For Michelle LaBrosse, it happened when she was a young Air Force lieutenant. For Rosanna Bowles, it was during a trip to Italy when she was 16. For Christie Mueller, it came during a midcareer change.

The three women all experienced an epiphany that set the stage for their becoming savvy, innovative entrepreneurs, who surpassed the infamous glass ceiling by being their own bosses and amassing million-dollar successes.

They are among a growing number of women who long ago learned that a man is not a financial plan, and they are creating their own million-dollar nest eggs through determination and hard work. "The trend toward women reaching higher economic heights is growing," says Marsha Firestone, founder and president of Women Presidents' Organization, an international group of women who gross more than $1 million in annual revenue. "Today's million-dollar woman may be the $100,000 woman of 15 years ago."

Like climbing the corporate ladder, breaking through to the $1 million mark requires fearless ambition, confidence and a willingness to "dream the big dream," Firestone says.

Many high-earning women get experience in the corporate world, then decide to start their own businesses, Firestone explains. "They realize they can do it themselves and get more money, have more influence, keep a bigger piece of the pie and control their own time. Their drive is unrelenting."

Michelle LaBrosse, owner of Cheetah Learning Inc., is one of those women. In 1999, she started her consulting company in Seattle, where she maintains a flagship office. Her company is a leading provider of project management training programs and has annual revenues of $10 million. Her personal net worth has climbed to $100 million.

LaBrosse was inspired to start a consulting firm while she was a young Air Force lieutenant stationed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. She had attended Syracuse University on a full Air Force ROTC scholarship, earning a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering and a master's in mechanical engineering. As an aerospace engineer for the Air Force, she was "flying desks" instead of airplanes, she jokes.

While attending a seminar on designing electronic systems, she realized that she could teach the course. "I did the math and estimated he [the instructor] grossed about $60,000 for three days' work. I figured I could do what he was doing," says LaBrosse.

A few years later, she used the proceeds from selling her first husband's motorcycle to start her own engineering consulting business. Although her salary went from $20,000 a year to $150,000, she says she lacked the necessary skills for long-term success.

After her daughters were born, LaBrosse discovered that earning a lot of money wasn't as important as staying home with her girls. But after her marriage broke up, and credit card bills started piling up, she decided to restart her business. This time, her focus was on fast learning - teaching professionals how to take, and pass, Project Management Professional certification exams in five days, as opposed to the traditional six months.

Based on the principle that people can quickly achieve significant results when given the right tools, LaBrosse has been designing and teaching accelerated learning programs for business since the early 1990s. Her courses use a variety of techniques, including improvisational comedy, speed reading and breathing exercises, to reduce learning time while improving learning retention.

In addition to using its training centers in Cleveland and Hartford, Conn., and a corporate retreat facility in Haines, Alaska, the company offers its courses online in "virtual classrooms."

LaBrosse continues to lead Cheetah's course development team and sets the strategic direction for the company, which has about 75 employees worldwide. She was recently selected as one of the Most Influential Women in Project Management worldwide by the Project Management Institute.  

An avid kayaker, LaBrosse developed a project management course that requires students to work together to build kayaks in only one day, instead of the months - or even years - most people need. She started out teaching it at Lake McMurray, in Skagit County, but has since patented the course and now offers it worldwide.

She says she gained inspiration from the popular Rich Dad, Poor Dad series of business books by Robert Kiyosaki. After reading them, she decided to write her own books about fast-paced project management training: Cheetah Project Management(Hnb Pub, 2002) and Cheetah Negotiations(Maklaf Press, 2005).

Ironically, her business story was featured in Kiyosaki's Rich Dad's Success Stories(Warner Books, 2003). In her chapter, "Fast Learner," LaBrosse writes, "Remember that success drops clues. Follow the trail."

Her trail was focusing on her business, learning to delegate and understanding how to sell and market her skills and products. By doing those things, LaBrosse says, she was able to expand her business from $25,000 the first year to $250,000 the second year and $2.5 million the third year. The company has continued to grow ever since.

As her company name implies, LaBrosse lives and works in the fast lane. She jokes that her home is Chicago's O'Hare Airport and that her favorite restaurant is the food court at Sea-Tac.

While her home base is currently Carson City, Nev., where the company holds a corporate charter, LaBrosse also maintains homes in Connecticut and Alaska and spends quite a bit of time in Seattle. "Seattle is a hub city for me. It's where I eat most of my meals," she says. "I never sleep in the same bed more than three nights in a row."

When asked if she lives like a millionaire, LaBrosse replies, "Yes and no." She owns several cars but primarily drives her Honda minivan.

"Most people who meet me have no idea I'm wealthy," she says, noting that she prefers clothes from Eddie Bauer and REI, except for business attire, which comes from Nordstrom. "It's just not my
style to be flashy."

LaBrosse exudes the type of confidence that Barbara Stanny, a Port Townsend author and motivational speaker, says sets seven-figure women apart from their peers. "There's a drive and hunger in them that makes them want to achieve and accomplish."

Stanny, who wrote Overcoming Underearning (Collins, 2005), Secrets of Six-Figure Women (Harper Business, 2004) and Prince Charming Isn't Coming: How Women Get Smart About Money (Penguin, 1999), says there is a high level of optimism and power with these women. "They don't see problems, they see opportunities. What other women would let stop them, they see as catapulting them."

Stanny studied seven-figure women while she was researching a new book about them. A common thread among such women, she discovered, is that they surround themselves with talented advisers and employees. They recognize that they can't grow their business alone.

"While the high earners have a profit motive," says Stanny, "seven-figure women have a mission and a vision."

Stanny herself is on a mission: to motivate women to become financially empowered.