Rich Brother Rich Sister

by Robert T. Kiyosaki

Two lives, together, then apart, then together again, as a brother and a sister discover the riches of life. Rich Brother, Rich Sister combines the inspirational true life stories of Robert Kiyosaki and his sister Emi into one book that will reaffirm your belief in the power of purpose, the importance of action, and the ability to overcome all obstacles in a quest for wealth, both financial and spiritual. In 1962, the United States detonated a nuclear bomb ten miles off the coast of Christmas Island in the South Pacific. From that moment two people, born of the same parents, and with the same childhood experiences, found themselves on different life journeys to find truth, happiness, purpose, and ultimately financial success. Robert became a world-famous entrepreneur, author, and teacher of all things financial, and Emi a highly devout Buddhist nun, author, and teacher of all things spiritual. This book will inspire you along your own life’s journey to find your own truth and purpose, your own path to prosperity—both financial and spiritual—all the riches of life that were meant for you...and us all.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Business, Biography, Economics, Finance, Money

356 pages, Paperback

First published December 23, 2008

About the author

Robert Toru Kiyosaki is an American businessman and author, known for the Rich Dad Poor Dad series of personal finance books. He is the founder of the Rich Dad Company, a private financial education company that provides personal finance and business education to people through books and videos, and Rich Global LLC, which filed for bankruptcy in 2012.
Since 2010, Kiyosaki was the subject of a class action suit filed by people who attended his seminars, and the subject of investigative documentaries by the CBC, WTAE-TV and CBS News. In January 2024, Kiyosaki revealed that he was more than $1 billion dollars in debt.

Reviews

[Bree · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kiyosaki is famous for his series Rich Dad, Poor Dad. At its heart, it emphasizes living within your means and finding your passion. His sister Emi is a Buddhist nun who has learned that spirituality and enlightenment cannot pay medical bills. Its an interesting commentary on siblings, upbringing, divergence from familial beliefs, and the quest for financial independence.

Just took it back to the library last night. It had some interesting insight about the struggle to be both financially wealthy and spiritually rich. Intriguing, but I found it to be kind of a slow read. It spends the first 150 pages or so talking about their youth. I like the idea of finding a balance between simple living and building your wealth. Good read.

[Aysha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unique and refreshing viewpoints, a wealth of history, introspection, and modern thinking leave the reader inspired and motivated to live life to the fullest. I love the nun's honest account of the failings of her life and her candid words about how you can hide from life behind "the cloth." She found her spirituality in Buddha and her brother found his through the Vietnam war and Buckminster Fuller. They both ended up in a similar spiritual location. It's unique and interesting. I think Anne-Marie would like it.

[Danielle · Rating 1 out of 5]

There might have been good content in this book, but I didn't make it past Chapter 4, mainly because I felt this book was like that person who tells the same story over and over and over. I'm pretty sure I read the exact same paragraph in 2-3 different places. Not a fan.

[Maka Puda · Rating 4 out of 5]

เล่มนี้ทำให้เกิดสมดุลย์ดีไม่เอียงไปสุดด้านใดด้านหนึ่ง ทั้งแง่ หาเงิน กับความสงบสุขทางจิตใจ เป็นนักบวช ก็ต้องใช้เงินเมื่อเจ็บป่วย ส่วนฝั่งที่หาเงิน ถ้าไม่มีมีเรื่องจิตวิญญาณเข้ามาควบคุมขัดเกลาก็มีความโลภ

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kept trying to like this book, if only for Emi. I just couldn’t deal with Robert’s smugness and arrogance. It’s easy to say “get a job/teach a man to fish” when you don’t have to worry about money and you not only give your sister $10,000 for her medical bills, but as another way to help her have her write a book with you when you’re already a best selling author. It’s easy to complain about Baby Boomers collecting Social Security and being on Medicare, how so many people rely on different forms of welfare instead of doing better when you can fly all over the world without thinking about the cost. It’s much harder today to pull yourself out of poverty than it was 40 years ago, even when you don’t spend a penny extra on anything you don’t absolutely need.
The only thing I did find interesting was how much they claimed to be different, but ended up on very similar paths.

