The Entrepreneur's Values Paradox: The Value That Best Predicts Success Is One of the Most Undervalued
Some time ago, I wrote an article about resilience and why I consider it one of the most important attitudes for any entrepreneur. At the time, I approached it from both psychology and personal experience: entrepreneurship means living with uncertainty, learning from mistakes, and getting back up again after every setback.
As a psychological concept, resilience has been understood in different ways: as a behavior, an attitude, or a skill. Recently, I conducted a study on the entrepreneurial values associated with success, and I chose to consider resilience as a value.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”
A value is defined as a lasting belief that a particular mode of conduct or end state is personally or socially preferable. That is how I wanted to understand resilience in the context of my research: not as the behavior itself of getting back up after failure, nor even as the ability (or potential) to do so, but as something deeper—the belief that being resilient is more desirable and more valuable than other ways of responding to adversity.
I conducted this research during April and May 2026 with 244 entrepreneurs from 27 different countries, including both Spanish-speaking and English-speaking participants. Over the coming months, I will be sharing some of the findings in a series of articles.
I would like to begin with one result that surprised even me. It not only confirmed the importance of resilience but also revealed an apparent contradiction in the way entrepreneurs themselves perceive it.
The contradiction was so striking that I decided to give it a name: the Entrepreneur's Values Paradox.
An Unexpected Finding
In my research, I analyzed the relationship between nine values and the level of success achieved by entrepreneurs with different backgrounds and business profiles. To measure these values, I used a 46-item scale that I developed, which allowed me to identify the values most closely associated with the participants' typical behavior in managing their businesses. In addition, I asked participants to rank the nine values according to the importance they attribute to each in their entrepreneurial activity—which values they believe contribute most to achieving their business goals and success.
I also asked them to evaluate the extent to which they considered themselves successful in their businesses at the time of the interview. To measure this, I used validated entrepreneurial success scales developed by Dominika Wach (2020).
I expected to find a reasonable degree of consistency between the two measures of values (the behavioral scales and the ranking exercise). Instead, I found exactly the opposite.
Resilience—as measured through the behavioral scales reflecting entrepreneurs' actual behavior—was the value most strongly associated with the level of success achieved by the participants.
However, when I asked them which values they considered most important, resilience ranked only seventh out of nine.
In other words, the value that best predicts success is one of the least consciously valued.
That is precisely the paradox.
How Is This Possible?
At first glance, this result is difficult to explain. If resilience has such a strong influence on success, why don't entrepreneurs consider it particularly important?
I don't believe there is a single answer. But over the past few months, I have reflected extensively on this apparent contradiction and arrived at several possible explanations.
1. Resilience Is an Invisible Value
When we think of successful people, we tend to admire what is visible. We admire their creativity, their leadership, their vision, their discipline, their ability to recognize opportunities.
But we rarely admire the moments when they were about to give up. The nights of uncertainty, the projects that failed. the financial losses, the clients who never came, the wrong decisions.
Resilience is almost never part of the picture of success. It is only visible along the journey. And because we tend to remember the final outcome, we forget everything that made it possible. Perhaps that is why we underestimate it.
2. We Only Think About It When Things Go Wrong
There is another possible explanation. When a business is growing, entrepreneurs talk about innovation, sales, expansion, productivity, or leadership.
Nobody wakes up one morning saying: "Today I need to be resilient."
Resilience only enters the scene when a crisis appears. When an important client leaves, when a product launch fails, when a business partner walks away, when revenue declines for several months.
It is a capacity that remains in the background... until it becomes indispensable.
And precisely because it only appears during difficult times, we tend to forget it when we think about what explains success.
3. Success Depends as Much on Enduring as on Acting
We often think of entrepreneurship as a sequence of good decisions. Finding an opportunity, designing a great product, winning customers, building a team, scaling the business.
All of that matters.
But there is one prerequisite we rarely mention: Staying in the game long enough.
