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Want to Be an Entrepreneur? It’s Impossible Without These 3 Characteristics

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They go by many names: self-employed, 1099 Contractor, Side Hustle, CEO, Business Owner, or Agency Owner, but our favorite term is Entrepreneur. No more working for the “man!” Be your own boss, set your own hours, answer to no one is the cry of everyone that has ever had to punch a clock, ask to take a bathroom break or be elated with a 5% raise. Why would anyone want to work for someone else for 40 years when they can work for themselves and make millions?

If you could only will things into existence by belief, we’d all be the boss. With over 300 Million people living in America today, only 15 million of those are self-employed full time. 

We’ve all heard of the Pareto Principle, right?  The 80/20 rule? In sales, business ownership, and entrepreneurship that means only 20% have the right skills, masteries and characteristics to succeed. My personal experience in observing thousands of other entrepreneurs makes me think Pareto might have under-promised and over-delivered. Seems as if only 5% have what it takes.

So what does it take to be a successful entrepreneur? I believe all the books, podcasts, blogs, webinars, and self-help seminars on this subject could be summed up with the following three simple characteristics:

1. Working Smarter and Harder than Mark Zuckerbergpresenting before Congress

At the end of the day, a millionaire mindset cannot be paired with a part-time work ethic. I wholeheartedly believe that there are two types of entrepreneurs in the world: the work horses and the lame ducks. 

Entrepreneurs put in more hours than anyone else. It’s mandatory to succeed. Yet, they are not empty hours wasted on non-productive activities. You have to be efficient with your time.

The lame duck entrepreneur can be described as continually using their time to do something well, that needs not to be done at all, as Brian Tracy says. They’re busy doing mundane tasks that are not sales generating activities. While a work horse entrepreneur has developed a system that focuses only on the most important sales generating activities and either eliminates everything else or delegates the rest to an assistant.

You have to have an extraordinary work ethic to make it as an entrepreneur these days. There are 1000 other guys right behind you clawing and scraping to win. Do you have the smart, dialed-in, planned out work ethic required to succeed? Do you have that drive to succeed? I hope so.

“When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.” – George Bernard Shaw

2. Downloading more Data than the IBM Watson Artificial Intelligence

“Always be closing” is the mantra at the sales seminar. It should be scrapped and changed to “always be learning.” Closing is easy, but if you stop learning, you won’t have the right product or service for long. 

Some studies say that knowledge is doubling every 12 months. Think about that for a second. If you had truly gained mastery in a subject and waited a year or two, you’d now be a dinosaur. It’s been said that most people don’t have 20 years’ experience, but one year of experience repeated 20 times.

You have to continually be learning and staying at the forefront of your niche. Watch the early adopters, test the waters and figure out a way to improve upon what they’ve done. Find someone that has mastered an area that you want to excel in and buy their course, attend their seminar, or read their book.

Experience is a teacher, but it’s a difficult way to learn. Find those that have trail blazed the path before you and implement what they tell you to do. Every successful entrepreneur has had dozens if not hundreds of mentors over their lifetime. It’s been said that your net worth is equal to your network. To succeed you have to continually hit the books.

3. Treat your Finances like you are Warren Buffet’s Hedge Fund Manager

Guess what? You can have the strongest work ethic in the world, you can watch every YouTube video and listen to every podcast created for your niche, but if you’re broke all the time, you’ll never succeed. You have to have some money to make money.

Now what I’m about to tell you used to be common sense because it’s very basic, but balancing a checkbook, creating a budget, spending your money wisely is no longer common knowledge. If you do not have a budget written out, that accounts for every dollar coming in and every dollar going out, then you are doing life wrong! Look up a simple online budget and put it all on paper.

Make a budget for your personal finances. Then start a business checking account. Drop in as much operating capital as you can. Then, create your budget for your business. Write it all down. Take what you’ve learned from your mentors and apply your exemplary work ethic and go make some money.

Pay yourself a meager salary until you have enough money saved in your business account to pay cash for a mid-sized sedan. Then give yourself a raise! Learn what your cost per acquisition is and pull that lever over and over again.

