If you’ve been stuck in the same financial situation for years, it’s probably because nobody told you the truth about money.
Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad isn’t just another self-help book—it’s a wake-up call. Here are 20 game-changing tips that’ll shift how you think about wealth, work, and your future.
1. Mistakes Are How You Learn
One of the main problems with school is that we’re taught making mistakes is a bad thing, and we get punished for them.
But here’s the thing: humans learn from making mistakes. We learned to walk by falling down.
Robert Kiyosaki says we either succeed or we learn. Failure isn’t the end—it’s one of the most motivating and powerful tools we have.
2. Talk About Money
Most people don’t talk about money with their friends or family, but it’s one of the more important things to discuss.
Poor people will never talk about finances—they’ll say they’re not interested.
But the rich? They discuss it around the dinner table. It’s a regular topic of conversation because money is what we trade our lives for.
3. “Play It Safe” Is Terrible Advice
This keeps us stuck in savings mode when we should be moving to investment mode. It keeps us at jobs we hate for 10 years longer than necessary.
It makes us focus only on benefits, raises, and job security instead of looking for actual freedom, happiness, and building real wealth.
4. School Doesn’t Make You Wealthy
Most people think it’s important to go to school, get your degree, get a good high-paying job with a big company. That is NOT how you become wealthy.
Instead, we should be studying money and figuring out how to make money work for us, especially when we’re younger.
A high-paying job is nice, but it’s not how you actually build wealth. The real path? Study money instead. Learn how to make it work for you, not the other way around. Your education matters, but financial education matters way more.
5. Work for Experience, Not Just Money
Jump between different jobs and industries early. Every role teaches you something you’ll use later. This isn’t about résumé-building—it’s about knowledge that compounds over time.
You don’t know what you’re going to use it for, but when you start to work for experience and knowledge instead of money, that’s when everything starts to change. That’s when you start seeing connections between different industries and skills. That’s when your value skyrockets.
6. Stop Doing the Same Thing and Expecting Results
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
So if you’re not seeing results, instead of just working harder (which is what most people do when they have money problems), take a step back and ask: should you be running so hard in the direction you’re running, or do you need to start changing things up?
Generally, you need to switch things up, because most of us are kind of dumb and waste a lot of time and money. If you’re anything like me, I don’t know… just try something different.
7. Use Desire as Motivation
Want a Tesla? A house? Financial freedom? Don’t ignore that desire—weaponize it. Use it to motivate yourself to grow and earn more. Your ambition is your advantage.
So whatever it is for you, use it as a carrot to dangle in front of yourself so you can be motivated to make more money.
8. Say “How Can I?” Instead of “I Can’t Afford It”
Instead of saying “I can’t afford it”—which allows you to shut it off and say “whatever, I’m a poor person, I’m not going to have stuff like that”—ask yourself “How can I afford it?”
That is what turns on your mind. If I can generate a thousand dollars a month in passive income from buying assets, then I’ll be able to afford this car.
Instead of thinking “I can’t afford to travel,” ask yourself “How can I afford to travel? What do I need to change in my life to make this happen?”
9. Build Your Reputation in Your Mind First
Ever since I learned this, I’ve been doing it, especially with my health but also with money.
I tell myself: I am a fit person. I am a healthy person. And a healthy person doesn’t eat fast food. A healthy person who is in shape goes to the gym at least twice a week.
You can apply this to so many different things. If you see yourself as a wealthy person, before you spend money you’re going to ask: would a wealthy person buy this? Would a wealthy person make this decision?
Honestly, it makes things a lot easier. Give yourself the reputation of the person you want to be.
10. Learn to Invest Before You Invest
All right, that probably didn’t make any sense to you, but hear me out. What most people do is when they have extra money, they just start investing.
They end up losing money and then thinking that investing is super risky and you can’t do it unless you’re an expert. But they’re doing things out of order.
Before you start investing, learn how to invest. Learn about money, stocks, real estate, or building a company—however you’re thinking of investing. Don’t just blindly throw your money around and basically gamble.
11. Your Daily Choices Shape Your Life
We have choices every moment. We can watch TV, play video games, paint stuff, judge people’s paintings, play pickleball… or we can learn about money.
You can do any of those things, but we have to realize that each choice we make every day—what we decide to do, what we decide to study—that is what’s going to start showing up in our lives.
If you want to have more money, be wealthy, be financially independent, then you have to spend time studying money, learning about it, consuming YouTube videos about it.
After all, you are what you eat, and yes, that includes information.
12. Pay Yourself First
Because that’s going to motivate you. A lot of people save what they have left over at the end of the month, and honestly, there’s not a lot of motivation to have anything left over. So most people never save anything.
But if you prioritize yourself, investing, and your future, then you need to pay yourself first.
Automatically put things into savings, automatically start investing, and do that first. Then if you don’t have enough money to pay your bills at the end of the month, you’re forced to be creative and figure out ways to start earning more money.
Do you have to work a side job? Do you have to start investing differently? What do you need to do to make more money? Obviously, you don’t want to be irresponsible with this, but you also need to put pressure on yourself to improve your life or nothing’s ever going to change.
13. Being Busy Isn’t Being Productive
Busy people are often the laziest. Now, what Robert Kiyosaki means by this is: instead of trying to build wealth and actually taking a step back and doing some hard things, stepping out of your comfort zone, a lot of people when they have a problem, they just work harder.
There’s nothing wrong with hard work—it’s super important—but it’s not always the answer.
14. Stop Focusing on Toilets
A lot of people will use fear or noise of some sort to stop them from taking action, to stop them from investing. They’ll have a friend or family member who got burned 40 years ago, and that’s why they never take a step forward.
A lot of people I know won’t invest in real estate because they say they don’t want to fix toilets. They’re focusing on that instead of the financial freedom you can gain from buying real estate.
So don’t be that person.
15. Be Generous
Most people say that once they have more money, they’ll give. Or anything they have left at the end of the month, then they’ll give. They focus on receiving first, and then giving.
But as we all know, it’s better to give than to receive.
He talks about this mentality of: if you need help, then help somebody else. If you need knowledge, then try to teach people. If you need money, give money away.
Obviously not irresponsibly, but have a nature of being blessed and having abundance and being able to help other people.
Focus on that instead of always focusing on yourself and what you don’t have.
16. Focus on Assets Instead of Liabilities
Most people don’t know what an asset versus a liability is. It’s not something they focus on, but it’s one of the more important things if you want to be wealthy.
An asset is something that puts money into your pocket every single month.
A liability is something that takes money from your pocket every single month.
Most people consider their house their biggest asset, but until they actually go and sell that house, it is a liability because it’s taking money out of their pocket every month. A cash-flowing rental property, on the other hand, is actually putting money in your pocket every month.
17. “I’m Not Interested in Money” Is a Lie
A lot of people think they’re too busy, or their spouse handles that, or it’s not something they really care about, they’re not interested in it.
Yet they’ll go to work eight hours a day for almost every day of the best years of their life so they can earn money.
It is important! It’s not a bad subject to talk about, think about, learn about, or focus on. It’s what you trade your life for. It’s what you miss your kids’ soccer games for. It’s an important subject.
18. Fear Is Why You Stay Broke
The fear of losing money is greater than the joy and happiness of actually being successful.
So people never invest, never leave their job, never take any risks. They’d rather play it safe and guarantee that they’re going to continue living paycheck to paycheck, staying exactly where they are, than step out and take risks and try new things.
If you want to have financial freedom, you need to overcome fear.
19. Surround Yourself With Smarter People
You don’t need to be an expert in everything—you need to know experts. Hire them. Collaborate with them. Level up through your network. Your circle determines your net worth.
This is how you scale. You can’t do everything yourself. You’re not an expert in everything. So build a team of experts around you.
20. More Money Won’t Solve Your Problems
Give someone $50k or $100k—they’ll find a way to spend it all. The problem isn’t your income; it’s what you do with it.
You need to focus on what you’re doing with the money that you do have. Are you saving it? Are you wasting it? Are you investing it? Or are you just hanging on to it?
For example, if you save money, you’d be able to leave your day job and can actually build up some wealth without ever even making more than the median salary.
21. Invest in Your Brain
In the book, Robert Kiyosaki talks multiple times about how he spent $500 on a course and that course made him up to a million dollars.
You never know what one idea can completely change your life. So always focus on your most important asset—the stuff between your ears.
22. Start Minding Your Own Business
A lot of people will never move past working for a paycheck and will only focus on their income.
To gain financial freedom, you have to move past always trading your time for money. You need to start focusing on buying real estate, buying stocks, starting a business, or doing something that will continue to pay you while you’re sleeping and can eventually surpass how much you’re making at your job.
That’s how you move away from that paycheck and actually have freedom in your life.
23. Action Beats Everything
A lot of people will dream about being wealthy. They’ll dream about being healthy and fit and all these different things. But very few actually take action and do something.
And that’s the difference. The rich took action. They failed. They learned. They adapted. They took more action.
You can read every book ever written about money. You can watch every YouTube video about investing. You can attend every seminar. But none of it matters if you don’t take action.
The Bottom Line
These aren’t revolutionary ideas—they’re just the truth about money that nobody teaches you in school. The rich know this stuff. Now you do too. The only question left is: what are you going to do about it?
Just get out there and do something.
You might also want to check out the lessons from the Essentialism Book that can change your mindset and help you succeed.
Leave a Reply