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It’s a debate that will never have a clear winner, but the question is a valid one:

Are entrepreneurs born or made?

Is it possible to create entrepreneurs through education and training, or do they have to be born with some innate essence, some drive that makes them do crazy things like launch businesses with no guarantee of success?

Certainly, there’s no easy answer, and likely the solution is to accept that both the idea of nature and nurture play into entrepreneurship. For me, as a pre-entrepreneur, I was very risk-averse. I couldn’t imagine throwing all my time and money into a business with such a high failure rate.

But then I found myself starting a business. No one was more surprised than me. As my business grew and I had both successes and failures, I learned how to be a better entrepreneur, and I wore the crown proudly.

Now I wonder if I wasn’t born with some sort of pre-ordained destiny to run one or more businesses in my lifetime. I certa

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I am honored to be included on Holly Hannas newly compiled list of her 25 Most Influential Women Tweeting About Entrepreneurship. Holly Hanna, the Work At Home Woman, helps women and moms fulfill their dreams of working at home and/or becoming self employed.

Im sharing this list with you, not only because Im excited to be included, but because I want to introduce you to Holly and the other women listed, just in case you have not yet met them. A few of these influencers have been guests on INDIE Business Podcast, and you can some of those links below. The Ali Brown episode is 60 minutes long, and the rest are 30 minutes long. The links open a page to the podcast overview and you can stream or download the interview, or, if you dont feel like listening, you can read my highlights. Enjoy!

1. Melinda Emerson. Click here for Melinda on becoming your own boss. Theres also a funny video, very appropriate for a moms like me, who work from home.
2. Pam Slim.

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This is the fourth of a multi-part series on how to invest outside of a 401K. The whole idea for this series started when I was asking a group of about 30 co-workers if they invested outside of a 401K, and found out that ZERO of them did.

I later polled readers as to why they had not started investing outside of a 401k. And now we’re hitting each of the reasons why. The first part in the series dealt with the question of whether you should pay off debt or invest. The second on how to start an online broker account like Zecco or TradeKing. And the third on how to get over the fear of investing.

In this fourth part, well discuss investing theory, particularly why I prefer passive index investing over any other strategy.

Now that you have an online broker account, youve funded it, and youre armed with knowledge and motivation to not let your money sit in a hole in the ground, its time to get out there and trade like a pro!

Not so fast

The Market is Dominated by Institutional Investors

According to John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, institutional investors own 70 percent of American corporations, up from 35 percent in 1975. A

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People who travel a lot usually use a credit card for hotels, restaurants, car rentals, petrol and gifts. Using cash for all these expenses and more can be dangerous. Using a travel rewards card instead makes both financial and security sense.

Travel Plan Types
Most travel reward plans offer a price-for-miles credit. Read more…

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If you’ve got a stack of debt sitting on a credit card racking up a lot of interest, switch it over to one of these cracking cards…

If you’re a regular reader of lovemoney.com, you’ll be very familiar with the term 0% balance transfer credit card.

The reason we so often bang on about these credit cards is because they are a great way of reducing the amount of interest you pay on your credit card. Most standard credit cards charge interest in the region of 16%-17%. In contrast, a 0% balance transfer credit card will allow you to transfer over a balance from an existing card and pay absolutely no interest on that debt for several months.

In fact, right now, the market leading 0% balance transfer card is the Barclaycard Platinum with 20 Month BT Visa which offers 0% interest for a whopping 20 months – so you won’t have to worry about the interest stacking up on your credit card debt for nearly two years! (Bear in

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Like you, my inboxes are bulging. Whether its voice mail, FaceBook mail, regular mail, Twitter, Gmail, etc., I check in regularly seeking new opportunities to engage and learn with you. These days, there are so many ways to ask me questions that I thought Id publish this post to share the best ways to make inquiries, based on your specific needs.

First, please remember that I may have blogged the answer to your question, so you can use the search window (in the upper right sidebar) or the category options (across the top of the page) to find general answers here at my blog. Outside of that, you can connect with me wherever its most convenient for you (FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc.), but if you have a question and you want help specific to your business, following these tips will enable me to reply to you faster, saving you time and money. By the way, media, speaking and coaching/consulting inquiries, and also my IBN members and advertising inquiries will generally be given first priority.

1. Ask an INDIE Beauty Network membership related question.

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In February, I commented that the proceeds of registered retirement savings plans (RRSP) and insurance take outside of the estate. In plain English, the beneficiaries of such plans and/or policies are entitled to payout regardless of whether they are named as beneficiaries in the will (exemptions being the beneficiaries are named due to  fraud, undue influence etc). Thus, there is a parallel payout to of the beneficiaries named in the will and those named in insurance policies and/or RRSPs. The beneficiaries can be the same class of people or different.

But what happens if the beneficiary is a minor? This is all the more common with the rise of single-parent families, older parents and parents with children from different relationships.

In Ontario, the general rule is if a minor child is beneficiary of $10,000 or over of personal property or money without a trustee named, the insurer or financial institution pays the money into the Accountant of the Superior Court of Justice or the court-appointed guardian for property.

Not happy with the state being the trustee of a minor childs money?

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