0:00

Is attention our most valuable

0:02

asset today? Yes, and not

0:04

only today. Attention is how

0:06

religion was built. Attention is how

0:08

nations were built. Attention is

0:10

how sports were built. Attention is

0:12

how fame is built. Attention is

0:15

the singular asset of the human

0:17

race. Attention is the number one

0:19

asset. Ms.

0:21

Mullahah Marahim, welcome to Episode 115 of

0:25

the MoShow Podcast. I guess

0:27

today needs no introduction, but that won't

0:29

stop me from giving one because he's an absolute

0:31

beast in every sense of

0:33

the word. He's a serial entrepreneur, chairman

0:35

of VaynerX, five-time New York Times, best-selling

0:37

author, and one of the most influential

0:39

voices in business and marketing and just

0:42

voices in general today. You

0:44

probably know him as Gary Vee on social

0:46

media, where he's built a massive following by

0:48

sharing his ideas on entrepreneurship, culture, and the

0:50

future of business in a way that is

0:52

so easily digestible. His seamless content

0:54

has inspired millions, if not billions, around

0:56

the world who are out there pursuing

0:59

their passion or looking for ways to find out

1:01

what their passion is. He's a

1:03

visionary leader who practices what he preaches. He's

1:05

also an angel investor who's gotten

1:08

in early on companies like Facebook,

1:10

Twitter, Venmo, and Uber. The

1:12

man has a sixth sense for spotting the next big

1:14

thing. Today, he sits across

1:16

me in my country, Saudi Arabia, in

1:18

the middle of Kaft, which is our

1:21

equivalent of Midtown Manhattan. His

1:23

latest book, which just got published on

1:25

May 21st, if I'm not

1:28

mistaken, Day Trading Attention, addresses

1:30

the shifts happening in social media today and

1:33

what they mean for anyone who's trying to

1:35

build a brand in the digital age. If

1:37

you're an entrepreneur, marketer, or just someone who's

1:40

trying to make sense of the

1:42

chaos that is known as the internet today,

1:44

I suggest you listen closely, very

1:46

closely. Absolute honor to

1:48

introduce my 115th guest to the Mo

1:50

Show podcast. I cannot believe I'm about

1:53

to say this, Mr. Gary V. Thank

1:55

you so much, Mo. It's an honor to be here.

1:58

I'm very focused on the- So

20:00

many guys are impatient to make

20:02

a million dollars because they want to buy a

20:04

BMW and a Rolex To impress

20:07

the opposite sex and their friends

20:10

When you were actually secure and

20:13

self-confident you can lean on patients to

20:15

be your friend When

20:17

you lean on patients to be your friend you

20:20

achieve much greater success shortcuts

20:24

and missteps have direct correlation

20:26

to To mitigating and

20:28

limiting your upside The

20:31

more patience you have to pull it out

20:33

the more likely you will succeed Most

20:36

people's impatience comes from one source

20:40

Insecurity I've got to get famous

20:42

now. I've got to make

20:44

a million dollars now. Why they need

20:46

that asset for everybody else If

20:49

I can describe you in one word or

20:51

the first one of the first words that

20:53

will come to my mind is hustler Yes,

20:55

you are a hustler But

20:58

in recent times of here you talk

21:00

more about mental health calming

21:02

things down. How do you balance

21:04

both today? I don't think they're

21:07

in direct conflict. They're not okay, and

21:09

I think I love that I just love what you just did. This

21:11

has been one of the things I've been thinking a lot about for

21:15

some reason We've

21:17

weaponized the word hustle

21:19

as a negative to mental health.

