Page 156 - Rich Dad's Increase Your Financial IQ: Get Smarter with Your Money

information I need to know if the information is a fact or an opinion.
Financial insanity is caused when opinions are mistaken for facts.

Fools Rush In

There are two songs worth humming to yourself the next time you are about
to make an investment decision, “Fools Rush In” by Johnny Mercer and
Rube Bloom, and “The Gambler” by Don Schlitz and sung by Kenny

Rogers. The line I love from “The Gambler” is “You never count your
money when you’re sitting at the table.” When someone says, “My net
worth is . . . ,” or “My home is appraised at . . . ,” I know I’m talking to a
gambler, a person counting his or her money while sitting at the table. My

rich dad said, “The reason you do not count your money while you’re
sitting at the table is because as long as you are at the table, your money
does not belong to you. The moment you step away from the table, the
money in your pocket is your money and you can count it.”

Today, millions of workers with retirement accounts are counting their
money while sitting at the table. Since most investors invest in paper assets
and for capital gains, most invest without control and invest upon the hope
that opinions become facts. That is very risky.

This does not mean a smart investor only invests upon the facts. A smart
investor is a person who invests with both opinions and facts. A smart
investor knows that facts and opinions can be valuable bits of information.
Simply said, “A fact is something that is proved by verification of physical

proof. An opinion is something that may or may not be based upon a fact.”
In other words, an opinion might be a fact, but it remains an opinion until
verified. As my good friend and business partner Ken McElroy says, “Trust,
but verify.”

Lesson #5: What are the rules? Rules and laws are very important types of
information. Many people get into trouble simply because they do not know

the rules, ignore the rules, or break the rules.
Personally, I never liked rules. In Vietnam, I liked them even less. One
of the things I hated was that we fought according to one set of rules and