Does school prepare children for the real -world? ’’<bi>Study hard and get good grades and you will find a high paying job with great benefits</bi>’’, my parents used to say. This is how the book starts. It made me sit up and read the lines again. I had picked up the book because I had heard that it is a MUST READ BOOK about finances. Typically I read fiction and technical stuff but when I
came across the list of 10 MUST READ books I thought let me give it a try. And glad I am that I read it.
Other day my niece studying in class Vth came to me and asked ’’Mami why do we have to Study history. Why should we learn abut whom Akbar fought, when English came’’. I tried reasoning with her ’’Beta, we should learn history because it tells us how great our country was, we should learn from mistakes of the past and history has tendency to repeat itself’’. She argued, ’’But Mami other day I heard Nana saying how different is world now from when he was growing. He was saying the rules have changed, the attitude have changed. If things are so different in 50 years I am doubtful if we we will learn anything from what happened centuries ago’’. Then she said ’’Mami did you ever use history in your real life’’. I had no answer and all I could say ’’Because if you don’t get good grades you won’t get into college. Then you won’t get good job’’. But Nana always says that rich people dropped out of school. Bill Gates , dropped out of Harvard and founded Microsoft. He is ow the richest man of America and he is still in 30’s.
I found similar conversation in the Introduction of the book. Quoting from book ’’It was dawning on me that I was giving my son the same advice my parents had given me. the world around has changed, but the advice hasn’t.’’ We need new answers. This book gives an insight into the questions and answers.
The introduction continues to say about how an average educated hardworking person is caught in rat race. They study hard , get good grades and find a safe jon or career. They learn nothing about money and work hard all their lives. They work for the owners of their company, for the government paying taxes. and for the bank paying off their mortgage and credit cards. The process repeats into another hard-working generations.We all know that Education is foundation of success. Just as scholastic skills are vitally important, so are financial skills and communication skills. While
earlier we used to speak only about Intelligence Quoient, now we talk of Emotional Quotient.
This book tells in simple way how we can learn invesing, accounting, how we can learn to play smart rather than play it safe. The book is divided into simple Lessons, such as
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
The Rich don’t work for money
Why teach financial literacy
Mind your own business
The history of Taxes and Power of Corporations
The Rich invent mone
Work to Learn - Don’t work for money.
Each of them are excellently written and are simple to understand, comprehend.
To give a flavor:
’’One of the reasons the rich are getting richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class struggles in debt is because the subject of money is taught at home, not in school. Most of us learn about money from our parents. So what can a poor parent tell their child about money? They simply say ’’Stay in school and study hard’’. The child may graduate with excellent grades but with a
poor person’s financial programming and mind-set. It was learned while the
child was young. Money is not taught in schools. Schools focus on scholastic and professional
skills , but not on financial skills. This explains how smart bankers, doctors and accountants who earned excellent grades in school may struggles financially all of their lives’’.
The truth about the above statement hit me home hen yesterday I was talking to my friends about filling Income Tax returns. The first question they asked was ’’When is the last date. Oh Sept, we’ll see it then’’. And I am talking about engineers from IITS, some even holding Post graduate degrees. My eyes were literally opened. I suggest you read the book, I am re-reading it. And then I
intend to read ’’Think and Grow Rich’’ By Napoleon Hill.
The name of the book is a little , ’’Hat ke na’’. No the author Robert did not have two fathers(I mean his mother did not have two husbands).One the ’’poor dad’’ was the husband of hs mother the other one ’’Rich dad’’ was His friend Mike’s father. Both of them had a strong influence on Robert. As he had two influential fathers, he learned from both of them. He had to think about each dad’s advice and in doing so he gained insight into their thoughts. Quoting from book ’’For example, one dad had habit of saying ’’I can’t afford it’’ The other dad forbade those words to be used. He insisted I say ’’How can I afford it?’’One is a statement, the other is a question/ One lets you off the hook and
the other forces you to think’’.
I sincerely recommend one to get the copy of the book and read it. The book is written in a very simple language