So before I get to the meat of this article, some context: As a recent college grad entering the workspace, I’ve been on the hunt for a job. Needless to say, I’ve had to come up with some unconventional ways to “stand out” from the rest of the crowd. Therefore, I turned to social media to get the attention of potential employers. One of them is Gary Vaynerchuck.
Gary Vaynerchuck is one of my role models, and one of my dreams is to meet him and/or work for him at his social media agency. For those of you who don’t know, Gary is an entrepreneur who has created multi-million dollar businesses from the ground up. He has taught me, as well as thousands of others, how to crush it online and make money. I look up to him not only as a motivator but as someone whose work ethic I admire. Thus, my desire is to work for him in some or any capacity.
After ambitiously applying to his NYC-based company, VaynerMedia, I started a Twitter campaign where I would tweet at Gary every day asking him for a job. After 10 days he finally replied, asking if I had already applied online. When I said that I did, he mentioned that he had no input in the hiring process. Ultimately, he rejected my online attempts but admired my hustle.
To me, this was “learning the hard way” of reaching out and applying for a job.
But after talking with my mentor, Tyler Leslie, he said that I didn’t learn the “hard way”. Instead, I had learned the “right way” of reaching out to a mentor.
He argued that learning the “right way” was me failing at connecting with my role model.
This was interesting because for years learning the hard way was assessing failure. By having his mindset, I had a negative view of failure. I, and many of my peers were afraid of learning the hard way.
Because of my internship, I’m deep in the motivational/self-development space. And every guru, speaker, thought leader, billionaire, entrepreneur, whatever; will tell you that failure is an important step towards success. They all agree that it’s the best way to learn; the proof is in the pudding.
After talking to Tyler, and thinking about what happened, I agree. You can’t fear failure. You have to be willing to try new things and experiment. Try what works for others; but if it doesn’t work, try something that nobody has done before.
Literally, the only thing that all successful people have in common is that they failed. They tried something, and it didn’t work. They realized that there is “hard way” of learning something. Failure is the right way to learn from life.
Nobody ever found success by working within their comfort zone.
I like to think that’s what Gary was trying to teach me when he shot me down on Twitter. Consequently, I need to find another way to break the noise rather than mention him at 9 AM CST every day. I need to prove my worth, my value before I can get his attention and his paycheck.
Final Note: There is ALWAYS something that can be learned from a situation, no matter how hopeless it may seem.
Like Tony Robbins said, “Stay committed to your decisions, but remain flexible in your approach”. And if that means failing, then so be it.
