Joe Stump on How Short Projects and Fresh Starts Accelerate a Career

In Chapter 5 of 16 of his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, entrepreneur Joe Stump highlights how fresh starts keep him motivated, happy, and fulfilled. Stump looks for problem solving opportunities, addresses them, and then prefers to move onto the next challenge.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How does embracing change play a role in both your personal and professional life?

Joe Stump:  I like new challenges.  I have this track record of working someplace for 2 ½ to 3 ½ years and then leaving.  I normally start each thing that I do with… I take that on because I see challenges.  Once I’ve kind of completed those or overcome those challenges it is time to move on. 

That’s generally how my career has been, a succession of climbing mountains.  And my personal life…  I was telling these guys earlier that I tend to like to move – just like I move from job to job every two to three years, I also move from city to city.  Within 2 ½ to 3 years you can be in a big city, you know all the cool little nooks and crannies and things like that. 

Once something becomes familiar to me, I’m bored with it and want to do something else.  So, I get to the top of one peak, I look and there is another one and I say, “That’s fun, let’s go to that.”  I’m not the guy who gets to the top of a peak and decides to start building a fort to solidify his fortress.  I’d rather move on.