Why Your Lack of Self-Awareness is Threatening Your Success

Being an entrepreneur is all the rage, and in the current environment of business, they are like rock stars. “Fans” gather just to get a word or grab a selfie with these stars that, most likely, did not focus on being popular in school, rather creating skills that would be more valuable and marketable. It’s amazing how the script flips, and no matter how glamorous the entrepreneur life is depicted by media or slick marketing, there’s still a lot of work involved to creating that level of success.

Hustle is a word a lot of new entrepreneurs and startups use, but they do not quite understand — it’s a buzz word now for the amount of action they are taking. Very few new entrepreneurs really hustle and with the shift in the economy towards entrepreneurialism, the idea of hustle has to be understood.

As covered by author, Taylor Pearson, we’ve reached “The End of Jobs,” the economy is shifting for the days of large corporations to being more entrepreneur driven. However, a shift in the economy does not not mean that everyone should be there. With automation creeping in and the maturation of the internet, it really is easier than ever to make money, but competition is also higher than ever.

The current state of entrepreneurship is a melding of all things digital and traditional making it easier than ever with options almost as numerous as the stars. From Amazon private labeling, to digital training courses, there are more opportunities than any point in history, but it has also led to the vultures coming out in full force.

There are more online “coaches,” in existence than ever before, most likely because coaching is one of the most popular monetization tactics for online entrepreneurs. Some coaching packages end up just being high cost and very shallow on value; leading to many spoof videos such as the recent viral videos from JP Sears and Strive & Grind. The main problem with this trend in entrepreneurship? There is a total lack of self-awareness, and an occasional absence of ethics.

Gary Vaynerchuk has often touted self awareness as one of his biggest assets. In an article for Inc Magazine, Gary Stated: “Self-awareness allows people to recognize what things they do best so they can then go hard on those aspects of their life. It also helps you accept your weaknesses.” Self awareness means not kidding yourself, looking what you’re really good at and having the courage to be brutally honest with yourself. To which, Vaynerchuk has also stated “If you know who you are, you’ll bet on your strengths.”

Many young entrepreneurs are not honest with themselves and it kills them. If you want to get to an end goal, then you have to be honest with where you are starting, because in actuality, not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur. It’s about more than about a lifestyle or an income, it is about creating something, be it an end product and being as valuable to as many people as possible.

Higher level of self awareness would help more individuals to decide whether entrepreneurship is even for them, thus making the problem also the solution. To that effect, Influencive.com COO, Clinton Senkow, stated: “Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, but getting more people to think like entrepreneurs will help our current and future problems be addressed in a new light.” Its that out of the box thinking that makes entrepreneurs so valuable, and if employees could harness that, then the sky’s the limit for what new innovation we can create.

The world needs more skilled workers, and with the economy shifting, it will require more workers to have the skills of an entrepreneur but not take the leap out on their own. We are in interesting phase in history where the old world meets the new, and where we will really have to take a good hard look with the end goal and the vehicle to get there. The answer is self awareness.

Be brutally honest with yourself, play to your strengths and create a high level of value. Entrepreneurship as an action isn’t for everyone, but the mindset is essential for all. Be self aware enough to be honest with yourself only then can the greatest problem of our present entrepreneur environment be solved.