Embracing an Entrepreneurial Spirit Impacts Your Career

An entrepreneurial spirit is the one thing all successful entrepreneurs and leaders share. 

Keep reading to learn what it means to have an entrepreneurial spirit. You'll learn how to foster it in you to ensure your own business venture thrives.

What Does Having an Entrepreneurial Spirit Actually Mean?

An entrepreneurial mindset is the inner drive to pursue success and overcome obstacles.

You want to make an impactful change in a specific industry and want to do it by launching a start-up.

You don't see yourself as a conformist; you're a thought leader and want to shake the world with your innovations by challenging the status quo.

You believe in the future of your business and the industry as a whole.

Want to see a modern example?

Look no further than Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, the two genius entrepreneurs behind Uber.

Taxi cabs had been around for decades at that point. The duo flipped the idea on its head in 2008 with the launch of their ride-hailing service.

Although it initially started as a more expensive, black car limousine alternative, it quickly evolved into the freelance haven we all know and love today.

They shook the world of taxi services. Taxi companies were forced to adopt lower prices and easy on-demand rides through an app.

What Type of Person Has an Entrepreneurial Spirit?

Did you know you can have an entrepreneurial spirit without actually being a business owner or CEO of a large company? 

An entrepreneurial spirit leads people to pursue leadership positions — business leaders, managers, or a worker with a proactive approach may have it lurking in them.

You may know from personal experience that these types of individuals tend to branch off and launch something of their own.

And despite what the internet might lead you to believe, entrepreneurs aren't always young college dropouts with a knack for technology and business.

The average entrepreneur is 42–45 years old at the time of founding.

If you're young and ambitious but currently work for someone else, that doesn't mean that you don't possess an entrepreneurial spirit.

You have to gather enough knowledge and technical skills.

You need to build a strong network of clients and take some calculated risks first if you want to hit the ground running.

All pieces of the puzzle have to fit just right for a successful company launch.

Common Traits Among Entrepreneurs

Successful entrepreneurs and business leaders with an entrepreneurial spirit all share a few common traits.

Think you're one of them?

• Intrinsically motivated: You feel an inner drive to constantly seek new challenges.
• Hard-working: 25% of entrepreneurs work 60-hour weeks. Some work even harder by taking fewer breaks.
• Risk-taker: Making it big in the business world requires you to take calculated risks when it comes to reinvesting in your entrepreneurial ventures.
• Decisive: You can make well-informed decisions under pressure.
• Resourceful: You make do with what you have and innovate when you need to solve a problem.
• Flexible: You understand that adjusting to changing circumstances is critical, so you adapt quickly and seamlessly, regardless of how challenging or expensive it might be.
• Resilient: Doing business comes with many ups and downs, and you can resist the bad times and don't easily lose your motivation.
• Confident: You believe in a better, brighter future for your company and will do anything it takes to get there.

9 Tips to Develop Your Entrepreneurial Spirit

If you want to build your entrepreneurial skills, here's a list of tips to help you achieve that:

1. Be Organized

The #1 challenge for new entrepreneurs is staying organized.

Businesses tend to have many moving parts, departments, and projects that the owner has to keep track of.

That alone should be enough to motivate you to work on your organizational skills.

An organized entrepreneur can get more work done faster.

Not only will this improve your productivity and efficiency, but it'll also give you more free time to spend on your own life outside of work.

According to Forbes, you can achieve excellent organization by doing the following four things:

• Review your goals every single day.
• Do similar tasks in batches.
• Do a few select priority tasks for the day.
• Delegate as much work as you can.

If you're not a business owner, you probably can't delegate mundane tasks yet, but the other three tips apply to everyone. 

Regularly reviewing your life and career goals gives you the daily shot of motivation you need to get work done.

Batching tasks directly leads to faster results, as you can remain focused on a particular type of task within a time frame.

Organizing your tasks based on priority and completing them in that order ensures you get everything done on time.

Once you shift to a leadership role or start a business, these habits will carry over, and you'll be all set for success.

2. Take the Lead

Individuals with an entrepreneurial spirit tend to be in leading positions in companies, and you should strive to do the same.

But your motivation must come from your hunger to do better and help your team achieve greatness, not the extra income that's associated with a higher role.

You don't even have to be the business leader or team manager to show strong leadership skills.

