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moneysense.ca, 20/11/06
Book Review: Why We Want You To Be Rich
![[Cover Image of Why We Want You To Be Rich]](http://www.canadiancapitalist.com/images/books/why_we_want_you_to_be_rich.jpg)
I picked up a copy of this book at Costco and I am thoroughly under whelmed after plodding through its 330 pages. It is very nice to know that in exchange for a mere $21.19, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kiyosaki want us to be rich beyond our wildest dreams but if you are looking for actual advice on how to really do it, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
This book is pretty thin on details though Mr Kiyosaki counsels entrepreneurship and investing in oil and gas, gold, silver, real estate, hedge funds, private equity and limited partnerships, precisely the things where you are competing with thousands of really smart people with deep pockets.
I just don’t understand Robert Kiyosaki. Here is a best-selling author and by all accounts a “guru” in very high demand trying hard to convince everyone that he is a brilliant investor (“my gold mine in China, my silver mine in South America, and my real estate companies and oil partnerships in the United States”). In page 50 of this latest book, for instance, is this tall claim:
In many ways that will be explained later in this book, both Donald and I can beat Warren’s rates of returns on investment. He may be richer, but we can get richer faster using our own methods and use less money.
You can put me in the sceptic column because Mr. Buffett’s rates of returns are public and included in the annual report of Berkshire Hathaway every year. We only have Mr. Kiyosaki’s word that he is a superior investor.
The bottom line is that you can safely skip this hagiography that Mr. Trump and Mr. Kiyosaki have penned for each other (Robert is great; Donald is a genius) and thank me for the time and money I have saved you.
Related: Jonathan Clements’ [Wall Street Journal] excellent review of the book.
moneysense.ca, 20/11/06
I find “The Donald” and Mr. Kiyosaki good for a laugh, but that’s about it. Comparing themselves to Buffet, heh. I have two words to describe their method of wealth building. Dumb luck.
I found the book strange because so much of Mr. Buffett’s advice is at odds with the book:
leverage – Mr. Buffett counsels against it.
gold – thinks there is very little investment merit
hedge funds, private equity – he has a scathing opinion on them in the latest annual report
index funds – thinks it appropriate for the vast majority of investors.
I haven’t read any of Trump’s or Kiyosaki’s books so I don’t know Kiyosaki (or Trump other than what I’ve seen on The Apprentice) very well. That quote you posted sounds like something you might hear in a school yard uttered by a 6th grader “I wasn’t really trying anyway, I let you win.”
Kiyosaki got rich from his clever book concepts. In his books, he never properly describes HOW he gets there. I’m not a huge fan.
Joe
http://www.StingyFinance.com
Kiyosaki produces lot of “junk food” and it tastes the same as McD burger.
He get to be best-selling authors after president of MLM company (I belive it was ACMAE or so) pushed his books a lot (and I don’t think he did it for free).
If you want more info about Kiyosaki, take a look here http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html
I don’t like his book, he saying “I can do 16% on some of my investment”. Ok, mister smart ass: show me how! I don’t need to know that you are rich, I want to make money for me and my family.
Blech. Kiyosaki.
My mom gave me his first book a few years ago, in a sort of nebulous, “here, read this, apparently it tells you how to get rich.”
After plowing through it one weekend, I went back to her and told her she should be more careful about which books she recommends to me, because if I were to actually take the “advice” (what little there is of it) in the book and implement it in my life, I don’t think she’d like the result: Namely, having a penniless, homeless blowhard for a son.
I would put the emphasis on the title of the book on the “WHY”. If there’s no “HOW”, then I wouldn’t expect a how-to book. I haven’t even read the book or its reviews. The rationale seems to be that the so-called glamorous, blonde-bombshell-trotting, empire-building-making “Donalds” of the world are far more “popular” with some folks than the down-to-earth, everyday advice given in this blog, or from John Bogle, or Warren Buffett or from the myriad of sensible (but for some, mundane) advice given in many sites, books, and magazines about how to pay yourself first, save, invest, pay off your debts, and so on… To some folks, the ‘get rich quick’ promise is very appealing, while others (the wiser ones) sit quietly doing the right thing!
I just don’t believe that anyone could claim that they could show me how to get rich…why would they want to provide their “secret” to anyone?
TZ: Your comment that the book’s title is a fair one. However, the inner flap says “Trump and Kiyosaki want to teach you to be rich” and quotes the “Give a man a fish…”. And Kiyosaki kind of attempts to show how, except that I think it is a bunch of baloney.
