#AskGaryVee Episode 26: Am I an Entrepreneur or Not?

the main media source in your business. I know you brought up like, companies like creating a golf website,
it takes on Golf Digest and every once in a while
there’s a sponsored post, and I know you’ve done it with CheeseRank. For smaller companies, that
don’t have all the resources for editors and content creators and such, what do you recommend for them or is this, you think this is kind
of the next evolution that’s gonna become more
of a product people use? – Thanks for the question,
it’s a great question. Yeah I mean look, this
is what I believe in and for small businesses, I recommend doing what I did in 2006, which was look, there’s a difference between
Buzzfeed and Seth Godin’s blog right, there’s a lot
more content everyday, there’s a lot more
stuff, but Seth puts out his best effort once a day. For me, I did a wine show, I mean, it’s what I’m doing right now, I mean. In theory, I could staff
up even more than DRock and Stunwin and put
out Q&A shows all day long, go the Oprah model and
have people underneath me, there’s a lot of ways to go. But if you believe in what I believe in which is every business is
becoming a media company, all of a sudden, you’re taking
hours away from staffing, strategizing, selling, all
the other things you’re doing and you’re putting one, two, three hours into becoming a media company and I do believe that has
enormous upside, I mean, not much has changed for
me since I viewed the world in 2009 and wrote Crush It! The only thing that’s changed is, I’m even more confident I was right, because there’s more of that happening. The things I wrote about in 2009, that people thought were ridiculous like, you know, a 15 year old
is gonna have more people that they think are famous
on YouTube than in real life, that’s now happening. You know, if anybody has
15 year olds, let him in, if anybody has 15 year
olds in their lives. Hey Dan, you need me now? I’m taping a show, do I have time? – [Dan] No no, you’re fine, I
was coming to ask about this, if you wanted the guys to be a part. – Yeah, I mean, oh those guys, the guys? I will, but let me bang out this show. You know, you’re not editing. So to me, I would just
say, if you believe in it, and you don’t have the resources, then respect your belief
and put in your time and actually do it, versus
all the other things you could be doing. – Awesome. – Thanks brother. Next, let’s go.

because they refuse to accept
what they’re not good at. For example, I suck at accounting, so I have somebody do accounting for me. But I see people, you know,
they suck at photography, but they’re still doing their photography and it’s hurting their brand. – Yeah. – They’re not accepting that. – Okay. – Your thoughts on that. – Cool, thank you. I mean, you know, again,
as somebody who’s been following my stuff, I think
we agree on this, right. Like I’m a big fan of going
all in on your strengths and outsourcing or not
focusing on your weaknesses. I think you got it pegged
right, I think the one thing is sometimes it’s obvious right, don’t get caught in the obvious, meaning. It’s obvious to you that
you suck at accounting. It’s kinda easy right, it’s math. You probably also don’t
wanna or like doing it. That’s easy. It’s the thing that’s in the
shadows, that’s not as obvious. There’s something you’re doing right now that a lot of people
could do better than you. It’s easy when you’re an F at
it, and you know you need an A but what about the fact that
you might be doing something right now, a tiger somewhere else, where you’re a B at it,
but you could afford to have somebody be an A at it. That’s where people make mistakes so it takes deep self-awareness, you know. I’m not a big believer in like,
try, try, try, try harder, be better at this thing.
I think it’s a waste of resources, energy and happiness often. Now, if you get off on that kind of thing like perserving, knock yourself out, roll how you wanna roll but for me, big believer in betting
on all your strengths and trying to find complements
to your weaknesses. – How would you– – Oh a new one for #AskGaryVee like this is cool, when they’re
live, they can follow up. – How would you bring up, you know, people have terrible
websites, it doesn’t even work on a mobile device and
they’re just not getting, do I just accept that
okay, they’re gonna get it and walk away, or how
would you bring up, saying hey, you’re not really good at that. – Now you’re asking me a
sales question, I think right? Like are you saying, to reach
out to somebody and say, “Hey we should do that for you.” – No, even just like from just
a help in providing value. Like hey you’re not good at
this, I don’t think my company is the right fit but
you’re not good at this, I’m just telling you like– – You know, one of the
things that I do tactically is just call people out on it, right. I’ll reply to them publicly
on Twitter and say, “Hey, you just tweeted wrong, here’s the.” You know, my classic, like everybody does this wrong on Twitter. You know, I’m not scared
to, my route is simple. Polite, polite, polite,
you’re not getting it, and I still care enough,
which is very rare, then I’m gonna drill you in your face. Thanks man, enjoy, next let’s go.

