Adversity - The spark that might light your entrepreneurial spirit

Prosperity tries the fortunate; adversity the great – I’ve seen this one attributed to Pliny the younger, Pliny the elder and Rose Kennedy. Whoever said it, the point is, if it’s true, and I believe it is, a lot of us should be feeling pretty great right now. However, that's much easier said than done. Record layoffs, unemployment, foreclosures… the list of negative things currently happening in our lives seem never ending. But, in the midst of all this gloom and doom, there is a bright spot. Adversity, if we allow it, can make us great. This isn’t some new age, kumbaya, philosophy. I’ve talked about it before. In my career, I’ve learned the most from the most hostile and challenging situations. I’ve been through three layoffs in twice as many years. After the last one, where I’d been working 10 hour days for a particularly incompetent employer only to be replaced by a younger, cheaper version, I thought “that’s it!” Look, I’m not complaining, I’m not even bitter. Business is business and those in charge do whatever they have to do to stay in business – whether we agree with them or not. So, why, I thought, can’t I do that for myself? Why can’t I do whatever it takes to create and sustain my own business?

I can put in 10, 12 hour days for myself and my own company, I did it for everyone else. Why not think creatively, do a lot with very little resources and manage multiple projects, just as I’d done for my previous employers? I’d stayed in jobs I hadn’t enjoyed working at, working for really bad bosses I neither liked nor respected for 20 years. I did it all for the “security” of a steady paycheck. But how secure and how steady is it, if when the sea gets the roughest, middle management is the first to be thrown overboard? Not very. So, after the last layoff, instead of immediately getting on the Internet and beginning a frustrating job search, as I’d done each time before, I took out my bills and determined what was the absolute minimum income I needed to survive. I then did an inventory of my skills and talents and set out to find opportunities to promote them to others.

For today's journey into entrepreneurship, business as usual just won't cut it. It will take employing a combination of tactics, resources and skills. Years ago I read a book called Multiple Streams of Income by Robert Allen. I’m not sure I ever even finished it, but I did take away one really awesome nugget of wisdom. We all should have several outlets simultaneously generating income, whether we work for someone else or we’re our own boss, we need as many sources of income as possible. On my entrepreneurial journey, I'm freelancing, consulting, selling stuff on Ebay, temping if necessary - doing whatever it takes to be my own boss. Being your own boss isn't necessarily easier, more profitable or even more fun, at least not to start with. And, entrepreneurship might not be for you. But, if there's anything that the economy, Bernie Madoff, and the banks...have taught us is that we have to be responsible for our own financial future and security. Will entrepreneurship make you more responsible for yours?

Tomorrow: Noodeleconomics and using the Internet to get your business started.
For more information on how to handle the really bad bosses all around us and to share your really bad boss story, visit www.reallybadboss.com.