Every entrepreneur’s journey starts with a dream, an idea they are passionate about, perhaps an intuition or missed opportunity from their past they feel can be a business success.
In most instances, what prevents that dream from becoming a reality is the incumbent risk—perhaps leaving a good paying salary job, lack of money to start or sustain a new venture in its beginning stages or understanding of where and how to market their service or product.
So outside of what the academic research and journalists shared, what are the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs?
One of those critical characteristics, I have come to believe in my experience, is the characteristic of dreaming.
Every once in a while, I come across a different kind of entrepreneur. I joyously meet and interview someone who dreams bigger than their background, education and experience suggests they can, a person I would call an entrepreneurial dreamer.
They wonderfully never stop dreaming, regardless of the circumstances or obstacles before them.
Not that such people don’t get discouraged, but when the immediate dream dissolves, another one is sure to pop up.
So are you an entrepreneurial dreamer? Are you the kind of successful entrepreneur who seems to have an almost innate ability to dream bigger than your experience, history or current environment allows? Do you have the desire, passion and power to keep on going even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds?
Answering some of these questions I outline below might help give you some insight into your own entrepreneurial aspirations.
Have you identified what your entrepreneurial dreams are by writing them down? Are you currently living out your dreams?
For example, maybe planning or getting ready to launch your dream venture is before you where you can enjoy items like determining your personal schedule or how much time you work this month on such a venture and see the first dollars of that dream come into your hands.
What is keeping you from dreaming bigger than you do now? Have you had a recent setback or too many things are stacking up and taking up your precious time?
The conclusion I have arrived at from the abundance of commentary about entrepreneurial dreamers is that most successful entrepreneurs put their dreams through a process that will or won’t lead it to becoming a reality.
Dare to Dream: Yes, everyone dreams but the successful entrepreneur never ceases to be deterred, just keeps on pushing forward.
Define Your Dream: You must talk about it, think about it, plan for it and eventually define its components.
Death of Your Dream: When something happens to crush that entreprenuerial dream, the knowledge of what went wrong is applied quickly to the next dream to come.
Develop Your Dream: Realizing your dream requires taking positive action steps to make it a reality.
Direct Your Dream: A most important step in this process, effectively channeling of your energy and resources so that the greatest outcome of your entrepreneurial dream is achieved. Don’t be hesitant to revise, revise and revise if warranted in its implementation in order to fulfill your desire for its achievement.
Stephen Leacock, humorist and economist, offers us this quote: “It may be that those who do most, dream most.”
I leave you with this parting thought —let this beautiful Christmas season find you embracing the entrepreneurial spirit through an abundance of entrepreneurial dreams.