you were just born to be an entrepreneur, that’s just what you do and I’m sure you– – I believe in that. – Well until you’re an
entrepreneur like that, you’re not gonna be fulfilled. – Yes. Talking to me about my
first 18 years of my life. – Yeah, so that’s my
question, like at what point are you being fiscally responsible and what point is it just
like analysis paralysis where you think well, I
can’t go into full time yet, I need a full time job. – That’s a tough question. Now I understand what you’re saying so. Let me make sure I dissect this properly. For people like me that happened to feel that they are that and
then happen to be good at it, it’s easy right, ’cause it worked out. Are you asking me, if you feel
like you’re an entrepreneur but you’re not good enough
to be an entrepreneur that can sustain a lifestyle
where you have to balance something else, what do you do? – Maybe– – Or do you keep trying,
or are you asking, actually I apologize ’cause
now I’m recalibrating. How long can I go at it,
thinking I’m an entrepreneur until I have to wake up
and say wait a minute, am I tricking myself, and let
me get a little more practical and jump off that train? – I mean more like, say
you have a full time job and it’s good pay, good
benefits and all that. – If you have a full time job,
you’re not an entrepreneur. You have to understand, that
is a very important part here. You may have entrepreneurial tendencies, you may have aspiration
to be an entrepreneur but when you are an entrepreneur, you can’t breathe having
a job, you can’t breathe. Now look, maybe I’m the extreme of it but the fact is, especially
right now, especially I’m guessing at some
level, this is for you, not your friend kinda thing,
or it might be a friend or it might general. You’re so young that you have
so much less risk than the, look, when you’re 18 to
29 in American today, by all standards, to
me, that’s your time to, if you’re an entrepreneur,
you’re being an entrepreneur. If you’re ready and willing to take a job, then you have entrepreneurial tendencies, and that’s a thing you have to figure out, but to me there is no such
thing as an under-30 year old entrepreneur that has a
job, it doesn’t exist. – Alright thanks. – Alright man, thanks. Chef get in here. You notice her from the comments section,

