Rich Dad Poor Dad Part II - Rich Dad's Cash Flow Quadrant (Rich Dad's Guide to Financial Freedom) [Paperback]

The definitions of these four quadrants are important. As an employee, you have a job. As a self-employed person, you own a job. As a business owner you have a system (such as a franchise like McDonald's) that produces cash flow for you and others work for you. As an investor, your money works for you. Rich people are getting more than 70 percent of their cash flow and income by having money work for them.

One of the strengths of the book is that it deals with the subtle psychological differences among people in the four different quadrants, especially on subjects like security and freedom. Kiyosaki and Lechter then do a nice job of helping you understand the difference between risky and taking risk. The latter is a good idea, when you know what you are doing, and the former is always to be avoided.

The book is not dogmatic, pointing out that good results can be reached in a variety of ways. You have to decide which ones are right for you. In general, you are encouraged to move from the employee and self-employed side for your income to the business owner and investor side. Then, take your cash flow and expand it into investments.

Another of the strengths of the book is to make it clearer what the advantages of income property are. In these Internet stock-crazed days, many are looking only to stocks and missing good commercial property opportunities.

There are lots of good questions you can use to help frame your road through the cash flow quadant. At a minimum, you will become much more financially literate. With the help of the 7 steps here for making the necessary changes, you should begin to make the transition.

The book has a nice conversational tone that turns personal economics into common sense examples and principles.

The downside of any book about changing your life is that you can read it much faster than you can master the lessons and apply them. I suggest that you schedule time to reread this book over the next 10 years. That's the best way to check up on yourself and how you are doing.

I do recommend that you read Rich Dad, Poor Dad first. You'll get much more out of this book if you do that. Then you'll begin to see opportunities where others see difficulties. Good luck with fulfilling your goals!

There is however some useful information and new concepts in the second book so on balance it's still worth buying.