If You Think You're Too Boring to Start a Business, Watch This

By Art Harrison • June 18, 2025

Think you're too boring to be an entrepreneur? Your "boring" traits might be exactly what gives you a competitive advantage in business.

"I'm just not the entrepreneur type. I'm too boring."

I hear this constantly from smart, capable people who've convinced themselves that entrepreneurship requires a specific personality—outgoing, charismatic, naturally confident, willing to take huge risks.

They look at the entrepreneurs they see on social media and think, "That's not me. I'm too quiet, too cautious, too ordinary to build something significant."

But here's what they don't realize: the most successful entrepreneurs I know aren't the flashy ones you see online. They're the boring ones you've never heard of.

The Boring Entrepreneur Advantage

What you call "boring," successful entrepreneurs call "systematic." What you call "too cautious," they call "risk-aware." What you call "ordinary," they call "relatable to normal people."

Your boring traits aren't liabilities—they're competitive advantages that flashy entrepreneurs spend years trying to develop.

Here's why boring often beats exciting in business:

Boring people are reliable. Clients choose vendors they can count on over vendors who are unpredictable. Reliability builds long-term relationships that sustain businesses.

Boring people are thorough. While exciting entrepreneurs are jumping to the next shiny opportunity, boring entrepreneurs are building sustainable systems and processes that create consistent results.

Boring people understand normal customers. Most customers aren't looking for revolutionary excitement—they're looking for solutions to everyday problems. Boring entrepreneurs understand everyday problems because they have them too.

The Personality Myth That's Keeping You Stuck

The biggest lie about entrepreneurship is that it requires a specific personality type. This myth comes from the entrepreneurs who get the most media attention—the ones with dramatic stories, huge risks, and larger-than-life personalities.

But media attention and business success aren't the same thing.

For every Richard Branson, there are a thousand successful entrepreneurs you've never heard of who built solid businesses by being systematically competent, not dramatically exciting.

I learned this when I started working with entrepreneurs across different industries. The ones with sustainable, profitable businesses weren't the most charismatic—they were the most consistent.

The Three Boring Superpowers

1. Process Orientation
Boring people naturally think in systems and processes. While exciting entrepreneurs are improvising, boring entrepreneurs are building repeatable methods that scale.

2. Customer Empathy
Boring people understand what normal customers actually need because they are normal customers. They don't try to sell what's exciting—they sell what's useful.

3. Sustainable Pacing
Boring people don't burn out because they don't operate on emotional highs. They work consistently over long periods, which is exactly what business building requires.

Why "Exciting" Entrepreneurs Often Fail

I've watched dozens of naturally exciting, charismatic entrepreneurs flame out spectacularly. They start strong, generate lots of early attention, then struggle when the novelty wears off and real work begins.

Their excitement becomes a liability because:

They get bored with routine tasks that keep businesses running
They chase new opportunities instead of optimizing existing ones
They rely on personality instead of developing systematic competence
They attract attention instead of building sustainable value

Meanwhile, the boring entrepreneurs are steadily building customer bases, refining their offerings, and creating businesses that work whether they feel excited or not.

How to Leverage Your Boring Superpowers

If you've been waiting to feel more exciting before starting a business, stop. Your boring traits are exactly what entrepreneurship needs. Here's how to leverage them:

Embrace Your Process Mind

What boring people do naturally: Think through steps, anticipate problems, create checklists, build systems.

How this becomes a business advantage: While competitors are winging it, you're building processes that ensure consistent quality and predictable results.

Action step: Document one process you use regularly (how you plan projects, how you solve problems, how you make decisions). This process could become a service you offer to others.

Monetize Your Ordinariness

What boring people do naturally: Understand normal problems, relate to average customers, think about practical solutions.

How this becomes a business advantage: You can spot opportunities that exciting entrepreneurs miss because they're focused on revolutionary ideas instead of evolutionary improvements.

Action step: List three everyday problems you've personally solved. Each one could be the foundation for a business that helps others solve the same problem.

Build on Your Consistency

What boring people do naturally: Show up regularly, follow through on commitments, work steadily over time.

How this becomes a business advantage: Consistency builds trust, and trust converts to revenue better than excitement.

