What Separates True Entrepreneurs From People With Good Ideas

Many people hold the perception that an entrepreneur with the right business acumen is all that is needed for their business to become successful.

Many individuals come up with great business ideas, but due to their lack of business experience or understanding, fail miserably and are never able to materialize their business aspirations.

However, what separates a true and successful entrepreneur from those with just great ideas is the most important word in business – ‘grit’.

Grit is defined as the strength of character or resolve to visualize your dreams and work relentlessly to achieve it.

“Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

— ANGELA DUCKWORTH

After all, it is said that inventor Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times before he mastered the art of making the perfect light bulb. Grit is essential in propelling you out of challenges and tough times. Here are the top three must-have grit qualities every entrepreneur needs.

Courage

“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”

— PETER DRUCKER

Having courage can be best described as being antithetical to a fear of failure. A fear of failure can be the most damaging thing for an entrepreneur. It can breed anxiety, perfectionism, and a general aversion to risk.

A business is all about taking calculated risks that have a degree of threat. If you, as an entrepreneur, are not willing to move outside of your comfort zone and take risks, it is less likely that you will be able to do something significantly positive with your business.

Courage is the cornerstone of grit. If you do not have courage, you simply do not have grit. One of the best ways to develop courage is to start taking the not-too-risky business decisions. Courage is like a muscle: the more you work it, the more grit you will have.

Resilience

“Grit is the recovering alcoholic who sidesteps multiple potential opportunities to relapse but reaches several decades of sobriety while helping others to do the same.”

— CAROLINE A. MILLER

No matter how great your business idea is, as an entrepreneur, you will face challenges and threats that you didn’t see coming and fail. It is thus important for you to have the ability to pick yourself up from your failures, learn from them, and continue with your struggle.

This is called resilience. It can be your optimism, confidence, or simply having the vision to achieve your goals that is more powerful than your feelings of defeat and despair.

Resilience is what keeps you steadfast, never losing sight of your vision and goals. Every time that you stumble, your resilience will get you back up again. Those who have resilience live by the popular lines of Sylvester Stallone in the movie Rocky Balboa:

“It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”

Excellence

“Perfection has to do with the end product, but excellence has to do with the end process.”

— JERRY MORAN

Every entrepreneur needs to have excellence in their business. Unlike perfectionism, excellence refers to the utmost sincere efforts pertaining to the function or objective of an object or thing.

Excellence is not only associated with being inclusive of all that is positive, but also all that may be deemed negative such as disappointments, failures, and setbacks.

Making your business a success is not a walk in the park; it involves learning from one’s failures and emphasizes the dynamic nature of improvement as opposed to the static and inflexible standards of perfectionism.