Using Cognitive Profiling to Study the Attitudes, Beliefs and Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs

15 September 2010

We'd all like to delve into the minds of the most successful among us to see if we can recreate the formula. Moguls like Bill Gates and Donald Trump, just to name two of too many, we believe to possess some secretive trait that will propel us in that direction if only we can find and unlock it.

This is undoubtedly the reason that people are sold on the proverbial get-rich-quick schemes they're looking for that secret. It's also the reason that people buy literature and treat anything published by successful business people as the bible. But what do they really think? What are their true beliefs and the real personality traits that have helped them succeed in life?

A technique called cognitive profiling may help you find out the vital keys to success by allowing you to research and study successful entrepreneurs in a way that no book or for-sale system could. Even still, be forewarned that there is no easy way about it here. You'll find, above all else, that every successful entrepreneur worked hard and even failed before succeeding.

Explaining the term cognitive profiling seems more like a contradiction. On one hand, cognitive just means the process of thoughts, and profiling is self evident. On the other hand, putting cognitive profiling in proper action can be complicated business, especially if you're attempting to profile an entrepreneur with a lot of business information.

The best way to perform a complete cognitive profile on a successful entrepreneur is to download free analysis software to help you compile and read the different data sets you'll accumulate with your research. A simple Google search will reveal such programs.

Why go this route instead of the manual route? For one, it's infinitely easier to both comprehend and perform with a program giving you the guidelines. Two, you can learn the base format from a program and implement your own techniques and ask your own questions, in a sense, based off what you learn. Three, it allows you to form multiple profiles for multiple businesspeople at once.

When you're building a cognitive profile, what you're doing, essentially, is data mining or researching various individuals instead of just their businesses. You're looking for common denominators they have, things that make them successful. It also works better when you profile yourself.

By correctly figuring out what exactly you're lacking, you can find the common traits of successful entrepreneurs and then work to fill in the blanks to give yourself a better chance of actually making it in the business world.

You're looking for the person behind the business their personal literature like blogs and articles, their mission statements for their companies, and anything else that helps you grasp how they set up their businesses to run and not so much the specifics regarding the day-today running of their businesses.

This process delves deeper than competitive analysis. You're attempting to emulate the business model of a successful entrepreneur using your own product.