Click to Print  No Excuses  No-you're not excused. December 1,
1999  Many people daydream about transforming their business
ideas into multimillion-dollar companies. But only a few ever
take that first step toward fulfilling their entrepreneurial
passions. Why? Excuses. Many would-be entrepreneurs construct
such compelling cases as to why they can't succeed in business
that they never act on their million-dollar ideas.  Here's how
it works. Remember the laws of motion from physics class? One of
them states that an object at rest stays at rest until acted
upon by an outside force. Excuses, like inertia, keep you in
your present situation--unless something compels you to move
forward.  In 1991, Marianne Szymanski, 32, got the boost she
needed to start Toy Tips Inc. by looking at the risks of
starting her own business in a different light. "I thought of
the idea [for Toy Tips] at age 24 and decided the real risk was
not to go for it and later regret what I could have done,"
recalls Szymanski, whose Milwaukee com