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the podcast, go to the website, V-E-E-C-O-N.C-O and

1:03

I can't wait to see you there. Anyway,

1:05

this is the show where we just do

1:07

some Q&A with people live

1:10

and I enjoy it. It's fun time.

1:13

So let's get some peeps. Let's

1:17

get some peeps. Hey. Hey

1:20

Rob. How's it going, Gary? It's

1:23

going well. I'm doing so good, thank you.

1:25

Welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks

1:27

for having me. If you

1:30

probably remember because you always remember everything, I was with you

1:32

at 4Ds in 2019, fall of 2019. We

1:37

were ready as a family. We was like,

1:39

all right, we're ready. Blank slate, you said

1:41

you're an amazing opportunity. Pandemic

1:43

hit, we kind of went half in. And

1:46

so we kind of got out of Canada. We

1:49

got down to Michigan. We realized that still wasn't what

1:51

we wanted. And so March

1:54

of 2021, we decided let's go all in.

1:56

So we played out the thesis. We

1:59

sold the house. We moved down

2:01

south, we're renting, went

2:03

all in on TikTok, all in on TikTok.

2:06

Like so many people have heard before, it started going

2:08

really well for us. Cause when we moved down here,

2:10

I didn't have a job. So we're like, maybe we

2:12

can push into this. And so

2:15

it went really well. And

2:17

then Instagram started building on the back of

2:19

that. And just recently YouTube's building on the

2:22

back of that. So since March 21, we're

2:24

at like 800 million views. Almost,

2:29

I think over 700,000 on TikTok. Now

2:32

Instagram and YouTube are just getting rolling now, but

2:34

they're almost both at 90,000 each for

2:38

followers, subscribers. So, and

2:40

it's been amazing. Like it's been amazing

2:42

for us as a family. It's opened

2:44

up some opportunities right now. It's a

2:46

very nice little side hustle, but

2:49

we're really enjoying it. And I think for as a

2:51

family where we want to go. So

2:53

now we're not just as you preach, get in it,

2:55

get in it, get in it. And you've been saying

2:57

this for years, but now we're 800 million

2:59

views, not even a year in. We

3:02

think that, okay, this can go from a nice

3:05

little hobby to maybe we can actually make this

3:07

into something more. And so would

3:09

the strategy change much? And of course, I know you

3:11

keep putting in the work. I mean, of course, I

3:14

know you're gonna say that and be patient, of

3:17

course, but I want to be smart as well.

3:19

So as we keep doing the work as

3:21

a small to medium size creator influencer, how

3:24

can we be smart so that in the next six

3:26

months and the next year we can keep building on

3:28

this and possibly making a career out

3:30

of it? Look, I

3:32

mean, I think the reality is it comes

3:35

down to only two things. One, continue

3:37

to put out

3:39

meaningful content in as many places as possible.

3:43

Two, try to get

3:46

major brands to sponsor early

3:53

and lock you in. So going

3:55

from a side hustle to something more meaningful comes

3:58

with the foundation of like. can we

4:00

get the finances that

4:03

allow us to get there, right? And

4:07

one of the ways to do that is to go

4:10

to a Nike or Pepsi or

4:15

Walmart, any

4:17

large business, or

4:21

not even one of those top five, but even

4:23

a top 5,000 company and say, look,

4:26

you should sponsor our family's content, right?

4:29

And sponsorship comes in

4:31

the form of like actually being

4:34

able to extract bigger dollars, maybe

4:37

even before you own them. Meaning

4:40

even before you're there, somebody could decide to give

4:42

you $500,000 to buy, especially

4:45

as a family content play, like Best Buy

4:48

might just be in the mood to write

4:50

you a bigger check, you know? And

4:52

so I think that there's

4:54

two ways to go about this. One,

4:56

business develop and try to get macro

4:59

sponsorship deals that allow you the finances

5:01

that you allude to by going all

5:03

in. And the other

5:05

part is the mundane. It

5:07

is, you know, why I've

5:09

lost some weight here in the first three

5:12

weeks of the year. If you do

5:14

the right things, you know, it will

5:16

work out. And the longer you do

5:18

them, the longer they work out. And

5:20

the more you pump out content on

5:23

YouTube Shorts and TikTok and Instagram, and

5:25

do you start a podcast? Do you

5:27

do an interactive show like I'm doing

5:29

right now? Do you build a Discord

5:31

to put your community in there and

5:34

interact more? It is really just the

5:36

blocking and tackling that

5:39

is required to build something meaningful. Reading all the comments

5:42

right now from all the, you know, people

5:44

on YouTube and LinkedIn and Facebook right now,

5:47

you know, and definitely because I've been in NFT

5:49

land, I'm just

5:52

flabbergasted by people's absurd

5:55

interest in

5:57

things happening immediately. So

5:59

many people, people are about to lose so much money in NFT land, not

6:03

because of anything else, but their own

6:05

short-term greed and want to

6:07

make a quick buck. Yeah,

6:11

so that the four Ds, the

6:14

strategy was 7,000, 8,000 messages on LinkedIn.

6:20

So same thing, same

6:22

thing, same thing, same thing. Connected

6:25

with as many CMOs that you think, chief

6:28

marketing officers that you think make sense,

6:30

that would be interested in your family.

6:32

And like, you know, which

6:34

businesses benefit by having products

6:38

or associations with you? Yeah,

6:41

yeah. So, so if it comes up with

6:43

your talk with the CMO of Gatorade today, we're

6:45

available. I love

6:48

you, brother. I'm gonna try to get to a bunch

6:50

of them today. Okay, one more real quick. Can I

6:52

play wild card real quick? So, because, and I'll make

6:54

it real, real quick. When I was with you, my

6:56

15 year old was 6'11, now

6:59

he's 17, 7'1. And

7:02

so I know a lot of people are watching this. We're

7:04

down in the South. He's starting to get on the radar

7:06

because we came from Canada, no one knew who he is.

7:09

And of course I'm his dad, he's a special kid.

7:11

He's starting to get some college interest.

