Ten Characteristics of Entrepreneurs

Why Are Entrepreneurs Different?

Due to the global financial meltdown and corporate downsizing, the concept of entrepreneurship has steadily captured the attention of the general public. Statistics Canada reports that self-employment increased by 4.3 per cent between October 2008 and October 2009. However, the interesting part is the rise in entrepreneurship was not the main cause of people losing jobs due to economic downturn, as the characteristics of those who lost jobs did not resemble the characteristics of those that became entrepreneurs.

There are various factors leading people to become entrepreneurs. However, there are some characteristics entrepreneurs have in common. I contemplate these “special” characteristics all the time; today, I decided to mention some of them I can think of off the top of my head.

Entrepreneurs Go Against The Norms of Society – We are programmed by our society from a young age to go to school, get a job, make someone else (most likely a corporation) rich, and one day retire or die while making that person or entity rich. Entrepreneurs break these traditional societal norms and the vicious cycle of making someone else rich by exiting the traditional comfort zone and trying something beyond the ordinary.

Integrity – Integrity leads the way to becoming courageous and taking necessary risks to becoming successful in a business. Entrepreneurs earn credibility by sticking to their principles and values, thus attracting more business (because people always want to do with business with someone they can trust and feel comfortable dealing with) in their respective fields.

Determination, Dedication, and Hard Work - Determination, dedication, and hard work lead to the bridge to success. The majority of non-entrepreneurs are lacking the combination of these three virtues. Drop any one from these three, and the other two will be meaningless.

A Receptive Mind – Entrepreneurs are always learning new things and they are always on the lookout for new knowledge.

Time Is Precious – Our time is very limited on Earth. We all have two options regarding the use of our limited time: we can make someone else rich by working for someone else, or we can use this limited time to work for ourselves, making ourselves rich and spending this limited time our own way. Entrepreneurs pick the latter one.

Life Starts Now - Entrepreneurs do not want to start life at 69 when they need hip replacement surgery. Regular people wait to start life at 69, once they retire. Entrepreneurs have already started their lives and living their life. The time is NOW, there is no need to wait for life to start at 69 (after having hips replaced).

Higher Degree of Frustration, Rejection, and Criticism Tolerance – Entrepreneurs can tolerate frustrations, rejections, and criticisms a lot better than non-entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs gather feedback from these obstacles and put them into productive use.

Discipline and Self-Control – Entrepreneurs have the ability to manage emotions and live a disciplined life.

Tenacity – Entrepreneurs practise enormous persistency and never give up on their dreams.

Optimism – Entrepreneurs always have a positive outlook about everything and about life in general. They always believe in a positive future and lay out a solid roadmap to reach the future.

Do you have these in you? If you want to be an entrepreneur and think you are missing some or all of them, there is no need to worry. We were not born with these characteristics, and they can be learned. If you are determined to be an entrepreneur and have the willingness to change, you will be an entrepreneur one day. When that happens, it will be my pleasure to greet you saying, “Welcome to the club!” I am looking forward to that day.

First Published: EntrepreneurJourney.com May 17, 2010

What You Need To Become A Successful Blogger?

Dot Com Lifestyle

First Published: June 6, 2008 ADawnJournal.com

The post you are about to read is the last in a four-part series. Let me give you the subtitles of these four posts:

1. Do Not Quit Your Job Right After Reading This Article
2. Can Anyone Make A Living Blogging?
3. What Is A Dot Com Lifestyle?
4. What You Need To Become A Successful Blogger?

Part Four is where it gets very interesting. I asked some celebrity bloggers (including Darren Rowse and Steve Pavlina) to answer the following question: What You Need to Become a Successful Blogger? I will be presenting the perspectives these bloggers provided for A Dawn Journal readers. If this is your first time here, you might want to Subscribe to the RSS Feed. Thank you for reading.

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Can Anyone Make A Living Blogging?

Part 4 - What You Need To Become A Successful Blogger?

Warning: Do not quit you job right after reading this article. Do quit once your entrepreneurship starts making more money than your 9 – 5 paycheque .

This section has two parts. In the first, I will describe what I think you need to become a successful Blogger/Internet entrepreneur. In the second, I will describe what celebrity-bloggers/Internet entrepreneurs think you need to become successful.

Part One

I think these are the most important things you need to become a successful person in this line of work (or in any line of work).

