Learning from a bad book

This past weekend my wife picked up Rich Dad, Poor Dad from the shelves at my parents' house. The book is a "non-fiction" fable of a self-made man who has become rich from the advice from his rich father figure. His actual father, aka Poor Dad, is the source of the traditional advice of Study Hard, Word Hard, and Get a Good Job. The author argues that this usually translates into someone becoming a wage slave by increasing their standard of living as their wages increase. The advice from Rich Dad falls into the usual investment nuggets of Pay Yourself First, Buy Assets, and Don't Be Afraid to Take Risks.

In general, the content of the book was mixed - some good information and some bad information. The material was persuasively presented but contained little new and/or different advice. Often the interests of the author shown through as he advised the reader to purchase his board game, Cash Flow, to buy books (he's an author), and attend lectures on how to become rich (he's a motivational speaker).

The lesson I took from the book was to wake up, to get off of our collective keesters, and to do something about building up an investment portfolio that has a non-trivial return. I'm not exactly sure how to do that (the book was unclear on specifics), but I'm at least more motivated than I had been in finding out the answer. Despite being a completionist, I doubt that I'll be following up in order to read more by the author, but I can say that it was a good book at the instant I read it.