Posted by Amir Lehrer on September 23, 2009
The Disposable Age
We live in the disposable age. We eat take out, use disposable dishes, and look for a quick and easy fix for everything. The current bestselling books talk about doing less and enjoying more like “The Four Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss (which I am all for by the way). We are bombarded with mlm (multi-level marketing), network marketing, internet marketing and many other disguises for a way to make a quick buck. It seems like most people have forgotten that the most important ingredient in becoming successful is hard work.
Gary Vaynerchuck: The Hard Worker
Being involved in social media, I am very familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk, a wine expert/store owner who has used social media to grow his family business from $4 million per year to a $50 million business. I’m mentioning Gary Vaynerchuk because he is a modern example of a hard worker. He is passionate about what he does and he may be one of the hardest workers out there.
Scalable and not so Scalable Apps
Not long ago, platforms such as the Facebook and iPhone opened up to developers so that anyone can create an application for their platform. Most people saw this as an opportunity to create a scalable app that can continue to make them money while they slept. It was a dream come true for some people. Gary Vaynerchuk jumped on the bandwagon and created his own Facebook app but contrary to what everyone else was trying to do, he may have created the absolute least scalable app in Facebook history. His app “Ask Gary” was pretty much just a place for people to ask him questions about wine. Gary answered every single one of the questions himself.
Gary Vaynerchuk’s lack of scalability doesn’t end there. He also answers every single one of thousands of emails he gets every day. To top it off, he personally speaks to almost every customer that comes in to his store. Gary also manages to record Wine Library TV, a regular videocast on wine which happens to be very entertaining.
Gary on Social Media
Gary was recently asked how much time he spends on social media platforms such asFacebook and Twitter to which he responded “about 2.5 hours per day”. Shocked at the answer, Gary explained that it is a CEO’s job to make connections and get business and that he has found Social Media, the best place to make his connections.
Gary’s Research and Development
Looking at Gary and what he has done, you may think that Gary has it made and can start delegating now. He can let other people do his work for him and go relax on a beach, he can definitely afford it now. Gary feels otherwise and for a very good reason. By answering thousands of people’s questions, speaking to customers and doing research online, his mind and gut are a better R&D team than you can ever possibly hire. He can smell new trends and predict what people will want and like. The human mind can accurately crunch more information that any super computer in existence. Gary takes advantage of this and stays years ahead of his competition.
Hard work does pay off… Just “Ask Gary”.
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Posted by Amir Lehrer on January 7, 2008
Over the years I have spoken to many very successful business people and entrepreneurs and every single one of them told me the same thing. To be successful, it takes a lot of hard work and you need a little luck. A few of these successful people even made the connection that the “little luck” comes from the “hard work”. Most of them didn’t put 2 and 2 together and realize that the only reason they got lucky was because of the hard work they put in. Regardless of what field you are in, you will not get lucky sitting on your rear playing video games all day, unless you are in the gaming industry and you are learning from all the playing that you are doing. My point is that if you want to get lucky, you have to look for the luck. A real estate investor cannot not sit at home on his couch all day waiting for a seller to ring his doorbell and offer him a property. A successful real estate investor is constantly doing research, meeting with people, networking going over numbers. All of that is hard work and if he keeps it up, two things will happen. One, he will eventually find an investment property to invest in, either through his research or networking. And two, he will become more knowledgeable in what to look for and therefore be able to spot more opportunities that less skilled investors don’t see.
Take for example, two people starting businesses in the same field at the same time in the same area. They both work on building their business to become profitable but after a year, one of them closes. Two years down the road, the business that stayed open is extremely successful. From the outside people might say that they got lucky. The economy might have turned or other factors might have come into play. Looking at the first company, you might see that the company failed and closed up shop. Looking at the second company, if you look deep down into the business, you may see that the company failed as well, and it probably did. The difference between the two companies is that one of them took the failure and closed up shop while the other learned from their failure, fixed their mistakes and kept going. Chances are that the second company failed many more times but kept going ahead with their business plan. As I wrote in Lucky Failures Can Lead to Success, the way to success is to work through the failures because failing is the road to success.
A lucky person gives everything 110% effort and is always going the extra mile. Luckortunity comes from all the extra experiences, looking at the big picture and pushing yourself forward. An unlucky salesman will knock on three doors, get rejected three times and then realize that sales is not for him. A lucky person will knock on those same three doors, get rejected and then keep knocking until he makes a sale. It might take him 100 tries or more but at the end of it all, he made a sale and had 100 chances to refine his sales pitch, figure out what works and build up his confidence.
These examples can be used for anything. Some people are lucky in love by finding just the right person, some are lucky by finding the right home or job and some are lucky by building a successful business. The point is, the harder you work, the more luckortunity there is and the luckier you can get.
Previous Posts in this Series: 10 Ways to Increase your Luck.
- Increase Your Luck by Taking a Different Route to Work
- Don’t listen to your Mother, Speak to Strangers!
- StumbleUpon the Greatest Luckortunity, the Cure for Boredom
- Blog to the Future
- Luck is Risky Business
- Get High on Conventions
- SHUT UP AND LISTEN!
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