[François Groulx · Rating 1 out of 5]

Humm par où commencer, je croyais vraiment que ce livre était porté sur les finances mais vraiment pas. Le message principal dit tout simplement de donner plus qu'on reçoit. C'est un livre qui est principalement sur leurs vie, le bouddhisme et la religion. J'ai eu beaucoup de misère à le terminer. Ne perdez pas votre temps avec ce livre. Il ne parle même pas de ses compagnies, comment il les a créés, comment il a fait de l'argent, etc. J'ai été très déçu.

[Wendelle]

overheard involuntarily. If I was a bit more unforgiving I would have said that the views presented here in this book are by a self-aggrandizing, self-congratulatory hack, and that the book is paradigmatic of the stereotype of the money-scamming pop self-help book. Robert Kiyosaki's main thrust in this book here is divided into two parts: a) the poor should be helping themselves, and ranting against the generation/classes of society that need handouts/ financial help from the government, b)an autobiography that included more detail about Robert Kiyosaki's Struggles In Life than you would ever think necessary. Look, I understand the near-resentment toward a) that drives most entrepreneurial people who feel like they have caught their own selves by the bootstraps and made their own success. But the caricature-like view this book sells denies two things: a) the difference between equality of status as proposed by socialism and the equality of opportunity as enshrined by the US Constitution, and b)the fact that the rules of the economic game have changed, and wealth generation no longer happens by the Middle Class rulebook of hard work and paying dues, in an oligarchic system where greater wealth is acquired more easily by those who have to invest their piles and watch their money grow, as opposed to annual wage-earning. As the New Testament said and which I quote here because then Kiyosaki could understand, ""For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him," is the rulebook that formally operates. One can achieve social mobility within this framework, of course. But this does not negate the reality quoted above. This book does not acknowledge that equality of opportunity is under affront in a lot of ways in current US society. Don't even get me started on his prejudices here that people who are currently suffering for their healthcare payments should have started saving for it a long time ago. Of course, people should provide for themselves as much as they are able! But this fails to comprehend, and probably would not like to comprehend, that under the system they are facing, where even overnight emergency care costs tens of thousands of dollars, the average citizen never really could race to win in the first place. His views do not acknowledge the inequalities or obstacles inherent in the system, instead placing the burden of financial solutions all on the individual, instead of dividing it on both individual and society.

As I said, I could be unforgiving toward this hack, but I am giving him the benefit of the doubt he would not direct towards those who are suffering and poor. I can tell that he and the worldview he is preaching here is the product of his youth and times (post-World War 2), when he was able to reach financial success by dint of a gift for salesmanship and by undeniable hard work. However, this does not give him either expertise on economics, or insight on spiritual matters, which is how he is earning his coin in selling this book. One can learn new things with any book but what this book is mostly useful for, is learning the worldview of Trump-like supporters/old-school American conservatives, from a guy who spent his time palling around with the current US president.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here I am again with the unpleasant task of reviewing an unsolicited book. It's a book that I would have never said yes to because I don't like reading self-help or get-rich-my-way type of books. Rich Brother, Rich Sister by siblings Robert and Emi Kiyosaki has the added squick factor that rich brother won't help out sick sister with her health care costs unless she helps him write a book. And I'm somehow supposed to get the warm fuzzies from this? No, what I want to do is give both siblings a boot to the head (but for different reasons).

The book is written in alternating parts by both siblings. They spend a good deal of their time reminiscing about how tough their childhoods were in Hawaii growing up in a family of well educated parents with a tight budget. Gosh, it sounds terrible growing up in a stable loving family.

Robert's parts are further tempered with his time in Vietnam and his anger at God. He tries to use these experiences to explain why I should want to use his system for getting rich and for why he's making his sister write this book. It doesn't work. He just comes off as annoying, whinny and selfish.

