URI Annual Career Day, Ben Navarro-7

What are your incentives going to be? What is going to incentivize you? Is it money? Is it learning? Is it where I’m at? Is it who I’m working with? Think about what are the things that are going to incentivize you. In my case, I want a path. I want a path that hopefully is going to get me to a place where I can start my own business. That was my incentive, my primary incentive. So think about what those incentives are for you.

Ben Navarro Charleston. I’m huge on this. I stink at it. I have for most of my life and I’m trying to get better at it but when good things happen, make a fuss. When you accomplish something in school, make a fuss about it. Make sure you feel good about it because if you’re going to be your own worst critic, you sure as hell better celebrate the good things.

Be the dumbest guy in the room. What do I mean by that? First of all, you want to work with as smart people as you possibly can. In my case, I want to hire as smart people as I possibly can. I also don’t want to be afraid to be the person who asks the question that might seem a little goofy. As a leader, I’m always willing to do that but I would suggest you should do the same thing.

All right, another growth tip. Please, please listen to this one. Smart is not what you think it is. Being smart very simply is knowing what you do know and knowing what you don’t know. What you don’t know can be fairly easily found out. Please listen to this one. So this does not mean you don’t have to do your part. You’re a business student; you ought to be reading the Wall Street Journal and other business publications. You ought to know what’s going on in the world, no doubt about it.

But when I was your age, I thought the smart kid in the corner who could bang out math like nobody’s business – I thought that was the smartest kid in the room. What I’ve learned later actually is and if you ask me now what do I look for when I hire people, I look for people that are obviously self-motivated, can solve problems, and probably more than anything else, can make the people around them better . . . can make the people around them better. It’s a lot different definition of smart than I thought of when I was 21. Fact-based learning, it’s important. You gotta’ do it. It’s not what drives the train at the end of the day. I hope that’s helpful.

I’m going to take you through lastly some significant milestones as we grew the company and hopefully these are things that will be helpful but also help you understand how did you go from a one-bedroom apartment with a phone/fax machine to what the company looks like today. How does that path happen? Go HERE:- https://www.pinterest.com/pin/363947213622325292/