Episode Transcript
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0:00
The quality of me as a human matters to me, not
0:02
as me as a businessman. I'm aware that I
0:04
love it. I love being an entrepreneur, but it
0:06
is not how I f***ing think about myself. Right.
0:08
It's my favorite game. It is my passion. It's
0:10
not who I am. Entrepreneur
0:13
and Vesta, a New York Times bestselling
0:15
author, a founder of VaynerMedia, Digital Media
0:17
mogul Gary Vaynerchuk. Please welcome Gary
0:20
Vaynerchuk, Gary Vaynerchuk. I
0:23
remember when I was first popping off in that 2007-8 Twitter world, a
0:26
lot of people were like, the wine guy's gonna be around just
0:28
for a year. This is too much. It's all
0:30
sizzle, no steak. Money and fame
0:32
and success doesn't change you. It
0:34
exposes you. I just have
0:36
a very simple question for people. Explain to
0:39
me any justification to s*** on
0:41
another human being. If
0:43
you're not happy, if you're anxious, if you're feeling
0:45
a lot of pressure, the answer is ironically, you
0:47
have to start doing the opposite of everything you
0:49
naturally wanna do. That's the other thing that I
0:51
don't understand what these people are doing. As
0:54
if anyone on earth is perfect. Is
0:56
perfect. You wanna have a real moment in this
0:58
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1:00
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1:03
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Again, head to
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netsuite.com/greatness. Welcome back
3:42
everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our
3:44
guests. We have the inspiring Gary Vaynerchuk in the house.
3:46
My man, so good to see you. It's
3:48
been 15 years since we met each other. You
3:52
have continued to be a leader
3:54
in the creator economy, entrepreneurship, emotional
3:56
intelligence and so many other things.
3:58
So I wanna... I acknowledge you first Gary
4:01
for your continued evolution,
4:04
innovation and leadership as a human
4:06
being and also your friendship.
4:08
You have thousands of connections
4:10
that you probably text with on
4:12
a monthly basis and you
4:14
have a lot of people in your inner
4:16
circle but then outer circle, right? And
4:19
I would say I'm someone like in the inner outer
4:21
circle, you know, we don't see each other a lot
4:23
but when we connect, we connect and we have a
4:25
lot of memories together and I'll
4:28
always appreciate that when something happens in my
4:30
life, you reach out. So I want to
4:32
acknowledge you for just being on
4:34
top of things, reaching out when things really matter.
4:36
I got a lot for you. Yeah,
4:38
I appreciate it. And one of the
4:41
things I want to talk about first in today
4:43
is you've got a lot that's always happening but
4:45
one of the things is this book called Day
4:47
Trading Attention. Yes. It's
4:49
seen and we were just talking about this
4:52
right before we started. You're asking me, you
4:54
know, what's new for you? I said feeling
4:56
emotionally peaceful and abundant and loved is
4:59
new for me because in
5:01
a world of online
5:03
marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, business,
5:06
competition, I was
5:08
driven to grow, grow, grow and
5:11
I was always accomplishing and
5:13
getting results. But in the last,
5:15
you know, year, there's been changes, ups, downs. For
5:18
the first time, I feel
5:20
peaceful about me and love
5:22
myself even if I'm not
5:24
growing at the rate that I always have financially.
5:26
Even if you rank 113 instead of 7. Exactly.
5:30
My question for you to start is it
5:32
seems like people are more stressed and
5:34
overwhelmed and trapped than ever
5:37
trying to keep up with the algorithms,
5:39
likes, views, changes
5:41
in platforms, one platform being hot then potentially
5:43
TikTok going away in a few months. Who
5:45
knows? Right. And
5:47
I think that's the hamster wheel of needing
5:49
to grow and create, create, create in order
5:51
to be relevant. Yes. Is
5:54
that sustainable and how can people stay
5:56
healthy and love themselves when they're
5:58
hot and when they're not? How do
6:00
they not chase the hamster wheel of
6:02
success with social and
6:04
stay more sustainable? Great question.
6:07
Is it sustainable? Yes, if
6:11
you're in the place that I think
6:13
you're emerging into, where
6:15
you enjoy it and it
6:17
doesn't define you, and
6:20
you can love yourself and you're
6:22
good, whether you're making
6:24
a million dollars a year or 40,000
6:26
a year, whether you've got a million followers or 40,000,
6:28
or the thing that you're going through that I go through
6:31
and many others, when you have momentum,
6:33
you're hot, hot, and
6:35
then you're not as hot and you go
6:38
up and down. So I think it's remarkably
6:40
sustainable. I also believe that 99%, 97%, 90%, I
6:46
don't know what the number is, are not in
6:48
that place yet. They're not in
6:50
a place where they don't live for outside
6:52
validation. They're not in a place where they've
6:54
hit that maximum place of
6:56
self-love. I talk a lot about my
6:58
mom. It's very clear to
7:00
me that whatever she gave
7:02
me in DNA and how she parented me and
7:05
the circumstances of the environment I grew up in,
7:07
Edison, New Jersey in the 80s, created
7:10
a perfect storm where my relationship with
7:12
me was so good, even in
7:14
high school. I think about it now a lot. I
7:16
didn't realize it when I was first coming up
7:18
and getting notoriety. I didn't realize
7:21
how insane in hindsight, and Dustin who's filming
7:23
me right now, he
7:25
also grew up in Jersey, he really understands what I'm
7:27
about to say, even though I'm older, he really knows
7:29
what I'm saying. Like 90s, late 90s,
7:31
early 2000s, like
7:34
high school in Jersey in the 90s, 90 to
7:36
94 when I was there, that
7:39
was like real kind of
7:42
hardcore, meaning
7:45
it now blows
7:48
me away in hindsight that I
7:50
did not, not only did I not succumb
7:52
to peer pressure, that
7:56
it didn't even begin to gain momentum
7:58
with me. Really? I feel
8:00
like the only one in high school that this didn't happen
8:02
to. No, I think there's others, but this is why I'm
8:04
trying to tap into it. So for me, what
8:07
you're entering, I believe, is
8:10
what I got lucky in. I
8:12
hate luck because people love to weaponize
8:15
it against people they envy. And
8:18
it's a real lazy trait, but there's
8:20
a million variables that are luck or serendipity or whatever
8:22
you wanna call it. But your parents instilled that in
8:24
you and gave you that skill. My mom, you know,
8:26
my dad instilled other things in me and honestly, I
8:28
was with my mom predominantly from 14 and
8:31
then ironically, the time I'm talking about now is when I started
8:33
to really get to know my dad because I had to work
8:35
in the liquor store a lot of hours. I
8:39
just liked myself and didn't think,
8:42
you're a perfect example. You're like,
8:45
I was four foot 11 the day I walked
8:47
into high school. I was six three,
8:50
not six four. So like, I'm
8:52
using you because you're a perfect cop. Even
8:54
if the most handsome big dude who
8:58
was in my grade made fun of me.
9:01
And I remember within the first couple of
9:03
weeks, big shout out, if anybody can find
9:05
Paige Parlow. Paige Parlow was two years
9:07
older than us or maybe one, all my
9:09
high school friends are about to laugh. She was such a pretty girl.
9:11
I think she was a junior, we were freshmen, right? And
9:14
she had like cliche, this is literally September
9:16
1990. Her boyfriend is
9:18
like a smoker dude, like literally like a
9:20
John Travolta type of dude. Another Jack, yeah,
9:22
yeah, yeah. Literally out of central casting. I
9:25
somehow get lost. I
9:28
do literally like week one or two, get lost of
9:30
which class I'm going to. So I'm like two, three
9:32
minutes after the bell rang and I'm like walking the
9:34
hall trying to fake, like literally like a movie. And
9:38
they're outside. I already
9:40
know who those two people are. And we're only
9:42
a week or two in. They're like the legends
9:44
of high school, yeah. And literally
9:47
they're outside one of either
9:49
her or his locker making out as
9:51
I walk you by. Everything in my
9:53
life is just walk by and if
9:56
nothing happened, right? Sure
9:58
enough, I get by. And it's
10:00
literally a movie. It's literally a coming of
10:03
age movie. He goes, hey.
10:06
I turn back, he goes, the nursery
10:09
school's right over there. Wait,
10:11
you have to understand why this is extra funny.
10:13
Our high school was a vocational high school.
10:16
And I don't know if you know what this is, but vocational
10:18
high school is, because we were in rural New Jersey. I moved
10:20
from Edison to Hunterton County. We had a
10:23
auto body shop, we had a salon,
10:25
and we had a daycare in
10:27
our high school. And some of
10:29
the juniors and seniors were taking
10:31
classes to become teachers. So
10:34
I was literally ironically, I didn't know where it was at
10:36
the time, I'm telling you, it's the first two, three weeks
10:38
of high school. He goes, hey kid. And
10:41
they laugh and I'm like, ugh. Like literally,
10:43
but here's what's so funny about it. This
10:45
is the most meta moment. I
10:47
literally said to myself in that moment, not I'm a
10:49
piece of shit or I'll never be cool or I
10:51
suck or I can't wait to grow or whatever. I
10:55
said to myself, what's happening right
10:57
this second? I'm like, that's
11:00
gonna be a really funny story one day. I
11:02
literally actually at 14 years old
11:05
said that, and here I
11:07
am 34 years later, delivering
11:09
on the promise I made to myself about that
11:12
moment. So the answer
11:14
is, is it sustainable? Of course it is.
11:16
But the only thing that is sustainable
11:18
is when your relationship with yourself is
11:21
so good, you can deal with the
11:23
death of a parent, a partner, even
11:26
the worst extreme, a child, you can deal with
11:28
getting laid off, you can deal with, breakups,
11:32
how about athlete life that you grew up
11:34
with. Who are the kids that are bound
11:36
to be professional athletes? Jay Williams was
11:39
supposed to be the best basketball player, got into a
11:41
motorcycle accident. Obviously he has a great career, he's a
11:43
great entrepreneur, he's on TV, he's a good dude, but
11:46
that's maybe not what he thought his whole life was gonna
11:48
be for the first 20 years of his life or the
11:50
ones that don't make it or the ones that come from
11:52
a wealthy family and then the mother or father
11:54
die of a heart attack, it spins out
11:56
the whole family or they get raided by
11:58
the FBI. People have things. My
12:01
mom lost her mom at five. My dad lost his dad
12:03
at 15. Those are
12:05
game changing moments. How does one deal?
12:08
That they were in a good place. Last
12:10
night I had dinner. One of the people
12:13
at dinner was talking about their
12:15
younger sister passing away. This woman was in her 60s.
12:18
She was talking about her 58 year old sister
12:20
and she was talking about the children and she's
12:23
talking about the children in their 30s just
12:25
on full tilt entitlement. She
12:28
literally said quote unquote, one
12:30
of them is waiting for the father to pass so they
12:33
can inherit the money. Oh man. I
12:35
think about those things and I'm like, what does
12:37
that? That's the extreme in the other direction. I
12:40
love myself. Listen, you know this about me.
12:42
You brought it up in the intro. I
12:45
love being nice. But I'm
12:47
in, of course I'm nice because I'm good with me.
12:51
Of course most people that aren't nice because
12:54
they're not good with themselves. So
12:57
for me, this is why entrepreneurship has
12:59
been so easy. I'm not scared to
13:01
lose. And it is the
13:03
direct correlation. Your
13:05
capacity with losing has an
13:07
incredible correlation to
13:09
what you're gonna achieve as an entrepreneur
13:12
sustainably because
13:14
when you're deeply insecure
13:16
and it's not good, you equally
13:18
might create massive success because you're
13:20
using it as the makeup. If
13:23
I put up the points on the board, everyone
13:25
will think I'm good. Even though I
13:28
secretly don't think I'm good. And what happens
13:30
when you succeed but you're not good with
13:32
yourself? Exactly what you know what happens. You
13:35
and I now have way more than you but you're starting to get things
13:37
on at the end. It's not the last time I started in New York
13:39
for a second. I'm like, uh, so it's about
13:41
this. Yeah, we're maturing and you know this. Many
13:43
of our contemporaries or guys and gals we looked
13:45
up to, we've watched get
13:47
to high levels and collapse. Yeah,
13:50
crash. Crash. Some of it
13:52
the public knows because it's very famous. Others we
13:54
know where like someone was in
13:56
our circle speaking or writing books, like made a
13:58
lot of money. But like. gone
14:01
through really bad stuff and drug problems
14:03
and worse and like we know and
14:06
that's what happens. Money
14:08
and fame and success and followers
14:10
doesn't change you, it exposes you,
14:14
right? And so I think for me it was the
14:16
serendipity of
14:21
being in that good place and it's probably why
14:23
I, if you look at my journey, it's funny,
14:25
Day Trading Intentions is a funny book for me.
14:27
It's a little bit back to 2009 Gary, it's
14:29
very tactical. Social's changed a lot
14:31
and I just wanted to give people like
14:33
here it is, like go run for the next 24 months.
14:37
But my last book, 12 and a half,
14:41
and you know this again because we've been together through this
14:43
journey, somewhere along
14:45
the line, six, seven years
14:47
into giving tactical black and white marketing
14:49
and business advice that will work, I
14:52
got to a place where I'm like, wait a minute, oh,
14:55
people aren't doing this not because they don't know
14:57
what to do, it's because
14:59
they're not in a good place from a perspective, from
15:02
a mentality, from an internal
15:04
place and that's when my content started to
15:06
evolve into security kind of sort of like
15:09
that's. Emotional intelligence, generosity, yeah, yeah. I didn't
15:11
even know what the term was. Not tactics.
