WIN in 74 MINUTES: Gary's Rules for Success Revealed

There's a lot of push towards being a workaholic and hard work is a learned behavior. I see it in my team. I've seen it in the thousands of employees I've had, which is the closer they are to the sun, the harder they work. And I'm like, aha. And so I definitely feel like I learned hard work by watching my parents. And so it's why I talk so much about hustle. I watch people give advice completely predicated on natural talent and DNA, and I'm like, look, I get it. Like, I can throw a football every day for 9 hours a day. I'm just not physically built to be competitive at the highest levels. Yeah, I do think if anybody Everybody watching right now, if there's anything they take away, it's like, look, you're gonna only be so pretty, you're only gonna be so smart. There's things that are gonna be natural and then there's things that you can actually control. I do believe, and I don't know if I'm right or wrong, I don't, but I do believe that work ethic is a taught behavior. It's something you do have more control over. And you know what really sealed the deal for me? Getting healthier. I was 38 years old and it didn't come natural to me. Like, it didn't come natural to me at all. I hate the gym. I hate it now. I hate it, I don't like it, I don't wanna do it, but I knew it was important. And somewhere around midway through being 38 years old, I got serious, I figured out my system, I made the financial commitment, and I've won.

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Watch a top 10 with Believe Nation.

Hey, it's Evan Carmichael, and I make these videos because you are probably the most ambitious person in your circle, but you know you're capable of more, and you get that push by surrounding yourself with the best. So today, let's learn from one of the best, Gary Vaynerchuk, and my take on his top 10 rules of success. Enjoy. Rule number 2, treat your health well.

30 and a half, I'm on this random flight, I'm just laying there, not feeling tired, not feeling lethargic, no cliché thing, no heartburn, not I think I'm getting a heart attack, nothing. I'm just laying there and I'm saying, you know, if I treated my health the way I treated businesses, I'd win. And so I just started, actually, I remember what happened, 'cause I was like, that's not, doesn't feel right. I was thinking about my 40th birthday. And I was thinking, you know, at 30, I changed my life. I went from the executor to I need to go for it. If I don't do it from 30 to 40, it's not gonna happen. So let me go for it in that decade. And I was like, what am I gonna do at 40? Weirdly, I don't feel the same pressure I did at 30. I think I'm on a better career path. Like, I don't feel the angst to like, it didn't feel right to triple down on work. And so I said, health. Health is nowhere close to where it should be. I'm not— I'm— the way I make fun of people in business, you're not doing anything right that's gonna help you long-term, I'm not doing anything right with health. When I turn 40, I'm gonna get serious. So then a week later, I'm on a flight again. Flights made me think, and I'm like, what the fuck am I waiting to 40 for? I could do a lot of bad in this next 18 months. 39, in November— this is around May— in November, I'm gonna go for it. And literally the next morning I'm like, why?

Rule number 3, stop complaining.

Life is broken down into complaining and not. So if you're not complaining, well then I have no advice for you. I'm pumped, like you did it. Like, I have friends who make $42,000 a year, work 9 to 4, kind of, with an hour and a half lunch, and 45 minutes of YouTube, and 10 minutes of bullshit, and an hour of complete wasted time in a meeting, so they're kinda working like 6 hours a week, right? But they're pumped, and they text me, these are high school friends, and they'll text me like how happy they are to be the coach of their kid's baseball team. And you know, like that's amazing. Like that seems very obvious to me. Like that's like, that's right. Like, you know what's super weird? I'm actually weirdly envious. You know, like it sounds cool, like in theory, right? Grass is always greener, right? Like far less pressure, you know, like, like all that time with my kids, oof, that would be cool. There's just like all these things that I can justify. So to me, but I have friends who have $100 million in the bank because of Facebook's IPO who complain, who are still hungry, who want to do even more, who will complain to me 'cause they know I work a lot about no work-life balance and they don't get to spend enough time with their family, and I'm like, you have $100 million. Like you could stay home, like you're in control. Like, don't complain about it. You've made that choice. Don't bullshit me. Like, you wanna spend more time with your family? Spend more time with your family.

Rule number 4, don't focus on one thing.

Who gets to decide what focus is? I have a fucking wine company, a shoe deal, content, VaynerMedia, fucking Wine Library, GaryVee, fucking baseball cards I'm trying to sell, garage sale. I'm the least fucking focused focused fucker you'll ever meet. Guys, if you're a real entrepreneur, You kind of can't just do one thing. That's how we're fucked up, right? Like, I'm gonna come up with 3 business ideas in the next hour, and I'm gonna do that every day, and I'll probably do 2 of them in the year because that's what makes us happy.

Also, to make sure you're actually taking action after watching this video, I've designed a special free worksheet just for this video. The worksheet will highlight all the lessons learned in this video as well as pull out our 3 favorite learnings learnings and quotes that will inspire you to actually do something. The worksheet will also give you space to write down what your key takeaways are and your specific plan of action to make sure you're getting results. If you want the worksheet designed specifically for this video, absolutely for free, there's a link in the description below. Go click on it and start building the momentum in your life and your business. I'll see you there. Rule number 5, Be confident.

When you look yourself in the mirror, what do you see and what do you say to yourself? Probably the most egotistical things that I say. I'm probably most egoed out when I'm talking to myself, which means that I've got a lot of confidence and ego. I really, whenever I talk to myself in the mirror, it's always the same thing, which is like, you're gonna fucking do it, man. You're fucking, man, you're good. Like, it's real good stuff. And it's not like false pumping up. I only do it 7 times a year. But like, something would have just happened, either adversity, or something great, and I'll look at myself and say, mm-hmm, we got this. I got a funny, Kevin Durant walked off the field, off the court the other day against the Warriors, and it was a big game, day before the Super Bowl, and they lost. It was the first time they played, and the Warriors are having probably the greatest season of any basketball, right? And he did something that me and AJ took note of. He kind of shook his head and said, okay, yeah, and he gave me that like, okay, You won, but we'll see you. And we got a shot. I got this. And it was, that's what I do with myself. Like, if something good or bad's happening, I'll look myself in the mirror and I'll just say, mm-hmm. Like, I know I'm built for this.