7:14

What's his Instagram? So

7:16

if you go to thattallfamily.com, then

7:19

you'll be able to pull everything else. There's a video of Carter

7:21

on there. If you watch that video, you can get to us

7:23

and all of his links are on there as well. That's

7:26

Hall family, if you're recruiting a seven one beast.

7:28

Thanks Rob, talk to you soon. Thank you, take

7:30

care. I love the wild

7:32

card. Dustin, you knew he, Rob was smart there, right?

7:34

He knew he was gonna get me with that Uno.

7:36

I'm trying to get to more, but he

7:38

got me. Yeah. He got me.

7:41

All right, let's keep moving. I'm gonna bring on Jason next.

7:46

Jason. Hey Gary. Good to see

7:48

you. Very well, thank you. Thanks very much for having me on,

7:50

thanks team. I just quickly, Gary, my

7:53

wife and I run our own fitness studio. And I

7:55

suppose this time of year, we see a lot of

7:58

people beginning their own fitness and health journey. I

14:01

see all the time, academies or

14:04

universities, college are

14:07

empty and everyone is studying

14:09

online. So my question is, as

14:11

a virtual educator, what is

14:14

the best approach I should take to innovate

14:16

in education in Web 3? Because

14:19

then you told us what

14:21

I remembered, like if it were

14:23

yesterday, you told what is an

14:26

NFT and why I'm buying these

14:28

NFTs. And I

14:30

also have here my iPad because

14:32

I love digital drawing and I

14:35

create some gifts

14:37

like passion, fun that gives

14:39

and helpful people give, you

14:41

use sometimes that gives

14:43

also on Twitter. Yes. And

14:46

well, it's my passion too.

14:48

So you always teach

14:51

us in your book to combine

14:53

trades. Yes. And I

14:55

want to combine education with

14:57

NFTs and Web 3. So

14:59

that's my question. One

15:01

of the things you can do is you can

15:04

start an education course where after the people complete

15:06

the course, they get an NFT. It's

15:09

their diploma. You

15:11

can go and find some emerging

15:13

artists to design these

15:15

diplomas. Somebody might

15:18

pay for a course, but

15:21

when they're done, they get a diploma

15:23

from an emerging artist and then maybe

15:25

four years later, and it doesn't have to actually

15:27

be the diploma. It's just a piece of NFT

15:29

as like a diploma,

15:31

but it's a piece of art, a

15:34

collectible. One of those

15:36

artists, a young lady from Peru, a

15:38

guy from Britain, a guy from

15:41

Nigeria, that person may go on to

15:43

become famous or somewhat famous. So now

15:45

all of a sudden somebody pays $500,

15:49

$1,000 for a course. They

15:52

get their education. They're given a

15:54

diploma, but instead of a piece of

15:56

paper or an internet email receipt, they

15:58

get an NFT. You,

16:01

as the person at the top, spend a

16:03

lot of time trying to find some emerging

16:05

artists that you really believe in, but they're

16:07

still emerging. So for a very low cost,

16:09

they make this art. 17

16:12

years later, that person becomes Beple or

16:15

X copy, or the founder of

16:17

the world of women. And all of a sudden,

16:19

this person says, wait a minute, my

16:21

diplomas were $4,000? What's going

16:23

on here? I don't think people understand

16:26

how many things are gonna be happening

16:28

with NFTs. I just made that up

16:30

on the spot for you. That is

16:33

an actually strong idea. I think receipts,

16:35

diplomas, affirmations that come in email form

16:37

or paper form today can

16:39

be flipped on their head, innovated on,

16:42

and created as nice pieces

16:44

of collectible arts that support emerging artists.

16:46

So as the organization now, not only

16:49

are you giving your student something that

16:51

maybe, not likely, but

16:53

maybe has some value in the future, but

16:55

on the flip side, you also give the

16:57

artist, the royalties or

16:59

split the royalties with them. So

17:02

now you sold the course for a hundred bucks, a thousand bucks, a

17:04

million bucks, whatever it is. But now

17:06

you're 50-50 partners with the artist on

17:08

the royalties. That artist

17:10

goes on to have a good career and

17:13

that person sells their diploma

17:16

for $3,000. You know,

17:18

all of a sudden, if you put a 10% royalty on that,

17:20

you and the artist just got $150 in Ethereum or Solano, wherever

17:24

you put it on. There's a lot

17:26

more coming with NFTs. Right now, everyone

17:29

is thinking about it a specific way.

17:31

Adam says, use the NFT to the

17:33

course. A lot of people are thinking

17:35

that, right? A lot of people are like, buy this

17:38

NFT, it gives you that. People are seeing that, my

17:40

conference ticket, other things, people get that. I

17:42

think it's the innovations, the after the

17:44

fact. Here's your affirmation that something happened.

17:47

I'm giving you this. A

17:49

receipt from an internet company, who wants

17:51

that? Doesn't mean anything, but in

17:53

the form of a potential collectible, fascinating.

17:55

And definitely in the form of a

17:58

diploma, very fascinating. That's... my

18:00

innovation. That's great. I

18:02

will do it. Just I believe you. Give

18:04

me some time and I will show you.

18:06

Email me when you do it. Love the idea.

18:08

See you. Bye bye. Love you. Bye

18:12

bye. Next, going to bring on Joseph. This is the

18:14

one from Twitter that you were like, get

18:16

this guy on. Well, I'm

18:19

excited. I don't remember. I, you know, you

18:21

clearly, you got me excited. Clearly,

18:23

Joseph, how are you? Good, good. So I discovered

18:25

you in 2020 first episode

18:27

of Tea with GaryVee. So really

18:29

a full circle moment. Yeah. Speaking

18:31

of which everybody, if you're on

18:33

right now, please share the link that you have on

18:36

Twitter, on Facebook share the share on LinkedIn. Let's,

18:38

let's have some more people discover this is a

18:40

great community. I love being a part of it.

18:42

Go ahead, my friend. Yeah. So a little bit

18:44

of a backstory. I started playing music when I

18:46

was 11 became obsessed with

18:48

it. Started playing seven, eight hours a day.