With respect to books, I found the following to be a better investment. I am a big reader and even though I can well afford it, I get 99% of my books from the library for free (sure I have to wait sometimes but I always have a ton on order and it’s so easy to order the books over the Internet). I end up only buying the books I’ve already read and want to have or the rare occasional book I really want to read that the library doesn’t have.
With the money I save I donate some money to the library and pocket the rest. I started doing this once I realized how complete the library’s collection is and how difficult it is to even donate books that you are trying to get rid of (even the library didn’t want most of my books!).
Dear CC, you might use alternative tactics compare to buying “pop books”: learn speed reading, then quickly read the book during your weekly shopping at Costco, squeeze one idea from the reading and put saved $21.19 into your boys’ RESP?
Lego: That’s a good one
I like Kiyosaki.
Ultimately he is trying to have people grow from being employed, where they leverage their own time, to being an investor where they leverage their money and other people’s time and money. What’s wrong with that?
I love the idea of having my money do the work for me.
Mr. L Says: I get 99% of my books from the library for free
In today’s day and age, the cost of unlimited reading is a connection to the internet. The library is good, however, I don’t bother any more. I can’t read all the information that is available on the net.
I only buy computer/programming books as I can’t get current books at the library, and the information on the internet is usually spread out over countless websites.
I have read this book and it was well put together by Trump an Robert. It is titled “WHY” because they foresee the major problems in the future regarding pension and social security. And the average America is relying on government to save them but the current debt, oil prices, baby boomers retiring and other factors proves that there will be a lot of disappointed people in financial trouble. And the DO tell you how to get rich. EDUCATE yourself. And if you think you can learn to get rich in one book then you are a FOOL.
Dear Readers,
I’ve yet to leaf through Mr Trump & Mr Kiyosaki’s jointly scripted new book ;
“why we want you to be rich”
as i’m trying to catch hold of a paperback edition if it has hit the stands.
However,the flg books by Donald Trump are superb :-
1) How to get rich
2) The art of deal
sl(1) is surely worth its weight in gold -atleast it was for me.
Another book is by Napoleon Hill :
Think & grow rich
Abv books are great.
Kiyosaki’s book “rich dad-poor dad is worth it.
best regards
prasad lbv
I think TZ puts it very well, the book is focused on WHY not HOW. I can now understand why many people dislike this book. If you read it wanting to learn HOW to get rich, you will be very disappointed. I think it does a decent job explaining WHY. Many of the same issues were discussed in my finance and economics lectures.
I agree with TZ, the book is entitled why for a reason. Furthermore, I’ve yet to find any book out there that teaches you step by step, “how to get rich”. I’ve even taken some of Kiyosakis higher priced investing courses and although they do teach you ALOT more details about real estate investing, there is no course, book, DVD, program, etc that will tell you HOW to get rich.
A personal epiphany I had not too long
Ago while listening to a training audio by Jeff Olson made me realise that successful people don’t tell you exactly how to do things because the how’s don’t actually matter. The detailed story of how Robert acquired his wealth is completely different from how Donald acquired is wealth so them telling you exactly how they did it won’t really help you because the way they did it with the opportunities they had Won’t be there for you. That’s not to say that there are no more opportunities available, what I’m getting at is that every individuals circumstance is different.
The purpose of these books, courses, and other educational material is not to spoon feed you step by step information on how to get rich. The purpose is to help you expand your mind by learning more knowledge that you can then go out and apply to your individual situation.
All these great teachers focus on helping you change your mindset so that when you go out into the real world to apply this knowledge, your approach will be different because your mindset is different and therefore you will begin to see the results you desire. It’s not rocket science but if you can “get it”, then you can get it. Get it?
Anyways it all starts by renewing your mind (books), which influence your words and actions to become the successful person you desire to be.
Good luck to everyone on their journey
Also, one more thing I can add that Jeff Olson also teaches is that there are 3 phases of education:
1.learn knowledge
2.activity knowledge
3.teaching knowledge
The point at which you are encountering these books is the learn knowledge phase. Activity knowledge is when you actually go out and apply the things you learn which is where you learn the how to’s because you’re actually doing it. Once you become an expert at the first two learning phases, you’re then worthy of teaching others how to do the same thing which is where Robert and Donald are. They’ve taken the time, energy and effort to acquire knowledge, apply it and through their combined failures and successes, they’ve reached a point where they are worthy of delivering educational material to the person who wishes to venture on the same journey.
There are no shortcuts here, once you realise and accept that you’ll stop looking for the be all, end all book that will help you get rich. Everything adds to the last thing you learned and knowledge is good but only as good as if you apply it!