Gary Vaynerchuk's Blog, page 47

The Day I Decided To Become GaryVee

Listen, when I was 30, I looked myself in my rear view mirror as I was driving from New York to New Jersey and I said,

“You’re actions don’t map your ambitions.” … “Your behavior has to back up your words.”

If I wanted to buy the New York Jets, I knew that something would have to change.

Eight weeks later I started Wine Library TV on YouTube and began the process of changing my career. When I decide something, it just happens. I go all in. 30 was the year I decided that I was going to become GaryVee. That I was going to live my life in the pursuit of my ambition. That I would not waste another moment on anything but my dream.

If you’re not happy, and you’re stuck in a rut, you need to do the same. You need to look in the mirror and become self-aware. Financially at 30 I was actually in a good place. On paper I had already accomplished success. But it was not enough. I knew that spending my time selling Wine wasn’t going to make me a billion dollars. I needed to adjust my strategy if completing my bucket list was going to become real.

To me, it’s just binary. You’re either in or you’re out. Every day between seven years-old and 18 years-old I was told that I had already lost, that I was a loser because I failed school.

But I knew inside that this was not the game that I was going to play. I was ultimately patient. I made it work.

I literally ate shit in that 12 year period while the market and the machine told me I would never win. I knew what my outcome was going to be. I just never gave up. A lot of people reading this may be in their 20s and 30s and 40s and “the machine,” or the market-place might be telling you that you’re going to lose, but it’s just not true.

There is always potential. There is always time. — Tweet This!

8 years ago no one would even talk to me about social media and marketing. About building a creative agency. About building a personal brand. It doesn’t matter if you come from non-profit, or art or philanthropy or selling sneakers, the market can’t deny your results. And so even though I started my career in wine, no one could dispute my success when I started to win. You’ve got one life, forget about where you came from and focus on where you want to be.

It’s just the truth. This article is to empower you, to help you and to guide you toward making those decisions. I don’t care if you came from money, or opportunity, or connections. I don’t care if you started selling toys but now want to try doing a podcast. I just want you to be honest with yourself. Be truthful with where you are and where you want to be. Take that look in the rear-view mirror. Do your actions map you ambitions?

For me, it’s simply about staying the course and putting in the work and positioning yourself in the right place to succeed. Fuck what anyone else says. You have to do you.

So you know why I’m sitting here right now? At the top of one of the fastest growing creative agencies of all time… At a 150M dollar annual revenue business? At a company that has ambitions to become worth billions and billions of dollars? Not because I got lucky but because I outworked you. I went for it. Think about it. I out worked you. I didn’t come from money. I didn’t come from opportunity. I didn’t go to the best schools. I was a D & F student. I just think a lot of people feel this enormous pressure to get it right in their 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond. But that’s false.

I’m 41 and I’m just getting started. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from or what you did before now. Each day is an opportunity to deploy your time and energy toward your dream. Think about what you want, reverse engineer that, and then execute.

I just hope everyone understands that being a multi-millionaire and having enormous success is extremely rare. Starting the next Facebook is once in a generation. Not everyone can stumble upon the next billion dollar idea. Facebook could have just as easily been Myspace. Mark is a tremendous founder and CEO, but I promise you when he started Facebook he didn’t anticipate 2 billion users of his product. You just can’t.

So it really goes to show, you just need to start. Start with an idea and an action. Anything will do. As long as you get it out in the market you can evolve and grow.

I know it’s cool to be a startup founder when you’re 19 but that doesn’t mean it’s what you need to become. Or if you’re working in finance now and want to be an artist. In 10 years because you mixed practicality with passion you might actually have a chance to win. That’s what I’ve done with Wine and now building Vayner.

In early 2006, I started Wine Library TV. I took an enormous risk and you can too. For 18 months, I did my show five days a week and nobody gave a shit. I had 30 to 75 views on every video for an entire year.

Look at me now.

Today I get 50 emails a day from entrepreneurs telling me I’ve been doing this and it’s not working. I have no traction, should I give up and do something else? Inevitably, I’ll email back and ask how long have you been doing it? The reply says three to four months and I’m like F you. You want this to be your life’s work and you’re giving up after four months?? Are you out of your mind? Patience is just so grossly underestimated. I was not very successful in the beginning. WineLibrary TV didn’t take off until mid 2007, a year and a half in of five days a week of doing a show everyday getting only a couple hundred views.