Emi's parts don't fare much better unfortunately. I expected a little more insight from a Buddhist monk but none of that comes through in this book. Instead her chapters about how hard it was to be a girl in a family of boys and how she felt compelled to abandon her daughter with her ex-husband to seek out spiritual enlightenment and how she's now a better person for all of it. That's nice message but it's not presented in a convincing manner.

The only thing I came away from this book is something I already knew: siblings are very different people even when they have the same parents. The same set of experiences can have very different life lessons and that's just part of life.

[Elle Arnot · Rating 2 out of 5]

The two perspectives offer insight, information gleaned from experience. I learned much about how their upbringing affected them and useful info about Buddhist precepts. Robert extols Virtue and Integrity as the key to success and happiness in everything. He has very interesting view of business, e.g. corpse-orations,lifers,etc. And his take on Buckminster Fuller, one of my heroes, was interesting. But then in the last chapters, he extols Donald Trump, his close friend and collaborator on various ventures. That is when the red flag popped up. At the beginning of book it talks about an intelligent person being able to hold two opposing ideas in their head at the same time.
Given Donald Trump's business trackrecord and personal history and his behavior as president, I cannot associate Virtue and Integrity with Trump. That is when Robert's integrity was questionable in my mind. That's when his spiel smelled faintly like snake oil, and grew stronger as he extolled network marketing,the re-make of multilevel which is the remake if pyramid schemes. He himself says you are judged by the company you keep. So if you are a Trump fan, you will like this book and drink the koolaid which might lead you to riches and self-congratulatory moments when you feel you are making America great and serving others( presumably like yourself)
As for Emi, a Tibetan nun for whom the Dalai Lana is key, I wonder how she feels about her brother's admiration for Trump, considering what The Dalai Lama thinks about Trump.Hint: it is not favorable.
http://time.com/4977527/donald-trump-...

[Prashant Deshmukh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have completed reading the book *RICH BROTHER RICH SISTER* _by Robert Kiyosaki and Emi Kiyosaki_

*Lessons Learnt:*
1. This book focuses on simply who wanted to be rich which meant being rich mentally, physically, emotionally & spiritually.

2. Authors rich dad often said, "Give what you want. If you want a smile, smile. If you want a punch in the mouth, throw a punch. If you want money, give money." He also said,"Poor people are often poor because they do not give enough. They often say, "I'll give money when I have money." That is why they don't have much money. If you want money, give money. If you want more, give more."

3. In relation to finding your life's purpose and giving your gift: In some of the churches and some of the seminars Robert attended during the years, I learned that God or a higher power has given each of us a gift. Our job as human beings was to discover and give our gift to humanity. Even though I did not know if I had a gift at the time, I kept an open mind to the possibility that I had something to give
and focused on giving rather than praying that God
would provide or a Post-it note with affirmations on my bathroom mirror would manifest my dream.
Today, I realize that many people do not give their gift for two reasons: First they do not recognize it and two, if they do recognize their gift they do not work at giving it. Many people seem to think that a gift should come easy. For example, Tiger Woods is a gifted golfer. Although gifted, he works very hard at developing and giving his gift to the world. Many golfers may be just as gifted, but they fail to
work as hard as Tiger does at developing and giving their gift.

4.Many people have very strong personal financial statements. But the way they make their money is not doing much good for the world.
Then there are people who have done a lot of good and are very strong in social accounting terms, but their personal financial statement is weak. This is my sister, and that's why we got
together.

5 Improvement happens by going beyond the limits.To make steel stronger, the metal is often heated to red hot, then dropped into cold water. It's the stress between hot and cold that strengthens the metal. Just like steel, humans are capable of becoming stronger through stress.

6.Dr. Fuller said that a life of specialization can easily become a life of obsolescence. And the more specialized you are the fewer people you can serve. He thought it was better to be a generalist than a specialist. Specialists look at the world from a narrow point of view while generalists look at life from the big picture. Our schools actually train us to be specialists, not generalists.
Entrepreneurs are often generalists and they usually are the richest people because they have served the most people. This theory has played out in my life. As a generalist I can assemble great teams of people who are more expert than me to make things happen. In the process, we all learn together, we become
passionate about the impact we are making and we all grow together, make money, and serve others. The entrepreneurial mission is a spiritual mission that is usually about much more than money.

