My Meeting with Gary Vaynerchuk - The Advice He Gave Me

Hey, fastlaners. Ryan, Daniel Moran here. I'm coming at you on a one day in between. It's been a whirlwind week. I spent the first half of the week in New York City. I've got one day here in Austin, Texas before tomorrow when I fly to Bucharest, Romania and then Kiev, Ukraine to give a couple keynotes at some international events that are for Amazon sellers. If, if, by the way, you are listening to this in either Bucharest or in Eastern Europe, highly recommend both events. I was really impressed with the people there last year. Can't wait to go see that crew again. Now I'm just coming back from New York City where I had dinner with Gary Vaynerchuk. And before I left for Europe, I wanted to take a couple minutes and share with you a little bit about my experience and what I took away from my meeting with Gary. So I've met Gary before and he has been somebody that I've been following for about 10 years. And I don't follow him for the same reasons why I think everyone else follows him. Gary has a little, kind of a special niche in my brain, if you will. Because I discovered Gary when I was.

Shoot, I must have been 20 years old, maybe 19, and I had just kind of set the intention that I.

Was going to own the Cleveland Indians.

And part of the backstory for me, part of the context for me was I went to school to be a pastor, realized I wasn't going to go down that route, went into business, needed a goal. My dream was always to be the general manager of the Indians, realized I wasn't going to get that goal because the odds were just too low it would be more practical to buy the team. And so I decided I wanted to own a Major League baseball team. And I discovered this guy named Gary Vaynerchuk whose goal was to own the New York Jets. And I started following him because I saw that he was 10 years ahead of me. I saw that he was placing his chips well, and I said, all right, I need to follow this guy and see where he's going. It's now been 10 years and I met Gary three years ago at the first ever Capitalism conference. Back then it was called Freedom Fast Lane Live. The Capitalism Conference is a year end event where I invite the entrepreneurs and capitalists that I find most fascinating and I give them stage time and invite people to join me. And Gary was the first keynote that.

I called and I told him, you.

Know, my dream is to own the Cleveland Indians. So I want to unpack how you're going to own the New York Jets. At the time, I was running a million dollar a year business. I ended up growing that to 10, selling that business. I'm now analyzing my next moves. I told Gary all this and he remembered meeting me, which was really cool. And what I'm going to share with you is what he told me. And we're going to talk a little bit about the things that he shared about the future of social media, the future of content and what's coming. First things first. It was a small dinner. There were six of us. I think it was myself, my buddy Josh, Josh's friend, one of our community members who runs a company called Wild Foods, a really cool company here in Austin, Texas. His name is Colin Lewis Howes, Jay Shetty, and Gary Vaynerchuk. I joked collectively there was.

What is that like?

That's like collectively maybe 5 million Instagram followers and at least.0001% of them are mine.

Anyway, so I walked in. It was at this private place in New York City. And what was interesting was I said I was here for a dinner and they asked me who I was there to see. And I said vaynermedia. And they're like, oh, Mr. Vaynerchuk, right this way. He's sitting right over here. Go ahead and say hi. And I was like, I'm really early, so I don't want to interrupt. He was, he was in another meeting, which I found really interesting, that he was kind of at a casual meeting with somebody else while he was. He was waiting for the rest of the crew. I found that really interesting because what I expected was there to be this big camera crew, for there to be people following him around, for him to be, you know, pulled in every direction. But he was just sitting in the corner chatting with somebody that he knew waiting for us, which I found really, really interesting. This is a dangerous thing to say, but he wasn't as overwhelmingly busy as I expected him to be. And now I've met Gary before. And the thing that stood out to me the most was that he was incredibly present, incredibly abundantly present. And what surprised me this time was not that there was no video crew. So as a result, I'm realizing how much of his life is not on camera.

We think that there's somebody following him around everywhere he goes.

The truth is, most of his life is not documented. We just see certain highlights, which I found really interesting.

So he was very present, very humble. There was no video crew, there was.

No one else there. And we were in A very. Like, we were in a busy spot. Nobody else was bugging him. So that was the thing that surprised.

Me about him this time.

One of the cool things was when we were sitting down for dinner, Gary had some. Some celebrity athletes texting him, and he kind of turned to me, I was sitting next to him, and he's like, dude, isn't this such a cool life? Like, this is my life. So it was cool to see him get, like, excited.

I was excited to be next to Gary.

He's excited about who's texting him.

