Rich Dad, Poor Dad

What are you reading?

“Right now, I’m reading Prehospital Emergency Care. It’s the textbook I need to study to become an EMT. It’s actually interesting. Responding to people in need is something I get off on. It has a lot of gory photos of people in traumatic situations, but you have to get used to that.”

Are you doing any recreational reading?

“I recently read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki. I read it to learn about investing. But it wasn’t written like an investment book. It was written more like a story. The author had a rich dad and a poor dad. The rich dad was his best friend’s father, an investor who made lots of money through real estate assets, paper assets such as stocks and bonds, and small businesses. The poor dad was his own father, whom he loved. But his dad made poor financial decisions. He was a schoolteacher who made poor investments, if any.”

Tell me about the style.

“It’s easy to understand. I thumbed through it when I first got it, and there were these weird diagrams. But by the time I got to those diagrams in the course of reading the book, they totally made sense.”

What did you take away?

“I learned the difference between an asset and a liability. Most people think their home is an asset, but really, it’s a liability. It’s not actually bringing money in. A true asset would be something that brings in money at the end of the month. The author doesn’t say you shouldn’t own a home, just that you should be aware that it’s not an asset. Obviously, the people who bought houses in 2006 made huge financial mistakes — their homes became huge liabilities. It was a pretty important book for me, even though I haven’t implemented it. At least I understand what I’m doing wrong and the reasons why.”

What book has been most life-changing for you?

“I was really into Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac when I was in my mid-20s. They were travelers who lived on the edge. Thompson was a journalist, but he was more than a journalist. Instead of just writing about the event, he wrote about his experience of the event. And he writes like he talks — you can actually imagine him going through the experience. Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road, and when I read that, I was on a two-month cross-country drive with a buddy, so I really related to the book. We were just driving from one end of the country to the other, taking as long as we wanted.”

Do you have any favorite authors now?

“I read Jack London, who wrote adventure-type books. He was the inspiration for Chris McCandless, the guy in Into the Wild. There’s a movie about him.

Do you read magazines or newspapers?

“I don’t read newspapers; I don’t have time for that. As for magazines, I can’t sit down for 45 minutes and read one unless it’s about surfing. Otherwise, it just doesn’t hold my attention.”

How many articles do you read to the end?

“If an article has something to do with traveling, or if it catches my eye, I’ll read it to the end.”

Do you talk to your friends about reading?

“A little bit. I’d like to do it more, but not really.”

Name: Rob Glaspey | Age: 35 | Occupation: Firefighter
Neighborhood: Carlsbad | Where interviewed: Starbucks in Hillcrest