Lesson One From "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" - Have Money Work For You

“The main reason people struggle financially is because they have spent years in school but learned nothing about money. The result is that people learn to work for money. . . but never learn to have money work for them.” Robert Kiyosaki

The #1 New York Times Bestseller Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a story about the money lessons that Robert Kiyosaki learned from his two dads, his biological father, who was his poor dad, and his best friend’s father, who was his rich dad. Poor dad was a Ph.D. and held a very important government position, but he never had enough money at the end of the month and he died broke. Rich dad dropped out of school at the age of 13 and went on to become one of the wealthiest men in Hawaii.

“Rich Dad, Poor Dad” is a must-read for anyone looking to develop a rich person’s financial programming and mindset. The first important lesson this book teaches is the following: Don’t work hard for money; instead, have money work hard for you.

Kiyosaki explains in his book that there are three types of income:

Earned income
Passive income
Portfolio income

Poor dad taught his son Robert to go to school, study hard, and get good grades so that he could find a secure job that would pay him a good salary and give him excellent benefits. That is, he advised him to work for earned income, or to work for money. However, there are several problems with this strategy. First, income streams from a salary are linear: you only get paid once for your effort. If you stop showing up for work, you stop getting a paycheck. It's like being on a treadmill. Second, earned income is confined to the amount of time that you work, and time is a limited resource. Therefore, there’s a limit to how much earned income you can make. And third, earned income pays the most taxes.

Passive income is income that does not require your direct involvement. You make a strong initial effort to get this type of income started, but then you do minimal work thereafter to keep it going. It can be income derived from royalties--for example, you write a book--, from patents--you invent something--, income derived from real estate, and so on. Brian Lee at geniustypes.com swears by bulk candy vending machines to create passive income. There are many ways to create passive income and the key is to be on the look-out for passive income producing opportunities.

Portfolio income is generally derived from paper assets such as stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Bill Gates is one of the four richest men in the world because of portfolio income, not earned income. That is, he's rich because of the stock that he owns, not because of the salary he earns. One of the many benefits of portfolio income is that paper assets are easier to maintain than other types of assets.

Another way to think of passive and portfolio income is as residual income. With residual income you work hard once, and it unleashes a steady flow of income for months or even years. You get paid over and over again for the same effort. That is, you get paid multiple times for every hour of work and the stream of income continues to flow whether you're there or not. Therefore, you can spend your time doing things other than working for money. In addition, how much money you make is not determined by how many hours you work, but by how many residual streams of income you create.

Rich dad would say to Robert: “The key to becoming wealthy is the ability to convert earned income into passive income and/or portfolio income as quickly as possible.” Start looking for opportunities to create passive and portfolio income and develop a disciplined, well-planned strategy for your money.

Books from the Rich Dad/Poor Dad series include the following: