Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Practical Applications

I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad over ten years ago after attending a Gill Fielding course in London one weekend.

I love seminars, and am a self confessed seminar junkie. However, after attending the free sessions, I would only consider investing if I can see how I would gain a return on my investments. As a seasoned marketer once wrote in a manual I read - he's ask "How quickly can I get my dollar back?"(Dan Kennedy)

That isn't always the case though if you are immersed in knowledge and have no practical means of support and have no idea where to start. That is why so many workshop leaders will also offer you a back up - coaching service to help you takeaction, unfortunately usually at a very high rated fee. That to me can seem counter productive, as if you have a spare £10,000 to invest in coaching, would you need to be coached to earn more?

Well, the answer is debateable. From my experience, you have to look at your own style of working and your personality as well as the outcome that you aim to achieve. If you are a distractable procrastinator (Hands up! I am too!) then spending hours reading and learning new strategies and techniques are not going to progress you unless you apply the practical actionable steps to help you create your change and that they are applied on a consistent basis in order to make them into a lifestyle habit. It's like losing weight. There is no point in starving yourself to become thin and look outwardly healthy, if you are still eating poor quality food, not exercising to preserve your joint and muscle mass and indulging in counter productive habits like smoking an drinking excess alcohol.

On the other hand, surely there are ways to increase your income or change your lifestyle so that you feel that you can be your authentic self and still live a happy, fulfilled and prosperous life, with good and bad habits unchanged and intact?

I'm not saying resist change at all cost and be who are are, because clearl some of us have become what other people expect and believe us to be, but that any change you make could be congruent with your emerging beliefs about who you are and what you want to be.

So what do this have to o with Robert T Kiyosaki and his series of Rich Dad, Poor Dad books. Well, like many millions of people, I read his books and felt inspired to get out of the rat race and become financially free. I engaged in technique or strategy after strategy. I also invested in my education (university) - and gained some bad debt - like student loans in an effort to switch occupations to one where I felt I could progress and live a healthier lifeestyle, only to find that I just couldn't make that transition stick. As Robert suggested I invested in my financial education too.

I went from only having a small mortgage debt, to gaining a never-ending overdraft, student loan that looks like it will take 30 years to clear, a second mortgage and a unhealthy credit card debt! Along the way I developed several habit counter to my previuos good management habits. All in the pursuit of a better lifestyle, education and alternative career. I am not alone in having done that.

So where does Robert T Kiyosaki go wrong and how do I get back to doing what I had previously been doing right all along? Well, if you like to watch, learn and join me on my journey as I start on the road back to financial freedom, subscribe to this blog for tips, information and videos on how I and you can plan to tackle the credit crunch and put the bank balance back in order.