I once again found my way to New York City, chilling with new and old friends and today I had the pleasure to meet Gary Vaynerchuk, serial entrepreneur, angel investor and the guy that misspelled the title of his book “One Entrepreneur’s Take on Leadership” while of course, it should have been “The Entrepreneur’s Take on Leadership”!
I thought I hustled, worked hard, rocking it about 12/14 hours a day.
Boy was I wrong… Gary hustles 18 hours per day, managing meetings, keynotes, social presence and so much more.
And STILL… People doubt him. Does he really hustle that hard? Is he really the thriving force behind his company (vaynermedia.com) and is he really that good?
I’m starting this post about Gary, but really – It’s about all of us. Who’s us? Entrepreneurs.
Yeah – I’m that bold to call myself an entrepreneur. The similarities between entrepreneurs seem to add up for me at the moment. The more I talk with them, the more I find out that most have no degree.
A lot of entrepreneurs experience negativity, people that don’t believe in them, tell them “you won’t make it” or “what you do won’t get you anywhere” and yet still they keep pushing to the max. Pushing to meet their KPI’s and goals while being pushed back by the people they care about.
And you know what’s funny? When you make it, when you prove them wrong… They say they always knew you would.
But that’s just life side of things… What about the actual business? The Hustling. Moving your product 1 by 1, hand to hand.
Its not easy. You have to get used to people saying NO. NO. And guess what… NO!
And when you’re just getting started – You don’t have a sales team. You don’t have a web team. You don’t have a designer. You’ve got you. Heck, I’m in this adventure with Sharon (sharonmeijer.com) for the past 2/2.5 years now and we still do EVERYTHING OURSELVES. Not because we can’t afford outsourcing, not because we don’t want to outsource… But because we love what we do. It’s just that simple.
You can tell us a 1000 times that we won’t make it. We’ll look at each other, laugh at you as if it’s the last time we can ever laugh at anyone and continue. We’re used to NO 😉
What the moral is of this story? I have no *bleeping* clue xD… It’s almost 11:30PM and I woke up at 7am so my train of thought is about to arrive at it’s final destination.
If you have just .1% of entrepreneurial gut in you… Grow it. Build it. Get used to NO. Move your product 1 by 1 yourself and grow. That said…
It’s not easy. The end.
PS: Get Gary’s latest book “#AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur’s Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness” on Amazon TODAY!