The book is the story of a person (the narrator and author) who has two fathers: the first was his biological father – the poor dad – and the other was the father of his childhood best friend, Mike – the rich dad. Both fathers taught the author how to achieve success but with very disparate approaches. It became evident to the author which father’s approach made more financial sense.
Throughout the book, the author compares both fathers – their principles, ideas, financial practices, and degree of dynamism and how his real father, the poor and struggling but highly educated man, paled against his rich dad in terms of asset building and business acumen.
The author compares his poor dad to those people who are perpetually scampering in the Rat Race, helplessly trapped in a vicious cycle of needing more but never able to satisfy their dreams for wealth because of one glaring lack: financial literacy. They spend so much time in school learning about the problems of the world, but have not acquired any valuable lessons about money, simply because it is never taught in school. His rich dad, by contrast, represents the independently wealthy core of society who deliberately takes advantage of the power of corporations and their personal knowledge of tax and accounting (or that of their financial advisers) which they manipulate to their advantage.
The book’s theme reduces to two fundamental concepts: a can-do attitude and fearless entrepreneurship. The author highlights these two concepts by providing multiple examples for each and focusing on the need for financial literacy, how the power of corporations contribute to making the wealthy even wealthier, minding your own business, overcoming obstacles by not fostering laziness, fear, cynicism and other negative attitudes, and recognizing the characteristics of humans and how their preconceived notions and upbringing hamper their financial freedom goals.
The author presents six major lessons which he discusses throughout the book:
- The rich don’t work for money
- The importance of financial literacy
- Minding Your own business
- Taxes and corporations
- The rich invent money
- The need to work to learn and not to work for money