15:13
Yeah, because I thought when I came out 2009,
15:15
10, 11, 12 that
15:18
I just built from 96 to 2000, that
15:20
was the other thing that was a little bit different about me in that era. I
15:23
was also someone who had already really done a lot. And
15:26
so I was talking about did, not that
15:28
might happen. And I think that's what made
15:30
me explode pretty quickly. Besides ability to communicate
15:32
in that kind of level of
15:35
communication charisma, there was meat there.
15:37
I remember, you may remember this, this is actually
15:39
an interesting question to you. I remember
15:41
when I was first popping off in that
15:44
2007, eight Twitter world, I'm so animated, I'm
15:46
so over the top. What
15:48
I always used to laugh about, similar to getting made
15:50
fun of that day in high school was a lot
15:52
of people were like, oh, this guy's gonna, the wine
15:54
guy's gonna be around just for a year. This is
15:56
too much. It's
15:58
all sizzle, no steak. And
16:00
I would wait those tweets because I go and give
16:02
a talk at the affiliate summit and
16:04
I would make the comments and someone's like This guy won't even
16:06
be around in a year and it was very similar to getting
16:09
me fun of in freshman year high
16:11
school I'm like, I can't wait to
16:13
recall this because I know who I am
16:16
I'm an incredibly patient operator
16:20
and I build slow and Quietly
16:24
VaynerMedia VaynerX has 2,000
16:27
employees. That's incredible, man. I thought was only
16:29
a thousand It's 2,000 employees. You were there.
16:31
I remember there was like I can't remember
16:36
So-called or something sunshine sweets down on the
16:38
process. I remember you got a ping-pong table
16:40
I like four people around the table. That's
16:42
right. Yeah, that's right Like three
16:45
four clients right trying to figure it
16:47
out and now that's a 350 million
16:49
dollar a year business It's a real
16:51
business amazing and that was built from
16:53
me and AJ and Mike Lazaro's buddy
16:55
media conference center This office six months
16:57
before you saw us down in the
16:59
process and that rent for the first
17:02
year was free Because I
17:04
traded Marketing services for the
17:06
space because the story that most people don't understand
17:08
about me and I know you know This is
17:10
I don't have any money. Mmm, I
17:12
was built. I built my dad's business, right and
17:14
he didn't pay me much But
17:18
like 60 and 70 thousand a year Like
17:21
watching your city. Well, I was in Jersey
17:23
They're the shitty apartment in Springfield Jersey, but
17:25
it didn't matter and I was able to save money
17:29
Because I worked 8 a.m. To
17:31
10 p.m. Monday through Saturday
17:34
I didn't have time to spend money
17:37
and the internet didn't work the way it did back then
17:39
So it wasn't like I could gamble or buy Like
17:43
like like it was just like a
17:45
very I had a I'm starting
17:47
to realize in my late 40s I'm like and
17:50
my life was weird weird and like like
17:52
like it was weird I
17:54
was like in a very weird emotional
17:57
place, which is amazing like off the
17:59
charts luck just like being an
18:01
athlete or any, or Beyonce's born with
18:03
her voice. She put in the
18:05
work. She developed it, but she had it. LeBron was
18:07
born with what he is. Put in
18:09
the work, and that's how I feel about
18:11
myself. I was given a lot of talent
18:14
emotionally and a lot of entrepreneurial talent,
18:16
and I put in a obnoxious amount of work, and
18:18
here comes the outcomes. But also, just
18:20
like anybody else, I've gone through my journey along the
18:22
way. My last book, 12 and a half, I talk
18:24
a lot about candor being my weakness. My
18:27
kryptonite. Candor, what do you mean by that?
18:29
Well, Gary Vee's candorous. Next hour here, I'll
18:31
fucking shoot. I'll be like, you
18:33
know? And I do that well
18:35
as Gary Vee, but as Gary Vaynerchuk, when
18:38
I have an employee that stinks, I,
18:40
for my whole career, to this day, it's a
18:43
problem. To this day, I'm a five out of
18:45
10. Me, a 4.7. I'm
18:47
being honest or being? See,
18:49
that even like, honestly, that made me crumble.
18:52
I hate that candor is, no, no,
18:54
no, no, you're right. No, no, you're
18:56
right. Candor is a cinnamon or
18:58
whatever the fuck it's called, of honesty.
19:00
My ability to be honest with an
19:02
employee that has been around my company
19:04
for a period of time, and now
19:06
I like them, who's
19:08
underperforming. Wow, that's so hard.
19:11
Has been the disproportionate kryptonite
19:13
of my career, which surprises
19:15
people, because
19:17
Gary Vee on stage or on podcast, that's
19:19
my strength, but I'm talking to the world.
19:21
When it's one on one and you care
19:24
about someone and I- I know fucking everything
19:26
about them. I know that their dad this and their
19:28
mom this, and I know they're having struggles at home,
19:30
or I know they came in and had $50,000 in college debt,
19:33
and I'm like, oh, like, and so I've
19:35
realized one of my great weaknesses of
19:37
my career is
19:40
that I bleed too much charity
19:42
into my work. And
19:44
one of our biggest connection point in our
19:46
friendship is, you know, Pencils
19:48
of Promise, right? And I've
19:50
done a good job in doing charity
19:53
work, but I haven't been able to
19:55
take off, like, I really envy the
19:57
people who, like, don't bleed
19:59
in. and charity has been an element
20:01
of my investing. I've invested in companies
20:03
that if my life depended on it,
20:06
I would never have invested in. I
20:08
100% knew it wouldn't work, but
20:11
I wanted to write a 20 to 50,000 dollar check because
20:13
I liked the person. I have
20:15
kept many employees within my companies for a
20:17
long time. And here's the worst part. I've
20:19
taken the brunt of that because
20:22
it's lost profit, right? It's
20:24
reputational damage. People are like, why is Gary
20:26
keeping around Sally? And
20:29
then what ends up happening is eventually there is
20:31
a moment where that person goes, but it's always
20:33
been sloppy. So the lack of, and all
20:35
of a sudden- A year or two after they should have, yeah. And
20:37
then I'm the bad guy and it's all
20:39
because, and so candor has been something I've
20:41
developed a lot more, a
20:43
lot more. It's still- So challenging.
20:45
Back to, we were joking about, I just read
20:47
the audio book. Like there
20:50
are a couple of things
20:52
on earth that come incredibly hard to me.
20:54
One is candor to nice people when
20:57
I have to let them go in a business. And
21:00
two is reading my audio book. I know,
21:02
man. Which is a grind. Although
21:04
you mentioned you're in your late 40s now, is that right?
21:06
I just turned 41. And
21:09
I'm 40 years. A couple weeks ago, 48. If
21:11
you could go back to 40. Okay. And
21:14
think about all the things that
21:16
you struggled with in the last, I
21:18
guess, eight years. Yeah. You've
21:20
had, you know, people see your wins and
21:23
successes nonstop. Like all the exits and investments
21:25
and the growth, the VaynerMedia and the books
21:27
and New York time vest, NFT. All these
21:29
different things that people see that. But
21:32
for you, what do you think of the two
21:34
or three things that have been beyond candor? Your
21:36
biggest struggles? Or the hardest
21:38
things you've had to overcome? One
21:44
of my favorite parts about my job is that I
21:46
get the opportunity to travel a lot. And in fact,
21:48
I'm recording this right now while I'm in Mexico. And
21:50
actually I was thinking about something that I wanted to
21:53
share because I get a lot of questions from so
21:55
many people about different side hustle ideas. So
21:57
here's one for those of you out there that are
21:59
on the... go a lot like I am
22:01
or traveling a lot. When you're staying in
22:03
your Airbnb on your trips, have you ever
22:06
thought about how you could be making extra
22:08
money by hosting through Airbnb while your home
22:10
is vacant? If you're interested in an extra
22:12
stream of income, Airbnb hosting is an easy
22:15
place to start and it's like giving your
22:17
home some company while you're away. Your home
22:19
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22:21
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22:59
The famous Abraham Lincoln quote says, Good things
23:01
come to those who wait. But that's only
23:03
part of the quote. The full quote is,
23:06
Good things come to those who wait, but
23:08
only the things left by those who hustle.
23:10
Well, if you're a business owner or want
23:12
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applies. Thankfully, Zippercooter puts the hustle in your
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one of the most important steps in setting
23:36
my companies up for success. And we'd like
23:38
to ensure our new hires will be a
23:40
good fit before they're even on the team.
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So I am so grateful that I have
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zippercooter.com/greatness. Zippercooter the smartest way to
24:00
hire? One is very real
24:03
right now, which is
24:06
I am atrocious
24:08
at smelling the roses because
24:12
the whole game for me is smelling the
24:14
roses. However, I'm
24:16
sensing like what
24:18
I've enjoyed the memories of the
24:21
more extreme version of smelling the roses.
24:23
Let me explain what I mean. Yeah,
24:26
so when I have wins, I
24:29
don't celebrate them. Like there's no,
24:31
like in my world, we just landed a $20 million client.
24:35
It's a lot, it's a big client. And
24:38
a bunch of the people at Vayner, they've worked at other
24:40
places. They're like, so when's the, so
24:42
when are we doing like the celebrations? And
24:44
I'm like, what do you, I don't, my brain's like, I
24:47
don't understand what you're saying. Right?
24:50
And not that like I'm like some tyrant, it's
24:52
almost like just my energy goes to
24:55
like problems. As
24:57
I continue to go through my
25:00
own journey, it'll be very clear that I
25:02
was blessed with many things as a child, but
25:05
I was also burdened with
25:07
some. Like I was the oldest
25:09
from the old country. I mean, when I tell
25:11
you since the time I was five years old,
25:13
I remember being greened in my head. Like responsibility,
25:15
responsibility. Take care of your sister, take care of
25:17
your, like my mom, and I admire that from
25:19
my mom. Do I also understand
25:21
like anything, if anything's too extreme one or
25:24
the other? Between that and then don't
25:26
forget at 14, I come into
25:28
my dad's business. By the time I'm like 15 and
25:30
a half, when you still used to even use a
25:32
half, it became clear like
25:34
I was a talent. Back to
25:36
the great Kobe Bryant that you got to do a podcast with. We're up 20,
25:38
30% this year because
25:40
you're in there fricking razzle dazzle people. So guess what happens?
25:42
Now I'm 17 and 18 and 19 and
25:45
I'm feeling the financial burden. Right?
25:49
And now that was, I want to be very careful here. It's not
25:51
like my father came to me and said, absolutely
25:53
not. I did that
25:55
to myself, but it was hardwired early. And
25:58
my environment's like, my responsibility. You
26:00
know, I think a lot of first generation,
26:02
oldest immigrants that were born in the old
26:05
country and their siblings were born here, actually
26:07
that's really cool, anybody who's watching, email
26:09
me at Gary at VaynerX, if
26:11
you're this exact person, you're an immigrant yourself,
26:14
you immigrated to America or any
26:17
first world country, London, anywhere else,
26:20
and you're the only sibling that
26:22
was born in the old country but you have
26:24
siblings that were born in the new world. I
26:28
think there's something there. There's something
26:30
there. I felt half parent
26:32
my whole life. AJ,
26:35
who you know well, minimally
26:39
I feel 50% dad, 50%. Of
26:42
course he's 11 years younger than me. So
26:44
you're 18 and he's seven and forget about the
26:46
11 years, like I just
26:49
told you earlier, I felt that way towards my sister
26:51
who's only three and a half years younger. There was
26:53
just something like you're the, and again, I think back,
26:56
this is where I'll say something very important
26:58
right now, I believe, I think
27:00
we judge our parents too much. Yeah, of course. I
27:03
don't sit here and say, mom, I think
27:06
people really dwell too much. I understand,
27:08
my mom lost her mom at
27:10
five and then her dad went
27:13
to jail for 10 years in the Soviet Union
27:15
because every entrepreneur did. But it's
27:17
hard when you're a teen. And so her and her brother
27:19
were the world. So she made, I mean, bratn
27:21
sistra, shena galava was like
27:23
propaganda into my head of
27:26
my relationship with my sister. But it's hard
27:28
when you're eight to think that way, your
27:31
parents should be trying to protect you and
27:33
educate you and elevate you. But
27:35
there is no should. I get it. You
27:38
wanna have a real moment in this podcast? Everybody,
27:40
I'm looking at all the cameras right now.
27:42
There is no should. That's
27:44
the biggest thing, right? Because then we could say
27:47
your parents should do this and then I'll tell
27:49
you the biggest pandemic in the world right now,
27:51
which is 22 to 30 year olds who are
27:53
really struggling with standing on their own two feet
27:55
because their parents went too far to what you just said.
27:58
They took care of them too much. So
28:00
this purple, by the way, look at these two books. This
28:03
is purple for a specific reason. I'm not a Lakers fan.
28:06
And meet me in the middle. What I can tell you
28:08
has become very clear to me is
28:11
I believe that the
28:13
world desperately needs to figure out how to
28:15
fall in love with purple, not red or
28:17
blue because
28:20
they both have major valid points and
28:23
they both have major flaws
28:26
and the middle, especially parenting.
28:28
One of the reasons I started Be Friends is
28:30
I knew
28:32
what was happening with Gary Vee. You know
28:34
this. We run enough similar circles. I've
28:37
been very blessed that because of where I
28:39
was, I was then able to be what
28:41
my mom and my circumstance in a
28:43
lot of ways did for me. I've been
28:45
able to do for a lot of people. Right? It
28:49
feels nice. You get it too. It
28:52
feels nice for people to say, hey, you've really helped
28:54
me. For
28:56
me, children, you
28:58
get in that early. It's one thing if I meet you in
29:00
2009 in St. Louis and could
29:02
be a positive deposit. You've been
29:04
built though. There's a lot of there. You had to
29:06
do a lot of your work. I
29:10
can't do that as an
29:12
outside motivation or inspiration or
29:14
perspective. But when you get in early, so
29:17
for example, in Be Friends, there's
29:19
a character called Accountable Ant. I'm
29:22
obsessed with this character. I
29:25
believe that if I can make
29:27
that character cool like Pikachu or
29:29
Spider-Man, right? That if
29:31
you're a kid that falls in love with the cartoons I'm
29:34
going to put out or the kids' books or the video
29:36
games and you're like, I've put
29:38
Accountable Ant in my gut, right? I
29:40
am accountable for everything in my life.