Rule number 6, don't judge yourself.

Do you feel like you judge yourself? I don't. That's a very, very, very good observation, and it's what I want for everybody else. We're beating ourselves up. Like, everybody sucks. That's something, right? Like, we all have shortcomings, and we all have strengths, and for me it's like, why don't we just audit that? Like, why don't we just look at it that way, and be like, alright, well I'm good at this, but I'm not good at that, like, and then I only focus what I'm good at, right? Like, I don't dwell that I can't fix shit around the house, I call somebody to fix it. Like, I'm not like, I'm not a man, I don't give a fuck. Like, you know, like, I don't get it, like, we all, like, I also think it's awesome that I'm so emotionally stable, and I'm the emotional backbone of everybody, is that what it is? What a dude's supposed to do? Like these clichés, these stereotypes, they're so silly. You're exactly right, man. I don't judge myself. I'm fully in love with myself, but I'm also fully in love with everybody else too, right? It's not like, like it goes both ways. Like I tell people to buy into me that work for me, it's 'cause I buy into them first. Like I don't need anybody to gain trust with me. It's there. Like I believe that the human, human race is so grossly underrated. We are good. Of course we have some bad, there's fucking 7 billion of us. But like when you look at our net score, it's bonkers shit. Like do you know how much damage we could be doing to each other on an hourly basis and we don't? Like we're still here. Like we won. We're the alpha being and we've figured out how to stay together. This is insane when you think about it. And yet everybody wants to dwell on like somebody said something mean.

Rule number 7, live life on your terms.

And you don't think it's possible to grow the entrepreneur? I do. I think it's possible to grow anything. I think that I could be a better singer in 3 years. I think that I could be a better basketball player. Do I think I can become Beyoncé and LeBron even if I started at 6 years old? No, I do not. Yeah, that's right. And so— But you have a better chance of being an entre— a master entrepreneur than a master basketball player? I don't know. I don't know is how I answer that. I do think that salesmanship and organizational understanding and reverse engineering and pattern recognition is absolutely a talent. And I think, Grant, it's funny you ask me that. I think we in the world have accepted music and sports as a pure-play talent, and I think entrepreneurship is something we think everybody has, And I do think everybody can. And by the way, I think it's phenomenal to go from working at a job and not being on your own rules to making a business that makes $89,000 a year, but you get to do it your way. In a world where people need to be more practical, meaning not everybody's gonna be a millionaire. It's just the truth, the data's against you. But it is phenomenal to live a life where you get to make the rules and you make enough money to live your life.

Rule number 8: Follow the 51/49 principle.

51/49. I would run a 51, I'd run a slash, and I'd run a 49. What's it mean? It would mean that I wanted to give everybody that ever came across me 51% of the value. And that's how I live my life. I so know what to do with the 49 that I want to give 51. It's leverage. It's, um, it's how I think about it. It makes me feel good. I love being liked. Louis, look, you and I run in similar circles and around a lot of different things. You know what I'm about to say is so true, and I'm very proud of this, and I am saying this 'cause I want everybody to hear it. Do you know how nice it feels for me to know that anybody that you talk to when my name gets brought up that knows me even a little bit thinks I'm great, and only the people that don't, don't? Like, whatever I have in hate, or they don't believe the hype, or what's he really about, they just don't know me. And anybody that's spent any amount of time, like, Listen, there could be moments in time, but I know that the 137 times I've been brought up in different cocktail parties or things like that, that you've rarely heard from somebody who's interacted with me negative. It's always been positive, and I love that. And that's 51/49, man.

Rule number 9, do things for the long term.

You can't be all-time if you didn't have results. You can't just say you're one of the greats. I can't say I'm one of the greatest badminton players of all time if I didn't do it. First you have to do it. But the way he or she does that is by putting themselves in the best position to succeed. I met a kid last night, business went from $0 to $5 million in sales in 2 minutes. All Instagram, all the shit I spewed. I saved his life, he's like, "I'm the best. I'm 27, Gary, I'm high energy, I'm just like you, and by the time I'm 30, I'm gonna be a billionaire." I stopped him. I said, "Why are you even doing that? First of all, you're probably not, 'cause you're 27, you got $5 million, and I don't see anything that gets you to a billion in your behavior right now." Number 2, you pulled off a fucking unbelievable thing and you're downplaying your success because you're telling smart people like me you're gonna hit a billion in 30 and in 3 years I'm gonna see you and you're not gonna hit a billion and you've set yourself for a loss. And most of all, and this is why I'm telling this story, if you truly are convincing yourself that you're gonna hit a billion by the time you're 30 and you're at $5 million from zero at 27 and you're not gonna pull it off, all your behavior for the next 36 months is gonna be predicated on short-term behavior, not long-term behavior. And the best way to make real money, wealth, not being rich, is to do things for the long term because his life continues at 31.

And rule number 10, the last one before a very special bonus clip, is find merit in feedback.