You can initiate new ideas for projects and ask to lead them. The success your project sees is a direct reflection of your success and an excellent first step to becoming an entrepreneur.

3. Learn Continually

A significant component of the growth mindset of a successful entrepreneur is the drive to become better at what you do.

And while you can pick things up as you go, everybody else is doing that already, and it isn't really in the entrepreneurial spirit.

If you really want to grow, you have to learn continually from authorities in your field.

This sort of self-improvement can open new career paths that you would have otherwise missed.

For instance, let's say you enroll in a course about using ChatGPT to write computer code.

You might figure out a way to monetize this knowledge by selling cheap and fast coding solutions to businesses that otherwise wouldn't need the services of a web developer.

4. Build Patience and Resilience

Few business ideas see overnight success. Most long-standing businesses were built with a lot of hard work and patience.

This includes contending with unpleasant circumstances and learning from mistakes as you go.

The point is that you have to remain confident and believe in your innovative ideas if you wish to see lasting success. Also, be patient when working with demanding clients or suppliers who have very specific ideas about how they want the work done.

Some of the best ways to foster patience and resilience in yourself include:

• Set SMART goals.
• Celebrate achievements.
• Don't get overwhelmed by other people's success.
• Frequently remind yourself of how you started.
• Keep your end goal in sight.

And keep in mind that a business can take several years until it reaches a satisfying level of success and there’s nothing wrong with that.

5. Always Have a Plan

Every entrepreneur needs a general business plan backed by several project plans.

A clear business plan defines the core of your business concept and provides a roadmap for development.

You don't have to turn your business idea into an elaborate plan right away, though. 

To build a strong entrepreneurial spirit, try incorporating more planning into your day-to-day life.

You'll find that a plan makes it easier to organize and delegate tasks. It also helps you make crucial decisions.

6. Work on Your Flexibility

You likely think that this point contradicts the previous one, but the two actually work in harmony.

While having a plan matters, it should be a tool to help you stay focused, not a hindrance that stunts growth and development. 

You should embrace change and adapt quickly to keep your business afloat.

We've all learned the importance of thinking on your feet over the past few years. Still, it's important to emphasize it.

A great way you can utilize flexibility is to work on smaller, more experimental projects.

You'll quickly realize that trying to do something new is more challenging than keeping the status quo.

Nonetheless, it's vital to practice this skill, and you'll be able to shift seamlessly when the time comes.

7. Stay Passionate

One of the most fantastic sights in the world is that of a businessman passionate about their job or company.

We've all been passionate about our jobs at one point or another, but the secret sauce of successful entrepreneurs is to keep that fire burning.

Passion for your company's vision lasts longer than the motivation to achieve money, fame, or success. It'll give you the continuous motivation to create new and innovative ideas. 

Remember, Steve Jobs unveiled the ground-breaking iPhone in 2007 at the age of 51, at which point he'd been at Apple for 30 years. That speaks volumes of his entrepreneurial spirit and enthusiasm for technology.

8. Embrace Failure

Part of the entrepreneurial mindset entails facing frequent failure. Failure must not dissuade you from trying again; instead, it's just a symptom of trying something new. 

True entrepreneurs don't fear failure because they understand it's the perfect opportunity to learn from your mistakes and try again.

Mark Zuckerberg's internal Facebook motto, "Move fast and break things," motivated employees to work hard and not fear failure, as it's a natural part of the process.

9. Start an Independent Project

Ready for a new undertaking to challenge your entrepreneurial spirit? Try starting something fresh.

It could be something significant or a smaller project, such as a website.

Either way, a solo project gives you an opportunity to acquire new skills.

If you have the resources, consider delegating some of the work to a freelancer, and you can then practice your leadership skills while working with them.

If you don't wish to spearhead an independent project, join someone else instead.

Ask around your workplace or check if any of your friends are working on something new.

The key is that you ask for impactful tasks that will build up your entrepreneurial spirit.

Wrapping Up

Want to be an entrepreneur and turn your dreams into reality? Build your entrepreneurial spirit.

Try taking the lead once in a while, start a project, and strive for self-improvement.

With enough practice, these actions will turn into second nature, and you'll start doing them instinctively.

Do you have an entrepreneurial spirit? Let us know in the comments below, and don't forget to share this article with colleagues interested in starting a small business.