Speed is 4 billion times more important than perfection.
https://twitter.com/garyvee/status/512585310287704064
Even as I sit here dictating this article, my writer Colin, who snuck into my office at 11:01 even though I have an 11:00 oâclock meeting knew that it would make all the difference. I have meetings from 8:00a.m until midnight or 8:00 until 11:00 PM, and every second is scheduled.
The funny thing is, itâs still logical in my system for someone to sneak in here and try to steal three minutes, whenever somebody else is running behind because it will disproportionately affect the outcome of my output each day. I need to be able to produce more content, and every second counts.
On a day-to-day basis, Iâm moving unbelievably fast.
I just got finished debating with my chief of staff, Tyler why I have three hours of down time in Boise, Idaho. Weâre currently deciding, am I squeezing that into 15 phone calls or do I fly back to New York? On a daily basis, I am scrutinizing my 12 to 15 hour days, down to the second and trying to fill in as much stuff with the smartest stuff into that bucket. So, thatâs micro speed. I just genuinely believe that 95%âââ98% of the people reading this have it reversed. Theyâre not squeezing every second out of every day. Theyâre taking an hour and half lunch today. They check Facebook, and email and Instagram for 2 hours. They already watched a 22-minute YouTube video called DailyVee 88 đ
You canât avoid it.
To me, itâs all about speed. I actually donât care about anything else. Speed, both in people skills and hard work will trump anything.
When youâre not spending any time worrying, youâre spending time on executing. Thatâs what a great culture is, itâs speed. Youâre not spending the 15 minutes a day bickering. Youâre not spending the four hours a day wondering if that personâs trying to ruin youâŚ
Itâs just hustle. Input and output. Itâs very binary. You canât expect 30 years of results from 30 minutes of work.
On your day-to-day, you have to be fast. You have to be quick with your clients. They email you, you email them back ⌠your day-to-day, has to be predicated on the thesis of SPEED but your vision ⌠what you want to achieve in life, youâre not going to build it in one year, yet so many people donât understand. In the day-to-day theyâre slow, and in the macro, they want their business to be huge tomorrow.
They are worrying about their years, while wasting their days.
Did you watch the latest episode of House of Cards? Did you eat lunch with your friend? Did you take 2 hours to respond to email? Did you call your girlfriend or boyfriend from 7â8. Did your 3 meals take up 2â3 hours of your time? Did you walk your dog? What did you do?
If youâre honest with yourself, I think that a lot of you will find that you really didnât work that hard.
Iâm trying to incorporate more stories into my writing and the other day I heard a Corona ad read during football and the positioning is, you know,
Corona helps 4:00 oâclock get to 5:00 oâclock faster.
And literally, I was in coma for three minutes like, âOh my god, right?â Literally, almost everybody gets done working at 5:00 PM.
That is insane to me.
That is fundamentally a half-day for me if you really think about it. Working from 9:00 to 5:00 with an hour and half lunch, is a half day to me if you look at my normal schedule. Because I generally work from 7:30 AM, 8:00 AM until 10:00 PM, 11:00 PM, 12:00 AM each day.
WORK
— Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) March 22, 2017
I think people talk a big game. âGary V., youâre going to buy the Jets, Iâm going to buy the Rams.â
Actually, No⌠Nobody, unless they were a trust-fund baby ever bought the Rams when they went skiing for a week when they were 24.
And listen, I am massively empathetic, that if your vision, is to take a month off, and go home at 5 and spend time at the bar, and that is what makes you happy, then DO IT. But my thesis around speed is just so true.
You canât debate whether my 30 meetings, and 27 phone calls and 55 tweets and 79 emails are more than your 2.
Itâs the little things ⌠Why do I drive and not take subway? Because of time, itâs harder to do things down there when I need that 15 minutes. Even if it takes me 30 minutes to travel above ground and it costs money, I still get 30 minutes of work in vs. 15 minutes of work if I took the subway.
It matters. And believe me, Iâm taking meetings and making decisions that are going to disproportionately affect the success of my business and long term career, every-single-day. Iâm deciding what Iâm going to eat for lunch or how Iâm going to respond to that email.
I just move fast. Iâm very ahead of the game.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BW3SWhyFshM/
So obviously I am massively, at a global level, patient, but on a practical level and an execution level, Iâm very, very fast.
And this is the big differentiator. I am still enormously patient. At the most macro, I think in 20, 30, 40 year terms. I think a lot of peopleâs behavior is predicated on the micro⌠They want to get this ⌠They need to get thatâŚ
I think I need to buy the New York Jets. I need to be an all-time iconic entrepreneur. I need to impact as many people as possible so that Iâm giving as much as Iâm taking during that 50 year period.
Bring it everyday … in everything .. because eventually you will regret it, if you don't .. work hard, vacation hard, parent hard ..
— Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) June 18, 2017
So that means Iâm thinking very big and every action maps to that. I think thereâs a lot of people who are reading this that are thinking âI need to buy a new Lexus.â Or âI need to buy that beach house in Red Bank New Jersey.â What they start doing is they start cutting corners. Why? Because if youâre trying to buy a beach house in Red Bank for 400,000, youâre not willing to meet anybody for 15 minutes because, you need them to pay you for that time. Youâre thinking short term and that dramatically changes your behavior.
So, most people are working eight hours and trying to make money on every single hour and Iâm here working sixteen hours and trying to make money on four of those hours.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BYqJIcUl_E5/
It really is my religion. When you align on an ideology which allows you to go fast, but think big you stop worrying about the micro and put in the work. Speed is a much bigger aspect of business than people realize. Instead of jockying, and politicking, and pondering, and posturing, and debating for three or four months, Iâm just in do-mode now, and when youâre in do-mode you fucking get shit done.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRORQsMDhM7/
And once you figured out speed, you need to have patience. You need to understand that no matter how fast you work, it doesnât happen overnight⌠It may happen in 7 years (which is incredibly fast by most peopleâs standards) but itâs not going to happen overnight.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSXU-WNDcEL/
Iâm blown away by people that get caught up in this, and really it just leads to you being disproportionately not successful, because youâre too slow, youâre over-thinking things.
In a very anecdotal sentiment, there are people who left VaynerMedia when they weâre on the fast track of a hot agency with a big time leader to go work at a dodgy, old company for $20,000 more because itâs going to give them $1,200 more a month post-tax. Which will allow them to move out of their three roommate situation and go into a studio closet.
And what theyâve really done is, theyâve appeased themselves in the short-term, but in the long-term theyâve left so much money on the table because they wouldâve been on the fast-track here.
This happens every day and in every scenario. Whether itâs people who buy a $100,000 car, or a $10,000 watch which then doesnât leave them any money to invest when they think Starbucks is gonna be the next big thing.
And that $100,000 they wouldâve put into Starbucks, 13 years later wouldâve been worth $8 Million, but instead they owned a Mercedes at 27.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BY3GsV5lsPU/
Micro speed, macro patience are the only thing that matters, because opinions predicated on peopleâs insecurities and ego just slow things down.
Speed erases politics because you canât spend time thinking about whether or not someone is trying to ruin you.
Itâs just not subjective. Creative is subjective, but deadlines arenât. Done is better than perfect. You have to do!!!
So when you have the Macro Patience, and an enormous dream, youâre doing it for the long-term and youâre doing it fast and hard every day and leaving money on the table, so it all works out. Thatâs why people that dream big, who like to believe they have âmanifested it in their mindâ didnât actually do so. What happened, is you gave yourself the right strategy, which then allowed your behavior to map your ambition. You didnât dream it. You decided to think long-term and you invested in it.
You put in the work.