Action step: Choose one business-building activity you can do every day for the next 30 days. Your consistency will compound into results that exciting entrepreneurs can't match.

The Boring Entrepreneur Success Formula

Here's the framework I've seen work for hundreds of "boring" entrepreneurs:

Step 1: Identify your systematic strengths. What do you do more consistently or thoroughly than others?

Step 2: Find customers who value those strengths. Look for people who are tired of unreliable, flashy providers and want someone dependable.

Step 3: Build systems around your natural tendencies. Don't try to become exciting—become excellent at being systematically valuable.

Step 4: Market your reliability, not your personality. Lead with what you can deliver consistently, not with who you are dramatically.

What to Do When Boring Feels Like a Limitation

I understand the fear that your personality isn't "entrepreneurial enough." But personality isn't your limitation—it's your market positioning.

If you're naturally cautious, become the entrepreneur who helps other cautious people make smart risks. If you're naturally systematic, become the entrepreneur who helps disorganized people create order. If you're naturally thorough, become the entrepreneur who helps impulsive people avoid expensive mistakes.

Your boring traits aren't bugs to fix—they're features to market.

If you're struggling with impostor syndrome because you don't fit the stereotypical entrepreneur image, remember that most successful entrepreneurs don't fit that image either.

Your Boring Entrepreneur Action Plan

This week: Make a list of five "boring" traits you have. For each one, brainstorm how it could be valuable to customers or clients.

This month: Test one business idea that leverages your natural personality instead of requiring you to become someone else.

Long-term: Build a business around being systematically excellent, not dramatically exciting.

If you're ready to stop waiting to become more exciting and start leveraging what makes you excellent, the First Step Entrepreneur program helps boring people build extraordinary businesses through systematic action.

Remember, the business world needs more reliable, thorough, systematic entrepreneurs. It needs fewer exciting personalities and more people who show up consistently and deliver what they promise.

Your boring traits aren't holding you back—they're your competitive advantage. Stop trying to be exciting and start being excellent.

The most successful entrepreneurs aren't the most interesting people. They're the most useful people. Focus on becoming useful, and the success will follow.

For related insights on leveraging your natural traits, read about being authentic as your superpower and discover 3 signs you're wired to be an entrepreneur.

