25 Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs: Do You Have Them?

From Elon Musk to Mark Cuban, Tim Ferriss, Arianna Huffington, Gary Vaynerchuk, Bill Gates.

What are those top entrepreneurs all have in common?

What we can learn from them?

Let’s find out!

1. Self-Discipline

Self-discipline is one of the most important qualities for success in life and business. If you can discipline yourself to do what you should do whether you feel like it or not, your success is virtually guaranteed.

Self-discipline requires self-mastery, self-control, self-responsibility, and self-direction. The difference between successful entrepreneurs and failures is successful entrepreneurs make a habit of doing the things that failures don’t like to do.

And what are those things?

The things that failures don’t like to do are EXACTLY THE SAME things that successful people don’t like to do either but successful people do them anyway because they realize that this is the price they must pay for the success that they desire in the future.

2. Integrity

The second trait that all entrepreneurs must possess is integrity. Perhaps the most valued and respected quality you can develop is a reputation for absolute integrity.

Be perfectly honest in everything you do and in every transaction, and activity. Never compromise your integrity.

Remember that your word is your bond and your honor is everything when it comes to your business. All successful businesses are based on trust.

Your success in becoming an entrepreneur will be largely and solely determined by the number of people who trust you, who are willing to work for you, who give you credit, lend you money, buy your products and services, and help you during difficult times.

Your character is the most important asset that you develop in your entire life and your character is based on the amount of integrity that you practice.

Remember, ethical entrepreneur = successful entrepreneur.

3. Persistance

In order to develop entrepreneurial skills you need to possess persistence

Persistence is the iron quality of character. Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel. it’s an indispensable quality that goes hand-in-hand with all great success in life.

Here is one of the great secrets to persistence and success. Program your subconscious mind for persistence. In advance of the setbacks and disappointments that you’re going to have on your upward quest toward success.

Resolve an advantage that you will never give up no matter what happens. The courage to persist in the face of adversity and disappointment is the one quality that more than anything will guarantee your success.

Your greatest asset can be your willingness to persevere longer than anyone else. In fact, your persistence is a true measure of your belief in yourself and your ability to succeed.

Entrepreneurs know that creating a sustainable business takes determination for the long haul.

They are willing to persevere to achieve their dream of becoming their own boss, pursuing their passion, and making the world a better place.

4. Clear Sense of Direction

Because of the turbulence of rapid change in today’s marketplace most business owners have been reduced to operating day by day almost like firefighters.

They’re totally preoccupied with short-term problems and the need to get short-term sales and profits. They intend to spend more time thinking and planning for the future but they don’t ever seem to get around to it.

But these are not successful business owners. You need to set clear targets for yourself and every part of your business.

In fact, perhaps your most important responsibility to your people is to give them a clearer sense of direction in their work.

5. Self-Confidence

If you suffer from a lack of confidence or self-esteem, entrepreneurship can become a difficult challenge. You’re the only person who can blow your own horn.

Confidence does grow as you establish yourself as an expert and build on your other vital skills. Yet there are many people who never make it past first because they don’t have that all-important confidence and self-esteem.

You will spend a great deal of time working alone and do not need negative thoughts to distract you. Sometimes it is difficult to stay motivated.

There are many tools and courses to help you overcome these doubling bugs.

Believing in yourself is important but many people don’t feel self-confident. Remember that even the most successful entrepreneurs have moments of doubt.

6. Following a Passion

If you look at successful, famous entrepreneurs, the most common piece of advice that you hear over and over is that they followed their passion.

Why is this so important?

Simply because starting a business is hard. And you need to go through an insane number of trials and tribulations.

Running a business will test you and push you so hard and the only thing that keeps you going when everybody around you might be telling you to quit the only thing that keeps you going is the passion that you have for what you do.

You have to be crazy about the product or service that you’re creating.

And if you’re not, continue to explore until you find the thing that makes you come alive.

