Entrepreneurs Made, Not Born?

For the longest time people have debated if people learned to be successful entrepreneurs, or if they were merely born that way with some rare entrepreneurial gene.

Well, professional services firm Ernst & Young recently surveyed 685 entrepreneurs and conducted in-depth interviews with the winners of the firm's Entrepreneur of the Year award to gain insights into the shared characteristics, frustrations, and career goals of some the world's leading entrepreneurs.

Here's what they found:

-47 percent didn't set up their own shops until they were 30 or older

-60 percent started out in a corporate environment

-60 percent had started three or more companies

-20 percent started six or more companies

-Experience was the most important source of career learning

-The greatest barrier to entrepreneurial success is lack of funding

-The greatest barrier to success is failure to recruit the right people

-Three qualities that entrepreneurs share are vision, passion and drive

-Entrepreneurs tend to be optimists and actively avoid negative people

There are a lot of surveys such as this on the net, but I really appreciate the consolidation of the most significant attributes of successful entrepreneurs that this Ernst & Young survey presents.

As a CEO, I have to draw attention to the last, but certainly not least significant finding: avoiding negative people.

If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, this finding is not to be overlooked. Some of the world's greatest ideas never get nurtured because the people who have them allow others to talk them out of pursuing them.