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The quality of me as a human matters to me, not as me as a businessman.
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I m aware that I love it.
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I love being an entrepreneur, but it is not how I f***ing think about myself.
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Right.
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It s my favorite game.
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It is my passion.
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It s not who I am.
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Entrepreneur, investor.
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A New York Times bestselling author.
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Founder of VaynerMedia.
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Digital media mogul, Gary Vaynerchuk.
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Please welcome Gary Vaynerchuk.
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Gary Vaynerchuk.
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I remember when I was first popping off in that 2007, 2008 Twitter world, a lot of people were like, the wine guy s gonna be around just for a year.
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This is too much.
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It s all sizzle, no steak.
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Money and fame and success doesn t change you, it exposes you.
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I just have a very simple question for people.
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Explain to me any justification to sh** on another human being.
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If you re not happy, if you re anxious, if you re feeling a lot of pressure, the answer is, ironically, you have to start doing the opposite of everything you naturally want to do.
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That s the other thing that I don t understand what these people are doing.
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As if anyone on Earth... Is perfect.
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Is perfect.
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You want to have a real moment in this podcast?
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Everybody, I m looking at all the f***ing cameras right now.
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I m sorry, I was going for a fact.
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You said you want to live to 105.
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Yeah.
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You get to do one final live stream.
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Yeah.
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And all you get to leave behind is three truths.
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I promise you this is the most truth I ve learned in 105 years.
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Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness.
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Very excited about our guest.
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We have the inspiring Gary Vaynerchuk in the house.
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My man, so good to see you.
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It s been 15 years since we met each other.
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Yes.
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You have continued to be a leader in the creator economy, entrepreneurship, emotional intelligence, and so many other things.
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So I want to acknowledge you first, Gary, for your continued evolution, innovation, and leadership as a human being.
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And also your friendship, you have thousands of connections that you probably text with on a monthly basis.
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And you have a lot of people in your inner circle, but then outer circle, right?
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And I would say I m someone like in the inner outer circle, you know, we don t see each other a lot, but when we connect, we connect and we have a lot of memories together.
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And I ll always appreciate that when there s something happens in my life, you reach out.
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So I want to acknowledge you for just being on top of things, reaching out when things really matter.
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Well, good luck for you.
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Yeah, I appreciate it.
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And one of the things I want to talk about first in today is you ve got a lot that s always happening, but one of the things is this book called Day Trading Attention.
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Yes.
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It seemed, and we were just talking about this right before we started, you were asking me, you know, what s new for you?
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And I said, feeling emotionally peaceful and abundant and loved is new for me.
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Because in a world of online marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, business, competition, I was driven to grow, grow, grow.
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And I was always accomplishing and getting results.
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But in the last year, there s been changes, ups, downs.
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For the first time, I feel peaceful about me and love myself, even if...
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I m not growing at the rate that I always have financially.
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Even if you ranked 113 instead of seven.
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Exactly, exactly.
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My question for you to start is, it seems like people are more stressed and overwhelmed and trapped than ever trying to keep up with the algorithms, likes, views.
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Yeah.
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Changes in platforms, one platform being hot, then potentially TikTok going away in a few months, who knows?
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Right.
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And people are on this hamster wheel of needing to grow and create, create, create in order to be relevant.
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Yes.
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Is that sustainable and how can people stay healthy and love themselves when they re hot and when they re not, and how do they not chase the hamster wheel of success with social and stay more sustainable?
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Great question.
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Is it sustainable?
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Yes, if you re in the place that I think you re emerging into, where you enjoy it and it doesn t define you, and you can love yourself and you re good,
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whether you re making a million dollars a year or 40,000 a year, whether you ve got a million followers or 40,000, or the thing that you re going through, that I go through and many others, when you have momentum and you re hot, hot, and then you re not as hot and you go up and down.
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So I think it s remarkably sustainable.
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I also believe that 99%, 97%, 90%, I don t know what the number is, are not in that place yet.
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They re not in a place where they don t live for outside validation.
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They re not in a place where they ve hit that maximum place of self-love.
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I talk a lot about my mom.
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It s very clear to me that whatever she gave me in DNA and how she parented me and the circumstances of the environment I grew up in, Edison, New Jersey in the 80s,
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created a perfect storm where my relationship with me was so good, even in high school.
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I think about it now a lot.
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I didn t realize it when I was first coming up and getting notoriety.
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I didn t realize how insane in hindsight, and Dustin, who s filming me right now, he also grew up in Jersey, and he really understands what I m about to say, even though I m older, he really knows what I m saying.
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90s, late 90s, early 2000s, high school in Jersey,
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in 1990 to 94 when I was there, that was like real kind of like hardcore, meaning it now blows me away in hindsight that I did not, not only did I not succumb to peer pressure,
0
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that it didn t even begin to gain momentum with me.
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And I had a lot of- Were you like the only one in high school that this didn t happen to?
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No, I think there s others, and this is why I m trying to tap into it.
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So for me, what you re entering, I believe, is what I got lucky.
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I hate luck because people love to weaponize it against people they envy.
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And it s a real lazy trait.
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There s a million variables that are luck or serendipity or whatever you want to call it.
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But your parents instilled that in you and gave you that skill.
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My dad instilled other things in me and honestly I was with my mom predominantly from 14 and then ironically at the time I m talking about now is when I started to really get to know my dad because I had to work in the liquor store a lot of hours.
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I just liked myself and didn t think, you re a perfect example.
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You were like, I was four foot 11 the day I walked into high school.
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Yeah, I was 6 3 .
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Now I m 6 4 .
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So like, I m using you because you re a perfect comp.
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Even if the most handsome big dude who was in my grade made fun of me,
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And I remember within the first couple of weeks, big shout out, if anybody can find Paige Parlow, Paige Parlow is two years older than us or maybe one.
0
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All my high school friends are about to laugh.
0
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She was such a pretty girl.
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I think she was a junior, we were freshmen, right?
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And she had like cliche, this is literally September, 1990.
0
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Her boyfriend is like a smoker dude, like literally like a John Travolta type of dude.
0
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Literally had a central casting.
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I,
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somehow get lost, this is literally like week one or two, get lost of which class I m going to, so I m like two, three minutes after the bell rang, and I m like walking the hall trying to think, like literally like a movie.
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And they re outside, I already know who those two people are, and we re only a week or two in, right?
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Already.
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And literally, they re outside, either her or his locker, making out as I m walking by.
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And everything in my life is just walk by and have nothing happen, right?
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Sure enough, I get by, I m like, ah.
0
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And it s literally a movie.
0
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It s literally a coming of age movie.
0
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He goes, hey.
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I turn back, he goes, the nursery school s right over there.
0
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You have to understand why this is extra funny.
0
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Our high school was a vocational high school.
0
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And I don t know if you know what this is, but vocational high schools, because we were in rural New Jersey.
0
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I moved from Edison to Hunterdon County.
0
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We had a auto body shop, we had a salon, and we had a daycare in our high school.
0
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And some of the juniors and seniors were taking classes to become teachers.
0
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So I was literally, ironically, I didn t know where it was at the time, I m telling you this, the first two, three weeks of high school, he goes, hey kid, and they laugh, and I m like, ugh.
0
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Literally, but here s what s so funny about it.
0
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This is the most meta moment.
0
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I literally said to myself in that moment, not I m a piece of, or I ll never be cool, or I suck, or I can t wait to grow, or whatever the.
0
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I said to myself, what s happening right this second?
0
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I m like, that s going to be a really funny story one day.
0
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I literally actually at 14 years old said that and here I am 34 years later, delivering on the promise I made to myself about that moment.
0
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So the answer is, is it sustainable?
0
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Of course it is.
0
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But the only thing that is sustainable is when your relationship with yourself is so good, you can deal with the death of a parent, a partner, even the worst extreme, a child.
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You can deal with getting laid off.
0
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You can deal with...
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breakups.
0
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How about athlete life that you grew up with?
0
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Who are the kids that are bound to be professional athletes?
0
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Jay Williams was supposed to be the best basketball player, got into a motorcycle accident.
0
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Obviously he has a great career, he s a great entrepreneur, he s on TV, he s a good dude, but that s maybe not what he thought his whole life was going to be for the first 20 years of his life.
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Or the ones that
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that don t make it or the ones that come from a wealthy family and then the mother or father die of a heart attack, it spins out the whole family or they get raided by the FBI.
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People have things.
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My mom lost her mom at five.
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My dad lost his dad at 15.
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Those are game changing moments.
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How does one deal?
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that they were in a good place.
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Last night I had dinner.
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One of the people at dinner was talking about their sibling, their younger sister passing away.
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This woman was in her 60s.
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She was talking about her 58 year old sister and she was talking about the children and she s talking about the children in their 30s just on full tilt entitlement.
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Like she literally said, quote, unquote, one of them is waiting for the father to pass so they can inherit the money.
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And, you know, I think about those things and I m like, what, what does that?
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And that s the extreme in the other direction.
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So there s the, I love myself.
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You know, listen, you know this about me.
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You brought it up in the intro.
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I love being nice, but I mean, of course I m nice.
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Cause I m good with me.
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Of course, most people that aren t nice, aren t nice because they re not good with themselves.
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So for me, you know, this is why entrepreneurship has been so easy.
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I m not scared to lose.
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And it is the direct correlation.
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Your capacity with losing has an incredible correlation to what you re gonna achieve as an entrepreneur, sustainably.
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Because when you re deeply insecure,
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And it s not good, you equally might create massive success because you re using it as the makeup.
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If I put up the points on the board, everyone will think I m good even though I secretly don t think I m good.
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And what happens when you succeed but you re not good with yourself?
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Exactly what you know what happens.
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You and I now have, I have way more than you, but you re starting to get, I saw the last time I saw you in New York for a second, I m like, so fun to see you.
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Yeah, we re maturing, and you know this.
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Many of our contemporaries or guys and gals we looked up to, we ve watched get to high levels and collapse.
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Yeah, crash.
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Crash.
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Some of it the public knows, because it s very famous.
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Others we know.
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where someone that was in our circle speaking or writing books made a lot of money but gone through really bad stuff and drug problems and worse and we know and that s what happens.
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Money and fame and success and followers doesn t change you, it exposes you.
1
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Right?
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And so, you know, I think, you know, for me, it was the serendipity of being in that good place.
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And it s probably why I, if you look at my journey, it s funny, Day Trading Attention s a funny book for me.
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It s a little bit back to 2009, Gary.
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It s very tactical.
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Social s changed a lot.
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And I just wanted to give people, like, here it is.
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Like, go run for the next 24 months.
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But my last book, 12 and a half, and you know this again, because we ve been together through this journey, somewhere along the line, six, seven years into giving tactical black and white marketing and business advice that will work, I got to a place where I m like, wait a minute, oh, people are doing this not because they don t know what to do,
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It s because they re not in a good place from a perspective, from a mentality, from a internal place.
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And that s when my content started to evolve into security, kindness.
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Emotional intelligence, generosity.
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I mean, I didn t even know what the term was.
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Not tactics.
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Yeah, because I thought when I came out in 2009, 10, 11, 12, that I just built from 96 to 2000.
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I mean, that was the other thing that was a little bit different about me in that era.
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I was also someone who had already really done a lot.