So you’ve got to keep putting in the work. One is better than zero.

Put in the work. Put in the work. Put in the work. –Tweet This!

There is no quick fix. No elevator to success. The hard work really matters and the patience is what overrides it. I didn’t need to get mine at 25. Heck, I don’t even need to “get mine” at 41.

This is the long, long game. I’m driven by the climb. It could be because I’m an immigrant and I just have this chip on my shoulder. Or Maybe it’s in my DNA. I don’t like winning. I like losing. I like the struggle. I like people telling me that I can’t.

I don’t give a shit if my payday comes tomorrow. I want the game.

The game is my life. There will never be a moment to quit. There’s no dollar amount. Nothing you can do to make me stop. The process, the journey and the hustle is the drug that drives me. It’s my oxygen. It’s what I love, and so every day is going to be the same. 24/7–365.

I’ll see you in 2019, 2020, 2021. I’ll see you in 2045. I may not be doing social media and marketing at that point. You really never know. So many of you are just playing for the short game. You’re crippled by your circumstances today dictating your possibilities for tomorrow.

You’re looking for the miracle hack and you think you have to get it right on your first try.

You’re going to look for that one move that’s going to change your career and you’re going to continue to search, and search and search and never do. You’ll be looking for the hacks, and the shortcuts and the easy way out and I’ll just keep putting in the work, the hours, the long term value, the strategy and the patience.

While everybody else is hoping and dreaming, I’m going to be executing. You play the short game. I’ll keep playing the long game and it’s time for me to get back to work.

Please take a step back. Use this article as a reminder. It doesn’t matter what you did before. It matters what you do TODAY.

 

 

Thanks for reading! 

What Every 19 Year Old Gets Wrong

So I was at a keynote a few years back and this guy stands up to ask me this question. I think his name was, Jeff?

And after I have poured my heart out on stage and given this 45 minute talk on the value of 1-1 interaction with your customers, how to develop deep relationships and how to provide value above all else, this guy JEFF tries to promote his brand…

Why Nothing Scares Me In Business

I’m going to tell you why I lack fear in business.

It’s because I fear something so much.

I fear the health and well-being of my family so much, and I mean I’m crippled by it. Hence, why, when you’re a grown-ass man and you get up during a vacation and go to some weird corner and pray for your mom to wake up. You know? This really happens to me.

I am so fearful of the health and well-being of the 10 to 15 people closest to me in my life. It is disproportionately the most important thing in the world to me that it just makes everything else so easy.

The thought of losing all of my money is often so weirdly exciting because I know I have the talent to rise back up. Money doesn’t mean anything to me. I want legacy, influence, and impact.

I thought that would go away when I had kids, and it has to some degree, but not really. I think that’s how it plays out in other people’s lives right? You’re scared to die? Scared to lose, scared to try? Not me.

That’s why I’m so in tune with my feelings. I’m all in. I dream of buying the Jets or having somebody say, “This is it. This was the guy. He was the best entrepreneur of this generation.” Then I think about that title being anointed upon me and then immediately getting a phone call and hearing that my mom died in a car accident. None of it would matter.

I would be devastated. Then I see how I feel and since I feel awful, well then why in the world would I get caught up in the money or the business? You only have one life. I live mine in the moment. I care deeply about every human interaction I have. In those meetings, I’m not thinking about business, or money, or success. I’m thinking about life. About what really matters. About the individual standing right in front of me.                                          

There’s definitely personal vulnerabilities that I have that I’m aware of, but boy, I am super not scared when it comes to business. I’ve been doing it my whole life. I’ve always been good at it. There is no reason to fear money or a meeting or a deal. Why does it matter? You can’t sell the unsellable. You can’t change the way the other person treats you in the moment. You can’t change their perception, or circumstance or what they had for breakfast that morning that has put them in a bad mood. So why let it bother you? You have to deploy understanding, empathy and compassion. You have to be you, and not be afraid to fail.

