Linked is a Forbes article listing 10 rules for a successful entrepreneur. I also listed the rules below.
1. You will receive entrepreneurial opportunities. You may like them or not, but if you choose them they will be yours for the entire period, however long it is.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life…and your school of life goes by the title of Entrepreneur. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons, experience failure and occasionally to savor success. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant, stupid and unfair.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. The growth and maturing of an entrepreneur is a process of trial, error and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”
4. A lesson is repeated until it is learned. Each lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. Then you can go on to the next.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons, particularly if you enter the world of Entrepreneurship. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
6. “There” is no better than “here.” When your “there” has become your “here,” you will simply obtain another “there” that will, again, look better than “here.”
7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person, partner, employee, employer, key stakeholder, etc. unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need to be an entrepreneur. What you do with them is up to you. The choice and opportunity is yours.
9. The answers lie inside you. The answers to being a successful entrepreneur lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.
10. And one of my favorite sayings of all time for you, as an Entrepreneur, is this: Whether you think you can or can’t, in either case you’ll be right.
Numbers 8 and 9 are particularly notable given that we’ve previously discussed whether one can “learn” to be an entrepreneur, as well as is interesting in light of the article posted about Dean Allard’s view that lawyers cannot be formally taught to be entrepreneurs, but can learn how to best support them.
I think one essential thing this list is missing is resourcefulness. I think this is a skill that is required by all entrepreneurs. The nature of entrepreneurship seems to coming up with creative ways to solve problems, using resources in ways that other individuals may not think of. A great example of this is Tom’s and their one for one business model. To be a successful entrepreneur ship, a distinct level of creativity in my opinion is requisite and should definitely be on this list.
Thanks for posting this Patrick.
I feel like someone hijacked a post from the EliteDaily titled “Dear Women: 10 Rules for Surviving and Thriving in your 20s” and inserted the word “entrepreneur” here and there. Also, the author get’s a bit lofty for my tastes. I’m pretty sure “The answers lie inside you” was plagiarized from The Lion King. I guess I expected “rules for entrepreneurs” to be more practical and less philosophical.
These “rules” strike me as highly general, as in they could be used by anyone trying to live life. Perhaps this reflects how successful entrepreneurism will involve the same ability to adapt and respond to problems that we associate with surviving life’s daily challenges.
You’re welcome Patrick.
As for the “hijacking” of a list from EliteDaily, I would like to point out that if you click the link in the post you will see that the author of this list does note that this is an “adaptation of the 10 Rules for Being Human by Dr. Cherie Carter-Scott” that the author is trying to apply to entrepreneurs.
Having said that, I do agree with you that the rules seem to be a bit general and probably could be applied to anyone trying to live life, but then again this is an “adaptation of the 10 Rules for Being Human” applied to entrepreneurs.