The best strategies accomplish very little if we quit after the first major failure. Creativity produces no results if we stop innovating after the second unsuccessful attempt. Discipline loses its meaning if we close the business before reaping the rewards of sustained effort.
Resilience may not produce success directly.
But it makes it possible for the other values to have enough time to produce it.
A Second Equally Interesting Finding
The study also revealed another result worthy of attention. Older entrepreneurs showed higher levels of resilience. The same was true for entrepreneurs running more mature businesses—companies that had been operating for a longer period of time.
This finding raises a very interesting question.
Why does this happen?
1. First Possibility: Without Resilience, You Don't Last
The first explanation is relatively straightforward. Perhaps less resilient entrepreneurs give up earlier.
Difficulties are an inevitable part of the entrepreneurial journey. Those who fail to adapt eventually close their businesses or give up entrepreneurship altogether. As the years go by, those who remain are mainly the ones who were able to persevere.
We could think of this as a kind of natural selection process in entrepreneurship. It is not necessarily the smartest or the most creative who survive. It is those who keep moving forward after every setback.
2. Second Possibility: Resilience Is Learned
But there is another equally plausible explanation. Perhaps resilience is not merely a personal characteristic. Perhaps it is also a competency that develops over time.
Every crisis teaches us something. Every mistake forces us to rethink our decisions. Every failure strengthens our confidence to face the next challenge.
Over time, entrepreneurs discover that almost no problem is permanent. They learn that difficult periods eventually pass, that a lost client can be replaced, that a product can be redesigned, that a business can reinvent itself.
Experience does not eliminate difficulties. What changes is the way we respond to them. And that, precisely, is the essence of resilience.
Both Explanations Are Probably Partly True.
In reality, I don't think we need to choose between one explanation and the other. It is entirely possible that both processes are happening simultaneously.
Entrepreneurs with lower levels of resilience are more likely to quit during the early stages. Those who continue gradually develop a greater capacity to cope with adversity.
It becomes a cumulative process.
Resilience helps us stay in the game. And staying in the game helps us develop greater resilience.
A Lesson for Those Just Starting Out
Perhaps the main lesson from these findings is that resilience should not be seen as an emergency resource. It is not something we use only when a crisis appears. It is a capacity worth cultivating from day one.
Just as no one waits until they are injured to start strengthening their muscles, we should not wait for a major crisis before developing our psychological strength.
Preparing ourselves emotionally for difficult times is part of the work of being an entrepreneur. Because those moments will come, sooner or later.
The Paradox Continues
After analyzing these findings, I still find this contradiction fascinating.
Entrepreneurs recognize the importance of passion, discipline, optimism, and responsibility. Yet the value that showed the strongest relationship with success ranks near the bottom when we ask them which values they consider most important.
Perhaps this happens because resilience works quietly. It does not generate headlines, it does not appear on social media, it is rarely the protagonist of success stories.
Yet it is present every time an entrepreneur decides to try once more. Every time they learn from a mistake, every time they adapt their strategy, every time they get back up after a setback.
And perhaps that is where the real paradox lies. It is not that resilience is unimportant. It is that we only discover its true value when we genuinely need it.
If you would like to continue receiving updates about the findings of this study in my upcoming articles, be sure to join my mailing list. That way, you'll be among the first to know whenever a new result is published.
In addition, I will soon be sharing a free online assessment tool that will allow you to evaluate your entrepreneurial values. If you are subscribed to my mailing list, you will receive an exclusive invitation to take the assessment before it is made publicly available.
If you would like to continue receiving updates about the findings of this study in my upcoming articles, be sure to join my mailing list. That way, you'll be among the first to know whenever a new result is published.
In addition, I will soon be sharing a free online assessment tool that will allow you to evaluate your entrepreneurial values. If you are subscribed to my mailing list, you will receive an exclusive invitation to take the assessment before it is made publicly available.