21:22

There's in my world There's no correlation. First

21:25

of all, let's break down the word a hustle instead

21:28

of weaponizing the word hustle like many

21:30

people on the extreme side of like

21:33

delusion I View

21:36

the word hustle as the word hard work as a

21:39

matter of fact Maybe something you know and others here

21:41

know is I've stopped using hustle and now I just

21:43

use hard work to me It's always meant the

21:45

same thing so I Believe

21:48

in hard work. I really have no

21:51

idea how you achieve anything without it not in

21:53

the gym not in self-esteem Not

21:56

in complacency not in mental health and definitely not

21:58

in business the

24:00

podcast right now, go to the

24:02

mirror and ask themselves, do they mean

24:04

it? I think

24:06

we live in a world of virtue signaling. We

24:08

do. I think a lot of people

24:10

say the right things, but it's not in their heart. So

24:13

the first thing I would say is people have to

24:15

be authentic. Do they really want to

24:18

do that? Or do they think that's a good

24:20

thing to say while they're working on what they

24:22

want for themselves? Let me tell you

24:24

why I said that, Mo. I don't think there's

24:26

anything wrong to wait

24:28

to leave a positive impact. Everyone's

24:31

rushing to leave a

24:33

positive impact when they haven't even had a

24:35

positive impact on themselves yet. So

24:38

the first thing I would say is ask yourself

24:40

if it's true. If it

24:42

is, I have tremendous news. You

24:45

need no money, no

24:47

attention, no followers to leave a

24:49

positive impact. Let me explain. If

24:52

you're an entrepreneur right now who wants to

24:54

leave a massive positive impact, go

24:56

to a retirement home or an elderly

24:58

home in your neighborhood right now and

25:00

donate an hour of your time to

25:02

feeding or spending time with the elderly.

25:06

No cost, no nothing, and

25:08

you will impact an 88 year old

25:11

who's lonely, who's lonely,

25:14

who's at the tail end of their life, who's

25:16

sitting there with a lot of regrets. And

25:19

in that hour, you will make an impact on

25:21

one person. The best way to

25:23

impact a million people is to start with one

25:26

and practice. That's what I would say to

25:30

do. Is attention our

25:32

most valuable asset today? Yes,

25:34

and not only today. Attention

25:39

is how religion was built. Attention

25:43

is how nations were built. Attention

25:46

is how sports were built. Attention

25:49

is how fame is built. Attention

25:52

is the singular asset of

25:54

the human race. Probably

25:59

a good segue to talk about. TikTokification,

26:01

if I pronounced that right. You did. TikTokification

26:04

for everybody who's listening is the

26:06

word I put on the new

26:08

era of social media, where individual

26:10

pieces of content find the audience

26:13

not having a lot of followers. I've

26:16

spent 15 years to mass all these followers,

26:18

and now I've been commoditized. Anybody

26:21

behind the camera right now can post a

26:23

TikTok tomorrow that will get more views

26:25

than a post that I post, because the

26:27

individual piece of content they made on that

26:30

day was more valuable to the target

26:32

audience than what I made. That

26:34

is a level of meritocracy that is

26:36

profound. It is fantastic. I

26:38

love it. Even

26:40

though maybe I'm someone who doesn't benefit

26:42

as much from it, I

26:45

love it because I'm also confident in

26:47

my ability to provide value on a daily basis.

26:50

So, there's a

26:52

lot to break down in that, but

26:54

I think that attention,

26:59

finally being in a place

27:01

where it's merit-based, not based

27:04

on who someone else chose, let's talk

27:06

about it. 30 years ago,

27:08

if you're on television in Saudi, in a limited

27:10

media market like Saudi was 30 years ago, you

27:12

were famous. But who decided

27:14

who was gonna be on TV? Another

27:17

human being. Completely subjective, often

27:19

political, not even politics, corporate

27:21

political, and that became the person. Today,

27:24

I don't know, maybe a light-eyed

27:26

man named Mo could

27:29

just decide to make content and the

27:31

market decides they like him. You

27:34

and I are the byproducts of

27:36

the democracy of attention. That

27:39

is the legacy that the internet will have.

27:41

The current state of the internet's attention is

27:43

called social media. The

27:46

whole way that it's been

27:48

democratized and we go

27:50

from an area where mics were in a few

27:53

hands to mics in many, I just

27:55

think provides more opportunity

27:57

for people to express themselves.

