Are successful entrepreneurs born or bred?

It's an age old question and one that splits the nation: are entrepreneurs born with the personality traits which mean they succeed or is it something which can be learnt?

This week, a piece of research was released which falls firmly on the nature rather than nurture side of the argument. It found that 80% of business owners believe that it's their personality which is behind their success and education has little to do with it.

It's a debate which we'll probably never resolve but for what it's worth, I think entrepreneurship can be nurtured.

Yes, the likes of Sir Richard Branson, Sir Alan Sugar and Bill Gates possess common characteristics which have contributed to their success - tenacity, determination and a desire to be self employed from an early age among them - but is that the only reason they've succeeded? Hasn't luck, being in the right place at the right time and learning from others got something to do with it as well?

Whatever you say about the increase in business reality television because it certainly has its critics, it has definitely sparked a renewed interest in entrepreneurship and given the ordinary man and woman on the street the belief that they too can do it. Some will succeed, some won't but will it only be those not born an entrepreneur who will crash and burn? I don't think so.

An increasing number of courses are arriving on the scene which claim to teach people how to be entrepreneurs. I haven't been on any of them but I can predict that some are better than others. What it does show though is that there is an increasing desire to go it alone and start a business which has been heightened by the current economic crisis.

When this recession is over we will look back and see people running their own businesses who no-one would ever have predicted would be doing so. People who have worked in a dead-end job they hated for many years but out of the adversity of redundancy have successfully begun working for themselves.

You may not be innately determined; you may not be willing to work seven days a week, 365 days a year and you may not have left school at 15 but that doesn't mean you can't learn the skills of how to run a successful business. If you believe in it - and you might not know you wanted to do it until someone suggests you do - it will succeed.

I have great hope for the renewed efforts being put into enterprise education. I've criticised the government on many occassions but this time, they've got it right. Running a business needs to be highlighted as a career option to the UK's youngsters and with initiatives like Peter Jones' enterprise academies, we're on course to achieving that. But what is needed is thousands of already successful entrepreneurs to get involved and show the kids that it can be done and you don't have to be 'born' an entrepreneur to do it.

As for me, I stayed on at school until 18, completed a degree in history followed by a postgraduate diploma in journalism; not quite the path that point to entrepreneurship. I'd still like to say though that I'm determined, resilient and like a challenge. Who knows whether I'll ever become an entrepreneur but I'm not going to rule anything out.