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I have not had the opportunity to ever to be a guest on one of Oprah’s “Favorite Things” episodes…but I now feel like I understand the insanity that ensues.
Gary Vaynerchuk spoke at Virginia Tech on last night, and as I’m sure he always does, he blew the roof off the place.
Apparently, students at VT have been asking Gary to come for years. Professor John Boyer (renamed “Coach” by Gary) of the Plaid Avenger pulled together a video with his students to make this most recent request, and well, Gary rolled into Blacksburg (tornado warnings and all). Gary was poised to do a keynote about The Thank You Economy, tape episodes of Daily Grape and Wine Library TV, and sign a few books. The one-hour event went well past three hours, and as Gary said, “This is out of control.”
For me, the major take-away from the evening was passion. You have got to have passion. But passion isn’t enough, you need to execute. You know that I consider myself a “get it done” kind of girl, but let me tell you: after years of hearing about the fabulousness of ideas, it was refreshing to hear someone else confirm that you have GOT to execute to get that fabulousness to the world.
If you can’t deliver, then it doesn’t matter, especially since original ideas are few and far between. We all think along the same lines, so don’t get mad when you think someone stole your idea. It was probably a logical next step thousands of people thought of, they just executed and you didn’t.
You’ve also got to use your resources. Gary said he spend WAY more time in school thinking, reading and studying about wine than worrying about his other classes. He wanted to get everything he could at his fingertips. He mentioned that we have a huge advantage right now as students because information is free, fast, and being updated constantly.
While we have the time, we need to use the resources to our advantage. That’s something I’ve been thinking about the last few months. I haven’t really considered myself an entrepreneur, and I’ve even called myself pro-corporate. However, the two years I’m here at VT, I’ll be in an incubator in which I create six to eight businesses with thousands of resources at my fingertips. Entrepreneurs would kill for that kind of an opportunity.
The biggest event of the night was not the filming or the keynote, but it was when Gary showed his passion to us by investing in us. Sure, he was there to give away some books and sign a few autographs, but in the process of having a drawing, we went from iTunes gift cards to internships at Facebook or Twitter.
What would you give to have Gary Vaynerchuk make a personal call toMark Zuckerberg about a summer internship? Or how about interning with Gary’s own company? When Gary realized that the crowd went nuts as soon as he said, “You want a job?” he knew he was in a different world.
If you want to see real investment in the future business minds of this world, you need to know that Gary gave away $10,000 in VC with a promise to coach and aid a student looking to get his or her startup off the ground. THAT is the passion it takes to make things happen, but not just for yourself, but for everyone.
Gary may need to set aside this $10,000, but trust me, he isn’t paying any opportunity costs with it. In fact, his return will probably be more than just dollars, but the value he gets from the word-of-mouth this event creates, the views this post gets, and the clicks his episodes receives. He’s made a social contract with a student here at VT, and I bet she will more than deliver.
And after all that, I’m even more motivated to deliver. That is passion, and it took one man. What kind of motivation are you providing today?
If any one has demonstrated a passion for passion, you have in this exuberant post! What you’ve observed is on the money and what you’ve seen in Gary a spark that never seems to dim. I read it in his book and now have seen it through your eyes.
We need passion to be successful as entrepreneurs because the work is demanding, relentless, and exhausting. Sometimes passion is all that gets us out of bed in the morning. Something needs to feed it from within and without. Gary’s certainly seems to come from engaging with others in any venue.
When we couple passion with drive, we’ve got the fuel. Then as you explain, we have to become the best we can be, execute flawlessly nearly every time and recover well when we don’t. That’s what education and training presents to us. The passion we must kindle ourselves! Thanks for this amazing post and good luck in your incubator! ~Dawn
Dawn, thanks for the luck. We shall see what comes out of all this. I just know that it’s good to see when hard work pays off. It doesn’t always work that way, but there is hope. We do need things to keep us excited and drive us to do what we love. Thanks so much for the comment!
Two guys are walking down the same street at separate times. Each is hungry, each is looking into the windows of stores where there is hot food, and each has a pocketful of money.
Only thing is that one of these two guy doesn’t realize he has a pocketful of money. So he looks into the window and blames the world for being a hard place and stays hungry. The other guy uses the money in his pocket to secure a good meal.
Graduate school is a lot like filling your pocket with money. Only some people don’t realize how many ways they can spend it to get what they desire in life. And they just focus on the world being a hard place, while they remain hungry for a job or whatever it is they desire.
Emily, whenever I read your posts, I see someone who is filling their pocket with the passion, knowledge and insight that come from a good graduate school experience. I expect you will be able to spend some of this on your incubators and find that your pocket get filled even more as you do. Glad to see you putting your experience to good use!
Marc, thanks for the anecdote. I think it’s been especially hard over the last couple of years for people to really see the value they have in graduate school, especially if they are using graduate school to delay entry into the job market. I needed to have worked first in order to see the value I’m truly getting. I’ll keep filling my pockets as you say, and thanks always for the faith you have in me!
Emily, you sound so inspired, I can’t wait to hear how you translate Gary’s wisdom to your own ventures…
Terri, thanks so much for your comment. We shall see how this all works out over the next couple of years!