4 Essential Characteristics that can Make You a Successful Entrepreneur
Introduction
You can provide two people from the same background with identical resources, blueprints, and business ideas. One of them will achieve immense success, while the other will fail within a few months or years.
What is the difference between these two?
Mindset! That’s it.
Indeed, one’s mindset makes all the difference. If a person has the proper mentality, he can begin with a terrible business idea and still be successful. Conversely, someone with a bad attitude can start with the world’s best business plan and still fail spectacularly in the end.
4 Essential Characteristics that can Make You a Successful Entrepreneur
When people think about starting a business, they often think about what kind of business it will be or the capital requirements. They seldom consider if they have the right skills and mental fortitude.
Let’s break down mindset into its essential characteristics that made a few of us become successful entrepreneurs. Here they are:
Risk Tolerance
It does not mean you can rush to Las Vegas and wager your life savings on roulette. That would be a stupid decision. However, you must be willing to take risks to be a successful entrepreneur. With careful planning and research, it is possible to take calculated risks that are ultimately profitable.
In the business world, there are no guarantees. Sometimes, even the best plans fail. Even well-established firms lose market share when a superior product or service enters the market. (Thinks about MySpace, AOL, Nokia, and many others.) Therefore, you must be able to accept a certain level of risk and proceed even if things don’t go as planned.
Risk tolerance correlates with the next characteristic.
Adaptability to Failures
You already know that there are no guarantees in business and life. That means failure is unavoidable unless you don’t venture into anything new. When you take risks, you need to be ready for the potential outcome, which could be failures.
When the average person encounters a failure, he beats himself up. If it’s a severe failure, the average person quits. He decides his big plans weren’t meant to be and scraps all his big dreams.
Successful people are different because they don’t see failures as failures. Instead, they see them as lessons. It’s life telling you you’re way off your target and need to adjust your direction.
Let’s take Thomas Edison as an example. He tried thousands of ways before he successfully created the light bulb. He didn’t view his experiments as failures. Instead, he saw them as lessons in how not to make a light bulb. So every time he “failed,” he convinced himself that he was one step closer to his goal.
If you can have the same mindset as Thomas Edison, you can put yourself one step closer to success.
You are going to encounter failures—no question about that. The question is whether you will fail forward or fail backward. Move on or go back.
Tenacity
Another trait of successful entrepreneurs is that they never give so easily. Edison “failed” thousands of times, yet he never gave up. Abraham Lincoln failed politically multiple times before becoming president.
If you read the biographies of some of your favorite successful people, you will discover that their paths to success were not always straightforward. There were obstructions, setbacks, and difficulties. However, the great ones persevere, and you must do the same regardless of what life throws your way.
Data-Driven Decisiveness
Nearly every successful entrepreneur has made a decision based on intuition. However, the key is that successful entrepreneurs make decisions based on evidence whenever possible and attempt to exclude emotion from the decision-making process.
When it is time to decide, you don’t just throw darts at a dartboard. But, you are also not so conceited to believe you have all the solutions. Instead, you conduct research. You test. Then, before making a decision, you study the data.
Taking a calculated risk is preferable to guessing blindly, even if the choice is not optimal. Risk-taking is not an exact science.
Conclusion
Becoming a successful entrepreneur is not a simple walk in the park. Some people will laugh at you. There will be fears, and your plans will not always work. Life will occasionally toss you a curveball.
The question is whether you will continue and face your fears.
Will you be able to ignore negativity and maintain focus on your objective?
Many people attempt to launch their businesses. Most are unsuccessful. Some of these business owners never try again. Instead, they lead a miserable existence in a despised cubicle.
But you don’t have to be part of that group. Because once you modify your mindset and develop these essential characteristics, you can create the life you desire.
Yes, it will not be an easy journey. But then it will be worth it.
P.S.
You don’t need to be born with these characteristics. You can learn how to think like an entrepreneur starting right now. We have a giveaway membership that can help you do it. You can check it out here.