18:51

That passion led me to go to Berkeley College of Music,

18:54

created from there. In 2015, I

18:56

started creating custom music for a

18:58

personal ads TV. A year

19:01

later, my music got onto Keeping Up with

19:03

the Kardashians. Since then, it's been on many

19:05

networks, ABC, Nickelodeon, CBS,

19:08

all the three letter TV networks.

19:10

I've done music for podcasts for

19:12

Jeff Marle from Food Network. So

19:14

multiple episodes of that. On

19:17

the side, I teach music privately and

19:19

I mentor up and coming songwriters. So

19:22

my question for you is I want

19:24

to go more on the offense, finding

19:26

clients for custom music. And

19:28

I know I need to be more consistent

19:30

with social media, but if you were me,

19:32

how would you find new clients that help

19:34

generate revenue consistently in an industry that's

19:36

more typically one off licensing?

19:40

By being more consistent with content on

19:42

social media. Good

19:44

answer. The

19:46

reason I just did that is I want

19:49

everybody to replay what just happened. If

19:51

you even there's something very fascinating

19:53

about either

19:56

needing affirmation from somebody that you

19:58

admire. repeating

20:01

something to oneself, the

20:04

fact that you know the answer and

20:06

you stated it in your question. Hey

20:09

Gary, da da da da da da. And now I

20:11

know I need to stay consistent one more time. Right?

20:14

That moment you and I just had

20:16

is the single most important

20:19

moment. Like I want my team

20:21

to cut that. I'm gonna put it on Instagram and TikTok. It

20:23

is the most important moment, my friend. I

20:28

am wildly simple. I

20:31

say my stuff, I say it over and over

20:33

again, but people don't hear it because

20:35

they don't want to do the thing

20:37

that I'm saying. It's funny that there

20:40

was a fitness guy on, right? Like everybody

20:42

knows how to get into better shape.

20:44

It is eat healthy and cleaner, right?

20:47

And put in work in the

20:50

gym. Literally that's it. But we

20:52

will fucking inject implants into our

20:54

ass, drink ciders and vinegars,

20:56

fucking take weird ass pills that we

20:58

have no idea what the fuck they're

21:00

about. I say

21:02

every day right now that 98 to 99% of NFTs are

21:04

going to zero. Nobody

21:09

hears it. They're just looking

21:11

to make 2000 bucks on a snail with

21:13

a fucking liquor pipe in

21:15

its mouth. Like nobody hears, like

21:18

I will say it 9,000 times. And when

21:20

the market does crash, everyone's gonna be like, Gary. And

21:22

I'm like, I fucking said 99% of

21:25

this shit's going to zero every fucking day.

21:27

I have sat here for 15 years

21:29

saying, if you make content consistently

21:33

at scale on

21:35

the platforms that people are paying attention to,

21:37

for you, YouTube Shorts,

21:40

TikTok, Instagram, it's

21:43

just massively important. If

21:45

you follow what I wrote in the thank you

21:47

economy a hundred years ago,

21:49

if you reply to everybody that's

21:51

talking about music jingles and music

21:53

on Twitter and just join the

21:55

conversation, literally search, you know,

21:58

music and like jingles and like. whatever,

22:00

what you know your terms to your business.

22:04

And you just sit there for two hours and say,

22:06

hey, I know something about that. You're using the

22:08

wrong key or like bringing value, not even saying

22:10

like hire me, hire me. That's why I wrote

22:12

a book called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Give

22:14

value, give value, give value. And then say, hey,

22:16

by the way, I do this for a living.

22:19

LinkedIn is an incredible place for you.

22:22

Incredible. I talked about LinkedIn at

22:24

nausea on this platform and have

22:26

continued to talk about it. How

22:29

much LinkedIn content are you making? I'll save

22:31

you time. None, right?

22:34

I post about three times a week on LinkedIn. So I

22:36

need to be posting. Not bad, not bad. No,

22:38

listen, honestly, I'm happier about that. That's a great

22:40

number for you. I really thought it was gonna

22:43

be zero. But, you

22:45

know, like, you know,

22:47

it's kind of like pushups. Like 13 is

22:49

better than three. And then the

22:51

question becomes, what do you post? And for me, it's

22:53

like, you know, posting things

22:56

like, here's

22:59

how I think about providing the most

23:01

value when I write music for someone.

23:03

And then a manifesto, which

23:05

gives me an insight on the other side of

23:08

Vayner. Look, I run fucking VaynerX. We want to

23:10

buy music all the time. If

23:12

I see that in my stream, and this happens to

23:14

me all the time, if I see that in the

23:16

stream, I just hit the link and send it to

23:18

our music ranks buyer. Cool.

23:23

This is just very important, right? Like when

23:25

you've given me the answer to my question,

23:28

in the question like you just did, then

23:31

you fucking know what to do. Find

23:33

a way to make it more fun for you so

23:35

that you can fucking do more

23:37

of it. Perfect. Most

23:40

of the people that I expose to on social

23:42

media are musicians and songwriters. So they're not typically

23:44

the clients that I would go to. Let me

23:46

teach you something that's gonna help a lot of

23:48

people here. Thank you for saying that. The

23:51

way I think about things is making content

23:53

that the audience that I'm exposed

23:55

to, that is

23:58

forwardable to the person. than

24:00

I wanna get to. Let me give you an example. I

24:02

put out a lot of content around the

24:04

mindset of parents really

24:08

pushing college agenda on kids without

24:10

really looking at their kid. I

24:13

make the content specific to knowing the kind

24:15

of thing that the kid that consumes it

24:18

would share to their parent. When

24:21

I make the content, I'm thinking, yes, kid,

24:23

you're gonna see this, but I'm gonna make

24:25

it in a way that's gonna make you

24:28

share it to your parent. That's

24:31

very different. So the content isn't like,

24:33

hey kids, parents suck, right? Yeah, no,

24:35

no. It's intricate

24:38

so that it brings value to the, I'm

24:40

making it for the parent, but

24:42

I'm making it in a way that I know the

24:45

kid's gonna be the one that sees it and will

24:47

forward it to the parent. And the content

24:49

will not make the parent say, fuck this guy,

24:51

even though usually they do say that because there's

24:53

such a big ideology of college. I

24:56

need you to know that, okay, I have music people in front

24:58

of me, but I'm gonna make this piece

25:00

of content for them with the thought that

25:02

they may be the gateway to bring me exposure to who

25:04

I'm trying to get to. So

25:07

valuable. Thank you so much. You see what I'm doing

25:09

there? I'll give you an example.

