It’s Time to Take Control! Which enables more control, a job or a business?

It was 1985 and my wife, Kim, and I were homeless. We were unemployed and had little money left from savings; our credit cards were exhausted and we lived in an old brown Toyota with reclining seats that served as beds. At the end of a week of sleeping in our car, the harsh reality of who we were, what we were doing, and where we were headed began to sink in.

After a friend realized our desperate situation, she offered us a room in her basement. When friends and family were informed of our plight, the first question was always, “Why don’t you just get a job?” At first we attempted to explain, but we had a hard time clarifying our reasons to our well-meaning inquisitors. When you’re talking to someone who values having a job, it is difficult to explain why you might not want a job.

We occasionally earned a few dollars doing a few odd jobs here and there. But we did that only to keep food in our stomachs and gas in our house—I mean, our car.

I must admit that during moments of deep personal doubt, the idea of a safe, secure job with a paycheck was appealing. But because job security was not what we were looking for, we kept pushing on, living day to day on the brink of the financial abyss. We knew we could always find a safe, secure, high-paying job. Both of us were college graduates with good job skills and a solid work ethic. But we weren’t going for job security. We were going for financial freedom. By 1989, we were millionaires.

I often hear people say, “It takes money to make money.” That’s B.S.—and I don’t mean a Bachelor of Science degree! Our journey from homelessness to being millionaires in four years, and then on to genuine financial freedom in another five years, did not take money. We had no money when we started—in fact, we were in debt—and nobody gave us anything along the way, either.

It also does not take a good formal education. A college education is important for traditional professions, but not for people looking to build wealth. If it doesn’t take money to make money, and it doesn’t take a formal education to learn how to become financially free, then what does it take? It takes a dream, a lot of determination, a willingness to learn quickly, and an understanding of which sector of the cashflow quadrant you’re operating in.

~ Robert Kiyosaki