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This is a Guest Post by Matthew Needham from The Big Red Tomato Company.

When Chris asked me to write a post on the Entrepreneurial spirit, I agreed straight away. Although when I started to think about, it’s not actually a very easy thing to define. I mean everyone sort of knows what it is, but what exactly does it mean?

In this post, I’m going to attempt to answer that question and what it means for you.

Entrepreneurship is very important to the world economy. More people work for small businesses than they do large ones. So the more entrepreneurs we have can only be a good thing.

Over the years I’ve met with many entrepreneurs. Some working for themselves, others working in large organizations for someone else (a few years ago management guru’s used to refer to such people as intrapreneurs, but you don’t tend to hear of that very often now).

These entrepreneurs were all different. They came from different backgrounds, different cultures, they were of different ages and different sexes. They didn’t look alike and they didn’t dress alike.

BUT, they did have an awful lot of things in common.These things in common, I’m going to call the entrepreneurial spirit.

Passion

I’ve never met one entrepreneur who didn’t 100% believe in what they were doing. They had a clear reason for doing what they do. That’s not to say that all the entrepreneurs I’ve met had an interest in the things that they were selling or the services they were providing, but they knew exactly why they were doing it, (usually entrepreneurial lifestyle or family related) and they were passionate about that.

Passion, to me, is excitement, it’s about loving what you do.

Do you love what you do?

Positivity

You see a lot of employers asking for ‘positive’ people to fill the vacancies that they are advertising. Some people describe this as ‘can do’ others describe this as energetic. But what sticks in my mind is the fundamental approach in that entrepreneurs don’t give up, they want to do the best job they can. They are highly motivated about what they do.

If at first they don’t succeed, they try, try and try again. If you want to see what this means and never giving up, check this excellent Nick Vujicic video.

Adaptability

When you launch a product or service, you may have the best plan in the world, but if someone else opens up next door to you or launches the same service for less money, that plan doesn’t count for anything.

But what does count is your ability to adapt to any situation and respond accordingly. For example I worked with a young person who was a chalk board artist (basically a sign writer with chalk). He went round all the shops, bars and restaurants, in my local town, showing what he could do for them and signed up a lot of businesses. After a few months you couldn’t walk around the town centre for his chalk boards. They were everywhere. When everyone had one, his services weren’t unique so he adapted his skills to traditional sign-writing and offered different services (and grew his business).

Leadership

In businesses where the entrepreneur is the only employee, it’s difficult to talk about leadership. But, what I take from this is that entrepreneurs know where they’re going. If the entrepreneurs have employees then they tell the employees exactly what they expect of them and why their input is so vital to the success of the business. They strive for success (not necessarily millions – but achievement of their goals).

Are you striving for your goals? Do you tell everyone where you’re going?

Ambition

Some of the entrepreneurs I’ve met want to achieve something big. Maybe be the next Donald Trump or the next Richard Branson. Others, want to get out of unemployment and poverty and start making a decent living.

What I find is that if people want something badly enough, then they’ll get it.

What does this mean to you?

As you’re on Chris’ Virtual Business Lifestyle website chances are you already have the entrepreneurial spirit. Some of you will already be on course to living your dream. Others will not yet have started.

To the ones who have not started the journey yet, I ask you one question. What’s holding you back?

What do you think – what can you do next?

photo credit: Wesley Fryer

Matthew Needham is a UK based entrepreneur, professional interim manager and qualified accountant. He is a writer at The Big Red Tomato Company. You can connect with him on Facebook or on Twitter or subscribe to his RSS feed.