25:13

VaynerMedia has made content that's trying to reach 60

25:15

year old dads, and we've made TikToks that we

25:17

know 14 year old daughters are gonna see and

25:20

share it with their dad. There's

25:23

a lot more strategy to the shit I do

25:26

than people realize. That's an insight to it right there.

25:29

That's beautiful. One more question for you, Gary.

25:31

Real fast. Which Vayner company is hiring music

25:33

composers and where can I send my credentials?

25:36

Send it to Gary at vaynermedia.com. I'll take care

25:38

of it. I appreciate it. You see at VCon

25:40

here. Thank you. Can't wait. Next

25:44

we're gonna have Miles. How's

25:49

it going, Gary? Miles, what's good? It's

25:52

crazy to be on here. I've been a long time listener, really

25:54

happy to be on the show. Thank you. I

25:57

appreciate it. You'll love to hear this first. I was lucky enough to

25:59

get. I

30:00

talk a lot about it from the HR side,

30:02

right? 12 and a half has really gone there.

30:06

But it is, and you know this, finding

30:08

a way to communicate operations and

30:10

content is challenging. It is meetings

30:13

and decisions, meetings and decisions. Yeah,

30:15

it's not glamorous at all. Yeah, it's like,

30:17

and a lot of times it's like, but

30:19

it's just meetings and decisions. It's like, do

30:22

we open another office? Yes, no. Do

30:25

we innovate a new division?

30:27

Yes, no. Do we put

30:30

more money into analytics or strategy department? You

30:32

know, like there's a lot of that

30:34

kind of stuff. Yeah, and so I guess

30:36

just to get to the actual question, I

30:39

was hoping you could talk a little bit

30:41

more about your experience tactically in the early

30:43

days with building out processes, delegating work, and

30:46

generally just being able to free yourself and set

30:48

your employees up for success. Because I think that's

30:51

the part where we're sort of. Well,

30:53

you're not there yet. Yeah. You

30:56

know, when VaynerMedia was less than

30:58

15 people for the first two years, I didn't

31:00

have to think about that shit. I

31:03

just did everything. Yeah. Who

31:06

the fuck are you delegating to? You've got three of you. Right.

31:09

Yeah, well, so I guess the. Are

31:11

you more talking about maximizing the efficiency

31:14

of your time when there's only three

31:16

of you? I think that's more of

31:18

what. We're actually manufacturing all

31:20

the products. Like right now I did hire

31:22

somebody in February who's been awesome and he's

31:25

helping with production on one of the product

31:27

lines. I'm doing all the production

31:29

on the other product line. And so it's

31:31

really maximizing the efficiency. And,

31:34

you know, as we, our goal is to scale

31:36

via coming up with totally new to world products.

31:38

So we have patents on our current products, but

31:40

we want to just keep pumping out new products.

31:43

You want to? Yeah, we want to.

31:45

Why? We

31:47

love the, you know, truthfully like it. We

31:49

love the process of inventing. Good. Coming

31:52

out with stuff. Well, good. I

31:54

mean, one thing that I like opening businesses, I

31:57

like doing a hundred things. One thing

31:59

you have to do. VaynerMedia

34:00

is successful because I do help my

34:02

dad with his wine stuff. VaynerMedia is

34:05

successful because V-friends exist. I need

34:07

everything to make

34:10

me happy, thus the things that

34:12

have clicked will work. Too

34:15

many people, so for you, it's

34:18

hard to prioritize because you're fucking inventing so

34:20

many products, but the

34:22

good thing is you're actually winning because you

34:24

understand that you guys love the process of

34:26

inventing and though Susan is right

34:28

for herself and many others and really

34:30

even logically, right? She's

34:34

not right for you two. You

34:36

two would rather enjoy, and you're

34:38

so damn young that

34:40

you should only do the things that actually

34:42

bring you the most happiness because

34:46

that will actually make you win. It's

34:48

okay on paper that it doesn't work for others.

34:51

The reason Busta Levine just said this is exactly

34:53

what I need to hear. This is a massive

34:55

common problem that most people haven't dissected the way

34:57

I'm talking about it right now. I

35:00

don't wanna keep going too long because I know you gotta get

35:02

this. No, I wanna stay here. There's

35:04

some more. I think this will help people too

35:06

because I don't think we really struggle with

35:10

not judging ourselves on dropping balls. I

35:12

think when you talk about starting a

35:15

manufacturing company, when you do come up

35:17

with a product and you buy all

35:19

the, you have all the overhead of

35:21

machines and inventory, you gotta see that

35:23

one through, right? And you have

35:25

to. Yeah, you have to see that

35:27

through and you have to create, in

35:29

my opinion, systems and processes to hopefully

35:32

allow that to run so you can move on to

35:34

the next one. And so I think that's where we've

35:36

struggled to get it organized. You

35:38

haven't struggled. Your company's too young. Yeah.

35:41

You're creating an ideology of like, we should be here?

35:44

How long has the company been existing? It's been

35:46

three years. It's five minutes. You know that's five

35:48

seconds, right? Yeah, it doesn't feel like it,

35:50

but I know, yeah. It's five seconds and

35:53

you've launched two products? Yes, we

35:55

have two products at right now and then we'll

35:57

have a start coming. And you're profitable? Yeah,

36:01

yeah. Do you understand

36:03

how fucking amazing? Fuck Hardly,

36:05

you didn't go out of business. Most people were out of business

36:07

in three years. And Hardly is, you're

36:10

fucking profitable. Right. Yeah,

36:13

no, you're right, you're right. Like cool, I'm

36:16

very thrilled that you're ambitious and

36:18

you'd like it. We all want to be

36:20

better and do better. But the

36:23

news is you're not struggling with it, you just haven't

36:25

gotten to it. Yep, yep.

