Are you tired of the 9-5:30 (or 8-7!) rat race that is the normal way to earn an income? Have you dreamed of working from home, or perhaps even becoming entrepreneurial, and being your own boss? If so, you are among millions of other people who are looking for an alternative way to make money with a home based business.

I don't mean the fly by night network marketing crash and burn business opportunities, but rather the solid, built to last home based business options that exist today. If you are looking at one of these, and thinking of switching from your current employment, be sure you can handle these essential characteristics of successful home based business operators.

1. Excellent self organization skills. When you are working from home in your own business, you need to know how to prioritize and execute what needs to be done. This means learning to control your urge to check your email every five minutes, and instead focusing on the tasks that are most important at each minute of the day.

2. Excellent interpersonal skills. No matter what anyone tells you, you must be able to get along with a large number of people in order to be successful. There may be a few self made millionaires who did not get the help of a single other person, but don't expect to be one of them - they are one in a million. The proven path to success and home based wealth is by leveraging the strengths of others, and that means building rapport with others.

3. Self Learning. When you work at home, you don't have the office buddies to go to every time you get stuck, so everyday problems, like sorting an Excel spreadsheet, or printing a document in landscape are things you will need to figure out on your own. This ties in with the next item:

4. Resourcefulness. How many times have you tried to do something, and got stuck along the way, and only got past the hurdle after someone else helped you out. In a home based business, you don't have the same ability to go to others everytime you get stuck, and your ability to be resourceful, and find solutions to your problems quickly will be a key factor in your ability to grow an income from home.

5. Intuition. That ability to listen to the small still voice within will play a big role when it comes to all the products, services, and partnerships you will need to engage in, in order to grow your business. If your ability to detect inconsistent messages in others is not fully developed, it may impact your ability to earn an income from a home office.

Luckily, for all of us, many millionaires have been made who did not have a silver spoon in their mouth at birth. In fact, Napoleon Hill, the famous researcher of habits and characteristics of the wealthy, discovered that wealth is something everyone can learn, and with the right people around you, you too can succeed in your attempt to build a great income by working from home.