Passion is the enthusiasm, joy, and zeal that emerge when business owners are doing something that they feel is important and truly enjoy.^[1] As mentioned in Truth 1, “Why people start businesses,” passion is often the reason that people start a business. Passion is needed to infuse a business with excitement and drive and helps the founder or founders persevere through the ups and down of the startup process. It’s also a source of motivation and a reward. The payoff that many business owners receive from their passion and hard work is the extreme satisfaction they experience as they work in their business and watch customers benefit from the products and services they sell. Only you can determine if you’re truly passionate about a particular business idea. Many business experts say, “Don’t start a business you’re not passionate about.” It’s good advice.

Passion is the enthusiasm, joy, and zeal that emerge when business owners are doing something that they feel is important and truly enjoy.

Tolerance for ambiguity is the ability to deal with ambiguous situations in a sensible and calm way.^[2] It’s context-dependent—meaning that the same situation may be ambiguous in one setting and not in another. For example, the manager of an Olive Garden restaurant may know exactly what to do if someone calls and asks if the restaurant can set aside enough tables for a group of 30 people at 7:00 p.m. that evening. The owner-manager of a new restaurant may have never had that request before and may have to stop and think about what to do. The manager might think, “I’d love to seat 30 people at the same time, but what will the people who have already waited 30 minutes for a table think if a large group walks in and is seated right away?” These types of dilemmas face the owners of new businesses frequently because the businesses are new and are still establishing their policies and procedures. Business owners with a high tolerance for ambiguity can normally handle new and uncertain situations with relative ease, while business owners with a low tolerance for ambiguity would handle the same situations with more angst and unease.

Business owners with a high tolerance for ambiguity can normally handle new and uncertain situations with relative ease.

A critical yet not often explained characteristic of successful business owners is self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is similar to self-confidence and refers to a person’s belief in being capable of performing a particular task.^[3] Individuals generally avoid tasks where their self-efficacy is low and are drawn to tasks where their self-efficacy is high. As a result, a person with high self-efficacy for a given task, like starting a business, will usually approach it with enthusiasm and drive.^[4] This is why some people, even though they often think about starting a business, never do it. Deep down inside, they don’t believe they have the skills and abilities necessary to start and run a successful business. You can heighten your self-efficacy for starting a business by working in a field closely related to the business you’re thinking about starting, becoming acquainted with people who have started successful businesses (and realizing that they are no smarter or more capable than you are), and being encouraged by others.