36:29

You just haven't gotten to it. You're not struggling

36:31

with it. You fucking have been doing too many

36:33

things. You're like successfully

36:36

entrepreneuring. Yeah,

36:39

well, I'll give credit to my brother

36:41

because he really started this thing from

36:44

the ground up. And I think since

36:46

I graduated last year, I joined in and now

36:48

it's been, you know, how can we continue to

36:51

grow and scale and free up more of our

36:53

time to work? Can I give you

36:55

a huge piece of advice? Please. Never,

36:59

ever, ever choose

37:02

money or your

37:04

own pride and ego over

37:07

your brother. Yep. Yeah.

37:11

You were got to go through a thing

37:13

where, you know, money is binary. Some people

37:15

just love it so much that

37:17

they're willing to hurt their relationship with their family.

37:20

And that's very challenging. It's grounded in a lot of

37:22

insecurity, but it is what it is. And like, it's

37:25

kind of an easy one. The second one is

37:27

harder. The need to say,

37:30

bro, I did that, you did this.

37:32

This kind of like feeling of competitive

37:34

spirit of like, no, I, bro,

37:37

you came up with the invention, but that

37:39

marketing campaign I did on TikTok, fucking, that's

37:41

why, and to

37:43

have the humility, the reason I successfully

37:45

worked with my dad and my brother was it

37:48

was the humility for

37:50

me at the end of the day. As much as I was like, I'm the

37:52

guy. And what really at

37:54

the end of the day mattered was not

37:57

choosing my own feelings of

37:59

need. of like validation and

38:02

money, never, at the end of the day, sure

38:04

in little riffs, but in real life, never

38:07

choosing that over the

38:09

love of my brother and dad

38:12

is the greatest single

38:14

business accomplishment of my life and

38:16

it's not even close.

38:21

I appreciate you saying that. You guys are really young, you're

38:24

hungry, you're ambitious, you're doing it together, this is

38:26

gonna be the best years of your life. You

38:29

were gonna remember these days more than anything. Yep.

38:32

It can go sour really fast if

38:35

you do not deploy that

38:37

humility and choose it because

38:39

you love your brother. Got

38:44

it. Yep, I appreciate it,

38:46

Gary. Thank you, my friend. Thank you. Thank

38:49

you. Up

38:53

next, we're gonna have Derek. Hey,

38:57

Gary. Hey, Derek, how are you? Good.

39:01

So I was wondering, how

39:03

do you balance posting on social

39:05

media to build your brand while you're still working at

39:07

a company because most companies would view

39:09

you posting on social media all days a negative and

39:11

not doing your job. So how do you kind of

39:13

balance those two things? By

39:16

picking a job that has good managers

39:18

and leaders that don't see it that

39:20

way. Yeah.

39:25

You know, you have to understand, businesses are just made up of people.

39:28

Like for example, we don't even have

39:30

a system to watch what our people are doing.

39:33

I trust my people and

39:35

I want good for them, I want them to

39:37

be productive, but I want

39:40

them to be happy. And if it

39:42

makes them happy to tweet all day in

39:44

between meetings, mazel tov. My

39:46

father wants to ban

39:49

cell phones in the liquor store. Because

39:52

if somebody checks their texts for one second to

39:55

see if their mom or if

39:57

their bus is on time, my dad loses his mind.

40:02

That's on my kind. Two very different men, me

40:04

and my dad. There's

40:08

no chance you're tweeting all day. With

40:10

pops, you can fucking

40:12

make unlimited content with me. And

40:15

that's the world. There's a bunch of Sasha's, there's a

40:17

bunch of Gary's. If

40:19

you want to do what you just said, you better work for

40:21

a fucking Gary. And

40:24

if you don't right now, and it means

40:26

so much to you to post, well

40:28

then you should start looking for another job. If

40:30

you're good, then you're good. But that is it.

40:33

It is that simple. I like

40:35

it, yeah. Because I want to start being

40:37

able to, before I started

40:39

listening to your content, I wasn't aware

40:42

of the importance of building your brand. On

40:44

social media is more of, while I'm

40:46

at work, while I'm at coworkers, friends, building

40:48

my brand in person with people that I

40:50

interact with every day. But it's more, once

40:53

I started listening to what you talk about,

40:55

it's like, okay, if I do

40:57

one day want to start my own business, which

40:59

I do, starting to build that

41:01

process, but I kind of struggled with,

41:03

I didn't want to do that all the time while

41:05

I'm still working at a company. Look, you

41:07

also have to be respectful, right?

41:11

Doing the right thing is always the right thing. If

41:13

you're getting paid, and you're quietly not working, we have

41:15

some employees that are trying to be very clever at

41:18

Vayner. And

41:20

my big thing is, A, I

41:22

laugh because I'm like, do they think they're tricking me? B,

41:26

I just want

41:28

to say to them, hey

41:31

man, doing the right thing is

41:33

important. You

41:36

will lose in the end when you don't

41:39

do the right things. And so I think finding

41:42

the right balance on that is very important. But

41:46

on the flip side, I tell a lot of my business friends,

41:49

I'm like, why are you mad

41:51

at that person? You're fucking emailing them at all hours of

41:53

the night. Yes,

41:55

people are supposed to work nine to five, nine to six. Like you're

41:57

fucking hitting them at seven and eight and nine and 10 and 11.

42:00

So like don't be on a fucking

42:02

pedestal business owner. Like your

42:05

person might have, yes, spent

42:07

seven minutes. You

42:09

might be on the clock right now and here we are, fine. But

42:12

what about at 8.30 when you email them and they have

42:14

to do something for 15 minutes? Like are

42:17

you at, like people keeping score on some

42:19

bullshit? Like your employees are your

42:21

family. And

42:24

as a business owner, if you don't see it

42:26

that way, you've already lost. Yeah,

42:29

no, that's great. Awesome,

42:33

appreciate it Gary. All

42:38

right, we got next, we're gonna have Chase. Chase.

