Gary Vaynerchuk sure as hell can sell

Gary Vaynerchuk has an interesting take on the state of the world of entrepreneurship these days:

There are a lot of #2’s and #3’s right now who are trying to run companies. That’s just the truth. There are a lot of players who would be amazing right-hand-gals or left-hand-guys - unbelievable #2’s and #3’s - who are trying to be #1’s. We’re going to see a lot (I mean an obnoxious amount) of companies going out of business because those people don’t have the stomach to navigate through the waters.

The question on my mind is: What's the end game here? What are we trying to accomplish by being entrepreneurs?

To me it's all about doing what we came here on this earth to do. Fulfilling our life purpose. That may lead us to starting out on our own, or it may not. It may lead us to create a ridiculously successful company, or it may lead us to create a small one-man show.

The important thing is to do what's true to you and your life purpose.

So what Gary sees that I would agree with is a lot of people wanting to be entrepreneurs because it's the hip thing to do. Because it's cool. Because their ego wants all the things that they think entrepreneurship is going to give them. Because they believe they can copy what they see others do and be as successful. You can't. It doesn't work that way.

I used to be that way too. Thomas Madsen-Mygdal asked me the question point-blank about 10 years ago: "What do YOU want?"

What do you mean, what do I want? I just want to be an incredibly successful, famous, admired entrepreneur! Isn't that obvious? Isn't that what everyone wants?

And why did I want those things? Because I thought they'd finally make me fell worthy, feel good enough, feel like I was allowed to be here in this planet, worthy of taking up space and breathing the air.

But beyond that I had no idea, and you need to go beyond that to do meaningful work, and to create a successful business and life. You need to know what you want beyond what you think it's going to give you.

You need to know what you want to create for the sake of creating it itself.

Start with that.

It took me five years from Thomas asked me that question till I was able to answer it. And another five to be able to fully live it. But it was well worth the decade of work to get to that point. There's nothing like the satisfaction of knowing you're living your dream, not someone else's.

You have to find your path, whatever it is. And it's probably not the way that Gary Vaynerchuck would do it, or the way Jason Fried would do it, or the way Amy Hoy would have you do it, or the way Larry and Sergey did it, or what Steve Jobs did, or anyone else. You can learn from all of those, but you're not them. If you just copy what others do, you're robbing the world of what you came here to offer.

Be yourself and do what matters to you, regardless of the outcome. That's all there is to it.