by Steven Gomez

Created on: October 26, 2008

Robert Kiyosaki admits, a few pages into Section I of Retire Young, Retire Rich, that his book is not a how-to book, but a why book. And this is the M.O. of Robert Kiyosaki's series of Rich Dad finance books: hammering home the motivation to take the financial risks he advocates taking to building your finances. However, this contradicts the subtitle on the book's cover, "How to Get Rich Quickly and Stay Rich Forever!" How to actually do this remains up to the reader to figure out 335 pages later.

Like his other books, Retire Early, Retire Rich centers on the dichotomy between the lessons of his "Poor Dad" (his biological father, a well paid teacher who nonetheless struggled to stay ahead financially) and his "Rich Dad" (his best friend's father, a successful investor who served as Kiyosaki's mentor), mirroring the difference between his stated Rat Race and Fast Track. If you've read one Kiyosaki book, you've probably seen 80% of this book's content already.

The book's is packed with Kiyosaki's standard affirmations and anecdotes. Kiyosaki extols the perils of supposed safe, secure methods of income, noting the heavy taxation of employee wages compared to investments. Kiyosaki asserts that, while his advised approach carries risk, typical tried and true methods carry risks of their own, with minimal or no reward. Kiyosaki asserts his approach is key to retiring well before your 60's with far more wealth and time to enjoy it.

The second half features more meat, such as discussion of typical market trends with paper assets, and pointing out essential habits to develop. He gives a relatively detailed explanation of how stock options work, which while giving readers something to work with, he still advises investing in stock options only as a protection of existing assets, rather than a method to build riches.

While Kiyosaki's book remains light on concrete application, he does provide plenty of motivational material that anyone can gain from. He emphasizes discarding notions of "I can't" and other tried and trued social concepts such as playing it safe, focusing on developing a career and retiring with sufficient savings. Kiyosaki refers to this way of life as the Rat Race and considers it a dead end cycle with no reward. He emphasizes developing an active investment plan that eventually generates passive income, which he calls the Fast Track to wealth.

However, Kiyosaki's advice does come with a contextual caveat: In his case, Kiyosaki made his money during the 80's

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