“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” -Winston Churchill
Gary Vaynerchuk was on our weekly live video talk show, TheShow.live, and we chatted about how our life experiences helped build our foundations for success. We shared examples about how what we learned, watched and experienced (good and bad), all helped shape who we are and what we’re doing today.
This is such an important concept that I want to dive into it in just a bit more detail. By the way, this was a popular episode with Jennifer Hoverstad, Gary Vaynerchuk and yours truly talking social media, VR, the NFL, Samsung phone battery fires, the presidential election and much more. If you missed it, here you go!
The Early Years
My early use of dial up modems, coding websites and eventually creating websites for my law firm in the late 1980s and early 1990s gave me the foundation and skills to incorporate tech into my business and relationship developing efforts today. I was and still am a full time trial lawyer, but my interest and passion for the tech side of life, especially social media, has allowed me to build the global brand I have today.
Now here’s the kicker. Even though almost all of the code, tools, and platforms I spent hours learning how to use no longer exist, the lessons and skills I developed help me stay relevant to this very day. From our discussion, I know Gary and Jennifer feel the same way.
For me, the “success” I’ve achieved (I define my success as being in a position to help my clients and comfortably balancing my professional and personal life) isn’t simply because of tech, social media or even the law. We need to go back even further in time and well before the Internet or law school for the initial and extremely important foundational building blocks. Here’s what I’m talking about.
Over the years I’ve been fortunate to obtain some very good jury trial verdicts for my clients. The skills, techniques, and approaches I used during each trial to help jurors see things my client’s way had more to do with the people skills I learned over the years as a waiter and bartender in college than what I was taught in law school. My results in court and online are from the “people skills” I picked up by watching, listening to, and talking to all of the amazing guest from around the world who stayed at our Arizona ranch during my high school and college years.
When it comes to jury selection, I believe picking the right twelve people to serve as jurors in all of my 66+ trials had more to do with the skills I developed chatting with and checking people in at the front desk of Caesars Tahoe than what I learned in my evidence class. The techniques I use to help cope with emergency issues during a trial came from my experiences as a manager at Caesars and other resort properties and not what I learned in my Civil Procedure class.
I didn’t realize back then that my experiences would help me today as a lawyer and entrepreneur, but they did and in a big way. The lessons I’ve learned from the highs and lows of my early life experiences are all now valuable assets I use each week in court and online.
Now let’s fast forward to today’s tech including social media and live streaming. I can comfortably report that my ability to quickly engage on these platforms comes from what I learned decades ago and because of the experiences I mentioned above. In court, I’ve also changed how I interact with witnesses and my jury.
Understanding the issues of time and attention, today I talk in 140 character soundbites (sort of) and do all that I can to deliver the type of message most of my young jurors hear 24/7 on social media. It’s about keeping things familiar and sharing concepts via metaphors that they understand, appreciate and respect. It’s also about giving an 18 minute dynamic TED Talk type of opening statement instead of delivering a two hour mind numbing “watch the paint dry on the wall” experience.
The World Is Your Classroom
We can all learn important lessons from everything we do. Our experiences are a foundation for progress and future success. Nothing you’ve done, good or bad, is wasted time. Everything you do is a building block for your long-term success.
As we chatted about on TheShow.live, it simply takes the right mindset to appreciate this approach to life’s journey. Once you figure this out, anyone can flip the switch and create positive change.
Things don’t always work out, and opportunities and experiences come and go. The important thing to remember is that the experiences you have during the process are unique and powerful assets for future growth and skill. Embrace everything that happens to you, learn from your wins and losses, and always keep moving forward.
Without exception, every single successful person I’ve met in my 30+ years of business has a clear understanding of the power of what we talked about in this episode and what I’ve highlighted in this post. Now, you do too.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” -Winston Churchill
Related: Join us on TheShow.live (Wednesday’s at 4 pm ET)
