Planning to retirement is not enough. You need to plan far beyond retirement. In fact, if you're rich, you should plan for at least three generations be- yond you. If you don't, the money could be gone soon after you're gone. Besides, if you don't have a plan for your money before you depart this earth, the government does." 78 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing Mental Attitude Quiz Many times, we do not pay close attention to our silent and seemingly unimportant thoughts. Rich dad said, "It's not what we say out loud that determines our lives. It's what we whisper to ourselves that has the most power." So the mental attitude questions are: 1. Are you planning to be rich or are you planning to be poor? Rich_ Poor_ 2. Are you willing to pay more attention to your deep, often silent, thoughts? Yes • No_ 3. Are you willing to invest time to increase your financial vocabulary? A first goal of learning one new financial word a week is doable. Simply find a word, look it up in the dictionary, find more than one definition for the word, and make a mental note to use the word in a sen- tence that week. Yes_ No_ Rich dad was a stickler for words. He often said, "Words form thoughts, thoughts form realities, and realities be- come life. The primary difference between a rich person and a poor person is the words he or she uses. If you want to change a person's external reality, you need to first change that person's internal reality. That is done through first changing, improving," or updating the words he or she uses. If you want to change people's lives, first change their words. And the good news is, words are free." Chapter 8 Investor Lesson #6: Getting Rich Is Automatic... If You Have a Good Plan and Stick to It My friend Tom is an excellent stockbroker. He often says, "The sad thing is that nine out of ten investors do not make money." Tom goes on to explain that while these nine out of ten investors do not lose money, they just fail to make money. Rich dad said a similar thing to me: "Most people who con- sider themselves investors make money one day and then give it back a week later. So they do not lose money, they simply fail to make money. Yet they consider themselves investors." Years ago, rich dad explained to me that much of what people think is investing is really the Hollywood version of in- vesting. The average person often has mental images of floor traders shouting buy/sell orders at the start of the trading day, or images of tycoons making millions of dollars in a single 80 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing trade, or images of stock prices plummeting and investors diving out of tall office buildings. To rich dad, that was not investing. I remember watching a program where Warren Buffet was being interviewed. During the course of the interview, I heard him say, "The only reason I go to the market is to see if some- one is about to do something silly.