29:42
Think about what happens. If you love
29:44
Spider-Man or you love Wolverine or you
29:46
love Pikachu, you're subconsciously getting
29:48
in virtues of that. Or
29:51
you envy it because you don't have it. If
29:53
all of a sudden Accountable Ant is your dying or
29:55
wearing hoodies with it, it kind
29:57
of gets hard if you're like, I put Accountable Ant in my gut.
30:00
and you're not being able to. And you're not being
30:02
able to. Or at least strive to it. Or at
30:04
least even know the existence. There's many people watching, listening,
30:06
that don't even realize that they live
30:09
in a full dwelling, complaining, blaming framework.
30:12
I've had many friends, relatives, and
30:14
relationships, acquaintances, and
30:17
business partners, because my parents
30:20
too far went with
30:22
no complaining, which meant keeping things in, right?
30:25
But as you can imagine, if you're visceral
30:27
to complaining, you smell it from a mile
30:30
away. And then if you're really
30:32
visceral to it, and you smell it from a
30:34
mile away, well you're aware that someone's constantly dwelling
30:37
and blaming. And so
30:39
to me, what was most fascinating in
30:41
my 30s and 40s as I've gone
30:43
through this journey is they don't see it. Which
30:46
led me to the great breakthrough of candor. Look,
30:49
I didn't know when we met that
30:51
that was my kryptonite. I thought it was my strength. How
30:54
about that? Because you're being honest online, and you're being honest
30:56
on stage, you mean? No, because I
30:58
didn't even realize the dichotomy of
31:00
that. I just thought I was being
31:02
nice. I was like, look what
31:05
I'm doing for Sally. Two more years of payroll when
31:07
she sucks. Look what I'm doing for Ricky. This
31:10
guy blows, he'll never be okay out there. There
31:12
was probably a mix of little ego, like jump
31:15
on my shoulders, I'm a Superman, which is why
31:17
I'm using the kryptonite example. But
31:19
there was also, I thought it was being good. Life's
31:23
hard lessons. I had to wake up
31:25
in my mid 40s and go, why
31:27
has anyone that's ever worked for me not like me? Because
31:30
you'd read a tweet and be like Gary, I'd
31:32
be like, fuck, how's that possible? It's so nice
31:34
to join. I had to really do that work.
31:36
Why do you think people maybe don't like you?
31:39
Well, people in the outside world who don't
31:41
know me don't like me. The reason
31:43
they wouldn't like it is because either
31:45
my communication style isn't their jam, which I
31:47
understand. When you're aggressive
31:50
and confident and competitive and
31:52
Jersey, my shtick
31:55
in their mind, it doesn't work for me. I understand
31:57
that. Some people more chill. The reason people don't like
31:59
my. I love to live in New York City, some
32:01
people come in and they're like, get me the fuck
32:03
out of here on that, right? It's too much,
32:05
that I respect. Number two. The
32:07
people that know you or work for you or. Yeah,
32:10
let me finish this. I think things will help people
32:12
because what I'm really trying to do in this is
32:14
not say it about me. I'm hoping that people can
32:16
start having a better relationship with people not liking them
32:18
that don't know them. That's
32:20
good. So number two, it's their
32:22
own. They wanna
32:24
be a successful entrepreneur and I'm
32:26
triggering affirmation of like, they're
32:28
not there yet and they're like, you're the guy, right?
32:31
Three, they've overly put me on a pedestal and
32:33
then I do something that they don't agree with
32:35
and it fucks them up, which
32:38
is very flattering but very understanding.
32:42
But it's all wrapped up in who they
32:44
are with themselves. On
32:46
the version of people that do know me, the
32:49
only thing, the black and
32:51
white thing, was the inability, it's
32:54
only the people closest that didn't get the candor
32:56
that I actually ironically liked the most. Now
32:58
what's been nice, you know what got me away with it
33:00
for a long time was
33:03
people's own accountability. Why
33:05
I was getting away with it in my own
33:07
mind to my own self was people would hit
33:10
me up three, four years later with emails like,
33:12
I'm sorry. Because they had gone
33:14
through, look, if you're a C player, you're good with
33:16
me. Because
33:19
I think you need all kinds. It
33:21
was D and F. So you
33:24
could imagine, and that was a subjective opinion whether I'm
33:26
right or wrong. As you can imagine, it's not like
33:28
I'm bad at it. I've been doing it my whole
33:30
life. So a lot of those people really were D
33:32
and F'ing it. And they through
33:34
their own work on themselves, actually
33:36
were able to go back and actually see a lot
33:38
of, they were able to see so many of
33:41
the nice things I was doing, even
33:43
though I was sloppy on the candor and
33:45
on the firing. Kind of like when you get older and you
33:47
look back at your parents. You blame your parents as a kid.
33:50
Oh, they didn't give me this, they didn't do this, but
33:52
then. Then you understand it. I know they were just doing
33:54
the best they could. Are they really trying hard here? They
33:56
were giving me so much here, they sacrificed you. Especially if
33:58
you become a parent yourself. Of course. Then they're
34:00
like, oh. I get it. Yeah,
34:03
yeah, yeah. I get it. It's almost like the way
34:05
I think about athletes. Like, boo, you suck. I'm like,
34:07
you go out there. You go try that. Yeah.
34:09
I mean, speaking about this topic, I mean, just
34:12
start with, you know, still kind of with the
34:14
first question, is
34:17
this sustainable? What
34:19
you just said right here, I think is one
34:21
of the biggest things that holds people back, whether
34:23
that's creating content online, starting a business, or
34:25
putting themselves out there in any endeavor,
34:29
is people care so much what other people think about
34:31
it. How do people
34:33
overcome the opinions and judgments
34:35
of others with their craft,
34:37
business, or art? Therapy,
34:42
positive consumption, new friends,
34:46
exercise, psychedelics,
34:52
true work that
34:55
is starting with, do you understand that that's
34:58
what is actually happening? I
35:01
believe that that is a blind spot
35:03
to everyone. They don't realize why they
35:05
wear designer clothes. They've,
35:07
you know, for so many people, it's attracting the
35:09
opposite sex because they're looking for that closing of
35:11
the gap of love. Right? So
35:14
of course, alpha guys, like, I got to get
35:16
a, you know, think about all the
35:19
trends we see, right? Like these thin
35:21
girls won't like me if I'm not
35:23
rich, right? But it's all like
35:25
deeper than that. That's the surface level like
35:28
pizzazz. It's like they're looking for love. And
35:31
love is important as fuck.
35:34
And so because they're looking for that,
35:37
they believe they need the proxies to get it
35:40
without realizing that's often going to attract
35:42
not the clean version of love you're
35:45
actually looking for. It's
35:47
a whole stuff. It's only, you know, it's
35:49
funny, I said something to Nick, one of
35:51
my executives at Vayner Media, he came from
35:54
Satya and Saachi, a very classic, you
35:56
know, madman era, right? And
35:59
about six months. They could see. Had a novice and then
36:01
and then he was like doing a bunch of stuff
36:03
and I read i plan to recognize what was happening
36:05
and I sat him down. I said. Nick.
36:09
I want you for the next year. This company if you
36:11
want to grow. Do. The opposite.
36:14
Of. Everything you intuitively think you want to
36:16
do. What was he doing? He went to
36:18
like, fought, for example I've been or what
36:21
I try to teach people to talk about.
36:24
The. Irony about what I'm saying so
36:26
if said it becomes your hand isn't
36:28
super easy to find. was under the
36:30
Us and ah we just want something
36:33
called elephant meetings. Let's get the elephant
36:35
our real as could be saving or
36:37
company bro how I want to see
36:39
saving or retention. Is gonna explode
36:41
cause of islam so would see and
36:43
every advertising person I'm laughing when I
36:45
was. I know every single ad agency
36:47
marketing you to see some some each
36:49
person's about the smell. Whether.
36:52
They consciously or subconsciously do. With everything
36:54
is based on save the customers
36:56
which means you're just eating. Lets
36:58
you just kissing them to death even. On
37:00
with the wrong. Slick.
37:03
I'll give an example: social Media Louis
37:05
A While you post on to my
37:07
space. That's when we need to be
37:09
a little yes Sir, Gerry and Will.
37:11
And you know that's not what you should
37:13
do to them. And so. It's it's. like
37:16
classic stuff or like putting a television. Commercial on
37:18
a pedestal versus a social media posts which is
37:20
my holes thesis so those is a lot of
37:22
stuff is coming. Little lot of baggage Spf. Anyway,
37:26
I know he's going to smile right now because I know.
37:28
It's. Been a big factor in his life. is kind of what
37:30
I want to see. To. Everyone right now.
37:33
It's. Almost like if you're not happy. As
37:37
you listening with. If. You're anxious if you
37:39
feel a lot of pressure. The
37:41
answer is, ironically you have to start doing the
37:43
opposite of everything you'd actually want to do. So
37:47
right? So you naturally wanna be at
37:49
night dealing with this. And.
37:52
You're all stressed. See what you want to naturally
37:54
do is go grab another bottle of Moscow. What
37:56
you're supposed to do is not do that and
37:58
wake up tomorrow morning. Go to the. Exactly. Are
38:00
you know, like I do think the
38:02
other thing is. Let's talk about people
38:04
like to say the toxic people around you.
38:07
Are going to give you defer one. What about the
38:09
and neighbors. right? What
38:12
about the people? Like your mom or
38:14
dad or brother and sister were best
38:16
friends who. Are letting you get away
38:18
with your bad behavior as they have
38:20
My flaw. They. Don't have candor
38:22
is. So what people are
38:25
see of is like that. I agree. Be
38:27
tough love or top communication Challenging communication. It's
38:29
really crazy right? Like like it's like in
38:31
in in my real life. in the gary
38:33
be part of it. All. The admiration
38:35
comes from like you're the one that told
38:37
me like some cup. Right?
38:41
But in real live like a
38:43
real life. I'm very fortunate. I'm
38:45
a pretty stable epic family situation
38:47
where it's like we don't have
38:49
any like off the reservation. Family
38:51
members were like bullet friends. And something
38:54
that looks I, I was. I was. Taught and
38:56
it's ingrained in me to be the superhero
38:58
thing I want to fix. but that's what
39:00
gets. parents had a bad place of paying
39:03
for their kids. And all
39:05
that. So these are complicated things. but I
39:07
would say the people. Pay.
39:09
Attention to your circle cause it's everything.
39:11
You. Know it's a cliche, so it's not like I'm inventing
39:14
a saying. The five people you're around are you all that?
39:16
Real. It's really. Really watch that
39:19
the like that's real. Life stuff. How
39:21
worried are you for? Jersey?
39:23
Not. At all in our know. Oxley
39:26
One. Because.
39:29
There's unlimited entitled Lazy
39:31
Boomers. Now
39:33
do I think the stereotypes have merit in
39:35
them? Of course, that's how they happen. So.
39:38
Like do I think that the
39:40
circumstances of parents over coddling as
39:42
a generational truth basically says these
39:44
as a generally since me and
39:46
then cove id where the government
39:48
t new more money to stay
39:50
home on. Do. i think it's
39:53
creators entitlements and some vulnerabilities i do and
39:55
i get it like a new been over
39:57
coddled riskier to lose we were laughing little
39:59
bit before about our famous thumb wrestling match
40:01
where you destroyed me on Summit at Sea,
40:04
I knew that as fun. Literally
40:06
every time I see you, my chemicals go in a
40:08
good way of like, that dude, I gotta get him.
40:10
You know, that's a good thing, not like I'm a
40:12
loser, he's better than me. You know? And
40:15
I just, I'm not worried about
40:17
it because I know too many, I think
40:19
about my company, we have a lot, right?
40:22
We have both full extremes. There are
40:24
people walking around currently in my company
40:26
who are out of their mind expectation
40:30
wise. Like literally like,
40:33
if they could say it, they want me
40:35
to like come to their house, pick them
40:37
up, walk them to, like, you know what
40:39
I mean? Like, yeah, there's just like a
40:41
lot of expectations. We demonize companies. You know,
40:43
the problem for companies is they're not governments
40:45
or schools or your parents. Governments,
40:47
schools or your parents don't
40:50
have merit with you. Meaning
40:53
a company, if it runs out
40:55
of money, it closes. It can't pay you.
40:57
It's over. And
40:59
you know, your parents, like they'll constantly
41:01
run up their own credit card for you if they're
41:04
those kind of parents. The
41:06
government is being full of sh** and print
41:08
money in perpetuity. Just for
41:10
more money. And by the way, if I
41:12
can print money, I'm getting,
41:16
like, and schools, that's fake-o-land.
41:20
You're talking about somebody who, this is real
41:22
now, in that famous four years of high school, never
41:24
opened a book once, never did one piece
41:26
of homework, never. Never spent one
41:29
minute studying for a test. How'd you
41:31
pass? I figured out somewhere
41:33
around freshman year that school was
41:35
going for blue ribbon status and
41:37
they needed everyone to pass. Wow.
41:40
They were just enabling people to get through. Wow.
