That is a tough question to answer with full information, it's even tougher when you don't understand where your income is coming from.

Your Rewards
Let's break the rewards into financial and non- financial. Your financial rewards are:
1. Your salary
2. Your business' profits
3. Your tax savings

Your non-financial rewards include:
1. Independence.
2. Freedom to do the work you choose.
3. Setting your own hours.
4. Letting other people do the tasks you don't like.
5. Spending a lot of time with your family.
6. The thrill of succeeding.
7. The thrill of helping others (your employees).

We will table the non-financial rewards discussion for a future article. The financial rewards are what I wanted to chat with you about today. Specifically, I want to show you how to determine how much each component is rewarding you.

But first, a nod to the risks.

Your Risks & Costs
The potential risks of owning a business and costs seem almost limitless:
1. Personal bankruptcy (just check the statistics!).
2. Extreme stress.
3. Long hours away from your family.
4. Missing out on important moments in your children's lives.
5. Poor health (no time for exercise).
6. Lawsuits.
7. Accidents.
8. Depression (due to pending failure).
9. Isolation - no one to help you shoulder the load!

The Trade-Off
Everything in life is a trade-off between risk and reward. The trick is to position yourself so that the trade-off is significantly in your favor.

You can do that by increasing the rewards, minimizing the risks, or by doing both (ding, ding, ding - we have a winner!).

Before you think I'm going to give you THE benchmark trade-off be aware that the trade-off differs for each of us. Different personalities enjoy or despise stress significantly more or less than others.