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And so I was talking about shit I did, not shit that might happen.
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And I think that s what made me explode pretty quickly.
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Besides ability to communicate and that kind of level of communication charisma, there was meat there.
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I remember, you may remember this, this is actually an interesting question to you, I remember when I was first popping off in that 2007, 2008 Twitter world.
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I m so animated, I m so over the top.
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What I always used to laugh about, similar to getting made fun of that day in high school, was a lot of people were like, oh, this guy s gonna, the wine guy s gonna be around just for a year.
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This is too much.
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It s all sizzle, no steak.
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And I would read those tweets, because I d go and give a talk at the affiliate summit, and I would read the comments, and someone s like, this guy won t even be around in a year.
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And it was very similar to getting made fun of in freshman year of high school.
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I m like, I can t wait to recall this, because I know who I am.
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I m an incredibly patient operator.
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And I build slow and quietly.
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VaynerMedia, VaynerX, has 2,000 employees.
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That s incredible, man.
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I thought it was only 1,000.
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It s 2,000 employees.
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You were there.
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I was there when we got four.
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Correct.
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I remember there with like, you guys were in, I can t remember, Soho or something.
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Sunshine Suites, down on Debrosa Street.
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I remember.
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You got a ping pong table and like four people around the table.
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That s right.
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Yeah.
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That s right.
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with like three, four clients trying to figure it out.
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Yeah.
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That s right.
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And now that s a $350 million a year business.
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It s a real business.
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Amazing.
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And that was built from me and AJ in Mike Lazaro s buddy media conference center s office six months before you saw us down in Debrosis.
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And that rent for the first year was free because I traded marketing services for the space.
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Wow.
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Because the story that most people don t understand about me, and I know you know this, is I didn t have any money.
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I built my dad s business.
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And he didn t pay me much.
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And I m not even that debt-y.
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But like 60 and 70,000 a year.
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Not much in New York City.
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For real, now I was in Jersey living in a shitty apartment in Springfield, New Jersey, but it didn t matter.
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And I was able to save money because I worked 8 a.m.
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to 10 p.m.
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Monday through Saturday.
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I didn t even have time to spend money.
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And the internet didn t work the way it did back then.
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So it wasn t like I could gamble or buy.
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It was just like a very, I m starting to realize in my late 40s, I m like, man, my life was weird, weird.
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Like, it was weird.
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I was like in a very weird emotional place, which is amazing.
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Like off the charts, lucky.
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Just like being an athlete or, you know, Beyonce s born with her voice.
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She put in the work.
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She developed it but she had it.
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LeBron was born with what he is.
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Put in the work and that s how I feel about myself.
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I was given a lot of talent emotionally and a lot of entrepreneurial talent and I ve put in an obnoxious amount of work and here comes the outcomes.
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But like also just like anybody else, I ve gone through my journey along the way.
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My last book, 12 and a half, I talk a lot about candor being my weakness.
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My kryptonite.
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Candor, what do you mean by that?
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Well, Gary Vee s candorous.
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Next hour here, I ll fucking shoot, I ll be like,
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And I do that well as Gary Vee, but as Gary Vaynerchuk, when I have an employee that stinks,
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I, for my whole career, to this day it s a problem.
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To this day I m a five out of 10, maybe a 4.7.
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At being honest or being?
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At being, see that even like, honestly that like made me crumble.
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I hate that candor is.
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Well I mean being.
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No, no, no, no, you re right.
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No, no, you re right.
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Candor is a synonym or whatever the fuck it s called of honesty.
1
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My ability to be honest with an employee that has been around my company for a period of time and now I like them.
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who s underperforming has been the disproportionate kryptonite of my career, which surprises people.
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Because Gary Vee on stage or on podcast, that s my strength.
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But I m talking to the world.
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And I know everything about them.
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I know that their dad this, and their mom this, and I know they re having struggles at home, or I know they came in and had $50,000 in college debt, and I m like, oh.
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And so I ve realized one of my great weaknesses of my career
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is that I bleed too much charity into my work.
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And one of our biggest connection point in our friendship is, you know, Pencils of Promise, right?
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And I ve done a good job in doing charity work, but I haven t been able to take off, like, I really envy the people who like,
1
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Don t bleed in charity.
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Charity has been an element of my investing.
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I ve invested in companies that if my life depended on it, I would never have invested in.
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I 100% knew it wouldn t work, but I wanted to write a $20,000 to $50,000 check because I liked the person.
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I have kept many employees within my companies for a long time.
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And here s the worst part.
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I ve taken the brunt of that.
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because it s lost profit, right?
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It s reputational damage.
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People are like, why is Gary keeping around Sally?
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And then what ends up happening is eventually there is a moment where that person goes, but it s always been sloppy, because of the lack of, and all of a sudden, and then I m the bad guy, and it s all because, and so candor has been something I ve developed a lot more, a lot more.
1
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It s still, back to we were joking about, I just read the audio book.
1
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There are a couple things on earth that come incredibly hard to me.
1
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One is candor to nice people when I have to let them go in a business.
1
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And two is reading my audio book.
1
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I know, man.
1
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Which is a grind.
1
SPEAKER_01
Although you mentioned you re in your late 40s now, is that right?
1
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I just turned 41.
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And I m 48.
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A couple weeks ago, 48.
1
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If you could go back to 40.
1
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Okay.
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And think about all the things that you struggled with.
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in the last, I guess, eight years.
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Yeah.
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You ve had, you know, people see your wins and successes nonstop.
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Yeah.
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Like all the exits and investments and the growth of VaynerMedia and the books and your time best NFT, all these different things that people see that.
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But for you, what do you think are the two or three things that have been beyond candor, your biggest struggles or the hardest things you ve had to overcome?
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One is very real right now.
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which is I am atrocious at smelling the roses because the whole game for me is smelling the roses.
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However, I m sensing like, but what I ve enjoyed the memories of the more extreme version of smelling the roses.
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Let me explain what I mean.
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So when I have wins, I don t celebrate them.
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Like there s no, like in my world, we just landed a $20 million client.
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It s a lot, it s a big client.
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And a bunch of the people at Vayner, they ve worked at other places.
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They re like, so when s the, so when are we doing like the celebration?
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And I m like, what are you, I don t, it s like, my brain s like, I don t understand what you re saying.
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Right?
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And not that like I m like some tyrant.
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It s almost like just my energy goes to like problems.
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I m a, you know.
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As I continue to go through my own journey, it ll be very clear that I was blessed with many things as a child, but I was also burdened with some.
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Like I was the oldest from the old country.
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I mean, when I tell you since the time I was five years old, I remember being ingrained in my head.
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Like responsibility, responsibility.
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Take care of your sister, take care, like my mom.
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And I admire that from my mom.
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Do I also understand like anything, if anything s too extreme one or the other?
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Between that, and then don t forget, at 14, I come into my dad s business.
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By the time I m like 15 and a half, when you still used to even use a half, it became clear like I was a talent.
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Back to the great Kobe Bryant that you got to do a podcast with.
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Yeah, we re up 20, 30% this year, because you re in there freaking razzle-dazzle people.
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So guess what happens?
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Now I m 17 and 18 and 19, and I m feeling the financial burden.
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Right?
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And now that was so, I want to be very careful here.
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It s not like my father came to me and said, you need to, absolutely not.
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I did that to myself, but it was hardwired early.
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And my environment s like my responsibility.
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You know, I think a lot of first generation, oldest immigrants that were born in the old country and their siblings were born here.
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Actually, that s really cool.
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Anybody who s watching, email me at Gary at VaynerX.
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If you re this exact person, you re an immigrant yourself.
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You immigrated to America, or any first world country, London, anywhere else, and you re the only sibling that was born in the old country, but you have siblings that were born in the new world.
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I think there s something there.
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Of course.
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There s something there.
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I felt half parent my whole life.
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Wow.
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AJ, who you know well,
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Minimally, I feel 50% dad, 50%.
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Wow, really?
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Of course, he s 11 years younger than me.
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Ah, that s true.
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You know, so you re 18 and he s seven.
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And forget about the 11 years, like I just told you earlier, I felt that way towards my sister who s only three and a half years younger.
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There was just something like, you re the, and again, I think back, this is where, I ll say something very important right now, I believe.
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I think we judge our parents too much.
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Yeah, of course.
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Like, I don t sit here and say, mom, like, you know, I think people really dwell too much.
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I understand my mom lost her mom at five and then her dad went to jail for 10 years in the Soviet Union because every entrepreneur did.
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And so her and your brother were the world.
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So she made, I mean, Bratyn Systra, Shana Galava was like propaganda into my head of like my relationship with my sister.
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But it s hard when you re eight to think that way, to not think, your parents should be trying to protect you and educate you and elevate you.
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Yeah, but there is no should.
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I get it, I get it.
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You wanna have a real moment in this podcast?
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Everybody, I m looking at all the fucking cameras right now, there is no should.
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That s the biggest thing, right?
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Because then we could say, your parents should do this.
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And then I ll tell you the biggest pandemic in the world right now, which is 22 to 30 year olds who are really struggling with standing on their own two feet because their parents went too far to what you just said.
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They took care of them too much, too much.
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So this purple, by the way, look at these two books.
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Yes, this is purple for a specific reason.
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I m not a Lakers fan.
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Yeah.
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And meet me in the middle.
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What I can tell you has become very clear to me.
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is I believe that the world desperately needs to figure out how to fall in love with purple, not red or blue, because they both have major valid points and they both have major flaws, and the middle, especially parenting.
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One of the reasons I started BeFriends is
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I knew what was happening with GaryVee.
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You know this, we run enough similar circles.
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I ve been very blessed that because of where I was, I was then able to be, what my mom and my circumstance in a lot of ways did for me, I ve been able to do for a lot of people, right?
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It feels nice.
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You get it too.
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It feels nice for people to say, hey, you ve really helped me.
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For me, children,
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You get in that early, it s one thing if I meet you in 2009 in St.
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Louis and could be a positive deposit.
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You ve been built though.
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There s a lot of shit there.
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You had to do a lot of your work.
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I had, I couldn t do, I can t do that as an outside motivation or inspiration or perspective.
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But when you get in early, so for example, in V Friends, there s a character called Accountable Aunt.
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I m obsessed with this character.
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I believe that if I can make that character cool, like Pikachu or Spider-Man, right?
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That if you re a kid that falls in love with the cartoons I m gonna put out or the kids books or the video games and you re like,
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with a
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It kind of gets hard if you re like, I fuck with accountable land, to not be accountable, or at least strive to it, or at least even know the existence.
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There s many people watching, listening, that don t even realize that they live in a full dwelling, complaining, blaming framework.
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I ve had many friends, relatives, and relationships, acquaintances, and business partners, because my parents, too far,
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went with no complaining, which meant he put things in, right?
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But as you can imagine, if you re visceral to complaining, you smell it from a mile away.
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And then if you re really visceral to it and you smell it from a mile away, well, you re aware that someone s constantly dwelling and blaming.
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And so to me, what was most fascinating in my 30s and 40s as I ve gone through this journey is they don t see it, which led me to the great breakthrough of candor.
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Lewis, I didn t know when we met that that was my kryptonite.
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I thought it was my strength.
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How about that?
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Because you re being honest online and you re being honest on stage, you mean?
