The 11 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs & What They Have To Do With Mental Health
The following is an excerpt from Module 1 of our digital course. Learn more about the full course and get started now.
I’d like to take a moment to share with you the traits of successful entrepreneurs.
Everyone loves this part. Let’s talk about what it takes to be successful. These are the 11 traits of successful entrepreneurs. A big study went out and measured the personality traits and behaviors of entrepreneurs that were the most successful, and they found that these were the traits that they had that made them different from everybody else.
How many of you feel like these traits describe you? I’m going to reveal them one by one. When you see at least three that you highly identify with, I want you to actually stand up. I realize that you’re not in a live group session right now, but that’s fine. I want us to celebrate when we find a third item here that we really resonate with. As I reveal these one by one, if one doesn’t work for you, that’s fine, but if one does, let’s jump on it and count it. Start with one. When you see a second one that really resonates with you that’s two. When I get to a third, no matter where it is on the list, that’s fine, just stand up where you are. Listen to the rest of them. Maybe even keep count if there are any others that you also really identify with.
Here are the characteristics:
A heightened sense of self-importance.
Tendency to exaggerate a positive outlook. I know I felt like that. It’s certainly part of the job. My team needs me to tell them that things are going to be fine in order to stay focused on the task.
Don’t need as much sleep as other people. We’re pushing hard. Our energy is somehow sustaining. You know what, I just don’t need as much sleep as everybody else. That’s fine.
Talkative. Has anyone ever told you that you’re talking a lot in your team meetings or maybe with other co-founders or with investors or even with friends? We’re the talkative one in the group.
Tendency to be impulsive. Make decisions quickly. Think with the gut, shoot from the hip.
Your ideas move quickly from one subject to the next. If you’re an entrepreneur and you’ve already started another company and another company, on top of your first company, it’s a pretty common pattern. I’ve definitely run many companies at the same time before because my thoughts just move quickly to the next thing.
Do you have POOR concentration? That’s probably similar.
Are you easily distracted?
Rash spending. Probably required to be an entrepreneur. We’ve got to take risks that others would call rash in the financial categories.
Chasing pleasurable activities that have high potential for painful consequences. Think about your life even outside of being an entrepreneur, in your personal life. Are there areas where you do this? I’ve certainly seen this pattern in myself and a lot of my founder friends.
Finally, irritable or aggressive interactions with others. Certainly not our proudest moments as entrepreneurs, but when you get really activated do you find yourself being really irritable, short tempered with people, wondering why they don’t understand the vision that you have. Why don’t they understand it? Why aren’t they fully bought in?
I know you’re standing right now if you found three things along the way, which I’m sure as an entrepreneur you have. I’ve got great news. You have the traits required to be a great entrepreneur. I knew this when you showed up for this course because you have initiative, you’re focused on improving, you’re willing to commit the time. You have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur!
But I also have bad news…
The 11 traits I just showed you actually have nothing to do with entrepreneurship. They’re the 11 traits used by psychiatrists to diagnose bipolar disorder. Let’s just sit with that for a second. Don’t worry. It’s okay. Because every entrepreneur that sees that previous slide is standing up at the end. We identify with not just three of those traits, but many of them.
The fact is, the cost of entrepreneurship on our minds is really high.
The data is really bad for folks like us. As entrepreneurs, we’re 50% more likely to have mental illness, any mental illness. We’re twice as likely to have depression. We’re three times as likely to have substance abuse problems, six times as likely to have ADHD, and 11 times more likely to be bipolar. Did you catch that? 11 times more likely than other types of professionals in the general population, to be bipolar. That is absolutely incredible, 11 times, not 11%, 11x. I don’t think we all actually have bipolar disorder, but I do think that the stress we endure causes us to exhibit many of these symptoms. If we showed these symptoms absent of the high stress we endure, we might actually be diagnosed bipolar, but that’s not for me to say. I’m not a doctor.
Now, this is the part where people always ask me, and I know the question in your head right now, and it’s this: “So does entrepreneurship make us crazy, or do crazy people become entrepreneurs?” I know that’s a little bit crass, but that’s the way I like to say it. Look, I don’t have the answer, and I don’t think it really matters. Either way, it’s clear that as a population, entrepreneurs just need different tools than the rest of the business world. We have different brains. Whether we started this way or entrepreneurship changed us, we’re just different.
This is why I created the Founders First System, to protect people like us, to keep us healthy. I needed this framework to protect myself as an entrepreneur as I continue to build companies too.
If you’d like to start tracking and improving your mind as an entrepreneur, consider trying the Founders First app free for seven days. This could be the moment that starts moving your life in a new direction, and you’re joining over 3,000 entrepreneurs who already work together to make our tomorrows a little easier than today. Come join us.
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Founders First is a set of evaluation tools that will improve your business by strengthening its most critical asset: You.
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