41:44
I was like, good, this works for me. And I'm an entrepreneur. One
41:47
day I'm gonna be, I also knew that I
41:49
was gonna be like such a workaholic that I
41:51
was like, let me take these last couple years
41:53
of enjoyment and get some bank ups and rest.
41:56
You know? And so this goes back to being weird.
41:58
Like, I have a lot of weird dynamics now. how
42:00
I realized the world, I'm like, oh, because before
42:02
I lived in my own life, in
42:04
my own family, in my own neighborhood with no internet,
42:06
I didn't know that my life was weird. Right. You
42:09
know, and so anyway, and then
42:11
I've got Gen Zers who are 20
42:13
year olds, you and me, fire coming out of
42:16
their work. Yeah.
42:19
Like, you know, and it's not because they eat spicy food,
42:21
because they're just like, I'm gonna, like look
42:23
me dead in the face and saying, I'm gonna run this
42:25
whole company one day, and I'm like, let's fucking go, Sal,
42:27
let's fucking go. So what would you say to someone in
42:29
their 20s who maybe wants
42:31
to accomplish a lot, and
42:35
maybe didn't
42:37
have it that hard growing up, and they feel
42:39
like it's gonna come easily to them? Force the
42:41
heart. Create the
42:43
struggle. Why is that necessary? I sent
42:46
it to a friend, you know, it's crazy.
42:48
My friends I grew up with, like in our
42:50
era, their kids now were 18. Like,
42:53
right, if you had a kid, it's crazy. So
42:55
I'm now having the craziest talks, like
42:58
ever. I knew this kid
43:00
when he was two, and I'm talking to him now, like my audience.
43:02
And I tell a lot of these kids, and a lot
43:04
of them, especially the ones I was close with, and we
43:06
did a lot of business, some of these parents really made
43:08
money. You know, like those early
43:11
Facebook and Twitter, and like, you know, like, then
43:13
you're like, so these kids
43:15
are bougie. Right. They
43:18
weren't back closing you. I told, hell yeah.
43:20
Yeah. Though this gap with his
43:22
friends. That's pretty money. Richard, good. Um,
43:25
I tell them, like, yo bro, I had a
43:27
very, very real conversation two weeks ago. I said,
43:30
bro, I said,
43:32
you got two choices here. You
43:34
take mommy and daddy's money, and create some sort
43:36
of fake picture, and all the real ones know,
43:39
so you're not tricking winners, and you're
43:41
tricking 98% of the losing players, and
43:44
you can live that life, and many do. Mm-hmm.
43:47
That's easy, eh? Or, if you're telling
43:49
me, because the kid had good words coming out of his mouth,
43:51
I'm like, if you mean it, well
43:53
then you need to go work at
43:55
a company, and work your ass off.
43:57
And you need to get three
43:59
roommates. instead of your own place, and
44:01
you need to, if you do
44:04
not take their money, then you can do
44:06
it. So if you
44:08
weren't fully taken care of your whole life,
44:11
you were allowed to say, mom, dad,
44:13
no, you're allowed. The
44:16
problem is too many people like to talk out of both
44:18
sides of their mouth. They wanna sit on mom
44:20
and dad, but they want the
44:22
unlimited credit card. They like that
44:24
they bought them an apartment. When
44:29
you get a new car or a new home,
44:32
your first reaction might be to say things like,
44:34
oh yeah, or I can't believe it, or boo
44:36
ya. But what you really wanna say is the
44:38
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44:40
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44:42
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44:56
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44:59
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45:01
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45:03
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45:05
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45:07
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45:09
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45:11
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45:58
are you teaching your kids about? life
46:00
and I'm doing it right now. My
46:03
kids can watch this. They're going to
46:05
watch it. Right? Think about this. No kid listens
46:07
to their parents. So like
46:09
me and my friends who like think about thoughtful, we
46:12
all laugh. They're like, can you talk
46:14
to my kids? I'm like, yeah, but can
46:16
you talk to my kids? You Gary Vee?
46:19
They really don't look like I'm very fortunate
46:21
but but no, no, in the way that I'm
46:23
saying it, they're always saying it. They're like,
46:25
it's dad. Yeah, of course. They're not about, they
46:28
didn't find me on the For You page.
46:30
They're like, who's this cool guy? They're like,
46:32
no way bro. I'm not listening to you and
46:34
I'm smart enough. I don't know if smart
46:36
story. I'm aware enough to know
46:38
like I'm not gonna be, listen, I'm
46:40
dad and every dad and mom has have
46:43
a obnoxious impact on their kid
46:46
but I'm gonna be dad to them which means an outside
46:49
voice like I'm able to be a contributor to
46:51
so many. I can't be that for my kids
46:53
because I'm the main thing. Other
46:56
people have to be contributors. But it's
46:58
cool because I understand it. I'm
47:00
pretty fortunate. I know a lot of people
47:03
that I think are really positive contributors to
47:05
the conversation and I can't wait. Just
47:07
like my friends now are like, like the
47:09
last four years have been phenomenal especially five
47:11
years because of TikTok because even started a
47:13
little bit earlier. There
47:16
isn't a week that doesn't go by that
47:18
a business acquaintance all the way, you
47:20
know, that's over here to you to
47:22
the inner circle, right? That
47:25
my social graph that I won't get a text and
47:27
be like and like it's so funny
47:29
because it's happening so common. It always the same
47:32
thing. You'll never believe this and
47:34
at first I didn't know what it was and then and
47:37
then a couple years in I
47:39
was like what but I knew and
47:41
I would smile but now I reply immediately. I'm like
47:44
your kids follow me on TikTok and they think
47:46
I'm cool. They're like how'd you know? I'm like
47:48
you know like that's how day framing attention works
47:51
but you know it's really
47:53
really cool. I can't wait for
47:55
my son who's 11 in
47:58
like four years six years text me like Dad,
48:00
do you know who Lewis House is? Or
48:04
dad, how do you know Lewis House? Or dad,
48:06
you've known him since, look at him taking a
48:08
picture of us at World Cost Plus Market or
48:10
whatever, right? That's
48:12
gonna be interesting, but I'm aware that I'm
48:14
dad, so I'm trying to give them all the shit
48:16
I believe in. But I know
48:18
it's a different version than what GaryVee is
48:20
because they're gonna have supplement, compliment voices to
48:23
their world, and it'll be
48:25
interesting to see what they gravitate towards. They
48:27
may be like many kids, they may gravitate
48:29
away from my message. They
48:32
may reject it for a while. Purple, I wanna
48:35
be extreme blue or extreme red, ain't they? Wow.
48:37
And I think they'll see. Notice how I'm saying that, I'm
48:39
not scared of that. When you love,
48:42
when you try, when you have intent,
48:44
when you're ready for it, it's
48:48
like a game, it's like business.
48:50
I'm ready for the trials and
48:52
tribulation of fatherhood. I'm ready
48:54
for the trials and tribulation of a
48:57
human being. I anticipate
48:59
heartbreak. I anticipate my parents
49:01
passing away because it will happen. It would
49:03
be very good for my parents to pass
49:05
away before I pass away, mainly because I
49:07
wouldn't want that for them, right?
49:10
So I mean, but those things
49:12
don't cripple me. Those
49:14
things, I actually are
49:16
the enhancer of me enjoying a day like
49:18
this. It is a good day. Everybody
49:21
I love is good. You know what
49:23
I mean? What does cripple you? Not
49:26
much brother. I think the thing that cripples me is
49:29
I haven't had the extreme heartbreak
49:31
of losing a family
49:33
member that's within my inner six or
49:35
seven. Yeah. You
49:38
know? That scares me. Yeah, it's tough. I
49:40
couldn't comprehend losing a sibling,
49:44
a parent, a niece, a nephew, a
49:46
child. That just, I'm not ready
49:49
for that game. I really,
49:51
my heart cries deeply for
49:53
every human that has
49:55
ever had to taste the sorrow
49:57
of losing a child. Yeah. And
50:00
then for the people that are lucky, like
50:03
me, who are deeply
50:06
grateful and loved with their parents, that's also
50:08
a crusher, right? Again, now I'm 48, I
50:10
have so many 60, 70 year old friends.
50:13
Like, it's really fascinating, you can see it. I mean,
50:15
I have friends who I can see it on
50:17
their face. They genuinely, not that
50:19
they want their mom or dad to die, but
50:22
that relationship is so not good, that
50:24
there's a part of them that's a cleansing. And
50:26
like they kind of- Like a freeing of- They
50:29
kind of like, you know, they definitely
50:31
don't think about it the way I do, which is like, please God,
50:33
don't let it happen for another 40 years. You
50:36
know what I mean? Yeah, of course. So, you know,
50:38
that's important to me, but I keep life very
50:40
basic, I keep it very binary. It's- I
50:43
mean, you say that, but from the outside, people
50:45
see that you have, you know, 2,000 employees, you've
50:48
got, I don't know, a hundred
50:51
bazillion social media followers, you've got a thousand pieces
50:53
of content going out every day. And V-Friends and
50:55
V-Friends and the pickle ball team. You've
50:57
got all of these different, you
51:00
invest in, I don't know, a million different companies,
51:02
you've got thousands of relationships that are constantly texting
51:04
you. That's because people don't understand the root cause
51:07
of why that's happening. The root
51:09
cause is because it's simple. Really?
51:11
Sure. But how do you- I'll
51:13
explain. How do you navigate
51:16
all of these businesses, relationships, content? How
51:18
much do you have? How
51:20
much do you bench? I
51:22
mean, I can, well, I recently did 225 11 times. Okay,
51:25
I cannot do that. How did you
51:27
do that? Two things. You were physically gifted
51:30
in your birth and
51:32
then you put in work. And I trained. And I
51:34
have a funny feeling, am I wrong? You've benched
51:37
more at certain parts of your life, right? Yeah,
51:39
yeah. How much did you do it the most? 15
51:41
times maybe 225. Great. So
51:43
why 15 that time and 11 this time? I'm
51:46
building it back up now. Right. This is where I'm
51:48
going. You would put in more work. How
51:51
am I able to do this? I
51:53
was gifted in being a purebred entrepreneur,
51:55
which means I want to do a
51:57
lot of different things. Purebred. by
52:00
people who never opened up a book, even
52:02
the worst of the worst, I'm telling you, because
52:05
I was selling baseball. Come home, get down,
52:07
start pricing my baseball cards for the card
52:09
show. And then the next year,
52:11
it was my dad's world. Come home and read the
52:13
wine. Wasn't that I wasn't working? What
52:15
did I do on Wednesday, October 9th, 1991, when
52:18
I got home? I went into my room, put
52:20
on Sports Center, and got the latest
52:23
issue of the Wine Spectator and read it. Or
52:26
Beckett or whatever it was. Beckett was
52:28
90, and then it started, and
52:30
then it started being Wine Spectator. It wasn't complicated.
52:32
I was going deep. And so, how
52:36
do I do it? It's because-
52:38
I mean, how do you navigate and manage all of it?
52:40
By not being scared to drop it. That's the key. Because
52:43
I have 43 balls up, I'm gonna have
52:45
17 ball. I
52:47
think we live in a world back to insecurity and
52:49
confidence where people have one ball, and they're
52:52
petrified for it to fall. I
52:56
have 43 and 17 ball. And
52:59
I don't care if somebody- Let's
53:02
pick a business. VaynerSpeakers, our speaking
53:04
bureau. There's a press
53:06
release that says, VaynerX is shutting
53:08
down VaynerSpeakers. I, like a logical
53:10
human, like anybody else, would be like, oh, they couldn't pull
53:12
it off. It didn't work. Gary
53:15
couldn't do it. It didn't go good. That's
53:18
a loss. That's right.
53:22
I just don't know how to be concerned
53:25
with Lewis and Dustin and
53:27
everybody right now and reading
53:29
that and saying, Gary's not, what are you
53:31
gonna say? Gary's not as good as he thinks.
53:33
I don't think. Have you never been concerned about
53:35
what people think about you with a loss or
53:37
a challenging time? Not a loss or a
53:40
challenging time. Really? The reason I've spent so
53:42
much time trying to figure out candor is I
53:44
really care. Let's use Max Bass. Great
53:47
former employee, I love him. We just wanna give him a shout out.
53:49
Plus I'm looking at this purple and yellow. He's a big Lakers fan.
53:51
And he's an LA, so it's probably the way he came to mind.
53:54
I care if Max Bass thinks I'm a good dude. Spent
53:56
too much time with him. The quality
53:58
of me is a human matter. to me, not
54:01
as me as a businessman. I'm aware
54:03
that I love it. I love being an entrepreneur.
54:05
I'm famously an entrepreneur. I was one of
54:07
the entrepreneurs that happened to me in place
54:09
when it became the thing. But
54:13
it is not how I fucking think about myself. It's
54:15
what I do. It's my favorite
54:17
game. It is my passion. It's
54:20
not who I am. So
54:24
it's made it very easy. Plus I'm
54:26
very fucking, you know, I'm very
54:28
happy go lucky, but I'm competitive, meaning, you
54:31
know, like meaning like, let's
54:34
say a coconut hit your head and you became a totally different
54:36
kind of guy and that let's keep
54:38
playing that scenario. Vayner speaker shuts down and
54:40
you text me, ha ha ha bro, you
54:42
thought you could do everything. I'd be like,
54:44
bro, you've lost too. Like
54:46
that's the other gear I have. First on empathetic, which is
54:48
like, you must not be in a good place if you
54:50
want to take me when I'm down. And then second, I'm
54:52
like, you. That's
54:55
the other thing that I don't understand what these people are doing. As
54:57
if any human on
55:00
earth today hasn't fucked
55:02
up multiple parts of their life. Maybe they're
55:04
not a good dad. Maybe they're not a
55:06
good mom. Maybe they're not a good employee.
