Personality traits are important for entrepreneurial success. Here are some detailed checklist for entrepreneurial success. This is by no means a definitive list, but if you don’t have at least a majority of these traits, your chances of business success will be greatly diminished.
You must be self motivated.
If you don’t have the wherewithal to bounce out of bed each day without procrastination, chances are you don’t have the self-motivation or discipline required to be an entrepreneur. Business demands that you take action based solely on your own volition. You have to do a hundred things every day that will not get done unless you make yourself do them.
You can’t be afraid of hard work.
If you think working for someone else is hard work, try starting your own business. You will be required to give every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears you can muster and then some. You will have to work long hours, at least in the beginning. If the mere thought of hard work makes you tired, maybe you should just keep your cushy day job.
You must be able to climb back on the horse.
I always say: “If business was easy, everybody would do it.” Starting a business is hard work and the odds for failure are against you in the first few years. If you want to ride herd on your own business, you must be willing to fall off your horse and get back on a few times without giving up.
You must interact well with others.
Being an entrepreneur requires interacting with a variety of people, from your own employees to vendors to customers to investors. You must have the ability to effectively manage people without offending them; the ability to accept good advice from mentors and politely discount the bad; the ability to overlook mistakes or quietly rectify them; and the one I have trouble with: the ability to tolerate incompetence without losing your cool (at least not on the outside).
The deeper your pockets the better.
The number one cause of business failure is a lack of money. Before you start your business you should have access to enough capital to see you through until the business can sustain itself.
Here’s to your success!
