Are you Risky Enough to be an Entrepreneur?

How do I know what risks to take? One, I go with my gut intuition, it’s treated me well, it’s my natural talent.  It’s like, “how do you know how to sing well, or shoot a basketball?” It comes to me. I do feel it. I sense it in my bones. I think about it. I articulate it.  I don’t go through any kind of numbers practice; it’s very in me.  Number two, the DNA of an entrepreneur is, “I’m not crippled by being wrong,” and that might be more valuable than anything else. I’m just not scared of defeat. Secretly, I care to lose at times because it keeps me sharp, motivated and interested.

It’s funny, if I go very personal, to me my definition is one word, “oxygen.” You know, it’s the way I breathe. To me it’s someone who is on the offence versus the defense.  I think the oxford dictionary definition refers to not being risk adverse, and I think that is right. There are a lot of “fake” entrepreneurs right now who are okay with loosing somebody else’s money, because they raised it. They’re okay with moving on their merry way if it doesn’t workout. To me, a true entrepreneur is truly taking a risk. Not just time, but financial dollars and trying to achieve something better for them. But for me it’s not about the money. Money is obviously a tremendous bi-product. I don’t run away from the money. It’s not a cliché, it’s not about the money. To me it’s just the climb. To define an entrepreneur, if I drew a picture of an entrepreneur instead of through words, I would draw somebody climbing a mountain. To me it’s the process of trying to build something tangible that’s bigger than you in the realm of business.