#371 - Dating lessons from Gary Vaynerchuk
It’s 3:30 in the morning, one of those toss and turn nights and my brain decides to start turning on. When that happens, I might as well get up and start doing something. Believe me, I’d much rather be sleeping but the thoughts won’t quit.
So, I get up and here I sit at my computer. It’s time for a brain dump. The thoughts that are swirling in my brain are from conversations I’ve had with people that are fed up with dating. While each situation is slightly different, they all seem to have a common theme. Dating sucks!
And then my thoughts jump to a Q and A session with Gary Vaynerchuk. For those of you that have never heard of Gary, he’s a serial entrepreneur, a brilliant businessman, and very well known in the world of business.
Gary Vee (as he is known in the business world) was asked the question, “In a 10-to-15-minute interview, how do you know the persona you’re going to hire is the right one?” His answer, even before the audience member could finish the question was “You don’t!”
Gary Vee went on to say that as businesspeople, we all have our egos tied up in hiring. He said, “I have really good hiring advice. Learn to fire fast.” He goes on to say that he recently hired a 6-figure person at his media company and within the first day, he knew he was going to fire him.
He didn’t try to change the person he hired and make him fit the position he was hired for. He gave the employee 4 months to see if he would fit in and that was it. Gary Vee didn’t keep him around for 6 months, a year, or even longer just trying to make it work. When he saw the new hire wasn’t going to work out, he made the decision to let him go and move on.
Then it dawned on me (at 4:00 A.M. in the morning), this is exactly what I try to teach you about dating and relationships! We all have our egos tied up in the dating decisions we make when we should be learning to “fire” our potential partners sooner.
Most of you already know what I’m talking about. I know most of you have dated someone that “interviewed” well but as soon as you committed to a relationship with them you started to see things that were not going to contribute to a healthy relationship.
Yet, you hung on. You wanted to give them every chance to meet your criteria for a good relationship. And ultimately you dragged out the process for months, maybe even years before you finally admitted the reality of your situation and ended the relationship.
This is probably the single biggest reason you get frustrated with dating. You have unreal expectations for the entire dating process and you let ego and the raging hormones of infatuation cloud your judgement. This prevents you from making the decision to move on quickly.
Too many people have immediate gratification expectations for their dating life. If you’ve been in the realm of dating for any amount of time, you already know it’s not like dating in high school or college. You were able to break up one day and in a week or so be dating someone new.
Learn to let go of your need for immediate dating gratification. Your dating life will become much more enjoyable when don’t have the expectation that the next person you date will be the one.
You need to be an active participant in your dating life. If you’re going to take finding your soul mate seriously, you have to realize that you have to put effort into it. You can’t have one date every two or three months and expect magic to happen.
When your criteria for your next relationship are unambiguous, dating becomes simple. You won’t have to have endless first dates because you know specifically what you’re looking for. You should be dating frequently and when you find someone with possibilities, date them for a while.
You should know within 30 days or less if they are actually a good prospect. And if they aren’t, don’t keep dating in hopes that something will change because IT WON’T!
When you learn to “fire” quickly and accept the fact that dating to find your soul mate takes time and effort, I think you’ll find dating to be much more pleasurable.
Happy Dating.