Humility Goes Before Enterpreneural Success

A few days ago, I had a chat with a highly respectable personality in business and I had the opportunity to pick up a few points on the requirements for a successful adventure into enterpreneurship. I would be sharing one of these with you as I consider it a major trait that determines whether you are enterpreneur potential or not.

Humility. If you want to be a succesful enterpreneur, you need to humble. In other words, check your arrogance. This is particularly important because it appears to be in conflict with another major requirements for enterpreurship success, confidence - which I will discuss in a future post, and because it is not a topic that is taught in MBA classes. This is strictly 'grit from the streets'.

Enterpreneurs, generally, are high flyers. Not necessarily in terms of academics or skills or talents, but in terms of the ability to visualize - to see where others are only looking - and take advantage of that. This quality comes with a bit of self assurance and in many cases arrogance. This is what makes the topic of humility very important to enterpreneurs.

It is impossible to succeed as an enterpreneur, especially with a start-up, without inputs and aid from many stakeholders. These stakeholders could be actual/potential clients, partners, suppliers, employees, regulatory bodies, government agencies etc. A successful enterpreneur must have a high level of humility to appeal to the good nature of these persons/groups/entities in order to achieve set objectives.

You may be wondering, does he want me to become a 'kiss ass' all in the name of becoming a successful enterpreneur? Not necessarily in that light, but you would have to display a high level of humility in order to get people to respond to your projects so you can ultimately achieve set objectives.

If you find this difficult to do, it is only normal. Afterall, it is against human nature to belittle oneself before others. However, it is only the fews ones who can 'live a few years of their lives like most people won't, so that they can spend the rest of their life like most people can't!' that would succeed as enterpreneurs.

I will continue to elaborate on the traits that would help you determine if you would be a successful enterpreneur or not in subsequent post. Until then, try humility...it works!

Your Comfort Zone And You

Call it stability, security, guaranteed or whatever, most of us just want to stay where we are sure of getting something. In order words, it is human nature to be risk averse. This term is referred to as 'survivor instinct'. Why walk into the rain and get wet when you can stay indoors and remain dry? well, welcome to the continuation of my series on traits that would help you determine if you are an enterpreneur material or not.

What is your comfort zone? your comfort zone is that place or thing or job or career that bears the minimum risk for you. It is the zone where, though you may not achieve greatness, but are guaranteed of sustenance. It could be your parent's house or company, your place of birth, your job, your local business etc. In this case, it is most likely your job! Your job would guarantee you a monthly pay that covers your bills and other incidental expenses and that's it. This is guaranteed however and many would reason that 'a bird in hand is worth two in the woods.

If you reason along the 'bird in hand' line, you are definitely in your comfort zone and that is a clear indication of whether you would be a successful enterpreneur or not. There is absolutely nothing wrong with preferring the comfort zone, like I said earlier, it is human to prefer a safe bet. What it implies however is that you are unwilling to 'live a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't!'

Think about this for a moment, most of the groundbreaking enterpreneurs of all time have either walked away from a lucrative career, job, education, school, family, country, company etc. to become the succesful enterpreneurs that we all celebrate. If you have inertia with respect to walking from a sure bet proposition into a risky, even if more rewarding, scenario, that is your comfort zone holding you back.

If you desire to be a successful enterpreneur, you need to identify your comfort zone and device strategies to exit that zone. This is in line with my believe, which i will cover in a future blog post, that great enterpreneurs only take calculated risks. Identify your comfort zone and device an exit strategy. The implementation of such a strategy might take years or months or days, whatever or however it takes, the day you make a definite decision to exit your comfort zone is the beginning of your enterpreneural success.

If you desire to become a successful enterpreneur, then deal with your comfort zone.