I think that too many people, when somebody says something they don't like to hear, dismiss it as hate and a troll. I read it and question it and then decide is there any merit to it. And the reason I've been able to evolve is because I don't just default if somebody disagrees with me or makes fun of me that they're wrong. I try to be thoughtful about what are they doing. 9 out of 10 times, it's 'cause they're in a bad place and they're just trying to drag me down. But occasionally there's a point there that I kind of fester in it and start subconsciously adjusting what I'm doing. Feedback is important. 2 things I want to do. I want everybody to get out their cell phone because we are trying to all build our social media presence here and wherever you are. So if you'll get out your phone and follow Joe Hyde on Instagram and like the Facebook page for PRN Roofing. My question— Bro, hold on, hold on. Did you really think that was a good idea? Hey, we're here. I, I, I— No, No, bro, I honestly think that that was one of the worst moves I've ever seen because— and I'm not trying to razz you. I am talking, I'm trying to give you love. I love the passion to win. The problem is you tried to close on the first move. You brought them no value and you asked them to bring you value. Like, you gave, like, I will stand up here and give a fuckload of value and never mention one time for any of them to follow me, and a lot more of them will follow me than are gonna follow that bullshit move that you just did. I get it, I get it, but this was back to the question that just happened. This is why I want you to win. That move is always gonna lose. You can't go tonight, when you go out in Vegas and you see a pretty girl at the bar, you can't go up to her and the opening move is like, here's my key, let's go But that's what you just did. Let him hold it. But that's what you just did to this audience with business. Because this is an industry where it's kind of like dog-eat-dog world, so why are you succeeding and giving all your secrets away at the same time? I mean, because doing the right thing is the right thing. Karma is practical. You know, I heard somebody rant earlier, right, that was like, "Hey, when I win, I don't think it's coming out of you, the guy that closed." I couldn't know who was on stage, but I believe in that, right? Because I love the idea of 85 people here going and listening to me, winning. I didn't make anything for it, but it then becomes brand. If she goes out and listens, and then 2 years later she's having dinner with a friend, and she's talking about what happened to her life, that friend might be the CEO of GE. You know, I'm playing with I work with the biggest brands in the world. I'm not trying to monetize my audience. I'm trying to just bring the most value in the world and let that lift all my other opportunities. So I think giving away your best secrets is the greatest strategy for two reasons. Karma is practical and leads to more business, but here's the secret and it's even funnier. 99% of these people are not gonna do anything about it. Somewhere about 5 or 6 years ago, I realized this fact. Holy shit, people aren't gonna do anything with this. So fuck it. Like, there's still gonna be plenty for me, and I'm gonna be the most lovable guy ever. I love this. So, you know.

How do you balance clouds and the dirt, and which do you focus on more and why?

