Take Life by Its Throat! | Gary Vaynerchuk | Top 10 Success Rules for Success

Take life by its throat. Do something. Stop being fucking scared. The reason people don't put themselves in a position to fail, the reason people aren't patient, is they value other people's opinions too much. The answer is add more people with positivity and optimism and cut people with pessimism and cynicism. Who you surround yourself matters.

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. My one word is believe and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out onto of the world. So let's get your motivation to a 10 and get you believing in you. Grab a snack and chew on today's lessons from a man who went from being born in the Soviet Union and hustling selling flowers when he was a kid to wanting to become the greatest entrepreneur of his generation. He's Gary Vaynerchuk, and here's my take on his Top 10 Rules of Success Volume 4. Enjoy! Alright, let's kick things off with rule number 1, take life by the throat.

Just enough, fuckin' enough, enough. Like, living by somebody else's rules is a humongous mistake. I've just literally sat down with 5 people under the age of 27 and it is so fuckin' refreshing. It is so refreshing. If you have not jumped on the bandwagon of doing exactly what the fuck you wanna do, which is skiing for the next 3 years or working at a job that's not what your parents want or what society wants. This video is just called enough. Enough, make this little fucking 1, 2-minute video, depends on when I finish, the piece of content that gets you to fucking stand up and take life by its throat. Do something, stop being fucking scared. Stop letting the way you were raised, the fear as an offense, take that away. Let me be the person. I'll take the blame. I loved that some of my employees are like, "My parents don't love what you're saying." Good, fuck parents, because if you are playing defense and if you are living a life where your kids' lives are the way you're being fulfilled, you're a fucking loser, parents, and so enough. Enough parents imposing their way. You want your kids to be happy? On your terms. Enough, fuck the kid that's sitting right now at a desk and saw this in a feed and you hate your fucking job. Fuck enough. Stand up, get the fuck out of here, and do you. Live your life. You got one fucking life. Life. Do something about it.

Rule number 2 is add value.

Two things I want to do. I want everybody to get out their cell phone because we are trying to all build our social media presence here and wherever you are. Uh, so do get out your phone and follow Joe Hyde on Instagram and like the Facebook page for PRN Roofing. My question—

bro, hold on, hold on. Did you really think that was a good idea? —no, bro, I honestly think that that was one of the worst moves I've ever seen because— and I'm not trying to razz you. I am talking, I'm trying to give you love. I love the passion to win. The problem is you tried to close on the first move. You brought them no value and you asked them to bring you value. Like, you gave, like, I will stand up here and give a fuck load of value and never mention one time for any of them to follow me, and a lot more of them will follow me than are gonna follow that bullshit move that you just did. I get it, I get it, but this was back to the question that just happened. This is why I want you to win. That move is always gonna lose. You can't go tonight— when you go out in Vegas and you see a pretty girl at the bar, you can't go up to her and the opening move is like, here's my key, let's go fuck. But that's what you just did. Let him hold it. But that's what you just did to this audience with business. Because this is an industry where it's kind of like dog eat dog world, so why are you succeeding and giving all your secrets away at the same time? I mean, because doing the right thing is the right thing. Karma is practical. You know, I heard somebody rant earlier, right, that was like, hey, when I win, I don't think it's coming out of you. To the guy that closed, I couldn't know who was on stage, but I believe in that, right? Because I love the idea of 85 people here going and listening to me, winning. I didn't make anything for it, but it then becomes brand. If she goes out and listens, and then 2 years later she's having dinner with a friend and she's talking about what happened to her life, that friend might be the CEO of GE. You know, I'm playing with the biggest brands in the world. I'm not trying to monetize my audience. I'm trying to just bring the most value in the world and let that lift all my other opportunities. So I think giving away your best secrets is the greatest strategy for two reasons. Karma is practical and leads to more business, but here's the secret, and it's even funnier. 99% of these people are not gonna do anything about it. [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] Somewhere about 5 or 6 years ago, I realized this fact. Holy shit, people aren't gonna do anything with this. So fuck it. Like, there's still gonna be plenty for me, and I'm gonna be the most lovable guy ever.

I love this. Rule number 3, be ambitious.

