The current business venture I am in provides holistic learning in the different aspects of life. This includes financial literacy and awareness. Way back 2014, my coach recommended a financial literacy book, Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and our team read that book. I started to have financial literacy awareness way back 2012 when I left employment for good and this book gave me more awareness and it made financial literacy an advocacy close to my heart.

The book teaches us to be financially aware and to have the right mindset and attitude towards money so we can achieve our financial goals. The photo of my presentation slide above shows the cashflow quadrant that Robert Kiyosaki stated as the basic income sources that people have. The goal is to make money work for us so that work won't take too much of our time later on and we can be free to do things that are more important. I will be elaborating that one in my succeeding financial literacy articles. I will be sharing the things I have learned from this favorite book of mine.

First, we need to understand that mindset is very important in all aspects of life, including our finances. For us to transform our wallet, we need to transform our spirit from poor to rich by harnessing the financial genius we have inside us. We should first overcome the obstacles that hinder us from awakening this financial genius in us.

Obstacles that Hold Back our Financial Genius

• Fear - the fear of not being able to make money and the fear of losing it.

• Cynicism - the attitude of making excuses and giving yourself reasons why something is impossible.

• Laziness - staying busy in order to avoid problems you don’t want to face.

• Bad habits - “pay yourself first” by taking care of yourself first – physically, mentally, and financially before you use your hard earned money to pay for your responsibilities.

• Arrogance - arrogance is ego plus ignorance. Be humble enough to accept the fact that there are things you need to learn in order to prosper financially. Solve it by financial education.

These obstacles can be overcome by being educated. Develop the habits that rich people do. Here are the six core lessons in the book, the best practices that rich people do and the reasons why they succeeded financially. I did this in bullet form to simplify it and to make it more readable.

The Six Core Lessons that the Rich People Do

Lesson 1: The Rich don't Work for Money

- The rich make money work for them.

-For rich people, their assets are their income, the rest have their profession as income.

- The rich get much more security by investing time to create assets that generate money, rather than only getting paid with linear income.

- When it comes to finances, the rich chooses progress over safety, they play it smart by being financially literate and earn passive income with their assets, making money work for them.

Lesson 2: Why teach financial literacy?

- Know the difference between an asset and a liability and buy assets, harness money’s power.

- Delayed gratification. The rich buy luxuries last, not first. The rich generate enough cash flow from assets to cover these expenses.

- The rich reinvest excess cash flow generated by assets to other assets.

Lesson 3: Mind your Own Business

- Develop an entrepreneur mindset and attitude even if you’re an employee.

- Don’t confuse your profession with your business. Focus on building assets while keeping your day job.

- Don’t simply aim for income, create multiple streams of income that don’t eat your time.

Lesson 4: What the Rich Knows About the History of Taxes and the Power of Corporations

- The rich will look for income sources that have favorable tax, while the poor just sit, get taxed, and complain about it.

- The rich creates a corporation or any business to protect assets and reduce tax expenses. While most people earn, get taxed, then spend what is left, the business earns, spends everything it can, and then gets taxed on what is left.

Lesson 5: The Rich Invents Money

Three hundred years ago, land was wealth. With Industrial Revolution, wealth became owned by the industrialist. Today, the industrial age has ended. Information is the new wealth now that we are in the information and digital age.

- never hesitate to invest in knowledge, it pays the best interest in the long run.

- the rich learn first before buying assets and raising money.

- most people work hard, pay taxes, save anything left over, rich people take the time to develop financial intelligence and harness the power of their brain to create assets.

- the rich develops the skill of finding an opportunity that everyone else has missed.

Lesson 6: The rich work to learn and don't just work for money

- Know a little about a lot. Work to learn second skills like accounting, investing, markets, the law, sales, marketing, leadership, writing, speaking, and negotiating, people skills – the skills needed to build assets, and later on, wealth. 

- The rich make life easier by developing people skills.

- Rich people don’t just focus on specialty, they also know about systems.

If you think you can make better burgers than McDonald’s, then why does McDonald’s make more money than you do?

The answer is simple. It's because McDonald's knows how to monetize the burger with financial education and proper knowledge about business systems. Most of us only know how to make the burger but don't have the skill and knowledge on the best way to monetize it. The point is that most of us focus on our profession and don't learn a second skill that can produce more money. In the case of McDonald's, the focus is not just about how to make burgers but also learning a second skill, a business skill that can monetize it.

Spend time for your learning rather than just working to earn money. Instead of working for money and security, which are no doubt important, it is recommended that we learn a second skill alongside it. The author suggested communication and people skills. The better we are at communicating and handling our fear of rejection, life somehow gets easier. A side hustle that will help us learn how to make money work for us and lead to financial freedom is also a good thing to pursue.

Applying the Things I Learned

This book taught me about the importance of having the right mindset towards finances. Whatever our financial situation is right now is the product of how we think about money matters that manifested in our actions. Learning from this book had opened more learning opportunities outside my profession. When I left employment, I learned about business. While earning from my business, I learn skills alongside it like communication, handling emotions and building relationships. I also learn other things as I build multiple streams of income with my side hustles. Learning while earning is the habit I developed after reading this book. I make sure I learn as I continue with my journey to making money work for me in the future.