Top 10 Ways You Know You’re An Entrepreneur : Startup Spark – Startup Business News and Advice

Are you an entrepreneur?

You might be. Inside you there just might be an entrepreneur waiting to tear out.

Here are the top 10 ways to know if you’re an entrepreneur. (And for those of you that are already entrepreneurs, you can nod your head as we go along…Or disagree with me! Or add your own points!)

1. You’re passionate. Passion counts for a whole lot when it comes to being an entrepreneur. Without it, you’re dead before you even start.
2. You’re always looking for opportunities. Entrepreneurs are opportunity-seekers. Everything is an opportunity. Failures are even an opportunity.
3. You always think to yourself, “I can do that better.” You might know nothing about the retail business, but every time you walk into a big box store you have a thousand ideas on how to make it a better experience. Combined with your eye for opportunity, you can’t help but believe there’s a better way of doing things.
4. You want to live your work. Work isn’t a means to an end. It isn’t a way of collecting a paycheck and going home. You’re dreaming of something more than that, where you can live and breathe work. Not because you want to work more, you want to work smarter. You want your work to mean something. You want to experience something more than shuffling to the office at 8am, leaving at 5pm and forgetting what happened for that day.
5. You’re dreaming miles ahead while focused on what you’re doing right now. You’re a dreamer, but not a daydreamer. You’re dreaming a plan ahead while working constantly at achieving success on the details today. You’re a big-thinker but you don’t lack the ability to focus on details. Accomplish the little tasks is moving the ball forward for you…towards the big dream.
6. You’re an ego-maniac. You look at your boss and shrug. You know things could be better, and you believe strongly in your own abilities. You’ve got a big, healthy ego. It’s not unwarranted, but it’s not proven just yet either. Still, ego is important – because it’ll help you take risks, power forward and succeed.
7. You’re prepared to say, “I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out.” Your ego doesn’t preclude you from admitting that you don’t know something. Too many people fake their way through life, or duck their head when they don’t know the answer. Your response is to jump into it, learn what you can, move quickly and get some damn answers.
8. You’re a strategist. You’re not just thinking about tomorrow. You’re thinking much further ahead than that. This is a trait you share with a lot of people – career ladder-climbers and “cover your ass” employees. The difference is that you’re also a dreamer, and strategy + dreaming is very powerful indeed.
9. You’re a builder. You like to create things. You don’t care about recognition, praise from your boss, awards and money as much as you care about building something remarkable, and having others enjoy it and benefit from it.
10. You want control. You watch the world spin, shake and bumble around you and want to harness that more. You watch your boss and co-workers shuffle around each and every day and you want to rattle some chains. You want control. Seth Godin calls them torchbearers. You want to bear the torch.

So, are you an entrepreneur?

So are you? I always knew that I was an entrepreneur but I identified why after reading #5. I’m always dreaming up ideas that I’d like to implement in my business, ways to make it better and an all around better business. Let me know if any of these 10 describe you.

Waiting to hear from you.

“The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake – you can’t learn anything from being perfect.” – Adam Osborn

Are you one of the countless people who needs everything to be ‘Just Right’ before you can get started on something? I know I sure used to be. My problem wasn’t lack of motivation or ability. My biggest issue was paralysis by analysis.

When starting Circle One my blog design had to be perfect, my widgets in place, all the cool new plugins activated, my theme had to be SEO (don’t know why considering I never got around to actually writing but that’s for another post) and I had to know all the latest tricks to drive traffic. I needed all this to be ‘just right’ before I even thought of my content.

To be honest I wasn’t even sure who my audience was.

All that didn’t matter because everything would be top notch when I finally “went live”, right?  Hell-to-the-naww!

What I didn’t realize is that all the mistakes that I called myself avoiding by going OCD with my research and development would actually be the biggest mistake that I could be making. Why have a nice fancy design, SEO pages, all the coolest technology if I wasn’t going to have any readers to  share with?