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Nope.
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Because I didn t even realize the dichotomy of that.
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I just thought I was being nice.
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I was like, look what I m doing for Sally.
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Two more years of payroll when she sucks.
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Look what I m doing for Ricky.
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This guy blows.
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He ll never be okay out there.
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There was probably a mix of little ego, jump on my shoulders, I ll be Superman, which is why I m using the kryptonite example.
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But there was also, I thought it was being good.
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life s hard lessons, I had to wake up in my mid-40s and go, why is anyone that s ever worked for me not like me?
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Because you know you d read a tweet and be like, Gary, and I d be like, fuck, how s that possible?
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I was so nice to Johnny.
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I had to really do that work.
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Why do you think that people maybe don t like you?
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Well, people in the outside world who don t know me don t like me.
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The reason they wouldn t like it is because either my communication style isn t their jam, which I understand.
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Like when you re aggressive and confident and competitive and Jersey and like my schtick.
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in their mind, it doesn t work for them.
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I understand that.
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Some people are more chill.
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The reason people don t like, I love to live in New York City, some people come and they re like, get me the fuck out of here on that, right?
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It s too much.
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That I respect.
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Number two.
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The people that know you or work for you.
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Yeah, let me finish this, because I think this will help people, because what I m really trying to do in this is not say it about me, I m hoping that people can start having a better relationship with people not liking them that don t know them.
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That s good.
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So number two, it s their own choice.
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They want to be a successful entrepreneur, and I m triggering affirmation of like, they re not there yet, and they re like, this guy, right?
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Three, they ve overly put me on a pedestal, and then I do something that they don t agree with, and it fucks them up, which is very flattering, but very understanding.
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But it s all wrapped up in who they are with themselves.
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On the version of people that do know me,
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The only thing, the black and white thing was the inability, it s only the people closest that didn t get the candor that I actually ironically liked the most.
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Now what s been nice, you know what got me away with it for a long time was people s own accountability.
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Why I was getting away with it in my own mind to my own self was people would hit me up three, four years later with emails like, I m sorry.
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Look, if you re a C player, you re good for me.
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Because I think you need all kinds.
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It was D and F. And that was a subjective opinion, whether I m right or wrong.
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But as you can imagine, it s not like I m bad at it.
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I ve been doing it my whole life.
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So a lot of those people really were D and F-ing it.
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And they, through their own work on themselves, actually were able to go back and actually see a lot of the, they were able to see so many of the nice things I was doing.
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even though I was sloppy on the candor and on the firing.
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It s kind of like when you get older and you look back at your parents, you blame your parents as a kid, oh they didn t give me this, they didn t do this, but then I know they were just doing the best they could or they really tried hard here and they were giving me so much here, they sacrificed you.
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Especially if you become a parent yourself.
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Of course.
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Then you re like,
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Oh, I get it.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I get it.
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It s, it s, it s almost like the way I think about athletes, like, boo, you suck.
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I m like, you go try that.
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Yeah.
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I mean, speaking about this topic, I mean, just start with, you know, still kind of with this first question, is this sustainable?
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What you just said right here, I think is one of the biggest things that holds people back, whether that s creating content online, starting a business or putting themselves out there in any endeavor.
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is people care so much what other people think about them.
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The end.
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How do people overcome the opinions and judgments of others with their craft, business, or art?
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Therapy, positive consumption, new friends, exercise.
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psychedelics, true work that is starting with, do you understand that that s what is actually happening?
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I believe that that is a blind spot to everyone.
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They don t realize why they wear designer clothes.
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For so many people, it s attracting the opposite sex because they re looking for that closing of the gap of love, right?
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So, of course, alpha guys, like, I gotta get a, you know, think about all the trends we see, right?
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Like, these girls won t like me if I m not rich, right?
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But it s all deeper than that.
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That s the surface level, like, pizzazz.
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It s like, they re looking for love.
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And love is important as fuck.
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And so because they re looking for that, they believe they need the proxies to get it without realizing that s often gonna attract not the clean version of love you re actually looking for.
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It s a whole, you know, it s funny, I said something to Nick, one of my key executives at VaynerMedia, he came from Saatchi and Saatchi, a very classic, you know, Mad Men era, right?
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And about six months in, I could see he had it and all this, and then he was like doing a bunch of stuff, and I kind of recognized what was happening, and I sat him down and I said, Nick, I want you for the next year in this company, if you want to grow, do the opposite.
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of everything you intuitively think you want to do.
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the irony about what I m saying.
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Give me your hand, this is so crazy.
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I launched, you know Dustin, we just launched something called Elephant Meetings.
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Let s get the elephant out of the room.
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It s saving our company, bro.
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And when I say saving, our retention is gonna explode because of this.
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So what he and every advertising person, I m laughing right now because I know every single ad agency, marketing agency, social media agency person s about to smile.
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whether they consciously or subconsciously do it, everything is based on save the customer, which means you re just eating, you re just yesing them to death, even though they re wrong.
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I ll give you an example of social media.
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Lewis, I want you to post on myspace, that s what we need to be.
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And you re like, yes sir, Gary, we will.
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And you know that s not what you should do today.
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And so just like classic stuff or like putting a television commercial on a pedestal versus a social media post, which is my whole thesis.
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So there was just a lot of stuff.
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It was coming with a lot of baggage.
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Anyway, I know he s gonna smile right now because I know it s been a big factor in his life.
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And it s kind of what I want to say to everyone right now.
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It s almost like if you re not happy as you re listening right now, if you re anxious, if you re feeling a lot of pressure,
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The answer is, ironically, you have to start doing the opposite of everything you naturally want to do.
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So right, so you naturally wanna be at night dealing with this and you re all stressed.
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So what you wanna naturally do is go grab another bottle of vodka.
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What you re supposed to do is not do that and wake up tomorrow morning and go to the gym.
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I do think the other thing is, let s talk about, people like to say the toxic people around you.
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I m gonna give you a different one.
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What about the enablers?
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What about the people like your mom or dad or brother and sister or best friends who are letting you get away with your bad behavior because they have my flaw.
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They don t have candor.
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So what people understand is like... They re not going to give you tough love or tough communication or just challenging communication.
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It s really crazy, right?
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Like it s like in my real life, in the Gary V part of it, all the admiration comes from like, you re the one that told me like, shut up.
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Right, but in real life, I m very fortunate.
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I have a pretty stable, epic family situation where there s like, we don t have any off the reservation family members, but like friends and stuff like that.
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I was taught and it s ingrained in me to be the superhero.
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I wanna fix, but that s what gets parents in a bad place of paying for their kids and all that.
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So these are complicated things, but I would say to people,
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Pay attention to your circle, because it s everything.
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It s a cliche, it s not like I m inventing a saying.
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The five people you re around, all that, it s real.
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It s real, I really watch that, and I m like, that s real life stuff.
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How worried are you for Gen Z?
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Not at all.
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You re not worried?
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No, I ll explain why.
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Because there s unlimited entitled lazy boomers.
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Now, do I think that stereotypes have merit in them?
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Of course, that s how they happen.
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So do I think that the circumstances of parents over coddling as a generational truth, eighth place trophies as a generational truth, and then COVID, where the government paid you more money to stay home,
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Do I think it s created entitlement and some vulnerabilities?
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I do.
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And I get it.
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Like if you ve been over coddled, you re scared to lose.
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We were laughing a little bit before about our famous dumb wrestling match where you destroyed me on Summit at Sea.
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I viewed that as like fun.
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Like literally every time I see you, my chemicals go in a good way of like, that dude, I gotta get him.
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You know, that s a good thing.
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Not like I m a loser, he s better than me.
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You know?
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And I just, you know, I think I m not worried about it because I know too many, like I think about my company.
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We have a lot, right?
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we have both full extremes.
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There are people walking around currently in my company who are out of their mind expectation-wise.
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Literally, if they could say it, they want me to come to their house, pick them up, walk them to, you know what I mean?
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Yeah, there s just a lot of expectations.
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We ve demonized companies.
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The problem for companies is they re not governments or schools or your parents.
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Governments, schools, or your parents,
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don t have merit with you.
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Meaning, a company, if it runs out of money, it closes.
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It can t pay you.
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It s over.
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And, you know, your parents, like, they ll constantly run up their own credit card for you.
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Right, right, right.
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If they re those kind of parents.
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The government is fucking full of shit.
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They can print money in perpetuity.
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Just print more money.
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And by the way, if I could print money, I d give
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And schools, that s fake-o land.
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You re talking to somebody who, this is real now, in that famous four years of high school, never opened a book once, never did one piece of homework, never, never spent one minute studying for a test.
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How d you pass?
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I figured out somewhere around freshman year that school was going for blue ribbon status and they needed everyone to pass.
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Wow.
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They were just enabling people to get through.
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I was like, good, this works for me and I m an entrepreneur.
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One day I m gonna be.
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I also knew that I was gonna be such a workaholic that I was like, let me take these last couple years of enjoyment and get some, bank up some rest.
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And so, this goes back to being weird.
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I have a lot of weird dynamics now that I realize the world.
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Because before it, I lived in my own life, in my own family, in my own neighborhood, with no internet.
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I didn t know that my life was weird.
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And so, anyway, and then I ve got Gen Zers who are 20 year olds, you and me.
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Fire coming out of their... Not because they eat spicy food, because they re just like, look me dead in the face and saying, I m gonna run this whole company one day, and I m like, let s go, Sal.
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Let s go.
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So what would you say to someone in their 20s who maybe
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to accomplish a lot, and maybe didn t have it that hard growing up, and they feel like it s gonna come easily to them.
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Force the hard.
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Create the struggle.
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Why is that necessary?
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I said it to a friend, you know, it s crazy.
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My friends I grew up with, like in our era, their kids now are 18.
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Right?
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It s crazy.
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So I m now having the craziest talks, like ever.
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I knew this kid when he was two, and I m talking to him now like my audience.
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And I tell a lot of these kids, and a lot of them, especially the ones I was close with and we did a lot of business, some of these parents really made money.
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You know, like those early Facebook and Twitter and like, you know, like, so these kids are bougie.
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Right.
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They re wearing bad clothes than you.
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I told, hell yes.
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Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Though this gap would be stretched.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s pretty money.
4
SPEAKER_00
Richard, good.
4
SPEAKER_00
I tell them like, yo bro, I had a very, very real conversation two weeks ago.
4
SPEAKER_00
I said, bro, I said, you got two choices here.
4
SPEAKER_00
You take mommy and daddy s money and create some sort of fake picture and all the real ones know so you re not tricking winners and you re tricking 98% of the losing players and you can live that life and many do.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s the easy way.
4
SPEAKER_00
Or if you re telling me, cause the kid had good words coming out of his mouth.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m like, if you mean it,
4
SPEAKER_00
Well then you need to go work at a company and work your ass off and you need to eat and you need to get three roommates instead of your own place.
4
SPEAKER_00
If you do not take their money, then you can do it.
4
SPEAKER_00
So if you were fully taken care of your whole life, you were allowed to say mom, dad, no.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re allowed.
4
SPEAKER_00
The problem is too many people like to talk out of both sides of their mouth.
4
SPEAKER_00
They want to shit on mom and dad, but they want the unlimited credit card.
