My experience as a business coach is that those that make their own businesses succeed are driven "away" from "being employed" and into self employment by at least one of the following 3 reasons:

1) No Outlet for Self Expression - this one is verbalized as:

• "They don't listen to my ideas."

• "I'd be much better at Job X."

• "The boss is actually a moron, I could do so much more with this company."

• "This job just isn't exciting anymore. I sit at a desk all day and I am completely bored. I get home from work and just want to sleep. It tires me out doing the same thing day in and day out."

2) My career here is going nowhere and I can see it plain as day - this one is verbalized as:

• "I am in the highest possible position I can be in until Jim, Bill and Steve retire, die or decide to leave."

• "This company is on its way down. If I do choose to stay, I realize there won't be any great future opportunities."

3) Job opportunities aren't paying enough to keep up with life's demands.

• This is often the case for those that have a part time business to help pay the bills or save for some special reason.

It is important that no matter what one or combination of reasons are yours, that you understand the workings of the entire business you're looking at starting. People that leave frustrated from jobs that were "going nowhere" or were unfulfilling often fail to clearly see the big picture. Knowing how to do your job isn't the same as knowing how to run a business. It isn't that running a business is terribly difficult either, because it isn't, however it is a skill. At the very least you just need to be aware of the distinction. The distinction between knowing how to do your job, and knowing how to run a business.

Being an entrepreneur initially involves a large group of tasks and depending on where you worked before, you may know or not know how to run the many facets of a small business. The one area you love to actually work at will likely become the first area you'll need to hire out to an employee. The reason being, is that your role will now be that of an owner. The owner must do everything all the time.

You need to be the entrepreneur, not just the technician. A simple example would be that of an auto mechanic that quits his full time job and opens his own repair station. After just a few weeks he finds that he can't answer the phones, pay bills, clean the waiting area, order materials and supplies and still work on cars. He needs to choose which of these tasks he will hire out first. No one knows how to run his business like he does and he really isn't comfortable letting them do it. So he opts to stop the actual work on the vehicles, hire it out and concentrate on the business. Assuming this is ok with the new owner, this is where the he'll begin to escape the "trading hours for dollars" paradigm of the work world. Here, he begins to see his vision of making money by employing labor, not being the labor. This is where the entrepreneur starts to really see the possibilities before him or her to multiply his efforts.