It’s always exciting to think about the idea of having your own new start up. You hear about stories where entrepreneurs started with just $300 and a cardboard box and then turned their business into millions. In reality, having worked with many types of business owners, the first mistake made by most is simply not having enough capital or access to capital while growing your business.

One of the best ways to achieve financial success is to become and entrepreneur. There are so many valuable pieces of wisdom to learn as an entrepreneur, but here are the big three traits you must have to truly succeed in your business.

Eager to lock in your gains on a hot investment? Before you click on sell, consider the tax implications. In a taxable account, you'll pay 15 percent in capital gains taxes every time you sell a winner you've owned for more than a year (the longer you can defer paying taxes, the more time you're giving your money to grow). Come tax time, however, it can be a good move to sell losers in your portfolio to take advantage of the annual $3,000 capital-loss deduction limit and offset any capital gains on your winning picks.

All debt is not created equal, so rank yours by interest rate and pay off the bad stuff first. That usually means credit cards, which can carry interest rates as high as 30 percent. (Compare your card's APR with others at Bankrate.com.) On the other end of the scale are student loans. Those rates are generally between 3 and 6 percent, so consider making the minimum payment and investing in your 401(k) instead. Hey, even Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was still paying off his school loans when he joined the bench.

The more time you have, the more risk you should take. If you're just starting out, 80 percent to 100 percent of your assets ought to be in stocks. The simplest trick? Subtract your age from 120: That's the percentage you should have in stocks; the rest should be in bonds. "If you have, say, 30 or 40 years, what happens over the next three months or even three years doesn't matter. If you need the money in two years and it drops 40 percent in one year, that's a problem," says Stuart Ritter, a certified financial planner with T. Rowe Price.