So to define to everybody how I define clouds and dirt, clouds to me is like The why, the strategy, the macro, the big thinking, the big picture, the operating system of like how you do things. And then the dirt is having the humility to go to these meetings, to actually, I post all my Instagram photos, the doing, the humility. Ego, humility, strategy, execution, clouds and dirt. The way I balance it is they're both important at all times. I can swing back and forth to them. I literally go from a meeting where, like, the call I had on the way out to our first meeting here today, Purell was with VaynerMedia's C-suite about a restructuring of how we handle all our business. Super meta. And then I literally hung up and I posted something on Instagram and wrote all the copy as we were walking into our last meeting. To me, I balance them by doing whichever one is needed at the time. And so, I don't think about it as balancing it. I think about it as time allocation, like what should I be doing with my time? And I think that, you know, you made a joke of like we did a shoot for a client and we debated on the phone for 10 minutes where the fuck should be located for that. I think that's being in the middle, right? I think pandering to the way companies do things, we just had a meeting where they're like, oh, that was provocative. Us as the Gallery Media Group holds and all the other things we do. Us doing what every other publishing company does is not a good idea. That's the middle. That's not gonna get you to the next place. And so for me, I'm just in the mindset of, you know, either doing humble, dirty work, like the reason I am the best strategist in social media out there, I really believe this, is because I do both. I both sit at the top of a, media company that really does it at scale for the biggest companies in the world, but at the same token, there's very few humans that put out 140 pieces of content by hand a week and reads the comments. I mean, I literally just replied to Kyle in my comments, and I'm gonna show you 'cause I don't think you guys believe me when I do these fucking rants. I literally just replied to Kyle one second before Babin's like, "Let's do this video." Like, literally what I was doing one second before then, was replying to, like literally, like literally hearted Kyle's comment of, "I'm digging the recent pics and quotes, man." Right? Like many, many people watching here would argue that my time at this point in my career of reading Kyle's comment and hearting it in that minute, was a bad use of my time. I think the dirt is the reason why I come up with such good clouds. Being in the trenches drives my strategy. I live in reality and practicality, not in thesis or ideology or reading headlines or reading about people doing marketing. So I don't balance it, I just do whatever is needed at that second. You know, it's back to macro, micro. Micro speed. I'm just always doing something. Right, Bobby? Like, that is the big breakthrough everybody on the team says. Like, there's just every second is— and so the reason I can do something every second is, and I don't watch a YouTube video or stand by the water cooler and talk about the Rockets game for 10 minutes, is 'cause I always value the dirt. And so in that half a second that I had right now in the transition of the call call that I just had about a macro VaynerX strategy, right? The second transition I had before I started doing a macro thing like the vlog was hearting fucking Kyle's two cents on my last Instagram post, clouds and dirt. How much time do you spend on marketing? You said those four things. How much time do you actually spend on it? In a day? Zero? Sometimes, I assume? In a week, how much do you spend on it? 2 hours, great. Now is the most important part of this meeting. How many hours do you sleep at night? I have to have 7. Great, so I love the way you said it. I have to have 7. So if I wanted to say go to 6 so that you pick up 5, you're gonna say to me, Gary, I have to have 7, right? Now let's go somewhere else. I have to know what you're doing the other 17 hours. I would bet the house in the house that we can find an hour every day. I guarantee it. Because you might be working all 17 hours, but you might not be working on something smarter than spending an hour a day on the thing that you're talking about. Do you understand? That's, I mean, look, that's the answer. The answer is time. You know, people talk about working hard and working smart. The answer is only both. You have to work hard and smart based on your ambition. If you want to build a business for yourself, that is like a 1% life. Most people don't understand what building a business for yourself is. It's very special. It's very special. Trying to build a business for yourself, everybody's doing now. Pulling it off, trying to play basketball, everybody can do that. Anybody can try. Being an NBA player, trying to be a rapper or a singer, everybody's doing. Pulling it off, trying to be a footballer, an actress, got it? So you're trying, great. Pulling it off is hard. It takes everything. Time and smarts. You need 7. I'm glad you said it that way 'cause this makes this piece makes the content more valuable. It's the 17 other hours. I'll give you an example. A lot of people drive to work for 45 minutes. If they took a bus for an hour and 15 minutes, they would save money and get more work done. But do you have the humility to take the bus versus driving your car? I know that if I can suffocate all of you today to take 25% of your take-home income this year and pour it back into 2 people who do video and written word and put it into Facebook and Instagram ads, literally all of you will email me 24 months, actually, fuck it, if you can start right away, literally 25% of you are going to come to me this time next year right here and be like, holy shit, I've been listening to your stuff for 7 years, your keynote was different in Miami last year at this time, I listened, I said, fuck it, I don't need to go to Ibiza 3 times this year. Fuck it, I don't need to buy a better BMW this year to make me feel good with the neighbors. Fuck it, I don't need another fucking pair of Supremes or Yeezys. I took the money and I put it into Karen, the film woman, and Rick, the ad guy, and now my business is 2x. This will 100% work. This will work. Even if you suck shit on camera, have zero charisma, are only 8 days in the industry, this will work because it is such underpriced attention that the ROI will work. That if you're a 2 in skill, the ads are a 20 in the 10-point scale, and it closes the delta of you being average. If you literally, literally, and I've said this for 7 years, if you literally, literally go interview the guy who owns the gym in town, the guy who owns the pizza shop, the woman that owns the insurance brokerage, if you literally, literally, literally just interview your local community, that you become the local newspaper in 3-minute video form on your phone, you don't even need to fucking hire DRock or Babin or Ayers, phone, if you literally take it, selfie it, and interview the principal of the school in your neighborhood, you will become the local celebrity who can then transact on whatever you're trying to sell that group. If you bring value to people, if you interview the best high school basketball player, literally just that, your business will change. Or if you literally just give if you give the advice of how you got here, what you learned, if you shared your thoughts, if you do not understand that you were a media company, then you will not be as successful as you are today in a decade. And that's not interesting when the alternative is you're 4 to 7 times bigger. Just think, guys, you have to understand what happened to Blockbuster and Netflix, what happened with Uber and taxi companies, what happened with shit hotels versus Airbnb is happening with you as a human in your business. And so when you have the best hand and you know it, because you've been paying attention and you know how to play poker. You go all in. Everybody here is playing Facebook, Instagram, social media, YouTube, podcasting like they have the best hand and they're calling. And you're not goading them into getting all the money. You're just fucking folding. And that's this audience. So can you imagine what I feel is going on outside this stadium? This is a call to action for everybody to do me one favor, and I do think I can get a lot of you to do it, which excites the shit out of me. Please, right now, listen, maybe you've laid out money, maybe you're in the middle of a renovation, maybe you're paying for your kid's college, mazel tov, I know there's nuances on everybody's life, but if you are in a position where literally your take-home income this year is literally the stuff you're gonna go and do things with, please, from 25% to 90%, if you can go humble, please take that money and hire 2 people to make a lot more content for you about you and your business, and please give the rest of the money to Facebook and YouTube and Instagram, and I fundamentally promise you, you will walk here to this conference next year and personally thank me a million times emotionally, 'cause your business will change, and I know not one of you has gone all in. I'm secretly worried that I'm gonna get to a place where I'm not gonna care anything about business, and it's the love of my life. But I can like feel it already, I'm like, oof. You know, 55 to 75 is gonna be some run. When you actually believe in the value you're providing, selling, promoting, giving for free. When you believe, it all clicks. The reason people don't do is because they don't believe. They either are insecure and structured that way, or they deep down know they're doing it for the money. How many people did things for me with expectation? A ton. And most of the times I'll say, No, because I don't even want to do that. But once in a while I say yes, mainly to stick it to them and teach them a life lesson, which is don't come at me and be like, "I want to do this awesome thing for you," and then kind of hover around and always have this weird relationship with me where they expect something like we did something here. If you told me up front that the reason you bought 10,000 books and did this this thing was because what you really wanted was my fucking face on your website co-signing your bullshit business. Well then you should have told me. 