30:00

writing and throwing a football, we

30:02

watched plenty of television and played

30:04

plenty of video games. I

30:06

think it's evolution. I believe in

30:08

30 years, we will hopefully will be

30:10

sharing a meal. We'll watch this video

30:12

together and reminisce when we were young.

30:15

And we will laugh at this because

30:17

people are going to be living 24

30:20

hours a day in a virtual reality

30:22

environment. So

30:24

I believe what we're living through now is

30:26

amateur hour. Let me give you an example of something I'm

30:28

fascinated by. I have now lived long

30:30

enough to be part of the entire circle

30:34

of search. I

30:36

grew up when you had to look up information, you

30:38

had to go to the encyclopedia. I

30:42

then lived my early adult life and my

30:44

entire adult life in the world of Google

30:46

and search. I'm now sitting

30:48

here with you as we are in the

30:50

pre-dawn of AI. Nobody's

30:53

going to go to... Our grandchildren are

30:55

going to look at the way we looked at Google,

30:57

the way we looked at our parents going to an

30:59

encyclopedia. So I

31:02

think it doesn't bother me. I

31:05

think that there's pros and cons. But

31:07

I think that everything that we all worry

31:09

about from a con standpoint is

31:12

about parenting. If somebody is

31:14

watching right now and they're a parent and they're

31:16

upset about how much screen time their kid is

31:18

having, take the screen away. You

31:21

want to talk about an issue with

31:24

accountability, the world's parents are

31:26

not accountable enough. Every parent

31:28

that comes up to me at an airport and goes,

31:30

Gary, I like you, but you know what? You're wrong

31:32

about social media. It's bad. I look them

31:34

in the face and say, then be a parent. I'm

31:38

not parenting your kid. You

31:40

don't think TikTok is good for your child? Delete

31:42

the app. You don't think a phone is good

31:44

for them? Take

31:46

the phone. When

31:48

you and I were growing up, if

31:50

we did something wrong, smoking, I

31:52

know not in this country in

31:54

America, alcohol, watching bad television, our

31:56

parents stopped us. Now

31:58

all I hear from parents is... complaining about

32:00

technology, but not doing anything about it. Accountability.

32:04

Parenting has lost its way.

32:08

Not every parent, there are plenty of parents listening right now that are

32:10

doing all the right things. But when a

32:12

parent cries about the world

32:14

and does nothing about it, that

32:17

is called hypocrisy. I

32:20

can relate to you a lot when you said that school

32:23

wasn't for you, you weren't good at it. Yes.

32:26

I wasn't either. And it was very condescending. I

32:28

was just looking at my life, looking at the

32:31

school system today, is it flawed? Is it broken?

32:33

It's broken for some. You

32:35

and I happen to be them. My

32:38

biggest belief is that education is the most important thing

32:40

in the world. I

32:42

educate every day to the best of my ability.

32:46

The way school is packaged around

32:48

the world, I think is flawed for many. Clearly

32:51

you and I, it didn't work for

32:53

it. The thing I find fascinating is so

32:57

many of the people we admire, so many of

32:59

the people that create the things that change the

33:02

world, school was not the vehicle for that. Now

33:04

let's not get it confused. Mark Zuckerberg

33:06

is one of the great entrepreneurs of all time. He went to

33:08

Harvard. School worked for him. So

33:10

when I talk about school, as you know, with

33:12

my content, I'm not talking

33:14

to the people that are getting value

33:17

from school. I'm talking to

33:19

the parents who don't sleep at night

33:21

because their child gets bad grades. And

33:24

I ask them to have less anxiety because

33:26

many children that get bad grades end

33:29

up living very happy, successful

33:31

lives. Maybe your

33:33

son and daughter is not going to be an engineer

33:35

or a doctor or a lawyer like every

33:38

parent in the world wanted. But

33:41

I think that every parent ultimately just wants their kid to

33:43

be happy. You touched a lot

33:45

on dwelling and rolling with the punches of life.

33:48

How important is it to

33:51

play the hand you're dealt and stop making excuses?

