My Dinner With Gary Vaynerchuk

So I am just coming back from dinner with Gary Vaynerchuk as well as Lewis Howes and Jay Shetty and Josh Bazzoni among among the group. I'm pretty sure there are like 10 million Instagram followers at least of which.00002% were mine. And so I wanted to share with you while I was fresh in my mind and also just document for myself later what what I learned from Gary. It was like a two and a half hour dinner and Gary talked a lot about a couple things. One, he talked about basically being all in on essentially being a media company and how like the structure of it all and how it all plays together is really fascinating. And he also talked about what he thinks is the future, which is Voice. And he was predicting what he thinks Voice is going to evolve into. And it was really cool to hear him, hear him talk about like he's having all his videos transcribed so that Voice can recognize how his, how Gary talks so that later you could literally upload an article and Alexa will be able to read it in Gary's voice. So somebody could say like play such and such read by Gary Vaynerchuk, which would be really interesting. That is pretty trippy. He talked about being all in on as an investor and Voice, he talked about what he's investing in. It was really interesting. And I asked him, I told him kind of where I am in my career, that I sold a company last year, that I've been outlining my next moves, that I've been placing bets, that.

I've been anxious to discover where to put my energy next. And he was like, dude, don't be in a hurry. If you spend three years guessing and figuring it out, you'll be 33, which is still young as hell. Which was really interesting for him to hear him say. And it gave me some freedom because I am so in my head about figuring it out and knowing what to do and having the plan to get the Cleveland Indians. And I know what it is at a high level but like on a day to day practical basis, I don't know, like I'm having a hard time carving out where to put my energy. And I know that I'm going to be involved in private equity. I know that I'm going to have a fund that invests in physical property products, brands. Those things are already in motion. Those partnerships are already starting to grow. I know that I'm going to be all into my audience for the next few years. And what he basically said, or at least what I Heard him say was go all in on the audience and go all in on media and on people. And that will open up the opportunities that will eventually result in me getting the Cleveland Indians. And it might come from building the machine in a private equity group that buys a Revlon or buys, you know, a big company and ends up turning it around. Which is exactly his model with VaynerMedia. His model is to have the agency that controls all the media so he can buy an old brand, flip it for a few billion dollars and buy the New York Jets. And for me, I think that's going to come from some sort of a physical products brand that I invest in that I have the advisory team to turn that business around, roll it up, sell it, and I've now got a Billy to buy the Cleveland Indians.

What was cool is he remembered me from the one time we had met before. He still wears our T shirt in a bunch of his videos, which was really cool. And when I met him three years ago, I was running a million dollar business, maybe a two million dollar business. And you know, I built that business to ten million dollars, sold it, wanted to learn the private equity model, which is part of the reason why we sold it. And since then it's been like, all right, what are my next, like what are my next moves to be in the position to own the Indians. And one of the pieces of advice that he gave me was he suggested that I go out and find, hire the person where.

They'Re the media builder, they're the media mogul. His example is go hire the number four advice and give them a significant amount of equity in capitalism.com to build capitalism.com into a media empire. Me go all into my personal brand. Me go all in on the investing projects or really not the investing projects but like putting together the assembling the fund and, and going in that direction. The other thing that he said was really interesting was he talked about the, the not only the thin profit margins at VaynerMedia but that some of the divisions of VaynerMedia run at a loss because he's just all in on media, he's all in on people, he's all in on building the systems for the big flip one day. He is, he is thinking so long term and here I am thinking about day to day profitability and like that's important in order to stay sustainable. But I realized like if I were to go, if I were to go all in on going even bigger, I would push off the payday to later and I would Just reinvest in people and media and continue to grow the brand. So I think what you're gonna see me do from this point forward is be more aggressive with content to be. To be documenting even more for me, to be hiring.

People who are just want to be the best content media buyer in the world and.

Starting to maybe assemble that infrastructure. But I need. The one struggle point that I have in my career is like, I've never had to succeed through other people. I've never had those empire builders next to me who were running those teams, building those teams, managing those teams as a profit center, ensuring that they're sustainable. And that's a weakness of mine. And I.

I have struggled with that in the past. I've made bad hires in the past, and that's been a consistent kind of struggle point for me. But I'm gonna have to be good at that if I'm gonna get to the level that I want. The other thing, like, I was talking with Lewis Howes was there, Jay Shetty was there. And one of the things they were talking about was after you've tested a bunch of things, going deep into what's working really well, Jay Shetty was saying, you know, I wanted, you know, my audience wants me to do podcasts, my audience wants me to talk about this topic and this topic. But the thing that scaled Jay Shetty's audience from 0 to 10 million in two years, all organic and no paid, doesn't even know how to run a Facebook ad, is the fact that he stayed really, really true to who he was. And when something was working, doubled down, tripled down, quadrupled down on that. And I am so guilty of trying to do everything well rather than doing what's enjoyable for me and tripling down on it. And to be honest with you, like, I'm still finding what that piece is. I'm still finding those pieces of my voice and my story that I really enjoy, that I'm willing to make a big bet on, to go all in on. I don't know what my best hand is right now. Gary's advice was don't be in a rush, because if you're in a rush, you're gonna make bad bets. Instead, Wait until you know you have the best hand and be in experiment mode until then, and continue to invest in the team and invest in media and bide bide the audience keep building and keep building. And I think he's right. And I don't know what that means from a tactical level. I know that we've Got to shore up some of our content systems. And I know that I probably need that right hand person whose life is building the content empire of capitalism.com into a media company.

And I know.

I know I need to be patient because I so want to figure it out. Like I so want to force it. I so want to push it faster and harder versus waiting for the right thing to come along. So I'm going all in on my audience. I'll continue to assemble the fund as a next step for me. I'm going to continue to.

You know, what I need to do is I need to sharpen my sword on Amazon. Like I sold my company, I have a few brands, but I need to get my hustle back in terms of physical products brands. It's exciting to me, but I'm not sure where the next opportunity for me in physical products brands is. And I need to get some of that hustle back.

I need to become more of a practitioner in that.

That was interesting.

So it was a great night with Jay and Lewis and Gary and Josh and it was very, very clarifying for me in terms of next steps and how aggressive I need to be. And even I feel like I might be playing too small and not aggressive enough. And it's time to pick up the pace. So that was my night with Gary V. That was, that was a ten minute summary of a two and a half hour night with Gary Vaynerchuk. And I hope that I'm looking back on this in a few years and saying that was the point where I really started to step on the gas while also coming back to center and doing like following where my true passions were. My big takeaways are being in yes mode, experiment mode, scaling what's working, scaling what sticks while also being very protective of my personal energy and passion. Because as soon as I lose that, as soon as I say yes to something that takes me out of that mode, I'm not going to be the best in the world at it. And I've got to be the best in the world at it if I'm going to reach the level that I want. And I told him I had my you're full of shit moment a couple months ago where I looked myself in the mirror and I was like, the bets you're placing are not congruent with the things that you say that you want. And so for me, this was a nice reset to align my focus bigger and to be in acquisition mode in terms of talent and opportunities and media and to be okay risking, you know, not having the immediate payoff for a much bigger payoff later. Gary is all focused on the later payoff, not today's payoff, and I focus too much on today's payoff. I need to be focused on enough of a payoff to keep the machine going so that I can place my chips for the later payday, which is going to be a World Series in Cleveland. Thanks for watching. Thanks for following the journey. I promise to keep you posted and continue documenting the journey.