'Cause then we could have had a transaction. I think when I get the praise, it's what the fuck does that have to do with me? When I get shit on, I'm like, that's on me and I'll fix it. And I think those, you know, I said it really quick, but it's fucking accountability. It's accountability and ownership when you suck And it's passing on the credit when you fuckin' rule. And that's it. And that's me. And that's my makeup. And that's why I'm winning in life. And that's why I'm always gonna win. Because when you're fuckin' 100% accountable and you know you're shit, you're garbage. When you're 100% accountable when there's an issue and when you're you pass on the praise when you're getting it, you become fundamentally undefeated. Unbeatable. I'm straight up unbeatable because my head will never get gassed up enough ever when I'm getting it good and I'll never believe it's me and when it's bad, I'll never point the fucking finger at anybody else. All you fucking finger pointers pointing everywhere. Everybody's fucking pointing fingers. Pointing them everywhere. It's everybody's fucking fault but yourself. Country. Your environment, your parents, school system, your boss, your aunt, your fucking circumstance. And of course, and of course there's tragedies and crimes and child abuse and real bad stuff. I'm not saying it's not real. I'm saying for the 95% of you, it's a mindset thing. Perspective. Perspective is everything. I'm grounded in my perspective. Never too high, never too low. It's about them when it's good, it's about me when it's bad. That's me. That's what I got for you. That's where I'm at. That's my mindset. And I never waver. It's 100%. Never fucking waver. I have my bad days. But I keep that shit to myself. How are you? I'm good, how are you? What's your name? Alicia. Alicia, how you doing? I'm good. Good. Okay, so, Me, my— I want to become, um, an author. Okay. Just like you. Amazing. And I have been writing, it's my passion. And I have— I had applied to this writing, um, YC team, and I spilled my heart out. It was just me. Yes. They declined me. Yeah. So it's like, it's like they— yeah, I get it. It's like That's me. Yeah. It's like, they're not accepting me. Fuck them. But it's like, should I? No, honestly guys, first of all, they didn't decline you. One random fucking person that read your shit declined you. Fuck them. But it's like, imagine if I changed some stuff up. If I changed me, they would've probably took me. You're wrong. You're wrong. Listen to my face. I'm telling you right to your face, you're wrong. You're valuing somebody else's opinion too much. You're wrong. I'm just telling you, this is not a debate. You're fucking wrong. Do you understand? You're letting one random person, do you understand how many people would have hired me? None. Who's got Instagram in here? Cool, go to it right now. Please do me a huge fucking favor. Go to Instagram, go to GaryVee, that's my account. Go 10, 11 posts back, you'll see my report card. I was ranked 243rd out of 254 in my class. 243 out of 254 in my class. You know why? Because I knew it was bullshit for me. It might not be bullshit for you. This is about self-awareness. You have to know who the fuck you are. But for me, it was bullshit. 'Cause I didn't need it. 'Cause I wasn't, I didn't give a fuck what Saturn, how many rings Saturn had. Listen to me, you can't let something be valuable more than you, you're pandering to them. Let them come to you. Take that same essay and post that shit on Instagram with a photo and see what happens. See what happens. Let the market decide, not some bullshit middle management person that read your shit. Good. Of course it's true. And when you're young and 13 and 15 and 9, you think you gotta change your shit up because you don't know how it's played. That's why I'm here to tell you exactly how it's played. One fucking person read your story, my dear, and fuck that person. By the way, this whole notion of like you can do anything and all this stuff, let me just tell you, it's stupid hard. Reality is most of you are just averagely talented. Right? Like, you're not gonna over-index on anything too crazy. Here's the good news. This is not about how much money you make or how talented you are. This is about being happy. Everybody here, regardless of how fucking talented they are in making money or art or what have you, has shit that they're super into. You love Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Your whole life could be about fucking Michelangelo. It could. And here's what really With me, in this internet age, you could have a podcast around Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You could buy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle memorabilia on Craigslist and Facebook and Etsy and then flip it on a different platform because you're so knowledgeable, because that's the pizza-eating Leonardo. That I'm just fascinated about what happens when you go all in on your passion, you're committed to it, and you use the internet infrastructure of this, you living your life for 80 years as the fucking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle expert, and this is getting funnier to me by the second, making $83K a year in ads on your podcast, The Flip, some miraculous reason somebody paid you $2,000 to go to a Bush League Comic-Con thing, that person making $62,000 a year being the fucking TMT fucking expert versus them making $77,000 a year being an admin in a company where they hate their life 9 to 5, that delta Delta is something I will go to the grave on because it is what I want to articulate to everybody, the unbelievable level of practicality to do shit around stuff you like, and here's the big part. How many people under 40? Let me just start with this group. If you just really took what I'm talking about, became an expert at Facebook and Instagram, really understood the The fact that you could take a leap for 2 years, move back in home, move in together, cut your expenses, I don't give a shit. The fact that you can do that for 2 or 3 years and if it doesn't work out you can go back to getting a job, that's nuts. That's nuts. The way I do branding, I sell so infrequently that I think some of you that are watching me the hardest core need to hear this, which is it's okay to sell, especially if you believe in something. Like if you believe in what you're selling, and that's what I'm spending a lot of time on now, trying to spend more time on really getting to a place where I really believe in stuff. Instead I was just passive, not creating, so I wasn't selling 'cause I didn't believe, you know, and just letting everything come to me. But as I create these events, Vayner Experience, a lot of events, very big on events. These moments are so valuable. Just watching the 4Ds crew, its value and how it's impacting their business for $10,000. Right there, I know you're getting emails. The Wine Club, like $150 worth of wine for $55. I've just locked in November's. It's gonna make all your Thanksgivings ridiculous. The conference, $500, 2-hour session in my stomping grounds. Good deal compared to other conferences that I speak at. But you're getting the wine for free. Or you're getting the talk for free and you're getting the wine. So like, I'm very fascinated because I'm putting more pressure on myself to create things that I really believe in, which then allows me to sell more. And I just think for a lot of you, selling, the ask, the right hook is very difficult. You're passive. You like the idea of like feeling good about like giving out content, this and that. When you believe in something, You can sell it and you should put more pressure on yourself to create things that you believe in. Biggest problem is so many of you sell shit you don't believe in. You're just doing it for the fucking money. You're gonna fucking lose. That I don't like.