7. Seeing Failure as Feedback

People who are afraid of failure, people who see failure as permanent never become successful entrepreneurs.

Successful entrepreneurs are the people who understand that you will fail your way to success. You will fail many times before you succeed. And if you look at every successful entrepreneur and you look at how they started they made a number of critical failures but they didn’t let that stop them.

They didn’t let that be the end of their business.

They kept going through those failures.

The key is to learn from every failure.

The people who succeed in business are not special.

In fact, some of the most successful people I know are not even that smart…

They are the people who just didn’t quit after failing.

They just tried one more time…

And if they fail again, they re-calibrate, and they give it one more try…

You can keep failing and trying again and again for 10 years, but on day 1 of the 11th year, something could happen which could change your life forever.

All these years, when you were failing over and over, you were accumulating the experience and knowledge required to succeed at that one golden opportunity.

The power of not giving up is exponential.

Don’t give up.

8. Reading

The top entrepreneurs know that the more they learn the more they’ll earn. They feed their mind. They know that knowledge is the fuel for their ideas, creativity, and energy.

t’s no secret that highly successful people read many books. It may be possible to gain information from instructional videos and audiobooks but there’s an advantage of reading books.

Reading has been proven to be better and more effective than videos and audiobooks because the brain processes the text differently.

When you watch a video the visualization of the information happens on the screen. When you read, the information is processed within and makes correlations here are internal memories and reality.

You can gain so much by reading. Imagine learning the details of the success in a person’s entire life by reading a book within one week or even less.

Reading is a great way to build yourself and it’s going to help develop your creativity.

The problem with reading books

Reading books is great but many books are written very inefficiently and should be much much shorter than they are.

Not only that sometimes you just don’t have the time to read a whole book or you might want to just go back and review the main ideas without reading the whole thing again this is why I use and recommend Blinkist.

It’s a great app that takes information from the best books and condenses it to 15 minutes that you can read or listen to for someone looking to learn.

I really think this might be one of the best apps out there right now.

Try for 7 days completely free and if you don’t want to continue you can cancel at any time.

Start Your 7 Free Trial

9. Maintaining Focus

Focus is one of the soft high-income skills that you should work on. Everything around you has been engineered to distract you. We live in a world where attention is a new currency.

There is a trend among people where it’s increasingly hard to maintain focus because every day more and more distractions try to hook you in.

Maintaining focus has to deal with one’s aptitude to choose activities that will serve your ultimate goal over activities that feel good at the moment but have little rewards in the long run.

Carpediem sounds good on paper but it never leads to anyone who’s built anything worth mentioning in their lives…

How focused are you on your journey?

Let’s take yesterday or even today.

Which actions did you take today which will impact your future?

Break down for yourself what you did throughout the day and the moment you woke up to the moment you want to sleep or this moment right now.

How many of them contribute to your journey?

How many are just time being wasted?

If you’re able to do this you’ll be able to maintain focus on the right activities toward your goals.

I know how difficult it could be with so many different business ideas and things that you could be doing but it’s also important to focus on one thing at the time.

10. Creating Supporting Environment

Creating a great environment it’s really hard to do great things when you are not surrounded by greatness.

Your environment, either holds you where you are or encourages you to grow. And to be someone successful.
And so you have control over that.

Too many people are very reactionary and just fall into their daily routine by accident.

Where if you plan for greatness, if you surround yourself with greatness every single day you create that great environment. Then you’re much more likely to do great things.

Average people are terrified when someone from their circle attempts to break out of the cocoon and do something big.

They are indirectly showing their incompetence by trying to bring you back down to their average level.

You have to choose if you are going to give in to their negativity…

…or if you are going to focus on yourself, and work hard to reach your true potential.

The choice is yours.

Your life depends on it.

11. Vision

Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge.

Arden said creativity is more important than experience.

How much imagination do you have for your future?

Do you see a huge potential and possibility for your life or do you see a pretty average life?

