Ownership attitude

At our monthly TAB Board meetings, we usually start off with the host of the meeting sharing with the group a quote, phrase or story that has some personal meaning.  At a recent meeting, the quote and story pertained to perseverance; how not giving up can be the difference between success and failure.

The story evolved into a discussion of the attributes and attitudes that characterize success, especially among business owners.  It was a lively dialogue, and ended up on "ownership attitude" and the difference between owners and  employees. Like leadership, and more famously, pornography, the ownership attitude may be hard to define, but easier to identify.

Owners are independent, strong-willed, risk-taking, opinionated, combative, willful, perfectionist, far-sighted, deaf, myopic, sleep-deprived, the first out-of-pocket but last to be paid, and most often not millionaires-or-billionaires.

While not exhaustive by any stretch, what these attributes illustrate is that owners are NOT employees.  In fact, they make HORRIBLE employees, by and large. 

Do these traits describe you?  What others would you contribute?