The Essential Characteristics Entrepreneurs Share

with guest Gino Wickman #MakingBank S5E24

Sometimes, entrepreneurship takes you by surprise. Each person has their journey, and whether in business or not, entrepreneurship is a part of life. Occasionally, it’ll sneak up and end up changing your life.  

Gino Wickman, an entrepreneurial coach, award-winning author, and successful businessman, joins us on this episode of the Making Bank Podcast to talk about how his journey took him to teach people how to be entrepreneurs. Being involved in the business at a young age, Gino didn’t go to college, rather he went straight into the workforce. From there, he took over companies, created a system that thousands of companies use, and wrote best-selling books.  

Learn how entrepreneurship took Gino by surprise, and how he found out that he was meant to be helping professionals be the most successful versions of themselves. Also, learn about the 6 essentials traits that Gino observed entrepreneurs need to have – and see if you are made out to be one! 

Being an Entrepreneur to Teaching Entrepreneurship 

When it came to start a life in business, Gino’s family allowed him to observe business from a young age. His father owned a business that taught real estate agents how to increase their income. And so, by the time high school was over, Gino wanted to work for his dad. Just to prove himself, he sold 5 million dollars in a year and a half.  

At the time, though, he says he didn’t know what was going on. “I was so confused and here I was this entrepreneur in the making. And I didn’t realize that. And I just felt so screwed up and I was just figuring it out every step of the way.” And this continued for years, even after he took over the company.  

Before he knew it, Gino was running the family business and turning it around. He was making money and getting them out of debt. But that wasn’t the only thing, he was learning things that couldn’t be taught in schools or classes. He was a sponge of knowledge when working hands with business, learning the successes and failures of those around him who had experienced more. 

This is how he became interested in the science behind the business and the way people worked behind the business. Trying to figure out the formulas for success, he not only observed certain habits that successful people have, but he found out what he wanted to do. One day it came to him and he thought, “I am on the face of this earth to help entrepreneurs. And so, upon selling the business, I then set out to do just that.”  

So, around the age of 31, that’s what Gino did. That was his passion, and for the first five years, he tested, honed, refined, and learned everything about companies and their sessions. This eventually led him to create and finish his entrepreneurial operating system (EOS), which directly helps build a small company with 10-250 people in the business go from good to great.  

Now, he helps entrepreneurs discover what they are good at, and how they can get a jumpstart on their business and build a better startup.  

6 Essential Traits Entrepreneurs Have  

One of the things that Gino teaches, is that there are 6 key characteristics that people need to be an entrepreneur. He says, “There are six essential traits that every true entrepreneur has, they are visionary, passionate, problem solver, driven, risk-taker, and responsible. And I believe you are born with them. I believe it is absolutely nature over nurture. They can’t be taught. That’s why they are traits.”  

When it comes to these traits, Gino believes that you’ve got to be born with them – it’s got to be in your nature. If everyone could learn how to do it, then they simply would. But something is stopping them – maybe it’s because they don’t have the passion or the drive. You can’t expect everyone to succeed the same way, therefore not everyone is going to be great at the same things, and that’s what makes the world work as it does.  

“When it comes to these skills, Gino says it’s all or nothing. These traits are all equally important and weighted against each other. They play into each other; they balance each other out in the perfect mixture of creating an entrepreneur.  

I believe only 4% of the world is cut out for this,” Gino says. Being an entrepreneur is hard, you get kicked down. You get knocked down. Too often people think that being an entrepreneur is the pinnacle of life. But it’s just a career choice, just like everything else. And not everyone can have the same career. 

If you can reflect on yourself and determine what you are good at – more importantly, what you aren’t so good at, you can save yourself a lot of time staying knocked down or doing things that just aren’t right for you. There are thousands of different career choices and paths to take to be successful in different ways. You can be a trailblazer in anything.