6 Uncommon
Personality Traits of Highly Successful People
What you do ultimately makes you
successful...but how you perform starts with what you think and believe.
But look closely and you'll see that in a few
key ways they are very different--and so is the way they start and run their
businesses.
Here's a guest post from Ryan
Robinson, an entrepreneur and marketer who teaches
people how to create meaningful, self-employed careers. (His online courses
"Launching
a Business While Working" and
"Writing
a Winning Freelance Proposal"
can teach you how to start and grow your own business while working a full-time
job.)
Here's Ryan:
When it comes to observing the world's most
well-known entrepreneurs and uncovering what's helped them achieve success,
it's easy to get hung up on the idea that so many of them were afforded rare
opportunities at just the right time.
In many cases, that's true--just look
at the impeccable timing Bill Gates had in immersing himself into the world
of computing back when the industry was just getting started. However, it's far
too naive to look at his success merely in a vacuum without examining
other influences.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Warren Buffett,
to name a few, all became incredibly successful because they were extremely
well-prepared to take advantage of the first big opportunities that came their
way.
In my
interviews and studies with
some of these successful entrepreneurs on CreativeLive, I've come to notice
several key personality traits that most of them share. Without a doubt, these
traits and inclinations help these business icons be more prepared to recognize
and seize the opportunities they discover. Based on these interviews and my
experiences, I put together this free Skill
Assessment Sheet to show you exactly what it's going to
take to start your own business.
When you're considering starting your own
business, especially if you're going to be launching
it while keeping your day job,
you need to very consciously evaluate your own personal process for how you
recognize viable business ideas, and how you allocate your time to pursue those
opportunities.
These are the essential personality traits
I've found to be most helpful in creating businesses that stand the test of
time.
1. Be Willing to Embrace Failure.
While you're not likely to achieve success if
you're totally reckless, you do need to take risks along the way, and accept that there will be failures that'll line
your path to success. Just about every successful entrepreneur has a badge or
two from a failed business venture.
Steve Jobs didn't simply give up on his
career in business when he was pushed out of his role as the CEO of Apple. This
personal failure merely gave him the motivation he needed to move forward.
When he later
returned to Apple, he did so with a much better understanding
of how to lead and work with people.
2. Be Prepared to Listen.
A common misconception with some of our more
outspoken entrepreneurs today is that they do what they want, regardless of the
opinions of others.
However, almost every successful entrepreneur
has gotten to where they are because they've been very good at surrounding
themselves with other talented businesspeople and taking their consultation
very seriously. In a 2014
interview, Richard Branson stated that the importance
of listening has been one of the most important lessons he's learned as a
leader.
3. Only Follow Your Passions.
It's all too easy to drift through life
without conviction, never taking the initiative to first discover and then
pursue what we're truly passionate about.
Many argue whether or not it's good advice
to follow
your passions, but a fact that cannot be argued is
that when you're spending 10, 12, or more hours working on your own business
each day, it's sure going to help if you're extremely passionate about what
you're going to achieve.
4. Be Curious.
Without an innate curiosity and a
devotion to learning everything you possibly can about an area of interest,
you're going to have a very hard time coming up with creative solutions to the
world's problems.
This rule doesn't just apply to the Albert
Einsteins and Thomas Edisons of the world, there's always a way to improve upon
existing products and services by tweakinghow you solve the problems faced by existing users.
Many of the world's best innovations have come from incremental improvements in
how we solve already common issues. You just need to be curious enough to
uncover those solutions.
5. Know When to Say No.
Not enough is said about how to successfully
manage your time in the beginning phases of starting a business (before you've
hit it big), which is really the make-or-break time for your fledgling idea.
Truly successful entrepreneurs are ruthless about how they manage their time,
which quickly becomes their most important business resource.
I believe so strongly in the power of
focusing only on the opportunities that drive the most impact in my business that
I created the "Just
Say 'No' Time Management System"
to help me prioritize business opportunities and allocate my time resources
appropriately, as they come in.
6. Find Balance.
When it comes down to it, there's so much
more to life than just business. Most entrepreneurs understand the importance
of spending quality time with their families, taking vacations, and carving out
time to reflect on the bigger picture at hand.
Challenge yourself to seek out a deeper
meaning in both your work and your life. Then, you'll find that everything you do begins to feel
invigorating, rather than like work.
BY JEFF
HADEN
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/6-uncommon-personality-traits-of-highly-successful-people.html?cid=em01016week45a
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