So that was a kind of a cool. A cool exchange. The things that dominated the conversation, I mean, we talked about everything from the struggles and the highs and lows of being an entrepreneur to dealing with life on the road when you are traveling all the time, to maintaining relationships with friends and partners, to business structures. But the thing that stood out to me most in the business sense was that Gary is very, very bullish on voice technology. Now.

He talks about this all the time publicly.

But what I found interesting was he had a different take when asked some pointed questions about it. Like, I think about Voice, like, you.

Know, how in the world are you.

Going to monetize voice? How is voice going to be big?

And he was saying, think about this for a second. First of all, you'll say, hey, Alexa, read me my daily briefings, or, hey, Alexa, order me toothpaste, and it'll go to Amazon and it'll buy it. Which, by the way, Gary is extremely bullish on Amazon for you Amazon sellers. Gosh, please go all in. Please go all in.

We're just at the cutting edge. But anyway, Gary was talking about how he expects there to be all kinds of audio apps that are things like, you'll be reading your kid a book, and it'll say, there was thunder on.

The path, and there'll be a, you know, thunder noise.

Or there's a. There was a.

There was rain falling in the meadow.

And kids will. Kids will want to have books read to them. Next to the Alexa, another thing that he was talking about was that he has all his videos transcribed because he.

Believes that he will be able to upload.

Upload his voice, like recordings of his voice along with transcriptions. Alexa will match the vocal inflections of those words to the transcription and be able to create speeches, like documents, as read by Gary or whoever it was.

So if.

If. If you want to hear Gary give the Gettysburg Address, you could do that. In the same way, he was predicting that you'll be able to say you'll be watching baseball and you'll say, gary Alexa, play Morgan Freeman. And now it'll be Morgan Freeman narrating.

The game in real time.

That was his prediction on Voice. He believes that it's a platform that.

A bunch of apps are going to be to be developed on.

That was really interesting.

So he's very, very bullish on Amazon. Very, very bullish on Voice, Both of which I found really interesting to hear him talk about privately. I also found it interesting that he talked a little bit about why he talks about the things he's excited about so publicly. He's like, I'm, he's like, I'm, I'm positioning myself as the guy who predicted Voice because I want the opportunities in Voice because I'm so bullish that it's a trillion dollar opportunity. It's like, that's really interesting to talk about something publicly, to position yourself to be at the forefront of the opportunities.

That will come about it.

That is super interesting.

Free me. I'm drinking some coffee right now, trying to get, trying to get amped up so I can crush it like Gary. So we talked about Voice.

We all talked about content creation in a bit of a unique way that I've heard about him talk about it in the past. You know, I was there with Lewis Howes, who is one of the biggest podcasts in the world. I was there with Jay Shetty, who's literally gone from 0 to 13 million Facebook followers in two years. No paid ads, all organic. Crazy, crazy numbers. And I was, I was talking, you know, between Lewis and Jay and Gary, I was asking them about inflection points in content in like an audience growth. And I was talking about.

The content creation process. And what was interesting is, of course the word self awareness came up. We were talking about that, but in a little bit of a different way. Both Jay and Gary were talking about.

Doubling down on the content that's easy for you to create. And I, gosh, I spend so much time in my head trying to figure out what is going to, quote, work, what's going to spread. I don't know, guys.

This, like, personally, where I am in my life is I am realizing the disservice that I have done to myself by living my life in my head, trying to figure out the formula. And where I need to get is to that point where I am just in the zone of genius, doing the things that are easy and light and giving. And it was funny. Cameron Herold, someone who I admire and respect, texted me this morning and he Was like, hey, dude, your video on.

You know, that you always wanted to.

Be a millionaire and like, comparing yourself to other people. He says, that video was amazing. He said, I absolutely loved that video. And what's interesting is Russell Brunson has sent me the same thing about that video.

Brooke Castillo took that and put it on her podcast because she loved it so much. And, like, these are all influential people. That was, you know, that was an effortless piece of content for me to create. It just came from my gut. It came from my belly, you know, when I gave the speech of the 12 months to 1 million. That was fun. That was easy. And yet here I am. I spend so much time and energy doing things that I don't enjoy doing that are heady, that I'm trying to figure out, rather than, like, where do I really feel meaning and purpose? Like, what literally feels easy. I've spent years getting to the point of basically uncovering what feels easy and light and free to me. And I'm excited to find out what happens when I start operating from that place because I've been operating from my head for so long. And so Jay and Lewis and Gary all confirmed that the secret to building an audience and content creation is just operating from that place. You doing a podcast may not be right for you. You doing a YouTube channel may not be right for you. It's just what is authentic, what's. What is true to you and not, like, what do you believe is true to you?