I'm 26. I want to be, I want to say a marriage counselor, but every time I mention that, like, oh, you know, what do you want to do with your life? And I tell people this, My parents' response is, you know, how are you gonna do that, you're not married. My parents are divorced as of I was 8, since I was 8. I'm not married.

I can answer your question right away. We're gonna build an amazing— Yeah, we're gonna build an amazing case study together. I'm gonna give you 3 names, and then you're gonna cruise into the sunset of success, which is let's figure out figure out the 3 most successful coaches in the history of sport that everybody knows of that didn't play that sport. Bill Belichick, even though I hate him with all my guts, did not play football. He grew up in the football game, right? His dad was a coach, what have you, but Bill Belichick did not play football, and he will probably, unfortunately, go down as the greatest, or if not one of the greatest, head coaches of all time. You don't have to Listen, I think you have to be, people have to be thoughtful. I hate 22-year-old life coaches that haven't lived life, but if they speak about, here's my life experiences and why, you can eliminate though very quickly, when somebody says to you, but how are you gonna, you can't do, let me first of all, couple other questions. Are your friends and your circle telling you you can't do that? Or are customers that you're trying to do that with telling you that they don't want to go with you because you're not married?

No, this is more acquaintances, people, you know, that I run into.

Yeah. So listen, that's a mistake. Listen, that's a mistake. Like, you can't listen to acquaintances. Their opinions don't matter. Okay, you can't listen to— you can't listen to that. How do you work out?

I'm sorry.

No, go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm getting excited. You should talk. Go.

So am I. I'm like pumped. Basically, like, I want to— because I follow you and I've been following you for a couple of years now, and I do agree what you have to say about education. I do think people are going to start moving from, you know, going to school and sending their kids to school to finding ways—

I've got your answer. I've got your answer. And a lot of people get up—

You know what I'm going to ask.

Of course I know. I know exactly where you're going. So if you're not gonna get the PhD, there's only a few ways to justify and gives confidence to the end market what, why they would jump with you. It's crazy to me that so many people, I was watching 60 Minutes last night in the background as I was working, and the way that Oprah was justifying the person was, he has a PhD in this and a master's in that. 60 Minutes use those pieces of paper to create authority. In our society, pieces of paper from businesses, and that's what colleges are, has been the authority. The only other people that get authority are the people that have gone out and done it and have people co-signing them, right? Makes sense. So the way you, and this is why I love working for free. When you don't have a piece of paper, right, one of the reasons I love working for free is working for free for somebody who is that person in society, whether they got a piece of paper or they're Puff Daddy and they just did it, becomes the equity that you trade under once you become great at something, right? Andy, Andy who's sitting here right now, every single famous person I see gives him a lot of street cred right away, not because he got a fucking degree for personal branding and marketing from Virginia Tech. What degree did you get? Political science. Not because of his fucking degree. Bullshit political science degree from Virginia Tech, but because he went and worked underneath me and I went out and did it, and I always give him love and good vibes, the end. It's not Babin's degree from the USC School of Film or NYU. I dropped out, but. You know, so what you need to do is one of two moves if you're not gonna go get a PhD and have everybody comfortable with it. You either need to go work for somebody that is the authority and ask all thousands of people that are authorities and work for them, or you need to give your services for free to 5 couples, crush it for them, and use their word of mouth and endorsements as your leverage point. The end.

Today was rough.

What?

Today was rough.

