I’ve been involved with and started enough businesses to know that the most successful businesses don’t always come down to being led by the smartest, most talented or even hardest working people, instead there is a missing X factor that is often misunderstood, or at least not spoken of…

That “X” factor is drive…being personally driven to prove something.

Listen to this short video from Shark Tank’s Barbara Corcoran on how that personal drive leads to success:

What is it that can produce this almost obsessive drive that makes the difference between an average employee or failed entrepreneur versus an entrepreneur that perseveres adjusting his or her direction until they get results?

  • Insecurity:  they may have been told they would never amount to anything or been dismissed as a child, teen or young adult to the point that they have created an obsessive passion to prove to the world they were wrong
  • Misfit:  many true entrepreneurs I know were cast as misfits, uncomfortable with school, following rules and structured settings in general – they reach a point in their life when the insecurity of knowing they don’t fit into “normal” structure means they have to go out and work extra hard to create their own reality
  • Not Settling:  again, many successful entrepreneurs I know find it very hard (and uncomfortable) to settle for norms…they have a massive desire to grow, improve, change the way things are rather than put their energy into keeping it as is

Do you fit these traits?  Are there any other reasons you can think of that drives people to that obsessive need to prove oneself resulting in success in sales, a senior job or as an entrepreneur?  Leave a comment.