Be willing to invest in your business. Buy the courses and materials needed to grow in your niche. Investing in your business wisely and prudently is the only way to scale up your business and be truly successful.

“Too many people spend money they earned..to buy things they don’t want..to impress people that they don’t like.” – Will Rogers

There’s a reason that the richest 1% own half the world’s wealth. They have the drive to work harder and smarter than anyone else, they’ve invested in the best mentors and coaches, and are continually learning to stay on the cutting edge in their field. Additionally, they’ve mastered the simple money management skills that are necessary to fund the whole endeavor. Do you have what it takes?

Which one of the above 3 characteristics do you think is the most important to succeed? Share your thoughts below!

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5 Ways to Prepare for Your Entrepreneurial Journey

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There are many ways to get ready for entrepreneurship regardless of whether you’re ready or not. The migration to the unknown will take you through many places, emotions, and people. Your journey will be both easy and difficult, but hopefully in between, you prepare yourself with an expectation of helping people by solving problems. The quest that you are about to enter will be one to remember if you are willing to adapt quickly and not give up.

Arranging for this huge change in your life should be one of the most memorable expeditions that you will ever experience. Looking into the future and being able to lay out a road map for your entrepreneurial journey will definitely be beneficial. Though there will be challenges every step of the way, being prepared will help you achieve your goals more efficiently.

To help you get started, here are 5 ways to plan an entrepreneurial expedition:

1. Form Ideas By Visualizing And Writing Them Down

Before beginning your entrepreneurial quest, brainstorm to come up with many amazing ideas even if you never act upon each of them. It’s always a good thing to write them down on paper, computer or via a mobile device app such as Google Docs. An abundance of suggestions about your processes is better than none or even a few objectives that can possibly help in some way. 

The key is to breakdown those ideas to come up with better solutions to move forward in your voyage. See what’s more in line with your mission and values to be effective for your core audience, products or services that you may want to create. Whether you categorize those ideas or check them off one by one, coming up with different concepts will be a great start to your journey.

“Creativity is contagious – pass it on.” – Albert Einstein

2. Begin A Pattern Of Consistency By Quitting Bad Habits

Repetitive actions can present their challenges but if there’s a way to make progress and eliminate bad habits that aren’t hindering your itinerary then keep doing them. Have you ever noticed that negative thoughts, lack of confidence, and no exercise regimen could negate persistence of not only your entrepreneurial journey but other goals as well?

Get your mojo or swagger back by committing to a life of constant and everlasting consistency by stopping eating bad foods, wasting your time with hours of playing video games, watching television and other things that will stall your progress. When you get rid of actions that are slowing down aspects of your life, you’ll begin to pursuing things to help you lay the groundwork for success.

3. Be Disciplined While Listening More

Another way to prepare for your entrepreneurial journey is by being in control of yourself while paying more attention to everything else. It’s quite common to focus on things outside of your realm and instantly become something other than what you see fit. Difficulties can arise if your focal point isn’t there and somehow an opportunity pass right by you.

Mentorship even from a distance from someone that you don’t know can be a key element as you learn the importance of your mission. Listening to podcasts and watching YouTube videos of someone that has validated your idea is a great starting point as well. Mimicking them on some level can help you understand different phases that are ahead and how to deal with them.

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” – Henry Ford

4. Work Effortlessly And Prioritize Your Time

You will have to work extremely hard with an emphasis on actual time value before pursuing your pilgrimage. We often hear about the results of hard work and it sounds cliche but when many other things are happening outside of your control, finding a way to manage your time can become difficult.

Most people will start off alone with zero help in terms of having a partner and putting in 100% effort. You will likely wear multiple hats as the visionary, programmer, marketer, content creator and so on. You may have to function with only 3 or 4 hours of sleep or even none at times while being respectful and cognitive of the time of others as well.

5. Persist Like There’s No Tomorrow While Planning For The Future

What’s in you? Nobody knows the answer to that question but you and the determination for reaching your destination as an entrepreneur. Whatever the answer is, you should be driven with an undaunted passion to pursue your expedition. Go after your dreams with a tenacity that you didn’t know was within your soul and keep pushing no matter what.

Be mindful that your strong pursuit can be done all while determining the proper destination of where you want to eventually end up. Never lose your focus admist numerous distractions that will happen. The emphasis comes from experience along with talking to other entrepreneurs who had similar occurrences at multiple stages of the process.

Put in the work early with the mindset of expecting obstacles and pushing forward pass them.  It will be tedious and preparing for a grind will make your entrepreneurial journey more understandable through tough times. You will be a lot wiser and better after all of the hard work whether it’s considered a failure or success.

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12 Essential Skills Required to Succeed as an Entrepreneur

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There are lots of unwritten rules about the right set of skills needed to succeed as an entrepreneur. No doubt, entrepreneurs are filled with a sense of uncertainty on the right set of skills they need to acquire. So, how do successful entrepreneurs know the right skills to integrate into their operations? This is the million dollar question, and it’s time to answer it!

As an aspiring or veteran entrepreneur, here are some of the essential skills you need to succeed as an entrepreneur:

1. Money Management

Let’s face it, you can’t achieve your entrepreneurial goals if you don’t know how to manage your finances. You need to put structures in place to monitor where your income and expenses come from.

Ask yourself if you are spending more than you earn, and also calculate your savings ratio. You need to keep yourself informed of the latest financial investment rules and how to navigate your business through difficult situations.

2. Ambition

Yes, ambition is one of the hardest skills for entrepreneurs. The aim is the skill you need to keep going when situations become dire. It’s the ability to know your destination and not to lose focus.

Successful entrepreneurs have an aggressive nature, and this is what drives them to work hard. More so, their dynamic environment keeps them cautious and always on the alert for windfalls.

3. Willingness to Learn

Learning is a continuous process. Most entrepreneurs make the mistake of restricting their education to their educational institution. Instead, knowledge is a life-long process, and it’s an essential skill for successful entrepreneurs. Therefore, you must be updated with recent events in technology, your environment, and your industry. Remember, even old dogs can learn new tricks!

4. Creativity

You need creative skills to succeed as an entrepreneur. Trying out the same thing over and over will still generate the same result. Therefore, you need to harness your creativity to discover new methods of doing things. Mind you, being creative doesn’t mean you have to do something drastic. Sometimes, it requires simple actions such as talking to people or taking up new skills.

“Creative thinking inspires ideas. Ideas inspire change.” – Barbara Januszkiewicz

5. Productivity

Successful entrepreneurs have learned how to harness their productivity skills by discovered what is productive for them, and adhering to it. More so, successful entrepreneurs increase their productivity by working at energy peak levels. Lastly, utilize the productivity tool that works for you and improves on it throughout your entrepreneurial journey.

6. Social Skills

Some entrepreneurs downplay the importance of social skills. This group of people fail to realize that you improve your chances of success by walking with the right people. Search for entrepreneurs with similar goals and observe how they overcame challenges. Furthermore, study their success strategies; this will help you to perfect your business plans.

7. Management Skills

It’s not enough to learn the skills as mentioned above without improving your management skills. As an entrepreneur, you will need to manage your workers effectively to get the right result. This is the time to learn how to encourage, develop, and support your employees. Learning a management skill will help you to recognize and allocate tasks in tandem with their strengths and weakness.

8. Social Media Proficiency

Here’s one skill that can shape the landscape of your business. Yes, social media is an integral part of your success as an entrepreneur. In the initial phase of your business, you will need to assume the role of a social media manager, and this involves knowing how to navigate and use social media platforms.

9. Perseverance

Every successful entrepreneur has experienced failures and crippling defeats. They were able to survive these dire situations when many others lost their businesses. Successful entrepreneurs persevere through these hard moments by choosing to learn and make calculated decisions from experience.

“It’s perseverance that’s the key. It’s persevering for long enough to achieve your potential.” – Lynn Davies

10. Time Management

Time management is considered a valuable skill by a successful entrepreneur. With time management, you need to have a detailed plan or schedule for your daily tasks. More so, this skill helps you to prioritize tasks and how to tackle the important ones.

Time management helps you to battle procrastination when making crucial and everyday business decisions. Think of time management as one of the hard skills for entrepreneurs. Remember, you will never achieve your goals without gaining mastery over your time.