42:44

Gary, thanks for having

42:46

me on man. Really good to talk to you. I'm

42:49

a OGB friend, been

42:52

following you for a long time. Just

42:55

really excited to be on. I

42:59

just wanna say I appreciate,

43:01

truly appreciate all

43:03

of the info and documentation

43:05

y'all put out prior to V

43:08

friends launching back in May. That

43:10

was big Chase. If you

43:12

ask me the thing I'm most proud of with

43:14

V friends, it's not even that it's done great

43:16

and it will. And like, as

43:19

long as I am healthy, V friends is

43:21

going to really win because I'm a very

43:23

capable entrepreneur. But

43:26

the thing I'm more proud of is

43:28

through that education and we did

43:31

it so hard, so heavy,

43:33

months, people learned. They

43:36

learned how to get a metamask. They learned what

43:38

a C phrase was. They learned the theory of

43:40

some people while they were waiting for V friends

43:42

minted board ape because I was delayed for 0.0.

43:45

Like such great things happen. People learned,

43:47

I'm proud of that. Yeah,

43:50

I'm 100% in that group. I

43:52

mean, honestly, if you and your team hadn't put that

43:54

out, I wouldn't have jumped

43:57

into your project. I

43:59

bought five. Ethereum back in 2018,

44:02

put all of it into your project

44:04

and got two rares and

44:07

a spec on the floor

44:09

and best financial move I've

44:11

ever made. Have you sold any

44:13

of them? Absolutely not. And I don't

44:15

plan to for a very long time. Wow,

44:18

I'm so humbled. Good for you, brother.

44:20

Thank you, thank you. So my

44:22

question is more on the personal side of

44:24

things. With the countless

44:27

things that you have going on in

44:29

your professional life, how do you stay

44:31

balanced and make sure that you're

44:33

giving your wife and kids the attention that they

44:35

deserve? Communication,

44:37

effort, priority. Like

44:42

people see so much from me, but

44:44

I don't think they really realize

44:47

they don't see anything. I'm

44:50

very prolific in my content creation.

44:52

Why? I allocate an hour like this,

44:55

get in with my community, get

44:57

these vibes going, right? This is nice, this is

44:59

an amazing morning. It's been a lot

45:01

of good content. I'm reading the chat, feel so

45:03

connected to everybody. But you know this,

45:05

that fucking last thing with that kid from New Orleans,

45:08

that thing is gonna be viewed a billion times. Like I'm gonna chop

45:10

the shit out of that, right? And

45:12

so then I'm gonna penetrate on LinkedIn

45:14

for family business and on TikTok for

45:17

one little part of it. And

45:20

it feels like I did a full

45:22

send podcast. We do that for an hour, but

45:25

then there's fucking ungodly amounts of content

45:27

out of it. And I work

45:29

hard and I really enjoy it, but

45:32

like there's way more hours in

45:34

my life that are going on that nobody sees,

45:36

nobody knows anything about. And

45:38

I keep it that way. And

45:40

it's kind of easy to be honest. It's

45:43

like, I don't value anything

45:45

more than people that I love. And

45:48

why would I not prioritize that?

45:53

I don't need the outside validation

45:56

of wealth creation or headlines

45:58

or positive re-invitation. enforcement from

46:01

social media. It's all lovely. It's

46:03

all a byproduct. What I

46:05

need is to spend time with the

46:07

people I love and I need to

46:09

do the thing I love. And the thing I love

46:11

to do is be an entrepreneur. But

46:13

I was loving this shit at 26 at Wine Library working

46:18

for my dad, the same

46:20

exact way I feel right

46:22

now, I felt at 28,

46:27

the same, because for me, it's just playing

46:29

tennis, right? For me,

46:31

business is sports. For me at

46:33

28, I was playing tennis. For me at 46,

46:35

I'm playing tennis. Now I'm better at tennis. People

46:39

know who I am now. I'm more of

46:42

like a famous tennis player. But

46:44

at the end of the day, I don't need

46:46

the selfies in the streets. I

46:49

don't need people leaving a goat

46:51

emoji. It's also why I'm comfortable

46:53

when people are like, you fucking suck, you're full of shit.

46:56

Because I don't need the good, I don't need the bad and

46:58

I'm just kind of in my zone

47:00

and I'm just playing tennis out here, right?

47:04

And so because those are the

47:06

only two things I focus on, it's actually

47:08

very easy to balance

47:11

because I think when you do

47:13

need the accolades, when you do need the

47:16

million dollars to buy a Mercedes to

47:18

show them, I'm gonna show you that I'm

47:20

successful, I'm insecure, I'm gonna show you, then

47:23

you start losing track of your time with the

47:25

people you love because

47:27

you're obsessed with the negativeness of

47:29

the game. Totally

47:34

agree. Thank

47:36

you, I appreciate the alpha. Really

47:39

looking forward to meeting you in person at VCon

47:41

in May. I think

47:43

VCon is gonna be one of the greatest weekends of

47:45

my life. I am

47:48

so obsessed with meeting every

47:50

single person. We are like, back to

47:52

operations, we are in countless meetings tracking

47:54

how we're gonna do the panels, how

47:57

we're gonna do the keynotes. I'm like trying to figure out

47:59

like, I do like a selfie booth. It's

48:01

like a kissing booth, but like, that's how

48:03

I can get a lot of people, but we can't

48:05

interrupt with that keynote. So when are we like, it's

48:07

real shit out here for me. Yeah,

48:10

yeah, a lot of moving parts,

48:12

but it's going to be an

48:14

epic week and weekend and- The

48:16

best part is I don't even feel like I need to be

48:19

kind of Mickey Mouse or Walt Disney. I think

48:21

the community is so fucking fired up to see

48:23

each other. Like

48:26

I can't, it's gonna be like summer camp,

48:28

right? Like, especially V-com too, like

48:32

people are family. Absolutely,

48:34

yeah. Sharing the same rarity type or

48:36

sharing the same character. It's gonna be

48:39

unbelievable. Yeah, the community that's

48:41

being built is insane. I mean, there's so

48:43

many of us that hop

48:45

on a clubhouse channel every morning or

48:47

afternoon or evening. And so many things

48:50

coming from it, man. The

48:52

relationships in themselves are well worth

48:54

the ticket. I

48:57

agree. Thank you, my friend. Thank you, take

48:59

care. All

49:03

right, next we're gonna have

49:05

Osman. Sorry if I pronounced

49:07

that wrong. Hey Gary, how's it going? Osman,

49:10

how are you? Not too bad, not too bad.

