Growing up in a family full of successful entrepreneurs provided me with the unique advantage of observing firsthand what it takes to succeed. This invaluable experience has guided me throughout my own 10-year entrepreneurial journey.

These are the five characteristics of a successful entrepreneur.

1. Ambition

Ambition plays a crucial role. Some people are inherently more driven than others. These individuals are naturally inclined towards forward-thinking, and ambition is an integral part of their mindset.

As someone who teaches courses, I’ve become adept at spotting ambition among my students. When students engage eager with questions immediately after a class, it’s clear they’ve been attentive and are eager to absorb knowledge. They genuinely wish to learn, unlike those who neglect the lessons. If a student lags three or four months behind in a course designed to be completed in three weeks, it’s a red flag. Conversely, completing a course in two weeks demonstrates commitment and discipline.

2. Discipline

Discipline is closely linked to ambition, as well as to perseverance and grit, which I’ll delve into later. Having a routine and sticking to it is essential. My routine starts with waking up at 7 a.m., having a quick coffee and snack, and getting straight to work. My laptop accompanies me everywhere, and I’m consistently disciplined, every single day. Over time, it becomes a second nature. With this consistency, you build a mindset that’s strong enough to keep you focused on your goals.

Though discipline isn’t glamorous, it’s the driving force behind all successful individuals. It sustains you when your initial motivation wanes. Many start with enthusiasm, but few maintain their productivity after the novelty fades. Discipline involves doing mundane tasks like responding to emails, monitoring data, or solving backend problems consistently, without seeking shortcuts. While it may seem tedious, it fosters self-trust and aligns your habits with your objectives, leading to expected results.

3. Grit

Grit is also crucial. Persistence is needed, especially when challenges arise. Learning new skills is tough and non-delegable initially. Unfortunately, many young people today lack this quality. They chase trends, sticking with them briefly, but often lose interest quickly because they seek instant gratification, influenced by unrealistic portrayals on Instagram Reels or TikToks.

All you see on social media are the highlights — the successes. It’s people showing the best side of themselves. You don’t see the struggle. You don’t see the obstacles. There’s just so much distraction that you have to have grit to get through it. It might take a year, or it might take five years to become successful in business. That’s okay. You can’t give up.

4. Take advice

Being receptive to advice is another one. That said, you need to be wise about who to take advice from. Unfortunately, the people closest to you, maybe friends or family, might offer you bad advice. For example, when I was 21 or 22, I experienced my first success with an Amazon store. I was really excited. I was on a trip back east with my cousins. I was making $6,000 a month in profit, and everything was going great. I decided I was going to scale the store. Then one of my cousins said, “You should stay in school and take the conventional path.”

It broke my spirit a little bit. Even though it was from a place of care and love, she didn’t know any successful entrepreneurs. So, I took it with a grain of salt because she could have had her own reasons for saying that. The people closest to you could be subconsciously taking that position because they didn’t achieve what they wanted to in life. Then again, taking advice from people who have walked in your path before or are where you want to be can be super valuable. This is especially true if they have the same ethics as you, or they’re in a similar industry and they’re crushing it.

In fact, I would say that being coachable is a rare superpower. The most successful entrepreneurs aren’t the ones who act like they have it all figured out. They’re people who are always learning from people who’ve already walked the path. Coachability, in my opinion, is about both listening and applying what you hear. If you’re too proud to be corrected or too stubborn to evolve, you’ll hit a ceiling eventually. The key is to ask better questions and stay humble enough to know there’s always more to learn, even when you’re already doing well.

5. Be a lifelong learner

The last point I want to make is to be a lifelong learner. For example, I read Marketplace Pulse every morning. I also subscribe to all the ecommerce newsletters and read them so that I am up to date on the industry. Our industry is moving really fast. So, I also go on YouTube at least once or twice a week to look at what the younger sellers are doing as well as to see all the trends in different marketplaces, whether it’s Amazon, Walmart, eBay, TikTok Shop and so on. It’s about continuing to educate yourself because this industry is changing rapidly.