1 > 0

I watched a video a couple weeks ago by Gary Vayerchuk. He is a very successful entrepreneur, author, etc. I honestly don’t know a lot about him, but he seems like a pretty cool dude. He created a video that talked about the struggle he faced in building his business. He is world renown now, but it wasn’t always that way.

Vaynerchuk has millions of followers but nobody knows of his early struggles. Nobody knows of the battle he faced in building his millions of followers. The concept that he talked about that was so appealing to me was called, “1 is greater than 0”. He said that if one person read a blog that he posted or tuned into a video he created, it was a success to him. He said that a lot of people worry about building a following way too fast. Everyone thinks that selling and making money is easy for him because he has millions of followers, which is true now, but he worked for every single follower. He posted tons of videos that received a seemingly insignificant number of views, likes, shares, etc. He made this very clear.

A lot of people today expect results immediately. Results are a function of persistence and discipline. Results follow good habits. To build a following takes an enormous amount of work. You have to be willing to endure the tough days, the days where a couple of people watch your video or read your blog. When you continue to do this, slowly, you will pick-up a new follower here and there. You will slowly break into a new market of people who identify with your message. You will begin to create momentum, opening up new possibilities for the power of word-of-mouth to take action. It is only the people who are willing to endure the almost non-existence of results, who will actually build a following.

My days in the corporate sales environment always taught me to focus on your activity and let the results take care of themselves. If you don’t get discouraged, and continue to do the things that you know you should (i.e. dial the phone, do cardio, write every day, read for 30 minutes, etc.), you will create results. Always focusing on doing one small activity to create momentum in your life, will slowly transform you into a goal-crushing machine. This is the only way to create consistent and predictable results. You must build a habit and disconnect with the immediacy of results people expect.

Think about the “1 is greater than 0” concept the next time you don’t feel like working out, or the phone feels heavy in your sales job. Helping 1 person, is better than helping 0. Doing 5 minutes of cardio is better than doing 0. Start small. Don’t overwhelm yourself with results that are not immediate. Results take time, but they are always a reward for consistency and quality habits.

I think about this concept all the time when I am writing blogs, or crafting Instagram posts to help market my upcoming books. If one person likes my post, it was a success. I made an impact. By no means do I have a million people following me, but I know that to get there, I have to have 10 followers, and 150 and 800 and 20,000 and so on. I will never get to any of those numbers if I don’t start focusing on building 1 new follower at a time.

This concept can literally change your life. Doing something is always better than doing nothing. 1 workout in a week is better than 0. One tiny step towards your goal is better than not taking one. Dig deep inside of yourself and find the courage to move. Standing still isn’t going to help you accomplish any of your goals. Fight procrastination and inaction. Fight complacency and take that step that you know you need to. After taking that courageous first step, you will find the courage to take another. And then another. One day you will look back with gratitude on that first step you took. That first step that completely changed your life.