My success is that I prefer change. I'm comfortable in change, and I realize change is the only thing that allows you to win in the long term. The 98% of the human race and maybe higher doesn't like it. We are having a macro change. We're having a societal change. You know, like, I'll be honest with you, I'm like ambitious and realistic. One of the biggest reasons I kind of went even harder core at my personal brand, like 15 months ago, I'm like back to what's worked for us, which is like, hey, here's my example. At least it's something to hold. I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna make myself the most famous person in America on this theory, and then it'll be undeniable. And by the way, it's working. I'm really good at underpriced attention and culture. I really am. You know, it's so funny, you start realizing your life. So I was good at baseball cards. I decided Frank Thomas and Kenny Lofton were gonna be better than most people thought, so I just bought a lot of rookie cards for underpriced costs, and I was right. But what I'm really great at is I understand consumer behavior and attention just fast enough and earlier than most people, and I've got an uncanny ability of that. Let me How do you build a machine around that? And so the last 9 years I've built a company called VaynerMedia. We're a $200 million company in revenue with no funding that does agency work and we own a female publishing company like a Refinery29. My ambition is to build out the communication Death Star to deploy it against my personal brand, the nonprofits I care about, but ultimately Really, my goal is to buy the New York Jets, and the way I think I'm gonna do that is I'm gonna buy iconic brands and things that mattered in the world that are gonna get fucked over the next decade, and then I'm gonna rebrand them and run them through my machine. And so I'm building this huge agency media company that is really just a front and a proxy for my long-term ambitions. It just, it trades underpriced attention and culture more efficiently than I think any other machine out there right now, and that's why cool things are happening for me.

Rule number 4, seize the opportunity.

You weren't born into a rich family, you're the wrong skin tone, you're this, you're that, I get it. But fuck, we got the at-bat. You won the lotto, you won it, you've got the at-bat, do something with it, especially now. Your grandparents didn't have this. The internet is crazy shit. It just is. It just is. And so, why do you think everybody's getting outed now? Because 3 old white guys don't control the media anymore. The fuck do you think is happening here? This is the greatest era ever for anybody. The market, the platform is the internet. This is unbelievable, unprecedented times. We will look back at this 200 years from now like these had a good opportunity. This is buying real estate. Do you know somebody bought the land that we're on right now for a dollar at one point? That's what's happening with us on the internet. The attention of the end consumer is cheap right now. You can grab it around whatever the fuck you want to be about, and it doesn't cost you anything other than your time. And so many of you are complaining, but then are too fancy to put in the 15 hours a day to get it. I got no respect for that. I got no respect for anybody who complains and isn't putting in the work. 'Cause it's an excuse to not do.

Rule number 5, get experience.

You've gotta try stuff. The biggest reason you don't know what you wanna do is you haven't tasted enough things, and the biggest reason you're not tasting enough things is you're worried about finding it too fast. Start with the finish line. Alright. Too many people are just worried about tomorrow. Go backwards from what you want to achieve financially and in your legacy and then make all your behavior every day map to your finish line. The way that a 20-year-old can make the world better 20 or 30 years down the line is by making themselves better first. I think people don't realize that the way to be selfless is to be selfish. It's very hard to change the world if you're not good. To me, when I look around this many people being in their 20s, like everybody's judging themselves way too early. What I would do is gather as many experiences as possible. You know? Cool. You're not lost in life, you're just early in the process. Rule number 6, get attention. There is ridiculous confusion in the system. I am winning and will win at all time levels. Get ready. You will tell your grandkids that you once saw me live. Like, I mean that. And by the way, it's not because, by the way, I don't, by the way, real quick, 'cause I don't want claps for that, I need you to understand how I think about that. It's not because I think I'm fancy or great. I think it's because I'm very calm and simple about one simple, tiny thing, underpriced attention. It's so grossly underpriced. I'm asking you, Let me tell you this story about MTV. When MTV came out in the early to mid-'80s, how many people remember when MTV was launched? When MTV was launched, the biggest bands in the world, the biggest bands in the world got together for a dinner that one of their managers told me about and decided that they would not make music videos for MTV MTV, because that was giving away music for free. That why would we spend money to make a video, put it on MTV, cut— when that's giving people the music for free and they will not go out and buy the record. At the same token, up-and-coming artists, Madonna, Duran Duran, and on and on, understood that it was where all the attention of the youth was, and it was a gateway drug to the sale. They understood that MTV was a jab, not the right hook. Facebook and Instagram at this second is the most underpriced scaled jab in the history of marketing, except for one other moment. From 2001 to 2005, Google AdWords was a ridiculously underpriced jab. How many people here took advantage of Google 2001 to 2005? Raise your hands. So for you, you really know. That's how I did it. Wine Library had no money, but when you're buying people who want to buy wine for 5 and 10 cents a click, it works out real fast when it's that underpriced. One company, one company during that time acted the way I'm aspiring to act right now as a Gary Vaynerchuk on social media. One company from 2001 to 2005 spent enough to justify how underpriced it was. That company was a small book company called Amazon. Amazon, as you all know now, is the company of our world. It will win everything. It hasn't even begun. Literally, the only thing that will stop Amazon is antitrust government involvement, otherwise it will fucking destroy everything. It got its fuel from Google 2001 to 2005. That occurrence is happening right now on Facebook and Instagram, and we're not squeezing the juice out of that fruit anywhere close. At least we have picked up the fruit.

Rule number 7, ignore the opinions of others.

On a bigger macro, patience and failure, they all ladder up to one thing, which is insecurity. The reason people don't put themselves in a position to fail, the reason people aren't patient, is they value other people's opinions too much, which then dictates their behavior, which then gets into all of this. Realize is if you, like, don't hold onto it with the thought of in case it fails, because you just need to realize it's your scarlet letter. Literally the reason people are scared, always, is the outside force. Having a failing business and everyone's like, "Oh, see, you could never do," or whatever the cliché shit is, right? It just doesn't fucking matter. You know why? So that's one piece. [Speaker] Yeah, but they told me I couldn't do this. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] [Speaker] And even if it didn't succeed, what? They're such better people? Like what, I'm such a better person than other people 'cause I can build a business?

That's bullshit. Rule number 8, change your environment.

I'm getting more and more intrigued by mindset because I used to think of it as fluffy, like self-help, and now I think of it more as strategy. What's your strategy in life? Somebody asked me on Instagram after I posted this, "Gary, if the mindset has been skewed, how can you bring it back?" And I answered with, by surrounding yourself with people who have the mindset you aspire to. My friends, please understand that mindset is controllable in the same way that all our opinions are controllable. The key is to add more people with optimism and cut people with negativity. It's very, very simple. Now it's very hard to cut people with pessimism, cynicism, and negativity when they are the people that are the closest to you. Parents, siblings, spouse, but the bottom line is If you're asking the question, I'm gonna give you the answer. The answer is add more people with positivity and optimism and cut people with pessimism and cynicism. Who you surround yourself matters. What content you consume matters. I basically suffocate myself for a long period of my time and created an environment that was based on offense and optimism and now I know no different. Please do the same for you. Make that move. Mold, and I mean mold, your mindset by what you consume and with whom you consume it. I would argue that well more than 50% of the people in this audience are here today because they worry about the way they would be judged by one and/or two family members in their inner 7, 8 people circle. If you're not feeling it, find new friends. I'm being dead serious about this. This one is real big for me. Who you hang out with is a huge deal. And again, these are all tried and true things, right? We've heard the, you're the whatever of the 5 friends you spend, like, that's real. Add one new winner friend. Like, you know what I mean? Add one new winner friend and cut one loser friend. Like, yeah, I know he's been your boy since 4th grade, but he sits at home and smokes weed and plays 2K all day. Like, you can only You can only love them so much.

Rule number 9, go all in.

I know that if I can suffocate all of you today to take 25% of your take-home income this year and pour it back into 2 people who do video and written word and put it into Facebook and Instagram ads, literally all of you will email me 24 months, actually, fuck it, if you can start right away, literally 25% of you are going to come to me this time next year right here and be like, holy shit, I've been listening to your stuff for 7 years. Your keynote was different in Miami last year at this time. I listened, I said fuck it, I don't need to go to Ibiza 3 times this year. Fuck it, I don't need to buy a better BMW this year to make me feel good with the neighbors. Fuck it, I don't need another fucking pair of Supremes or Yeezys. I took the money and I put it into Karen, the film, woman and Rick the ad guy, and now my business is 2x. This will 100% work. Even if you suck shit on camera, have zero charisma, are only 8 days in the industry, this will work because it is such underpriced attention that the ROI will work. That if you're a 2 in skill, the ads are a 20 in the 10-point scale, and it closes the delta of you being average. If you literally, literally, and I've said this for 7 years, if you literally, literally go interview the guy who owns the gym in town, the guy who owns the pizza shop, the woman that owns the insurance brokerage, if you literally, literally, literally just interview your local community, that you become the local newspaper in 3-minute video form on your phone, you don't even need to fucking hire DRock or Baban Rais, your fucking phone, if you literally take it, selfie it, and interview the principal of the school in your neighborhood, you will become the local celebrity who can then transact on whatever you're trying to sell that group. If you bring value to people, If you interview the best high school basketball player, literally just that, your business will change. Or if you literally just give the advice of how you got here, what you learned, if you shared your thoughts. If you do not understand that you are a media company, then you will not be as successful as you are today in a decade. And that's not interesting when the alternative is you're 4 to 7 7 times bigger. This thing, guys, you have to understand what happened to Blockbuster and Netflix, what happened with Uber and taxi companies, what happened with shitty hotels versus Airbnb is happening with you as a human in your business. And so when you have the best hand and you know it because you've been paying attention and you know how to play poker, you go all in. Everybody here is playing Facebook, Instagram, social media, YouTube, podcasting like they have the best hand and they're calling. And you're not goading them into getting all the money. You're just fucking folding. And that's this audience. So can you imagine what I feel is going on outside this stadium? So this is a call to action for everybody to do me one favor, and I do think I can get a lot of you to do it, which excites the shit out of me. Please, right now, listen, maybe you've laid out money, maybe you're in the middle of a renovation, maybe you're paying for your kid's college. Mazel tov, I know there's nuances on everybody's life, but if you are in a position where literally your take-home income this year is literally the stuff you're gonna go and do things with, please, from 25% to 90%, if you can go humble, please take that money and hire 2 people to make a lot more content for you about you and your business, and please give the rest of the money to Facebook Facebook and YouTube and Instagram, and I fundamentally promise you, you will walk here to this conference next year and personally thank me emotionally, 'cause your business will change, and I know not one of you has gone all in.

