it Quits Small businesspeople are great. Ask them about their baby (their business) and they'll talk you ear off with free advice. One pearl I learned was to know when to give up. Set a time table before you start. If you're not profitable within that time, give it up before you lose everything. One person told me how sad it was that they saw friends finally get into the businesses of their lifelong dreams, and they didn't know when it was time to give up. They threw everything they had at the dying dream and lost everything. I picked two years. I was lucky; things worked great. I picked two years because I had enough cash to live on for two years when I quit my real job. What If You Have to Get a Real Job Again? I was worried what would happen if I took off for two years to do my own thing, gave up, and had a huge hole in my resume. You have to have a job to get one, and having a two-year period of unemployment didn't seem like a good idea. I was told no problem! Every decent employer would look at someone who made a real attempt at their own business very positively. Most employers dream of doing it themselves. You will be seen as more of a self-motivated go-getter than any of the other dull employees applying. Independent businessmen have completely different mindsets from anyone who's an employee. It's the