7. The Dalai Lama says "...money is good. It is important. Without money daily survival, not to mention further development is impossible. ...In fact Buddhist texts mention the fruition of eight qualities including health, wealth and fame that define a fortunate
existence."

8.Living a life of simplicity, as Emi had defined it, worked when life was relatively uncomplicated by things like illness. But when life became more challenging and medical bills, health insurance and ongoing care became realities, I had to expand my definition of "simple" if I wanted to survive I had to find a way to integrate my monastic life and my own well being in 21 st century America.
It took getting cancer to wake me up to the reality that money is useful not just for the nice things in life, but even for the basics like health and wellness. It showed how my physical life constantly informs my emotional, mental and spiritual life. What I do not pay attention to is going to manifest one way or another.

9. It is remarkable to
think how our same roots and upbringing propelled us into such different directions; Robert toward financial wealth, freedom and happiness, and me toward inner freedom and happiness.
NIRVANA:Nirvana has a deeper meaning of "freedom from suffering and delusions." Nirvana is a mental state, not a physical place. It is seeing things as they are, without the filters of attachment, aversion and ignorance.
Enlightenment is greater than Nirvana; it is a state attained by purifying all delusions such as hatred, anger, jealousy, and ignorance and completely cultivating all excellent qualities, such a loving-kindness, generosity, ethics and compassion, as well as gaining complete understanding of the nature of reality.

10.The question is can we pick ourselves up and start again when our world has collapsed around us? Can we transform our problems so that we can rise out of devastation and turn our suffering into wisdom and compassion? Can we find and live our path? These
are the essential questions that Buddhism addresses. In short, the answer is yes if we make an effort to use our intelligence and emotional strength to analyze our life, our situation, our behavior.

11.Often, we do not fully appreciate something until we lose it or nearly lose it. Being so close to dying and killing was a powerful
experience for Robert. It gave Robert a deep appreciation for this precious *GIFT called LIFE*.
Today instead of living with a fear of death, I do my best to live life and really live. I believe that on of the reasons I donot succumbed to the fears of job security, fear of failing, fear of criticism and fear of having enough money is because to me. Those fears are not worth my time.

*THANK YOU*

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good content but writing leaves much to be desired. You'll find bits of genius interspersed between boring, repetitive stories.

[franky franky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buku yg cukup menarik, tapi saya lebih terkesan dengan cerita dan sudut pandangnya robert kiyosaki.Saya mendapat kesan seolah2 Emi hanya mengekor dr pesan utama robert.Pada bagian awal jg membosankan dan berputar2.

Buku ini menyatukan 2 proses hidup dr keluarga yg sama tp memiliki tujuan hidup yg berbeda.Human Beings, begitulah manusia biasa disebut.Menurut kiyosaki, mudah menjadi manusia, dengan makan, tidur, bekerja dan berinteraksi sudah menjadikan kita sebagai manusia.Tapi bagaimana dengan Beingsnya, menurutnya utk mjd human beings seseorang harus hidup berdasarkan misi hidup yg dijalankan seorang manusia, bisa jg alasan keberadaannya utk hidup, ataupun tujuan hidupnya.

Dalam sepanjang buku ini Kiyosaki bersaudara menjelaskan bagaimana caranya menjadi human beings lewat kehidupan mereka masing2.

Salah satunya jg menemukan Spiritual Family.Menurut mereka, kita dilahirkan memiliki 2 keluarga.Pertama , keluarga biologis , ayah , ibu, kakak, adik. Kedua, keluarga spiritual, bisa orang2 yg memiliki tujuan atau semangat hidup utk melengkapi keberadaan mereka atau sebuah peristiwa yang berpengaruh yg dpt mengubah hidup.

