One of the more specific definitions of the word, “Entrepreneur”, is “a person who organizes, operates and assumes the risk for a business venture”.  To paraphrase an old saying, ‘A great idea and a quarter will buy you a cup of coffee.’  You may have the best idea you’ve ever heard of since sliced bread, but do you have the entrepreneurial spirit and the tools, both internal and external, to bring that idea to life?  Those external tools generally all simmer down to one thing:

Money.

     Whether it be resources, assistance, or funding, ‘cash is king’.  Money for the entrepreneur can be had through family, friends, partners, investors, and/or grants.  But right here our focus is on the internal tools, which are best illustrated as traits:

An entrepreneur has to embrace risk in every endeavor.  He/she has to be hardworking, capable, competent, and committed enough to labor on without any expectation of a regular paycheck whilst so doing; he/she has to envision a need and dream of a solution to that problem passionately, with a nearly irrational optimism about being able to achieve that end goal; the entrepreneur has to have the ability to carry on in solitude, if need be, if no acceptable or equally passionate partner or investor is readily available.

Entrepreneurs have to have an iron-willed tenacity in their beliefs in their abilities to attain the goals of their dreams and visions, while, at the same time, having or developing leadership skills as well as the ability to handle failure with thoughtful introspection and analysis.  Failures are almost inevitable and almost always temporary, but true Entrepreneurs take full responsibility for both their failures and their successes.  Entrepreneurs have to love business, love success, and love money, for those are the tools that allow them to realize their goals as well as to protect their efforts.  Entrepreneurs cannot succeed without these traits.  Even the most civic-minded, altruistic, individuals whose loftiest ideals are achievement for ‘the common good’ cannot progress far enough with the tools of commerce.

Will success as an entrepreneur change you?  Undoubtedly!  How you handle that change is the challenge.  Here are some of the world’s most famous, modern-day entrepreneurs – Look them up and see what kind of changes success had in store for them from their typically humble beginnings and start upgrading your belief systems if you think you’ve got what it takes to be an entrepreneur:

Mary Kay Ash, Richard Branson, Simon Cowell, Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Hugh Hefner, Jenna Jameson, Harvey Mackay, Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, et al.

Successful entrepreneurs seem to develop a sense of social responsibility and most often end up contributing, because they have the means that they didn’t have before their entrepreneurial successes, to problem-solving and causes that frequently have nothing to do with their basic entrepreneurial endeavors.  Even better than achieving a goal through laser-like focus and tunnel-vision diligence, wouldn’t it feel GREAT to have enough money to contribute to good causes as a result of developing a love for money as a tool and wielding it as a warrior wields a sword against tyranny & injustice?  This is all part of what it is to be an “Entrepreneur”.

What do YOU think it takes to be an “Entrepreneur”? Post your answer in the Reply/Comment box below.

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