Gary Vaynerchuk shares 6 lessons for becoming a successful entrepreneur: 1. Patience and persistence are required - there are no overnight successes, as exemplified by Gary promoting his father's wine business with a daily YouTube show for 10 years. 2. Include empathy in management - empathy helped Gary's company VaynerMedia create a culture people want to be part of. 3. Develop self-awareness of your weaknesses and strengths - Gary focuses on public speaking despite a weakness in reading aloud. 4. Give more than you take (51/49) - Gary provides free advice and doesn't ask for anything in return, cultivating loyalty when he releases paid content. 5. Constant

1. 6 Lessons to Becoming a Successful
Entrepreneur
Learnings and Advice From Gary Vaynerchuk

2. About Gary Vaynerchuk:
• Entrepreneur, social media guru, founder of
VaynerMedia
• Led his father’s wine business to success
from $3 million in revenue per year to $60
million per year within 5 years
• 4 time New York Times bestselling author
• Featured on Forbes, Business Insider, CNN,
and was most recently on the cover of
Entrepreneur Magazine

3. Lesson #1: Patience & Persistence
There’s no secret to success. There are
no formulas. Nothing worth building was
done overnight.

4. In 2006, Gary promoted his father’s wine store online by
creating Wine Library TV. He created videos in which he
tasted and reviewed 4 different wines, and promoted them
on YouTube. He made 25-minute episodes 5 times a week
and did this for 10 years. Success comes from patience and
persistence.

5. Lesson #2: Empathy
Include empathy in your HR &
management strategy.

6. Gary attributes empathy to being the key to VaynerMedia’s
success. Empathy helped the company create and maintain a
culture that people want to be part of.
If there is a problem, and a team member doesn’t
communicate it directly, you should empathize with them to
find out the root cause and work with them to overcome it.

7. Lesson #3: Self Awareness
Self-awareness is the ability to recognize
and accept your weaknesses while
focusing your attention on your
strengths.

8. Gary knows that his weakness is reading out loud – he admits
that reading bedtime stories to his kids is intimidating.
However, he knows that his strength is being able to speak
candidly. When he developed audio versions of his books, he
didn’t read it word for word. Instead he often went off script
and gave different examples around the same idea.

9. Lesson #4: Give 51 Take 49
51/49 is something I’ve always lived by.
I think there’s enormous leverage in being
more valuable in every relationship.

10. Whenever possible, you should always give more without
expecting anything in return. Gary gives out so much free
advice and doesn’t ask for anything in return. However, when
he releases a book, people are more likely to buy it as they
gained value from his free content, and buying the book
would be a way to thank him.

11. Lesson #5: Put Yourself Out of Business
Putting yourself "out of business" is better
than allowing someone else to do it.

12. You should constantly be trying to put yourself out of
business because eventually someone else will. You need to
find ways to reinvent your business in order to stay relevant
to market demands. In an increasingly fast-paced
environment, it is especially easy to get left behind.

13. Lesson #6: Focus on the Clouds and Dirt
Know the philosophy, know the details,
and ignore everything in the middle.

14. The clouds are the big picture strategy and the dirt is the
execution you need to do to reach the clouds. This means
getting your hands dirty, understanding your business and
being a practitioner, with the high-level picture in mind. Don’t
worry about anything in between the clouds and dirt that will
distract you from reaching your goals.

15. A Few Last Words…

16. Whether you’ve been contemplating taking your side hustle
full time or you’ve already made the leap to being an
entrepreneur, you need to put in the work. As Gary
Vaynerchuk says, “All your ideas may be solid or even good…
But you have to actually execute on them for them to
matter.”