Entrepreneurs are a rare breed. They are willing to go where others are not, leaving behind the stability of a steady job to pursue an unproven vision. Successful entrepreneurs are rarer still.

Are entrepreneurs born or can they be made? That is a subject of debate by academics and venture capitalists who spend much of their time observing and analyzing successful entrepreneurs.  Frederick Beste, a Venture Capitalist at Mid Atlantic Venture Funds, and H. Irving Grousbeck, Consulting Professor of Management and Codirector of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Stanford’s Graduate Business School, have written about entrepreneurs. The Schwab Foundation has performed similar observations of social entrepreneurs. These observers of entrepreneurs have identified characteristics and attitudes that can distinguish the successful from the rest of the pack.

If you are interested in exploring your own inner entrepreneur, try matching yourself against the traits and attitudes most commonly observed in those that are successful:

• An unending dissatisfaction with the status quo. You are not happy with things as they are. You think that you can do something better than it is now being done and that you can build an organization around that notion.

• An unwavering belief in the innate capacity of all people to contribute meaningfully to economic and social development.

• A driving passion to implement your idea, be it in the form of a new invention, a different approach, a more rigorous application of known technologies or a combination of all three.

• A healthy self-confidence. You are willing to be lonely, to make tough decisions and have the buck stop with you.

• The discipline to plan and execute the plan. You know where you are going and how you will get there because you have distilled your strategic objectives into action plans with detailed budgets, responsibilities and deadlines. And you monitor and manage your results.

• A healthy impatience. You do not wait for things to happen. You are a social change agent who makes things happen.

• Concern for detail. You are meticulous by nature or astute enough to find a partner who is. While entrepreneurs may be generalists in some respects, in the areas that are critical to success, they are meticulous.

• Sound knowledge of your constituency base, the issues and similar organizations that are focused on these same issues. You do your homework and have researched data sources in order to validate your assumptions. You know who else is working in your field, what they do and their strengths and weaknesses.

• Sound knowledge of the financial dynamics of your organization and a true understanding of the importance of cash flow. You understand the financial triggers that signal success or failure.

• A healthy understanding of risk. Entrepreneurs are generally thought of as tremendous risk takers. The truth, however, is that entrepreneurs focus very deliberately on reducing risk. As an entrepreneur, you recognize the risks associated with your endeavor and you have taken every possible step to minimize their impact or their potential impact. You have fallback plans and, even when everything is going as planned, you operate a lean and mean organization.

• You hire smart. You aren’t intimidated by partners who are better than you. You understand that talent and adrenaline should run deep through your organization; the talent isn’t concentrated at the top.

• Passionate work ethic. You understand that starting and building an organization is more than a full time job. Almost everything is stacked against entrepreneurs and you even the odds with, among other things, sustained, superior effort.

• Work should be fun. It is tough work, but you cultivate an environment where your team can enjoy the natural highs that come from achieving milestones along the way to realizing your vision.

• Fire in your belly. True entrepreneurs have such a strong achievement orientation that winning the battle becomes a compulsive need.

For more information on the attitudes and traits of successful entrepreneurs, see: