The 10 rules for success I learned from Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk is an entrepreneur, investor, author, public speaker, and internet personality. After graduating from college, Gary turned his traditional family wine business into a $60 million business in just 5 years. He turned it into an ecommerce business and created Wine Library TV, a Youtube series about wine. Now Gary Vaynerchuck is a familiar name in the social media space amongst aspiring entrepreneurs for his unconventional ways and rants about getting s*** done. I love listening to the DailyVee during my morning workouts. I find that it gets me going more than rap music or techno. And it also gives me the motivation I need to get things done for the day. That’s why I want to share with you Gary Vaynerchuk’s 10 rules for success.

Rule #1 - Bet on your strengths

“Don’t give a f*** about what you suck at”. The way that you are going to be great is by amplifying what you’re already good at. Gary recommends auditing ourselves or even get friends and family to tell us what is it that we are good at. And once you have that figured out, go all out on it.

Rule #2 - Work

“Position yourself to succeed” If you want to succeed, if you want the money, live the life, buy a huge house, an expensive car or whatever, then you gotta work. You won’t get that by doing what you love. Work after hours to build your equity or your brand. Everybody has time. Stop watching tv.

Rule #3 - Put business in perspective

“There will always be a bad day” Change your mindset about entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a hard and lonely journey. You have to learn to embrace the pain and love the challenges. Whenever you are struggling, take a step back and remind yourself why is it that you got started and find the thing that will keep you going.

Rule #4 - Execute your ideas

“Ideas are s*** and execution is the game” Everyone has ideas and ideas are nothing unless you do something with it. Uber wasn’t a new idea. The concept existed even before Uber but it was executed poorly. So it’s not about coming out with great ideas and then you will suddenly make it big. It’s about executing that idea and turn it into something.

Rule #5 - Don’t overlook storytelling

“People buy with emotions” Storytelling is what will be the difference maker in your business. If you ever seen a keynote speaker like Steve Jobs or a magician doing his/her trick, it’s the story that you buy into.

Rule #6 - Care about your customers

“There are not enough people running businesses with their hearts” Black and white data and all the different techniques are important to run a business but it is not the only thing. You are doing business with humans and not robots so you still need to run your business with your heart and not just your brain. If you are just nice to people overall, you will have a better long term business success.

Rule #7 - Stick to your DNA

“You need to do you” What works for other people may not necessary work for you. It’s great to admire other people but it’s much more important to stick to who you are and what you’re good at. If you are worried that you need to do something you’re not, surround yourself with people opposite of you and have them do it.

Rule #8 - Do the things that matter

“Most things don’t matter” Everyone micromanage but what sets Gary apart is that he only focuses on things that matter. Don’t put a lot of effort on things that won’t have such a big impact like getting the content on your website to have perfect grammar. Focus on what matters.

Rule #9 - Don’t make excuses

“Lack of optimism is the biggest obstacle” It’s not having not enough time or not having enough capital that stops you, it’s the excuses you make that’s the biggest obstacle. Starting a business is hard. Don’t give up.

Rule #10 - There is no overnight success

“Luck comes from hardwork” You’ve probably heard this over and over again but it’s true. Behind every successful person, there is a story behind it. The work that they put in over the years that made them an “overnight” success. Stop looking for shortcuts and start putting in effort. You will definitely get lucky if you do. Those are the 10 rules for success by Gary Vaynerchuck and I hope that you got something out of this. This is just a short summary and you can watch the full video here. (Credit to Evan Carmichael)