The Journey of Finding Money Begins

Actually my journey started when I got laid off in 2001 from my job in the computer industry for 12 years. I was devastated at the time and had lost my identity, my passion, my confidence, and my purpose. My company was bought out, but I had survived so many layoffs and re-orgs at that company that I thought I was fine. Admittedly, now that I have taken time to assess and grow and heal, I realized that it wouldn't have mattered because I was a redundant resource and probably hit the upper end of my pay scale.

I've been on a search ever since to find my own security. I have spent many hours and months doing research of finding the right thing to do for pay, and for my passion, but I supposed I had a lot to learn in many areas about myself.

I've done just about everything you can think of to make it "work". I've ran a web store that sold skin care. I bought a business that I thought was an automatic salary for me (don't ever buy an existing business - more on that later). It was like "buying a job" for myself, but I didn't realize the amount of huge overhead costs that I would encounter just to make the profits I needed for a salary. I went into business with my husband - a difficult undertaking even if you do get along like we do. Then I went to work for a small company doing sales at first and currently manage the training department.

I'm still looking. Yes, I bring home a decent paycheck now, but I have loads of debt and still need my own sense of security. Dan Miller said in one of his podcasts recently that if you work for someone else, you have one client that can fire you at any moment. If you have many clients, it would take all of them to fire you at once. So if you are relying on the clients for your pay, then it's a much better situation to run your own business or consulting company.

It makes sense, but that is very easily said. How to start the journey of deciding what? where? when? who? and Why? to start your own business.

My goal is to find a part time way to make enough money to cover my mortgage payment which is about 40% of my monthly bring home pay. I want a way to ease my mind that my first basic need will be covered.

I'm going to write about my different experiences with this journey and maybe get some feed back on what I'm missing. At least share some experiences with others on the same path and see what we come up with.

Be sure to post some comments, or email me and ask questions that we can dive into together.

General Douglas MacArthur said, "Security is your ability to produce".