34:00

abusive father, stop complaining. That's

34:02

hard. If you had an

34:04

alcoholic father who hit you,

34:07

that's impossibly challenging. I'm

34:09

not saying who cares, move on with your

34:12

life, you loser. That's not what I'm saying.

34:14

I'm saying there are many people in

34:16

the world who did the

34:18

exercise, the therapy, the

34:21

reading, the positivity in their

34:23

ears, who were able to

34:25

overcome adversity to live a

34:28

productive life. I'm

34:30

saying that if anybody in the

34:32

world has ever achieved happiness and

34:34

success under your circumstances, then

34:36

you are capable of it. My

34:38

mother lost her mother at five. How

34:42

much more adversity do you want? She

34:45

went on to become the greatest mother of all

34:47

time. I

34:49

think it's incredibly important. There's not

34:51

a person listening, not a person right now

34:54

behind the scenes or me and you that

34:56

didn't have plenty of adversity in different ways.

34:59

We all have our own adversities. I'll

35:01

give you an example. I now

35:03

believe one of the most adverse situations

35:05

to be born into is extreme wealth.

35:10

Something I would have never thought of 30 years

35:12

ago, that if you told me,

35:14

hey, Gary, give

35:16

me a scenario where you immediately are going

35:18

to worry for that person's life, I would

35:21

say growing up being

35:23

born to a billionaire family that's

35:25

third generation wealthy. That

35:28

level of potential nepotism and

35:30

judgment is profound.

35:33

When somebody grows up poor in a

35:36

village with no water, it's very hard

35:38

for them to be empathetic to a

35:40

third generation billionaire's kid. However,

35:43

until you walk in someone else's shoes, you

35:45

don't know. I can tell you some

35:48

of the deeply, deeply most unhappy

35:50

people I know on earth are the ones

35:53

that we're born with the most because it's

35:55

a very challenging upbringing. It

35:58

reminds me of a quote that's It says the

36:01

hard way is hard, but it's not

36:03

as hard as the easy way. Oh, I like that quote. I've

36:06

not heard that often. I think now that you've said it,

36:08

might've heard it once or twice. You took me there with

36:11

your last story. I love you for that. It's a great

36:13

quote. It's true. Because

36:15

everything in life has a price. It

36:19

just does. And I think, yeah, I

36:21

think it's really, I like that quote a lot. Is

36:26

suffering necessary for existence? I

36:30

think it's less about, is it necessary

36:32

for existence? I wish that many of

36:34

us could live life without suffering. I

36:36

just think it is. If

36:39

we as humans are capable of loving, which

36:42

we all are, it means suffering is part

36:44

of the story. I

36:47

mean, suffering is just a part of the journey.

36:50

So I think it's, I

36:53

wish it wasn't a necessity. It's

36:56

less of like, do I believe that somebody can live a

36:58

perfect life? I mean, in theory, you'd like to think yes.

37:01

But I think that's a little bit of delusion. There's

37:03

nobody who will live a life, especially

37:06

if they're lucky and get to live

37:09

a life to 80, 90, 100. Not

37:11

only will you deal with suffering, you

37:13

will deal with multiple variations of suffering.

37:16

And so humans love. And

37:18

if you love, that means suffering is part

37:20

of the equation. And so, yeah, I think

37:22

it's part of what we signed up for.

37:26

I mean, some of my biggest lessons in life,

37:28

I grew from my first heartbreak. I grew from

37:30

working under a toxic boss for 13 years. Of

37:33

course. So I started this. I grew from falling

37:36

out with my best friend and

37:38

cousin, and it made me

37:40

a more resilient person. No question. Adversity

37:43

is the foundation of success. Like

37:46

that. It just is. And so

37:48

as long as one can contextualize

37:51

their suffering, let's

37:54

use your cousin. I don't know the story. If

37:57

you choose optimism, if you sit here today as

37:59

a young man, and say, that

38:01

was horrible. I say maybe,

38:04

but maybe we can say, look

38:06

at how many years did you have a very good relationship

38:09

with your cousin? I'm asking you, how many years? All my

38:11

life. Give me the number. 38 years. I

38:15

view you as very lucky. I

38:17

was born to a very small family. Most

38:19

of my family heritage was lost in the

38:21

Holocaust. I

38:23

don't even have a single cousin that's my

38:25

age. So

38:27

I hear that and I look

38:29

at my children and their relationships with their cousins.

