Thinking about starting my own business

Hello, everyone. I am new to this site and new to Michael's book. I'm an IT guy (system administration, mostly), and I love what I do. I was downsized back in April, and I've been surviving paycheck to paycheck for the last several months by doing whatever contract work I could find. It's been a difficult year, and I've responded by thinking very, very small.

Since just before I lost that job, I've been toying with the idea of starting my own business. I like to "own" what I do, and I tend to find myself in conflict with small-thinking bosses who won't let me build the kind of quality I want to build. However, I don't know anything about running my own business or being self-employed. I'm not even sure what service I would provide or how I would pay the bills. And since one of my specialties is disaster recovery, I tend to jump to the the worst-case scenario in my thinking. So, I keep turning aside from starting this business and keep sending out resumes.

I'm prepared to give this my best shot. I still don't know how to get from here to there, or what "there" looks like. But if I don't start thinking big now... It has to be now.

I hope that's just the beginning of the story.
Mark