49:12

You got my name right, thank you for that. Of course,

49:14

I know some Osman's. So

49:16

I'm from Toronto, Canada. I have a small- By

49:19

the way, literally, literally said it last

49:21

night over dinner. I think

49:23

my favorite city besides New York City. There

49:26

we go. Asalaam ala say, Louis, Toronto

49:29

NFT. I'm pretty sure we got coming here

49:31

soon. There's a reason that

49:33

St. Louis and Toronto is an NFT

49:36

in- So

49:38

Gary, for my question, I have

49:41

a small recycling brokerage.

49:43

We sell and export paper and

49:45

plastics. So right now I'm

49:47

the first sales guy. I'm doing everything.

49:51

And my question was, how do I bring on the

49:54

first employee number one to do

49:56

more sales because it's a brokerage

49:58

and- allow that person to

50:00

also help the business but also grow themselves. Because

50:04

there's not a culture yet, it's

50:06

employee number one. So how do I? There's

50:09

some people that don't need all

50:11

that in place. There's a lot of people

50:13

that grow more by being employee

50:15

one, two, seven, nine and 15. Then

50:19

every employee that was in the first 100

50:21

employees at Vayner had more growth than every

50:23

employee that comes into Vayner today, even though

50:25

I have systems that I'm so proud of

50:28

because you're in the

50:30

trenches early, you're learning

50:32

through osmosis. Okay.

50:36

Okay, fair I get that. But now in a

50:38

brokerage environment, because I guess in Vayner, these projects,

50:41

right? They're sort of working

50:43

on this project, work on this thing. It's different,

50:45

it's different. But in a brokerage where it's like,

50:47

they're gonna be actively looking for sales and looking

50:49

for clients. We're not

50:51

necessarily working together, we're working independently. That's

50:53

right. So is

50:56

it the same thing? Just allow them to

50:58

just grow themselves? Of course, well, no, I

51:00

mean, look,

51:03

sales, yes and no,

51:05

sales. Sales

51:08

is real life. There's no

51:10

hiding. So

51:12

that's why I love it so much. You

51:15

can't make pretend in sales. Okay.

51:18

Right? It is what it is.

51:20

So of course, one of the ways to grow is

51:22

to let them sink and swim, of course. But

51:25

the osmosis comes in different ways. You're

51:28

gonna be interacting with them as

51:30

you're gonna be talking to them. Of

51:32

course. And so you're gonna be

51:35

analyzing. They'll

51:37

be talking, you'll be thinking. And you

51:39

say, hey, but maybe you wanna try to

51:41

start with this on the opening sentence. Or

51:43

did you tell them about that? Or hey,

51:45

did you follow up and have an in-person?

51:47

Or whatever it might be. So

51:50

you're doing both. It's like raising a

51:53

capable child. A capable

51:56

child needs both. Right

51:59

now there's so many. of people that are over parenting

52:01

their kids and putting them into a bubble, making all

52:03

their decisions, taking care of everything for them, of course

52:05

they can't do shit at 22. Right?

52:10

Same with sales. You've got to create

52:12

a framework and be a support system, but you

52:14

can't fucking, you got to let them live.

52:17

You've got to let them win and lose on

52:19

their own sales ability. I think the thing

52:21

you look for when you hire the first

52:23

person is, have they lived in that environment?

52:26

I would hire somebody who's already

52:28

been on a sales

52:31

team where they were one of just two or

52:33

three people because they've tasted it already. Or

52:36

you go with your gut intuition and

52:40

you can see the fucking flame in her or his

52:42

eyes and you give them an

52:45

at bat. Sink and swim.

52:48

Sink or swim, but you don't actually let them sink. You

52:52

jump in the pool and save them. But

52:55

you can't teach your kid swimming by just

52:58

holding them the whole time. And

53:01

you can't teach sales without letting them

53:04

do it. Sink

53:06

or swim, got it. Yeah, appreciate that.

53:08

And once again, I think some of you guys mentioned

53:10

before, OG, a reef friend

53:13

owner, thank you for educating

53:15

the community. You know, 2020 is a

53:17

bad year for I think everybody, but I

53:19

think buying into early, I think I'm now six

53:21

figures up. So appreciate

53:23

that. We're gonna be at VCon

53:25

Minneapolis. Can't wait. Thank you so much. Thanks,

53:27

Asma. Finally,

53:32

we have Charles. Oh

53:35

my God. Nice hat, Charles. Thank

53:38

you very much. Thank you very much. Good

53:40

morning, Gary. Good morning. Sorry, I'm kind of

53:42

freaking out. Nothing

53:44

to freak out about. But

53:47

before I ask my question, I

53:49

just wanna give a huge, huge shout out to

53:51

the V friends community. I

53:53

like so many of others have said

53:56

today, I'm one more example of

53:58

one of the successes. that's

54:00

come out of the V friends

54:03

drop. And I've followed your content

54:05

for since about 2018. And

54:09

yeah, I can definitely say I'm one of

54:11

those people who's had their lives completely fundamentally

54:13

changed from your content and just a huge

54:15

thank you to you. And-

54:19

Thank you, Charles. It means a lot to me. Anyway,

54:22

so for my question,

54:24

I'm kind of currently living through my 37

54:26

things. I've

54:30

been kind of in business for myself

54:32

since before COVID and

54:35

just done it through a hundred

54:37

different selling products, flipping

54:40

this, that, and definitely

54:43

was able to get a huge win off of

54:46

the V friends I own too. One

54:49

of them was actually gifted to me, a

54:51

very rare driven dragon,

54:54

which I'm still like in shock

54:56

that that ever happened. But yeah,

55:00

my question is some of the best communication

55:04

practices to implement more

55:06

kind candor into your

55:08

day-to-day interactions, especially

55:11

in business and professionally. Like

55:13

how do you- You know, I

55:15

struggled with this my whole life. I talked about in the

55:17

book, I was not good at candor. I was not good

55:19

at saying, hey, Susan, I don't like this. Yeah.

