About This Conversation
Aaron Byrnes is an entrepreneur in the import-export trade, based in Newport Beach, California. He got his start in construction before moving into rugs and antiquities import-export work in 1990, and he has run his own business ever since. In this conversation, he talks about what success means to him now, after more than three decades building a career without a college degree or a safety net.
What Does Success Mean to You Today, Compared to When You Started?
When I started, success meant having enough money to not worry about rent. That was it. I worked construction as a kid, mostly residential, some commercial plumbing later on. Nobody in that world talks about success in big terms. You talk about getting paid on time and not getting hurt on the job. Once I got into rugs and antiquities, the definition got more complicated. Now I’d say success is having enough control over my own time to go sailing on a Tuesday if I want to. Money matters, but it’s really about not having a boss tell me when I can leave.
You Never Went to College. How Has That Shaped How You Measure Success?
I don’t measure it against a degree, because I never had one to compare against. High school diploma, then straight into work. What that did was make me measure success against people who were actually doing the thing, not people who had a credential saying they could do the thing. In the rug and antiquities business, nobody cared where I went to school. They cared if I knew what I was looking at and if I paid what I said I’d pay. That’s a pretty clean way to keep score.
How Do Sailing and Pickleball Fit Into Your Idea of Success?
They’re the proof, honestly. If the business is going well, I’m not chained to a desk, and I can actually be out on the water or on a court. I started pickleball more recently and I like that it’s social, it’s fast, and it doesn’t take all day like sailing can. If I find myself skipping both for weeks because I’m buried in work, that tells me something is off, even if the numbers look fine.
Has Anything You’ve Listened to Changed How You Think About Success?
I listen to a lot of podcasts, Freakonomics Radio especially, and some of the economics-focused shows that break down how incentives actually work versus how people assume they work. What stuck with me is how often success in business comes down to understanding what the other side actually wants, not what you assume they want. That applies to a buyer looking at a rug, and it applies to a lot of life. I don’t take notes or anything formal from these shows. I just let them sit in the back of my head while I’m driving.
What’s a Measure of Success That Most People Overlook?
Repeat business from people who didn’t have to come back to you. In import-export, especially with antiquities, a lot of deals are one-time. When someone finds you again two years later for a second piece, that tells you more than any single big sale does. I pay more attention to that than to the size of any one deal.
Have Any Failures Taught You More About Success Than Your Wins Did?
Being divorced twice taught me that success in business and success as a person aren’t the same scoreboard. I could be doing fine financially and still be getting something wrong at home. I don’t have kids, so that part of my life is simpler than it might be for other people, but I learned to stop assuming that because the business side was healthy, everything else was automatically fine too.
If You Had to Give One Piece of Advice About Success, What Would It Be?
Decide early what you’re actually trying to buy with your success, time, freedom, a certain kind of life, and then check in on whether the work is still getting you there. I came up swinging a wrench on jobsites. If someone had told me back then that success would eventually look like sailing and pinochle on a weekday, I wouldn’t have believed them. But that’s the version I was working toward, even when I couldn’t have said it out loud.