These days, people tell me I’m a lucky man and that they envy me. My wife and I run a home catering business and I have a couple of websites that are making money. I get to work at home, have lunch and horse around with my kids every day and generally do what I please, when I please – I’m my own boss and in many ways already successful. It wasn’t that way two years ago though. If you had known me then, you would have thought I was a ship headed for the rocks – a nervous wreck on the brick of a mental breakdown!

Many of us can remember when our Dads worked all their life for one company but I learnt the hard way that employment for life is a thing of the past. Organizations today are constantly evolving to keep up with changes. If they can’t keep up, they either get left behind or close shop. It all boils down to the survival of the fittest, and surviving means having to take drastic measures which very often means cost-cutting or down-sizing. It’s a painful fact of life. Statistics today show that up to eighty percent of the working population will experience down-sizing either directly or indirectly during their working life. Being affected directly obviously means being laid-off and indirectly means having to perform the functions of two or more staff that have been laid-off.

A couple of years ago, the company I worked for was in a financial crisis. Cost cutting and down-sizing was taking its toll on everyone - myself included. When things started getting really bad, my wife and I decided we had to take control of our own destiny. We started a home catering business. I continued to work for my company while we ran our home catering business in the evenings. When we had built a steady base of customers, I felt it was time to leave my company. It felt like a heavy burden was lifted off my chest when I handed in my resignation letter. It felt so good to fire my boss!

Over the course of time (after I left), investigations by the authorities uncovered an accounting scandal in my previous company. This news resulted in it’s stock falling from 1.58 to 8 cents! At the time of writing this article, the company has almost reached the end of the road as it continues to struggle with depleting resources, dwindling staff-force and public scorn.

I recently received news that six of my ex-colleagues were given 24 hours notice to leave the company. Despite the hopeless situation of the company, none of them expected to be laid off in that manner, probably because they were very senior staff. What happened to them could easily have happened to me (or to anyone) if I continued to put my hope in a sinking ship.

What saved us was our decision to start our own home based business. That do-or-die situation forced us not only to survive, but to triumph! I’d like to encourage you to take that same step of faith! No matter how insignificant your business may seem to be or how little money you make at first, the most important thing is the realization that you CAN take control of your life. You DO NOT need to rely on a job that you hate! Don’t continue to be a victim of today’s volatile job market or continue to put yourself at the mercy of someone else’s greed. What’s worse, DON’T work yourself to death making someone else rich!

You may not think you need a home based business right now but remember this – if there ever comes a day when you ARE in danger of losing your job, YOUR home based business WILL give you the option of firing your boss before he fires you! So here’s to never having to lose sleep over your job…cheers!