55:08
Maybe they're a bad sister. Maybe they're not
55:10
good to their mother. Maybe they're bad at
55:12
driving. Maybe they don't know how to cook.
55:14
Maybe they're 400 pounds overweight because
55:17
they don't have a good relationship with like, as
55:19
if anyone on earth is perfect.
55:23
I mean, this is insane to me. When you
55:25
see people getting attached to you. Do you see
55:28
things Michael Jordan is not good at? You
55:30
know what I think Tom Brady is not good at? You
55:33
can be the greatest at something and suck
55:35
at something else. I
55:37
can write six New York Times bestselling
55:39
books, but I'm aware based on
55:42
the last three days that I'm not an
55:44
attempt in the top 4 million people that
55:46
should be reading an audio book. Now, everybody
55:48
will love it. And this is
55:50
why I do it because I get the feedback because they want
55:52
it to be me. And I go off script and I
55:54
add stuff. But the skill
55:56
of reading, I'm blow. That's why I was
55:58
a bad student in hindsight. I didn't know the
56:00
fuck was going on. I was like. Yes.
56:04
And that's why I was good at history. The
56:07
only reason, the only class I did well at
56:09
was history is because I listened during class.
56:12
My audio was tough. Oh,
56:15
Chiang Kai-shek? Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean?
56:17
Oh, that's what Germany did? Oh,
56:19
that's who the president was? Oh, Walter Mondale
56:21
lost every state but won to Reagan? Like
56:24
that's why I know that because I listened.
56:27
Wow. When people criticize you
56:29
for being too busy
56:33
or doing too many entrepreneurial things and
56:36
they have no clue about your personal life
56:39
but they'll criticize you, oh, he's probably not
56:41
showing up for his kids or he's not
56:43
there for his relationships or whatever it might
56:45
be. How do
56:47
you navigate that conversation when people say,
56:49
oh, he's just a business guy but
56:51
he's really not good at family, intimate
56:54
relationships, personal life? I
56:57
mean, if my mom said that, then I'd
56:59
be like, let's have this conversation. If Johnny
57:01
Pants 49 in the comments section says
57:04
it, I'm like, Johnny Pants, I don't know you. Usually
57:08
it's a direct reflection of their own
57:10
anxiety. Lewis, think about
57:12
this. Can you imagine taking time to going
57:14
to somebody else's account? Criticizing them. To try
57:16
to make them feel bad? No, no. I
57:18
don't like, you know, I'm trying
57:20
to change some words in society. Let's
57:23
say criticizing out. It sounds like classic. No,
57:25
no, no. I
57:27
wanna go back to first grade talk. To try to pull
57:29
them down. You're trying to make someone
57:31
feel bad. Yeah, shame them. You're trying
57:33
to make someone feel bad. I
57:37
don't know, man, like I just don't have that gear. Yeah. And
57:40
I don't judge those people either.
57:42
My lack of judgment against haters,
57:44
trolls, negative people is
57:46
a very big power. How do you not take
57:49
that personally when so many people did that? They
57:51
don't know me. It's, honestly,
57:54
brother, it's logical. It's
57:56
actually very logical. I
58:00
would have to think you care more about what
58:02
I think about you than someone you've never met
58:04
because we've been rapid. See as already one
58:06
times it would just be logical. Yeah I
58:08
the learn this by the hard way for
58:10
many years. Really? Until last five years
58:13
when it started to be like okay when
58:15
people are saying nasty things about me or
58:17
liners and we we are nasty comment or
58:19
whatever it is. I. Can
58:21
literally take it as a neutral information
58:23
and not take it personally anymore, but
58:25
it took me a decade coming in
58:27
warm. Other: I'm not a robot, right?
58:29
It's not like, you know, yeah, you
58:31
know, especially like I'll give you big
58:33
ones. The proudest thing I have in
58:35
my life professionally is that I sacrificed.
58:38
The. First wells four years of
58:40
my career. To. Build a business
58:42
from and it's like it is The thing I'm
58:44
proudest. It. Is also
58:46
been the thing historically the people weaponize against
58:48
me really don't listen to him to they
58:50
don't normally Stories newest on the ticked off
58:53
he inherited a winery in rye rounded person
58:55
would almost got some New Jersey. An
58:57
inherent. I'm one of the
58:59
few people on Earth letter was the
59:02
direct correlation for massive growth for their
59:04
families and extracted no financial value. On
59:07
the opposite of what you think your weaponizing
59:09
against me, for your weaponizing that against me,
59:11
it's all just launched. It's you saying that?
59:13
Because what I'm saying in this video was
59:15
hard. I'm saying. You
59:18
Stop blaming. The. Government, the
59:21
school system, hair and your period.
59:23
And what about you? Your bronek?
59:25
Kid now. Twenty six when you
59:28
cried about you don't like it put in
59:30
the work. You've. Got unlimited people
59:32
look up to you talking about own five years
59:34
putting in the wars. I'm sitting here saying mean
59:36
I'm still working on com Not even. Like
59:39
oh I see your point Seven is what I
59:41
scored me and I'm and think about I'm on
59:43
the greeting my own home which not really a
59:45
three point feel. Like
59:48
league wide Are you not t bubble
59:50
being accountable or like something? We all.
59:52
Like you will eventually have to.
59:54
Man and woman are no matter
59:56
how toxic. Which. their whoop
59:59
civil suit me Well, but my dad,
1:00:01
I'm like, bro, there are people who had
1:00:03
their uncles abduct
1:00:06
them. There are people who watched
1:00:08
their parents drive out of the
1:00:10
driveway and get hit by a truck and get killed.
1:00:12
There are so much extreme. Like
1:00:16
as if your circumstance is the single
1:00:19
worst one, we both
1:00:21
are very active in a charity that
1:00:23
is trying to help 800 million
1:00:27
people. I'm
1:00:29
sorry about that. I was going for a fact. Brother,
1:00:32
800 million people on
1:00:34
earth did not have access to what
1:00:36
I just done. You and I spend real
1:00:38
time on that. 800
1:00:41
million people can't get clean water
1:00:43
within a day right now on earth.
1:00:46
Yeah. And you're
1:00:48
telling me your mom hurt your feelings?
1:00:50
I get it, that's real. But
1:00:52
you're not capable of being
1:00:54
accountable and saying, you know what,
1:00:57
I'm gonna be the one that fixes it. How
1:01:00
many, I met a man, and by the way, I'm recalling
1:01:02
that, had drinks the other day. Young man
1:01:04
who said I was the one that broke
1:01:06
the pattern of alcoholism in my family. My
1:01:08
great grandfather, my grandfather, my father, and I said,
1:01:11
no. And everything was there for me to do it.
1:01:13
I was on the streets at 13, I
1:01:16
started to go down it. I was like, no. So
1:01:18
why him? He's not special,
1:01:20
I'm not special. You're not special.
1:01:23
We have talents. The
1:01:26
thing I love about what you're doing with Meet Me in the Middle
1:01:30
is you're teaching, I
1:01:32
mean, adults, anyone, kids, but
1:01:34
adults as well, emotional accountability.
1:01:37
You're teaching emotional intelligence, you're
1:01:39
teaching skills that
1:01:41
can be applied towards day trading
1:01:44
and content and business and just
1:01:46
navigating the business world. High,
1:01:48
low, right? Exactly. If I can
1:01:50
get you right here. Like if you read this as a
1:01:53
kid, then the amount of people
1:01:55
that are gonna, bro, the amount of,
1:01:57
you know me pretty well. I know that this
1:01:59
book is gonna. the sleigh, because I'm
1:02:01
straight up feeding
1:02:03
you, like here's the medicine. Like
1:02:05
I was bored reading my book. Right
1:02:08
Dustin? Like my first half, because
1:02:10
it's so in details. Like it's, it's, and
1:02:12
jab, jab, jab, right hook did
1:02:15
really well. And I was like, okay, because
1:02:17
they get so much top level for me
1:02:19
every day on social. Let me in book
1:02:21
form give them something that they get, like,
1:02:23
right? I know this will
1:02:25
crush. Here's the problem to where you're about to
1:02:27
go. If they don't have their together, they're
1:02:30
gonna start, it's double screwed. It's gonna start working
1:02:32
a little bit. And then they're gonna get Johnny pants
1:02:35
saying, you and then they're gonna go, so
1:02:37
it doesn't even matter. Exactly. That's why I need ying
1:02:39
and yang. Yeah, that's why I had all the
1:02:41
drive for most of my life. I
1:02:43
was like, I need to be successful. I'm gonna get
1:02:46
better in sports. I was willing to put in the
1:02:48
work and do whatever it takes to win, right? And
1:02:50
that helped me become accomplished, but
1:02:53
it left me feeling insecure alone and
1:02:55
still not enough inside. No matter how
1:02:57
much I had, and
1:02:59
how many accomplishments or success or accolades or
1:03:01
whatever it might be, or people telling me,
1:03:03
followers, it didn't make me feel loved. It
1:03:06
didn't bring me peace. And as I was telling
1:03:08
you before, you were like,
1:03:10
what's different in your life right now? And I said,
1:03:12
I feel peace, I feel abundant, I feel grateful, I
1:03:14
feel blessed, and I feel loved. And
1:03:17
it wasn't because I've accomplished
1:03:20
more, it's because I went
1:03:22
inside and I started really connecting with
1:03:24
my heart, my emotions, childhood stuff, and
1:03:26
just allowing myself the time and space
1:03:28
to heal. And
1:03:31
that's been the hardest work. That has been harder
1:03:33
than building business and doing the podcast for 11
1:03:36
years every week and all these different things, but
1:03:39
actually looking
1:03:42
at the insecurities in front of me from
1:03:46
as far back as I could go, looking
1:03:48
at my younger self in front of me
1:03:50
and developing a new relationship
1:03:53
with self. For others, everything.
1:03:55
And it's given me peace with the
1:03:57
ups and downs. It's
1:04:00
just given me a different perspective of gratitude.
1:04:02
I've always been grateful but this has given
1:04:04
me more gratitude towards everything.
1:04:08
And I want to
1:04:10
share the skill that I think has really
1:04:12
helped me to think that I've
1:04:14
had to learn that I didn't have for most
1:04:17
of my life that has really given me this
1:04:19
perspective in a moment. But I
1:04:21
want to ask you with Meet Me in the Middle. If
1:04:25
you could only give people
1:04:27
three talents
1:04:29
that they should work on, focus
1:04:31
on, develop that is
1:04:33
going to help them in this, is going
1:04:35
to help them with relationships, health, everything. You've
1:04:39
got a lot of different things with Meet
1:04:42
Me in the Middle and a lot of
1:04:44
different characters and archetypes and identities that people
1:04:46
can go into. But three emotional skills that
1:04:49
people can master in their 20s, 30s and
1:04:51
beyond. What would those three things be?
1:04:58
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1:05:00
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1:05:04
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1:05:08
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spa day while on the go.
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Design your Range Rover Sport at
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landroverusa.com. This
1:06:00
show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I've learned the
1:06:03
hard way that constantly holding onto your emotions
1:06:05
and repeatedly choosing to not talk about your
1:06:07
feelings will only make you feel worse and
1:06:09
worse. And up until about 10 or 11
1:06:11
years ago, I was afraid to talk about
1:06:13
my trauma that I experienced. And I know
1:06:15
we all carry around different stressors, big and
1:06:17
small, and when we keep them bottled up,
1:06:19
it can start to affect us negatively. But
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therapy is a safe space to get things
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chest with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/Lewis today
1:06:48
to get 10% off your first
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month. That's BetterHelp, help.com/L-E-W-I-S. I'll
1:06:53
tell them in V-Friends form. So people that don't know,
1:06:55
there's 250 plus, I think it's
1:06:58
283 V-Friends, and they're named as
1:07:01
alliterations of things I believe in.
1:07:03
So this book is Patient Pig
1:07:05
and Eager Eagle. So you can
1:07:08
imagine how they can meet in the
1:07:10
middle, right? To answer your question directly,
1:07:12
I will start first with self-aware hair.
1:07:16
Self-awareness. And
1:07:18
self-awareness becomes the gateway drug
1:07:21
to self-love. Once you can
1:07:23
see it in yourself, I didn't see
1:07:25
the lack of candor. And my
1:07:27
superpower is self-awareness. This is why I was
1:07:29
so good. I was like, I'm this,
1:07:31
but I'm not this. And I'm this, but I'm not this. And
1:07:33
I didn't envy or have
1:07:36
jealousy towards that I wasn't 6'3".
1:07:38
I wish I was. I wanted to play
1:07:40
for the Jets instead of own them one day. But
1:07:43
it didn't happen. And I wish
1:07:45
I could sing, and I want to
1:07:48
be a backstreet boy. But that seems
1:07:50
fun. But I didn't have that. And
1:07:52
there was never like I got really so
1:07:54
self-awareness was really, really strong. And I think
1:07:57
it would help a lot of people. It's
1:07:59
okay. to be what you
1:08:01
are, but do you even know what you
1:08:03
are? How do you know what you are? Do you know
1:08:05
that you're tenacious? Do you know that
1:08:07
you're competitive? Do you, and I think you
1:08:09
need to double down on those things, not smooth them out,
1:08:11
or what a lot of people do, over
1:08:15
obsess of what you're not. You
1:08:19
need to tweak things. Anyway,
1:08:21
so self-awareness. How do you
1:08:23
develop more self-awareness? I'll go into that in
1:08:25
a minute, because I've thought about that a
1:08:27
lot. I actually think it's about communication around
1:08:29
your inner circle to let them be safe
1:08:31
to tell you the truth. Wow.