Maybe it’s my DNA, but I also think it’s a learned behavior. I’ve seen it happen with those around me and I’ve watched them grow. My assistant @tyler has become an absolute monster when it comes to his confidence. After having him work at Vayner for year and a half, he’s now shaking hands and doing deals with the biggest names in business. It just takes time. Confidence builds and reality set in. You lose your fear of not doing, not trying, not caring what other people think.

You become free, and then the fun really begins to start.

Once you find perspective, anything is possible.

Hope this helps!

-G

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How Much Money I Made During My Twenties!

So when I was a young kid, I made a lot of money selling baseball cards and comic books and toys. Like I mean a lot. Thousands of dollars every weekend.

And then I started working for my dad’s business, and I was making … when I was 22 to 28, I was making 35 to 55 thousand dollars a year, but I had no expenses. I didn’t go on vacations. I didn’t buy fancy things.

A lot of you think it’s just imperative to make 100,000 dollars from the start. You’re wrong. You have so much time.

So I saved my money, and I saved my money and I saved my money some more. And then when I was 33 and 34 I had hundreds of thousands of dollars. I didn’t have millions. I had hundreds of thousands of dollars. I didn’t own a fancy car, or a watch, or a suit for that matter. I kept my expenses low. I hadn’t bought a home. I was still living in an apartment.

I was 33 years old and I was renting an apartment because I was saving cash to go on the offense. And so when I had a chance to invest in those companies, I put hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, not millions, but those hundreds of thousands made millions. They made tens of millions.

I went all in. I literally bet everything I had and it worked. I have never been afraid to lose. I have always been early on the things that matter. When I was 19, I knew that the internet was going to be a big deal. That’s why I convinced my dad to let me launch Wine Library, one of the first e-commerce platforms in the world for wine. The day google ad-words came out I bought the word “wine” for 5C a click. This was a great bet. I also did email marketing from the very start. I was getting 90% open rates and 82% click through. Today you would be lucky to get .o8 percent. It’s not a mistake that I got to where I am. I’ve used both my intelligence and my hustle to achieve my financial success. The first two investments I made were in Twitter and Facebook. A lot of you don’t know this but I actually bought shares from Mark’s parents. I just believed in where the market was going.

And now I’m doing it again. I was early on social and grew my following on Twitter. I launched a wine show on youtube years before vlogging and the rest of it became a thing. I started VaynerMedia because I saw an enormous opportunity to leverage the world’s changing attention to create an unprecedented shift in the way we market and distribute products. This is just the beginning. I’m doing a vlog now called DailyVee which documents my life as a CEO and public figure and it’s been incredible for my brand. No one else is doing it and that’s why I think I’ll win. It’s about having legacy, influence and impact.

I guarantee that 5-10 years from now, having someone follow you around with a camera is going to be common. It’s the new reality TV. No doubt about it.

For as much credit as people give me for my “hustle” and “motivation” and “ambition” the secret key to my success is the actual strategy I’m deploying my hustle against. It’s my intelligence and intellect. I just have an enormous vision. For myself and for my company. I have always been HR drive, I have always been about celebrating people. I know how to hack culture and that’s a big deal. A lot of you have no idea what it’s going to be like in 10 years when this all plays out. Neither do I, but I can tell you that I will be more open than anyone to accept the reality and win.

And so, that’s it. Nothing crazy … I didn’t have any ridiculous unfair advantage or leverage. In fact I had so much less than so many of you coming out of Stanford and Harvard and Penn with the contacts and the network and the money. I didn’t have the internet! You people are growing up in the greatest era for entrepreneurship of all time. There are literally 8-year-olds who have an iPhone and 600,000 followers on Music.ly, it’s just insane!

But the point is this.

There’s a lot of people that make 55 thousand dollars a year when they’re 23. The problem is they go to Coachella, and they want to buy a watch, and they want to buy a BMW, and I didn’t. I ate shit for 13 years, and then when I had an opportunity I struck. I’m ultimately patient. It’s what I do.

Are you willing to put in the time and wait??

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Why I Vlog Everyday!

A lot of people have been asking me lately why the vlog is so similar? They tell me it’s the same thing over and over and over again and they don’t get it. Well isn’t that the point?