Dalam menemukan spiritual family, kita jg akan dihadapkan 3 macam manusia. Pertama, Zombie , orang yang hidup segan matipun tak mau, dikisahkan dengan orang2 yg ditemui kiyosaki saat berperang yang mentalnya hancur duluan sebelum berperang.Kedua, Lifers, orang yg hanya sekedar hidup tanpa menjalani mission of lifenya, berkerja hanya untuk menerima gaji tanpa kesenangan.Ketiga, Brothers ,orang2 tipe ini lah yang diharapkan dr spiritual family, orang2 yg saling support mencapai mission of lifeny masing2, selalu mempunyai semangat untuk mengabdikan dirinya untuk semesta.

Terakhir, bagaimana tanda2nya jika kita menemukan mission of life kita, adalah maukah kita bekerja atau membantu secara sukarela tanpa imbalan dan menjalaninya dengan semangat dan kebahagiaan.Jika mampu melakukannya secara sukarela tanpa berharap imbalan , itu merupakan salah satu tanda menemukannya.

[Mayank Joshi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book talks about siblings who were took different journeys and their own separate ways and how they become close again later on in life. It includes their life stories including their spiritual journey, opinions on money and on what and why things happened in their lives.

The book is written in alternating parts by both siblings. They spend a good deal of their time reminiscing about how tough their childhoods were in Hawaii growing up in a family of well educated parents with a tight budget. Gosh, it sounds terrible growing up in a stable loving family.

Robert's parts are further tempered with his time in Vietnam and his anger at God. He tries to use these experiences to explain why I should want to use his system for getting rich and for why he's making his sister write this book. It doesn't work. He just comes off as annoying, whinny and selfish.

Emi's parts don't fare much better unfortunately. I expected a little more insight from a Buddhist monk but none of that comes through in this book. Instead her chapters about how hard it was to be a girl in a family of boys and how she felt compelled to abandon her daughter with her ex-husband to seek out spiritual enlightenment and how she's now a better person for all of it. That's nice message but it's not presented in a convincing manner.

The only thing I came away from this book is something I already knew: siblings are very different people even when they have the same parents. The same set of experiences can have very different life lessons and that's just part of life.

"Wealth has a bigger meaning"

[Sai Dass · Rating 3 out of 5]

A contrast of a money making brother and a ordinances of a Buddhist nun .

Spikes many thought on revealing one needs of life , money as a essential need which contributed from this writing. Enjoyable reading ; revealing on some past - a person who's selling his war thoughts and a person who has self realisation on human trail .

[Mior Azrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collaboration of famous author, Robert Kiyosaki and his sister Emi Kiyosaki. Robert is a very successful businessman and currently living the dream meanwhile Emi Kiyosaki also known as Tenzin devoting her life to her religion, Buddha. It’s a story of these two siblings on their path seeking God, Money, and Happiness in their own way.

[Tsewang Dorjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took so long for me to read this I had tight Schedule but I try my best to read few minutes .

The book was good and got tremendous of knowledge , information , concepts , skills . Most favorite parts while there are talking about behavior and things we shouldn’t do in our life .those are very relate with Buddhist philosophy.

[Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelente

Le conoces mejor a Robert y también entras en el mundo espiritual de su hermana. El texto es mucho más profundo que la libertad financiera o sobre la riqueza.

[Tudor Taburceanu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un amestec de realitate cu spiritualitate!!!

[Tanesha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book!!!...I enjoyed it from page 1

[Ren NJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the life story they shared through this book.

[Mary Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

very nice book

[Giorgos · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a journey to spiritual wealth. The story of two siblings following their own path to riches. If you are interested in learning about Budism and Christianity it's a good start.

[Swapna · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Rich Brother Rich Sister" - started reading due to the name, concept, author and content of the random page I read before buying!


It's a pleasure to read some passages, quotes - as I can relate to it so well. And at some passages I pretty much disagree to the extent wondering why I am reading it!

Even though sharing two journeys is the intention, still the crossing over from one to another narrator at times brings a jerky break to the train of thoughts, takes effort to move into another mood - recall the background to continue the other journey.

Both the streams of stories are very interesting in their own ways! Also I like the frankness in the early part of the book - the book was written to fish (;) ) : earn money! After all one of the author is Robert Kiyosaki!

