As Edward Abbey once proclaimed, “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” While economic success is commonly measured by “expansions” of GDP and “consumer confidence,” there are some walking the planet who value business success differently.

Writer Jill Bamburg, who is also MBA program director at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Bainbridge Island, Wash. , fits squarely into that category. The first question she recommends to mission-driven entrepreneurs is, “How do you define success?”