Consistency is king.

That’s why I talk a lot about being all-time, not one-time. Anyone can make one vlog, or do one deal, or have one sale, but that’s not me. I want to be great. I want it every day, always, forever.

For the past 25 years, I have done nothing else but put in the work. And by the way, I’m just getting started

Business is MY Vehicle

Listen, everyone in life has a passion, whether it be ballet, or baseball cards, health and wellness or writing blogs about Pokemon Go. And…

Through your passion you can always do good for yourself and for others.

For me, my vehicle is business. And I push so hard, through my vehicle, which isn’t meditation, which isn’t health and wellness, which isn’t non-profit, it’s business. I can’t help it, it’s what I love! I love building businesses, I love competing with you, I want to beat you. I love that game. But through that vehicle I will always push a service to the world and an awareness of how good it really is to find your passion and pursue it. It’s going to be different for everyone and you’re more than welcome to tell me about how bad it is or why you can’t because of some circumstance or some problem, but it’s just not true. Because if anybody has ever done it, then you can too.

But let me define “if anybody has ever done it, then you can too” because some of you have heard me say this in the past but I want to go a little bit deeper. If you’re a winner and you want it so bad, instead of looking at the millions of people that have not made it and are suffering, look at the ones who have. Find the group of people, the hundreds or maybe thousands of individuals who look exactly like you that have won. I promise you they exist. If anyone has ever made it out of ‘the hood’ then you can to. This is exactly what I mean.

So please, stop making excuses, stop complaining, and find your vehicle. And remember, the market doesn’t care, but you should! Your parents and your friends might pretend they’re listening, but you have to ignore them and focus on you. How are you going to deploy your dreams, how are you going to manifest your destiny, what makes you happy?! These are simple questions.

The truth is that all you need to do is make one person happy; you.

You have to do it for yourself and find your vehicle, then you can make everybody else happy. You know why I like making people happy? Because I’m already happy, and so I implore you to take this little rant and really look at your life and understand whether or not you’re doing the things that put you in a position to succeed – not just in business but in life. Because it’s super important, and boy, when you are happy in life, your fucking business can roll.

I’ve been trying to figure it out for you guys for the last seven, eight, ten years, trying to figure out the unlocks for EQ, IQ, self awareness, gratitude, and I really don’t know what they are, and you know why? Because there are 371 different unlocks. And I’m going to use all of them, and one day, it might hit you.

I might tell you that you’re lazy, and finally it comes with “Yeah it was hard work because I’m actually lazy!” Or  “I talk a good game but I’m full of shit.” Or, it might be something else, like finding your passion, your vehicle and your unique mission.

Remember, one f*cking life! One life my friends and honestly, I’ll leave you with this, because a lot of you need it. How you make your money is 4 billion times more important than how much you make. Find your passion, then DO.

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Planet of the Apps & The Art of The Pivot

This is a really interesting piece that I hope will provide a tremendous amount of value to entrepreneurs and operators alike. I want to talk about the art of the pivot, and more importantly, not being romantic about when it’s time to move on.

If you watch the first episode of “Planet Of The Apps,” you will see that I end up mentoring a company through to the final pitch. Without divulging too many details, the company I mentor is faced with an enormous challenge concerning the possibility of a pivot.

In order to find out what happens next, download Apple Music for three months free!

Let me know on Twitter how you think they did at the end of show

I’m Here to Tell You That You Can Still Win

I released a video a while ago called 6 minutes for the next 60 years of your life. It’s really important.

Basically, if you’re 52 years old, I’m here to tell you that It’s not over. If you want it so bad, if it’s in you, maybe it’s time to triple down and really focus on your 7:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m in the morning.

At the end of the day, what do you want to leave behind in this world? What impact do you want to have? What thing did you really want to try? I know you can do it and I want to give you permission.

I’m here to tell you that you can. That I believe in you.

There are so many people that could be truly good entrepreneurs or have entrepreneurial DNA but they just weren’t lucky enough to be born during an era that entrepreneurship seemed practical. Now because of the smartphone and the internet, anyone has a shot.