The book talking about the concept of life’s goal and spiritual family – which I trust most of us can related to effortlessly … though the efforts involved for search n realization : the whole journey – easy to appreciate than to implement!

[Ari · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Wealth has a bigger meaning"

I have in the past read a couple of the Rick Dad Poor Dad books from Robert Kiyosaki. They are inspiring in the sense of teaching us the awareness on the building of wealth. I would not mind getting richer and achieve financial independence, nevertheless money has never been a large enough force to move me to work for it as the biggest goal. In "Rich Brother Rich Sister", wealth has a bigger meaning, both material (financial independence that frees us to pursue what we truly wants and allows us to take good care of ourselves) and spiritual (put us into perspective of the meaning of life). I like the high spirit of Robert Kiyosaki, an individual who is so full of life. The perspective from Emi Kiyosaki was also interesting, although at times the writings appeared quite repetitive. Nevertheless, one theme I have always like is the idea of ongoing learning and improvement. This is a nice read, slightly different tone as the regular "Rich Dad Poor Dad".

[Wizzard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a powerful book. One brother is a millionaire, one sister is a nun. They use the lineage of samurai they inherited to forge their spiritual strength and develop their own missions of service. The book is inspiring, though I don't agree with it fully-- I do agree with the call to develop yourself dynamically and powerfully and make that self add to the benefit of the world. He criticizes the "corps-arations" and the mutual fund/ risky loan brokers that have helped limit our financial well-being.

I wish the book had more examples from their lives and a little bit less theorizing, sermonizing, and explaining.

[Lorraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am really quite glad that I didn't spend $25 to help Emi become a millionaire. The day I saw this book, I was so excited about the idea of a brother and sister writing together about their spiritual and financial journeys, but basically it was not that well written, used the same material over and over, and was rather too overt in its preaching of gaining wealth as a primary goal in life. Self-congratulatory, hackneyed and not particularly original, beyond the initial premise. This book did not live up to its potential, sadly. There were a few inspiring passages or ideas, but well-camouflaged in stale phrases and repetition.

[Gemma Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's wonderful premise for a book. Unfortunately, it was pretty disjointed and never really fully explored its suject. I liked her writing style better than his, but his ideas were the ones that actually made me say, "hmm, I never thought of it that way" more often. At least the first time he said them. If you cut out all the word for word repetitions of entire paragraphs, the book would have been very slender indeed. Even as unsatisfying as it was, it was good enough to make me look forward to seeing what she writes on her own, and I am tempted to read one of his other books to see if the financial ideas he references so often are more fully described elsewhere.

[Desiree · Rating 2 out of 5]

Saw this one at the library and grabbed it. I read the previous books and thought it was going to be about the commonalities and contrasts between Robert Kiyosaki and the Dalai Lama. How wrong I was!

The book is mainly an autobiography written by Robert and his sister. The closest we get to the Dalai Lama is that his sister is a buddhist. Nothing wrong with that, but definitely NOT what I was expecting.

As others have said, there is quite a lot of repetition in this book. I almost didn't finish it, but I kept at it, hoping to find something worthwhile here. Don't bother!

[Autumn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and enjoyable book.

My one disappointment was that the Buddhist nun did not address her abandoning her daughter at a young age to go to India to study Buddhism. I would have thought that her high level of spirituality would have helped her to face this decision, and gain some insight and wisdom about it. She either has not dealt with this issue in her life; or she has, and just did not want to share it with us. I thought her lack of addressing the abandonment issue was a major flaw in the book.

[Sunflower · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had such a good idea-a sister who is a Buddhist nun, and a brother who is one of the best-known capitalists on the planet. But... it isn't a great read. Lots of repetition, and just when it could get interesting, along come the platitudes. Why did I expect more? Who knows.
Having finished it now, I have to admit it gets better in the second half. I found Tenzin's parts more interesting-although life as a Tibetan buddhist nun living in Western society and the conflicts that can arise are only covered superficially.