SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEURS ARE PROACTIVE

Proactiveness refers to the ability of a person, policy, or action to create or control a situation by inducing a change by making something happen, instead of waiting until after it has happened before giving a response to it. ‘Proactive’ as a term was initially made popular in the business sector by Covey in 1989 when he published a book titled ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’. Covey, in his book adopted the term ‘proactive’ in describing an individual who assumes responsibility for all that happens in life, in comparison to a reactive person, who will rather often lay blames on others for the problems, challenges or obstacles such a reactive individual is facing.. ‘Proactive’ has since that time come of the meaning to describe taking an action before any situation turns into a crisis. Therefore, describing an entrepreneur with this trait can be said to be someone who assume responsibility for the development of situations and further applies his initiative in controlling and exploiting the situation at hand, instead of allowing such a situation to consume him even though the business is being controlled by unpredictable external forces.

An example of a proactive entrepreneur is Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the most popular social network Facebook.  In an interview session with Mark Zuckerberg, it was inquired of him the major behaviour that can be attributed to his immense success and his reply was that a vital action he aims to achieve everyday is the use of his time in a proactive manner rather than in a reactive way. He further stated that a number of events or activities that will come up each day that one can occupy his or her day with while giving a reaction to them. Although, Zuckerberg admitted that it is normal for one to be communicative and responsive, but one should importantly note that to be a success as an entrepreneur, you have to understand what accomplishments you wish to achieve every single day.