Bilingual entrepreneurs have taken the time to immerse themselves in another culture, and learn a language for the benefit of their company. This demonstrates initiative, passion and plenty of motivation – all skills required of the successful entrepreneur.

Here are just some of the reasons that make the bilingual businessperson better at entrepreneurship than their unilingual counterparts.

Empathy

Being empathetic is a vital part of employee and client relationships. Without it business owners run the risk of distancing themselves and losing valuable connections.

In order to learn a new language it’s essential to immerse yourself in a new culture, which forces you to become empathetic.

Not only will your talent for empathising with others improve, but you’ll gain respect from your clients. If you’re learning a new language because some of your clients are foreign, making the effort to learn even some phrases will go a long way, and will strengthen your business relationship.

Mental agility

Owning a business brings a number of mental challenges that test the mental agility of entrepreneurs.

Becoming bilingual has been proved by numerous studies to show improved cognitive learning ability, as you have to understand and be able to manipulate sentence structure and the mechanics of a language.

This positive impact on cognition has also been reported to have an effect on the early on-set of dementia, a study has found. You can read more about these findings here.
 

New opportunities

Expanding your business network is a key aspect of entrepreneurship, which goes hand in hand with language skills. You’re able to expand your network even further, which can create new opportunities for your business.

You’ll have a larger chance at being able to trade overseas, as overseas entrepreneurs might be more comfortable speaking in their mother tongue. If you develop an interest in the language you’ll also have a higher chance in finding common ground and clinching a business deal.

Self-reflection

Self-reflection is a common trait of entrepreneurs, as it’s important to reflect on how you can improve your business and how you can personally change in order to be more productive.

Language learning forces you to immerse yourself in another culture. This allows you to appreciate your own culture from another perspective, which can help you become more reflective on your own culture and yourself.

Improved decision-making

Entrepreneurs are the best decision-makers in the business. And if they aren’t, they need to learn to be.

There’s a whole host of snap decisions you’ll need to make throughout your career, so it’s a good idea to learn the art of decision-making as soon as possible.

There have been a number of papers published on how learning a new language can help your decision-making abilities. Reports found those who think in their second language are better at making decisions with an advantageous outcome.

So what are you waiting for? Head out and sign up for a language course in order to better your business.

Are you thinking about learning a language to improve your company’s prospects? Or are you a fluent polyglot? We’d love to hear about your experiences. Leave a comment in the section below with your thoughts!