Thursday, June 19, 2008

What is the Key Trait for Financial Success as an Entrepreneur?


Knowing yourself is the key to success in every aspect of life, but it’s not easy. One reason is that your personality traits, your habitual ways of perceiving and acting, don’t allow you to see how you could do things differently and more successfully. People often choose occupations that don’t work well with their traits. For example, if you need to pace yourself to do your best work and don’t thrive in a crisis, you will find more success in being a dispatcher than in being a firefighter.

For entrepreneurs, the key trait is Internal Direction. If you’re high on Internal Direction, you have an easy time making decisions and make them quickly. You have a strong sense of what your goal is and how to get there. With other appropriate traits, you can be a leader others come to for advice. In fact, being a business owner is best for you, because you can be the one making decisions and don’t need to compromise with others about what to do. This trait is described in depth in the book about the Piani Trait System, Trait Secrets. (You can also learn more about this and other traits on the Piani and Company website or the Trait Secrets website.)

Of course, every trait has a downside, and for this one, it’s that you can be perceived as stubborn, headstrong, or not a team player, but in your own business that is not a problem.

But what if you aren’t high on Internal Direction? You can either be high on its opposite, External Direction, or somewhere in between the two. If you are high on External Direction, it can be hard for you to make decisions. You waste important time vacillating or researching forever. But every trait has an upside, too! You’re a great team player and negotiate easily. Or you may be in the middle, sometimes having an easy time with setting goals and making decisions, sometimes having difficulty.

Can you still be successful as an entrepreneur without Internal Direction? Yes, if you can find at least one, but preferably both of the two key elements you need. The first is a good team leader or mentor who can help you with decisions. You need someone who is high on Internal Direction, so that s/he won’t waste time trying to help you find your way yourself. For this solution to work, you have to be willing to admit you need help and to ask for it. That relates to another trait, the Autonomy trait, which you can read about in another article or in Trait Secrets.

The second element, finding a ready-made system, works well if you are moderate to high on the Structure trait, which means that you are comfortable with systems. People who are high on this trait tend to form habits easily, have a hard time with change, and are disciplined when they have a system to follow (and if they don’t have one, if they can, they’ll create one!) With this trait, once you learn a system, the system pretty much makes decisions for you. The good news is, many network marketing companies have systems all set up for you. You can jump right in and you won’t need to make decisions, just follow the well laid path. However, you'll want to check out the system to make sure it is one you'll be comfortable with.

What if you are high on External Direction and low on Structure? People low on Structure like flexibility and have a hard time following plans. You won't be able to decide on where to go or how to get there, and even if you get help with direction, if you don't follow the system, you are in for a much harder road. It gets more complicated here, but having people with the right traits to work with always helps.

The key to financial success and successful career change is knowing who you are and what you need to be successful. Whether you are high on Internal Direction or External Direction, once you know yourself you can decide to place yourself in the right situation for success.
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Eugene Rivera is an internet marketing protégé. He is the webmaster of Secrets of Online Success. Learn about all the money making techniques to achieve success on the Internet. Click on our webpage at http://www.secretsofonlinesuccess.info
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