Were you that kid on the corner selling lemonade … at 4 years old? Or how about being an 8 year old making a fortune out of selling your love of marbles online.
No matter when the entrepreneur sting kicked in, do you know if you are naturally born that way? Personally the last time I received a pay stub from an employer I was 19. Since then the economy as well as my own personal goals have kept me from being hired as an employee but has blessed me in acquiring many clients. Some say, people are naturally born to work for themselves. Based on the following traits are you a natural born entrepreneur?
Passion. Defined as any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate. Wether you LOVE what you do or HATE something enough to do something about, passion is the fuel that gets things going and KEEPS them going. Passion are the things you do for NO other reason than that doing them feels right. If you start a new business today, you stand a reasonably good chance of surviving for two years but after two years, success rates drop according to the Small Business Administration. Only 44% of new businesses make it to their fourth year, and I would say passion will get u to the 5th year.
Optimism. Yes Mrs Debbie Downer, optimism gets you a looooooong way. Starting anything in life expecting failure is a sure way to fail. If your leading a team, your negativity will definitely be contagious but so online pokie machines will your optimism. And in the ups and downs of business, optimism is what will allow you to see the opportunities in the difficulties. The person who ALWAYS sees the cup half full will never go thirsty.
Persistence. Remember that children’s story, The Little Engine that Could… its not a myth. Ask any successful entrepreneur and they will give you a handful of stories where they didn’t stop. Like Pete Cashmore, founder of the influential technology blog Mashable, who as a sickly child befriended the Internet only to be named one of Ad Age’s 2011 influencers, a Time Magazine 100 in 2010, and a Forbes magazine web celeb 25 as well as named a Briton of the year by the Telegraph in 2010.
Dopamine. Nope I’m not kidding. If you are always seeking challenges, science now speculates that sensation-seeking people have versions of dopamine receptor genes that require more stimulating experiences in order to produce a satisfied amount of dopamine in the brain. To get the higher level of stimulation, those people are more likely to engage in sensation seeking activities, including starting businesses.
A poster child for all the traits above would be Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson who started a magazine at 16 and today is 4th richest citizen of the United Kingdom with Virgin Group. He sums up entrepreneurship as:
… comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them…from the perspective of wanting to live life to the full, I felt that I had to attempt it.