"Well at a moment of upset, we become one of these char- acters," rich dad said, going on to describe the cast of charac- ters who are brought to center stage when upsets from mistakes occur: 196 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing 1. The Liar. The liar will say such things as: "I didn't do that." Or "No, no, no. It wasn't me." Or "I don't know how that happened." Or "Prove it." 2. The Blamer. The blamer will say such things as: "It's your fault, not mine." Or "If my wife didn't spend so much money, I would be better off financially." Or "I would be rich if I didn't have you kids." Or "The cus- tomers just don't care about my products." Or "Employees just aren't loyal anymore." Or "You weren't clear in your instructions." Or "It's my boss's fault." 3. The Justifier. The justifier says things such as: "Well, I don't have a good education so that is why I don't get ahead." Or "I would have made it if I had had more time." Or "Oh, I really didn't want to be rich any- way." Or "Well, everyone else was doing it." 4. The Quitter. The quitter says things such as: "I told you that it would never work." Or "This is too hard and it's not worth it. I'm going to do something else eas- ier." Or "Why am I doing this? I don't need this hassle." 5. The Denier. Rich dad often called this person "the cat in the litter box," which means this person tends to bury his or her mistakes. The person who denies that he or she has made a mistake often says things such as: "No, there is nothing wrong. Things are fine." Or "Mistake? What mistake?" Or "Don't worry. Things will work out." Rich dad said, "When people are upset due to a mistake or accident, one or more of these characters will take over their mind and body. If you want to learn and gain wisdom from this priceless mistake, you have to let The Responsible You The Magic of Mistakes 197 eventually take control of your thinking. The Responsible You will eventually say, "What priceless lesson can I learn from this mistake?" Rich dad went on to say, "If a person says, 'What I learned is that I'll never do this again,' he or she probably has not learned much. Too many people live in a diminishing world because they continue to say, 'I'll never do that again' instead of saying, 'I'm glad that happened because I learned this or that from the experience.' Besides people who avoid mistakes or waste mistakes never see the other side of the coin." / Slept Like a Baby For example, after I lost my nylon and Velcro wallet busi- ness, I was upset for about a year. I slept like a baby during that year, which meant I woke up crying every two hours. I could hear my mind saying, "I should never have started the business. I knew it would fail. I'll never start a business again." I also blamed a lot of people and found myself justifying my actions a lot, saying things such as, "It was Dan's fault" and "Well, I didn't really love the product.