Monday, November 30, 2009

Rich Dads Guide to Investing or George Washington on Leadership

Rich Dad's Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest In, That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!

Author: Robert T Kiyosaki

The rich get richer. The poor get poorer.

Robert Kiyosaki reveals the secrets of how the wealthiest Americans become even wealthier, and how ALL Americans can learn how to benefit from some simple investing secrets -- merely by knowing where and how to invest their money.

We've all heard that plaint many times before. But finally, that long standing monetary tradition has been shattered, as Kiyosaki explains how even the smallest investor can start benefitting from the investing patterns of the richest folks.

Robert Kiyosaki knows all this first hand. There was a time in the 1980s when he and his wife, Kim, were so cash poor that they were forced to sleep in their car. Today, however, the Kiyosakis are multi-millionaires, and are considered highly sophisticated investors.

Based upon the four tenets of Rich Dad, Poor Dad (are you an employee, self-employed, business owner, or an investor?) the Investing Guide explains the nuts-and-bolts approach to understanding the real earning power of money, and how you can start cashing today. Along the way, Kiyosaki explains how he's invested his monies as his own wealth has grown over the years.



Table of Contents:
Introduction

Phase One Are You Mentally Prepared to Be an Investor? 13
What Should I Invest In? 15
Pouring a Foundation of Wealth 29
Investor Lesson #1 The Choice 37
Investor Lesson #2 What Kind of World Do You See? 41
Investor Lesson #3 Why Investing Is Confusing 47
Investor Lesson #4 Investing Is a Plan, Not a Product or Procedure 53
Investor Lesson #5 Are You Planning to Be Rich or Are You Planning to Be Poor? 59
Investor Lesson #6 Getting Rich Is Automatic...If You Have a Good Plan and Stick to It 65
Investor Lesson #7 How Can You find the Plan That Is Right for You? 73
Investor Lesson #8 Decide Now What You Want to Be When You Grow Up 79
Investor Lesson #9 Each Plan Has a Price 85
Investor Lesson #10 Why Investing Isn't Risky 91
Investor Lesson #11 On Which Side of the Table Do You Want To Sit? 95
Investor Lesson #12 The Basic Rules of Investing 103
Investor Lesson #13 Reduce Risk Through Financial Literacy 117
Investor Lesson #14 Financial Literacy Made Simple 133
Investor Lesson #15 The Magic of Mistakes 151
Investor Lesson #16 What Is the Price of Becoming Rich? 159
The 90/10 Riddle 167

Phase Two What Type of Investor Do You Want to Become? 177
Solving the 90/10 Riddle 179
Rich Dad's Categories of Investors 183
The Accredited Investor 189
The Qualified Investor 193
The Sophisticated Investor 207
The Inside Investor

Book review: Take Four or New Frontiers in Western Cooking

George Washington on Leadership

Author: Richard Brookhiser

George Washington on Leadership is a textbook look at Washington's three spectacularly successful careers as an executive: general, president, and tycoon.

Kirkus Reviews

From a journalist and historian specializing in the lives of the Founders, lessons in leadership drawn from the plantation, military and political career of George Washington. Washington's colorful contemporary, Gouverneur Morris, disparaged books on leadership, dismissing them as merely "utopian," a skepticism National Review senior editor Brookhiser (What Would the Founders Do?: Our Questions, Their Answers, 2006, etc.) appears to share. But the author forges ahead, addressing his theme in topical fashion, distilling a series of maxims from a variety of problems and situations Washington handled. The vignettes are always interesting: Washington insisting on the importance of proper latrines and inoculations to ensure the army's health, diversifying crops at Mount Vernon, finessing the Continental Congress, putting down mutiny within the army and later rebellion within the young country, keeping the peace between Hamilton and Jefferson, dealing with the betrayal of Benedict Arnold. At the same time the "lessons" drawn from these and many other slices of Washington's life are problematic, if only because they are so often contradictory. Washington observed lines of authority (deferring to the advice and consent of the Senate), except when he circumvented them (seeking funding for the army). He was patient (settling on a strategy for the war), except when he was bold (seizing the moment at Yorktown). He was a hands-on manager (of his plantation), unless he was wisely delegating (speeches to Madison, artillery chores to Knox or matters of high finance to Hamilton). He made use of friends (Lafayette) until he broke with them (Knox). By the end of Brookhiser's colloquial, good-humoredanalysis, we're persuaded that, while no leader in American history may be more worthy of emulation, the mature Washington's signal virtue was his consistently sound, often spectacularly wise judgment, a faculty honed throughout a lifetime presiding over highly important matters and one not easily imitated. Apparently Gouverneur Morris was correct. Unexceptional wisdom breezily packaged. Agent: Michael Carlisle/InkWell Management

What People Are Saying

Steve Forbes
George Washington on Leadership - by Richard Brookhiser. This is one book on leadership that's well worth the read. A respected historian, Brookhiser examines the extraordinary events that marked George Washington's life to discover what it takes to become an effective leader. One would be hard put to find a better model. Washington often faced situations fraught with novel and immense difficulties. He made mistakes—some big—but he never became despondent and quickly learned from them.

Washington was highly effective, whether it was in covering such essential details as making sure that army latrines were dug and properly maintained, devising grand strategies for keeping his inadequately funded ragtag army in the field against the world's most formidable empire or stopping a potential mutiny. He had an inspired sense of how to deal with and manage people. He put together a first-rate team of officers and knew when to praise and when to berate (rarely). And he profoundly understood the importance of leading by example. He was a superb diplomat, especially when dealing with the often unresponsive Congress during the Revolutionary War. Washington was also an innovator and entrepreneur, which is how he became his time's richest American.

People sensed Washington's innate honesty and strength of character, as well as his enormous ability—the reason men would follow him in battle, through thick and thin, as well as why political peers, who were often smarter than he, would defer to his leadership. Washington effectively presided over the Constitutional Convention and was, perhaps, the only man who could have kept that body together as it ground out its historic work amidthe constantly contentious debates instigated by the 50-plus strong-willed individuals, each with his own independent power base. As President, "everything Washington did was, in a sense, being done for the first time."

But what was perhaps most amazing for a man holding such power was that Washington also had a deep sense of humility and modesty. After the Revolution, when he could easily have become a military dictator, Washington resigned his commission and returned home. As President, he could have remained in office for life; instead he voluntarily stepped down after two terms.

All too often—before and since—we have witnessed examples of leaders in politics, business and other endeavors who, achieving supreme power, could never voluntarily let it go.




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