The country of Brazil is actively recruiting American farmers to relocate to the prime growing area of Matto Grosso del Sol. The government’s enticements include easy financing opportunities, low labor costs, limited regulations imposed on land use, and a per-acre price of $17.00 USD. The downside – this area has no infrastructure, and the purchaser would be required to build his / her own road in order to access their land, and the outside world.

Now, out of 10,000 people, 9,995 would be saying, “No way! Give me something more settled, proven, time-tested. I’ll gladly pay the price to live in civilization.” And thank goodness for this majority – they are the people who literally make industry in the United States and elsewhere function on a daily basis. They are the purveyors of the GDP, and we hold them in high regard.

However, there are 5 people thinking, “Build your own road! How cool is that?”

These five people are destined to be entrepreneurs, and they are the people whose efforts and chutzpah eventually push the world forward.

One of the primary characteristics of an entrepreneur is the ability to see opportunity where others see nothing more than hard work and potential loss. The entrepreneur realizes that the greater the risk in an investment, the greater the potential reward. Entrepreneurs learn to minimize losses by educating themselves about what the actual risks are, and using the resources of other people (capital and intellectual) to reduce or overcome those risks. The “hard work” part is relative – there are many employees who work hard, but gain very little in terms of reward. The entrepreneur is willing to work hard, delay the gratification of reward for years, if necessary, in order to win big in the end.

A second characteristic of the entrepreneur is the willingness to make mistakes. They wouldn’t worry so much about how to build a road as they would about locating their remote acreage in a highly productive area, and finding a reasonable path to the nearest market. The details of road building would be delegated, probably to local labor. If the labor force had never dealt with things like dynamite, surveying equipment, etc., the initial attempts at a road would be crude at best. Still, the entrepreneur worries less about being perfect than they do about getting results. The mistakes only motivate them to try again, this time with a different plan.

A final characteristic of the entrepreneur is vision. The entrepreneur doesn’t look at this vacant land and see a weedy expanse teeming with insects. He sees cleared and plowed fields of dreams, brimming with soybeans or other cash crops, a tidy ranch house, and a straight, paved road headed straight for the world’s market. In short, the entrepreneur starts with a picture of the end result in mind, and builds steadily toward that end until the picture becomes reality.

The road to your greatest opportunities and your highest level of success may still have to be built. Are you ready to pick up a shovel?