What is your reason WHY?

Just a quick congrats to Dien on the continuation of a great board. I've been around on and off ever since the genesis of Sowpub, although I doubt many except perhaps Dien would remember the few posts I've made.

To fire up everyone's thought process a little more: For all the budding entrepreneurs, what are your reasons WHY you've chosen this path in life? What is it that has changed your thinking from a "job" mentality into a "business/investment" mentality?

For myself, I've only ever had one single job in my life, and that was back at the end of my year 10 studies. I've operated six seperate businesses in the six years since then, two while still in high school (the same school as Dien's brother, Thomas) and another one that became a million dollar company in a year, which Dien and Thomas both did some work on behalf of.

Currently, I'm at the head of two companies, both briskly growing, and one will be growing this year from our current six employees to over one hundred. To get here has taken three years of almost constant 16+ hour days, and a personal income that has been so low that at times I've had to rely on social security to survive.

I know that if I hadn't kept my eyes always focused on my reasons WHY I was constantly working towards my goals, I would have quit only 5% down the track. Those reasons, for me, have been my absolute loathing at having a boss, and my dream of running a company to produce computer games (among many other things).

What are your reasons WHY, and what circuimstances have they driven you to overcome?