There’s one name that comes to mind when you think of modern entrepreneurship and that’s Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary V, or any other iteration of his name that has become popularized. Most people have heard of him, but do you know the full story behind how Gary Vaynerchuk came from being an immigrant from Belarus to becoming the indisputable King of Hustle?

Hawke Media CEO, Erik Huberman had the opportunity to sit down with Gary V to find out for you.

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Here are a few takeaways from two titans of marketing coming taking a step back to bring it back down to earth where it all began:

It’s About Passion

For Gary, it was never about buying a bike, or a Nintendo, or the New York Jets. It’s about the intrinsic motivation of being an entrepreneur and building something that fulfills you.

Erik: Did something drive you? Was there something you wanted the money for? Or did you just love the chase?

Gary: I loved the chase. I don’t even recall, I don’t have that great story about, “and I bought my bike.” I know I bought Nintendo, but I don’t remember it being about buying Nintendo. It’s who I am now…I’m not looking for the Bentley. I’m not looking fo r the yacht.

Learn and Be Curious

From selling cards, to building Wine Library to a $60 million company, to building a VaynerMedia and becoming one of the world’s best content creators, there’s one thing that’s held true through each of these stages in Gary’s life and it’s his ability to watch and learn from people.

Gary: What makes me who I am today as a businessman was really honed at card shows and my dad’s liquor store. I would stand behind a table at a card show at a mall and basically spend 10 hours a day watching people. Even then, Erik. This is what I do for a living now. Even then, I would watch people and I would make adjustments to my table, I would make adjustments to where I asked for my table to be. I learned by watching people.

Understand The Gray

There’s only so much that data can tell you. “The math” is only one element of the problem and to properly leverage data and other quantitative insights you need to understand the qualitative parts of the equation as well.

Gary: Math has closed the gap, but in a lot of ways math has made me stronger. It has only reaffirmed and created pattern recognition.

Erik: I think you said it best with “the gray.” Math can only get you so far and a lot of times if you don’t understand what you’re looking at math can help qualify what you’re looking at. But, if you look at just data and don’t understand the gray around it you might make bad decisions. I’ve seen that happen a lot.

Gary: People also need to understand that math also affirms bad behavior. There are a lot of people in our industry hiding behind math.

 

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