4
SPEAKER_00
They like that they bought them an apartment.
4
SPEAKER_01
How are you teaching your kids about life?
4
SPEAKER_00
I m doing it right now.
4
SPEAKER_00
My kids can watch this.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re going to watch it, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Think about this.
4
SPEAKER_00
No kid listens to their parents.
4
SPEAKER_00
So me and my friends who think about thoughtful, we all laugh.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re like, can you talk to my kids?
4
SPEAKER_00
I m like, yeah, but can you talk to, my kids are like, you Gary Vee?
4
SPEAKER_00
They really don t.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m very fortunate, but no, no, in the way that I m saying it, they re fully saying it.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re like, dad, it s dad.
4
SPEAKER_00
They didn t find me on the For You page and be like, who s this cool guy?
4
SPEAKER_00
They re like, no way bro, I m not listening to you.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m smart enough.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if smart s the right word.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m aware enough to know like, I m not gonna be, listen, I m dad.
4
SPEAKER_00
And every dad and mom have obnoxious impact on their kid.
4
SPEAKER_00
but I m gonna be dad to them, which means an outside voice, like I m able to be a contributor to so many, I can t be that for my kids, because I m the main thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
So other people have to be contributors.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it s cool, because I understand it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m pretty fortunate.
4
SPEAKER_00
I know a lot of people that I think are really positive contributors to the conversation, and I can t wait.
4
SPEAKER_00
Just like my friends now are like, the last four years have been phenomenal, especially five years because of TikTok, because it even started a little bit earlier.
4
SPEAKER_00
there isn t a week that doesn t go by that a business acquaintance all the way, you know, that s over here to you, to the inner circle, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
That my social graph, that I won t get a text and be like, and like, it s so funny because it s happening so common.
4
SPEAKER_00
It always the same thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
You ll never believe this.
4
SPEAKER_00
And at first I didn t know what it was.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then, and then a couple,
4
SPEAKER_00
Years in, I was like, what?
4
SPEAKER_00
But I knew and I would smile.
4
SPEAKER_00
But now I reply immediately.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m like, your kids follow me on TikTok and they think I m cool.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re like, how d you know?
4
SPEAKER_00
I m like, you know, I m like, that s how day trading attention works.
4
SPEAKER_00
But you know, it s really, really cool.
4
SPEAKER_00
I can t wait for my son, who s 11, in like four years, six years, text me like, dad, do you know who Lewis houses?
4
SPEAKER_00
Or dad, how do you know Lewis Howes?
4
SPEAKER_00
Or dad, you ve known him since taking a picture of us at World Cost Plus Market or wherever we ve been, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
That s gonna be interesting, but I m aware that I m dad, so I m trying to give them all the shit I believe in.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I know it s a different version than what Gary Vee is, because they re gonna have supplement compliment voices to their world, and it ll be interesting to see what they gravitate towards.
4
SPEAKER_00
They may be like many kids, they may gravitate away from my message.
4
SPEAKER_01
They may reject it.
4
SPEAKER_00
They d be like, purple.
4
SPEAKER_00
I want to be extreme blue or extreme red.
4
SPEAKER_00
They may.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think, notice how I m saying that.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m not scared of that.
4
SPEAKER_00
When you love, when you try, when you have intent, when you re ready for it.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like a game, it s like business.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m ready for the trials and tribulation of fatherhood.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m ready for the trials and tribulation of a human being.
4
SPEAKER_00
I anticipate heartbreak.
4
SPEAKER_00
I anticipate my parents passing away, because it will happen.
4
SPEAKER_00
It would be very good for my parents to pass away before I pass away, mainly because I wouldn t want that for them.
4
SPEAKER_00
But those things don t cripple me.
4
SPEAKER_00
Those things, I actually, are the enhancer of me enjoying a day like this.
4
SPEAKER_00
It is a good day.
4
SPEAKER_00
Everybody I love is good.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
4
SPEAKER_01
What does cripple you?
4
SPEAKER_00
Not much, brother.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think the thing that cripples me is I haven t had the extreme heartbreak of losing a family member that s within my inner six or seven, you know?
4
SPEAKER_01
That scares the shit out of me.
4
SPEAKER_00
I couldn t comprehend losing a sibling, a parent, a niece, a nephew, a child.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m not ready for that game.
4
SPEAKER_00
My heart cries deeply for every human that has ever had to taste the sorrow of losing a child.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then for the people that are lucky,
4
SPEAKER_00
like me, who are deeply grateful and love with their parents, that s also a crusher, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Again, now I m 48, I have so many 60, 70 year old friends.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, it s really fascinating, you can see it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I have friends who I can see it on their face.
4
SPEAKER_00
They genuinely, not that they want their mom or dad to die, but that relationship is so not good that there s a part of them that s a cleansing.
4
SPEAKER_00
And like they kind of, they kind of like, you know, they definitely don t think about it the way I do, which is like, please God, don t let it happen for another 40 years.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
4
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, that s important to me, but I keep life very basic.
4
SPEAKER_00
I keep it very binary.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s, um, I mean, you say that, but from the outside, people see that you have, you know, 2000 employees.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know, a hundred bazillion social media followers.
4
SPEAKER_01
You ve got a thousand pieces of content going on every day.
4
SPEAKER_00
All these things, speaker community, all this stuff.
4
SPEAKER_01
You ve got all these different, you invest in, I don t know, a million different companies.
4
SPEAKER_01
You ve got thousands of relationships that are constantly texting you.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s because people don t understand the root cause of why that s happening.
4
SPEAKER_00
The root cause is because it s simple.
4
SPEAKER_01
How do you navigate all of these businesses, relationships, content, health, relationships?
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I can, well, I recently did 225 11 times.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_01
Okay, I cannot do that.
4
SPEAKER_00
How did you do that?
4
SPEAKER_00
Two things.
4
SPEAKER_00
You were physically gifted in your birth, and then you put in work.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I trained.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I have a funny feeling, am I wrong?
4
SPEAKER_00
You ve benched more at certain parts in your life, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
How much did you do at the most?
4
SPEAKER_01
15 times maybe, 225.
4
SPEAKER_00
Great.
4
SPEAKER_00
So why 15 that time and 11 this time?
4
SPEAKER_01
I m building back up now.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right, exactly.
4
SPEAKER_00
This is where I m going.
4
SPEAKER_00
Training.
4
SPEAKER_00
You would put in more work.
4
SPEAKER_00
How am I able to do this?
4
SPEAKER_00
I was gifted in being a purebred entrepreneur, which means I want to do a lot of different things, purebred.
4
SPEAKER_00
There are not a lot of people who never opened up a book, even the worst of the worst.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m telling you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because I was selling baseball.
4
SPEAKER_00
Put that down, start pricing my baseball cards for the card show.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then the next year, it was my dad s world.
4
SPEAKER_00
Come home and read the wine.
4
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t that I wasn t working.
4
SPEAKER_00
What did I do on Wednesday, October 9th, 1991, when I got home?
4
SPEAKER_00
I went into my room, put on SportsCenter, and got the latest issue of the Wine Spectator and read it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Or Beckett, or whatever it was back then.
4
SPEAKER_00
Beckett was 90, and then it started, and 91, and then it started being Wine Spectator.
4
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t complicated.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was going deep.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so,
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, how do I do it?
4
SPEAKER_01
It s because- How do you navigate and manage all of it?
4
SPEAKER_00
By not being scared to drop it.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s the key.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because I have 43 balls up.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m going to have 17 fall.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think we live in a world back to insecurity and confidence where people have one ball and they re petrified for it to fall.
4
SPEAKER_00
I 43 and 17 fall and I don t care if somebody, let s pick a business, VaynerSpeakers, our speaking bureau.
4
SPEAKER_00
If there s a press release that says VaynerX is shutting down VaynerSpeakers, I like a logical human like anybody else would be like, oh, they couldn t pull it off.
4
SPEAKER_00
It didn t work.
4
SPEAKER_00
Gary couldn t do it.
4
SPEAKER_00
It didn t go good.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s a loss.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
4
SPEAKER_00
I just don t know how to be concerned with Lewis and Dustin.
5
SPEAKER_00
everybody right now reading that and saying, what are you gonna say, Gary s not as good as he thinks?
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t think.
5
SPEAKER_00
Have you never been concerned about what people think about you with a loss or a challenging time?
5
SPEAKER_01
Not a loss or a challenging time.
5
SPEAKER_00
Really?
5
SPEAKER_01
The reason I ve spent so much time trying to figure out candor is I really care.
5
SPEAKER_01
Let s use Max Bass.
5
SPEAKER_01
Great former employee, I love him.
5
SPEAKER_01
I just want to give him a shout out.
5
SPEAKER_01
Plus I m looking at this purple and yellow, he s a big Lakers fan.
5
SPEAKER_01
And he s in LA, so it s probably the way it came to mind.
5
SPEAKER_01
I care if Max Bass thinks I m a good dude.
5
SPEAKER_01
Spent too much time with him.
5
SPEAKER_01
The quality of me as a human matters to me, not as me as a businessman.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m aware that I love it.
5
SPEAKER_01
I love being an entrepreneur.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m famously an entrepreneur.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was one of the entrepreneurs that happened to be in place when it became the thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
but it is not how I fucking think about myself.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s what I do.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s my favorite game.
5
SPEAKER_01
It is my passion.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s not who I am.
5
SPEAKER_01
So it s made it very easy.
5
SPEAKER_01
Plus I m very fucking, you know, I m very like happy go lucky, but I m competitive.
5
SPEAKER_01
Meaning like,
5
SPEAKER_01
Let s say a coconut hit your head and you became a totally different kind of guy.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that, let s keep playing that scenario.
5
SPEAKER_01
VaynerSpeaker shuts down and you text me, ha ha ha, bro, you thought you could do everything?
5
SPEAKER_01
I d be like, bro, you lost too.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like that s the other gear I have.
5
SPEAKER_01
First I m empathetic, which is like, oh, you must not be in a good place if you want to kick me when I m down.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then second, I m like, you, that s the other thing that I don t understand what these people are doing.
5
SPEAKER_01
As if any human on earth today hasn t fucked up multiple parts of their life.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe they re not a good dad.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe they re not a good mom.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe they re not a good employee.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe they re a bad sister.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe they re not good to their mother.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe they re bad at driving.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe they don t know how to cook.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe they re 400 pounds overweight because they don t have a good relationship.
5
SPEAKER_01
As if anyone on earth is perfect.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, this is insane to me.
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you know how many things Michael Jordan is not good at?
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you know how many things Tom Brady is not good at?
5
SPEAKER_01
You can be the greatest at something and suck at something else.
5
SPEAKER_01
I can write six New York Times best-selling books, but I m aware, based on the last three days, that I m not in the top four million people that should be reading an audiobook.
5
SPEAKER_01
Now, everybody will love it, and this is why I do it, because I get the feedback, because they want it to be me, and I go off script, and I add stuff, but the skill of reading, I blow.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s why I was a bad student in hindsight.
5
SPEAKER_01
I didn t know what the fuck was going on.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s why I was good at history.
5
SPEAKER_01
The only reason, the only class I did well at was history is because I listened during class.
5
SPEAKER_01
My audio was tough.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, Shanghai Shack?
5
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s what Germany did?
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s who the president was?
