10 skills for every entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship is a path that requires hard work, determination and confidence. It comes with significant risk and no surefire return of success. To be an entrepreneur, you must be ready to constantly improve your skills, learn from your mistakes and take continuous action on your ideas. Anyone willing to do the work consistently can build entrepreneurial mindset.

Author of bestselling book Built To Serve, Evan Carmichael rounded up 10 skills necessary for every entrepreneur to master.

1 Speaking up (Public Speaking): Whenever business magnate Warren Buffet is asked his secret to success, the reply is — public speaking. Whether you like public speaking or not, every entrepreneur has to do it at some point. Be it a room full of investors to fund your project, a bank manager to pass a loan or potential customers, there’s no one better qualified than you to voice your passions.

2 Being honest with yourself: Tech billionaire Mark Cuban believes that most entrepreneurs are so terrified while taking the first steps toward launching a new business that they often lie to themselves in order to psych themselves up enough to move ahead. Cuban warns every entrepreneur to be brutally honest with themselves. Be aware of what you know, and what you don’t know but, most importantly, know your business better than anyone else.

3 Having confidence: Confidence is all about the fire within you; the fire needed to get your vision to reality. A necessary survival skill in any entrepreneur, confidence is something that you want to develop or build like a muscle. The more you focus on training the muscle, the stronger it becomes. What does confidence mean to you? And what will it take for you to build that muscle?

4 Listening: ‘Hearing’ is listening to what is said. ‘Listening’ is hearing what isn’t said. Author Simon Sinek stresses on the importance of speaking last in a meeting. He says skill to keep your opinion to yourself while everyone in the room has spoken does two things — 1) It gives everyone the feeling that they have been heard and have contributed and, 2) You get to know everyone else’s view before rendering your own.

5 Managing your time: In this world of dramatic distraction, we have traded busy-ness for effectiveness. Ask yourself — am I truly being effective? Or is my time cluttered with chaos that drains and taxes me through most of my day?

6 Stop whining: Iyanla Vanzant, new thought leader and life coach, introduced “No whining Wednesdays” as a reminder to stop complaining for one whole day of the week. Every time you whine, put a coin in a jar. She says everything and everyone comes into our lives to teach us something. Take that lesson with power and humility, not like a niggling victim whining, complaining and criticising.

7 Staying present in the moment: Most of us have a tendency to live in the past or the future, causing either remorse about events gone by or anxiety about what’s to come. That takes away our power of ‘now’. The present moment is where we have greatest control, where we feel most at ease and where happiness flourishes. We make our best decisions when we are present in the moment.

8Being consistent: Success is a journey, not a destination that you reach and can rest your laurels at. Being successful means getting over your ‘failures’ or obstacles quickly and moving along. This is not to say that slip-ups don’t happen, they do, and they must be overcome. And anyway failure is nothing but feedback on what to do differently.

9 Getting enough sleep: Arianna Huffington, founder, CEO - Thrive and author of Sleep Revolution says that sleep is the most underrated super power. Sleep gives us a chance to refocus on the essence of who we are. And in that place of deep connection, it gets easier for the fears and concerns of the world to drop away. She quotes, “We don’t actually need more time. We need more stillness.” Deep sleep helps us process emotional stress, a much needed tool to refresh our senses.

10 Having empathy: Actress Meryl Streep says, “An actor’s greatest skill is being able to empathise with almost anyone.” A culture of empathy is what will save us, what will keep us humanised and what will help us better understand the person in front of us. An important skill in business is to know what the consumer or business associate wants.

Most people are afraid to pursue their dreams. But anyone can learn to grow the entrepreneurial mindset, build the habits and learn some business hacks to fearlessly create their business or side hustle. It starts with mastery of your thoughts.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com

Connect with Delna Mistry Anand across social media @DelnaAnand

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