Yet, if you look at the great wealth of this world, that wealth has not come from cautious investors. The great changes in this world have come from investors backing what my rich dad called the entrepreneurial spirit. One of my favorite stories is that of Christopher Columbus, a brave explorer who believed the world was round and who had a bold plan to find a faster route to the The Entrepreneurial Spirit 307 riches of Asia. However, the popular belief of his day was that the world was flat. Everyone thought that Columbus would sail off the edge of the earth if he attempted his plan. In order to test his theory that the world was round, Columbus, an Italian, had to go to the royalty of Spain and convince them to invest in his business venture. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella put up what is called the "front money" and invested in his business venture. My history teacher in school tried to tell me that the money was raised to further knowledge via exploration. My rich dad told me that it was purely a business venture that needed capital. The king and queen knew that if this entre- preneur named Columbus succeeded in sailing West to reach the East, they would earn a high return on their in- vestment. Columbus and the king and queen who backed him all had the true spirit of the entrepreneur. The king and queen did not invest to lose money. They invested because they wanted to make more money. It was the spirit of ven- turing or risk with the possibility of great reward. They in- vested in that spirit. Why Start a Business As I began to formulate my plans to start my part-time business, rich dad was adamant about the spirit with which I undertook this new adventure, the adventure of building a worldwide business. He said, "You build a business be- cause of the challenge. You build a business because it is exciting, it's challenging, and it will require all of you to make it successful." Rich dad wanted me to start a business in order to find my entrepreneurial spirit. He often said, "The world is filled with people with great ideas but only a few people with great for- tunes from their ideas." So he encouraged me to start a busi- ness, any business. He did not care about what the product 308 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing was or how much I liked the product. He was not concerned about me failing. He just wanted me to start. Today I see so many people with great ideas who are afraid to start, or they start, fail and quit. That is why rich dad often quoted Einstein's saying of, "Great spirits have often encountered vi- olent opposition from mediocre minds." He wanted me to simply start any business just so that I could challenge my own mediocre mind and, in the process, develop my entre- preneurial spirit. Rich dad would also say, "The main reason so many people buy assets rather than create them is because they have not called upon their own entrepreneurial spirit to take their ideas and turn those ideas into great fortunes.