How to be an entrepreneur - what are the key ingredients?

Richard Parsons is the former Chair of the Board and former CEO of Time Warner, and about a year ago he gave a brilliant one-hour lecture at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College about 'Entrepreneurship in the Digital Age'. It's a terrific lecture that really touches on all of the key points about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur today. I would like to share with you some of Richard Parsons' broad points on what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

1) Risk taker - Richard says right off the bat that being a 'risk taker' is a prerequisite. If you are averse to taking risks, chances are startup entrepreneurship is not the right career path.

2) Passion - Almost in an idealistic way, entrepreneurs believe so strongly in what they want to do/build that they look past the risk and focus squarely on the opportunity.

3) Pragmatic - An entrepreneur's idealistic passion still needs to be tempered by having one foot firmly on the ground. Passion without business discipline is not a recipe for success.

4) Know what you don't know - As an entrepreneur you must be brutally honest with yourself and be in tune with what you know, and what you don't know. Successful entrepreneurs excel at finding the right people to fill in those knowledge gaps. You will often hear smart, successful entrepreneurs tell you that they hired people who were smarter than them.

5) Are you a 'half empty' or 'half full' kind of person? - Successful entrepreneurs need to be resilient because in any startup venture you will inevitably encounter failures and obstacles, and you must be able to push through those barriers and remain optimistic when the going gets tough.

These are just some of the great points mentioned in Richard Parson's talk on entrepreneurship in the digital age, I strongly recommend anyone interested in the topic of entrepreneurship to watch the video in full included below.