To many people, my situation would be an embarrassment and an imposition. Having no job has a stigma. Take heart: For me it is not a temporary situation. I have been this way since birth. To state it more accurately:

Furthermore, I have never received a single cent of government money in terms of an unemployment benefit, disability payout, hardship grant, or anything of that nature. Not a single cent.

And just to clarify, I am not a trust fund baby. One of the best things my parents ever did was to leave me to my own creative devices (not that they had a choice -- I am trying to state the obvious without embarrassing my parents!).

However, never having had a job does not mean that I have never worked. On the contrary, I probably work as hard as, if not harder than, most. But in terms of receiving a wage slip or a salary payment from an employer, I have no experience at that.

Sometimes people ask me what it feels like to never have had a job. I simply don't know, because I don't know what to compare it with. It's a bit like asking someone what it's like never having traveled to Pluto. But I don't mind not knowing, as I hear a lot of people complaining about their jobs...

When I was eight years old, we were living on the Gold Coast of Australia. Back then I was already trying to figure out ways of making money. In my very first venture, I set up a candy stall on the beach. I used to buy candy wholesale at 1 cent, and sell it at 2 cents. In case you are thinking that the numbers involved are small, the profit margins were huge!

On a sunny Saturday I would sell 100 pieces of candy. That meant $1 profit. It may not sound like much, but my weekly allowance was 20 cents per week, so here I had figured out a way to make five times my weekly allowance per day. I was rich!

I was happy until some burly officials shut down my stall. No one had complained, but there were some bureaucratic regulations about selling candy in the open.

The next day I was back on the beach with a fruit stall -- the regulations did not cover fruit. I was so determined to sell my self-imposed quota of fruit that I resisted calls to come home for dinner until I had completely sold out. Years later I found out that one day, in order to get me home before dark, my father gave a stranger some coins with the request to buy my entire remaining stock of fruit, so that I would finally return home. His wisdom in not forcing me home is priceless.

Business and making money are not so much about what happens to you, or the rules that are out there, but your attitude, perseverance, and desire to succeed.

My sister and I had an upbringing rich in adventure if not material luxury. Our curiosity was never dampened, but encouraged.

My parents came through the tail end of the Depression. Their reality was that to succeed in life, you had to study hard, because by studying hard you can go to college, and at college you can get a degree, and with a degree you can get a good job, and with a good job you can build a career, and with a good career, you can have all the financial security that you could ever hope for. Education was highly prized in our home.

So it was without much thinking at all that I went to college. I had a bit of trouble deciding what to do, however. Law appealed to me, but then you would be restricted to practicing in the country where you qualify, and having travel imprinted in my DNA, I didn't want to restrict myself. I couldn't stand the sight of blood, so medicine was out. The thought of looking into people's mouths all day didn't appeal at all either. In this manner I slowly eliminated all professions. Except for engineering. So off I went to engineering school.

It was during my first year studying for a bachelor's in engineering that it dawned on me that engineers were not uniformly rich. In fact, many of them seemed quite the opposite, judging by their clothes, the clunkers that they drove, and the modest houses that they occupied. So I took it upon myself to make a study of the rich, to try to figure out what it was that they had in common.

The study lasted more than seven months. I read biographies, autobiographies, the relevant parts of encyclopedias, books, and magazines about the rich, and interviewed as many wealthy people as I could. What I found astounded me.

The rich were not uniformly young or old. Nor were they always male, or female. It did not seem to matter whether they were a firstborn, lastborn, or anywhere in between. It did not matter whether they were born into a rich family, lived in a wealthy country, immigrated from a poor country, or whether they were devoutly religious, atheist, or agnostic. In fact, after more than seven months of study, I could only find two things that the rich had in common...

First, almost without exception, the rich had integrity. Their word was their honor. If they said something, you could count on it. That's not to say that if you don't have integrity you cannot get rich. But I believe that if you don't have integrity and get rich, your lack of integrity will also be part of your subsequent and almost inevitable demise. And since integrity is not purely genetic, there is a lesson in this for everyone.

The second feature that the rich uniformly had in common is that almost without exception, the rich either made their wealth, or kept their wealth, in real estate.

Upon that realization, I decided to get into property.

Things were not always easy. When I was seventeen, I looked about twelve. I am sure the first bank manager I visited to seek a mortgage thought it was a prank. (Imagine what it was like for me as a seventeen-year-old kid, trying to date a seventeen-year-old girl, and she'd also think I was twelve.) But I persevered.

Meanwhile, four years later, I got my bachelor's degree with honors. And then they said to me: "Four years for a bachelor's degree, but only one more for a master's, how about it?" So I started a master's program. And halfway through, they told me that I was doing so well that I could switch my registration from a master's to a Ph.D. I wondered why not, couldn't think of an answer, and carried on. They say there are three kinds of students: part-time, full-time, and eternal. I was the eternal kind.

But one day I finally had my doctorate in hand. I was offered a job at $32,000 a year, which at the time was a handsome salary. Unfortunately for my prospective employer, the week before I had just completed a real estate deal worth $35,000.

I remember thinking to myself: "Why would anyone in their right mind agree to work for forty hours a week, for forty-nine weeks of the year, turning up every morning at 8:00 A.M. and saying, 'Hello boss, here I am again, what would you like me to do today?,' when in one week you can do a deal worth $35,000 and take the rest of the year off?"

My parents, no doubt proud of my academic achievements, were, I am sure, quietly waiting for me to announce my acceptance of a job offer. But the announcement never came. I got more into property. I was involved in various business ventures. Slowly I focused more and more on real estate.

When I was in my mid-thirties, I remember visiting my parents in Europe. They picked me up at the airport, and as we were driving to their house, they commented: "Maybe you did the right thing by not having a job." I know this was a big concession, not to me, but to their belief that a job was crucial to financial success. Nonetheless, I told them that I would know that they really believed it when they could drop the word maybe from their comments.

Over the years, as my property activities became more visible, I was asked to share what I do, and how I do it. Articles followed, then books, and a weekly two-hour radio show on property. I have lectured on real estate in over fifteen countries, have made software available to analyze and manage property, and appeared on television debates on the merits of real estate.

Today there are many books on real estate. Almost all are correct in what they teach (as you'll learn in this book, there is no right or wrong way!). In writing this book, I do not want to present yet another version of the mechanics of property investment. Rather, I want to do two things. First, I want to share why I think property is so astoundingly simple and lucrative. I want to show property from a new perspective, so that whether you are new to the game or a seasoned investor, you will be forced to rethink how you feel about real estate. And second, I want to give you an insider's view of my approach, my attitudes, my techniques, and my secrets.

If there is something in these pages that inspires you to find a great deal, I will be happy. Conversely, I will not mind if you decide not to get into property. But I could not forgive myself if in ten years you said to me: "I would have got into property, only no one ever told me it was this good."