It’s hard for somebody who’s been operating for 30 years under a certain blueprint to understand that starting something new is still realistic. They feel like it’s a young man’s sport but it’s not. It’s accessible to all.

If you’ve got the right DNA and you’re a 72-year-old female, you have just as good of a chance to win as a 27-year-old man. But, you’ve been trained and marketed to that a 50 year old can’t win.

Entrepreneurship is not about taking away from your family. Entrepreneurship is about taking away from everything else. So stop making excuses. Stop telling me that “These millennials are so entitled.”  and “I didn’t grow up with a smartphone so I have no chance.”

Well neither did I, and somehow I found a way to win.

Nobody cares if you’re 40, 50, 80, female, male, or a minority, the market will accept your victories if you’re good enough.

I truly believe that if you’re a 40 year old housewife with two kids, or an inner city kid with no money, because of the internet, you’ve got wayyyy more opportunities to create something for yourself. We’re living through the greatest era for entrepreneurship imaginable with all of the world’s information literally at your fingertips.

So please, my friends, do not allow the 18 to 25 year olds to be the only ones to grab at this pie that is so available to all of us regardless of age.

If you have a smartphone, you can not complain.

We’re all going to live longer. The opportunity is real. The 58 year old right now that’s reading this, might live another 40 years. Forty years of being able to do something you love is a big deal. Start putting in the work. Start recognizing this isn’t just a young person’s game. Start representing the people that have actually put in the years, the gray hairs, the groundbreakers, the knowledge! Start deploying that. Educate yourself on the new world. Yes, I know that you did not grow up using Instagram.

Well neither did I and neither did every 25 year old in America.

But, guess what? You also didn’t grow up driving and somehow you learned to do that!

Stop making excuses, start getting educated in the actual world of today and start opening up opportunities. Everything is a skill that can be learned. The iphone and Instagram and hashtags and networking, it can all be learned if you just put in the work.

In my genuine opinion, I actually think you are more likely to be successful in building a company at 50 than at 18 because you have had the experience.

The 18-year-olds have naivete and passion. But they also have a real lack of experience that you can capitalize on. You my friends, have that experience. You know what works. You know what doesn’t. That is a really powerful thing!

Youth and excitement is great, but if you don’t actually understand how to build a business then you are going to lose. There’s plenty of talent and there’s a ton of fire and bravado in today’s youth. The only difference between me at 41 and the rest of you reading this is that I’ve actually put in the work to learn where people’s attention is and I’m deploying my energy to arbitrage that market. Today it’s Instagram. Tomorrow it could be something else. You have to adjust and adapt.

Many of you have drawn a line in the sand and said, “I’m not downloading Snapchat. I’m not downloading Instagram.” That my friends is going to guarantee that you are going to lose.

This article is really being written for one reason. I want it to be the calling card, the spark of the explosion for every 40 to 60 year old entrepreneur in our society. The fire I see in the eyes of a 19, 20, 25 year old that feels that they’re just entitled to this is absurd! I want to rekindle the flame for every 50 year old that had the passion at 22 but now 25 years later has this burden of practicality and family dynamics and the history of the market tearing down their prospect of opportunity.

The moment you no longer believe is the moment you’ve lost. I’m here to tell you that you can still win.

And just to remind you, there are a ton of entrepreneurs that started their companies in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s when people thought that it was too difficult to do such a thing. Sidney Frank who created Grey Goose at 77 didn’t win big until he sold his brand to Bacardi for 2.3 billion dollars at 84. It can happen. 

So, I’m desperate to give you the spark to say, “You know what? Instead of watching House of Cards, instead of trying to go to every baseball game or every wine tasting, I do have an extra 2 hours a day I can devote to my passion and see if I can make things work.”

For the 40 and 50 and 60 year-olds that are reading this right now, I want you to consider two things.

Of course you could pick up golf OR you could actually start that pet accessory company because all of your life you have loved animals and you would like to try.  You can post pretty pictures of dogs and start doing reviews on leashes, and collars and dog food and pretty soon you can build an audience.

