Anway, we've all seen the articles, books, news-clips and sound-bites on the "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and the 10 Characteristics of an entrepreneur, and those online tests that see if you have what it takes to start a business.
So I'm going to keep a running tally of MY list of things that I think "Business Starters" (Entrepreneurs) need:
Entrepreneurial Quality #1: BACKBONE
A healthy degree of backbone (stubbornness sounds funny). As you're coming up with your idea, it's going to take a healthy degree of backbone to believe in your concept, for a variety of reasons. Starting a business is one of those things that the world has romanticized - you own your own business, you make all this money, you work when you want, you still have time to take the kids to school AND take the dog on his afternoon walk. For that reason it's one of those things that everyone has at one time or another thought about for at least .5 seconds. That is, until reality set in. As a result of the romantic fantasies people have about business ownership, there's a healthy dose of what I call "unintentional envy" that comes along with the idea. Unintentional because if you're asking the right people about your concept and your idea - they're not being nay-sayers because they want to hurt your feelings or just to spite you. But that opposition is coming from a place that is SOMEWHAT rooted in "why aren't I starting a business?" and "why didn't I come up with that?" or "how come (s)he didn't ask me to get involved?".
Hey, there's a reason why you've come up with the idea that you have. And there's a reason why as you started to formulate it, you couldn't sleep at night - you'd toss and turn, thinking of the possibilities and you'd jump up at 2 AM to right down a note before it left you. The backbone becomes crucial in knowing and understanding which criticisms to accept and acknowledge and which to deflect. Also in determining the root of the criticism. People will criticize. And frankly, if people don't criticize, at all, you need new friends and family members. They're telling you it's going to be big because they see those "support my supporters" dollars coming in when your company goes public and you've got millions to burn.
But backbone comes with a price. Being stubborn is great, but you've also got to know when to turn it off. And that's what I'm learning. Hell, I'm the smartest, greatest person on the face of this earth - and when you dis (disrespect) my idea, you're dissing (disrespecting) me. And homey, we don't play that.
No, really - there's the flip side. Knowing when to let the defenses come down and REALLY take into account what people are telling you.
I'm still working on that latter half of the "backbone" idea....and I've got the black eye to prove it.
Now Playing: Dizzy Gillespie - Kush
Dizzy IS the best!!! Gillespiana - live from Carnegie Hall - definitely an album worth picking up.
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