38:31

And I hear 38 years with

38:33

a cousin as best friend. I

38:36

view to choose optimism. I

38:38

view you as lucky that you had 38 years of that. I'm

38:41

quite back to suffering. When you have 38 years

38:44

of that, when you don't have that, it hurts.

38:46

And there's a lot of pain that came along with that for both of you,

38:48

I'm sure. But I view

38:51

it from my seat as an

38:53

opportunity for you to view it as a

38:55

remarkable gift that you had at all,

38:58

right? There's that saying about losing love, but

39:00

never having it at all, stuff like that.

39:02

That's what you have with your cousin. You

39:05

had 38 years of love, experiences, positive memories.

39:07

Currently, the taste

39:09

is not as good. But as you

39:11

get older, my friend, only one thing

39:13

will happen. The negativity will subside and

39:15

the fondness of those first 38 years

39:18

will grow. Which is why so many people

39:20

that love each other reconcile. The

39:23

likelihood of you and your cousin reconciling,

39:25

you haven't reconciled yet. The

39:27

likelihood of the two of you reconciling after 38 years

39:30

of good is very high. It

39:33

may take four, seven, 12 years, and

39:37

it may never happen. Sometimes people are too stubborn.

39:40

Sometimes humility on both sides

39:42

is lacking. Sometimes, but

39:44

there's times where truly, if

39:46

God was looking down, one person was 100%

39:48

wrong. It's rare, but it

39:51

happens once in a blue moon. And usually

39:53

that's the reason there is no reconciliation. But

39:56

anytime anyone has a problem with somebody

39:58

in that scenario, They're a contributor.

40:02

Let me be very vulnerable. I

40:04

have feelings towards people I resent. It

40:06

was only into my mid-40s that I

40:08

realized I was a contributor. My lack

40:10

of candor in not telling people that

40:12

I loved what was bothering me was

40:14

the enabler for them to do more

40:17

of it. Is

40:19

that their fault or was I a

40:21

contributor to it? Gary, can you finish

40:23

the sentences? The best revenge is? Is

40:26

not needing success. Let

40:30

me jump in on that. I know we don't have a lot of time. Most

40:33

people think the best revenge is succeeding

40:35

and sticking it to them. The

40:37

best revenge is indifference to

40:40

the person that you're seeking revenge

40:42

of. If

40:44

you actually don't care to prove them

40:46

wrong, that is the ultimate strength. Not

40:49

proving them wrong is second, not

40:52

first. I

40:55

would like to forget... All

40:59

the times the New York Jets have broken my heart.

41:04

I feel most alive when? I'm

41:06

making someone else smile. Made

41:09

me smile today many times. Thank you, brother. I want to

41:11

be remembered for? Giving more than I

41:13

took. If

41:19

someone offered you a box containing everything you've

41:21

ever lost, what would you look

41:23

for first? The ability

41:25

to have grandparents. You know,

41:27

grandfathers specifically, I was lucky to have my grandmother,

41:29

but I didn't know either one of my grandfathers.

41:32

And there's something just in me that feels

41:34

like that was a missed opportunity. And

41:37

I'll close with this. What

41:39

is there that is out there that you have

41:42

yet to achieve, which you would like to achieve?

41:45

Before I die, I would like to

41:47

positively impact all 8 billion plus people.

41:50

So there are billions still left

41:52

for my journey. And so that's

41:54

what's left. InshaAllah, you do that. Gary, thank you

41:57

so much for coming on the show. Thank you, Mo. One

41:59

of the biggest honors of my life. life I know you

42:01

got to run and I really really hope inshaAllah even though

42:03

I went to school in the Boston area I hope that

42:05

the Jets win the Super Bowl one day. Thank you brother.