702 Change Your Mind about Failure with Gary Vaynerchuk

“ANYTHING CAN BE TAUGHT, BUT YOU CAN ONLY GO SO FAR WITHOUT NATURAL TALENT.” Everyone thinks they can be a great entrepreneur. But is that what you’re best at? If a rabbit is trying hard to be a frog, it may make a decent frog. But it would be a much better rabbit. To be successful, you have to combine your natural talent with hard work. Even the most dedicated football player can’t make it to the NFL without innate skill. That’s why I’m revisiting a conversation I had with a person who was born to be an entrepreneur and who has spent his life pursuing it: the legendary Gary Vaynerchuck. Gary Vaynerchuck is CEO of the full-service advertising agency VaynerMedia and is a venture capitalist who has invested in companies like Snapchat, Birchbox, Venmo, and Uber. He’s a 5-time New York Times bestselling author and a sought-after public speaker. Gary makes the argument just putting in the time and energy it might not be enough to make a successful business. Learn how to deal with failure in entrepreneurship on Episode 702. In This Episode You Will Learn: What you need to be a successful entrepreneur (1:30) The thing you need to be okay with when you’re an entrepreneur (2:30) How to find out what you’re naturally best at (3:10) What to ask the five people closest to you (3:40) Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:10Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to today's show. Our guest is the legendary Gary Vaynerchuk. That's right. Gary runs VaynerMedia, which is one of the world's hottest digital agencies. He's also a prolific angel investor and venture capitalist, investing in companies like Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Uber, and Birchbox. He also hosts the Ask Gary Vee Show and is a public speaker that delivers keynotes all over the world at a number of different events.

• 0:43Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I need to be smart about, I have to go look back in how we titled it, but I know what I said, which is, it can be taught, but you can only go so far because of natural talent. You know, it's fun to have this conversation with you because you're such an athletic freak. You know, most people don't lay on the couch and say, "I'm going to be on the Olympic team" and then pull it off. I think that I could play basketball every day, every day of my life, from the time I was 15 and putting 15 hours a day, and I think I'd be really good. I'd have a much better handle. I'd shoot better. I would have been more competitive with you on the boat that day. But would I've been good enough to be in the NBA? Absolutely not.

• 1:22Lewis Howes?

  Maybe, maybe D3.

• 1:24Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Maybe.

• 1:24Lewis Howes?

  College.

• 1:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Maybe, maybe. And I do think right now that everybody thinks they can be an entrepreneur. And so, my point was, it's much more talent than the current conversation. I don't think you can read The School of Greatness and my books and all these other books and watch SkillShares and watch Chase Jarvis and listen to Ferris and read Branson and even go to business school and have mentors and go to Y Combinator and then all of a sudden, just because of that, you become a great entrepreneur. I think of it like the music industry. Think about all the kids that are born into, you know, you're Clive Davis's grandson or you're Whitney Houston's daughter, or you have nothing but access. You're in the studio all the time. You learn the business, but if you don't have the chops, if you don't have the vocals,

• 2:10Gary Vaynerchuk?

  you're only going to go so far.

• 2:11Lewis Howes?

  Right. Same thing with football players or like in athletics too. You see some children of former NBA or NFL stars who excel, but then others who are, don't do anything.

• 2:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Here's the punchline.

• 2:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's much more talent than people realize. I see it every day and the video I made was like, "Look, you have to be okay that by pouring in 18 hours a day and learning everything, might only allow you to build a business that makes $100,000 a year."

• 2:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 2:41Gary Vaynerchuk?

  There is an absolute misconception that the American dream is entrepreneurship and everybody can do it. The difference between entrepreneurship and football is everybody who's listening right now or watching can start a business. So for me, I have to do this.

• 2:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 2:57Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's why I failed school, it's why I sold baseball cards when I was 14. So for me, I'm okay with the failures, the losses along the way. It's my natural state. I just want people who are listening to find their natural state and not force into the current narrative.

• 3:11Lewis Howes?

  So how does someone find out what they're best at? And what are you best at?

• 3:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, I'm best at selling. I'm best at using my words to make things happen. Whether that's selling me, whether that's selling my agency, whether that's selling a bottle of wine, whether that's selling a book, I'm good at that.

• 3:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 3:24Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm good at storytelling to make a transaction happen.

• 3:29Gary Vaynerchuk?

  How one finds it, I don't know. And I think about this a lot. I think about self-awareness, I think about EQ, I think about finding that. I've been talking more about finding the five people that are closest to you to tell you the truth.