Rating the Money Gurus
20 September 2006In looking around for more information on Robert Kiyosaki, I came across this page, which I think is well worth a read if you’re going through Rich Dad, Poor Dad or related material. It’s by John Reed, a guy who has apparently spent quite a bit of time researching and writing about Kiyosaki and the book. It portrays Kiyosaki personally in the “snake oil salesman” light. I’ve got no clue whether that’s accurate or not - but his dissection of the substance of the book further down in the page is dead-on as to the wisdom of the advice he contests. He’s got a list of the bits of financial advice in the book he thinks are wrong, and there are quite a few of them. He also seems to have done quite a bit of work rating the “financial gurus” for accuracy and usefulness – so if you’re thinking about buying any of these type of books, you might want to go through that list first.
I think that the biggest problem here is the “partisan” aspect of following the book. Reed calls it a cult, but that seems overblown to me – it’s more like people have gotten into a corner of the ring and are pulling for the Kiyosaki side even when they probably shouldn’t. You can see a little of that in the Rich Dad forums on this issue. Some of the posts sound more like people that want to believe something for reasons other than whether it’s accurate or not. They want to think they can make lots of money or that a degree is totally pointless. My advice is never to wed yourself to an idea just because you like it. Especially with personal finance issues, it’s hard to say there’s a “right” answer because the question we’re asking is “What do you want out of life, and how do you get there?” And never wed yourself to a guru. Lots of them give good advice, lots of them give bad advice. It can’t hurt you to read advice from a lot of different people. But every author and every website is wrong sometimes, and the only side you should be on is your own.
Discuss this on the Free the Drones Forums.
One Response to “Rating the Money Gurus”
September 22nd, 2006 at 11:16 am
[...] Rating the Money Gurus [...]