Not the.

Like your truth versus someone else's truth. I mean, like, what, what. What feels at your core like a give, a give to other people. I was doing a meditation recently, and it's kind of asking, you know, what's my next best move? Because it's something that I'm. I have certain opportunities. I'm trying to analyze which one is the best one. And kind of the answer I got in this meditation was just give and just be in that state of giving. And that feels good to me. Like, that feels really good to me. I've. I've shared on my podcast in my. In my long, kind of.

My long admission of failures with C Money, I was talking about.

I was talking about how at this point where I'm analyzing my next moves.

And I feel kind of beat up.

From a few losses over the last few months, and we've tried to make me the business, and I don't want to do that.

It doesn't feel. Feel good.

It's not working.

Like, what I need is to be in that place. Of giving and service.

And that will support whatever my next thing is, whether that's a private equity group or the fund that I want to put together, I don't know.

Hey guys, this is Ryan. We're going to take a quick break.

And we'll return to the show in a second.

Hey, Ryan. Daniel Moran here. We're at the headquarters of Onnit with the CEO of Aubrey Marcus.

Aubrey's going to be hanging out with.

Us August 24th and 25th in Austin, Texas. I want to know if we go back on. It began in 2011, right? So we go back seven years. Where was this brand in terms of its ideation?

This brand was in the attic of a small, like boutique and it had three people in it and were stuffing trash bags full of, you know, postage envelopes full of alpha brain. And it just started to, just started to click like, oh, shit, we might actually have a business here. And that's where it started. In a room smaller than my office is now. I know we have 120 people and, you know, then it was three people in an attic and now it's a much different thing. So it's been a beautiful journey throughout those years.

So I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who are in that stage of their. They're bringing an idea to the world. And I think you're being on the other side of that. You've seen what's possible. So what advice in 20 seconds or less would you give to an entrepreneur who is in that place that you.

Were seven years ago?

Enjoy the process, you know, like actually enjoy it. Like, keep striving, keep working, keep fighting for what you're building. But don't forget to enjoy the little wins along the way. Don't forget to enjoy each little step in the journey because your whole life is a journey. No matter where you go, there'll still be something you're building for. The only thing I regret is not taking a little more time to be like, oh, it's cool that I'm at this stage, you know, like I'm enjoying this and giving myself a little bit of the emotional freedom from that constant fight to really enjoy the process a little bit more.

August 24th and 25th, if you are an entrepreneur who sells physical products on Amazon, Kickstarter, your own store, click Funnels, we're going to be bringing in some of the best of the world to deconstruct their processes for how they went from nothing, just an idea seven years ago, to having 120 employees to having an impact all over the world growing a business that you're really proud of that is changing lives all over. And it's going to be here in Austin, Texas, with some of the best.

In the world, Aubrey included.

So I'm excited to have you.

I'll see you guys.

All right, we'll see you there.

And I ran this by Gary and I'll tell you what he said said at the end. But first, there's a couple other things.

I wanted to share with you from.

A tactical level of what Gary shared. Gary was talking about how everything he does supports a brand that he's building. For example, his asks are not, hey, go buy this thing.

They're not, go buy this continuity program.

He doesn't monetize his audience.

What he does is everything supports a brand that he is building.

So you know Vayner Sports, he has a wing of his company that does actually Amazon sponsored listings for companies that.

Are spending at least like $100,000 a month.

He, you know, they have like Vayner talent. I don't know if that's a thing anymore.

But like they have like their different.

Wings of the company.

And he has different other businesses that are not Vayner related that he will ask his influencer friends to talk about in order to push something. So his asks, his monetization strategies are.

To build other businesses, to build big brands.

And I thought that was really interesting that you have to be thinking about.

The long term if you're gonna do.

That, if you're gonna operate in that way.

But I thought that was really interesting.

And he is always playing for the very long term. It was. And that leads me to my next point, which was he said something about his team that really surprised me.

So Gary was talking about this business.

That he had purchased and he bought this business and it was a 50 person team. And he said the first thing that he did was he took it from a team of 50 to a team of 100. And so I said, hey, Gary, before you move on, could you please tell me how do you go from a team of 50 to a team of 100 while staying sustainable? How do you sustain that?

You know what he said?

He said by reducing profit margin.

Wait, so you just spent all the profit on more people?

Yes.

