This is not intended to be a comprehensive book review. It is commentary on what I've found useful for my personal situation and mind set. Any text in green is a direct quoted from the book. All other text is my observations and reactions.

"Your words do become flesh."   (pg. 1)

Your choice of vocabulary, whether you are talking to yourself or others, is a reflection of how you think. "I can't afford it" compared to "How can I afford it?" are two entirely different thought processes. The first automatically stops further consideration, while the second encourages further investigation.

I say "I choose not to buy it" because in my head, I allocate the money that would have been spent on something else. If I really do want to buy something (usually an anime doodad), I say "How can I afford it?" and come up with an answer. It may be that if I buy this anime cell, I will sell one from my collection to make up the cost.

"The biggest challenge you have is to challenge your own self-doubt and your laziness."   (pg. 5)

This is something I usually reference daily. When I have something I don't want to do, I ask myself am I confronting my laziness or my self-doubt?

If it is my laziness, I try to push through it, because I know no one else is going to do it for me. If it is my self-doubt, I try to figure out why I'm afraid/doubtful/unsure and work my way through that.

Most of the time it works. Sometimes, instead of working on my book, my house, or my fansites, I watch an extra episode of Macross, and say "This is me being lazy for today." But the next night, I can't say that because I've already had my lazy moment. It is a continual balance between being productive and taking time for myself to relax a little.

"There is no one in your way except you and your doubts about you."   (pg. 5)

This is incredibly true. If I tell myself "I can't", then no one will ever tell me "You can". I've already set myself up for failure with that first negative thought. Granted, there are some things "I can't" do - I cannot fly by flapping my arms really fast. But I can learn to pilot an airplane or glider. Therefore, "I can fly".

"If you will take on your self-doubt and your laziness, you will find the door to your freedom."   (pg. 5)

Again, it is a daily battle, but it gets easier the more I train myself to use positive words, and to try think and feel my way through to the other side.

"It is the why that gives you the power to do the how to."   (pg. 7)

Of the ones I've read, Kiyosaki's books are why-to books, not how-to books. The how-to is learn new skills, think outside the traditional box and your own limitations. It is the why that is important, because without it, you will never go anywhere other than where you have already been.

My why started because I got scared and angry and wanted control of my life. My why has evolved since then, but it still comes down to wanting the freedom to spend my time as I want to - not as someone else wants me to.

"Your Loves ... Your Hates"   (pg. 11)

On this page, I wrote down my Loves and my Hates. It was about 11:30 pm, and I was sitting in front of my fireplace, starting to get tired. The third entry I wrote down was a shock I felt through my body. My Love was "stuff" - I am a material girl. I like things because they remind me of people and places and memories I want to cherish. They inspire me and give me ideas and let me create new things. The Hate that I wrote across from this Love was "begin frugal".

I had been LBYM (living below your means) for over a year and saving like crazy. Looking at what I had just written down, I realized how much I really hated agonizing over a $8 magazine that had a picture and interview of an actor I liked. That I was sick of looking through coupons for food and restaurants. That I wanted to buy the next anime DVD of a show I was watching, compared to waiting for someone in my circle of friends to buy it so I could borrow it. I have never spent more than I earn, but my spending was extremely limited now, and I hated it.

It was at this point that I decided my original plan was not good enough. I don't just want to retire early and live the way I am now. I want to retire young and retire rich. It sounds really simple as I type it up, but at the time, it was a big revelation to me about myself.

"It is true you cannot change your past ... but you can change your opinion of your past."   (pg. 18)

There are things in my past that I wish I would not have done. But, I did, and I am where I am today because of them. And where I am today is pretty damn good. Each of us lives with the consequences of our actions. Whatever you do, why not make those consequences good ones?

"I suggest taking at least an hour each month to reflect on your life."   (pg. 19)

Kiyosaki lists 5 things he realized about his life. I found three of them to be very relevant to myself, and how I want to live my life:

• What I thought was important was not that important
• There is no one more important that the person in front of you at that moment. Take that moment to be with him or her.
• Time is precious, don't waste it ... appreciate it.

"I do not invest for capital appreciation only. The values of my properties do not need to appreciate in value for me to make money."   (pg. 25)

This is something to remember once I start investing in real estate. It's also interesting to see people play the game CASHFLOW and take a Small Deal of -$100 cash flow in hopes of selling the house later for a large profit.

"If you want to get rich, you need to know how to use other people's money to get rich ... not your own."."   (pg. 28)

This does not mean rob a bank. In the context of real estate, it means borrowing from a bank the money to purchase a property that brings in enough income for you to pay back the bank and have some left over for yourself. You did not have to come up with all of the money to purchase the property, therefore you are using the bank's money to make money for yourself in terms of cash flow.

