Rich Dad’s Retire Young Retire Rich

How do you transform small amounts of money into large amounts? This statement puzzled Robert Kiyosaki in the mid-1970s. Twenty years later, he was a millionaire looking forward to early retirement. He had found the solution. So, how did he do it? 

In a word, leverage – or doing more with less. 

This concept refers to a lever – a tool that uses a beam and pivot to harness the laws of physics, moving heavy objects with minimal force. Leverage isn’t just about heavy lifting, though; it’s one of the principles governing the world. 

The key message here is: Leverage is power. 

Let’s take a look at the animal kingdom, for example. Humans aren’t nearly as fast as cheetahs or as strong as bears. Unlike birds and fish, we can’t fly or survive underwater. And yet we dominate the Earth. That’s leverage.

Cheetahs, bears, birds, and fish use the advantages nature has given them, but they don’t multiply them like humans do. On the other hand, we leverage our greatest gift – the mind – to do things our bodies can’t. We’ve built tools, like levers to move boulders or vehicles to move quickly on dry land, in the sky, and even underwater. 

The history of innovation is a series of technological leaps that have given our species greater leverage over the natural world. And this leverage has shaped human society. 

Around 5,000 years ago, sea merchants realized that attaching large sheets of woven flax to a pole and crossbeam allowed them to harness the wind. The wind’s force propelled their boats. Suddenly, they could do more with less. Sailing was easier and more efficient than relying on a crew of oarsmen. It was also more powerful. Vessels were now able to carry more cargo further than ever before. The merchants and statesmen who embraced this new technology prospered and built powerful empires. 

More recent breakthroughs follow the same pattern. Today, entire fleets of container ships can be dispatched to any port in the world at the click of a button. Entrepreneurs who recognized how to harness the internet early on to make this possible are among the richest people to have ever lived. 

These blinks aren’t about technology, though. They’re about the ideas and strategies that will give you financial leverage to do more with your money.