By using hashtags and creating content, I guarantee that you can find a niche. It may not be a million followers but it can be 100, or 500, or 1000 true fans. The math really isn’t that tough. If you get 500 people to buy one $50 dollar product you have a $25,000 dollar annual business. Not bad for your side hustle right? And maybe you become an influencer in the space? Now Purina is asking you to advertise their products and paying you $1000 a post. It can work!

For things to go well, you have to learn your craft. Figure out the opportunity at hand. Go attack it. When you’re 90 years old, you’re going to regret that you never built that business and you let this era pass.  

And that’s really it. At least the way I see it. I got home at midnight last night and every single night. It’s just what I do. And I think there’s an enormous opportunity to inspire a generation that so deserves it. I almost feel like now that I’m 41 I am obligated to inspire because honestly I feel like I’m 21. I’m just getting started.

I have so much empathy for, and I recognize how insane I had to be to go all in… You can’t even imagine how much they made fun of me for being an entrepreneur when I was half your age. The 15 year old in school now that’s getting D’s but is selling shit on the internet, everyone is like, “Oh, you’re going to be the next Mark Zuckerberg.” For me it was like, “Oh, you’re going to be the next piece of shit.” It’s so insanely different. But you can try. Ultimately entrepreneurship is about freedom. It’s about being your own boss and living your own life. 

I just want people to win. I don’t think you all understand how real it actually is!

If you haven’t seen my 2017 Flip Challenge, that might be a good place to start. 

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Why 1 View Can Change Everything

It baffles me how many people think that they’re bigger than they actually are.

I hear people say, “Well, how do I get in the New York Times?” or “How do I get that meeting with that CEO?” and often times, I just say, “One is better than zero.”

Now this might catch you off guard, but let me explain.

The concept around one is better than zero is simply a call to action to do. It’s understanding that one view is better than zero and that humility and patience is the foundation for success.

The time it takes to get your foot in the door at the biggest companies in the world is often years and years of hard work. It’s all the little things that you do along the way that add up to something more. So before you get a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg or Mark Cuban or me, you’re going to have to take 100 meetings with your friend, and your uncle and your neighbor. You need to put in the work.

People are always messaging me like “Man, you’ve been on Conan, and Ellen, and the Today Show, and CNN, and FOX. How do I do that?” and I’m like, “Well, I also did 2 thousand interviews on videos, and blogs and podcasts that got one or 19 or 137 views.”

Remember, I started with zero followers too!

My PR people, and all my managers and handlers are actually pissed at me, because they’re like, “Why are you spending 15 minutes doing these blogs that have six readers every single day, and you’re passing on stuff that might have a larger audience?”

Well, that’s how I built my career.

It’s the patience and willingness to do 500 interviews and conference calls and meetings over coffee that never turn into anything. I mean hell, I did wine library TV shows everyday for an entire year before anyone said a thing!

The moral of the story is that one is always better than zero. It’s better to get 1 view than zero because you were waiting for your “big break.” Big breaks don’t often exist. Lebron became an all star player after 10 years in the gym. Nothing happens overnight.

Honestly, I am often even more excited about being on a podcast or a video blog that’s only going to reach 100 people because I’m in love with being different. I love to give back to people starting with 100 views and understand the struggle and the hustle of people just trying to make their dream real. I’ve been there. I know what it’s like.

So my question for you is why aren’t you willing to get 100 views? What makes you so fancy? Until you’re Oprah, or The Rock, or Tony Robbins, you can’t be romantic. You can’t choose. What’s the alternative? If you don’t take the podcast with 26 listeners then what are you doing?

Even today I do podcasts and interviews and selfies for content that will give me no brand or financial return. The reason I do that is because I want to give back to people that are fans of me.

And so even today when I have a lot more leverage than I did three or four or five years ago to get on bigger platforms, I still live under the motto that “one is better than zero”.

This is all part of the process of putting in the work and being humble and patient in my success.

Are you willing to take 10 minutes to get 195 views? I am.

I mean seriously, I don’t know who you think you are. You haven’t had the exposure yet. You don’t have thousands of followers on Instagram. You are still building your brand. You are still figuring it all out. I promise you that the greatest mistake you can possibly make is saying no. Be open to opportunity and if things don’t go well, move on! You have 500 more interviews to go!

I did so many 87s and 59s and 137s and 813 view videos, day in and day out. It’s part of the key to my success.

