The Book That Changed My Thinking
Every so often, you come across a book, conversation or idea that changes the way you look at something you previously took for granted.
For me, one of those books was Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad.
I first read it at a time when my thinking about work and income was still fairly conventional.
Get a good job. Work hard. Progress in your career. Earn more money. Save what you can.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that path. For millions of people, it provides a good living and a rewarding career.
But Rich Dad Poor Dad made me realise that it wasn’t the only path.
A Different Way of Thinking About Money
One of the biggest ideas I took from the book wasn’t a particular investment strategy or financial technique.
It was simply the idea that we should become more financially educated.
Most of us learn a great deal about how to earn money through employment, but considerably less about how money itself works.
Kiyosaki encouraged readers to think about things such as assets, liabilities, cash flow, investing and business ownership.
Some of his ideas have been debated over the years, and I don’t think you need to agree with everything in a book to benefit from reading it.
What mattered to me was that it encouraged me to start asking different questions.
Instead of only asking:
How can I earn more?
I began thinking:
How can I create something that generates income?
That’s a subtle difference, but it can lead your thinking in a completely different direction.
From Employee Thinking to Entrepreneurial Thinking
Like many people, I followed the conventional route into employment.
Again, there is nothing wrong with that.
But there is an important limitation to relying entirely on employment for your income: somebody else ultimately has a considerable amount of influence over your financial future.
Your salary, your working hours, your opportunities for progression and even the continued existence of your job are not entirely under your control.
Entrepreneurship introduced me to another possibility.
What if you could build something of your own?
What if you could develop skills that allowed you to create value independently?
What if some of your income didn’t have to depend entirely upon exchanging your time for a salary?
Those questions fascinated me.
And eventually they helped lead me towards the world of online business.
The Real Lesson Wasn’t About Getting Rich
Ironically, despite the title of the book, the lesson that stayed with me wasn’t simply how to become rich.
It was something broader.
Think differently about what is possible.
A traditional career is one option.
Building a business is another.
Investing is another.
Creating intellectual property, digital products or other income-producing assets can be another.
And increasingly, technology has created possibilities that simply didn’t exist for previous generations.
You don’t necessarily have to abandon one path to explore another either.
A side project can begin alongside a career.
A new skill can be learned before it ever produces income.
An idea can be tested before becoming a business.
The important thing is recognising that you have choices.
One Idea Can Open a Door
That’s why I still remember Rich Dad Poor Dad.
It didn’t hand me a business.
It didn’t magically create financial freedom.
And it certainly didn’t provide every answer.
What it did was change the questions I was asking.
And sometimes that’s what a genuinely influential book does.
It introduces an idea that stays with you.
That idea leads to another.
You start learning.
You start experimenting.
You notice opportunities you might previously have ignored.
And eventually you may find yourself travelling down a road you hadn’t even realised existed.
For me, Rich Dad Poor Dad helped open that door.
And many years later, I think the principle behind it is still worth remembering:
Your circumstances can change when you begin changing the way you think about what is possible.
Enjoy Your Day,
Dylan