You don’t just create a vision once and then never look at it again. You continually create and write your vision every single day.

Most people are living in and repeating the past. Having a vision is focused on the future. Your life and behavior immediately shift when you begin imagining a different future and stridently strive for it.

Entrepreneurs have a vision for where they want to go, what problems or issues they want to solve and creative and imaginative ideas about how they might get there.

They have a clear picture of what they want to accomplish in their life and in their business. They can see the details as well as the big picture clearly. And they remind themselves of this picture regularly.

12. Leadership

According to Bill Gates, learning how to delegate better is one of the most important leadership skills.

No one is going to run a successful business without knowing how to deal effectively with the people that they’re surrounding themselves with.

Every wealthy person is a leader in his or her field. Leadership skills have become crucial to attaining financial success. A great quality about leaders is that they know when to take responsibility and they are able to take initiative during tough times.

Teaching yourself to be a leader will teach you to make the best of every situation and to be forward-thinking.

When testing times come leadership skills will teach you how to ride the waves and feather the storm. Leaders are also able to inspire others and spur great ideas that lead to impressive financial success.

Becoming a leader doesn’t just happen overnight it is going to be a result of hard work and effort.

If you’ ‘re running your own business you’ll need a team of people who share the same dream as you do.

These people have to be experts in their respective fields and you would be their leader.

To progress exponentially leadership isn’t just about giving orders. These experts will come to you with suggestions that affect the growth of your business or brand.

Entrepreneurs know that it takes a village, appears, and mentors to help launch a successful business.
They know that building networks can help to create a customer base for their business as well.

13. Never Stop Growing

Goals are means, not ends. Once you’ve achieved something big don’t get stuck there just because it worked before. Everything you’ve done has brought you to this point.

What is your next big adventure?

What does the situation call for?

What does your imagination inspire?

What’s the next big mountain?

One of the fundamental problems of success is that it becomes a trap.

People who succeeded big get stuck living in their past. They continue to explain themselves based on what they’ve done rather than what they’re doing.

14. No Excuses

The reality is you need to take ownership of your life. You and only you are responsible for your success and nobody owes you anything.

And that’s the harsh reality and something I’ve noticed extensively. Since I started doing business over the last years and dealing with many people I can tell pretty quickly who is going to be successful and who is not just based on what they say.

I can’t stand when people give me excuses like:

“I can’t do this because of this and that”

“I can’t do this because it’s too late”

“I wouldn’t be good at this”

“I can’t do this because it’s uncompetitive, there are too many people already doing it”

And the reality is that they can do it. It’s just they’re making excuses in their head to rationalize why they don’t want to take a chance to make it happen.

There is no excuse. The only excuse here is that you’re too afraid to try it. And you’re rationalizing anything you can do to make yourself feel better about being too scared to try something new.

If you want something bad enough you will find a way to make it happen.

If it’s too competitive, fine. You will find a way to stand out.

If you don’t know how to do something, fine. You will learn away to make it happen.

You will always find a solution. There should be no reason you will ever make an excuse.

If you ever find yourself making an excuse at this point catch yourself and realize there is no excuse and then think to yourself what else can I be spending my time on right now, besides coming up with excuses.

And especially when you really start thinking about it, you realize just how stupid the excuse really is.

Do you really think for instance like Andy Frisella is out there making excuses? Why he can’t do something? No. Those people are never making excuses they just go out and they make it happen.

The truth is, you control what you do and only you are responsible for your own success.

15. Patience

Highly successful entrepreneurs don’t just go and try something for a week and then put it off for another few weeks and then try it again.

They don’t jump from idea to idea.

What they do is that they pick one thing and that’s all they do.

They focus on doing one thing really well. They know exactly what they want and the outcome they want to have.

It’s so important that for anything you do, you have really just a laser-like focus on making it happen.

You have to keep grinding, day in and day out, sometimes for decades.

Don’t keep jumping from one thing to another every 3 months and call yourself a “serial entrepreneur.”