A. Passion - Pick something you love to write about. Pick something you can do year after year enthusiastically and passionately. Don’t give yourself another job. This should not feel like a job. It should feel like you are not working at all. But how you can tell you love doing this? Your topic and/or
subject should be your true goal in life. This should be something you can't possibly live without and you would do for free. Yes, that is correct. Imagine there is no money involved here and then ask yourself, "Do I love my subject enough that if there was no monetary reward involved and I would still
do it for free?” If your answer is yes, than you have found your true passion. When I started www.adawn.net, I had no idea that a website can make money. I did not start it for money; in addition, I enjoyed it so much that I launched my 2nd site www.adawnjournal.com. I was not making money at that time and even now, if I were not making money – I would still be working on these sites. You cannot and will not fail if you do something you love and it is your true passion in life.

B. Perseverance - Stick to it like your life depended on it. Success does not come easy. There will always be ups and downs. You may not make money for the 1st year, 2nd year, or even 3rd year, but you will make money one day. Not everyone is John Chow. He monetized his blog in September 2006 and made $352.94. In September 2007, he made $20,512.17. Not everyone can make money that fast but you will make money if you are patient and keep working hard. Think of this as a one-way journey. If you started it, you must end this with success. There is not going back.

C. Believe in Yourself - This is a simple but very powerful strategy. Get rid of self-imposed limitations and start living a life full of confidence. When you are able to truly believe in yourself, you will start achieving your goals.

Part Two

I asked some celebrity bloggers to answer the same above question for A Dawn Journal readers who
might not be that tech-savvy; after all, personal finance blog readers are not expected to be tech-savvy. The perspectives I provided in Part One are somewhat general. The perspectives these high-profile bloggers provided are based on their ocean full of practical knowledge and hands-on experience in their professional work.

Darren Rowse - Darren wrote: “It's just such a big question that I feel I'd be doing a disservice to your readers to try to sum it up in just a few words!” He then added, “Probably the best way for me to answer this is to point to a post I wrote on the topic a few days back which has 12 traits of successful bloggers.” Darren also recommended another post. Here are those two posts Darren recommended for A Dawn Journal readers:

12 Traits of Successful Bloggers http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/05/20/11-traits-of-successful-bloggers/

Blogging Tips for Beginners http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/02/14/blogging-for-beginners-2/

Steve Pavlina – Steve asked A Dawn Journal readers to read the two following posts:

How to Make Money from Your Blog http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/how-to-make-money-from-your-blog/

How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site or blog http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/01/how-to-build-a-high-traffic-web-site-or-blog/

Nick Ramsay – Nick wanted to share the following with A Dawn Journal readers:
“Like most people, I was working a day job and desperately in search of the time freedom that working from home on the internet provides. One of the most important realizations I came to in order to achieve that goal was that you really don't need to make a lot of money at all. If you can cut expenses and sacrifice some of the luxuries you enjoy in your current lifestyle, you might find that working from home is a realistic possibility. Then, of course, you'll have more time to build up your home business and earn back those lifestyle choices you previously gave up.
Blogging is not my specialty, but I have outsourced an entire blog's worth of content before, and that site provides a steady stream of income that is most welcome. It's interesting to compare that particular blog with my own, much bigger yet considerably less profitable, personal blog. The outsourced blog is very much focused on one theme, as opposed to my personal blog, which is a mish-mash of topics. That means that it ranks consistently higher in search engine results for terms related to that topic. Another possible reason for its success is that the articles are, at around 750 words each, content rich and most importantly, useful for the reader.”

Bob Buskirk – Bob had the following message for A Dawn Journal readers:
“I think to become a successful blogger you need to write about what you love, write QUALITY posts, have a good posting schedule, and most importantly connect with your readers.”

. . . If you are still reading, congratulations on making it this far. This post is one of my longest and will hopefully be generating heavy traffic. Making a living blogging is not easy; but it is not difficult either. For the first few years, you have to sacrifice a lot. You have to give up all the little (and some big) indulgences and bury yourself in work. You have to think outside the box. You have to transform yourself from a traditional mindset to a very non-traditional mindset. Doing all of these can be quite a daunting task, but it is not impossible. If you can do it, a very rewarding dot com lifestyle awaits you.

NB: After reading this article, if you are inspired enough to become a successful entrepreneur, please share your story with A Dawn Journal readers. It will be appreciated.

Massive Equifax Data Breach & My 3 Hacked Credit Cards

Equifax Data Breach

In my last post, I talked about my CIBC AC Vonversion Visa Travel credit card that was hacked. Since then, there were 2 other credit cards that were compromised.

One of these two cards had one fraudulent charge and then their fraud detection system shut off the account. The other credit card had about 20 attempted fraudulent charges that were coming from all across the globe, but none of them was successful.

I was puzzled, as there was no connection between these three cards. I never had them together in my wallet or purchased online, one card had only one transaction 4 months ago and the other card had only 2-3 charges at an electronic store and groceries.