See, when I got down to the heart of it I realized that it wasn’t just me wanting to get everything right – I did not want do anything WRONG.

I was afraid of the mistakes that come with learning. It’s an everyday part of life but I did not see it that way, but I learned from the one mistake I did make. I learned that the fastest way for me to become successful was to fail fast and fail often.

Again I say… Fail Fast and Often.

What you gain from your failures is two-fold – you get the momentum going and you learn how not to fail again. This is a learning curve that you can’t beat without essentially ‘setting yourself up for failure’.

No one is perfect. Even those that make the extraordinary seem lik

e second nature understand the multiple failures involved with becoming great. You have to be willing to get going and potentially be wrong in order to recognize what right looks like.

Until tomorrow people. What’s your thoughts?

When I decided to start Circle One Communications, LLC in January 2008 I knew I was taking on a major risk. I also knew that most people wouldn’t understand. Steve along with other successful online marketers seemed to be the only people who understood my downright disdain for being a sheep in a work force that taxed the employee for the benefit of corporate profits. I can relate to the employee mentality for maintaining stability but at the same time…

Not going for what you know is suicide to the soul.

I’m an entrepreneur.

My soul says so and I listened. It’s kicked my ass but I must keep going and here are a few reasons why you should too. Trust me, the rewards come with pushing forward no matter what.

[This post has been edited in respect of Steve Pavlina's copyrights. To read the entire article use the link at the bottom of this post. For now enjoy my top 5 favorite Reasons You Should Never Get a Job. Thanks Steve. You're truly one of my mentors.]

10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job

1. Income for dummies.

“Getting a job and trading your time for money may seem like a good idea. There’s only one problem with it. It’s stupid! It’s the stupidest way you can possibly generate income! This is truly income for dummies.

Why is getting a job so dumb? Because you only get paid when you’re working. Don’t you see a problem with that, or have you been so thoroughly brainwashed into thinking it’s reasonable and intelligent to only earn income when you’re working? Have you never considered that it might be better to be paid even when you’re not working? Who taught you that you could only earn income while working? Some other brainwashed employee perhaps?

Don’t you think your life would be much easier if you got paid while you were eating, sleeping, and playing with the kids too? Why not get paid 24/7? Get paid whether you work or not. Don’t your plants grow even when you aren’t tending to them? Why not your bank account?

Who cares how many hours you work? Only a handful of people on this entire planet care how much time you spend at the office. Most of us won’t even notice whether you work 6 hours a week or 60. But if you have something of value to provide that matters to us, a number of us will be happy to pull out our wallets and pay you for it. We don’t care about your time — we only care enough to pay for the value we receive. Do you really care how long it took me to write this article? Would you pay me twice as much if it took me 6 hours vs. only 3?

Non-dummies often start out on the traditional income for dummies path. So don’t feel bad if you’re just now realizing you’ve been suckered. Non-dummies eventually realize that trading time for money is indeed extremely dumb and that there must be a better way. And of course there is a better way. The key is to de-couple your value from your time.

Smart people build systems that generate income 24/7, especially passive income. This can include starting a business, building a web site, becoming an investor, or generating royalty income from creative work. The system delivers the ongoing value to people and generates income from it, and once it’s in motion, it runs continuously whether you tend to it or not. From that moment on, the bulk of your time can be invested in increasing your income (by refining your system or spawning new ones) instead of merely maintaining your income…”

This is just so blatantly true. If people put the same initial time & effort into building 24/7 income streams that they do slaving away at a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke), most would certainly earn multiple times their employee earnings in very little time. This can be accomplished online in no time.

3. Lifelong domestication.

“Getting a job is like enrolling in a human domestication program. You learn how to be a good pet.

Look around you. Really look. What do you see? Are these the surroundings of a free human being? Or are you living in a cage for unconscious animals? Have you fallen in love with the color beige?

How’s your obedience training coming along? Does your master reward your good behavior? Do you get disciplined if you fail to obey your master’s commands?

Is there any spark of free will left inside you? Or has your conditioning made you a pet for life?

