Being an entrepreneur takes far more than ideas and money alone. To succeed as an independent business owner, you’ll need to develop specific skills and traits. If you find you already have these traits, then great. If not, it’s time to start working on them. Explore the following seven key traits you’ll need.
Discipline
Entrepreneurs need to be self-starters and self-reliant — capable of following through on tasks without anyone forcing them.
Discipline is like a muscle: It can be trained and strengthened through exercise. A simple way to practice discipline is to set a schedule and stick to it. Make a to-do list for the next day or week, and check off tasks as you complete them. You’ll get a sense of satisfaction from completing them, and this act of completing them will create a feedback loop to make you want to accomplish more.
Confidence
Entrepreneurs need to have the confidence in both their vision and their abilities to succeed. In this case, “fake it until you make it” is fantastic advice—there is no difference between being confident and pretending to be confident. It’s always helpful to have a group of like-minded individuals for support and ideas.
Creativity
Entrepreneurs need to have the imagination to see how ideas would pan out rather than simply what they are. You can take some specific actions to boost your creativity. Jonah Lehrer, author of “Imagine: How Creativity Works,” has some solid, actionable advice: Try surrounding yourself with people who have different abilities and interests from you, and make an effort to talk to strangers.
A Passion for learning and improving
A major part of the entrepreneurial ethos is admitting that you don’t know everything and that you always have room for improvement. This thought goes hand in hand with an entrepreneur’s creativity. Not only do successful entrepreneurs see what they can improve and build in the world, but they also see what they can improve and build in themselves.
A good place to start learning more about running a business is Amway, which has a wealth of business resources to learn from. In recent years, Amway has been dramatically scaling up its education to help entrepreneurs maximize sales of the company’s health, beauty, and nutrition products while helping independent business owners become more savvy business owners.
Flexibility
In the real world, few plans go exactly according to plan. That’s OK — having a plan is crucial, but you need to be able to adapt to changing circumstances when you encounter the unknown. Unforeseen questions and problems frequently arise when you’re running your own business, and how you respond to them can affect the trajectory of your career. When making a plan, try using a bubble chart or flow chart to plot all imaginable problems and the solutions you could use.
Social skills
Being an entrepreneur does not mean you have to be a one-man show. Businesses, by definition, involve people, and if you’re working with people, you can greatly help yourself by developing your social skills. Remember that many businesses are founded by teams of entrepreneurs rather than simply individuals.
Many people mistakenly believe social skills are innate; some people are indeed naturally more social than others, and social skills can be honed like any other skill. Research has been conducted on the effect of social skills on entrepreneurs’ successes, and you can work on specific areas to help you.
Resilience
Successful entrepreneurs will likely have as many stories of failure as they do of success. It’s a natural state of affairs to fail at attempts, and it certainly doesn’t make you a bad person to have not succeeded at something. Those who never try anything avoid failure. Failure is a part of any learning process — indeed, without it, we wouldn’t learn anything at all. If you do fail at something, don’t beat yourself up about it.
Develop the traits above and watch your business and your career grow. You’ll enjoy the results of your labor, and your family and friends will too.
