Episode 34: Jan Cavelle - The Journey of an Accidental Entrepreneur

Gold Nuggets in this Episode:

• Juliet took their puppy for a walk at 4:30am. She thinks the puppy had mixed feelings about that.
• “A lot of people don’t always share the tough moments; they kind of gloss over it and say ‘it was a struggle in the beginning, but look at where I am now.’”
• “Entrepreneurs need to hear that it’s not all perfect, and it’s not this front that you see on the news or on social media; that there is so much struggle behind it to get them there.”
  
  “I’m all for encouraging entrepreneurship. I think there will be a great need for more and more over the coming years. But I don’t think it’s doing anybody a good service to tell them that it’s all fun and games.”

• “Validating an idea is a plain sensible thing to do.”
  
  “People get on their high horse that they have this idea and therefore other people must buy it. They’re missing the whole idea that it’s a problem that they need to address and find that people want solved.”

• “In this day and age, there’s a good argument for starting a business as a side hustle.”
• “You are not your business. You should not measure yourself by the success of your business. That is a tough lesson to learn.”
• “Don’t be afraid of learning, because sooner or later you’re going to have to.”
• “If you’re going to grow a business, you want to be very sure that your reason behind it is good, and that you are mentally fit enough to do it.”
• “Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. It’s the mastery of fear. It’s about getting up one more time than we fall down.” – Arianna Huffington

Our guest is author, writer, and speaker, Jan Cavelle. Jan started with a sales business that she ran from under her staircase at home, and through pure determination, she scaled her business to garner great success. She has won numerous awards, represented the UK in Europe as one of the first 50 Female Entrepreneurial Ambassadors, spoken about SME’s on Newsnight, debated at the Cambridge Union, formed part of the Women Influence Community, and has written contributions to many publications, including Real Business. Her ambition has always been to author and publish a book, which she will accomplish in 2021.

Song by Adam Vitovsky / CC BY 3.0