7 Mindset Traits that Set Successful Business Owners Apart

It is a sad, unfortunate fact that 8 out of 10 new businesses will fail within the first 18 months.

The truth is, most businesses fail for some very common reasons. These reasons almost always directly relate to the personal traits of the individual that starts the business in the first place.

Mark Zuckerberg may not have been the first person to come up with the idea for Facebook, but he was the person with the right personal traits to build an idea into a global company. Just like Steve Jobs, Phil Knight, John Mackey and other industry leaders that turned a simple concept or product into a global phenomenon.

Here are 7 mindset traits that set successful business owners apart from the rest.

1. Healthy self-confidence

Every day, business owners are faced with a number of different decisions they have to make.

Sometimes you have time to plan and investigate a range of options before making a decision, sometimes you don’t. Many times, those decisions can have a significant impact on your employees, family and even your business as a whole.

Business owners have to have both the confidence to make those decisions as well as the humility to quickly admit when they made a bad decision so they can correct their course before they go too far astray.

2. Recovering well from failure

In a famous quote by Micheal Jordan, he mentions missing more than 9,000 shots, losing more than 300 games and missing a game winning shot 26 times.

It’s easy to look at great success stories and only see the positive things. But, success isn’t really success unless it is a triumph over failure.

Steve Jobs was once famously fired from his own company. Failure is a fact of life. Success only comes if you learn to recover well.

3. Self-motivated

When you work for someone else, you generally have a boss or a manager that tells you what to do, sets deadlines for you and supervises your work to ensure those deadlines are met.

In many cases, goals are often set for you that are expected to be met. As an entrepreneur, setting and meeting deadlines is no less important, but you have to find a way to drive and motivate yourself. Since many entrepreneurs work from home, there is no one else around to do it for you.

4. “Multi-learned”

Most successful people are what many might call multi-talented, but they are not — they are multi-learned.

The most successful people are always willing and able to learn a completely new skill set if that’s what it takes to get their business up and running. Sometimes, you have to be your own accountant, marketer, sales department and even secretary and receptionist before you can hire someone to do all those tasks.

You should be willing to hand those tasks off to someone else the second you can afford it.

5. They connect well

The most successful people understand you just don’t get anywhere alone. From investors to people that cheer you on to people that offer advice on how to turn a failure into a success, no one achieves success alone.

But, successful people also have to know who not to connect with as well. You have to be able to spot people who will drag you down or slow you down in an unhealthy way and avoid those obstacles. Sometimes, someone helping you slow down can be a good thing but other times they just bring to you a grinding halt.

Most successful people are constantly on the lookout for new opportunities. From clients to mentors, successful people are constantly looking to create great connections.

6. They trust wisely

While trust is important, it can also be detrimental to trust people too much. You wouldn’t just hand over your entire fortune to an accountant and then never check up on them or ask for a regular accounting of your finances.

On the other hand, it is not wise to question and second-guess every single choice and decision your financial advisors make either. Smart trust means knowing enough about what someone does to know if they are doing it well or not and then setting them free to do it when they are.

7. They find the right tools

Technically, a Phillips head screw can be removed with a standard driver bit, but it’s not actually the right tool for the task. As a result, using the wrong bit head can sometimes strip the screw head and leave you in a pickle.

While it may seem to take more time to change out the bit, it takes less time than digging out a stripped screw. Successful people do their research and find exactly the right tools for the job they want to accomplish.

Many successful business owners would be successful at almost anything they put their hand to. Successful people are often thought of as having a “Midas touch” since it seems everything they do is successful. What it really boils down to, however, is possessing some key traits that stand them in good stead no matter what aspect of their lives or what type of business they apply them to. Perhaps the very best part of being successful is that it is never too late to start.

Jasmine Williams covers the good and the bad of today’s business and marketing. She was rummaging through her grandma’s clothes before it was cool and she’s usually hunched over a book or dancing in the kitchen, trying hard to maintain rhythm, but delivering some fine cooking (her family says so). Tweet her @JazzyWilliams88