And I was like, okay, that's interesting. How many of your businesses do you run at break even? He said, not only do I run at break even, I run at a. I run some of my companies at a hemorrhaged loss.

Now he said that Vaynermedia Made like they're profitable, they're healthy. But he said he has different divisions of the company or different businesses that don't make money. And so I was asking how and why. It's because it is because they're. This was so crazy what he said. He said, ryan, my only fixed expense is rent.

I can let people go, I can cut expenses except for rent. Everything else is negotiable. And because of that, I'm willing to invest every dollar. I'm willing to punt all the profit for a bigger payoff later. And I was like, oh my goodness, that's brilliant.

Like, I so got it.

That was such a moment for me. That was such a transition for me because I realized how much time and energy I put into making something sustainable rather than building something.

Now, profit and sustainability is super important, super important.

But I realize I spend so much.

Time and energy thinking about how am.

I going to make this profitable so.

That it is sustainable.

Whereas if I operated from a place of I'm building towards something and we just need the revenues in order to keep the lights on, and there was a very clear finish line to that, I would be way ahead of where I am now.

Now, I'm not saying throw money off.

Like throw money around, like just waste money, but if I was building towards something, and I say I am, but.

Hearing him talk about it gave me a different perspective.

And it made me realize, like I.

Talk about building out a vision, I.

Talk about leading towards a goal line. But hearing him say that he's building.

Towards it and he's investing every dollar.

Into getting there, I realized that I had been hypocritical. I had realized that, you know, I was, I was leading towards somewhere, but I was operating by also trying to maximize profit, which is great, maximizing profit.

You should maximize profit.

But the profit for Gary was later he was building something much bigger. And I realized how short term I had been thinking instead and how much that cost me. That was a wake up call for me. That was a big shift for me. So I asked him, it got to my kind of turn and I asked Gary. You know, I said, gary, when I met you three years ago at the Capitalism conference, I was running a million dollar a year business. I grew that to 10. I sold it. And I sold it because I had never run $100 million company before. My dream is to own the Cleveland Indians. And I wanted to learn what it looked like to build $100 million company. And I saw that as like a faster way to learn while also freeing up my time and capital to focus on something bigger. And he was like, fair. Got it. And I said, I placed my bets. I invested some of the capital. And he said, you did that too soon. He said.

He kind of cut me off. He goes, that's part of your problem. He said, you placed bets too soon. And I think he's right.

He's like, you.

You. You made decisions too quickly. And it's true. After I sold.

Sheer strength, or at least the majority sake of Sheer Strength, I. I went right back into workaholism on capitalism.com and tried to expand way too fast.

It was like I needed something to replace the space that had just been like. I. I felt like I had to go harder into capitalism.com rather than getting clearer about capitalism.com and that was a. That was a failure of mine. But I learned by failure. I learned by mistakes. So Gary said, you place bets too early.

I was like, yep, fair.

And then I said, what I'm doing now is I'm analyzing my next steps of doing a private equity group, of putting together a fund. And I said, I had my moment a few months ago where I looked myself in the mirror, and I said, you're full of it, Ryan. You're full of it. I remember exactly. I was driving down first street in Austin, Texas. I can actually see first street from my window as I'm recording this right now. I can see the spot where I looked in the mirror and said, you're full of it. And Gary was like, love it. Keep going. I'm waiting for the punchline. And I said, so I realized that the bets I had been placing were not congruent with my goal to own the Cleveland Indians. So how would you advise me to place my bets moving forward? And he said, don't be in a rush. He said, you're 30.

You've done some cool things. You could go all in on experimenting for the next three years and still be young as hell, which I've heard him give that advice before. But I realized that, you know, Gary wasn't really growing Vayner until he was 32, 33. So for me, I can spend three years experimenting. And we're doing it like we're doing wine with wine just as an experiment, or I drink wine with entrepreneurs in Austin, Texas, and we record it, and we're trying some new content pieces, and I'm experimenting with just, like, new connections and not feeling attached, having to monetize everything. And that feels freeing. And so what he was basically saying is, you could do that for three years until you find the thing and then go all in.

