Most of us assume that we’ll never make it to greater prosperity while we are working for someone else; that only by being entrepreneurial will we become wealthy. And for a lot of us this may well be true – there is a limit as to how much you can earn per hour in return for your labour. However, there are some who do make it good this way.

We shouldn’t overlook the fact that being employed may be the best route for us and that we don’t have to run our own business. There are whole categories of employees that are doing quite nicely thank you. For example, a friend of mine works in corporate insurance and he’s extremely wealthy thanks to large commission payments. He says he wouldn’t be any better off working for himself.

Many people working in the computer business opted to become contractors because they assumed they would earn a lot more. Some did, but at the cost of stability. When the contracts dried up some were worse off than when employed. But for some this was indeed the best way to go and they have made handsome sums by becoming self-employed.

I guess you have to keep an open mind about this one and not be driven by assumptions. You can make yourself pretty unhappy by forcing yourself into self-employment if this isn’t the right way for you. Perhaps the stability of employment is a greater priority and you should stick with it and not feel compelled to start your own business.

The converse is true as well: understand that working for yourself might make you rich, but it might not. Nearly two-thirds of business start-ups end in failure within three years. Look around you and you will see many examples of the small business owner struggling desperately. There’s no certainty there. Working for yourself generally has higher earning potential, but not in every case. You have to look into it very closely – right business, right demand for your services, right time, enough effort and so on.

There isn’t the space or time here to go into all the pros and cons of working for yourself. Except to say it’s one hell of a lot easier and much more fun working hard for yourself than for someone else. But what we are aiming for isn’t freedom from employment but prosperity. Hence we have to be open to whichever means will hasten our achievement of that goal. Employment or going it alone? It entirely depends on which one will get us rich easiest, fastest, slickest. And your day job doesn’t have to be your route to wealth at all...

The secret is not to close your mind to any opportunity to get rich. And staying employed doesn’t mean not having a little eBay business on the side or a buy-to-let property to create a new income stream.