Imagine starting out with two employees who laugh at your dreams and targeted projections and quit two months later.

This is what Masayoshi Son, founder of The Softbank Corporation, experienced. And note, it has been reported that he currently earns some $200 million per day from his Internet investments such as Yahoo!, E*Trade, and Ziff-Davis, just to name a few.

When queried about his path as if it had all been a successive string of successes, he replied, “I’ve made a lot of moves. I have lots of scars and am ashamed and shy when I look back.”

He went on to explain that most warriors have battle scars that remind them of pains experienced. It is often these reminders that become the greatest teachers, helping us prepare more intensely for the next round.

Masayoshi’s formula for success is tried and true: “Strongly believe in big dreams and have a strategy.”

And yet the numbers associated with his dream were huge, so I asked him, “Many goal setting experts state that we should set goals that are believable, so how does one set large goals and make them believable to the mind?”

He replied, “Start with the big picture and break it down from there. I figured out what it would take to be number one in the industry and worked backwards.”

In the end, perhaps entrepreneurial success is best defined by ongoing efforts and not merely by the results. Thus to paraphrase a Chinese proverb, “It matters not what path a person is on in life. What matters is their commitment to the path.”