If there was one thing I hated as a kid, it was beets. I couldn't stand the look of them. Or the taste of them... although, I'm not sure I remember ever actually eating one. I just knew I would hate them.

And so, my whole life I've held to the belief that I hate beets. Until recently. I was at one of those huge salad bar restaurants and there they were. My husband loves beets, and he was heaping them onto his plate.

"Come on, try one. You've never even had one, have you?", he cajoled.

So, I did the unthinkable. I ate one.

And it was good! To think I'd been missing out all this time just because of a stubborn opinion I'd formed as a kid.

So what does this have to do with working at home? My point here is that I once felt the same way about home business opps.

When I first quit my job to stay at home with my kids, I wanted only to find a telecommute job. No business opps. No Network Marketing. No way. For reasons that escape me now, I had no desire to start a business. In fact, I had a negative impression of business opps in general. I thought most of them were thinly veiled pyramid schemes (even though I'm not sure I really knew then what constituted a pyramid scheme).

Eventually though, I succumbed to one of those "Mom's Needed!" ads and I signed up with a --gasp-- Network Marketing company. I liked their product, which had educational value for kids and I actually made a little bit of money. In fact, this is where I got the money to start my current business, 2Work-At-Home.com.

In the beginning, my husband was beyond skeptical (yet this was the very same person who convinced me to eat beets....), but after a year of toiling my efforts were really starting to pay off. I was able to pay bills. I was even able to start getting some of those extras that we wanted.

So, here I was a home business owner, even though I had started out with the firm and non-negotiable goal of securing a telecommute job. And you know what? I think I'm much happier running my own business than I ever would have been working for a company.

Who'd have thought that beets could change someone's life?

Sharon Davis

Sharon Davis is the founder of 2Work-At-Home.com and the Editor of the site's ezine, America's Home.

A work-at-home mom of two girls, Sharon was formerly a sales management and training professional.

"After I had my second child, I was overwhelmed with the need to stay at home with my girls," says Sharon. "I felt that I was missing out on the most important part of my life. The deciding moment for me was seeing a picture of my older daughter on her first day of school. I was never able to be there, as my company held their annual meetings each year on that day. She looked so sad in that picture, it was devastating."

After being at home for some time, Sharon decided to look for a part-time job that she could do from her home office. "I realized that in addition to the extra income we would have, a job would provide me with the professional interaction that I was missing," she says. She embarked on an internet job search and was frustrated to find the large number of scams targeting stay-at-home moms. "I knew there had to be legitimate jobs out there, but I just wasn't finding them," says Davis.

She knew that there were many others who were in the same situation and it was at this point, in September of 1999, that she was inspired to start 2Work-At-Home.com. Her site provides free telecommute job listings, resume posting in the Talent Bank, information on Telecommute Friendly companies and much more.

There are also comprehensive tools and resources for those looking to start a home business. From 100's of home business ideas to tax and legal issues, they have everything you need to start, run and grow a profitable home business.

Sharon runs her business from her home in a small town on the Northern California Coast. Says Sharon, "I'm living proof that you really can work from home. It's fulfilling to know that I am helping others to achieve their goals of working at home. I feel I am the luckiest woman alive."