So you’ve created an incredible service or marketed your amazing skills!
But being a successful entrepreneur is more than your service or product.
It’s about you!
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1. Let Go of Stress
Let’s face it, running your own business is a stressful occupation.
You are responsible for every aspect of that business.
If you have employees, you are responsible, in part, for their financial well-being.
It’s all on your shoulders, every day without fail.
Now, some people have been described as “thriving on stress”.
Don’t buy into that line of thinking.
No one thrives on stress.
All stress will do is wear you down, physically and mentally.
All successful entrepreneurs understand that all work and no play is not a recipe for success.
It is true that successful entrepreneurs do enjoy the challenge of running their own business.
However, they also understand that the exhilaration of taking on challenges and finding solutions to those challenges is different from the stress that being confronted with problems invariably brings.
To be a truly successful entrepreneur, you need to make the time to do other things besides work.
You need to understand that balance in your life – taking care of your health, relaxing and having fun – is as important to your overall success as anything else that you do
2. Maximum Productivity
Obviously, being productive is an important skill for anyone who owns their own business.
Yet, what does it mean to be productive?
How do you measure productivity?
Is productivity simply a measure of how much work has been done or is it something more?
You see, the problem with measuring productivity based on the amount of work that has been accomplished is that not all work is created equal.
Someone can be busy working for eight or ten hours straight and, at the end of that time, the result of their efforts doesn’t amount to much.
That’s because their work did not produce much value.
The term “busy work” recognizes the inherent flaw in measuring productivity by tasks accomplished.
You can stay very busy and still not produce many results.
Real productivity equals value divided by time.
That is, you look at the value of what has been accomplished versus the amount of time that it took to produce that value.
When you look at productivity this way, it is easy to see that in order to maximize productivity you either need to decrease the amount of time involved in accomplishing a task or you have to increase the amount of value that the task produced.
Successful entrepreneurs look at the hours in the day as their most valuable asset.
They exchange those hours for value.
The more value they obtain in exchange for their time is a measure of how productive they have been.
A successful entrepreneur always tries to obtain the most favorable exchange rate when they convert their time into money.
Doing so is a prime example of maximum productivity
3. Self-Analysis
Every entrepreneur has to have an ego.
There is absolutely no way that you can own your own business and not be self-confident and comfortable with who you are and what you do.
You have to have these qualities in order to successfully convince other people to choose your product or service over those offered by your competition.
Owning a business, as well as marketing and selling a product, is a personality-driven process.
That’s why there is a larger-than-life quality to all successful entrepreneurs.
Yet, as with all things, there needs to be balance in order for this process to work.
Being the star of the show can lead to behavioral problems.
You start out having to take all the risks and call all the shots.
You survive solely by your wits and efforts.
As time goes on, the fact that you did survive and thrive can go to your head.
You get an inflated opinion about your own abilities.
You come to think that you’re bulletproof.
You believe that you have the only opinion that matters.
You become tone-deaf to other voices and the advice being offered.
Your ego takes over to your detriment.
Not only are you missing opportunities, but you are also risking much more.
Your inflated sense of self-worth could cost you everything you worked for.
Successful entrepreneurs, while confident, understand that they are fallible.
They realize that they are capable of making mistakes.
When they do, they still learn from those mistakes.
They also realize the value of listening to the viewpoints and opinions of others.
They see that real success is not a solo show, it is a group effort.
It is a collaboration.
True entrepreneurs are capable of meaningful self-analysis.
Here are more tips to help you keep building your entrepreneurial skills:
- 4 Things You Must Know to be Successful in Business
- 5 Tools You Need in Your Entrepreneurial Toolbox
- From Failure to Promising Future
- 4 Strategies for Success
Interested in more ways to balance your life and your business? Join my FREE Facebook Group – Time Money & Happiness Matters!