Babin here is all bent out of shape. He just said today is rough. To be very frank with you, VaynerNation, I don't give a fuck if Tyler or you think today was rough because I had 17 meetings that he couldn't be a part of because I'm actually running a fucking business here. I'm not some teenage beanie bopper trying to do a vlog or some fucking influencer doing a fucking vlog or some fucking family that's hoping for some free detergent 'cause of their fucking blog. I'm fucking working here, Tyler. So sorry that you're fucking Video blog is rough, but let me tell you what's not rough. What's not rough is we're living through the great era of ground shift in marketing and business. Everybody in this fucking amazing town of New York City, which is, let me just tell you, everybody who's not here, fucking vibrant at 10 PM right now, 'cause 98% of your cities are fucking sleeping. Everybody here is shitting their fucking collective pants because the ground is shifting. Everything that our grandparents and parents grew up with, everything that we knew, The tried and true, the stable pillars of media, commerce, influence, persuasion, the way we make decisions, the things we buy and how, what is cool and what is not is on fucking call. The world is on call. And you know what that means? Hustlers, the opportunity is obnoxious. So whether you're focusing on vlogs, or influencers, or how to hack Instagram stories, or how to create Alexa voice skills, or how to create your own podcast, 'cause you see I'm fucking full committed tilt. If you are not following my podcast, I'm fucking pissed. The way I call today, the sum up of all my meetings today, none of which you just watched, is that the Earth is moving. There's instability in the foundation of how it was, which makes an innovator like me really fucking happy, and what suffocates all you B players, 'cause you like it nice, slow, and stable. Let it be very clear with this ending rant, that game is over, and the people that are gonna win over the next 5 to 7 years are gonna be very comfortable in controlled fucking chaos, so you better get your speed up, you better work harder, you better work smarter, you better try things, you better keep your subjectiveness and your ego at the door, 'cause that slows you down and it doesn't make you do. You better fucking move. I also think that all of these things that we're talking about can be scaled, right? So my career's going along nicely, and I'm winning on email marketing, 90% open rates, and I'm winning on Google AdWords the day it comes out. I'm buying every wine term. That's working for my dad. And then comes along YouTube. And I see this platform and I say to myself, there's something here. And you can't run ads on it at the time, so I decide to do a show. I never thought of myself as gifted, you know, I thought of myself as gift of gab, but more like a good salesman or you know, a class clown that the teacher kinda liked, you know? And so I didn't realize what I was gonna be able to do in that format, but I started a very big show that garnered a lot of attention, and it really, really worked, and it really got going, and it really taught me, oh my God, I don't have to spend marketing money. This attention is trickling down organically to my dad's business. There's something here. And then Twitter came out, and I start using it to promote Wine Library TV, And I'm like, oh my God, this Friendster, MySpace thing is about to become much bigger. This social, it wasn't called social media yet. It was called Web 2.0. Twitter was known as a Web 2.0 app. And I started using it, and Google buys YouTube for $1.7 billion. And I say to myself, oh my God, I was right about this, I was right about Google AdWords, I was right about email. I'm not a wine retailer. I understand what people are gonna do. I need to become an investor in what I think people are gonna do. In 2007, I invested in Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, and that obviously changed my life. My brother was graduating from college. I was starting to make videos about business that were catching people's attention, and in 2009, I decided to start VaynerMedia to do marketing for the biggest brands in the world so I could learn big business, 'cause I understood Silicon Valley, I understood small business, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, but I didn't understand executive Fortune 500 land, and I didn't understand why they were doing so many silly things in a world where I thought Netflix, Facebook, Amazon were gonna be the next big thing, and they turned out to be way bigger than I even kind of predicted, even though I was predicting the tippy top. And so that's been my career. I've written 5 New York Times bestselling books around marketing and consumer behavior and psychology. But what does all this hyperbole around me mean? It means that I believe that every person who's watching this right now is me in 2009. Here's what I mean by that. I had a level of success. I was good. I was enjoying myself. I was building a big company for my parents. I was excited to think about what I was gonna do for myself next. But the scale of the internet, by using the tools, completely changed my life. And I believe that what the internet does is exposes things. So I don't think the internet changed me. I don't think it made me nicer and stronger at my craft. I think it made more people aware that I was nice and strong at my craft. And so I think for everybody who's watching right now, I don't think they realize that if they started producing content on LinkedIn about what they know, not what you think people want, not to get followers, but to put out content of what you know, storytell. My grandpappy taught me when I was 10 10, this, I now did this for my salesperson today. That's the video. You don't have to be an expert. I'm not an expert. I'm a person that has hypotheses and opinions, and because a lot of them became true after 15 years, and I've put the actual business wins on the board, now people look at me in a different way. But I don't even, you know, even the flattering introduction in our talk beforehand, You know, she makes me feel so good, but I don't think that makes me special. I think it's just a nice feeling to be admired, you know? And I think when you layer humility and curiosity around being good at a tool, great things happen. Let me give you an example. When books came out, yeah, I'm being serious now, when books came out, clearly, and I have no knowledge of this, but this is very easy to understand, clearly, there were individuals who became more aggressive at reading them and amassed knowledge. And my intuition is the ones that were able to be practical and operating were able to do something with that knowledge and succeed. When tractors and innovation hit farming, the people that didn't demonize it, and many did, many said that's not real farming because they were fearful that it was gonna take away jobs from their people, which was a nice thing. But they were trying to fight technology, which is always the wrong answer. Let there be no confusion. If you hear or feel anything from this keynote and Q&A today, please let it be this: if you are fighting against technology, you will lose. It is the history of mankind. Technology and the way we live doesn't care about my opinion or my feelings, and it doesn't care about yours either. And so you can walk around go around Earth and judge, oh, it's so sad that all these kids can't communicate because they're on the phone anymore, and you could talk about a day and age when it was simpler and nicer and all this— nobody gives a fuck. And if you don't adjust to the reality of the situation, you will be completely left behind. Too many people are executing or hoping or trying to figure out how to live in a world that used to be, or the way they wish it was, versus attacking the reality of the world. And here is the reality of the world, my friends. The cell phones that you're all holding right now, or in your pocket, are the remote controls of our society. They are the single most important thing in the world. There's nothing close. Whatever you want to happen in life, you first need somebody's attention, and then you need to tell them about it. It was called the newspaper, the television, and the radio. Now it's called a blog, a vlog, or a podcast. It's the same thing. Nothing's changed except one thing: your attention is moving to a new place and leaving an old place. I'm making this very simple, very black and white, very basic. If you do not spend next year completely obsessing over how you become successful on Facebook and Instagram, you will be disproportionately less likely to win. The ad product on those two platforms are disproportionately underpriced, and that, that is where you should be trading. You are grossly underestimating what's happening right now. 98% of people are grossly