Many businesspeople achieve their greatest successes in unexpected areas. They begin a business and then they find that it isn't as profitable as they had anticipated, so they change direction, using their experience and their momentum, and strike paydirt in something else. The most important thing is to begin. To take action. To move forward one step at a time, learning and growing as you go. There is enough information available in virtually every field for you to become knowledgeable enough to achieve success. But action is necessary.

Success author Orison Swett Marden once wrote, the first part of success is get-to-it-ivness. The second part is stick-to-it-iveness. Every business beginning requires an act of faith and courage, a bold leap into the unknown. Only one in 10 people who want to start their own businesses ever develop enough courage to begin and enough persistence to continue. Get-to-it-iveness. And stick-to-it-iveness. The fear of failure, more than anything else, holds people back. It paralyzes action. And it makes failure inevitable.

Fortunately, even if you know nothing about business, you can begin with a dream, a castle in the air, and then build a foundation under it.

Now, here are two actions you can take immediately to start moving toward entrepreneurial success:

1. Set a goal, make a plan and then launch your plan. Get started. Do something. Begin on a small scale with limited risk and investment but get going!

2. Resolve that, no matter what happens, you will never, never give up until you are successful. Before you accomplish anything worthwhile, you will have to pass the persistence test. And the test will come far sooner than you imagine.