First, know that there is a difference between being an entrepreneur and being entrepreneurial.
Not everyone has the disposition to be an entrepreneur, and that’s totally ok.
Entrepreneurs are people who look at the world with a filter of “How can this be better?” and have a passion within them to inspire others to take up the cause they set their sights on this week/month/year. They constantly see ways to tweak, improve, correct, achieve a better world.
People who are entrepreneurial will seize upon an idea and find a way to capitalize on it.
And then there are everyone else – people who are content to work for one or the other. I have worked for and with passionate entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial minded capitalists and it is extremely easy to tell the difference – but neither path will guarantee that you will have it easier than the other, achieve your goals, make more money or have a bigger impact.
If you truly want to walk down the path of an entrepreneur, first figure out what that *means* to you – do you want to start your own business? If so, what kind?
My recommendation is to work in a similar business where you can apprentice yourself to great mentors and grow your network so that you can understand the types of issues you will encounter. Then, go into something entirely different to understand the needs of customers. And hang out with people who are not like you – the more variety the better. Learn as much as you can from as many people as you can.
Every entrepreneur I have met has had a slightly different style, but they all had two major things in common:
They are outcome oriented.
They are able to focus on that outcome.
How they achieve that outcome changes based on personality. Some people are analytical, methodical planners. Some are all action, and execute immediately. Others delegate to a team, and pump them full of their own overflowing passion.
The best entrepreneurs are a mix of all three.
Lastly, if you think you might be an entrepreneur, write down all of your ideas. You probably have a lot of them, and you never know when the right one is THE one.