11. Communication

It doesn’t matter if you run a small business or a large corporation. It is imperative for you to know how to communicate effectively with your clients, mentors, stakeholders, and even your employees.

It’s one skill that’s crucial to your success as an entrepreneur. Why? You won’t succeed if you can’t communicate the values of your brand. So, you need to master all forms of communication. What’s more? You need to show your employees the importance of effective communication.

12. Business Strategy

Having a business strategy is considered an essential skill for successful entrepreneurs. Although most entrepreneurs reached the pinnacle of their careers through sheer will and strength, it’s necessary to have a business strategy. Utilize the skills mentioned above to create a business structure that’ll stand the test of time.

We’ve successfully created a list of skills to succeed as an entrepreneur. No doubt, it’s been an eventful journey. Now, all you need is to integrate these skills into your mode of operations. Practice these skills until it becomes the core of your business operations.

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3 Scientifically Proven Things Entrepreneurs Should Be Doing to Increase Overall Performance

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Many of us know that becoming an entrepreneur isn’t easy. Most are working very long hours, seven days a week, and are making tremendous sacrifices to ensure their businesses are increasing in all areas. They are actually building empires right?

While this type of mindset is okay for a season, many get stuck in the vicious cycle of working non-stop and not taking care of themselves. We all know working hard definitely has its rewards and benefits, but overworking can lead to many unnecessary and unhealthy developments.

Below are 3 things entrepreneurs should be taking advantage of, in order to develop a proper work-life balance and still stay ahead of the eight ball:

1. Get enough sleep

Many of us have been programmed to think that you have to work hard and long in order to be successful in life. While working hard is very important to becoming successful, recent studies have shown that getting the proper amount of sleep is even more important. Studies have shown that sleep deprivation is one of the main causes of stress and burnout in the lives of many people.

Arianna Huffington is a huge advocate for getting a minimum of eight hours of sleep per day, in order to improve our decision-making, well-being, creativity, and productivity. Those bragging about only getting four to five hours of sleep are actually admitting that they are not functioning or performing at their maximum potential.

Researchers have also shown that when you are getting seven to eight hours of sleep, your brain signals your body to release hormones and compounds that assist in brain memory, maintaining your immune system, and decreasing risks in health conditions. Therefore, getting enough quality sleep is key for a healthy lifestyle.

“There’s practically no element of our lives that’s not improved by getting adequate sleep.” – Arianna Huffington

2. Take vacations

Studies show that there are multiple health benefits of vacationing. A few of them consist of less stress, decreased depression, improved productivity, and improved mental health. Who wouldn’t want to experience that right? The ones who break away from the day-to-day functions of working, to go on vacation usually come back on fire and ready to keep crushing their goals.

Vacationing allows you to really put things into perspective, not only for yourself, but for your business as well. Taking vacations gives you the opportunity to unplug and spend that much needed quality time with yourself and your loved ones.

It also gives you time to relax, reflect, and recharge. In doing so, research shows that you come back refreshed and ready to function at peak performance. You also get to have fun, visit really cool places and check off destinations on your bucket list.

3. Take breaks

No matter how much you love your work, you can’t continue to be a driving force while running on empty. CEO Chris Cavallini, of the multi million dollar company Nutrition Solutions, believes in this principal one hundred percent and stands firm on the idea that taking a 60 second break every hour will reboot, recharge, and refocus your mind, body and spirit.

It makes the team more efficient and productive, says Chris. Many times a quick mental or physical shift is all you need, to come back to work with more creativity and more energy for your next breakthrough.

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes…including you.” – Anne Lamott

Recent studies have shown that those who experience constant stimulation of the same thing, is registered by our brains as unimportant, to the point that our brain erases it from our awareness.

They also show that taking a two-minute break can increase productivity by as much as 11.15%. Since entrepreneurs are constantly on the go, several short breaks through out the day should definitely be included due to all of the amazing benefits they provide.

Some of the things you could do on your breaks that will increase performance and productivity include, standing and stretching, resting your eyes, quick exercises like jumping jacks, push ups, sit ups, or pull ups and even checking your social media.

The next time you feel like you don’t have time to take a break, think about all the benefits you’ll miss out on by not taking one.

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