One of my favorite T-shirts from our new Winter collection would be “Effort,” which was inspired by a segment of my talk I gave at Agenda Emerge earlier this year.  I’ve provided the excerpt from that part of my presentation below, to give you guys a little insight – but essentially, these are the three vital ingredients to gaining ground.

In my opinion, of course.  You can pick up the “Effort” tee now in our Online Shop.

The reason why anyone becomes “successful” at what they do boils down to 3 elements:

Blood,

Sweat

and Years

1. Sweat: Hard work. Work hard. You know the drill. To the point where it’s cliché, and borderline patronizing for me to preach it. Everyone does it, or claims it, to the point where it really doesn’t mean anything. This is the given of the 3, the easiest one, and if you can’t even satisfy this requirement, you won’t live to see the second one.

2. Years: This is the hard part, where everyone falls short. It takes patience, endurance and perseverance. A career is not a hot T-shirt. A brand is not one hot collabo, or 2 or 100. Try doing it times 10,000. You can’t buy this or leech onto it. You can’t coolguy or network your way into it.

Every year there’s another flavor-of-the-month designer, another frontrunner brand to top a Complex list, a Hypebeast headline to consider. Yet, the following January, it’s a whole new class. Where are you 10 years from now, 20, 50? Ultimate success and legacy is steeped on discipline and deliberation, and these are hardly developed in a season.

Success is a marathon, an evolution, a story. It’s not about being the best, as much as it being the last.  Pace yourself accordingly.

3. Blood: Now the final requirement to a successful brand and business, and the greatest of these is Blood.  Blood, not just in terms of the pain and suffering that comes with the trials and tribulations of stewarding a brand.  Blood comes from the Heart. It’s more than love. It’s passion.

If you have Blood, then the Sweat follows, and the Years are a side-effect. It’s the most important ingredient.  And this is the good news. We all have it. We all have passion, and we all get rich off that passion…