55:24

Then I put the word kind in front of it and it made

55:26

it easier for me. I think

55:28

for all of us that struggle with candor, the

55:32

reality is we have to find a

55:34

way for us to be comfortable with

55:37

professional, kind, appropriate

55:40

confrontation. You

55:43

know, like we're avoiding confrontation either in

55:45

our own insecurities or for me, it

55:47

was actually, and I don't

55:49

love this, but it's true. I had

55:52

a level of ego, which I'm really

55:54

proud that I'm mainly confidence and

55:56

not ego, but as I

55:58

broke it down and really worked- through it, I realized

56:01

that I thought this person wasn't good at their job.

56:03

My issue with candor has always been

56:05

employees, nobody else, because I love them

56:07

so much, I'm in family life. And

56:10

I took this weird tack that, okay, now I know

56:12

they're not great, but they're

56:14

not great. So out there

56:16

in the real world, they're gonna really do bad. So they're

56:18

better off with me. And it was almost like this, you

56:22

know, really like very, it

56:25

seemed like a good thing, but it

56:28

was like built in my own ego,

56:30

like that I would be a better home for

56:32

them than somewhere else. And it led to

56:35

over 20 years, the only relationships that

56:39

I have that are not positive are

56:41

the ones that I wasn't able to deploy enough candor to,

56:44

and then would surprise them when we would fire

56:46

them. And it's really unfortunate, something

56:48

I regret, and it's something I've been really working

56:50

hard on. And it's been going a lot better

56:52

for me, Charles, in the last two

56:54

years. And what I could tell you is for

56:57

me, it was when I decided it was kind

56:59

candor. And with that, all of a sudden, I

57:01

could really just get there. And I

57:03

just realized I was ready at 44 to get there. And

57:07

so for you, you just have to figure out how you

57:09

can get there to actually tell somebody what you actually think.

57:13

Yeah, I have

57:15

to say, especially in business, I've

57:19

started many different

57:21

projects since I've turned 20. And

57:24

I've always ended up doing- Excuse me for

57:26

one second. Oh,

57:28

I love where you're about to go. Robin says,

57:30

kind candor equals constructive criticism. Yes,

57:33

but I think constructive criticism, what

57:36

I try to tell people is the word

57:38

criticism in itself is already

57:40

like, when

57:43

you leave somebody with candor, like

57:45

when you leave candor, a

57:48

lot of people go with fear, they're scared when

57:50

you're done talking, and they're looking for a

57:52

new job, or they're crying at home. You've

57:55

got to find a way to be able to

57:57

make somebody feel good or at least neutral.

58:00

while understanding. And the problem is when

58:02

people hear constructive criticism, they hear the

58:05

criticism part. And I don't think people know how

58:07

to deliver feedback a lot. And

58:09

that's why the word kind I think really lands.

58:11

Because kind is very distinct. Kind,

58:13

candor. It's kind. Like,

58:16

but it's candor. And I

58:19

really, you know, back to your point, and

58:21

I had this too, when you're starting things with friends

58:23

and family, it's really hard to tell them the truth.

58:26

Like I become family with my

58:28

voice, but I've had family and

58:30

friends and sometimes. Yeah,

58:34

I'm actually in the process of

58:36

starting a business with my girlfriend

58:38

right now. So it's like, it's

58:40

the top thing on my mind.

58:44

I think you over communicate now. Hey baby,

58:47

I'm really worried about this shit. We're

58:49

going into this, know me. This is

58:52

be vulnerable, be naked. You know, she's

58:54

already seen you naked. So you're good,

58:56

you know, like be naked, right? Like,

58:58

I'm very worried about this. I'm not

59:00

good at this per se, and

59:02

you're my girl. I'm going to

59:04

probably start getting resentment. Then I may crack.

59:06

And like, you know, you got to really

59:09

talk about it upfront so

59:11

that she knows what's happening as well. But

59:13

then like I said to the younger brother

59:15

combo earlier, just love her more than the

59:17

business. Thank

59:20

you. I really appreciate that. And I

59:22

just want to give a couple of specific shout outs

59:24

to the V friends. Shout

59:27

out Corso, shout out Post, shout

59:30

out Brick, shout out Kelly, shout out

59:32

Collie Bud, shout out Josh, and shout

59:34

out NFT Jack. They've been

59:36

my homies since like day one. It's

59:38

awesome. And the V friends. Anyway,

59:40

I really appreciate it. Wrapping up,

59:42

see you. See you. I'll

59:44

see you there. Thank you, my friend. Good

59:47

job, Dust. You guys found a lot of good peeps. That

59:51

was all Seth. Seth,

59:53

big shout out to you brother. I don't know if you're behind the scenes

59:55

right now or not, big, big shout

59:57

out. I

59:59

hope everybody's super. I see all of you in

1:00:01

the comments. I love you very much. Thank you for watching the

1:00:03

show. Tea with Gary V is back. We'll try to

1:00:05

do it as much as I can. Full

1:00:08

disclosure, I am deep in

1:00:10

series two V friends right now. Dustin's even shaking

1:00:12

his head because he's on such a key part

1:00:14

of my content team. He knows I'm not even

1:00:16

posting content to my normal volume. I'm

1:00:19

deep, really deep in the cocoon

1:00:21

right now. And

1:00:23

I really, really,

1:00:25

really just am so grateful for

1:00:28

this community. I hope everybody's super well. I

1:00:31

wish you nothing but the best. I love you. Go

1:00:33

love yourself. We'll see you next time.