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Five Characteristics That Make An Entrepreneur Start working on having the type of mindset that gets you through the challenges and difficulties that you will face as an entrepreneur

By Ralph Jabbour

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

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How many of you are tired of being employees, tired of working 9 to 5, struggling financially, being dependant and unable to afford credit cards bills. Or you are the one not willing to follow where the path may lead you but eager to create your own path, leave your mark and create a lasting impression. I bet the majority of people reading this can relate. Having given lots of thoughts to the idea of achieving your dreams and being financially independent, like many, you may have been hesitant or simply not knowing where to start. Right? On all the social media platforms available you can read about entrepreneurs, their life styles, their achievements, as well as their quotes and advice. Do you know how they did it? What makes them different than you? What do they have that you don't?

Well, let's start by really understanding the term entrepreneur. By definition, an entrepreneur is "a person who starts, organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk." Rather than working as an employee, an entrepreneur runs a small business and assumes all the risk and reward of a given business venture, idea, or good or service offered for sale.

In more details, an entrepreneur did not become successful by being lucky. Therefore, ask yourself whether you are an entrepreneur. Do you have the characteristics of an entrepreneur? If you do, than it is just a matter of taking the risk and starting today.

To list all the important details, I would say that an entrepreneur is characterized by having:

VISION: being able to create and deliver an easy mission for what the new venture does, in order to launch the business successfully. Inspire people to join you in your enterprise.

CREATIVITY: injecting imagination and uniqueness into the business, it needs skills to be able to create that model and have the right strategies and to be ready on all aspects so you can beat the competition.

DRIVE: having that natural and intrinsic energy to accomplish your goals in business while being faced with unpleasant situations.

SELF-DISCIPLINE: it appears in different forms, such as perseverance, restraint, endurance, thinking before acting, finishing what you have started doing, and the ability to carry out decisions and plans in spite of inconvenience or obstacles. Being self-controlled and having the ability to avoid unhealthy excess of anything that could lead to negative consequences helps you to successfully pursue your business goals.

EMPATHY: to have the ability of understanding and feeling what the other person is experiencing from within. In other words, to put yourself in others shoes, see with their eyes, hear with their ears and feel with their heart, so you will know exactly how to move your business forward and enhance your leadership position.

As a true entrepreneur, you would simply begin implementing your idea. It is your future we are talking about and only you can decide whether you want to be successful and to have a meaningful journey or not. Start working on having the type of mindset that gets you through the challenges and difficulties that you will face as an entrepreneur. Listen to your gut.

Related: 10 Traits Of Successful Entrepreneurs

Ralph Jabbour

Business strategist

Ralph Jabbour is a business intrapreneur and strategist. Jabbour is a self-starter committed to continuous development and learning. He is a “go-to” person in a wide range of subject matters who inspires, coaches, develops and leads from the trenches. Jabbour is a former Team Leader at IMAC (International Apostolate Movement for Children).        
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