We all know about entrepreneurship and innovation. In today’s technology era the economy is driven by innovation and through entrepreneurs from all across the globe. In this post, we look at 4 success factors of entrepreneurship.
The success factors we are discussing here is slightly off beat. These are the factors that decide true character of the entrepreneurs. We have all heard of the traits of entrepreneurs like Connecting to purpose, perseverance, creativity, art of saying no, time management, never say die approach, visualisation and more.
However, all these traits don’t come naturally to entrepreneurs. The success factors discussed in this post help in nurturing the entrepreneur of within. Without any further ado, let’s get started discussing these now- the success factors of entrepreneurship.
1. Timely and Effective Connection
When we hear something from opinion leaders and reputed personalities, impact is multiplied several times. John C Maxwell is a famous personality coach and author who comes up with innovative ways to sum up key success factors and to bring the best out of personalities. One of his books happen to be ‘Everyone communicates, few connect’.
Connection with the audience is more important than the power of words and this is true in all spheres of life. A well connected shot leads to a goal in football/ hockey or a home-run in Baseball, or a boundary in cricket or a point in Lawn tennis/ badminton. Innovation as one of success factors is one such perfect shot which needs practice, perseverance, creativity and multiple other disciplines to master.
Connection at the right time is important and even more important is to be aware of the facilitators of the right connection leading to innovation.
So to be able to excel in entrepreneurship, a connection at the right time is crucial.
2. Maintaining Sanity- Always
Sanity is one of the key driving factors behind innovations. Getting excited or getting carried away have been the main reasons of Start-up failures.
Most start-ups fail and innovations crumble mid-way because of the dilution in sanity of the entrepreneur/ innovator. Sanity helps in retaining focus and focus is the bridge between success and failure. One of the famous quote ascribed to Lord Buddha says:
‘Mind is everything. What you think you become’.
3. Ingenuity is Crucial success factor
Ingenuity by far seems to be the most important differentiator of innovators from rest of the crowd.
Originality of ideas, creativity and resourcefulness sum up the definition of the word ‘ingenuity’. Are these not the common traits of a true entrepreneur?
Creativity lifts a person to a different plane which helps in innovation and the evolution process of an entrepreneur. One can never solve a problem satisfactorily staying on the same level of consciousness that created it.
Integrity is one of the key success factors that comes bundled up with ingenuity and must be possessed by one and all. Integrity is regarded as most innovators as key ingredient of success but should be common trait in everyone. It is due to this reason integrity doesn’t find a separate heading in this article. Any recipe doesn’t have heat or fire as an ingredient as it is assumed that we are all aware that cooking will require heat in some form. Same is the case with integrity in determining success.
4. Audacity- All Entrepreneurs are bold explorers
The first quality needed to be successful in entrepreneurship or in life in general, according to many, is audacity.
“When you’re bold, some people will think you’re crazy but it’s more insane to be timid”
Constance Chuks Friday
Audacity gives rise to a common entrepreneurship trait of endless hope and courage to find opportunities even in the most despairing situations.
An Entrepreneur is an explorer and innovator. An innovator finds his/her own way to the destination and doesn’t necessarily follow the set route.
One who explores, invents and creates is the real innovator and entrepreneur. He/she who has the courage succeeds in surmounting all obstacles in life.
5. A slice of Spirituality
Spirituality is embedded in every human being. Spirit is free from bias or dogmas of societies.
Willingness to learn and experiment is what brings a monk and an entrepreneur on the same plane.
Both have an uncanny knack of experimenting with themselves without bothering about the views of others.
Now let’s take example of an innovator who took to spiritual ways in their own strides. Steve Jobs was an entrepreneur, a practicing Buddhist, and an innovator. Was he on a spiritual path or not is a matter of debate.
According to details given by Joshua Guilar and Karen Neudorf, Jobs dedicated his life to soto zen Buddhist meditation practise. He also had a spiritual advisor appointed to guide him to spiritual path and simple living practices. Jobs believed that he could infuse human traits in machine and spiritual practices helped him a lot.
Spirituality doesn’t necessarily mean nirvana. The enlightenment achieved on the spiritual path can be extremely worldly and common. So, attainment of state of bliss and grace is not limited to priests and monks. It is within everyone’s grasp.
We just need to set that entrepreneur free to start the real journey of nirvana without being a monk and then the real story unfolds which has only one reader and one viewer- our own psyche!!
Conclusion
If we are at point ‘A’ and the ultimate destination is point ‘B’, it’s quite obvious that there are infinite ways to reach point ‘B’. Success factors only help the process of finding the shortest legitimate route.
A spark of creativity and positivity are wonderful facilitators while it would be the audacity and perseverance which mark the ultimate difference between a brilliant and an ordinary entrepreneur. There is no rigid right or wrong path and how someone embeds these success factors in his/her personality is what makes the real difference. Leaving you with this adaptation of a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. to reflect upon the point that while we need to help ourselves in finding our way to success.
We generally prefer to sit on shoulders of many successful giants of innovation, for inspiration, experience and guidance. In this process, we sometimes lose our originality and ingenuity and end up as a failure.
Therefore, an entrepreneur has to guard against it and use the past success stories as inspiration for charting out his own entrepreneurial pathway.
