The story puts two different ways of living and earning in contrast with each other. The way the narrator’s father and his best friend’s father work is worlds apart. His father is an honest and principled man but he is poor and does not know to make money. His friend’s father, on the other hand, is savvy, business minded and rich. He knows how to make money and keep making more of it.
The narrator regards his father ways problematic as he would always struggle to earn enough to live comfortably. In other words, he will always be part of the financial rat race with other middle-class people.
On the contrary, his friend’s father planned ahead and learned to make others work to make money for him. He is bold and open to taking risks which bring better rewards and profits.
The narrator discusses many things that he has learnt from his friend’s father-the rich dad. The biggest thing is to financial literacy. Every person must learn about how to use various economic opportunities to make money and use various big corporations to work for you rather than work against you.
He talks about learning the basics of accounting and knowing the difference between assets and liabilities. One must accrue as many assets as possible while minimizing the number of liabilities.
The best forms of assets are real estate and stock bonds. He also talks about learning about taxation and how to avoid taxes like wealth tax etc by using creative and innovative ideas.
For the same purpose, he encourages people to work and associate with optimistic and intelligent people. One should accompany more intelligent people and try to glean various tricks and methods to increase wealth from them.
The narrator also talks about self-preservation and protecting self interest before helping others. ‘Pay yourself first’ is his motto. He encourages people to be fearless and hopeful rather than scared and pessimistic. Also, one should surround himself with fearless and optimistic people who are living to love large and lavishly.
The last thing the narrator discusses is the ability to learn rather than the necessity to work. One should fix his motivation for making wealth and stick to an attitude of learning, both from theory and practice.
A successful person learns the foundational elements well even before he gets wealthy while an unsuccessful person only waits for opportunities to earn more wealth. So, one should work and train oneself in different skills and become multidimensional and versatile.
He also asks people to give and spend money on others through charity and build an image. Only with such reputation, you can expect others to work for you and help you earn money in return.
