What DOES It Take to Be a SUCCESSFUL Entreprenuer?
As I was doing my usual lunchtime surfing and Google Reader review, I came across an interesting quiz presented by Ben Blanquera at the Columbus Tech blog which is supposed to help you decide if you have what it takes to really be an entreprenuer. It asks the usual sorts of questions about being willing to work hard and make sacrifices, but it also asks questions like your birth order and whether you had chores around the house before you were 10. I took the test - my score indicates that I have the "necessary characteristics to be an entreprenuer".
The Small Business Administration's webpage also explores "Is Entreprenuership for You?" and has a checklist to help aspiring entreprenuers answer the question, "Do You Have What It Takes?"
I've also been reading the Napoleon Hill classic, THINK AND GROW RICH which purports to contain the secret needed to identify your goals, obtain whatever you want in life, and join the ranks of the super-successful. Early on he says:
desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsession, then planning definte ways and means to acquire riches, and backing those plans with persistence which does not recognize failure, will bring riches
Do not wait for a definite plan through which you intend to exchange services or merchandise for the money you are visualizing. Begin at once to see yourself in possession of the money, demanding and expecting meanwhile that your subconscious mind will hand over the plan, or plans, you need. Be on the alert for these plans, sand when they appear, put them into action immediately. They will probably "flash" into your mind through the sixth sense, in the form of an "inspiration.
All of which got me to thinking about what it actually DOES take to be an entrprenuer. It almost goes without saying that you must be willing to work incredibly hard and have enormous faith in yourself even when no one else really does. But being a successful entreprenuer has to be more than that.
Some years ago when I was moving my law practice from a large firm to a much smaller one and became more responsible for finding my own work, I asked an attorney I knew from a smaller firm what the biggest difference would be. "The highs are higher and the lows are lower," he said. And I think that is also true for entreprenuers of any kind.
Entreprenuers must have both a dreamer and and hard-headed realist within them. Having the courage and fortitude to endure the uncertainties any new business will face and know the difference between when to forge ahead and when to change course is a special set of talents.
Without a dream and vision, there's really no reason to be out on your own instead of working for someone else. Seeing that dream and vision come true is a feeling unlike any other. However, without the ability to adapt to events and circumstances as they occur and perhaps even modify the vision a bit, the project may stall or fail entirely.
So you have to REALLY WANT IT to stay out there. If you don't, the pain and difficulty of the journey could never be worth the effort and sometime even heartbreak along the way.
