Nowadays there is a lot of talk about how everybody can be an entrepreneur, but the truth is that there are some essential characteristics that separate the good ones from the not so good! So, we thought it would be a great idea to share what we believe to be the eight most essential characteristics that amazing entrepreneurs should have. Of course, even the great ones don’t possess each and every one of these, and so it’s OK if you don’t either. Not possessing one presents an opportunity to grow, or a great moment to find a partner! In our discussion, we speak to the characteristics of optimism, commitment to lifelong learning, having a high risk tolerance and being able to separate ego from success and failure. Our key characteristics also include passion, decisiveness, being future-focussed and able to analyze the trends, and finally, having the flexibility to change with one’s environment. Remember, it takes a special person to fully encapsulate all the above qualities, so don’t feel like you have to exactly match all of them. The reality though is every entrepreneur is going to be faced with the need to access at least a little bit of all these, so make sure you take a listen and find out how you measure up!
Key Points From This Episode:
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The value of being optimistic, not blindly so, but being able to problem solve rationally.
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Things cannot be tested if it is believed they will fail beforehand.
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Having an attitude of being a lifelong learner; using problems as opportunities to grow.
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The multiple skills an entrepreneur needs to learn from the point where they are a specialist.
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Other seemingly unrelated skills one can develop to become known; Paul’s guitar story.
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Lines between creativity and entrepreneurship: creativity teaches you how to learn.
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Risk tolerance and the ability to analyze how much risk is involved in a situation.
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Many upsides that come with being able to take the risks of entrepreneurship.
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Having an absence of ego: being able to separate one’s projections from one’s business.
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Productive outcomes that come through dealing with trolls in a non-egotistical way.
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Damage that can be done to corporate culture through control freak CEOs.
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Fuel which keeps entrepreneurs focused/persistent: passion and knowing their why.
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Being OK with being decisive and able to still be that way despite dissenting opinion.
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Productive data which gets generated after taking action, even the worst course of action.
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The value of being future-focused; the first-mover advantage.
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Our final attribute: flexibility and the line between that and decisiveness.
Tweetables:
“I don’t really know any amazing entrepreneurs who are truly one-dimensional.” — @whatsPaulUpTo [0:07:13]
“Digging into a creative process like that really just teaches you how to learn.” — @michaelshoup [0:09:53]
“Know what your why is.” — @whatsPaulUpTo [0:19:43]
“There are things that are moving so quickly that if you are not future-focused, you could be launching a business that is already obsolete by the time you have scaled.” — @michaelshoup [0:24:53]