Steven, it sounds to me like you're having what I call a "garbage truck moment." That's when pressure of running your business starts getting to you and you begin to question whether entrepreneurial life is right for you. The debts are mounting, your staff is shrinking (or growing), you get that nauseous feeling in pit of your stomach and you find yourself longing for apparent simplicity of driving a garbage truck.

Note to garbage truck drivers: save your hate mail, boys. I know you work very hard and I respect what you do. Without you world would be a very different, very smelly place, indeed.

What's happening to you, Steven, has happened to us all. The stress is causing you to doubt not only your decision to start your own business, but your ability to run it, as well. There's no magic bullet for dealing with stress and you certainly can't eliminate it totally, so you must learn to handle it.

I believe key to handling stress is to first identify source of stress, then formulate a plan to deal with it.

Here's what I do. Take a pencil and paper and list all things that are causing you stress. For each item listed ask yourself: Is there anything I can do about this? Is there anything I can do to change this from being a point of stress to a point of accomplishment? In other words, is this something I have control over?

Stressing over things you can't control is a total waste of time. Tell yourself that you're burning brain cells in vain and mark that item off your list. Some people don't have this ability. Some people are just natural born worriers who are not happy unless they have something to worry about. They revel in worry. They work in worry like a great artist works in paint. Even when things are going great they worry that sky is about to fall. If you are a natural born worrier, Steven, nothing I say will help you handle stress.

Great, now you have something else to worry about.

Next , determine if each point of stress is something that has happened in past, is currently happening, or has not yet - or may never - happen. If stress point is past, there's not much you can do but attempt to rectify situation causing stress. If it's a current problem, formulate a plan to deal with problem and eliminate stress it's causing. And if you're stressing over things that may never happen, remember what Mark Twain said: "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened."

Finally, Steven, it's important to remember that working for someone else can be just as stressful as working for yourself. Sure, you don't have stress (and responsibility) associated with running a business, but you will have other stresses that can be far worse; like impossible work deadlines, sales quotas you can't meet, a boss that learned his management skills on a chain gang, coworkers who don't pull their own weight, possible layoffs, etc.

Very few things in life are without stress. Just ask any garbage truck driver.

Here's to your success!

Tim Knox

Small Business Q&A is written by veteran entrepreneur and syndicated columnist, Tim Knox. Tim serves as the president and CEO of three successful technology companies and is the founder of DropshipWholesale.net, an online organization dedicated to the success of online and eBay entrepreneurs.

** Use An Email Form **

Another way to cut down on spam originating from your own website is simply not to display an email at all.

Instead, allow customers and prospects to contact you through a form where they fill in fields, click a button, and your website emails you their message.

A note of caution: make sure form script you use does not keep your email address visible in form code.

If form code contains email address, spam robots can find it even though you don't see it on page.

** Make It Hard To Guess **

Sometimes you'll get unsolicited email because a spammer guessed your email address.

It's not a far stretch to imagine that someone probably has email Jim@yourdomain.com, so spammers will do a "dictionary" attack on common usernames.

One way to defeat this is to place a "dot" (.) in your email address, such as Jim.Edwards@yourdomain.com. The dot makes it virtually impossible for spammers to guess your email address.

-- Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr^e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website, affiliate links, or blogs...

-=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? "Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links... without spending a dime on advertising! Click Here> http://www.the-easy-way.com/traffic.html -=-=-==-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr^e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website, affiliate links, or blogs... http://www.the-easy-way.com/traffic.html