!!!
What Da?!! 20,000 WORDS PER MINUTE??! Apparently, he’s unlearnt what he’s learnt in school. In school we need to read aloud to teachers so that they can verify that we have learnt how to read. Reading, however, is not an auditory skill, it is VISUAL. It actually makes sense! I really do read aloud in my head - even when I’m typing now! I read about a page every two minutes… way too slow.. I need to move on to the fast lane!
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3 comments ↓
Hey, I read that book. And my first impression is the same as yours. Afterwards I read his more famous work “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”.
Both are inspiring reads, but one must scan John T. Reed’s scathing review of Kiyosaki in order to keep your feet on the ground.
http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html
Hey, that’s a good analysis… but who is John Reed and why is his website so crap? :P
I’ve skimmed through Rich Dad, Poor Dad before and didn’t see anything mind boggling enough for me to read. Maybe I’ll give it another shot later.
I didn’t agree with everything in the Rich & Happy book but I did agree with the ‘learn from your mistakes’ and don’t specialise until you know what you want to do. However, where I differ is that when you do figure out your calling, you need to really pick a niche, and it’s got to be something you’re passionate and enthusiastic about. There’s so much competition out there that if you don’t define your niche, you just become lost in the sea of billions of would-be’s.
John Reed’s criticism of some of the Bob’s stories being made up is okay but you’d expect a book to have some of that and more. It’s also got to be biased towards a certain viewpoint so that it can create controversy and in turn, sales.
Some people do really well coming out of uni and some come out none the better. My motto: Know where you’re going. :)
I live in Sweden and am one of many with a college degree and no job at all. Spent my years getting an education but it’s impossible to get a job because I haven’t got the required working experience. At the same time friends from school, who failed or almost failed to get through high school, got decent jobs. So I’m not too hot for school and education.
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