In entrepreneurship, things are certainly not simple. 

Whether you’re starting out in your business venture, or expanding your already successful business, there is no roadmap to achieving your goals. However, there are a series of personality traits and habits that most successful business people have in common that make the journey a bit smoother. So, what are some of these entrepreneurial traits? 

1. Learning from past failures

One of the key things great business people do is building and compounding past failures instead of getting crushed by them. For example, Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, started an online dating network website that eventually failed. However, he used everything that he’s learned building that project and put it into the renowned LinkedIn platform. With a healthy mindset, failures are not entirely failures if you take lessons from them. Actually, the only real failures are those you don’t learn from and repeat in the future.  

2. Stay Thirsty for knowledge

No matter who you look at, the top business people know that the more they learn, the more they’ll earn. They feed their mind, knowing that knowledge is the fuel for their ideas, energy, success, and creativity.

For instance, Bill Gates has been known to read more than 50 books every year. Warren Buffet reported reading between 600 and 1000 pages every day.  

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3. Have a Vision

Having an original and relevant vision for the future of their business is another thing numerous business people share. Any entrepreneur should be able to design their unique business idea, sketch a trajectory, and always be prepared for both failure and success.

Moreover, they should hold on to the vision they’ve set, whether people around them share their beliefs or not. Speaking about the important of having a vision, Oprah once said, “Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life, because you become what you believe.” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt0u52Wzi1o

4. It’s never “too” anything 

One major trap numerous people fall into is thinking that they’re too old, it’s too late, it will never happen, and so on. Nevertheless, individuals like Donald Fisher (Gap), Lynda Weinman (Lynda), Herbert Boyer (Genentech), Bob Parsons (GoDaddy), Chip Wilson (Lululemon), and Charles Ranlett Flint (IBM), enjoyed success after 40.

This goes to show that it’s never too late to start and succeed in your business venture.  

5. Willing to undertake decision-making roles

The road from the idea to a well-established company is pretty bumpy, hence entrepreneurs have to make a number of important decisions along the way. They’re often pressured by time and shortage of funding. It has become a habit for a lot of successful business people to make decisions under pressure. That also comes with owning the responsibility whether the outcomes are good or bad. 

These are just a few traits that can define the profile of a successful entrepreneur, besides the all-time classics (still very valid) of putting in insane amount of work and being passionate about what you do. However, nothing can guarantee 100% success, thus see them as guidelines, not absolutes.