Some Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs
My circle of friends tends to be entrepreneurs because of the events I go to, the struggles I face and the emotions I experience. I observe, get inspired by them and have also identified patterns on why they are who they are. My greatest respect belongs to those who failed and got back up.
These are the cold hard truth that people need to accept when embarking on the entrepreneurship journey. I hope it doesn't scare people away from entrepreneurship but to be better prepared for the journey. For now, I don't want to write an aspirational and encouraging piece. I'll leave that to someone else.
This list is far from exhaustive. There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, more important traits. If you want to defy all odds, if you want to have a shot at all, if you want it bad enough, you gotta stop aspiring and start doing and enduring.
We've been taught to seek answers from authorities - whether a parent, a teacher, a manager, a respected role model or a friend that we so desperately want to have. While this may still be alright for a kid, most adults never grow out of it. The world is more clueless than most would expect and entrepreneurship is not something that has a recipe or formula for guaranteed success. Everyone's path is going to be unique. Most strong entrepreneurs don't make decisions for someone else's appraisal but for markets to decide. They don't need the constant 'good job, good effort' to relentlessly try, because if they do, they would give up even before the time is right. And at the end of the day, if you do become successful, people will only see your success and not the struggles you overcame. So, learn to celebrate even when no one's around.
Don't ask what to do; Figure out what to do
Being clueless just won't cut it with entrepreneurship. There is zero formula for guaranteed success. You've got to find your path to wherever you want to go. And by finding I don't mean 'find', I mean to do it and learn from the experiences.
Why are we clueless sometimes? It's not uncommon to either be taught to just follow the books or follow instructions and as a result, never practiced any ingenuity. Many times, people just aren't passionate enough about what they do. You want to win? You got to learn to love what you do and figure out things even if you don't know where to start.
Where do you start? The 80-20 Pareto principle applies to our work. 80% of our work is of low impact. Only 20% delivers a significant result. The challenge is 20% just isn't enough. And the 80% is still important. Time waits for no man. And many times, it's easy to get into the motion and not really know what we're trying to accomplish with the tasks we're performing. Doing the following steps frequently helps re-prioritize effort and optimize the use of time.
Evaluate what is the most important objective for your idea/project/organization (not yourself) right now
Think of things you can do to meet the objective
Discipline yourself to act
Your first action may not yield result, learn from it repeat the cycle.
Stop talking, Take action
Many individuals pride themselves with ideas but never ever take the step. Even great salespeople take conscious effort to place themselves to be at the 'right place, right time' to talk to the 'right' people, and this definitely means being at the wrong place, wrong moment most of the time. Even if you don't know how to do it, you need to learn or find a way to get it done.
Emotionally mature. Embrace rejection and failures.
Managing emotions and being at your optimal psychological state is probably something hardest to do. You are only at the driver's seat of your thoughts, actions, and effort. Rejection and failures are things you can't avoid. If you don't learn how to deal with them properly, it will lead to exhaustion and depression which obviously affects performance. Remember, denial is not a strategy. Many people don't even realize they are denying the reality, so learn to retrospect, laugh off some of these negative experiences/emotions but still remember them and never belittle the damage they can do.
Be prepared for the long haul
Overnight success? There is no such thing. People are generally impatient for everything. We are impatient on the road, impatient with success, impatient with payday. Why have it later when we could have it now, right? Well, you can't have it now. That's the reality. So be prepared for the journey. It's probably going to be longer than you would expect. Decades is what we should be looking at, not months, not years.
The Competition is Yourself
You want to win. Who doesn't? But remember your competition isn't really who you are competing against. It's you. We are our own greatest enemy. Keep focusing on becoming better. Yes, celebrate when you beat a competitor but always remember, you can always be beaten if you don't focus on being the best of yourself. You gotta be better even when you feel like you are better than everyone else.
Money is an important incentive for entrepreneurship but it's not sustainable.
One of the most important things to do as an entrepreneur is to disassociate effort and result for money. Have your parents offered you money to wash the car, mow the lawn or have you been offered money to get a certain job done? While not wrong, it cultivates an unhealthy idea of generating wealth. Most people fall into this trap and do things only if they are compensated. This leads to all sorts of missed opportunities.
The real reality of entrepreneurship is wondering why you're still so poor after doing so much and yet still capable of pushing 100% at the goal.
The best substitute for that monetary reward in the short-medium term is a sense of purpose. And this sense of purpose can come from various sources. For me, it tends to come from an urge to share something I love. In the long term, you may or may not reap the financial reward, but the satisfaction from the sense of purpose will always be greater than whatever money you will ever earn. I'm as happy as I am when I ate food of other people's leftover to when I'm able to afford more than just food because....
Don't make excuses, admit shortcomings and find solutions
Nobody cares about your excuses, in fact, highly effective people hate hearing them. Understand that your excuses won't suddenly propel you to success. So stop making them and start admitting shortcomings and overcome them or find ways to compensate for them as quickly as possible.Â
We've talked about being retrospective. It's perhaps one of the most underrated traits. No one is born great at everything. Even great people suck at some things. Take time, put ego and pride away to truly reflect on what you did wrong and what you did right.
Entrepreneurship isn't a journey of checklists. Getting things done just isn't enough. You gotta do, monitor, repeat even if you are still solving the same problem after 6 months of failing. The only thing that matters is the outcome, not your effort. You don't get an A for effort. You stay wherever you are for not having outcomes.
Do things that are uncomfortable and unnatural
Most people shy away from things they are uncomfortable doing. Be it public speaking, computer programming, math, mundane tasks etc+. It's natural. But it is not ok if you want to succeed. If you have to wash the toilet, you wash the toilet. If you have to get up on stage, you get up on stage. If you have to do math, you gotta do math. You don't need to love them but you need to do them until you can afford to hire someone better than you at it.
Don't be indecisive or flaky
People are flaky for many reasons. Uncertainty, disbelief, bla bla bla. The truth is, we go nowhere jumping from side-to-side. Average out your true distance, it's ZERO.
Once you set a course, go all in wholeheartedly and do it until data keeps proving otherwise.
If you want to go fast, go alone or with a small effective cohesive team. If you want to go big, be prepared to be a great leader. Entrepreneurship is not a single phase. When you start, speed and ferocity is everything. When you grow, leadership is everything. Most people are not born leaders. Well, you will have to make the call if you want to pay the price to be good at it.
Most entrepreneurs are successful because they want it bad enough, would take action and repeatedly reflect and improve. No one is ever ready. Naivety helps with getting started. So take everything said here with a pinch of salt. Coz at the end of the day, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot at whatever you want to do.
Just remember, your decisions and actions every step along the way can make a massive difference for you, your family, your communities and your stakeholders. Don't procrastinate or fear the decisions and actions but make the best of them wherever you are at.
And finally, you don't need to be an entrepreneur, a CEO or whatever to be successful. You can be a great dad, a great friend, a great writer, a great musician, they are all equally respectable. And the biggest respect is for you, yourself. And if you want to be rich, spend less and invest regardless of your profession.