How Do You Define Success?

I recently did an interview with a young entrepreneur named Jason Navallo who is collecting and publishing life advice on his website Navallo.net. Jason has some ideas for interesting things he may do with the site over time, but right now it is just a free resource full of life perspectives from interesting people. Well worth a browse. In the meantime, since I have a lot of early-career entrepreneurs as Scratchpaper readers, I figured I’d share my answers here.

1. How do you define success?

Achieving balance and sustainability. Finding something that stimulates you enough intellectually and pays you enough financially, but also gives you enough balance with other aspects of your life to be sustainable over the long-haul.

2. What is the key to success?

Finding work that suits your temperament perfectly and fits with your natural curiosity.

3. Did you always know you would be successful?

Not in those words exactly, but it never really crossed my mind that I wouldn’t be able to do what I set out to do, whatever it was.

4. When faced with adversity, what pushes you to keep moving forward?

The knowledge that adversity is temporary, that opportunities are often disguised as problems and that where there is a will, there is eventually a way.

5. What is the greatest lesson you’ve ever learned?

It is not what you say that matters, it is what they hear.

6. What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

Learning.

7. What makes a great leader?

The ability to get the followers bought into the goal.

8. What advice would you give to college students about entering the workforce?

It is a marathon, not a sprint. Everything you do in your 20s will teach you something valuable, and lead you in some interesting direction, so just get out there and do something. Grab a job, rather than waiting for a career. You will be surprised where it will take you.

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If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy: Nailing The One Minute Pitch, Start-Up Marketing Series, Constructing a Pitch, Delusional Economics, That Vision Thing, The Power of An Advisory Board, Top Angel Investors in New England, Angel Video Interview Series, Thoughts on Crowdfunding, Entrepreneur at Work: Caine’s Arcade,  The Crowdfunding Interview (Frank Peters Show), Getting Off The Ground; Early Formation Economics, Pitch Clinic at MassChallenge (Video), Are Entrepreneurs Wild Risk-Takers?, Top 20 Dos & Don’ts with Angel Groups & Early Stage Financing, What I Look For In An Entrepreneur, The Overture, Do The Right Thing, Open Forum with Angel, Seed and VC Investors (Video), Pick Your Founder/Co-Investors Carefully & Reflections on the Nature of Entrepreneurs.

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