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Video Transcript

Here's something that you may not hear that often. I am both one of the most boring people that you'll ever meet and maybe one of the more interesting people. That's how I describe myself. I describe myself as either the most boring, interesting person or the most interesting boring person. I haven't figured out which one is right, but I know that in some ways I'm a contradiction because by the typical measures, by the things that most people think make someone interesting. They're hobbies, they're travels, the things that they love, the things they do. I'm kind of boring. I've had an incredibly interesting life. I continue to live an interesting life, but I don't do very much. I live inside my head. The thing that gets me more excited than anything else is ideas. So I spent a lot of my time alone. See other way I describe myself. I describe myself as an extroverted loner. I am incredibly social. I love telling stories. I love talking about the ideas, the things I've read, the things that I'm building, and then I go home and I just think about them. Or what makes me boring, and I know that this is kind of weird, is that I actually pursue the things that I'm interested in. That is interesting in and of itself. But it also leads me very little time to do other hobbies. I've always been this way. Since my early 20s, I've always been starting something new. I've been chasing some sort of fame or success or wealth. Or I've just been building something because my interest was peaked, and I just couldn't help myself. I couldn't help but tinker or write some code or build something creative because that's where I get my excitement from. And I just wanted to talk to the other boring people out there, or maybe some of the interesting people out there because just because you're boring, just because you live what some people would consider a boring life doesn't make you not interesting. Take it for me. I'm assuming because you're watching this video that you've watched some of my other videos. You've heard my stories. You've heard me talk about the businesses that I've created, the times that I've been on stage, whether it was successful or a failure. The things that I do with my family, the things that bring me joy and happiness. I live a pretty rich life in those ways. I've done things that most people are too afraid to even try. But beyond it, I don't really have a lot of other things that I do. I spend a lot of the time just reading or thinking. I spend a lot of time in my head or just working on a computer trying to make something happen. And I'm absolutely okay with it. I'm okay with it because it's who I've always been. It's not as if I used to head to the club or go bike riding or mountain climbing. I didn't do snowboarding and skateboarding. And now as I get older, I'm just letting those things go and realizing now that I've become a boring person because that's not true. I have always been boring. But I've also been someone that has learned to tell a good story. Someone that has learned to take some risks in my life. Someone that is genuinely excited to join any conversation because I know I have something to add. I might not have a recommendation for the best restaurant because who cares. I'll just eat whatever's in front of me because I want to get on to doing something that I'm actually interested in, like building or creating something. But I have something to add. I have opinions. I have ideas. I have a personality that underlies all of it. And I think that everybody is the same. I talked to a lot of people that are worried that the fact that they don't have those hobbies. The fact that they are a little more reluctant to share their ideas or share their stories they do have makes them boring. And it will hold them back. And that can be true. But it doesn't have to be because take it from me. A truly boring person. I am always willing to share my ideas. I am making a channel. Now granted this channel may not be the best representation when you watch it because you might say, well, that's why you don't have very many subscribers you're boring. But trust me, it'll take off one day. I am interesting because I make myself interested. I actually think that that's who's most interesting. Maybe I'm biased in that. But just because you do a particular thing doesn't mean you're interesting. In fact, a lot of the time if you are obsessed over some hobby, if you're going to talk to me every time that I see you about the latest excursion you're going on or the mountain that you're climbing or some other technical aspect of the thing that I don't really care about. Well, that's boring to me. Was boring about that as a you don't recognize that I don't have the same passions as you. What's interesting to me and what I try to be as a boring interesting person is finding something that whoever I'm talking to can relate to that we can get excited about. Maybe it is a shared TV show that we just watched independently. Maybe it's just something we read or just our perspective on the world. That's why I make these videos. That's why I don't make promises. That's why I talk about generalities. That's what interests me. And I know that there are people that are just as interesting because they are thoughtful because they're introspective because they've lived a life. I'm interested in how you manage or insecurities. I'm interested in how you've overcome the fears you have to still do the things you do. I talk to so many people that have done remarkable things like going back to school for the first time in their 40s or 50s. That's interesting. I don't care about where you went on your trip to Spain. I care about how you overcome that. What it felt like on the first day that you walked into a room full of 18 year olds and you had to learn how to be part of that group. That's interesting. I think that that's something that everybody needs to accept. That what's interesting and what's boring. Like everything else in life is subjective. And you can choose to find yourself interesting and present yourself as interesting even when you're the most boring person in the room like I am. I guarantee you no matter who you are no matter how boring you think you are. You probably have more hobbies in me. There's probably a book series you love more than I do. I just like to read the news. There's probably a video game that you've been playing and mastering. I play casual games once that I can play for five minutes and then go back to building something. I don't have a lot of interests. And I think that I don't want to change. There's been times in my life where I've wondered if I should focus more on hobbies that I should learn to love something more. I don't need to. I love my family. I love myself. To me, those are the things that matter and those are the things I'm going to keep focusing on. So if you're someone that is worried about being boring just use me as an example. Yeah, I've done some interesting things. But they're all things that I just created from nothing. They were just ideas in my head. And for me, I happen to put them on paper. I happen to take them on stage or put them on film. That's still the same thing. I'm doing nothing different except sitting in my house by myself being boring. I just happen to do it out loud. So if you want to be boring with me, if you want to be boring out loud, if you want to learn out loud, be interesting because of the ideas you have, then share your comments. I would love to hear from some of you. I do an open Friday calendar where I actually just meet random people and share stories. That's how I learn. That's how I remain interesting is by co-opting or stealing your stories just a little bit. And I'm always around to help you craft your stories into something that is more interesting. And over time, I want to start recording those conversations because I think that there is so much interest in the average in the regular people. And the people that aren't on the circuit of videos and YouTube interviews and podcasts, we're all interesting. And I want to hear more from you. So reach out. I would love for us to be boring together or interesting together whatever it takes. And let's see if we can overcome the shame and the guilt of not having a particular hobby, not being the person that ran the marathon. We are interesting too. And I look forward to maybe helping you share that story with the world.