Yesterday, Thursday Bram, a freelance journalist, posted 5 Key Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur. But I can tell you that only on of them is really crucial.

Just to give you a heads up, let me tell you what Bram’s five are:

1. Discipline: … To build an idea into a business, you have to have the discipline to spend time slogging through the least fun parts of running a business (like the bookkeeping), rather than taking that time to do something fun.
2. Calm: ..A good entrepreneur must have the ability to keep his cool in an emergency or crisis. It may not make the problem easier to solve, but it certainly won’t make it harder. If an entrepreneur can handle failure without frustration or anger, he can move past it to find success.
3. Attention to Detail: Restricting your attention to the big picture can be even more problematic than ’sweating the small stuff.’ It’s attention to detail that can make a small business successful when it has competition and it’s attention to detail that can keep costs down.
4. Risk Tolerance: No entrepreneur has a sure thing, no matter how much money he stands to earn on a given product.  An entrepreneur has to be willing to accept pretty big risks, with some level of comfort.
5. Balance:  Just as an entrepreneur doesn’t have a boss to keep him at work when necessary, he doesn’t have one to send him home when he’s done. If you are working for yourself, you have to decide how to balance your work and home life — and if you have a day job to add into the equation, balance just gets more complicated.

I would not quarrel with author Bram that these characteristics are all good to have, in one degree or another.  But in my personal experience…and I have a lot of it…. all of these are not necessarily the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur.

First, let me define “successful entrepreneur.”  I think of a successful entrepreneur as one who develops a successful business.  And what I’ve seen…. or experienced…is this:

Entrepreneurs don’t have so much discipline as drive. They are so determined to do this they will plow through a brick wall or over, under or around it, until they find a way past it.

Entrepreneurs may or may not be the calmest people. Often not.  Because entrepreneurs are fixated on their goal and deeply invested in it, emotionally as well as monetarily, they may well have a tantrum or two when things go wrong, but will not skip a beat before plowing forward anyway.

Detail?  Not so much. To the extent that one particular thing generates or costs money, entrepreneurs can be the most focused people in the world. There are some who are in lines of work where mastery of detail is an absolute requirement, and they are temperamentally attuned to it. But for many entrepreneurs, and as far as what most people consider detail, entrepreneurs generally don’t care if the waste basket is on fire, if it doesn’t affect their bottom line. Someone else can fetch the water pail.

Balance?  Never met an entrepreneur with a lot of balance. Most are workaholics or restrained/recovering workaholics. Some may be more balanced now, probably after a relationship or two has headed South. They work with themselves constantly to try not to let their newest venture overtake their entire life. But their latest venture is always somewhat of an obsession so it’s a challenging juggling act.

Risk.  This is the key.   Study after study has shown that entrepreneurs come in all different shapes and sizes with all different types of characteristics.  Some plan in exquisite detail; others fly by the seat of their pants. Some are disciplined; others are wildly undisciplined ( although they may have teamed up with a disciplined partner who will compensate for that.)   But the one characteristic that all successful entrepreneurs have is the willingness to take risks. We all agree, as Bram says:”Even if a product tests well, the market can change, the warehouse can burn down and a whole slew of other misfortune can befall a small business. It’s absolutely risky to run a business of your own.”

Well, yes, we know that.  But a true entrepreneur develops an ability to focus like an Indian fire walker.  It is not so much calm in the face of crisis, as the ability to focus on eventual success and therefore on the next step and how to get through the immediate firestorm.  An entrepreneur plays the odds, like a poker player.  He or she knows that if she has a good concept, does a few things, but the right things well, she will likely win in the end.  With that inner confidence, the entrepreneur holds the possibility of failure at bay, views crises as minor bumps in the road and puts in all her chips, betting on the final outcome.

It’s that ability to take risks that is the hallmark of an entrepreneur,

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