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, Walter Mondale lost every state but one to Reagan?
5
SPEAKER_01
That s why I know that, because I listened.
5
SPEAKER_00
When people criticize you for being too busy, or doing too many entrepreneurial things, and they have no clue about your personal life, but they ll criticize you, oh, he s probably not showing up for his kids, or he s not there for his relationships, or whatever it might be.
5
SPEAKER_00
How do you navigate that conversation when people say, oh, he s just a business guy, but he s really not good at family, intimate relationships, personal life?
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, if my mom said that, then I d be like, let s have this conversation.
5
SPEAKER_01
If JohnnyPants49 in the comments section says it, I m like, JohnnyPants, I don t know you.
5
SPEAKER_01
Usually it s a direct reflection of their own anxiety.
5
SPEAKER_01
Lewis, think about this.
5
SPEAKER_01
Could you imagine taking time to going to somebody else s account?
5
SPEAKER_01
Criticizing them.
5
SPEAKER_01
To try to make them feel bad?
5
SPEAKER_01
No, no.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t like, you know, I m trying to change some words in society.
5
SPEAKER_01
Let s take criticizing out.
5
SPEAKER_01
It sounds like classic.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, no, no.
5
SPEAKER_01
You are going to, I want to go back to first grade talk.
5
SPEAKER_00
To try to pull them down.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re trying to make someone feel bad.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, shame them.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re trying to make someone feel bad.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t know, man, I just don t have that gear.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I don t judge those people either.
5
SPEAKER_01
My lack of judgment against haters, trolls, negative people is a very big power.
5
SPEAKER_00
How do you not take that personally when so many people do?
5
SPEAKER_01
They don t know me.
5
SPEAKER_01
Honestly, brother, it s logical.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s actually very logical.
5
SPEAKER_01
I would have to think you care more about what I think about you than someone you ve never met because we ve interacted 31 times.
5
SPEAKER_01
It would just be logical.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I had to learn this probably the hard way for many years, really until the last five years when it started to be like, okay, when people are saying nasty things about me online or leaving a nasty comment or whatever it is,
5
SPEAKER_00
I could literally take it as a neutral information and not take it personally anymore.
5
SPEAKER_00
But it took me a decade of being in this world.
5
SPEAKER_01
Look, brother, I m not a robot.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right, right.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s not like, you know, especially like, I ll give you a big one.
5
SPEAKER_01
The proudest thing I have in my life professionally is that I sacrificed the first 12 full years of my career to build a business for my mom and dad.
5
SPEAKER_02
Right, right.
5
SPEAKER_01
It is the single thing I m proudest of.
5
SPEAKER_01
It has also been the thing, historically, that people weaponize against me.
5
SPEAKER_01
Don t listen to him, because they don t know my story.
5
SPEAKER_01
On a TikTok, he inherited a winery.
5
SPEAKER_01
Okay, first of all, it was a liquor store in New Jersey.
5
SPEAKER_01
I didn t inherit.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m one of the few people on earth that was the direct correlation for massive growth for their family and extracted no financial value.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m the opposite of what you think you re weaponizing against me, but you re weaponizing that against me.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s all just logic.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re saying that because what I m saying in this video is hard.
5
SPEAKER_01
Fuck you.
5
SPEAKER_01
Stop blaming the government, the school system, your parents.
5
SPEAKER_01
What about you?
5
SPEAKER_01
You re a grown-ass kid now.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re 26.
5
SPEAKER_01
The fuck are you crying about?
5
SPEAKER_01
You don t like it?
5
SPEAKER_01
Put in the work.
5
SPEAKER_01
You ve got unlimited people to look up to.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re talking about, over five years, putting in the work.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m sitting here saying, man, I m still working on, I m not even, I m not even like, 4.7 is what I scored me.
5
SPEAKER_01
And think about it, I m grading my own homework, which means it s really a 3.2.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, why are you not capable of being accountable?
5
SPEAKER_01
You eventually have to man and woman up, no matter how toxic.
5
SPEAKER_01
When people say to me, well, but my dad, I m like, bro, there are people who had their uncles abduct them.
5
SPEAKER_01
There are people who watched their parents drive out of the driveway and get hit by a truck and get killed.
5
SPEAKER_01
There are so much extreme,
5
SPEAKER_01
Like as if your circumstance is the single worst one, we both are very active in a charity that is trying to help 800 million people.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m sorry about that, but I was going for a fact.
5
SPEAKER_01
Brother, 800 million people on Earth did not have access to what I just dumped.
5
SPEAKER_01
You and I spend real time on that.
5
SPEAKER_01
800 million people can t get clean water within a day right now on Earth.
5
SPEAKER_01
And you re telling me your mom hurt your feelings?
5
SPEAKER_01
I get it, that s real.
5
SPEAKER_01
But you re not capable of being accountable and saying, you know what?
5
SPEAKER_01
I m gonna be the one that fixes it.
5
SPEAKER_01
How many, I met a man, I m recalling now, had drinks the other day.
5
SPEAKER_01
Gentleman who said, I was the one that broke the pattern of alcoholism in my family.
5
SPEAKER_01
My great grandfather, my grandfather, my father, and I said, no.
5
SPEAKER_01
And everything was there for me to do it.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was on the streets at 13.
5
SPEAKER_01
I started to go down it, and I was like, no.
5
SPEAKER_01
So why him?
5
SPEAKER_01
He s not special.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m not special.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re not special.
5
SPEAKER_01
We have talents.
5
SPEAKER_00
The thing I love about what you re doing with Meet Me in the Middle is you re teaching, I mean, adults, anyone, kids, but adults as well, emotional accountability.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re teaching emotional intelligence.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re teaching skills.
5
SPEAKER_00
that can be applied towards day trading and content and business and just navigating the business world.
5
SPEAKER_00
High, low, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
5
SPEAKER_01
If I can get you right here, like if you read this as a kid, then like the amount of people that are going to... This is easy then.
5
SPEAKER_01
Bro, the amount of, when I tell, you know me pretty well.
5
SPEAKER_01
I know that this book is going to slay because I m straight up
5
SPEAKER_01
feeding you, like, here s the medicine.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, I was bored reading my book.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right, Dustin?
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, my first half, because it s so detailed.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s like- Step by step, do this, and then add this, and then do this.
5
SPEAKER_01
Jab, jab, jab, right hook did really well.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, okay, because they get so much top level for me every day on social, let me in book form give them something that they can, like, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
I know this will crush.
5
SPEAKER_01
Here s the problem to where you re about to go.
5
SPEAKER_01
If they don t have their together,
5
SPEAKER_01
They re going to start, it s double screwed.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s going to start working a little bit.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then they re going to get Johnny pants saying, you and they re like, so it doesn t even matter.
5
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s why I need yin and yang.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s why I had all the drive for most of my life.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was like, I need to be successful.
5
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I m going to get better in sports.
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I was willing to put in the work and do whatever it took to win.
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Right.
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And that helped me become accomplished, but it left me feeling
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feeling insecure, alone, and still not enough inside.
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No matter how much I had, no matter how many accomplishments or success or accolades or whatever it might be, or people telling me, followers, it didn t make me feel loved.
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It didn t bring me peace.
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That s why I was telling you before, you were like, what s different in your life right now?
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And I said, I feel peace, I feel abundant, I feel grateful, I feel blessed, and I feel loved.
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And it wasn t because I ve accomplished more.
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It s because I went inside and I started really connecting with my heart, my emotions, childhood stuff, and just allowing myself the time and space to heal.
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And that s been the hardest work.
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That has been harder than building business and doing the podcast for 11 years every week and all these different things.
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But actually looking at the insecurities in front of me,
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from as far back as I could go, looking at my younger self in front of me and developing a new relationship with self.
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Brother, it s everything.
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And it s given me peace with the ups and downs.
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You know, it s just given me a different perspective of gratitude.
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I ve always been grateful, but this has given me more gratitude towards everything.
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And...
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I wanna share the skill that I think has really helped me, the thing that I ve had to learn that I didn t have for most of my life that has really given me this perspective in a moment.
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But I wanna ask you with Meet Me in the Middle, if you could only give people three talents that they should work on, focus on, develop, that is gonna help them in this, it s gonna help them with relationships, health, everything,
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You ve got a lot of different things with Meet Me in the Middle, and a lot of different characters and archetypes and identities that people can build into, but three emotional skills that people can master in their 20s, 30s, and beyond, what would those three things be?
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I ll tell them in V Friends form.
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So people that don t know, there s 250 plus, I think it s 283 V Friends, and they re named as alliterations of things I believe in.
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So this book is Patient Pig and Eager Eagle.
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So you can imagine how they can meet in the middle, right?
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To answer your question directly, I will start first with self-aware hair.
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Self-awareness.
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And self-awareness becomes the gateway drug to self-love.
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Once you can see it in yourself, like I didn t see the lack of candor.
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And my superpower is self-awareness.
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This is why I was so good.
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I was like, I m this, but I m not this.
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And I m this, and I m not this.
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And I didn t envy or have jealousy towards that I wasn t 6 3 .
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I wish I was.
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I wanted to play for the Jets instead of own them one day, right?
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But it didn t happen.
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And I wish I was like, could sing, because I want to be a Backstreet Boy.
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But that seemed fun.
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But I didn t have that.
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And there was never like, I got really, so self-awareness was really, really strong.
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And I think it would help a lot of people.
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It s okay.
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to be what you are, but do you even know what you are?
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How do you know what you are?
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Do you know that you re tenacious?
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Do you know that you re competitive?
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And I think you need to double down on those things, not smooth them out.
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Or what a lot of people do, over obsess of what you re not.
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You need to tweak things.
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Anyway, so self-awareness.
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How do you develop more self-awareness?
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I ll go into that in a minute because I ve thought about that a lot.
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I actually think it s about communication around your inner circle to let them feel safe to tell you the truth.
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Wow.
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It s a wild one.
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Like, tell me what?
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If you re listening right now.
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What my strengths are, what my weaknesses are.
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I m going to give it to you right now.
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Because I just can feel the listener on the other side.
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Hey, everyone, real talk.
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If you re like, oh, this is hitting me, I ve got a big one for you.
6
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Because I said this in my last book, and I ve got a lot of reach out on this.
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just pick the two or three people, probably your sister, your brother, probably your mom or dad, definitely your best friend, definitely your best friend, and maybe like an epic person you work with, like your favorite boss ever or current, and literally invite them to a dinner, literally, I m not joking, and say, this is gonna be a weird, fun dinner, I ll surprise you when we get there, because you don t want them to overthink.
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When you get there, you re gonna say, you ll never believe this.
6
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I was listening to Lewis s podcast, GaryVee was on.
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I m really not joking.
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This is a very important part of this little thing that I m telling you.
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You re gonna say to them, it s unlikely you ll be able to deliver on what I m about to ask right this second.
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but if you re wondering why my best friends here and my boss that none of you have ever met and my sister and my aunt are here, let me tell you why.
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I ll bring them all together on one.
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Yes.
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Wow.
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Because what you want to do is suffocate.
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It s kind of like posting your weight on the internet and like, like you want to suffocate yourself.
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Correct.
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You re saying, I want to be more self-aware.
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I need all of you to tell me
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The full truth.