I promise you every view counts. You may look at a video and only see 246 views and write it off. But one of those 200 viewers might be a producer at CNN, or might be the CFO of a big company that you’re trying to reach. And in 10 years that content creator could become a massive celebrity and all of the sudden your podcast interview has a million views.

So undervaluing just that one view is an enormous mistake.

It’s about having the humility, it’s about not saying no, even when you’ve made it. The “one is better than zero” concept is something I’m really proud that I continue to execute on.

Do you have the humility and patience in you?

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Why 1 View Is Everything

It baffles me how many people think that they’re bigger than they actually are.

I hear people say, “Well, how do I get in the New York Times?” or “How do I get that meeting with that CEO?” and often times, I just say, “One is greater than zero.”

Now this might catch you off guard, but let me explain.

The concept around one is greater than zero is simply a call to action to do. It’s understanding that one view is better than zero and that humility and patience is the foundation for success.

The time it takes to get your foot in the door at the biggest companies in the world is often years and years of hard work. It’s all the little things that you do along the way that add up to something more. So before you get a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg or Mark Cuban or me, you’re going to have to take 100 meetings with your friend, and your uncle and your neighbor. You need to put in the work.

People are always messaging me like “Man, you’ve been on Conan, and Ellen, and the Today Show, and CNN, and FOX. How do I do that?” and I’m like, “Well, I also did 2 thousand interviews on videos, and blogs and podcasts that got one or 19 or 137 views.”

Remember, I started with zero followers too!

My PR people, and all my managers and handlers are actually pissed at me, because they’re like, “Why are you spending 15 minutes doing these blogs that have six readers every single day, and you’re passing on stuff that might have a larger audience?”

Well, that’s how I built my career.

It’s the patience and willingness to do 500 interviews and conference calls and meetings over coffee that never turn into anything. I mean hell, I did wine library TV shows everyday for an entire year before anyone said a thing!

The moral of the story is that one is always better than zero. It’s better to get 1 view than zero because you were waiting for your “big break.” Big breaks don’t often exist. Lebron became an all star player after 10 years in the gym. Nothing happens overnight.

Honestly, I am often even more excited about being on a podcast or a video blog that’s only going to reach 100 people because I’m in love with being different. I love to give back to people starting with 100 views and understand the struggle and the hustle of people just trying to make their dream real. I’ve been there. I know what it’s like.

So my question for you is why aren’t you willing to get 100 views? What makes you so fancy? Until you’re Oprah, or The Rock, or Tony Robbins, you can’t be romantic. You can’t choose. What’s the alternative? If you don’t take the podcast with 26 listeners then what are you doing?

Even today I do podcasts and interviews and selfies for content that will give me no brand or financial return. The reason I do that is because I want to give back to people that are fans of me.

And so even today when I have a lot more leverage than I did three or four or five years ago to get on bigger platforms, I still live under the motto that “one is better than zero”.

This is all part of the process of putting in the work and being humble and patient in my success.

Are you willing to take 10 minutes to get 195 views? I am.

I mean seriously, I don’t know who you think you are. You haven’t had the exposure yet. You don’t have thousands of followers on Instagram. You are still building your brand. You are still figuring it all out. I promise you that the greatest mistake you can possibly make is saying no. Be open to opportunity and if things don’t go well, move on! You have 500 more interviews to go!

I did so many 87s and 59s and 137s and 813 view videos, day in and day out. It’s part of the key to my success.

I promise you every view counts. You may look at a video and only see 246 views and write it off. But one of those 200 viewers might be a producer at CNN, or might be the CFO of a big company that you’re trying to reach. And in 10 years that content creator could become a massive celebrity and all of the sudden your podcast interview has a million views.

So undervaluing just that one view is an enormous mistake.

It’s about having the humility, it’s about not saying no, even when you’ve made it. The “one is better than zero” concept is something I’m really proud that I continue to execute on.

Do you have the humility and patience in you?

THANKS FOR READING! IF YOU ENJOYED THIS ARTICLE–SAY HELLO ON:

INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | SNAPCHAT | ITUNES

SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER HERE

I would love to hear from you