AskGaryVee

Bet on your strengths. It’s an underrated business strategy in a world where so many people are obsessed with fixing their weaknesses they give short shrift to the skills they were born with.

There’s no doubt that taking that first step can be terrifying. I get it. I really do. But I also have to wonder, would you be so afraid if you knew no one was watching? See, I think what really scares people is not fear of failure, but fear of failing in front of someone who matters. Like your mom or dad. Your best friend. A sibling. A mentor. A spouse. None of us wants to disappoint someone we admire.

But if you want to be an entrepreneur—if that’s what you really, really want—you cannot give a shit about what other people think of you. Not even your parents.

This question was posed in 2014, when I was twenty-six days into a new diet and workout regimen designed by the personal trainer I hired to help me get back in shape. I had realized I wasn’t accountable to myself when it came to health, so if I was going to make a change I would need to become accountable to someone else. It worked. At the time, I’d made it to the gym twenty-six times and eaten seventy-eight healthy meals in a row without cheating. Since then I’ve kept it up. I feel so accomplished. I’m also grateful that I figured the solution out at a young enough age that will allow me to reap the benefits for decades to come.

So the biggest thing I learned that year hands down was that prioritizing my health is a really good idea. My energy level was down for a while because I had been living on sugar. But after just a few weeks, I felt like a different person. Making my health a priority has changed my life. And remember what I said about how everything I do is a chess move that gets me closer to owning the Jets? This change isn’t just good for my health or my family; I will be able to build businesses and invest and do what I love to do longer because of it. It’s cloud thinking, which is win-win all the way around.