Man of Many Hats - An Entrepreneur - II

There are certain traits that are common among all successful entrepreneurs. These can be God gifted but not necessarily. These can be practiced and perfected like any other skill e.g. playing cricket or chess etc. Malcolm Gladwell has popularized that it takes 10000 hours practice to become an expert in any field. This is not 100% correct. But it is also true that “practice makes a man perfect” although it is said that only 20% to 25% are perfect. Peter Drucker said that entrepreneurship can be learned through effort and commitment.

What are the common characteristics among successful entrepreneurs? According to hacktheentrepreneur.com these are:

1. Decisiveness - They don’t hesitate to take a decision and they digest all the information available and take a calculated risk because any decision involves a risk. A decision can make you or break you but as an entrepreneur you can’t ignore to take a decision whether you have a complete information about the problem or not and usually it is the incomplete information that you have and you as an entrepreneur have to base your decision on it. You must be a thinking man. You should let your gut feeling or intuition play a role in your decision making.

2. Confidence - It is your confidence that will inspire your team to take very difficult and uncertain decisions in the course of time. What is confidence? It is knowing that you don’t know yet you act as you know. It can be learned through practice. We see people acting on the stage , launching a product and presenting ideas to the world and incorrectly assume that they have always been good at it. Many of them were not so confident to speak on the stage , launch a product or write an excellent book. They were not born entrepreneurs. They learned it and you can also learn it. Tony Robbins says that you have to have belief in yourself. He has enumerated 11 principles to be confident.

3. Accountability - The entrepreneurial mindset comes from taking responsibility for your actions and outcomes. You are responsible for everything that happens at work and everything that happens to your business. Your success and failure is all your responsibility. From the moment you decide to be an entrepreneur, you must accept responsibility for everything in your life and hold yourself accountable to it. Nobody cares how little time, money, or external support you have to accomplish for your goals. Your circumstances may not be your fault, but they are your responsibility. There are no more excuses. Accountability is required for entrepreneurs as well as successful employees. Stop passing the buck and blaming others. Why is accountability so important? Because it is your business and even if you are not to blame for any fault but you are responsible to take action to fix the problem.

4. Resilience - It is the foundation of entrepreneurial mindset. Because over the course of time you will make mistakes, make wrong decisions, you will fall but you have to have courage to stand up again and again no matter what the situation is. It enables you to think, act, and move iteratively - making small, incremental corrections along the way. You need to be resilient to change and keep pushing ahead no matter what may try and knock you off your path. There is no straight line to your destination. It has many ups and downs and more downs than ups in early stages. Then how to build resilience? Mindtools has some suggestions on this topic. Essentially, it is perseverance.

5. Humility - It sets you free from pride or arrogance, and hence, keeps you focused and centered. If you want to accomplish big things in life, you need to be willing to learn from others and nourish a growth mindset. To learn from others, you need to understand that you are not the smartest person. You have to let go of your ego. No matter what you are trying to accomplish, someone has already done it before you.

Last words about entrepreneurship success. In this part of the world, there is an idiom that any new business needs three years to succeed viz. First Year (چٹی)  i-e Spending to build business, Second Year (ہٹی) i-e People have noticed you, you are known, Third Year (کھٹی) i-e A time has come that you are making money. So it is known as چٹی، ہٹی کھٹی۔