Humans are not meant to be raised in cages. You poor thing…”

Simply put, earning income as an entrepreneur allows you to break out the cage and stop running in circles so that you can pursue your true life purpose.

5. Way too risky.

“Many employees believe getting a job is the safest and most secure way to support themselves.

Morons.

Social conditioning is amazing. It’s so good it can even make people believe the exact opposite of the truth.

Does putting yourself in a position where someone else can turn off all your income just by saying two words (”You’re fired”) sound like a safe and secure situation to you? Does having only one income stream honestly sound more secure than having 10?

The idea that a job is the most secure way to generate income is just silly. You can’t have security if you don’t have control, and employees have the least control of anyone. If you’re an employee, then your real job title should be professional gambler.”

Face it, we live in 2008. You’re insane to believe that JOB SECURITY still exists. If you do then you’re definitely not paying attention and could probably use a week off to see how people who have freed themselves live.

9. Loss of freedom.

“It takes a lot of effort to tame a human being into an employee. The first thing you have to do is break the human’s independent will. A good way to do this is to give them a weighty policy manual filled with nonsensical rules and regulations. This leads the new employee to become more obedient, fearing that s/he could be disciplined at any minute for something incomprehensible. Thus, the employee will likely conclude it’s safest to simply obey the master’s commands without question. Stir in some office politics for good measure, and we’ve got a freshly minted mind slave.

As part of their obedience training, employees must be taught how to dress, talk, move, and so on. We can’t very well have employees thinking for themselves, now can we? That would ruin everything.

God forbid you should put a plant on your desk when it’s against the company policy. Oh no, it’s the end of the world! Cindy has a plant on her desk! Summon the enforcers! Send Cindy back for another round of sterility training!

Free human beings think such rules and regulations are silly of course. The only policy they need is: “Be smart. Be nice. Do what you love. Have fun.””

Enough said!

10. Becoming a coward.

“Have you noticed that employed people have an almost endless capacity to whine about problems at their companies? But they don’t really want solutions – they just want to vent and make excuses why it’s all someone else’s fault. It’s as if getting a job somehow drains all the free will out of people and turns them into spineless cowards. If you can’t call your boss a jerk now and then without fear of getting fired, you’re no longer free. You’ve become your master’s property.

When you work around cowards all day long, don’t you think it’s going to rub off on you? Of course it will. It’s only a matter of time before you sacrifice the noblest parts of your humanity on the altar of fear: first courage… then honesty… then honor and integrity… and finally your independent will. You sold your humanity for nothing but an illusion. And now your greatest fear is discovering the truth of what you’ve become.

I don’t care how badly you’ve been beaten down. It is never too late to regain your courage. Never!”

This is my personal favorite. Wouldn’t you like to break free from being a “Wage-Slave” and unlock that unlimited potential we’re all born with? To do that is not only liberating, exciting, and insanely rewarding, but also opens up countless possibilities. What’s more important than that?

All I can say is… Thanks Steve!

To Discover All 10 Reasons Read Steve Pavlina’s: 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job at www.StevePavlina.com

If you’re ready to start building your online empire and want to never have a job again check out my blog post reviewing The Rich Jerk “Making Money Online” Program.

To get what you “deserve” implies that you should get something before giving. That you are “owed” something in life, or worse – you can steal the results.

Life DOES NOT work that way and to think so only gets in your way.

In order to get anything in life that you want you MUST deserve it. To deserve it means that you did what was required to make your desires a reality.

This all takes place in the realm of self worth – the realm where it’s all about how much YOU are worth to YOU.

In this post I’ll be sharing with you 7 ways to immediately improve your self worth and show you how these  improvements will bring about:

• more happiness
• an increase in wealth
• improved health
• draw people closer to you

1. A Clearly Written out Goal in Mind.

One of the first things that you need to do in order to improve your self worth is to know exactly what it is that you want out of life. Be specific and unforgiving.