And as a public figure who's documenting his journey to own the Cleveland Indians, part of me feels responsible to have it all figured out. And I don't always, like, I know how to advise companies, I know how to advise clients. I know how to do a lot of cool things, but I don't know how to advise myself. I don't know how to tell my find for myself what my next best move is. And Gary was saying, don't be in a rush, which I really appreciated. So my next moves are to let it bake. You know, I do. I know. I do know that my next moves are going to be a combination of leading the audience of capitalism.com and while also using the exposure that I have to put together a fund for physical products brands, and at some point, I'll be involved in private equity. I know that my wiring is to be a communicator and an investor. That is how I personally am wired. So I have to be talking publicly and I have to be investing. So the way that I'm wired is I've got to be leading an audience. It's why I bought capitalism.com, it's why I podcast. And I have got to forget about having to monetize everything and go into creation mode and let my team monetize it. Let my team make it sustainable. And if I don't have faith in them, then I gotta go hire the person who I trust to go make it sustainable. And then I know that investment opportunities and private equity opportunities will come up and I'll go all in when that is right, and when it's right, it's easy. So I'm going.

I'm in that mode. I'm renovating a lake house right now. And my plan for the lake house is to spend a lot of time there relaxing and creating content that comes from my gut and comes from my heart, bringing in amazing people and featuring them on the show.

Putting the, like experimenting with new shows and building the audience. And I know that as a result of doing that, the great opportunities will come. I don't 100% know what they are. I think I know what they are, but they're not 100% easy yet. Like, I know that I want to put together this fund for physical products brands. I know that it's not easy yet. And so everything in me wants to force it, but I can't force it. I have to let it envelop.

So that's where I am. And that's how Gary confirmed where I am and what Gary said about the future, it's what he said about me and how he thinks long term. My biggest takeaways were how he doesn't worry about profitability. He worries about growth and he worries about building the engine. Building the asset, not the profit stream. Profit and sales is important to keep building the engine. That was interesting.

It was really interesting. And him just focusing all on people.

Those are my big takeaways. And that I shouldn't be in a rush. So that's where I am, guys. And that's how Gary impacted me. And I'm excited to continue sharing the journey with you and what I discover along the way. Thanks for listening to my more casual than usual chat with y'. All. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can, you can send me a message on Twitter I'm Ryan Moran. Or on Instagram, I'm RyanDaniel Moran. Or on Facebook, I'm also RyanDaniel Moran. Appreciate you guys. Thanks for listening to the show and I'll talk to you soon.

If you've been listening to the last few episodes of the show where we featured entrepreneurs who have crossed the seven figure mark and are on their way to eight figures, then you undoubtedly have heard us talk about the back room. The Backroom is a group mentoring program where we cast the vision for getting to $10 million a year and beyond and being ready to sell your company because ultimately that's where the big payday is going to come from. We also open up investment opportunities so that you can put your profits into places that give you more wealth and potentially more cash flow or even help you save on taxes. We have some pretty cool places where we put cash that give you sometimes all three. Plus you're in a room with people who are the best in the world at what they do. We bring in my team of advisors that help people get into retail. They help people clean up their systems, they help people clean up their books, they even help them reposition their companies so that they can be sold for more money. We also talk about what's working right now on Amazon and on other channels. But the focus of the group is on casting the vision to get to eight figures and beyond and clearing all bottlenecks that stand in your way while also opening up other opportunities for you to enjoy a life of freedom. Because that's what we're after here. We're not just after this to work hard and work 16 hours a day. We're doing this so that we can have freedom and we get freedom by making enough money so that we can invest into places that, that allow us to never have to work again and then building empires with people that we love doing business with. And that's what we're doing inside of the back room. And I could also tell you that we're looking to buy and buy into some of our students businesses through something else that we're doing pretty cool in the back room, but I will save that for another day because that is still in process. But if you have an idea that you're not sure how to bring to the marketplace, if you've got an audience that you know could be the fertile ground for a really profitable seven figure physical products brand, or if you're selling enough product to be able to say, you know, I could step on the gas here if you've got that million in sight, or you're beyond the million and you know that it's time to accelerate the process to get to that eight figure mark. Because you're playing the review game, you're, you're playing price wars. You're tired of sacrificing profit margins. You're working way too long for too little result and you want to clear those bottlenecks so that you can grow faster and have a sellable company. So one day you can have that ideal freedom lifestyle. We can help you inside of the back room. It's one of the more expensive things that we do. It's also the highest ROI thing that we do. So it is application only. You need to be ready for it and you need to be ready to move when you join. So you can go to freedomfastlane.com, click on backroom and, and see the application, see all the pricing details from there. Working with me one on one starts at about $100,000. Joining the back room is a little bit less than that. So just know going into it that it's a serious investment and it is only for people who either have funding, have sales and are ready to go once they join.

So if that's you, go over to.

Freedomfastlane.Com, click on the back room and you'll see the application and full details there.