Risk & Business Magazine Cooke Insurance Group Magazine Winter 2018 | Page 9

HOW SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE THINK
HOW
SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE
THINK
L
isten, this is such a fascinating
conversation for me because
I think I have real perspective.
Some of the greatest
entrepreneurs in the world didn’t
necessarily start out with a grand vision.
They started with an idea and an action.
Bezos didn’t set out to build Amazon, he
started by selling books online. Zuckerberg
didn’t set out at 18 to build Facebook. He
built a tool for his college that later became
the thing. It was idea + action. Constant
iteration and execution. It was reacting to
the market and tripling down on success.
The vision came after.
For me, I always knew that I was going to
be big. At six years old, selling lemonade
I knew I had something special. I was
making thousands of dollars every
weekend selling baseball cards and toys
and items from garage sales before I even
got to college. By 18, 19 and 20 I had very
clear picture that my business success
would be enormous.
When I was 14 or 15 I realized that I was
never going to be the quarterback for the
New York Jets. Instead I was going to buy
them, and so that was my vision.
That was my big north star.
So look, whether you’re an entrepreneur
or an artist or someone who wants to be
a number two or number 27 or number
47, I think the reality is exposed. For me,
at a macro, it’s been one long game of
self-awareness. The more I understand
myself, the more I try to put myself in a
position to succeed. Coming out of school,
being 22 years old, I thought of myself as
a great salesman. I didn’t necessarily have
the vision of starting VaynerMedia and
building the best digital agency I could. I
just knew I could sell and that it was going
to be big.
>
9