Characteristics of an Entrepreneur - Day 3

I've so far described the first 8 characteristics in the past 2 days; here are the next 4:


      9. Focus

This is an obvious one as if you have too many tasks to do at the same time, you won't do any of them any justice. Yet people don't deliberately lose focus; they're distracted by other people. So if somebody tries to distract you from your task, follow Brian Tracy's advice: point to somebody else and say "go and waste his time".

      10. Health & Fitness

Not many people associate Health & Fitness as a characteristic of entrepreneurs yet people will happily talk about entrepreneurs needing to work long hours and do most of the task themselves - the proverbial wearing of many hats. If that doesn't knock the stuffing out of you, nothing will. All this implies that you need to be Fit & Healthy.

However, if you're working long hours, there's a chance that you're not taking adequate rest or sleep. This will harm you in the long run. Another characteristic of entrepreneurs is Delegation. By delegating tasks, you'll free up time to plan strategically and rest adequately. Remember to work on your business not in your business.

      11. Leadership

Not many people associate Leadership with entrepreneurs. Some of them are known to be serial entrepreneurs - Richard Branson being the best example with over 400 companies in the Virgin Group. Such entrepreneurs become leaders because of their proven track record; they don't need to look important or confident - they can look fake. Branson's contributions to the economy make him important. With all that success behind him, he's naturally confident. In interviews Branson looks and sounds ordinary. That's because we all are from the PM to the shopfloor worker. The difference between a successful person and an unsuccessful one is opportunity. Most successful people create their own opportunities. Branson must have exercised leadership early on as soon as he hired people to work for him. This is because all levels of management require leadership skills. This means that Branson is not the only leader in the Virgin Group.

      12. Open-Mindedness

This is like Flexibility - there are limits to how many tasks you'll take on or how many ways to do the same thing. If you operate an open-door policy, the amount of work you'll end up with will drive you to distraction, and you'll lose focus. I suppose open-mindedness comes in when considering possible solutions; and flexibility when considering other people's contributions. Remember that these must take into account the organisation's core values which cannot be compromised.

Open-mindedness implies that you need to tolerate many points of view. This is legitimate for long-term planning. Some people are not aware of the long-term objectives and they see the diverse viewpoints as a distraction which contributes to the loss of focus; and they ditch most of them. They achieve short-term success but fail in the long term. Sentences like "So that's this is for" can be heard when describing some of the things that they ditched.

See you tomorrow for the 4th instalment.