Posts Tagged ‘rich dad poor dad’

1. The 4 Hour Work Week

How to start your own business, quit your job, work less, outsource your work, learn quicker, have more money and a better life. This book actually does cover it all. Timothy Ferris, the author of this book was fired from his normal $40,000 a year job and went on to start his own internet company. He then perfected his time management techniques and company so that he was only spending 4 hours a week working, but earning over $40,000 a month. This book was an absolute inspiration to me and I actually used the methods in this book to quit my job and follow a dream. You can read the full story of How I Quit my Job In Tokyo and Moved to a Tropical Island here. This book is an absolute “have to read”. Even if you are happy in your job and life, this book will have tips that can help you make it better.

2. Personal Development for Smart People

Personal Development for Smart People is a new personal development book written by Steve Pavlina. As many of you may already know, Steve Pavlina’s blog Personal Development for Smart People is the largest blog for personal development. It contains a lot of great content and the book is just as good. The book focuses on teaching key principles you can learn to improve prove yourself as a person and then how to apply them to improve the various aspects of your life (career, relationships, making money, health, etc). Another must have for anyone looking for improvement and especially good for those trying to find a direction in their life. See here for a full review.

3. Rich Dad Poor Dad

This was one of the first books that really got me interested in investing and creating other streams of incomes. Unlike the two above books, this one doesn’t really offer much in the way of “how to”, but it was a very inspirational book for me. When I first read this, I was working in a low paying job where my income barely covered my expenses. This book gave me the inspiration to keep learning and as I did, my financial position just kept getting better. I think this is an especially great book for high school and college students. I sure I could have read it sooner.

4. The Go Giver

The Go Giver is a cool little book that talks about the benefits of giving and how the rewards of giving can heavily out way the rewards of taking. The plot is in story form and follows a character who is trying to make his way to the top of his company. All he cares about is winning and it doesn’t matter who gets in his way. He has a chance to meet a very successful man who agrees to help him as long as he promises to try each technique he is taught. As he does so and helps various people, he find that pretty soon he has a lot of people who want to help him. This was a simple book, but it has a very important message. I am still amazed each time I help or give and don’t expect to get something back, how somehow it always seems to.

5. The Dip

Written by Seth Godin, one of the top marketing authors, The Dip is a great book to help you achieve your best. The idea behind the dip is to achieve more by knowing when to quit and when to try and become the best. Seth talks about the fact that most of the benefits come to those who make it out of “the dip” and over the hill. For instance, the top salesman will make the majority of the sales, the benefits from learning a new language come to those who stick it out and learn to speak fluently. So in order to get the most benefits and rewards, quit the things you don’t really plan to focus on and put a lot of your time in to the things that really matter to you. The benefits from getting really good at those things will greatly improve your life. You can find a more in-depth review here.

Most people view obtaining wealth and riches as the final goal in life. They feel that if they can get more money then they will be happier and have a more fulfilling life. That with a little extra money the worries will start to disappear and with a lot of money the worries will be gone. i don’t think this is the case. it all depends on how you view wealth and riches.

To me, wealth means freedom. As Robert Kiyosaki discussed in Rich Dad Poor Dad, wealth is measured in time. It is how long you can maintain the lifestyle you want without having to work. I agree with this. Working 40 hours a week, even if you like your job, takes away your freedom.

However, you don’t have to have a lot of money to be wealthy. You can also obtain wealth by reducing your costs and spending. The lower your average cost of living, and the greater your savings, the longer you can live wealthy outside of work. For Example, someone who makes $30,000 a year, and only has an average monthly cost of living (including expenses and spending income) of $1,500 would accumulate an average of 8 months of wealth (8 months maintaining current life style without working) each year. Someone earning $70,000 a year with an average monthly costs of $4000 would only accumulate an average wealth of 5.5 months after one year of working.

$1,500 X 12 months=$18,000 $30,000-$18,000=$12,000 $12,000/$1,500=8 Months

$4,000 X 12 months=$48,000 $70,000-$48,000=$22,000 $22,000/$4,000=5.5 Months

One of the biggest reasons why people never seem to be able to get a head is because there spending increases in proportion (or more) with their increase in earnings. When they get a raise, they buy a more expensive car, a bigger house, a bigger tv, get satellite, and eat out more often at expensive restaurants. No I am not saying that you should save every penny and give up having any fun. What I am recommending is that you decrease your spending overall, and never let your living costs increase by a larger or equal percentage than your increases in salary.

In part two I will cover 5 easy ways to increase your wealth and savings.