The Be-Your-Own-Boss Explosion

More than 800,000 hard working Americans have lost their jobs this year and that figure is estimated to hit more than 1 million as we approach year-end pink slips. Many of our newly unemployed will never be able to transfer their knowledge into a similar position for a comparable salary—the only solution might be to start a small business.

It’s a small world after all--a small business world, that is. It is small business that is fueling our economy today not the Fortune 500 giants. In fact, small businesses account for about 90% of all new jobs created. Small business owners are the innovators who bring us inventions, and faster,cheaper, smarter ways to get from A to B. In the past two decades we’ve witnessed an explosion in entrepreneurship.

Everyone dreams of being his or her own boss--and for many good reasons. Being one’s own boss will always be associated with freedom and to a great extent, pure joy and satisfaction. It is difficult for employees to find this satisfaction on their jobs working for others.

For a long time, American workers have not been able to rely on the comfort and security once associated in working for a mega-giant corporation. There was a time when employees could count on protected pensions, health care and job security.

At the close of each year, CEOs and top management still pocket multi-million dollar profits, while the workers who drive corporations, teeter on shaky ground. We’re all too familiar with the devastation caused by layoffs, plant closings and corporate downsizing in the last few years. Since 1979, 50 million Americans have watched their jobs vanish, and according to The New York Times, only 29 million have replaced them.

We’re now searching for fulfillment and livelihood in new places, in new ways. We’d rather work 14 hours a day for ourselves doing something we love than work for “the man”. Having a small business means freedom from the 9 to 5 shackles. We’d gladly work twice as hard in our own venture. Owning a small business gives us pride and identity.

In the 19th century, Americans worked and plied their trades. Villages usually featured one shoemaker, one clothing retailer, one grocer, and so on down the line. Late 19th and early 20th century entrepreneurs ventured into oil, steel and railways and made a bundle overnight. They struck gold.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Americans fulfilled dreams by taking over the family business. After World War II new ideas, technologies and politics came into place changing the business climate as well.

Sons and daughters were no longer content to work in the family business. College was the dream and working for a large corporation became the fantasy. Business students earned MBAs and turned their sheepskins into big buck fortunes. But with the greed of the 1980s came the stock market crash and insider trading scams.

Social awareness, invisible since the 1960s, turned many of us off to the notion of big business. Government let us down, too. Environmental devastation along with concern for human needs, such as health care and shelter, took center stage.

Global alarms on AIDS, famine and natural disasters brought us closer together. Americans started to reject the notion of the big business machine and once again moved toward small business.

We watched garage-based ventures like Apple and Microsoft become world-class empires. It was proof that entrepreneurship--the New American Dream--was alive and well. Advances in technology have made it easy for small businesses to be launched from home.

With the Internet, It’s never been easier to be an “Open Collar” worker than right now and it gets less difficult all the time as one-person operations run from a kitchen table rack up profits and respect.

Running a business is fun and exciting. It has been written and said time and again: If you choose something you love to do, you will love working on it, at it, with it, for it. The money will follow. I hope this blog will serve as your "partner" as you begin your Small Business Journey!