Growing up, my parents were big on options.

"Behave, or go to your room."

"Earn your Eagle Scout award, or don't get your driver's license."

"Eat your vegetables, or skip dessert."

I learned quickly to appreciate the possibilities - some great, some terrible - that options presented. I won't say I always made the best possible use of my options, but I didn't skip many desserts.

As an entrepreneur, I am in a position to use different kinds of options. Through them I have been able to build personal wealth as well as my entrepreneurial ventures. For example:

. Real estate options. I have a friend who signed a year's option with a Lehi farmer for 300 acres of farmland at $6,000 an acre. That means he could buy the land at that price any day he wanted for the next 365 days. After contacting dozens of potential buyers, he found an interested investor who agreed to pay $8,000 an acre. My friend bought the land for $1.8 million in the morning and sold it for $2.4 million in the afternoon - a $600,000 profit. Not bad for a day's work.

. Stock options. I recently purchased 100,000 shares of stock for $2 a share. Because it was a new company with a short history and no profits, I asked for an option on 100,000 shares of stock for $3. I didn't get that option, but I was granted a one-year option on 16,667 shares at $3. That meant for the next year I could buy that number of shares for $3. One year later I exercised those options. A few weeks later, the company sold 3.3 million shares for $10 each. So within one month, those 16,667 $3 shares were worth $10 a share. That is a $116,669 profit in 27 days. That is what stock options can do for you.

Stock options are now being used to entice computer programmers and other technicians to come to work for high-risk, high-reward Internet ventures. For example, a new employee is guaranteed, as part of her employment contract, a five-year option to buy 150,000 shares of stock at $3 a share. Two years later the company goes public at $15 a share. She wants to immediately exercise her options but doesn't have $450,000 in cash to buy the shares. She goes to a savvy banker and borrows the money. She buys 150,000 shares for $450,000 and sells them the next day for a $12 per-share profit. She then pays the bank off - plus a 2 percent origination fee for the loan - and ends up with $1.8 million for exercising her options. That is one way employees become millionaires almost overnight.

Here is another option story. I had a partner who offered another partner $10,000 cash for an option to buy half of his 40 percent company ownership for $1 million. Just before the company went public, the partner exercised his option and purchased the stock from his partner for $1 million. The stock that was purchased by using the option was worth about $16 million the day the company went public. Both partners felt all right about the deal because the partner who exercised the option made a much larger contribution to the success of the company.

There are unlimited ways to use the powerful tool of options as you are building a business or net worth. The most important thing is to know about these options - and to use them. I promise you, it will make you thankful that your parents taught you the importance and value of options.

No matter how many vegetables you had to eat.