Our Financial Independence Journey: The Second Book of January

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Robert Kyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad is pure financial independence wisdom at a fourth-grade reading level. Here's why we return to it every January. Read all the posts in Jonathan Cope’s series about Our Financial Independence Journey.

In January I read to recharge and to prepare.

I read the same five books each year.

They serve as a meditation on wealth.

A way to set my mind and our year.

Financial independence books

• The Richest Man in Babylon
• Rich Dad Poor Dad
• The Millionaire Next Door
• The Millionaire Mind
• The Snowball

Rich Dad Poor Dad

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kyosaki is the second book of January.

Reading level grade four. So says the author. Well within reach of the youngest Cope.

A book I wish my ego let me read sooner.

Its purple, gold, all-singing, all-dancing cover led me to treat it like an infomercial for the ShamWow. Not for this guy, thanks. Darn it. So good. (Can’t speak for the ShamWow.)

Kyosaki teaches that wealth is the product of a way of being meeting a way of working.

Gaining strength and leverage from a system to make fruitful work a matter of behavior not of brain or brawn.

One can bear a burden for a wage. But it is more pleasant not to have to. Letting savings, or those of others, earn one’s wage is best. Doing so leaves time and energy for one’s purpose.

Rich Dad Poor Dad changed me. It changed the way I thought about the scarcity of money, the meaning of an asset, the power of ideas, and the best work to build wealth.

And it gave us just a little more courage to build our rental property portfolio and our businesses. Courage that we’ve needed often. Courage that I recharge some each year as I turn the pages.