Instead, invest in yourself.

Work daily on what you aspire to have, what you aspire to be.

And then give it time.

16. Customer Orientation

The whole “success”, “hustle”, and “entrepreneur” idea is glorified and sold so hard on social media.

People often forget that real success comes from helping other people.

In order to build a successful business, you have to solve for the customers first.

Business is nothing more than solving someone’s problems. Essentially, the wants and needs of the customer are valued over the needs of the business.

You need to stay deeply connected to the clients.

You need to understand what’s going on in their mind.

You need to understand the problems that they have

In short, you need to understand more about your consumer than they understand about themselves when it comes to what your business does.

The better you’ll understand your consumer the better your business will grow.

In fact, the secret to Amazon’s success is an unlimited focus on service and comfort for the customers.

From the very beginning, Amazon has mastered taking customer orientation to a higher level in every industry worldwide.

Jeff Bezos is driven by an almost compulsive customer orientation. And Amazon rather modestly formulates this in its business model as follows:

17. Emotional Inteligence

The next trait that all entrepreneurs have in common is emotional intelligence.

And what this basically is, it’s your understanding of the environment that you’re surrounded in.

You have to understand that your emotions control your environment but your environment can also control your emotions.

And if you understand exactly how you think, how you feel, then you’ll understand exactly how to react to the environment and how to deal with negative emotions.

So, if you want to work on your emotional intelligence you must be aware of everything you’re facing right now.

It means that you must have self-management over your affairs. You must be disciplined. You must be focused. You must have a composure.

Many times you’ll be tested, you’ll face pressure, you might feel like you want to lose that composure and you might face anxiety along the way.

But don’t worry, don’t despair, be prepared.

Understand exactly what the situation actually is and do whatever you can to be proactive.

When it comes to moving forward and acting on your highest dreams.

18. Risk Managing

Entrepreneurs are willing to take responsibility for planning and launching a business to achieve their goals. And they know that there is some risk involved in doing so.

They plan carefully and seek support from peers and mentors to minimize financial and other risks.

Entrepreneurs manage risks and are cautious. They take time to evaluate opportunities and see if they can identify any threats. They always think before they do and make sure they consider all things that may need to be considered, as well as the consequences of doing one thing as opposed to another.

19. Self-Awareness

Successful entrepreneurs know who they are, what they stand for, what they want to accomplish.

They have a very strong sense of self. I believe that every person has one word that defines them, that is the core value that they can build their business around.

I strongly encourage entrepreneurs to find out what they stand for and use that as the lens to make your decision.

Once you know who you are and what you stand for, it’s way easier to make every single business decision that you need to make.

From hiring to product selection to raising capital. Everything becomes easier once you know who you are and what you stand for.

20. Self-Motivation

Self-motivation isn’t as important as self-discipline however it’s a very great tool when used properly.

If you’re really sick then you’ll know that there will be tough moments on your path to being a business owner.

Yes, you will have friends and family around you to provide support but things can quickly take a bad turn and you would need to pick yourself up.

Self-motivation is the ability of a person to overcome obstacles in their mind and keep pushing forward in challenging circumstances.

It’s a voice in your head telling you that you can do it or you shouldn’t bother. Self-motivation is a skill that will ensure that you put yourself to work without caring about anything.

Your mind will be set on success and you will look for different ways to inspire yourself.

21. Organization

To get to grips with the day-to-day running of a business, good organization skills are essential.

You will need to understand how to raise finance, manage your money, and deal with tax.

You’ll need to set up systems to make your business tick, from IT systems to planning and record keeping.

The word organization means company and companies are organized because they know exactly what they’re doing.

Look a lot of times when people start a business they don’t even know what they need to know about organizing.

In fact, when I began as an entrepreneur there are so many things that I had to learn to organize, And once I understood that, then my business began to change.

The more organized you are the smoother things will run!