And rule number 10, the last one before some very special bonus clips, is love your audience.

I wondered if you could just say something to my son James, he's 24. Come here. That'd be awesome. Come here. This is for my son James. Here, let me do a face.

Do you want to call him or just video?

Hey James, it's GaryVee. I'm here with your dad. I'm really fucking pissed that you're not here. But I respect that you're hustling. That's exactly what you should be doing. Hope we get to meet, see ya.

Now I've got 3 very special Gary Vaynerchuk bonus clips for you around being a good leader, being self-aware, and having patience that I think you're really going to enjoy. But before that, we're getting to the commitment of the day. You guys just watched this video, hopefully it had an impact on you somehow. I want you to commit to making a change somewhere in your life or in your business. Leave it down in the comments below, I'm really curious to find out. Don't just watch another video without taking action. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon. And enjoy the bonus clips.

12 years ago today, I asked somebody on my team to run to Best Buy, pick up a little Canon camera, set it up, I picked 3 bottles of wine, I put them on a table, I filmed it, first time I've ever filmed anything with the purpose of anybody seeing it. Hello everyone and welcome to the first episode of Wine Library TV. I'm Gary Vaynerchuk, Director of Operations here at Wine Library and winelibrary.com. And it started the process of where we are here today, 12 years later. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] When I hear people lacking patience or wanting it so fast or not understanding the marathon, I've basically been producing content for the internet for the last 12 years and I really wish so many of you could understand how quick that's gone and how much longer I have to go, but most of all, realize how much didn't happen in those first several years. How much I needed to persevere and build an audience. How much engaging and replying to people along the way and building relationships and hugging and kissing babies and grinding and believing and most of all And what's so interesting is I sit here right now outside this airport knowing that 65% of you didn't know who I was 24 months ago, 15 months ago. That my current place of attention is a current phenomenon. It's a 15, 16-month phenomenon that things kind of took a little bit of a hockey stick moment, which means 10 and a half years, 10 and a half years of grinding. And putting out stuff and wanting to share my thoughts on wine, on business, on entrepreneurship, day in and day out, day in and day out, while I worked all the time building businesses, while this wasn't even my full-time thing. I have so much empathy that you want it. I have so much empathy and want for you to get yours, but Jesus, this doesn't happen overnight. it just doesn't. Everybody in here needs to take a step back and get really self-aware really quickly because self-awareness and empathy are the two pillars that will make you successful. These are the two things I do that nobody sees because of my persona, because of other alpha characteristics I have. They're the disguised superpowers that have gotten me here today. But the reality is a long time ago through amazing parenting and the serendipity of being an immigrant grint at the right time, I got real self-aware real fast and started triple downing on what I was versus pandering to everybody else. And so the security and confidence and all the other things that were put into me allowed me to be good at this game for the last 10 years. And the reason I'm stressing such an EQ kind of fluffy thing to you, it is the framework that will allow you to be successful. It is strategy. Either you have the right strategy or you have the wrong one. How can we harness the hustle gene?

How can we pass on the hustle gene? You can't.

To our company and to, how can we instill this? You can't. You can't. What you can do is you can hustle and then people will either ride up to it or run away from it. Like, you know, I don't judge my people. First of all, nobody that works for you should hustle as hard as you. Period. You want somebody to hustle as hard as you that works for you? Give them the same economics you're taking home. That's the truth. Number 2, with kids, rich kids aren't gonna care as much as you about money because you didn't have any, and so you had to fight for it, and then that's just real. So I think you set— I set the tone for my company. Some people rise up, some people find their work-life balance. Some people bounce. I'm not in the game of thinking that's important. If I feel good about what I'm paying somebody for, for what I'm getting in return, I don't need to judge that they need to work harder. So I don't want to get a deal for my people. Do you understand? I want my people to be on my team, not me getting more value out of them. It's a huge mistake of business owners. So let me give you the one word secret to happiness. One word. This is all you need. Yeah. The most important word ever. If you had to think of one word that's most important to you or that sums you up or that would be kind of like a little beacon.

Hey, Believe Nation! If you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.