I have met many individuals who became "self-employed" while they were actually on a stint of being "unemployed." How and why does that happen?

I believe if we gave every child an option of working for a company or working for themselves and they were guaranteed success, I believe the majority of them would choose self employment. What are the benefits of being self employed: flexible schedule, no limit of income potential, no need for decision approval, tax benefits, can do what you love! Benefits of being employed: steady paycheck (assuming you never get laid off or fired), paid vacation time, insurance partially paid for, maybe a 401k and/or a pension.

Key part to that scenario is "guaranteed success." The fear factor is the number one reason why most individuals never even try to follow their passion or give up at the first sign of an obstacle or failure. Most fear is created by our own minds and is nearly impossible to overcome which leads us to our wonderful corporate career opportunities. Working for some big corporation who has absolutely no interest in any of its employees well being, just performance. Don't get me wrong, our world needs employees and not everyone is cut out to be self employed even if they were guaranteed success. Keep in mind though, there will always be pressure to succeed either from yourself or from your management team even if you are employed. The primary difference is whether or not you have the drive and the courage to put your dreams on the line to make a go of it for yourself!

In today's troubled economy with a high unemployment rate, tight credit standards, and a significant amount of uncertainty, it makes perfect sense why people would not want to jump off that cliff of faith right at the moment. What if you had a parachute though? What if you knew you were not going to land flat on your face? Would you take the leap then? These are very real and very difficult questions that I am asking myself nearly every day!

If you are currently unemployed like I am, how much time are you able to spend networking, sending off resumes, revising your resume, updating LinkedIn, and actually interviewing? Maybe a few hours a day? How many of those hours are you just trying to make yourself feel good by job search busy work?

The real question is how many hours a day can you put towards self improvement, self discovery, and finding your passion that you have buried somewhere deep inside? At least four hours, six hours, eight hours or more? Now that I am coming out of my pity party, anger, resentment, ego damage, I am realizing that I have a lot of time on my hands and have wasted many hours simply feeling sorry for myself. Crazy how my mind works - from what I am researching I am not alone!

Start thinking about your interests, hobbies, desires, dreams and find where they lead you. Write them down! My ten year old daughter loves cupcakes! She has learned how to bake them, frost them, use fondant to specialize them, and she sells them to other local families who lover her cupcakes, but even more so want to support her! At $36 a dozen she is earning more than I am today! She is a ten year old with a passion, no fear and a vision - that is awesome!

Whether you love cupcakes, jewelry, helping people, or fixing computers there is always a way to market and earn a living at it if your are truly passionate about the task.

So start that list and let me know if there is any resource I may help you find!