Book Review: Guide to Investing (Robert Kiyosaki)

Great introductory book for anyone interested to obtain some basic finance literacy. Robert is able to simplify things and make certain difficult/abstract topics easy to understand for anyone with zero background in the world of finance & investment.

For the price that I paid for this book, it was way too cheap in my opinion (less than $20SGD). I've learnt so much & it gave me a deeper insight to the world of investing. It taught about how to manage personal finance, the different investing styles of different investors.

Even though this book did not teach me what I was initially looking for, it challenged my inner core values and perspective on investing. Robert did not teach about trading or how to pick the right stock. Instead, his idea to be extremely rich is to be an "inside investor" someone who creates assets that the world would eventually want to buy. For example, Facebook is an asset & when its company's shares started trading in the NYSE, Facebook founders became multimillionaires/billionaires. That was Robert's idea of investing. He's an entrepreneur so this book is excellent for anyone who aspires to be an entrepreneur. Today, most of us are "outside investors" who buy stocks of companies instead of owning stocks of a company and selling it to the mass market.

I'm simple & I do not wish to be extremely rich living in Sentosa Cove (Beverly Hills of Singapore). Cause with everything that you want in life, there's always a price tag to it. Also, being an entrepreneur doesn't quite suit my risk appetite. There's just so much at stake. It's either you make it or you don't or keep trying til you're successful. I salute entrepreneurs like Robert however, I do not have to follow in their footsteps. (But who knows, maybe years down the road I might be an entrepreneur!)

I'd rather adhere to my initial life plan after much reflection & deep thinking. I figured that I'll be happier having a slightly above average income, work towards my goal of financial freedom & then live my dream of traveling around the world. 

I'm starting on another book now "the art of non-conformity" by Chris Guillebeau (travelled to all 193 countries in the world. On 4 April 2013, he completed his "world journey" with the last country being Norway)  which has nothing to do with investing but I figured it's a great book for someone like myself who's about to enter the workforce pretty soon.