The connection became clear to me when Equifax declared that there was a huge data breach that affected 143 million customers. I have plausible reasons to believe that all my affected cards were scammed because of the Equifax breach; the time frame matches and it makes so much sense because that’s the only connection I can see linking these 3 cards together.

Credit card reporting companies like Equifax will never tell you the real story. They won’t tell you up to what level or exactly what sort of information from your files was leaked, or how many credit cards or clients were leaked. They are vague providing any information and I do not trust them with the information they are providing. Also, how can you trust someone who broke your trust in the first place by failing to protect your valuable information?

I have posted a video and in this video, I will discuss all this and will tell you what you should do because of this data breach. The link is here: Massive Equifax Data Breach & What To Do

What Is A Dot Com Lifestyle?

Dot Com Lifestyle

First Published: May 30, 2008 ADawnJournal.com

The post you are about to read is the second in a four-part series. Let me give you the subtitles of these four posts:

1. Do Not Quit Your Job Right After Reading This Article
2. Can Anyone Make A Living Blogging?
3. What Is A Dot Com Lifestyle?
4. What You Need To Become A Successful Blogger?

Part Four is where it gets very interesting. I asked some celebrity bloggers (including Darren Rowse and Steve Pavlina) to answer the following question: What You Need to Become a Successful Blogger? I will be presenting the perspectives these bloggers provided for A Dawn Journal readers. If this is your first time here, you might want to Subscribe to the RSS Feed. Thank you for reading.

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Can Anyone Make A Living Blogging?

Part 3 - What Is A Dot Com Lifestyle?

Warning: Do not quit you job right after reading this article. Do quit once your entrepreneurship starts making more money than your 9 – 5 paycheque .

What Is a Dot Com Lifestyle?

Dot com lifestyle is not about what it sounds like, as you will find out reading the following links. Dot com lifestyle is not about making truck loads of money, driving over-priced cars, eating out everyday at fine restaurants, and visiting a new country every week. While you may be able to achieve some of these I just mentioned, most of the bloggers (or Internet entrepreneurs) have decided to live a simple family-oriented life, just like you and I. However, they have something which we don’t have. They are living on their own terms and they have ridiculously flexible lifestyle choices. What I think of the dot com lifestyle? These are what come to my mind and keep me motivated all the time:

• Work two hours a day and five days a week

• Live in a new country for every six months a year (if you have a family, make it two to four months)

• The whole world is your office (you can work anywhere as long as you have your laptop and internet connection)

• Live on your own terms

• Have ridiculously flexible lifestyle choices

Now, let’s look at the dot com lifestyle of some actual people who are already living it:

John Chow – A Canadian Blogger residing in Richmond, BC

The Dot Com Lifestyle

Nick Ramsay – Lives in Japan with his wife and one child. Her Japanese wife picked up one English phrase very quickly: “I am not your maid!”

My Dot Com Lifestyle in Japan

Bob Buskirk – A 21 year old Internet entrepreneur living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And yes, there are even 18 year olds and younger living a dot com lifestyle as well.

Living the Dot Com Lifestyle

Steve Pavlina – Personal Development Guru. His website gets more than 2 million visitors per month. This article is little different than those mentioned above.

10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job

CIBC Air Canada Card Was Compromised

CIBC AC Conversion Visa Prepaid Card

About 2 weeks ago, I found out that my CIBC AC Prepaid Visa card was compromised. However, this card was never stolen or lost.

When trying to load my card online, I noticed scammers made 9 fraudulent transactions. The small transactions were made via PayPal and 2 large transactions were made from Malaysia. One of these was Expedia Malaysia and the other one was an airfare purchase from Malaysia.

CIBC is not the back office for this card. A third party prepaid credit card provider I2C (http://www.i2cinc.com/) in California is the back office and provides support maintaining this card and they don’t take calls, so I had to talk to CIBC customer service and file a complaint form. I was told that it could take up to 40 days to complete the investigation and reverse those charges.

The reason I use this card is because I can control how much credit availability the card can have and it’s especially handy when you are travelling. So scammers were able to extract only around $200 due to low availability.

What surprised me most is that I2C’s fraud detection system totally failed, as there were 9 transactions and they raised no flags whatsoever. In the past, I dealt with fraudulent activities on my credit cards and their systems flagged and blocked my cards after 1 or 2 transactions. After 9 transactions, my AC Conversion card had no more balance left for the scammers to take out and that’s why it stopped. No fraud detection system stopped it.

I will link a video I made on this on the top left and here: My Travel Visa Card Was Compromised. I will give some tips to help you protect yourself from credit card scams in that video as well.