But this means you are in debt to the bank. When I first started playing CASHFLOW, I had a difficult time taking on a Big Deal. It terrified me to see $300,000 as a mortgage! But the cash flow was enough to get me out of the Rat Race. Now, I can play without it bothering me, but I know that self-doubt will arise again when I need to walk into a banker's office a sign it those papers for real. And I know I will be able to do it, because I will have done my research and it will be a good deal, one that has positive cash flow.

"The most important word in the world of money is cash flow. The second most important word is leverage."   (pg. 29)

One of Rich Dad's favorite stories about leverage was David and Goliath. I took physics in high school, and we dealt a lot with leverage. Leverage is a positional advantage, the power to act effectively.

"The problem with leverage is that leverage is like a two-edged sword, which can cut in either direction."   (pg. 31)

This gets back to good debit and bad debit. Debit is the leverage, but how you use it can either profit or destroy you. I used the bank's money to buy my house - that was leverage, since I did not have all of the money to purchase my house on my own. I understood what I was doing, and was comfortable doing it. The most important thing is to learn as much as you can about the type of leverage you want to use before you use it.

"The word leverage means the ability to do more with less."   (pg. 31)

I use the leverage of the Internet with my fansites. My CardCaptorSakura vs. Cardcaptors fansite has an average of over 900 hits a week. Granted, that is a drop in a very large bucket compared to Yahoo!, but it is more people than I could ever hope to physically mail or call or talk to in person about CCS if I did not use the Internet.

"If people want to retire young and retire rich, they may need to supplement their mutual funds with faster, safer, and more information-rich tools of financial leverage."   (pg. 37)

Another poke that tells me I need to revisit my original plan. If you want to know more about the "risks" of mutual funds, I highly recommend www.kimsnider.com. Download her "Modern Market Myths" - it was an incredible eye-opener!

"Being rich is not so much what you know but who you know."   (pg. 40)

There is so much information available now, that no one person can know everything they need to know to be successful. You have to network - know the people who specialize in the knowledge you need to use. I'm still working on this because I prefer to try and take care of things myself. And, being an introvert, it takes work for me to go out and meet new people.

"You need to find the leverage that works best for you."   (pg. 41)

This is very important to me - and it's still in progress. I am currently not comfortable using real estate to gain passive income. I am very comfortable using associate programs on the Internet to gain passive income. This site is a Rich Dad Affiliate and an Amazon.com Affiliate site, which means if you click through my site to RichDad.com or Amazon.com, I will receive a commission based on the amount that you purchase. It doesn't cost you any more, and I receive funds that help me maintain these sites.

"If you have money sitting in the bank in your savings account or retirement account, then others are using your money as their leverage."   (pg. 41)

This doesn't mean I'm going to give up my 401(k), because that is a good way to earn money for when I am 59 1/2 years old. It is also part of "using other people's money", since my company matches the first 3% of my contribution.

It did make me think about how much money I want to contribute to my 401(k) each month, however. I have as of Q2 2002 reduced my contribution and will be using that money for other investments. I'm still getting that matching 3% though.

"Do more and more with less and less."   (pg. 43)

To me, this means you never stop - you never stop learning, you never stop pushing yourself, you never stop trying to do more and more with less and less.

"How can I do what I do for more people with less work and for a better price?"   (pg. 44)

This is another exercise in the book where Kiyosaki asks you to write out your answer on a piece of paper. I broke the sentence down into 4 parts and then created a table where I answered Parts 2-4 for each Part 1:

1. What I do:	Activity A	Activity B	Activity C
2. For more people
3. With less work
4. For a better price

In this format, it was easier to think about what I wanted to do at four different levels, and thereby answer the overall question.

"What you think is real is your reality."   (pg. 46)

More mind stuff - but it is so true! And it goes for everything, not just money or being rich. If you believe you can do something, you will find a way to do it. If you feel bad about something, it will likely turn out badly. On the other hand, if you feel good about something, well .. you get the idea. And I've seen and felt it work in my own life. It is so intangible, but it makes an incredible difference.

My office recently moved downtown and it increased my commute from 15 minutes to almost an hour. Needless to say, I was not happy. But, I knew a bad attitude about my commute would only hurt me, so I thought of a way to turn it into an advantage. I bought a small tape deck and started listening to audio cassettes instead of the radio or a CD. I suddenly had the time to listen to Kiyosaki's tapes that came with the game CASHFLOW. I suddenly had time to listen to the Japanese language tapes I had to keep up on what I had learned last summer at the Rasiass Foundation at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

"Failing is part of winning."   (pg. 48)

Ugh ... this one also takes a lot of work for me. When I do something, I want it to "right" the first time. The good part of this is that I plan a lot. The bad part is, I can plan too much, or never even start because I'm afraid of doing it wrong.

"If you want to be successful in life, you need to always be respectful of the odds, regardless of how successful you were in the past."   (pg. 48)

As Han Solo so eloquently put it: "Don't get cocky, kid." With each event/decision/activity you do, you learn something, and what you learn will help you with the next event/decision/activity

I'll continue with the rest of my observations on this first section at a later time.