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All of you are the people I deem that I think love me the most, which means it s gonna be hard for you to say, but I m bringing you all together to say, what I need is this.
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And you don t have to do it now, because boss, you might feel weird saying it in front of my mom the first time you ve ever met her.
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but I need it ASAP.
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Tomorrow s fine, one-on-one.
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And every family.
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And things will open up as people start going.
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Every circle s gonna be different.
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Every circle s gonna be different.
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This is like almost creating a self-intervention.
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Correct.
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Most people aren t willing to do that.
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Correct.
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This is, again, I think three to 11 people listening right now, and I know a lot of people are gonna listen, between both of our platforms, I think only three to 11 people are gonna do this.
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And they should send us a message after they do.
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It s gonna be amazing.
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And so that would be how you find self-awareness, because someone s gonna, like, if I hadn t done that,
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either my mom who struggles with it as well, my dad who recognizes it, Brandon Warnecke, my best friend who runs Wine Library and Wine Text also struggles with it.
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So he might ve not even been able to say it.
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My brother might ve been able to come through.
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My sister now would have been able to see it more than 10 years.
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But if I had done it, somebody in that circle might ve been like,
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You re too full of, you re too nice.
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Somebody might have, if I did what I m saying here, which is like, say it, it s okay, I know you don t believe me, and you re even, and I was very, I was a challenge for people always, because I was always providing so much emotional and financial value.
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I m a real.
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piece of work for most people because it is very common for me to be either and often both the emotional and the financial values in the relationship.
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They don t want to ruin the relationship.
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Of course.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Like it s, you know, it s a vulnerability for me.
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It s my coping mechanism.
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I always have the leverage.
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You can take care of people, yeah.
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I just always have the leverage.
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I mean, those are the two things on earth.
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emotional and finite, that s the game.
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And I m good at both and generous with both.
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Wow, okay, so that s number one, self-awareness.
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Number two, gratitude gorilla.
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I think if you can learn, and this is just killing people on earth, you would be flabbergasted what would happen.
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And I ve seen it with people around me recently, where you just decide right now on this podcast,
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that instead of waking up in the morning, which so many people do, being all upset, and having all of their perspective and energy towards what s not good, I should be making more money, I don t like my job, this person I just woke up next to is, I don t like them anymore.
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Like, all the tough stuff.
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Instead, deciding to be like, I m glad I woke up and didn t die last night.
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Simplicity.
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Gratitude comes from simplicity.
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Like it s like, you know, back to your point, like everyone s like, Gary, social media is up, everybody, they think they need this stuff.
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I m like, do you understand that I grew up watching Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous?
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Have you heard of MTV Cribs?
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Everybody saw that.
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Everyone s showing the, over the top.
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Pimp my ride.
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$400 used car, that felt.
6
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This is not a new phenomenon.
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As if, what, you didn t go to school and one of the kids was the richest kid in school?
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You didn t have envy that they had a brand new BMW and you had to walk to school?
6
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Get the out of here with envy and jealousy.
6
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It s as old as time.
6
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So gratitude, what do you have?
6
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Again, I said something to somebody who was complaining in my inner circle about three, four years ago.
6
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And they were just like, but you, to me, and then to other stuff, right?
6
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And I finally said, I said, X person, let s bump this dinner, because this is not fun.
6
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Instead of telling me why I have it better.
6
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why, and this is somebody I really know, why this person has it better, why your older brother has it better, this is the real example.
6
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I m like, for the next 20 minutes, while we eat this chicken, can you please tell me?
6
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Hand it to us perfectly.
6
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You re gonna like this.
6
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I said, can you tell me who you have it better than?
6
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And it was a really interesting moment, and I know that person s smiling right now, and I ll probably get a text.
6
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I think it really had an impact on them.
6
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Because I suffocated it.
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I was like, no, no, just appease me.
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We re like, we re here.
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Who do you have a better than?
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And then he went into like all our common people, which he definitely had a better than.
7
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And then I went into my, and I m like, okay, and what about everybody who is in Africa right now in concentration and the people in China, like, like, like people, like what about real?
7
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What about somebody who during this dinner got diagnosed with terminal cancer, and during this dinner looked down at their phone real quick and got into a car accident that took their life?
7
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And what about the two 14-year-old twin daughters that lost their mom in that picture I just painted?
7
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Since we ve been sitting here, I just don t understand how people don t understand what the fuck is going on.
7
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Since you and I have been sitting, recording this podcast, of the eight billion people on Earth,
7
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Thousands have not only died, correct, but have gotten devastating news.
7
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I saw this stat maybe five years ago that has given me a completely different perspective on gratitude, that roughly 150,000 people a day die.
7
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We woke up today, we re not one of them.
7
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And if we can just have that one perspective, 150,000 people a day die.
7
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I live on that, Louis.
7
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And honestly, death is less scary than something, notice where I went with it.
7
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You said die, and I jumped in with devastating news.
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Yes.
7
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Right?
7
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I asked this to myself and I asked it to everyone.
7
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Is it better for you to die?
7
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Or is it better for the person you love the most on earth and can t live without dying?
7
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I think most people are gonna choose themselves in that scenario.
7
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So there s just a lot going on.
7
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So I just think gratitude, number three, and we already talked about it, but I can t get away from it.
7
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If you can learn that pointing a thumb
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will lead to ultimate happiness and pointing a finger will compound your unhappiness, you will realize that accountability is the, I almost have delusional, not even healthy accountability.
7
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That s how much I like it.
7
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Like, I really do believe what I m about to say.
7
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Every single thing at VaynerX and VFriends and VaynerSports and every one of my companies that is a problem is 100% my fault.
7
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I m at the top.
7
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So if Sally screwed up, well I hired the person that hired the person that hired the person that hired Sally.
7
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I did.
7
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So I think that...
7
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Accountability is the anecdote.
7
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It s the formula.
7
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It s the solution.
7
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It s the medicine.
7
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And I believe the reason everyone s talking about a lot of rough stuff right now is we are in the greatest era of blame in a very long time.
7
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It is everyone s fault but yourself.
7
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And that s because politicians are up everything so it s very easy to be like this either this side Parenting has definitely gone awry where it goes too far one or another in general.
7
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There s tons of great parents I just think you know, we re in a little bit of a pickle people lack civility.
7
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We re just not nice to each other people just talking so negative people being excited about people s downfalls and
7
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Right?
7
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I mean, I had a real moment on all this stuff very recently with what happened with Kate Middleton, right?
7
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You know, I don t know, I hate talking about things I don t know, so I m gonna go very headline reading.
7
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I guess, you know, recently, like, there was a photo, and it was like a cropped photo, and everyone had jokes, and everyone had jokes.
7
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And she made a video and said, I have cancer.
7
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And everyone s like, I m sorry.
7
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What do you mean I m sorry?
7
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Or I m embarrassed.
7
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What about not doing it in the first place?
7
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What are you shitting on people for?
7
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I just have a very simple question for people.
7
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Explain to me any justification to shit on another human being.
7
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Yeah, I guess the only thing I could think they might be thinking is, well, to hold people accountable if they re doing harm to others.
7
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Who the fuck are you?
7
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I have no, I love when people are like, I have, humility would have been the next, as if I m supposed to, who the fuck are you that you re supposed to hold Kate Middleton accountable?
7
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Who the fuck do you think you are?
7
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I don t think I m supposed to hold anybody accountable at some level, including, including employees, children, you re part of it.
7
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That s ego, that s delusion.
7
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I m gonna hold you accountable for what?
7
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That you married into the royal fit?
7
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What the doesn t matter with you?
7
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And sometimes when people play this chess game with me, they go, but what if somebody came up up you and punched you in the face?
7
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My brain goes into that person s at a really place.
7
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Before I like, you know, like, I just, I don t think people have a good relationship with understanding where anger, negativity and darkness comes from.
7
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It always comes from a place of weakness.
7
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I struggle to be mad at someone when my first default thought is to have compassion for them.
7
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Yeah, that s a superpower.
7
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It s a blessing.
7
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I see it in my mom.
7
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I know she gave me that DNA and then she obviously fostered it.
7
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But it is how I see the world and I really wish the rest of the world saw it that way too.
7
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Wow.
7
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Because I will tell you what happens with that.
7
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You don t have the capacity to hate someone for being different than you.
7
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When that happens.
7
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Doesn t mean you have to allow it to continue to happen.
7
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Create boundaries, you know what I mean?
7
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Yeah, I love you for that.
7
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I just feel super in charge.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, Gary, what if, I m like, well, then I can stop talking to them.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, what if it s your mom?
7
SPEAKER_00
You can stop talking to your mom.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t recommend it.
7
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I d rather you go through therapy, push, like, I d rather something, they re being, but you are fully in charge.
7
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Gary, everything s, I mean, I had this dinner the other night.
7
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God, a lot of dinners, as you can hear.
7
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But I wanna be respectful of your time.
7
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No worries, but I m getting hyped right now.
7
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This guy s like, everything s fucked up in America.
7
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I finally looked at him, I said, move.
7
SPEAKER_01
Mm-hmm.
7
SPEAKER_01
Quit blaming.
7
SPEAKER_01
Move!
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
You like Canada?
7
SPEAKER_01
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
Epic.
7
SPEAKER_00
Mexico?
7
SPEAKER_00
Epic.
7
SPEAKER_00
Wait, I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_00
Sweden sounds nice.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like, Spain s lovely this time of year.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t f- Shut the f- up.
7
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And I m not saying that negatively.
7
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I m saying that
7
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Encouragingly, dwelling and complaining and envy and jealousy are massive weaknesses.
7
SPEAKER_00
I go on Twitter and I look at all of this and I m like insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure
7
SPEAKER_00
hope that I and many others that are in a good place can figure out the single word to say, do the single podcast, write the single book, post the single quote that might help one of those people say, fuck it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Because for me, what has definitely made me successful and was a kissing cousin to my inability to be candorous is I care about positivity.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t do well in negativity.
7
SPEAKER_00
And so I have this yearning to do it for the world, because I m already full.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s like back to the cup.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay, my cup is full.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, when you re lucky, and I think you re going through this journey right now, so this is gonna be really understandable to you.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m good.
7
SPEAKER_00
So what do you do next?
7
SPEAKER_01
Help others.
7
SPEAKER_00
You don t know what to do.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s the only thing that makes you feel good, because you don t need any more water.
7
SPEAKER_00
Your water s full.
7
SPEAKER_00
You don t have room.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m good.
7
SPEAKER_00
Now, I m gonna end with this.
7
SPEAKER_00
multiple times a day, I have micro moments of like, but they don t have sustainability.
7
SPEAKER_00
Got it?
7
SPEAKER_00
You catch it and you move on.
7
SPEAKER_00
We lost a big, two big clients yesterday, one in Asia, one in Europe.
7
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of work to be done.
7
SPEAKER_00
But like, I m not like, I m dead, you know, like, or like, you know, like, like, there s always something.
7
SPEAKER_01
Two books you got going on, Meet Me in the Middle.
7
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I think everyone should be getting this, especially parents get this so you can have this for your kids.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, the cool thing with Meet Me in the Middle and the cartoons I m doing this summer that are gonna be launching on YouTube Kids is I m making them both for the parents and the kids.
