I cannot do the work I am currently doing--the work that people are willing to pay $400/hr to a contractor business for--as an individual without clearance. Th

I cannot do the work I am currently doing--the work that people are willing to pay $400/hr to a contractor business for--as an individual without clearance. The other work available locally, subtracting those opportunities, pays less on average than I am now making as an employee. I don't want to move again without some sure way of paying those moving expenses. Taking remote jobs puts me in competition with both India and Indiana. The math works out. I, specifically, am better off as an employee. I already took my shot at self-employment and blew it. I won't get another. I'm lucky that I even got one. If I still lived in an area with more potential customers, with more money, the story might be different. If I wasn't absolutely crap at sales and administration, the story might be different. If I were better able to build a network, such by being more attractive or having better social skills, the story might be different. If I weren't still paying off debts from the first time around, the story might be different. But it's not. I'm not blaming bureaucracy. It's me. I cannot run my own business. I tried it once already, in the Chicago market, which should be plenty big enough for anyone with an iota of business ability, and it didn't work out. It was a dismal failure. Nobody wanted to hire me. Nobody wanted to refer me. I couldn't get the customers. Therefore, I must have zero business ability--not an iota; zero. If a bunch of money magically dropped into my lap to start a business, I would still have to hire someone else to get me customers. But without already having a customer, I could not afford to hire that person. Easier all around to just find a person that does that already and be their employee. Do you understand this? Can you fathom how a person might have one valuable skill and be completely unable to exploit it alone? What would you say the difference would be between an aircraft designer that worked as an employee for Boeing or Airbus and one that sold mail-order kits to hobbyist pilots? The former has a whole bunch of people multiplying the value of their labor, and probably gets a smaller share of the gross revenue. The latter might get 75% of their sales, and still make less total. Besides that, people don't like me. You may underestimate how important that is in the realm of economics. People prefer to give money to other people that they know and like, rather than the people they don't. I know there are loads of resources out there on how to get other people to like you, but it seems like they all rely on some secret sauce that I just don't have.