– Alright. – Anyways, so you know,
I wanna piggyback on that because you were capturing a certain demographic and age group
so I wanna represent all those who are a little bit older. So I’m asking it for them, you know. – Okay. – People who already have
kids, financial commitments, homes, mortgages, blah blah blah, so when you keep talking about how do you audit your
time, how do you analyze what character traits, can
you speak to the older folks, between the 30, 50-somethings, how to go out and make it happen or analyze do you really
have what it takes, because at this point,
these folks probably have 10+, 15 years of experience
in their endeavors already. – The one thing I think, thanks Chef. The one thing that I
think is interesting is, let’s break down the question
a little bit differently which is, there’s a
level of never being able to fully make it but
still being in a process where you enjoy the effort to get there. This is not an all sum
game, I’m okay with somebody being a nuanced entrepreneur,
where there’s a full time job and they’re trying to make it happen. Because what happens is,
you’re almost talking about being an entrepreneur as a hobby there. Right, it almost takes
on, this is something, and I just got goosebumps, so I’m starting to get into a new thing that I’m trying to figure out how to
articulate, I’m doing it here out loud for the first time which is, when does entrepreneurship or going for it take on, morph on, whether
it’s very practical, ’cause you’re asking for the
for the 35-55 year old demo, or when it’s, you’re still
under 30, in your 20s, but you’ve confided into
or picked a job route, when is it actually in hobby land? – Exactly. – When is it, you like
having your side hustle and you’re enjoying it,
but it doesn’t need to or have to become your
life and you don’t have to make a billi, for you to be happy. So, what I would say is,
if you’re up at night and you can’t breathe and
you have to do your thing well then, you just
might not be good enough. I mean, think about all
the people we’ve seen on American Idol who are
like, “I grew up my whole life “and I knew I was gonna
be Whitney Houston.” You’re all pumped and you’re
like, back when people watched and you’re like, you can do it! And then she like, “Aaah!”
and you’re like no, and it’s delusional, but we
have that in entrepreneur land. I get emails every day,
I meet people every day who are delusional about their skill set. I desperately, desperately, desperately want to be the small forward
of the New York Knicks. If I truly acted on that,
like if right now at 38, I’m overseas trying to be
the 13th man on the bench of an Italian B-league
team, that’s not gonna work. It’s not gonna happen no matter what I do, and so, I think the answer
to your question for me, to make it as valuable
for them as possible is are you willing to get
comfortable in accepting that you’re in hobby
zone versus transitioning into that zone, and if you
are, well then in a weird way, that’s your question, these tie in. You can have a best of both worlds. – Right. – If you’re asking me
like, how to get somebody to become self-aware
enough and not delusional that they’re hurting
themselves, that’s not something I know how to really fully answer.

So I have a job that I absolutely love, I actually work for ReMax of New Jersey. You spoke for us pretty much
right before I got hired so I just missed you. I love my job. I love what I do. I do social media and graphic design. I work with SEO company.
We develop content and of course I want to get
into doing my own thing, doing my own blog, starting my own hustle, and I have this, and I know it
stems from a fear of failure, but I have this really hard time. I get like crippled when
it comes to like executing, and I know you’re probably
just gonna be like just do it, (beep) them,
go for it, do your thing– – You know me so well. – I just need to hear it like, I need you you to look me in my face
and tell me what I should do. – Do you want it? – Yes, I do. – And so literally you’re
just scared to fail? – Er. – I mean, if you want to go
deep with me, I’ll go deep. Who are you scared to fail in front of? Is it your mom? Is it your
best friend? Is it your sister? That’s the only thing
that holds people back. Something happened to me,
like everybody thinks like oh I’m so nice, look at
what I’m doing right now. Truth is, I don’t give a shit
about anybody else’s opinion so rawly that I’m never scared because if I fail and people
are like, “See hahaha.” It doesn’t even register. In the same way, when people are like, “You changed my life, you’re the best,” I’m able to be grounded,
because it also doesn’t. You know, I’m kind of in
that middle zone, right, like not too high, not too
low, which would confuse people based on my energy but I
equally care about every comment in the YouTube section of this
episode, I’m gonna read ’em but if somebody says, “You
blow and this format stinks,” and, “You should let DRock
edit,” that’s gonna be okay. And so, if you wanna get deep with me, I know for a fact, ’cause
you’ve already given it to me that it’s the fear of failure, now the question becomes to whom. And what I would do is, and
you don’t have to share that with the whole world, I’d go
talk to that person up front. The best practical advice I’ve
ever given in this scenario, and it works over and over is you go and you sit down with
dad and say, or Johnny, or your boyfriend, or your
sister, or your girlfriend, I don’t care who it is right. You sit down, you look
’em in the face and say, “I’m about to do this and the only reason “I haven’t done it for the last year “is I don’t want to let you down, “because entrepreneurship is a crapshoot, “and I’m not sure if I’m gonna win, “but long term I’m gonna win, “and I just need to make
sure if I fail on this step, “that your response to me doesn’t crush me “to never let me have a second at bat.” ‘Cause that’s what it is. – Okay.
– Right? – Yes.
– That’s it.