Write down the things like:

• what you want to own
• places you’d like to travel to
• the legacy you’d like to leave for your kids
• the house you’d like to live in
• the car you’d like to drive
• … I could go on forever

You could take this a step further and cut out pictures and make a scrap-book specifically for your goals/dreams.

Once you have a clear picture of what you want out of life you tend to take ownership over those things in your heart and the universe tends to align the opportunities in front of you. Use this to your advantage by spending a little time each day envisioning yourself with all that you desire. See yourself driving that new car or stepping into that new home with you family. Make it seem perfectly real in your mind and take note of what events happen to bring you to that point.

2. Use Metrics to Measure Your Performance

Again, this goes back to number 1. Some of us may have goals but how do we determine whether or not what we are doing is bringing us any closer to those goals?

To do this we must implement some sort of metric by which we can measure our progress.

For example… If I want a $60,000 BMW simply knowing I want one won’t put me in the drivers seat unless I already have the cash laying around. If not, I need to figure out how to get from point A of not having my dream car to point B of laying the money on the table. In this situation I can easily take a look at how much money I’d need to have saved on the monthly basis and for how long. The point is I need to know where I want to go and how much further away I am from getting there.

Without a realistic blueprint as to how you’ll arrive at goal you will never feel that you truly are worthy of getting there.

“Whether you think you can or you can not, you’re right” – Henry Ford

3. Live Like There Is No Tomorrow

Procrastination kills more dreams than action EVER will. Think about how many times you’ve thought of a great idea, yet failed to act on it. Remember… we never look at an action that we DIDN’T take and recall THAT as the turning point of our lives.

4. Believe in Becoming The Best You

Society has a funny way of making us believe that learning is the process of going from pre-school to graduating from some college or university. I disagree.

Learning is the life-long personal development task that God has set before us. Unfortunately we like to see things in an academic sense.

This means some people work hard for an online MBA and others work hard in other academic endeavors, thinking that is enough once they are finished.

Becoming the best you is something best done from an anthropological stand-point. You must be aware as to how people see you and take notes so that you can find creative ways to improve yourself. Whether physically, mentally or socially. Greatness is your highest pursuit.

There should never come a time where you feel as though you are “Good Enough”. The Best never think that way.

5. Believe in Your Heart that You ARE Meant for Good Things

Believe it or not… most people don’t truly BELIEVE that we are deserving of greatness. We take life as it is and allow ourselves to become the victims of lives as the have-nots. Well this is complete non-sense.

Every person on this planet has been given the same access to the universe’s infinite potential as everyone else. The difference is that those that are 100% confident that they are destined for greatness know the secret of manifesting their dreams into reality through the law of attraction.

It all starts with believing.

6. Simplify Your Life

This should probably be up at the top of this list, but anyway… SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE.

Yes. Success comes to those who give 100% of themselves to realizing their dreams, but that does not mean that things have to be overly complicated.

We like to think that anything worthwhile must be complicated and have a lot of moving parts with all the bells and whistles. We also like to take simple things for granted by giving less importance to them.

Cut it out… I guarantee that if you break any task down to it’s simplest state that you will find getting whatever you need to get done a lot easier and satisfying.

“If there’s an easy way out then take it” – An Entrepreneur’s Advice

I want you to spend a little time everyday thinking about what you can do to make life simpler. Do this in as many areas of your life as possible.

What you will find is that you will have much more time to focus on what’s really important to you and spend less time doing things “for the sake of”.

7. Get Help!

This is by FAR the biggest mistake of all. Not getting help. Just as men loathe getting directions when we’re lost, most people will never ask someone to help them.

Our egos prevent it… like asking for help makes us look weak or helpless.

This is the mistake that keeps most Entrepreneurs from EVER having the kind of success that we truly want out of life.

In knowing your self worth you know that it is more important for you to get help to become better than to do it all on your own.