1:08:34
It's a wild one. Like, tell me what? Tell me
1:08:36
like. If you're listening right now, because
1:08:38
I'm gonna give it to you right now. Because
1:08:40
I just can feel the listener on the other
1:08:43
side. Hey, everyone, real talk. If
1:08:45
you're like, oh, this is hitting me, I've got a big one
1:08:47
for you, because I said this in my last book, and I've
1:08:49
got a lot of reach out on this. Just
1:08:52
pick the two or three people, probably your sister
1:08:54
and your brother, probably your mom or dad, definitely
1:08:57
your best friend, definitely your best friend.
1:08:59
And maybe like an epic person you
1:09:02
work with, like your favorite boss ever
1:09:04
or Chris. And literally
1:09:06
invite them to a dinner, literally.
1:09:08
I'm not joking, and say, this
1:09:10
is gonna be a weird, fun dinner. I'll surprise
1:09:13
you when we get there, because you don't want them to
1:09:15
overthink. When you get there, you're
1:09:17
gonna say, you'll never believe this. I was listening to
1:09:19
Lewis's podcast, Gary Vee was, I'm
1:09:21
really not joking. I
1:09:24
don't, this is a very important part of
1:09:26
this little narrative thing that I'm telling you. You're
1:09:28
gonna say to them, it's unlikely you'll be able to
1:09:30
deliver on what I'm about to ask right this second.
1:09:34
But if you're wondering why my best friend's here, and
1:09:36
my boss that none of you have ever met, and
1:09:38
my sister and my aunt are here, let me tell
1:09:40
you why. I'll bring them all together in one, wow.
1:09:43
Because what you wanna do is suffocate. It's
1:09:46
kind of like posting your weight on
1:09:48
the internet, and like you wanna suffocate
1:09:50
yourself. Correct. You're
1:09:52
saying, I wanna be more self-aware. I
1:09:55
need all of you to tell me the
1:09:57
full truth. All of you are the people I love.
1:10:00
I deem that I think love me
1:10:02
the most, which means it's gonna
1:10:04
be hard for you to say, but I'm bringing you
1:10:06
all together to say, what I need is this, and
1:10:08
you don't have to do it now, because boss,
1:10:10
you might feel weird saying it in front of my mom the first
1:10:12
time you've ever met her, but I
1:10:14
need it ASAP. Tomorrow's fine
1:10:17
one-on-one. And every family in
1:10:19
there- Things will open up as people start going.
1:10:21
Every circle's gonna be different. Every circle's gonna be
1:10:23
different. This is like almost creating a self intervention.
1:10:25
Correct. Most people aren't willing to do that. Correct.
1:10:28
Again, I think three to 11 people listening
1:10:30
right now, and I know a lot of people are gonna listen between
1:10:33
both of our platforms. I think only three to 11
1:10:35
people are gonna do this. And they could send us a
1:10:37
message after they do. It's gonna be amazing. And
1:10:39
so that would be how you find self awareness,
1:10:41
because someone's gonna, like, if I hadn't done that,
1:10:45
either my mom who struggles with it as well, my
1:10:48
dad who recognizes it, Brandon
1:10:50
Warnicki, my best friend, who runs Wine Library
1:10:52
and Wine Text, also struggles
1:10:54
with it, so he might've not even been able to
1:10:56
say it. My brother might've been able to come through.
1:10:59
My sister now would've been able to see it more than
1:11:01
10 years. But if I had done it, somebody
1:11:05
in that circle might've been like, you're
1:11:07
too full of shit, you're too nice. Wow.
1:11:10
Somebody might've, if I did what I'm saying
1:11:12
here, which is like, say it, it's
1:11:14
okay. I know you don't believe me. And
1:11:17
you're even, and I was very, I was
1:11:19
a challenge for people always, because I was
1:11:21
always providing so much emotional and financial value.
1:11:23
Of course, yeah. I'm a real piece
1:11:26
of work for most people, because
1:11:28
it is very common for me
1:11:30
to be either, and often both,
1:11:32
the emotional and financial values
1:11:34
in the relationship. They don't wanna ruin
1:11:37
the relationship. Of course. Yeah, yeah. Like,
1:11:39
it's, you know, it's
1:11:41
a vulnerability for me. It's
1:11:44
my coping mechanism. I always have the leverage. You can
1:11:46
take care of people, yeah. I just always have the
1:11:48
leverage. I mean, those are two things on
1:11:50
Earth. Emotional, and
1:11:52
finally, that's the game. And
1:11:54
I'm good at both, and
1:11:56
generous with both. Wow,
1:11:59
okay. So that's number one, self-awareness.
1:12:02
Number two, gratitude gorilla.
1:12:06
I think if you can learn, and
1:12:09
this is just killing people on earth, you
1:12:12
would be flabbergasted what would happen. And
1:12:14
I've seen it with people around me
1:12:16
recently, where you just decide
1:12:19
right now on this podcast, that
1:12:22
instead of waking up in the morning, which
1:12:24
so many people do, being all
1:12:26
upset, and having all of
1:12:29
their perspective and energy towards what's
1:12:31
not good, I should be making more
1:12:33
money. I don't like my job. This person
1:12:35
I just woke up next to is, I don't
1:12:37
like them anymore. Like all the tough stuff. Instead
1:12:41
deciding to be like, I'm
1:12:43
glad I woke up and didn't die last night. Simplicity.
1:12:48
Gratitude comes from simplicity. Like
1:12:51
it's like, you know, back to your point,
1:12:53
like everyone's like, Gary, social media's off
1:12:56
everybody. They think they need this stuff. Do you understand
1:12:58
that I grew up watching Lifestyles of the Rich and
1:13:00
Famous? Right. Have
1:13:03
you heard of MTV Cribs? Everybody
1:13:05
saw that. Everyone's showing the over
1:13:08
the top of it. Pimp my
1:13:10
ride. Like if you're not a $400 used
1:13:12
car, that fell. This
1:13:14
is not a new phenomenon. Like
1:13:17
as if, what, you didn't go to school and one
1:13:19
of the kids was the richest kid in school? You
1:13:21
didn't have envy that they had a brand new BMW
1:13:24
and you had to walk to school? Get
1:13:26
the out of here with envy and jealousy. It's
1:13:28
as old as true. Like time. So
1:13:31
gratitude. What do you have? Again, I
1:13:34
said something to somebody who was complaining in my inner circle
1:13:37
about three, four years ago. And
1:13:40
they were just like, but you, to me and
1:13:42
then to other stuff, right? And I finally
1:13:45
said, I said, ex person, let's
1:13:48
fuck this dinner. Cause it's not like fun.
1:13:51
Instead of telling me like why I have it
1:13:53
better, why, and this is somebody
1:13:55
I really know, why this person has better, why your older
1:13:57
brother has it better. This is the real example. I'm like,
1:14:00
in the next 20 minutes while we eat this chicken,
1:14:03
can you please tell me? Hand the door perfectly. You're
1:14:05
gonna like this. I said, can you tell me who
1:14:07
you have it better than? Who? And
1:14:11
it was a really interesting moment and I know that person's
1:14:13
smiling right now and I'll probably get a text. I
1:14:15
think it really had an impact on them because
1:14:18
I suffocated it. They're like,
1:14:20
oh, I was like, no, no, just appease me. We're
1:14:23
like, we're here. Who do you have
1:14:25
it better than? And then he
1:14:27
went into like all our common people which he definitely
1:14:29
had it better than. And then I went into my,
1:14:31
and I'm like, okay. And
1:14:35
what about everybody who is
1:14:37
in Africa right now
1:14:39
in concentration and the people
1:14:41
in China, and like people like, what
1:14:44
about real, what about
1:14:46
somebody who during this dinner got
1:14:48
diagnosed with terminal cancer and
1:14:51
during this dinner looked down at
1:14:53
their phone real quick and got into a car accident that
1:14:55
took their life. And what about
1:14:57
the two 14 year old twin daughters that lost their
1:14:59
mom in that picture I just paid? Since we've
1:15:01
been sitting here, I just don't
1:15:03
understand how people don't understand what's going on. Since you
1:15:06
and I have been sitting recording this
1:15:08
podcast of the 8 billion people
1:15:10
on earth, thousands. Have
1:15:12
died. Have not only died,
1:15:15
correct, but have gotten
1:15:17
devastating news. I
1:15:20
saw this stat maybe five years ago that
1:15:23
has given me a completely different perspective on
1:15:25
gratitude that roughly 150,000 people a day die. We
1:15:30
woke up today. We're not one of them. And
1:15:33
if we can just have that one perspective, 150,000
1:15:35
people a day die. I
1:15:37
live on that, Louis. And honestly, death
1:15:39
is less scary than something, notice where
1:15:42
I went with it. You said die
1:15:44
and I jumped in with devastating news.
1:15:49
I asked this to myself and I asked it to everyone.
1:15:52
Is it better for you to die? Or
1:15:54
is it better for the person you love the
1:15:56
most on earth and can't live without dying? I
1:15:58
think most people are gonna choose themselves. that was an ethereal.
1:16:01
So there's just a lot going on. So
1:16:03
I just think gratitude, number three, and we already
1:16:05
talked about it, but I can't get away from
1:16:07
it. If you can
1:16:10
learn that pointing a thumb will
1:16:12
lead to ultimate happiness, and
1:16:14
pointing a finger will compound your
1:16:17
unhappiness, you will realize that
1:16:19
accountability is the, I
1:16:22
almost have delusional, not
1:16:24
even healthy accountability. That's
1:16:27
how much I like it. I
1:16:29
really do believe what I'm about to say.
1:16:32
Every single thing at VaynerX
1:16:34
and VeeFriends and VaynerSports and every one
1:16:36
of my companies that has a problem is 100% my
1:16:38
fault. I'm at the top. So
1:16:41
if Sally screwed up, well, I hired the person
1:16:43
that hired the person that hired the person that
1:16:46
hired Sally. I did. So
1:16:49
I think that accountability
1:16:52
is the anecdote. It's
1:16:55
the formula. It's the
1:16:57
solution. It's the medicine, and I believe
1:16:59
the reason everyone's talking about a lot
1:17:01
of rough stuff right now is we
1:17:04
are in the greatest era of blame
1:17:06
in a very long time. It
1:17:09
is everyone's fault but yourself. Right. And
1:17:12
that's because politicians are f***ing up everything,
1:17:14
so it's very easy to be like this, either
1:17:16
this side. Parenting has definitely got
1:17:18
a ride where it goes too far, one or
1:17:21
another. In general, there's tons of great parents. I
1:17:23
just think, you know, we're in a little bit of a pickle. People
1:17:26
lack civility, which is not nice
1:17:28
to each other. People are just
1:17:30
talking, so negative. People being
1:17:33
excited about people's downfalls, right?
1:17:37
I mean, I had a real moment on all this
1:17:39
stuff very recently with what happened with
1:17:41
Kate Middleton, right? What happened? You
1:17:43
know, I don't know, I always, I hate talking about things
1:17:46
I don't know, so I'm gonna go very headline reading. I
1:17:48
guess, you know, recently,
1:17:50
like, there was some, She
1:17:52
was like, you were a comedian, and there was like a cropped photo, and
1:17:54
everyone had jokes, and everyone had jokes, and she didn't
1:17:56
even video and said I have cancer. Wow.
1:18:00
And everyone's like, I'm
1:18:02
sorry. What do you mean I'm sorry? Or
1:18:05
I'm embarrassed. What about not doing it in the first
1:18:07
place? The f*** are you f***ing on
1:18:09
people for? I just
1:18:11
have a very simple question for people. Explain
1:18:14
to me any justification
1:18:19
on another human being. Yeah,
1:18:21
I guess the only thing I could think they might
1:18:23
be thinking is, well, to hold people accountable if they're
1:18:26
doing harm to others. Who the f*** are you? Yeah.
1:18:30
I am no, I love
1:18:33
when people are like, I have humility
1:18:35
would have been the next, as if
1:18:37
I'm supposed to, who the f*** are you
1:18:39
that you're supposed to
1:18:41
hold Kate Middleton accountable? Right. Who the
1:18:44
f*** do you think you are? I don't
1:18:46
think I'm supposed to hold anybody accountable
1:18:48
at some level, including
1:18:50
employees, children. You're part
1:18:53
of it. That's ego.
1:18:55
That's delusion. I'm
1:18:57
gonna hold you accountable for what? That
1:19:00
you married into the royal fit? What the f*** does it matter
1:19:02
with you? And sometimes when people
1:19:04
play this chess game with me, they go, but
1:19:06
what if somebody came up at you and punched
1:19:08
you in the face? My brain
1:19:10
goes into, that person's at a really f***ed
1:19:12
up place. Yeah.
1:19:14
Before I, you know, like, I just, I don't
1:19:16
think people have a good relationship with understanding
1:19:18
where anger, negativity, and darkness
1:19:20
comes from. It always comes
1:19:22
from a place of weakness. I
1:19:26
struggle to be mad at someone when
1:19:29
my first default thought is to have
1:19:31
compassion for them. Yeah, that's a superpower.
1:19:35
It's a blessing I see to my mom. I know
1:19:37
she gave me that DNA and then she obviously fostered
1:19:39
it, but it is how
1:19:41
I see the world. And I really wish the rest of the world
1:19:43
saw it that way too. Because I will tell
1:19:45
you what happens with that. You
1:19:48
don't have the capacity to hate someone for
1:19:51
being different than you when that happens. It doesn't
1:19:53
mean you have to allow it to continue to
1:19:55
happen. No, well, this is great boundaries. You know
1:19:57
what I mean? Yeah, this is, I love you
1:19:59
for that. I just feel
1:20:01
super in charge. Well Gary, I'm like, well
1:20:03
then I can stop talking to them. Well
1:20:06
what if it's your mom? You can stop talking
1:20:08
to your mom. I don't recommend it. I'd rather
1:20:10
you go through therapy, push, I'd rather something, they're
1:20:12
being, but you are fully in charge. Gary, everything,
1:20:15
I mean I had this dinner the other night.