7
SPEAKER_00
So what I m most excited about is when the parents read this, I m poking at them too.
7
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
7
SPEAKER_00
And that is going to be, if I pull anything off, if I pull off the dream I have over the next 40 years, 50 years of Be Friends, hopefully one of my 48, 98, I want 105, so, over the next 57 years, is that I got to own both.
7
SPEAKER_00
I dream so hard right now that a parent is laying in bed with their five year old, reading it,
7
SPEAKER_00
And they re like, yeah, and they re like, oh.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m so excited about that.
7
SPEAKER_01
So you guys can get a copy, go on Amazon or anywhere, books are sold, meet me in the middle, make sure you get this.
7
SPEAKER_01
Again, I don t think day trading attention is as valuable unless you get meet me in the middle first, because then you can appreciate what you re creating in your freelance business, solo entrepreneur, you know, if your career, whatever it might be.
7
SPEAKER_00
That said though, I think about you a lot, because I met you when you were the LinkedIn guy in 2009, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
And then you were a pioneer in podcasting.
7
SPEAKER_00
What is exciting about...
8
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tricked me for so long was the advice that s tactical of the moment like this, it works for everyone, it s not sustainable work if you don t do the thing you re talking about.
8
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So 2011 you would have read this and tripled.
8
SPEAKER_00
And you would have texted me and be like, bro, I love you.
8
SPEAKER_00
To your point, you would have still had the same record.
8
SPEAKER_00
You still had to get to that place.
8
SPEAKER_00
And then that place becomes where you become the ultimate version.
8
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
8
SPEAKER_01
So get both, obviously.
8
SPEAKER_01
But day trading attention is about how to actually build brand and sales in the new social media world.
8
SPEAKER_01
Again, this is required reading from anyone in online marketing, social media, content creation, business.
8
SPEAKER_01
Make sure you get a copy of this.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s step by step.
8
SPEAKER_01
20 years of experience with Gary on social media and obsessive with data and results and putting it into one book.
8
SPEAKER_01
So this is required reading.
8
SPEAKER_00
Of the moment, right?
8
SPEAKER_00
Of the moment, yeah, of course.
8
SPEAKER_00
So this book was called Jab, Jab, Jab, Left Hook until the last moment.
8
SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s like, I need to write this book every, I should be writing it every year, like the dummies.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
8
SPEAKER_00
But right now I m every 10 years and hopefully I ll close the gap.
8
SPEAKER_00
But what I m excited about is it is pattern recognition expertise, but it is of this second.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yes, absolutely.
8
SPEAKER_01
So get that book.
8
SPEAKER_01
Two final questions before I ask them.
8
SPEAKER_01
I want to acknowledge you again, Gary, for just being a real human being, for being a real friend, for showing up consistently for so many people, again, personally in your life, but for the world that follows your content.
8
SPEAKER_01
I just appreciate how you continue to evolve, show up.
8
SPEAKER_01
And the thing that I think I love the most about you is how you took your health to a whole nother level.
8
SPEAKER_01
Seven, eight years ago, I think you went all in.
8
10.
8
SPEAKER_01
10 years ago.
8
SPEAKER_01
And I think that is,
8
SPEAKER_01
for me the most inspiring thing because people can see the business success and be like, I want that and then miss out on the health.
8
SPEAKER_01
So the fact that you keep going all in on that and you look better now than you did 10 years ago is something I really appreciate and respect because I think that s what the world s going to need more of is focusing on their own health.
8
SPEAKER_01
I asked you about your three truths before.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m going to skip this question.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m going to go to the final question, which is what is your definition of greatness?
8
SPEAKER_00
that you gave more than you took.
8
SPEAKER_00
I really love this talk.
8
SPEAKER_00
I m excited about this podcast.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think the extra time, usually I do 45, I think the extra time slowed me down.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think one of the reasons I m not good at being a podcast host
8
SPEAKER_00
is that they re very, no really, they re very tight times, I always have a meeting after, and people get frustrated with me because I talk over my guests because I m not relaxed, because I know I don t have a lot of time, and I want to get to a bunch of punchlines for them, but then it becomes awkward, and I m talking over them, and I m interrupting, and they re like, Gary, he just wants to talk, and the audience is not wrong that gets frustrated by that version.
8
SPEAKER_00
Some people love it because they have brains like mine, but nonetheless,
8
SPEAKER_00
I really do think we touched on the thing that is greatness, which is like, look, one of the things I ve done well in my life is I was attracted to older people my whole life.
8
SPEAKER_00
When I was seven, 10, 13, I d always go and talk to 80, 90 year olds at the bench, at the park, it was big.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I used to think it was because I didn t have grandparents.
8
SPEAKER_00
Because I lost three of my four grandparents.
8
SPEAKER_00
I had my grandma, Esther, thank God.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, oh, especially grandfathers I would go to a lot.
8
SPEAKER_00
So more specifically, I didn t have grandfathers.
8
SPEAKER_00
I ve come to realize that s not true.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s that I m addicted to wisdom and the actual game.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I think greatness comes in, I think about, there s been a lot of great athletes.
8
SPEAKER_00
And again, I m bringing up Kobe again because I m so glad you got to do that podcast.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s so devastating that he s not on this earth.
8
SPEAKER_00
But Kobe was different because he was more like us in the way that, it wasn t that he was just a great athlete.
8
SPEAKER_00
He gave a shit about,
8
SPEAKER_00
higher thinking and competition as a healthy, it was just more thoughtful.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I think that, I think the reason he s revered is he gave to us.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I think greatness comes in, I think my mom is the greatest parent of all time.
8
SPEAKER_00
And when I think about why I believe that is, the reason I believe that is there s others that tie her
8
SPEAKER_00
but they could only tie her, because my definition of a parent is, there s many things to it, but my personal subjective definition is, how much did you give to those kids?
8
SPEAKER_00
And I just think my mom gave it all, like all of it, and I just know that that means for every other mom and dad that has done that, they can only tie my mom for the greatest, but it is a giving game.
8
SPEAKER_00
And so I do a lot of things of gaining, building my companies, and dollars, and followers, and attention, I understand that.
8
SPEAKER_00
but I m outpacing it with my giving, and I think I will continue to do that.
8
SPEAKER_00
And that is where the Be Friends strategy came from.
8
SPEAKER_00
I was like, oh, I can take this.
8
SPEAKER_00
This is what Disney, and actually now I realize, this is why Sesame Street and Jim Henson is a legend, and I m gonna do that too.
8
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna create characters that people are gonna fall in love with, but I m gonna do it around collectability, like Pokemon, because what I know about Pokemon and Marvel is that OGs still like it, whereas Big Bird and Cookie Monster, we re done with.
8
SPEAKER_00
But if I take what s epic about, Pokemon doesn t bring the value that Sesame Street does.
8
SPEAKER_00
But if I take the best of Sesame Street and the best of Pokemon and I smash that together and I put my marketing capabilities and my collectible and business strategies and I build something, man, I can really leave a positive impact.
8
SPEAKER_01
The one question I wanted to ask you is, oh, so many of them, but one that s on my mind right now is you ve always told me and a lot of your followers ahead of time, this is what s coming.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
8
SPEAKER_01
You know, you are early Twitter, be on Twitter.
8
SPEAKER_01
This is what s happening.
8
SPEAKER_01
This is what s happening now.
8
SPEAKER_01
Early Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, you were like, always pushing the tech talk.
8
SPEAKER_01
You were like the first one on TikTok, Snapchat.
8
SPEAKER_01
I remember you looking me in the eye saying be on Snapchat.
8
SPEAKER_01
That was the only thing that like, didn t work for me, but everything else has worked for me.
8
SPEAKER_01
Who knows what s gonna happen with TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, all of these different platforms.
8
SPEAKER_01
When we re thinking of attention and the future, AI and the frickin  mobile devices and all these different.
8
SPEAKER_00
Here are the things that have a chance.
8
SPEAKER_00
As you know, what I m great at is not predicting, but moving so goddamn fast when it happens.
8
SPEAKER_00
And then going all in.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that I have that advantage.
8
SPEAKER_00
What is coming?
8
SPEAKER_00
Here s things that are coming.
8
SPEAKER_00
One, for people like you and I, all of our content in every language at scale.
8
SPEAKER_01
We ve got a million subscribers on Spanish on YouTube.
8
SPEAKER_01
In our voice.
8
SPEAKER_01
Oh yeah, that s the key.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s what we re working on now.
8
SPEAKER_00
So I, and you ve seen it already Dustin, we re pretty close, we re almost done.
8
SPEAKER_00
I ll be speaking every language, in my voice, in my little high pitches, in me.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s gonna be huge for every.
8
SPEAKER_00
Through AI, right?
8
SPEAKER_01
That s right.
8
SPEAKER_01
Is there a tool specifically you re looking at that you re?
8
SPEAKER_00
We re using ReSpeech or there s a, I mean, it s moving so.
8
SPEAKER_01
50 of them.
8
SPEAKER_00
Notice how I hesitated, you know, I m a big fan of ReSpeech.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it may be gone.
8
SPEAKER_00
That game is, AI eating itself up is just like crazy.
8
SPEAKER_01
So AI.
8
SPEAKER_00
Virtual influencers.
8
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah, that s coming.
8
SPEAKER_01
I ve seen the people are blowing up already with you mean just like made up influencers.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
8
SPEAKER_00
Very attractive people.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
And that will go not just, right now the early movers like always are like models and like all that, but it will be full-fledged.
8
SPEAKER_00
Ricky Thompson, 47-year-old marketing expert who s gonna have 14 million followers and it s Joanna Thompson in Australia that actually owns him.
8
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it s gonna be huge.
8
SPEAKER_00
So virtual influencers.
8
SPEAKER_01
Are you getting into some of that too?
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I m really starting to go deep on that.
8
SPEAKER_00
Live streaming as,
8
SPEAKER_00
as a more scaled everyday thing.
8
SPEAKER_00
Let me explain what I mean by that.
8
SPEAKER_00
Me saying live streaming is important.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s not Kaisa net and like Aiden Ross and like ninja clicks.
8
SPEAKER_00
Like plenty of people are crushing on Twitch and other things.
8
SPEAKER_00
No, I mean what I m up to now, which is I have a camera in my office on mute for 13 hours a day and I m just sitting there and entrepreneurial ASMR.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s mute.
8
SPEAKER_00
Mute.
8
SPEAKER_00
Because I m having real meetings.
8
SPEAKER_00
So people are watching you?
8
SPEAKER_00
Watching me.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I try to unmute.
8
SPEAKER_00
And Dustin did a good thing for me.
8
SPEAKER_00
He created an unmute counter.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I m like looking at him like, oh, I haven t unmuted yet.
8
SPEAKER_00
Hey, everyone.
8
SPEAKER_00
Like, literally.
8
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
8
SPEAKER_00
13 hours a day.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
8
SPEAKER_00
People making pizza.
8
SPEAKER_00
People.
8
SPEAKER_00
I predict in five years, someone who loves to mow their lawn.
8
SPEAKER_00
Mow their lawn.
8
SPEAKER_00
Mow their lawn.
8
SPEAKER_00
will go from like, that s that classic dad who does it, to the modern dad, the 28 year old who s destined to be a 48 year old dad who loves to mow their lawn.
