Four Mental Traits of Highly

Successful Entrepreneurs
Change how you approach control, ambiguity, anxiety,
and success

Benjamin Hardy, PhD

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Apr 6, 2016 · 4 min read
Photo by Anna Popović on Unsplash

Every entrepreneur faces challenges, but only some do so

successfully. There’s no shortage of theories as to why,
though some experts point to mental toughness. However
you choose to categorize them, the mental habits that
successful entrepreneurs often cultivate seems to set them
apart.

Here are four of the most essential.

1. AN INTERNAL LOCUS OF
CONTROL
Many people have what psychologists refer to as an
external locus of control. That’s when you believe that it’s
primarily the factors outside of your control that most
affect what happens in your life. And to be sure, many
factors actually are. But the real question is how much
weight you give to them relative to the factors you believe
you can control.

When your locus of control is mostly external, your

attention rests mainly with your competition, the economy,
the unfairness of life, and a host of other things you can’t
do anything about. More often than not, this mental habit
makes you feel like a victim of your circumstances.

Conversely, relentless entrepreneurs have an internal locus

of control. This means they believe they are personally
responsible for the outcomes of their lives. They — not you,
or anything else — are in control.
But when your locus of control is primarily internal, you’re
more likely to perceive obstacles as challenges to
overcome. You’re more likely to feel you’ve got an effective
playbook of tactics to influence your own situation and
others’. You take complete responsibility for everything in
your life — the good, bad, and ugly — and you tend to view
failure as feedback. You don’t compete with others; you’re
adept at blocking out the external noise in order to focus
on creating something.

Dr. Eric McKibben has taught that people with an internal

locus of control have greater financial success and better
health, not to mention higher levels of happiness and
general well-being.

2. HIGH TOLERANCE OF
AMBIGUITY
Ambiguity can be really uncomfortable for many people.
They need a clear set of rules and expectations about how
things should be. Without them, they tend to flounder or
stall out.

That isn’t necessarily a mark of failure; in some ways, it is

most adults’ natural predisposition. Interestingly,
though, researchers have found that children generally
have a higher tolerance for ambiguity than grownups do.
They’re more willing to accept murky conditions —
situations where the likelihood of winning or losing is
unknown.

That makes perfect sense: As we mature, we become more

adept at assessing risk. Children, as any parent knows,
gleefully indulge in risky behaviors on an hourly basis —
always testing their limits and exploring.

Some of the most successful entrepreneurs share that trait

with kids. They tend to have a high tolerance for
ambiguity, which makes them more likely to take risks
based on limited information. Indeed, starting a business
is all about confronting one unknown after another.

Having a high tolerance for ambiguity makes you less likely

to get anxious in novel situations, or when faced with your
own uncertainty. You can think quickly on your feet and
see things from different angles. The unfamiliar is simply
an opportunity to adapt, and you know there’s no set of
guidelines that can help you do that.

3. THEY USE THEIR FEARS AND

ANXIETIES AS FUEL
When we’re feeling anxious, many of us try to calm
ourselves down. According to research by Dr. Alison Wood
Brooks of Harvard Business School:

“Anxiety is incredibly pervasive. People have a very

strong intuition that trying to calm down is the best way
to cope with their anxiety, but that can be very difficult
and ineffective.”

In fact, Wood Brooks has found that trying to calm yourself

down can actually worsen your performance. Instead,
reframing your anxiety as excitement can dramatically
improve your performance. That’s one reason why
professional athletes and successful entrepreneurs frame
their anxieties as feeling pumped up, harnessing those
normal jitters to work in their favor.

4. THEY FOCUS ON THE CAUSES,

NOT EFFECTS, OF CONFIDENCE
AND SUCCESS
Many people don’t handle either failure or success very
well. They’re on a behavioral roller-coaster that soars or
dips according to the circumstances. When things aren’t
going well, they’re overwhelmed or depressed. When
things are going well, they’re overconfident and lazy.

In fact, success might represent an even greater adversity

than failure. That’s been apparent long before the rise of
modern psychology. Abraham Lincoln said,

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to

test a man’s character, give him power.”

As soon as we succeed, we tend to focus on the causes of

our success, believing we were right all along to feel
confident in ourselves. Our focus shifts toward the effects
of our success. The distracting noise of praise,
opportunities, and other rewards pulls us away from the
work that got us there, which can wreck our future
performance.

Successful entrepreneurs have the presence of mind to

resist that shift in focus. Their behavior is remarkably
consistent regardless of whatever success or defeat they
experience. They know that the confidence they feel and
any achievements they make are the products of a
constant, internal drive to improve their craft. After all,
those effects are outside their control (see Habit #1 above).
Instead, they focus on their own behavior, which is the root
cause of all those outcomes — good, bad, or neutral.

Indeed, your assessment of your own abilities has actually

been shown to be a a better predictor of high
performance than your expectations about a specific
outcome.

Highly successful entrepreneurs see themselves as the

ultimate source of their personal and professional
experiences, wins and losses alike. And that puts them —
and nothing and nobody else — squarely in the driver’s
seat.
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