By reaching out for help you gain a multitude of new opportunities that would of otherwise been unavailable to you like:

• new networking opportunities
• you gain resources that you can come back to time and time again
• you learn new techniques you may have not thought of
• you earn immediate access to the experience of your help
• save a ton of time on research

Why go it alone when you can benefit from the years of hard work performed by those before you. No need to reinvent the wheel. If there’s something you need help with then get help (period)

I’m sure that there are many more ways to increase your self worth and I’d love to hear from your guys if you come up with any that I haven’t posted.

By following these 7 ways to increase self worth you’ll find that you enjoy much higher confidence, you’ll grow in stature and popularity, your social circle will grow and you will become the person that you were destined to become.

Still, many of you may want to check out information about an online MBA.

This morning my cousin tagged me in a FaceBook note. Although I’m already pretty familiar with the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, I wasn’t made of aware of his code of ethics until today. With that I think it’s a great piece of work that I’d also like to share with you – my readers.

NAPOLEON HILL’S CODE OF ETHICS

I. I believe in the Golden Rule as the basis of all human conduct; therefore, I will never do to another person that which I would not be willing for that person to do to me if our positions were reversed.

II. I will be honest, even to the slightest detail, in all my transactions with others, not only because of my desire to be fair with them, but because of my desire to impress the idea of honesty on my own subconscious mind, thereby weaving this essential quality into my own
character.

III. I will forgive those who are unjust toward me, with no thought as to whether they deserve it or not, because I understand the law through
which forgiveness of others strengthens my own character and wipes out the effects of my own transgressions in my subconscious mind.

IV. I will be just, generous, and fair with others always-even though I know that these acts will go unnoticed and unrewarded in the ordinary
terms of reward-because I understand that one’s own character is but the sum total of his own acts and deeds.

V. Whatever time I may have to devote to the discovery and exposure of the weaknesses and faults of others I will devote, more profitably, to
the discovery and correction of my own.

VI. I will slander no person-no matter how much I may believe another person may deserve it because I wish to plant no destructive
suggestions in my own mind.

VII. I recognize the power of thought as being an inlet leading into my brain from the universal ocean of life; therefore, I will set no destructive thoughts afloat upon that ocean lest they pollute the minds of others.

VIII. I will conquer the common human tendency toward hatred, envy, selfishness, jealousy, malice, pessimism, doubt, and fear-for I believe
these to be the seeds from which the world harvests most of its trouble.

IX. When my mind is not occupied with thoughts that tend toward the attainment of my definite goal in life, I will voluntarily keep it filled with thoughts of courage, self-confidence, goodwill toward others, faith, kindness, loyalty, love for truth, and justice-for I believe these to be the seeds from which the world reaps its harvest of progressive growth.

X. Because I know that my character is developed from my own acts and thoughts, I will guard with care all that goes into its development.

XI. Because I realize that enduring happiness comes only through helping others find it, and that no act of kindness is without its reward, even though it may never be directly repaid, I will do my best to assist others when and where the opportunity appears.

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Is Your Jar Full?

When things in your life seem almost to much to handle, when 24 hours in a
day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar……and the beer.

A Professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front
of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and
empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then
asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the Professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the
jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas
between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was
full. They agreed it was.

The Professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of
course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar
was full. The students responded with an unanimous “Yes.”

The Professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and
poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty
space between the sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the Professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to
recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things – your family, your children, your
health, your friends, your favorite passions – things that if everything
else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house,
your car. The sand is everything else – the small stuff.”

“If you put the sand into the jar first”, he continued, “there is no room
for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all
your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the
things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are
critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get
medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There
will always be time to clean the house, and fix the disposal. Take care of
the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities.
The rest is just sand.”

When he had finished, there was a profound silence. Then one of the
students raised her hand and with a puzzled expression, inquired what the
beer represented.

The Professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no
matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of
beers.”

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Welcome to my space in the blogosphere. CircleOneConnect.com is place for me to share my journey to success with entrepreneurs, bloggers, and whomever else cares. Along the way you’ll be getting insight in my Life, Technology, Culture, and Community.