I Can Read!

I've been doing an unsual amount of reading over my holiday vacation. I just recently finished "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey. This was a good book about how to live your life through principles and to respect and help others to do the same. Most of the habits are common sense things that you don't give much thought to until you see it in writing. These 7 habits are effective in both professional and domestic settings.

I first heard about this book from the professor of my CSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work) class. He often mentioned how he felt the 7 habits in this book helped him to be a better manager. His style was to give people task, then let them accompish the tasks without trying to mirco-manage their efforts. The individual could approach the task using their own unique talents, thereby creating equally unique, creative solutions to the problem.

My current read is a book called "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by by Robert Kiyosaki & Sharon Lechter. The book describes the reasons why the rich remain rich and the middle and lower classes remain poor through examples and narratives of Robert Kiyosaki's life. The "rich dad" is the high-school educated, but financial-savvy father of Kiyosaki's best friend. The "poor dad" is a very highly-educated school teacher and father of Kiyosaki. What initially intrigued me about this book was when I read a passage about how poor dad always said something along the lines of "Work hard to get good grades in school so you can go to college and get a secure, high-paying job." As this is something my dad always says to me, I knew I had to get this book and find out rich dad's perspective on the issue.

So far its a great book, challenging long-standing assumptions about money and finances. For example, the poor and middle class view their house as their greatest asset, because they can use it as collateral to borrow money to pay off credit cards, bills, or buy more stuff. Of course with the credit cards paided off, the poor and middle class people will likely use them to buy stuff and go into debt again. The rich, however, view a house as a liability because of the numerous utility bills and property taxes. Plus, any money borrowed against the value of the home is money that must be paid back over a long period of time, with interest. So, the rich settle for the stuff they have right now or take the loan, then invest their money into buying income-generating assets (stocks, bonds, real estate, intellectual propery, etc.).

Lastly, I'm also reading a prep book for the A+ Certification exams. I plan to take the tests sometime next week. Now I will finally have a piece of paper that says I know how to do what I've been doing for friends, family, and co-workers for years: fixing computers.