1:20:17
Got a lot of dinners as you can hear.
1:20:20
But I'm getting hype right now. This
1:20:23
guy's like, everything's up in America. I finally looked at
1:20:25
him and said, move. Mm-hmm,
1:20:29
quit blaming. Move. Yeah. You
1:20:33
like Canada? Right. Epic, Mexico,
1:20:35
epic. I don't know, Sweden sounds nice. Like, Spain's
1:20:39
lovely this time of year. I don't, shut
1:20:41
the fuck up. And
1:20:46
I'm not saying that negatively. I'm saying
1:20:48
that encouragingly. Dwelling
1:20:51
and complaining and envy and
1:20:53
jealousy are massive weaknesses. I
1:20:55
go on Twitter and I look at
1:20:58
all of this and I'm like insecure, insecure,
1:21:00
insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, and left, right, left,
1:21:02
right, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure. Bad place,
1:21:04
bad place, bad place, bad. And
1:21:07
I'm not with judgment. With
1:21:10
deep hope
1:21:12
that I and many others that
1:21:15
are in a good place can figure out the
1:21:17
single word to say, do
1:21:20
the single podcast, write
1:21:22
the single book, post the
1:21:24
single quote that might help one of
1:21:26
those people say, okay. Because for me,
1:21:29
what has definitely made me successful and was a
1:21:31
kissing cousin to my inability to be candorous is
1:21:34
I care about positivity. I
1:21:36
don't do well in negativity. And
1:21:39
so I have this yearning to do it
1:21:41
for the world because I'm already full. It's like
1:21:44
back to the cup. Okay, my cup is
1:21:46
full. Well,
1:21:48
when you're lucky, and I think you're going
1:21:50
through this journey right now, so this is gonna be really understandable to
1:21:52
you. I'm good. Yeah.
1:21:55
What do you do next? How botherous. You
1:21:57
don't know what to do with it. It's
1:21:59
the only and it makes you feel good because you don't need
1:22:01
any more water. You're water school, you don't
1:22:03
have land. I'm good. Now,
1:22:06
I'm gonna end with this. Multiple
1:22:10
times a day, I have micro moments of like,
1:22:12
ooh, but they don't
1:22:14
have sustainability. Got it? You catch it
1:22:16
and you move on. We lost two big
1:22:19
clients yesterday. One in Asia, one in
1:22:21
Europe. There's a
1:22:23
lot of work to be done. But I'm
1:22:25
not like, I'm dead. Or
1:22:27
like, there's always something.
1:22:31
Two books that you got going on, Meet Me in the
1:22:33
Middle. I think everyone should be getting this, especially parents get
1:22:35
this so you can have this for your kids. Well, the
1:22:37
cool thing with Meet Me in the Middle and the cartoons
1:22:39
I'm doing this summer that are gonna
1:22:41
be launching on YouTube Kids is I'm making them both
1:22:43
for the parents and the kids. So
1:22:46
what I'm most excited about is when the parents
1:22:48
read this, I'm poking at them too. Of course.
1:22:50
And that is going to be, if I
1:22:52
pull anything off, if I pull off the dream I
1:22:55
have over the next 40 years, 50
1:22:57
years would be friends. Hopefully one of my 48, 98, I want 105.
1:23:00
So over the next 57 years, is
1:23:04
that I got to them both. Like
1:23:07
I dream so hard right now
1:23:09
that a parent is laying in bed with their five-year-old
1:23:11
reading it. And they're like, yeah. And
1:23:14
they're like, oh. I'm sorry, sorry about
1:23:16
that. So you
1:23:19
guys can get over copy, go on Amazon or
1:23:21
anywhere. Books are sold, meet me in the middle,
1:23:23
make sure you get this. Again, I don't think
1:23:25
day trading attention is as valuable unless you get
1:23:27
me in the middle first, because then
1:23:29
you can appreciate what you're creating in
1:23:32
your freelance business, solo entrepreneur, if
1:23:34
you're a career or whatever it might be. Day
1:23:37
trading attention. That said though, I think about you a
1:23:39
lot. Cause I met you when you were the LinkedIn
1:23:41
guy in 2009. And
1:23:43
then you were a pioneer in podcasting. What
1:23:45
is exciting about, what tricked me for so
1:23:47
long was the advice
1:23:50
that's tactical of the moment like this, it
1:23:52
works for everyone. It's not sustainable work if
1:23:55
you don't do the thing you're talking about.
1:23:57
So 2011 you. would
1:24:00
have read this and tripled. And
1:24:02
you would have texted me and be like, bro, I love you.
1:24:05
To your point, you would still have this
1:24:07
day of rec. You still had to get to that place.
1:24:10
And then that place becomes where you become
1:24:12
the ultimate version. Exactly. So get both obviously,
1:24:15
but day trading attention is about how to
1:24:17
actually build brand sales in the new social
1:24:19
media world. Again, this is
1:24:21
required reading from anyone in online marketing, social
1:24:23
media, content creation, business, make sure you get
1:24:25
a copy of this. It's step by step.
1:24:28
It's 20 years of
1:24:30
experience with Gary on social media and obsessive with
1:24:32
data and results and putting into one book. So
1:24:35
this is required reading. Of the moment, right? Of
1:24:37
the moment, yeah, of course. So this book was
1:24:39
called Jab, Jab, Jab Left Hook until the last
1:24:42
moment. Oh, it's okay. It's like,
1:24:44
I need to write this book every, I should
1:24:46
be writing it every year, like the dummies. But
1:24:50
right now I'm every 10 years and hopefully
1:24:52
I'll close the gap. But what I'm excited
1:24:55
about is it is pattern recognition expertise, but
1:24:57
it is of this second. Yes, absolutely. So
1:24:59
get that book. Two
1:25:02
final questions before I ask them I'll acknowledge
1:25:04
you again, Gary, for just being a real
1:25:06
human being, for being a real friend, for
1:25:08
showing up consistently for so many
1:25:11
people. I get personally in your life, but
1:25:13
for the world that follows your content, I
1:25:15
just appreciate how you continue to evolve, show
1:25:17
up. And the thing that I think I love
1:25:19
the most about you is how you took your health
1:25:21
to a whole nother level. Seven, eight years
1:25:24
ago, I think you went all in. 10
1:25:26
years ago. And I think that is for
1:25:28
me the most inspiring thing because people can
1:25:31
see the business success. I'm like, I want
1:25:33
that and then miss out on the health.
1:25:36
So the fact that you keep going all in
1:25:38
on that and you look better now than you
1:25:40
did 10 years ago is
1:25:42
something I really appreciate and respect because I
1:25:44
think that's what the world's gonna need more
1:25:46
of is focusing on their own health. I asked you
1:25:48
about your three truths before. I'm gonna skip this question.
1:25:50
I'm gonna go to the final question, which is what
1:25:53
is your definition of greatness? Mm. That
1:25:56
you gave more than you took. I
1:26:00
really, I really love
1:26:02
this talk. I'm excited about this podcast.
1:26:04
I think the extra time, usually I
1:26:07
do 45 or, you know, I
1:26:09
think the extra time slowed me down.
1:26:11
I think one of the reasons I'm not
1:26:13
good at being a podcast host is that
1:26:15
they're very, no really, they're very tight times.
1:26:18
I always have a meeting after, and
1:26:20
people get frustrated with me because I talk over
1:26:22
my guests because I'm not relaxed because I know
1:26:24
I don't have a lot of time, and I
1:26:26
want to get to a bunch of punch lines
1:26:29
for them, but then it becomes awkward, and I'm
1:26:31
talking over them, and I'm interrupting, like, Gary, he
1:26:33
just wants to talk, and the audience
1:26:35
is not wrong that gets frustrated by that version.
1:26:37
Some people love it because they have brains like
1:26:39
mine, but nonetheless, I
1:26:42
really do think we touched on the thing that is
1:26:44
greatness, which is like, look, one
1:26:47
of the things I've done well in my life
1:26:49
is I was attracted to older people my whole
1:26:51
life. When I was seven, 10, 13,
1:26:53
I'd always go and talk to 80, 90 year
1:26:55
olds at the bench, at the park. It was
1:26:58
big, and I used to think it was because I
1:27:00
didn't have grandparents. Because
1:27:02
I lost three of my four grandparents. I had
1:27:04
my grandma, Esther, thank God, and
1:27:06
I was like, oh, especially grandfathers, I would go
1:27:08
to a lot, so more specifically, I didn't have
1:27:11
grandfathers. I've
1:27:13
come to realize that's not true. It's that
1:27:15
I'm addicted to wisdom and the
1:27:17
actual game, and
1:27:20
I think greatness comes in, like,
1:27:24
there's been a lot of great athletes, and
1:27:27
again, I'm bringing up Kobe again because I'm so glad you
1:27:29
got to do that podcast. It's so devastating
1:27:31
that it's not on this earth. But
1:27:33
Kobe was different because he was more like us
1:27:35
in the way that, like, it wasn't that he
1:27:37
was just a great athlete. He
1:27:40
gave a about, like,
1:27:42
higher thinking and, like, competition
1:27:44
as a healthy, like, it
1:27:46
was just more thoughtful. Yes. And,
1:27:48
you know, I think that, I
1:27:51
think the reason he's revered is he gave to
1:27:53
us. Yes. Right? And
1:27:55
I think greatness comes in, like, I think
1:27:57
my mom is the greatest parent of all time.
1:28:00
And when I think about why I believe that
1:28:02
is, the
1:28:05
reason I believe that is there's others that tie
1:28:07
her, but they
1:28:09
can only tie her. Because my definition of a
1:28:11
parent is, there's many
1:28:13
things to it, but my personal subjective definition is,
1:28:15
how much did you give to those kids? And
1:28:19
I just think my mom gave it all, like all of it.
1:28:21
And I just know that that means for every other
1:28:24
mom and dad that has done that, they can only
1:28:26
tie my mom for the greatest, but it is a
1:28:28
giving game. And so I do
1:28:30
a lot of things of gaining, building
1:28:32
my companies and dollars and
1:28:34
followers and attention, I understand that.
1:28:37
But I'm outpacing it with my giving, and I
1:28:39
think I will continue to do that. And that
1:28:41
is where the V-friend strategy came from. I
1:28:44
was like, oh, I can take this. This
1:28:46
is what Disney, and actually now I realize,
1:28:48
this is why Sesame Street and Jim Henson
1:28:50
is a legend. And I'm gonna do that
1:28:53
too. I'm gonna create characters that
1:28:55
people are gonna fall over, but I'm gonna do
1:28:57
it around collectability, like Pokemon. Because
1:28:59
what I know about Pokemon and Marvel is
1:29:02
that old Gs still like it, whereas
1:29:04
Big Bird and Cookie Monster, we're done
1:29:06
with. But if I
1:29:08
take what's epic about, Pokemon doesn't
1:29:11
bring the value that
1:29:13
Sesame Street does. But
1:29:18
if I take the best of Sesame Street
1:29:20
and the best of Pokemon, and I smash
1:29:22
that together, and I put my marketing capabilities
1:29:24
and my collectible and business strategies, and I
1:29:26
build something, man, I can really leave
1:29:28
a positive impact. The one question I
1:29:30
wanted to ask you is, so
1:29:33
many of them, but one that's on my mind right now is, you've
1:29:36
always told me, and a
1:29:38
lot of your followers, ahead of time, this
1:29:41
is what's coming. Yes. You
1:29:43
are early Twitter, beyond Twitter, this is what's
1:29:46
happening, this is what's happening now, early
1:29:48
Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, you were always pushing the TikTok,
1:29:50
you were the first one on TikTok, Snapchat, I
1:29:53
remember you looking me in the eye saying, be
1:29:55
on Snapchat. That was the only
1:29:57
thing that didn't work for me, but everything else has worked
1:29:59
for me. Who
1:30:01
knows what's gonna happen with TikTok, Instagram,
1:30:03
Facebook, all of these different platforms when
1:30:07
we're thinking of attention in the future.
1:30:09
AI and fricking mobile devices and all these
1:30:11
things. Here are the things that have a
1:30:13
chance. As you know, what I'm great at
1:30:15
is not predicting, but moving so goddamn fast
1:30:17
when it happens. And then going all
1:30:20
in. Yeah, that I have that advantage. What
1:30:22
is coming? Here's things that
1:30:24
are coming. One, for people like you
1:30:26
and I, all of our content
1:30:28
in every language at scale. We've got a
1:30:30
million subscribers on Spanish on YouTube. In our
1:30:32
voice. Oh yeah, that's the key. That's what
1:30:34
we're working on now. So
1:30:37
I, and you've seen it
1:30:39
already, Dustin. We're pretty close, we're almost done. Mommy's
1:30:42
speaking every language. In my voice, in
1:30:44
my little high pitches, in me. That's
1:30:47
gonna be huge for every- Through AI, right?
1:30:49
Is there a tool specifically you're looking at that
1:30:52
you're- We're using vSpeech, or there's a button. I
1:30:54
mean, it's moving so- 50 of
1:30:56
them. This is how I hesitated, and I'm
1:30:58
a big fan of- Yeah, it may be gone. Yeah, it's, that
1:31:00
game is AI eating itself up. It's just
1:31:03
like crazy. So
1:31:06
AI. Virtual influencers. Oh
1:31:09
yeah, that's common. I've seen those. People are blowing
1:31:11
up already with, you mean just
1:31:13
like made up influencers. That's right. AKA
1:31:16
very attractive people. On Instagram,
1:31:18
that you're like- And
1:31:21
that will go, that will go not just, right
1:31:23
now the early movers like always are like models
1:31:25
and like all that. But
1:31:27
it will be full-plex. Ricky
1:31:29
Thompson, 47-year-old marketing expert,
1:31:32
who's gonna have 14 million
1:31:34
followers, and a Joanna
1:31:36
Thompson in Australia that actually
1:31:38
owns him. Isn't that crazy?
