You're Not Lost. You're Just Early in the Process.

You’re not lost in life. You’re just early in the process.

The biggest reason you haven’t found your passion or your calling is because you haven’t tasted, tried, tested, or learned enough things. Too many of you want it right now, and your fear of losing, being wrong, or getting laughed at is holding you back.

I’m 50 years old and I think I’m just starting. So imagine what I think for most of you. Slow down, take a breath, and deploy patience. This is just the beginning.

I have to hear all of you tell me that you don’t have time, that it’s over, that you missed your moment, because you’re 28 and you feel like you’ve taken a secure job and given up on your dreams. I’m completely blown away by people’s lack of understanding of how long life is, how long the game is.

At 31 years old, I was a wine merchant in New Jersey, going to the store every single day, buying and selling wine. That was my life.

At 44 years old, Sam Walton started building Walmart. Sidney Frank created Grey Goose at 72. I know there’s Colonel Sanders and there are all sorts of other names, but I wanted to tell you about Walmart because it’s the biggest. You could literally do nothing for the next 18 years and then start the thing that puts you on the map.

The other group of people I need to talk to are the 24, 25, 26 year olds who are a year or two into their career and have already decided that’s it. It’s insane to me. You’re 26. You’re 54. You’re 70. The internet has made it possible for your thing to go from zero to a hundred. The internet doesn’t care.

I lead with my own example of not really being able to chase my dreams and create my own path until I was 34. I was working in a liquor store 365 days a year. I was retail. Then came talking about wine on the internet, and investing in companies, and now building some of the world’s biggest companies and taking Fortune 500 clients for my companies at VaynerX. None of that was clear to me when I was a teenager.

Patience is practical. I push patience because I know life is long. Everybody around here is running around like it’s not. 24 year-olds running around like it ends tomorrow, like they need it now. What’s wrong with being 26, or 41, or 73?

The game is long. There’s so much opportunity. Optimism is the secret to capitalizing on that opportunity, and that’s where you need to live. You need to figure out how good it really is, and how much opportunity you have. Most of all, how much time you have.

So much of what we’re affected by is still based on how our parents were affected by their parents and grandparents. Of course you were supposed to have your life figured out by 30 or 40 when life expectancy was 47. Things are different today. If life expectancy is now close to 80, doesn’t that mean we have even more time to reach our goals? Shouldn’t we be more patient?

At 50, I’m still patient. I’m not in a rush to realize my dreams in the next few years. I’m excited about the next 50…You’re gonna die, sure. Anyone who consumes my content has heard me say that a hundred times. But unless you’re gonna die soon, you should really only be playing long term.

From 2007 to 2011, I replied to every single email and tweet I got until four in the morning. Nobody knew who I was at the time, so I would go into Twitter search, look up wine terms, and jump into conversations with my advice, questions, and recommendations. Someone would tweet, “Having this pinot noir,” and I would reply, “That’s a good one, did you try the year before?” These people didn’t know me, but slowly and surely, after hours and hours and years and years, I built a foundation that later became the start of what people see now.

I can’t tell you how many comments, DMs, and emails I get from people telling me it’s not working. Their business isn’t making sales, their posts aren’t going viral, they’re not gaining followers quickly enough. People start an account, post five times, don’t go viral, and they’re done.

It makes me sad to see that patience truly is a lost art. This is a trait that comes naturally to me. Whether it’s DNA, circumstance, or watching my immigrant parents work forever, I was gifted with both extreme patience and extreme ambition. As I got older, I realized that wasn’t as common in others as I thought.

Patience is a core ingredient to the lightness I feel inside. When you have a good relationship with time, the pressure is lifted and you can do so much more. Patience allows me to focus on playing the game while the score takes care of itself.

People hear me talk about being patient and playing the long game, but they also see how much I value speed and execution. At first glance that might look like a contradiction. It’s not. It’s not either-or, it’s both. Macro patience and micro speed, that’s the winning combination.

Patience isn’t a hindrance to success, it’s a key component. Ambition and tenacity are amazing things to have, but if they go unchecked they can lead to anxiety, lack of self-confidence, and burnout. The best way to keep ambition under control is having an equal amount of patience to balance it out.

Those who are patient aren’t any less ambitious or tenacious. In fact, patience can give you permission to dream bigger. It also gives you the power and perspective to endure the losses. It’s the lack of patience to accept small wins, and small losses, that’s holding so many people back, clouding perspective and adding anxiety to situations that don’t need it.

Impatience comes from insecurity. People are insecure about other people’s opinions of where they are in life, what they’re doing, how they’re living, how much stuff they have, so they rush to a level of success others will approve of.

Insecurity festers without the fertilizer of patience. When you’re desperate to prove something to other people in the short term, you don’t give yourself a chance to enjoy the process. When you don’t enjoy the process, you become more vulnerable to burnout.

So many young people think they need to have their lives figured out, or be millionaires, by the time they hit 30, and if they don’t, they beat themselves up for being behind. I really want to help change the way we interact with time.

When you have the self-awareness to know who you are and what you want, you’re not insecure about the time it takes to get there.

Everything takes longer than you think, especially when you’re aspiring to levels of greatness most people don’t reach. You’re not lost, and you’re not stuck. You’re just early in the process.

If it’s important to you, keep going, keep your head down, execute, and be patient. If I’m planning to execute for the next 45 years, you can do the same. And if you find yourself rushing the process, ask yourself why you’re rushing or wanting things so fast. Whose affirmation or approval are you looking for? Then put the focus back on you and get it done.

I believe the disproportionate reason most people don’t win isn’t the hard work, it’s their lack of patience. If you find something you love to do, and you want it to be your life, how can you possibly give up after a few weeks, a few months, or even a few years? There is no quick cure. The hard work matters, and patience is what overrides it. Don’t worry about getting there by a certain time or a certain age. Just enjoy the game.

All you have is time.