22. Effective Communication

Warren Buffett said that communication skill could even increase your worth by 50%

The secret to both a successful business and an enriching life is learning to effectively communicate.

Everything that you do is about communicating with someone in some manner. How you communicate verbally to potential clients will make the difference and whether they choose you to do business with you both now and in the future.

You may need to communicate with lawyers, accountants, bank managers, loan companies, or venture capitalists. You may have to negotiate leases or contracts and work with building inspectors, count officers, government and various tax officials, suppliers advertising agencies, and employees.

Some may be difficult to deal with so good verbal and written communication skills will reduce the chances of being misunderstood.

23. Being a “Purple Cow”

What do Apple, Starbucks, Dyson, and Pret a Manger have in common? How do they achieve spectacular growth?

The next treat that all entrepreneurs have is the concept of “being a purple cow.”

Let’s just say we’re driving down a road trip

And we see all these farms.

On the farms you see cows. Thousands and thousands of cows.

There’s a brown cow, there’s a black cow, there’s a white cow, and there is a purple cow.

What which one do we look at?

Which one do we stop at?

Which one do we make remarks about?

The purple cow. why?

Because it’s contrasting, its different, it stands out. You see how that works?

So you see, all the best companies have some way of being that purple cow of not being forgotten of standing out in the crowd.

When everyone else zigs you got a Zac.

Stand out to succeed.

Don’t be lost in the crowd and own your uniqueness.

24. Zero Based Thinking

The next trait all successful entrepreneurs have, they use what Brian Tracy calls “zero-based thinking”

Now, this is the concept that says one question, that is if I started over today how would I do blank?

If everything stopped today and you had to reset how would you approach it?

How would you approach your business if you had to start over today?

How would you approach your relationship if you had to start over today? Your health? your finances?

This is how you avoid past failures holding you back.

At age 37 Vincent Van Gogh failed as a missionary. And he decided to go to art school.

Can you imagine that?

Van Gogh the famous painter, today you can see his paintings everywhere. It getting sold for tens of millions of dollars. He uses zero-based thinking. He said okay this isn’t working what would I start over today, let me go to art school and it was a success.

When you do this, you avoid the thing called sunk cost, that psychological principle. The feeling that because you invested so much time or energy or money you can’t walk away.

That’s a psychological trap that keeps us stuck.

All entrepreneurs use some form of zero-based thinking.

25. Decisive and Action Oriented

The final trade that all successful entrepreneurs must possess is they must be decisive and action-oriented.

They must think and make decisions quickly. They discipline themselves to take action and to carry out the decisions that they have made.

They move fast and they get quick feedback from their actions. If they find that they’ve made a mistake they quickly self-correct and try something else.

The key to triumph is for you to try. Successful people are decisive and they try far more things than other people do.

According to the law of probabilities, if you try far more different ways to be successful the odds are that you will eventually find the right way for you at the right time.

How To Develop an Entrepreneurial Mindset?

if I could go back to my 20-year-old self, what I would tell is one thing – get your money right son.

And now I know a lot of people think that this is not the thing people should be focused on.

However on this planet, if you don’t get your money, you’ll be worried all the time.

You can’t take care of your parents, you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of your rent, you can’t live in a nice place, you can’t take care of your car.

What should you be spending your money on?

Why do wealthy people use money, not spend money?

Why do wealthy people buy businesses, they don’t buy homes?

Why do wealthy people use debt to grow their business, they don’t use debt to consume products and services?

Why do wealthy people not invest in 401K, and retirement accounts? They don’t even worry about that.

They worry about getting their money so they can do whatever they want.

On its own, money isn’t good or bad – it’s a blank state. It’s only up to you how money will be put to use – for good or evil…

Summary

Starting a business is an exciting adventure full of new experiences, with some highs, some lows, some tough decisions and a lot of hard work! But as an entrepreneur, the power’s in your hands.

And I would like to know what is the characteristic that you want to work on the most.

Leave a comment below!