1:31:40
And is going, oh, it's gonna be huge. So virtual
1:31:43
influencers. Are you getting into some of that too?
1:31:45
Yeah, I'm really starting to go deep on that. Live
1:31:47
streaming as a more
1:31:49
scaled everyday thing. Let me explain what I mean
1:31:51
by that. Me saying
1:31:53
live streaming is important. It's not
1:31:56
Tysonet and like Aiden Ross and like
1:31:58
Ninja clicks. It's like plenty of people
1:32:01
are crushing on Twitch and other things. No,
1:32:03
I mean what I'm up to now, which is I have
1:32:05
a camera in my office on
1:32:07
mute for 13 hours
1:32:09
a day and I'm just sitting there
1:32:11
and entrepreneurial ASMR. It's mute. Mute, because
1:32:13
I'm having real meetings. So people are
1:32:16
watching you? Watching me. That's
1:32:18
right. And I try to unmute and that's a
1:32:20
good thing for me. He created an unmute counter
1:32:22
and I'm like looking at him like, oh, I
1:32:24
haven't unmuted yet. Hey, everyone did a like literally.
1:32:27
Wow. 13 hours a day? That's
1:32:29
right, people making pizza. People, I
1:32:31
predict in five years, someone who loves
1:32:33
to mow their lawn, mow
1:32:37
their lawn, dyslexia, mow their lawn,
1:32:40
will go from like that's that classic dad who
1:32:42
does it. The modern dad,
1:32:44
the 28 year old who's destined to be a 48
1:32:47
year old dad who loves to mow
1:32:49
their lawn, like loves it, is
1:32:51
destined right now as we're speaking to
1:32:54
one time in seven years as he's on that
1:32:56
journey, streaming it for
1:32:58
some weird reason. Today,
1:33:01
every 42 year old, 61 year old man
1:33:03
or woman that loves
1:33:05
to mow their lawn for an hour and a half, a big lawn, does
1:33:08
not think, let me set up a laptop and
1:33:10
stream live onto it. Does it cross their mind?
1:33:13
I believe it will become known. I believe one
1:33:15
of them will do it. I believe for whatever
1:33:17
reason it will crush. And I believe that person
1:33:19
will a year later retire from being a principal
1:33:22
in a high school to making
1:33:24
a million dollars a year. Mowing
1:33:26
their lawn. Live streaming it. Live streaming
1:33:28
it. So think of how different that is than what I
1:33:30
predicted would crush it. Remember what I predicted would crush it,
1:33:32
which was insane, which is influencers
1:33:35
are gonna make money. I mean, call it influencers, we didn't
1:33:37
have the term yet. People will
1:33:39
make money on the internet themselves. That
1:33:41
was like, right now,
1:33:43
somebody's like, wait a minute, I will
1:33:46
literally make a full time living by
1:33:49
streaming, making breakfast for my family
1:33:51
every morning. Let me just say
1:33:53
that, you know what I'm saying that is? Crazy, man. Literally
1:33:55
a mom or dad. Let's say a stay
1:33:58
at home dad or mom. Baby. is
1:34:00
literally gonna start streaming her 6am to
1:34:02
7.30 of prepping breakfast for everybody
1:34:04
and it's gonna capture a fever. And they're
1:34:07
gonna get millions of viewers every morning. And
1:34:09
they're gonna get subscribers for two bucks. Well,
1:34:11
they're gonna get merch deals. And
1:34:13
book deals, this, yeah. I'm
1:34:15
seeing if there's a guy on TikTok who goes live,
1:34:17
it must be all day, he's live, he owns a
1:34:19
little fruit stand. He's just cutting up fruit. And he's
1:34:22
got a massive line every day that just wants to
1:34:24
be in the stream for a second. That's right. Life
1:34:26
streaming, cutting fruit. It's crazy. The
1:34:30
extreme version of what I saw
1:34:32
happening with Crush It is about
1:34:34
to happen with live streaming because it takes it to
1:34:36
passive instead of progressive. I had to sit down
1:34:38
and do the line show. Now
1:34:40
it becomes passive. I will stream while
1:34:43
I'm running my wine store. But will people
1:34:45
watch hours of content
1:34:48
when you need to be five seconds
1:34:50
of videos that people are losing attention?
1:34:53
No, because people are watching long form content
1:34:55
at scale right now. You know this. You
1:34:58
just don't want to be in the middle. You
1:35:00
want to either be great at short form or you
1:35:02
want to be great at long form. You
1:35:04
just don't want to be the middle or you don't want to
1:35:06
be bad at long form or bad at short form. You could
1:35:08
make people binge watch an
1:35:11
entire season of something on Netflix or sit.
1:35:14
I have people that sit with me, you know this, sit
1:35:16
with me the whole night. That's crazy. They sit their
1:35:19
whole night and talk
1:35:21
to each other. That's crazy. Well, that's community.
1:35:23
I mean, it's amazing. It's crazy. It's
1:35:25
funny, it reminded me. You might remember this. When
1:35:27
I was coming up the game on Twitter and
1:35:31
Vidler and YouTube. What was it,
1:35:33
Periscope? Well, that was later
1:35:35
and Meerkat. Meerkat. But what
1:35:37
about before that? David Booth. You stream. You
1:35:39
just stream, man. You just stream. And that was
1:35:41
big for me. Wow, I remember that. I would
1:35:44
have been a huge streamer, but
1:35:46
now I'm too busy. So my, by
1:35:48
the way, couple hundred people, I have nothing because
1:35:50
I'm not, there's nothing. Now,
1:35:53
to Dustin and team's credit, now they're playing
1:35:55
my recent videos in the top right corner
1:35:58
during the live stream. I'm on
1:36:00
mute, but on the top right corner, a
1:36:02
smaller box is gonna be this, literally this.
1:36:06
And so we're figuring it out,
1:36:08
and again, I
1:36:10
think there's gonna be way more compelling ASMR.
1:36:12
I can tell you right now, it would've
1:36:14
been much more compelling to follow me tasting
1:36:16
wine all day. What I'm doing right
1:36:18
now is really boring. I'm sitting in an office for
1:36:20
like 12 hours a day just doing meetings. I'm
1:36:23
not even in the old DRock Daily V world
1:36:25
where I was moving around a lot. I'm in
1:36:28
full operations mode. I'm VaynerX and five friends
1:36:30
right now. I'm in one of those
1:36:32
moments. I'm not in Gary V land as much.
1:36:35
One final question then, be respectful of your time. Three
1:36:37
truths, I think you answered this probably five years ago
1:36:39
last time you're on. You said
1:36:41
you wanna live to 105. Yeah. Imagine
1:36:44
you get to create everything from this
1:36:46
moment until then. Okay. Your
1:36:49
vision, your relationships. You're absolutely. All of
1:36:51
it happens, but you have to take
1:36:53
everything with you. So once you
1:36:55
leave, no one has access to V friends,
1:36:58
creator media, it's all gone. All the
1:37:00
content you've created, gone. Erased from time.
1:37:02
Okay. Hypothetical scenario. No, I
1:37:04
like, you got me intrigued. Go ahead. So
1:37:06
I die at 105 and everything disappears. All
1:37:09
the content you've made, gone. Okay. Everyone
1:37:11
lives. What about the relationships I've made? Those are
1:37:13
there. Okay, got it. So content.
1:37:15
Content is gone. Got it.
1:37:18
Business content. Yeah, everything is gone.
1:37:20
But on your final day. Yeah. You
1:37:22
get to do one final live stream. Yeah. And
1:37:25
all you get to leave behind is three truths. Three
1:37:28
things you know to be true. If you could go
1:37:31
16 years in the future. I could do right
1:37:33
now. I would talk to them. Three things that all they can
1:37:35
have to remind you of. I'd say first of all, thank you
1:37:37
for this journey. I'm gonna miss every one of you deeply. This
1:37:39
sucks. I really wish I could go to 110. I
1:37:41
don't know why I said that. Right,
1:37:43
but three things you can leave behind. I would say
1:37:45
to them that like, you're in life. I
1:37:49
would say to everybody, I would hope that I would have
1:37:51
the entire 8 billion people on earth watching me on this
1:37:53
last day, if we all knew it was going down. The
1:37:56
first thing I would say to them is, I promise
1:37:58
you this is the most truth I've. learned in
1:38:00
105 years, in life you find what
1:38:03
you're looking for. If you
1:38:05
are looking for negativity and pain, you will find
1:38:07
it. And if you are looking for
1:38:09
joy and happiness, you will find it. And
1:38:13
I would expand on that in my three truths
1:38:15
because that's the game. You
1:38:17
find what you're looking for. If
1:38:19
you're in a good place, you're gonna find good. I
1:38:22
can't imagine, I'm just breaking out of this question for a
1:38:24
second. Bro,
1:38:27
I consume positive content all day while everyone's telling
1:38:29
me the world's never been worse. The world's never
1:38:31
been better. Can
1:38:34
I read some the other day of like pig
1:38:36
liver or whatever, something's about to go in our body now, like
1:38:38
we're gonna cure that one too. Like we're fixing. Like
1:38:41
the world was worse. Like it's
1:38:44
never been worse. I'm like, have you heard about the Holocaust?
1:38:48
The black plague? Like COVID was
1:38:50
fucked up. The black plague wiped out like
1:38:52
the majority of us. Like World
1:38:55
War I was nasty. Like
1:38:58
I just don't understand people's lack of perspective. So
1:39:00
I really am hot on that. Number one,
1:39:02
number two. That love is worth
1:39:04
fighting for. That you
1:39:07
must destroy yourself for
1:39:11
it. Meaning not destroy yourself, meaning
1:39:13
like stop what
1:39:15
you think you value if you don't
1:39:17
have it. A
1:39:19
current relationship that
1:39:21
might be comfortable, which
1:39:23
is very hard. I appreciate your reaction
1:39:25
to that. That's probably the hardest advice I just gave,
1:39:28
you know that you're in a relationship, but
1:39:31
it is not the right one,
1:39:33
but it's your children. It's comfortable,
1:39:35
real stuff. You like them. Like
1:39:38
you like them. That
1:39:40
love is worth fighting for. Okay. You
1:39:43
know? And the third one. And
1:39:47
it's so funny how simple my brain goes. Those
1:39:50
two really, really like choosing happiness
1:39:52
and love are so obvious to
1:39:54
me. You know what? I'm
1:39:57
a funny one. Cause I have a funny feeling that I would
1:39:59
go out funny. I
1:40:02
would go out with a good curse, I think. I
1:40:04
would say this, because I feel it very heavily right
1:40:06
now. Until you
1:40:09
realize that competition is one of the great
1:40:11
traits in life, that it
1:40:13
is good. That like anything,
1:40:15
out of balance, it's bad. But
1:40:18
the elimination of merit, the
1:40:22
demonization of alpha skills has
1:40:25
really ended up. Telling
1:40:27
a six year old that it's just
1:40:30
a game, who was born
1:40:32
with the gift of being in
1:40:34
alpha and on fire and competitive, is the
1:40:36
worst thing you could do as a parent.
1:40:38
Wow. I despise
1:40:40
it, and I don't like that word despise. Watching
1:40:43
parents that are wildly well-intended,
1:40:48
systematically suck out the
1:40:51
magic of a kid who was
1:40:53
born a magician, is devastating.
1:40:56
And one of the real issues that I hope in
1:40:59
the next 50 years, it gets figured out, but
1:41:01
right now, so I'll use it as
1:41:03
an opportunity to make this point, competition
1:41:07
is one of the best things on earth. And
1:41:10
we have gotten really bad on the
1:41:12
left side of things in understanding it,
1:41:14
and it's people up,
1:41:17
because if you're successful in
1:41:19
sucking out competition of an alpha six
1:41:22
year old, if you're successful in
1:41:24
those 12 years that you have them in your roof, you've
1:41:27
put indifference on a
1:41:29
pedestal. And so what
1:41:31
you've done is you've taken someone who's destined to do
1:41:33
some really good, and
1:41:36
you've actually put a kid into a
1:41:38
place of thinking things don't matter.
1:41:41
And when you don't think anything matters, and
1:41:43
you don't think anything's worth anything, you
1:41:45
go down a very dangerous road, and
1:41:48
I'm gonna go very, very cautious here,
1:41:50
because what I'm alluding to is
1:41:53
almost inappropriate, which is, I
1:41:56
worry that a lot of the things that we most
1:41:58
worried about, People say it, suicide
1:42:01
and other things are not a
1:42:03
product of social media. They're
1:42:06
a product of us not recognizing things
1:42:08
out of whack. Competition
1:42:11
is one of the great traits in
1:42:14
society and we must at
1:42:16
all costs stop demonizing
1:42:19
it. Gary Vee, love you
1:42:21
brother. Thanks for being here man. Love you bro. Amazing.
1:42:24
Wow. I hope you
1:42:26
enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you
1:42:28
on your journey towards greatness. Make sure
1:42:30
to check out the show notes in
1:42:32
the description for a full rundown of
1:42:35
today's episode with all the important links.
1:42:37
And if you want weekly exclusive bonus
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1:42:54
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1:42:58
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1:43:00
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1:43:02
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1:43:05
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1:43:07
you matter. And now it's time to go
1:43:09
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