Accidental Billionaires

By: Esther Smith

You gotta love problems for the solutions they inspire. Here are some names you might recognize who were canned, laid off, or otherwise given the boot. They have joined the Pink-Slip Billionaires because instead of finding a new job, they launched their own careers.

Michael Bloomberg – New York City Mayor

David Neeleman – Jet Blue Aircraft

Bernie Marcus & Allen Blank – Home Depot

J K Rawling – Harry Potter

Of the four backgrounds I read on these entrepreneurs, Rawling's was the most amusing: discovered writing short stories on company time, she was given her pink-slip. How funny is that? He should have offered her a private office for a percent of the publishing rights.

Gaining control over your life is what it's all about. Doing something you love or believe in is a good reason to start your own career. Confucius said: "Find a business you love, and you will never have to work another day in your life".

Maybe your day will have longer hours or odd hours at first, but when you're having fun at what you're doing why would you care about free weekends? Now your sweat-equity rewards your bank account, not theirs.

The Internet is the biggest revelation of our time. In the past one hundred years of communication, only the telephone and aviation equal its development. But its importance to small business is greater today than either television or radio.

Three million Entrepreneurs every year find the courage to start a business of their own. Others fight the fear of "no paycheck" resulting in two-thirds of all employees hating their work, their boss or their hours. But they grind away their life in this situation.

If 49% of all companies are now run from the home as reported recently, this trend is on the upswing and hardly rocket science to achieve. And did you know – many independent business owners earn less income than the customers they serve? That's a fact.

I have to go back several years to the day when I first let go of my ‘hostess job' in a fine restaurant and went from part-time Entrepreneur to full time on the Internet. What a great feeling it was to plan my own day, design my own schedule and answer to no one but myself.

Surfing the Internet for a good money-stream is now second nature to me, and to do this I have learned to use the Forums. People don't hesitate to gripe about a company or a program full of BS and hype. They rip them up and down and others join their whine list. Just as out-spoken are the ones who like to brag about the successes they have found, the pay-outs that are hitting their bank accounts, and the simplicity of the program itself.

I have found a few open doors that I liked the sounds of and with further due diligence, I joined. You don't even have to become a member of these Forums, just spend every spare hour you have reading them on a daily basis. Get one money stream up and going, and start looking for the next one. Diversification, as taught by the experts, is your best insurance on Wall Street and Cyberspace.

Look for money streams in the form of residuals or leveraged income. With some effort up front and a minimum investment, get it going and coast while you look for another money stream. Many use this strategy to build their bank account while collecting a paycheck. Good idea if your ultimate plan is to break-away from your Dilbert cube.

As Entrepreneurs in the fastest growing area of the economy, we as the risk takers and wealth generators might be looked upon as grasshoppers as we search for our answers. What makes us jump? The simple answer and motivation is the desire to create: the desire to create. And high self-esteem adds serious fuel.

Motivation comes from anyone who tells us, it can't be done. We love an impossible challenge. We are dreamers. We want to control our own lives. We see things that others can not. Our determination is driven by high self-esteem. We leave a boring job to take on the fearsome adventure with the last of our savings. We are a strange lot. So tell me, given the choice, would you choose being bored, or being terrified?

Your answer may or may not qualify you for Entrepreneurship.