8
SPEAKER_00
like loves it, is destined right now as we re speaking to one time in seven years as he s on that journey, streaming it for some weird reason.
8
SPEAKER_00
Today, every 42-year-old, 61-year-old man or woman that loves to mow their lawn for an hour and a half, a big lawn, does not think, let me set up a laptop and stream live on Twitter.
8
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t cross their mind.
8
SPEAKER_00
I believe it will be
9
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I believe one of them will do it.
9
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I believe for whatever reason, it will crush.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I believe that person will, a year later, retire from being a principal in a high school to making a million dollars a year.
9
SPEAKER_00
Mowing lawns.
9
SPEAKER_00
Mowing their lawn.
9
SPEAKER_00
Live streaming it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Live streaming it.
9
SPEAKER_00
So think about how different that is than what I predicted would crush it.
9
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Remember what I predicted would crush it, which was insane, which is influencers are gonna make money.
9
SPEAKER_00
I didn t call it influencers, we didn t have the term yet.
9
SPEAKER_00
People will make money on the internet being themselves.
9
SPEAKER_00
That was like, pfft.
9
SPEAKER_00
Right now, somebody s like, wait a minute, I will literally make a full time living by streaming, making breakfast for my family every morning.
9
SPEAKER_00
Let me just say that, you know how insane that is?
9
SPEAKER_00
Like literally a mom or dad, let s say a stay at home dad or mom.
9
SPEAKER_00
is literally going to start streaming her 6 a.m.
9
SPEAKER_00
to 7.30 of prepping breakfast for everybody and it s going to capture a fever.
9
SPEAKER_02
And they re going to get millions of viewers every morning.
9
SPEAKER_00
And they re going to get subscribers for two bucks.
9
SPEAKER_00
And they re going to get merch deals.
9
SPEAKER_00
And cookbook deals.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
I m seeing there s a guy on TikTok who goes live.
9
SPEAKER_02
It must be all day he s live.
9
SPEAKER_02
He owns a little fruit stand.
9
SPEAKER_02
He s just cutting up fruit.
9
SPEAKER_02
That s right.
9
SPEAKER_02
And he s got a massive line every day that just wants to like be in the stream for a second.
9
SPEAKER_02
That s right.
9
SPEAKER_02
Live streaming, cutting fruit.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s crazy.
9
SPEAKER_00
The extreme version of what I saw happening with Crush It is about to happen with live streaming because it takes it to passive instead of progressive.
9
SPEAKER_00
I had to sit down and do the wine show.
9
SPEAKER_00
Now it becomes passive.
9
SPEAKER_00
I will stream while I m running my wine store.
9
SPEAKER_02
But will people watch hours of content when you need to be five seconds of videos that people are like losing attention?
9
SPEAKER_00
No, because people are watching long form content at scale right now.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know this.
9
SPEAKER_00
You just don t want to be in the middle.
9
SPEAKER_00
You want to either be great at short form or you want to be great at long form.
9
SPEAKER_00
You just don t want to be the middle or you don t want to be bad at long form or bad at short form.
9
SPEAKER_00
People binge watch an entire season of something on Netflix or sit.
9
SPEAKER_00
I have people that sit with me, you know this, sit with me the whole day.
9
SPEAKER_00
They sit there the whole day.
9
SPEAKER_00
and talk to each other.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s crazy.
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s community.
9
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s amazing.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s crazy.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s cool.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s funny.
9
SPEAKER_00
It reminded me, you might remember this.
9
SPEAKER_00
When I was coming up the game on Twitter and Viddler and YouTube.
9
SPEAKER_00
What was it, Periscope?
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, that was later and Meerkat.
9
SPEAKER_02
Meerkat.
9
SPEAKER_02
But what about before that?
9
SPEAKER_02
Daily Booth.
9
SPEAKER_02
You stream.
9
SPEAKER_02
You stream, man.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that was big.
9
SPEAKER_02
And that was big for me.
9
SPEAKER_02
Wow, I remember that.
9
SPEAKER_00
I would have been a huge streamer, but now I m too busy.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
So my, by the way, a couple hundred people, I have nothing.
9
SPEAKER_00
Because I m not, there s nothing.
9
SPEAKER_01
Right.
9
SPEAKER_00
Now, to Dustin and team s credit, now they re playing my recent videos in the top right corner.
9
SPEAKER_02
during the live stream.
9
SPEAKER_00
So right, so I m on mute, but on the top right corner in a smaller box is gonna be this, literally this.
9
SPEAKER_00
And like, so like, you know, like we re figuring it out and like, and again, I think there s gonna be way more compelling ASMR.
9
SPEAKER_00
I can tell you right now, it would have been much more compelling to follow me tasting wine all day.
9
SPEAKER_00
What I m doing right now is really boring.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m sitting in an office for like 12 hours a day just doing meetings.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m not even in the old DRock DailyVee world where I was moving around a lot.
9
SPEAKER_00
You re just sitting there.
9
SPEAKER_00
full operations mode, I m VaynerX and BeFriends right now.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m in one of those modes.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m not in GaryVee land as much.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
One final question then, be respectful of your time.
9
SPEAKER_02
Three truths.
9
SPEAKER_02
I think you answered this probably five years ago, last time you were on.
9
SPEAKER_02
You said you want to live to 105.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
Imagine you get to create everything from this moment until then.
9
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_02
Your vision, your relationships, all of it happens, but you have to take everything with you.
9
SPEAKER_02
So once you leave, no one has access to VFriends, VaynerMedia, it s all gone.
9
SPEAKER_02
All the content you ve created, gone.
9
SPEAKER_02
Erased from time.
9
SPEAKER_02
Hypothetical scenario.
9
SPEAKER_00
You got me intrigued, go ahead.
9
SPEAKER_00
So I die at 105 and everything disappears.
9
SPEAKER_02
All the content you ve made, gone.
9
SPEAKER_02
Everyone lives.
9
SPEAKER_00
What about the relationships I ve made?
9
SPEAKER_02
Those are there.
9
SPEAKER_00
Okay, got it.
9
SPEAKER_00
So content.
9
SPEAKER_00
Content is gone.
9
SPEAKER_02
Business, content.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, everything s gone.
9
SPEAKER_02
But on your final day, you get to do one final live stream.
9
SPEAKER_02
and all you get to leave behind is three truths.
9
SPEAKER_02
Three things you know to be true.
9
SPEAKER_02
If you could go 60 years in the future.
9
SPEAKER_00
Three things and that s all they re gonna have to remind you of.
9
SPEAKER_00
I d say first of all, thank you for this journey.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna miss every one of you deeply.
9
SPEAKER_00
This sucks.
9
SPEAKER_00
I really wish I could go to 110.
9
SPEAKER_00
I don t know why I said 105.
9
SPEAKER_00
But three things you can leave behind.
9
SPEAKER_00
I would say to them that in life, I would say to everybody, I would hope that I would have the entire 8 billion people on earth watching me on this last day if we all knew it was going down.
9
SPEAKER_00
The first thing I would say to them is, I promise you this is the most truth I ve learned in 105 years.
9
SPEAKER_00
In life, you find what you re looking for.
9
SPEAKER_00
If you are looking for negativity and pain, you will find it.
9
SPEAKER_00
And if you are looking for joy and happiness, you will find it.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I would expand on that in my three truths because that s the game.
9
SPEAKER_00
You find what you re looking for.
9
SPEAKER_00
If you re in a good place, you re gonna find good.
9
SPEAKER_00
You can t imagine, I m just breaking out of this question for a second.
9
SPEAKER_00
Bro, I consume positive content all day while everyone s telling me the world s never been worse.
9
SPEAKER_00
The world s never been better.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I read some shit the other day of pig liver or whatever, something s about to go in our body now, we re gonna cure that one too.
9
SPEAKER_00
We re fixing shit.
9
SPEAKER_00
The world was worse.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like, they re like, it s never been worse.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m like, have you heard about the Holocaust?
9
SPEAKER_00
The Black Plague?
9
SPEAKER_00
Like, COVID was fucked up.
9
SPEAKER_00
The Black Plague wiped out like the majority of us.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like, World War I was nasty.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like, I just don t understand people s lack of perspective.
9
SPEAKER_00
So I really am hot on that.
9
SPEAKER_02
Okay, number one.
9
SPEAKER_00
Number two, that love is worth fighting for.
9
SPEAKER_00
That you must destroy yourself
9
SPEAKER_00
for it, meaning not destroy yourself, meaning like, what you think you value, if you don t have it.
9
SPEAKER_00
A current relationship, that might be comfortable, which is very hard.
9
SPEAKER_00
I appreciate your reaction to that.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s probably the hardest advice I ve just gave, which is, you know that you re in a relationship, but it is not the right one, but if you have children, it s comfortable.
9
SPEAKER_00
Real stuff, you know, you like them.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like, you like them.
9
SPEAKER_00
that love is worth fighting for.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know?
9
SPEAKER_02
And the third one?
9
SPEAKER_00
Man, it s so funny how simple my brain goes.
9
SPEAKER_00
Those two really, really, like choosing happiness and love are so obvious to me.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know what, I m gonna go with a funny one, because I have a funny feeling that I would go out funny.
9
SPEAKER_00
I would go out with a good curse, I think.
9
SPEAKER_00
I would say this, because I feel it very heavily right now.
9
SPEAKER_00
until you realize that competition is one of the great traits in life, that it is good, that like anything, out of balance, it s bad.
9
SPEAKER_00
But the elimination of merit, the demonization of alpha skills has really.
9
SPEAKER_00
Telling a six year old that it s just a game, who was born with the gift of being an alpha and on fire and competitive, is the worst thing you could do as a parent.
9
SPEAKER_00
I despise it, and I don t like that word despise.
9
SPEAKER_00
Watching parents that are wildly well intended,
9
SPEAKER_00
systematically suck out the magic of a kid who was born a magician is devastating.
9
SPEAKER_00
And one of the real issues, and I hope in the next 50 years it gets figured out, but right now, so I ll use it as an opportunity to make this point, competition is one of the best things on earth.
9
SPEAKER_00
And we have gotten really bad on the left side of things in understanding it.
9
SPEAKER_00
And it s people up because if you re successful in sucking out competition of an alpha six year old, if you re successful in those 12 years that you have them in your roof, you ve put indifference on a pedestal.
9
SPEAKER_00
And so what you ve done is you ve taken someone who was destined to do some really good.
9
SPEAKER_00
And you ve actually put a kid into a place of thinking things don t matter.
9
SPEAKER_00
And when you don t think anything matters, and you don t think anything s worth anything, you go down a very dangerous road.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I m gonna go very, very cautious here, because what I m alluding to is almost inappropriate, which is,
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I worry that a lot of the things that we most worried about, I ll say it, suicide and other things, are not a product of social media.
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They re a product of us not recognizing things out of whack.
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Competition is one of the great traits in society and we must, at all costs, stop demonizing it.
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Gary V, love you, brother.
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Thanks for being here, man.
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Love you, bro.
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Amazing.
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Wow.
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I hope you enjoyed today s episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
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Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today s episode with all the important links.
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And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well
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as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple podcasts.
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Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcasts as well.
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Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review.
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I really love hearing feedback from you.
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And it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward.
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And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
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And now it s time to go out there and do something great.