underestimating how good it is right now. You will look back at this talk all my content during this era. Why am I producing so much content during this era? Why am I flying around the entire world over and over speaking to this subject? It's because I know what I'm talking about right now is gonna go away. And I think we can all agree I'm not hedging up here right now. I'm desperately trying to force this down your fucking mouth, right? You heard it, and I believe that 95% of you will not do anything about it. You'll do enough to make it feel like you did something, and you will regret not going all in. How many people here play poker? Good. I don't, but if you do, when you have the best hand, it's a good idea to go all in. It is far more fun to die on your sword than to die on someone else's. I'm inspired, YouTube. We're gonna make this the episode thing. You'll get whatever you you want, Tyler, but this is the fucking core of it. You just saw it on stage. Oh, sorry. You just saw it on stage. Dying on your sword is better than dying on someone else's. So many of you are doing things, making decisions, and navigating your lives based on somebody else's thesis. You're doing it because you think it's the right thing because your dad's telling you it's the right thing. You're doing what you're doing right now 'cause you're pandering to your boss even though you don't, believe in it, this is how it's gonna play out. You are doing things right now. Yesterday you made a decision that you don't believe in, but you're smart. You did it because you know how your company scores. Here's the problem with disruption and innovation. Right now you're being rewarded for being a yes person, and in 36 months you're gonna be fired for being a yes person. And you're doing it 'cause you just need the security of your job. I'm telling you right the fuck now, if you're watching this vlog, and you've got, like, that means you have a certain DNA. Please, I implore you, please die on your sword, not somebody else's. If you're gonna lose, it's much more fun to lose based on what you thought. Do you know how many of you are gonna lose on somebody else's thesis? It's gonna kill at you, it's gonna eat at you, it's going to be the worst feeling, so please, pause this video right now and ask yourself, am I doing my shit because of me? Then you're good, whether you're winning or losing. Or am I doing it because somebody else is telling me it's the right way? I'm subconsciously pandering to please somebody or something because I need the short-term stability. Figure that the fuck out. You know it and I know it. You just need to do something about it. I was born in Belarus in the former Soviet Union. I came to the US when I was 3. We lived a very humble beginning. As you can imagine, the economy wasn't super great. We didn't speak English. We had $100. I lived with 7 family members in a studio apartment in Queens. So it was super humble, and obviously my parents are very much my heroes. One, because my mom is the greatest parent of all time, and two, because my dad worked his face off, and even though I slept under the same roof literally every day of my life with my dad in the first 14 years of my life, I literally never saw him. Him because he left at 7 AM or 6 AM and he came home at 10 PM and he worked 7 days a week. How many people here are immigrants or children of immigrants? Raise your hands. Awesome. So this group that just raised their hands, they know that immigrants in America have absolutely figured out one of the core secrets, which is, you know, work your face off and don't buy dumb shit. And so that's kind of what my family did for 7 or 8 years. You know, we— my dad wasn't making that much money, but a funny thing happens when you buy nothing but food at the lowest possible price and save, save, save, save. And very quickly, only 6 years after coming to America with $100, my dad was able to buy a small liquor store in New Jersey. We moved to New Jersey. That is where my entrepreneurial career began. When I was 6, I had a 5-lemonade-stand franchise. I manipulated my friends into standing behind the lemonade all day, and that is when I became obsessed with attention. And this is really interesting, as you can see up here, I day trade attention, culture, and build businesses. At 6 years old, I would spend my summer days literally walking up and down the streets of New Jersey, sitting down on the curb, watching cars drive by, so that I could figure out which tree or post was better for me to put a sign that said lemonade a quarter. That is DNA. That's like somebody singing, that's like somebody throwing a pitch really, like that is just pure DNA. I didn't read a Seth Godin book or go to Harvard Business School to figure out that attention was the number one asset. The one thing that combines every person here from the cameramen back there who are producing producing, to the industry that is in this room, to me, to Mickey, to anybody else that's sneaked in, the one thing that fundamentally connects all of us is before you tell me how great your product and service is, you need my attention so that I listen. I am obsessed with attention. I am obsessed with this device because it has the attention. I am unemotional if it's ruining the kids and they don't know how to engage, or that that you were sad that people go out to dinner and don't talk to each other. Technology does not care about your feelings. And so I as a human may have some opinions about parenthood and society and privacy as a human, but as a businessman, I am unemotional and not romantic. All I do is follow where the attention is and I figure out how to storytell in there to create the action that I desire. Dad's an asshole. Okay. Financial. Yeah. Yeah. Like, all the financial problems are over us. Yep. What can I do? I'm lost. You've gotta break out of that pattern. You gotta not listen to him and make money in however way you want. Listen, otherwise you're stuck. If you wanna help your mom, sometimes the best way to help your mom is to get out and then come back and get her out. But I'm like 14, I don't understand. I get it, so honestly, honestly, and I respect that, listen to me, life is long. You're in a shit spot right now, but my mom didn't have her mom or dad at 14. Life is long. It sucks right now. When you're 14, it feels like it's your life forever. It's not your life forever, bro. You understand? Surround yourself with as much positivity to get you through this shit chapter. —friends. I get it, bro. Bro, you gotta be patient. It's early. I know this is shit forever. I can't take this shit. I get it, but you have to understand there's no alternative. There's only two choices here. You stay under that roof and eat shit for 4 more years, 3 more years, 2 more years, or you bounce now. Plenty of shit people bounce at 14. It's not common in the UK, but people do it. Or you don't. Life's about a very simple You have a simple fucking option. Either do it or don't. If you're gonna keep shit under that roof, you need to put your fucking ear pods in and listen to positivity 24/7 to get you through that shit. Do you understand? When your surroundings are shit, your inside's gotta be positive. The fact that you're even here means you're fucking halfway home. I wish you well, man. Hit me up anytime. DM me, alright? Alright? You listening? Listen to me. Listen to me. When it's shit around you, you have to make it positive in your head. I know it feels like it's forever and it's gonna take forever. When you're 14, 4 more years sounds like shit forever, but you have no choice. You either bounce or you stay. And if you stay, which is more likely, which is fine, you gotta put positivity in your ears. Do you understand? I promise you. You have no other alternatives. Otherwise, you just dwell and you go down a spiral that you don't want to go down. You understand? One theme that I really— people are like, yo, how do I build my self-awareness? How do I build my optimism? How do I change my mindset? It's the people around you. If your best friend is Debbie Downer, you're not going to be as optimistic as you can be. If the people that from your town that you hang out with have no ambition, you're going absolutely nowhere. If you listen to your dad every day about how the government sucks, you're not going you're not gonna love life. You've got to audit your inner circle. Podcast friends, listen to me. Listen very carefully to this mashup and these thoughts because this underlining tone of who you surround yourself with absolutely fundamentally changes who you are. Period, end of story. When I hung out with Silicon Valley in 2005 to 2010, I was a different dude. When I hang out in the agency land right now, I'm a different dude. When I was in college at Mount Ida, different dude. Like, you're a different person. And I'm telling you right now, this morning podcast, or this podcast, 'cause I know some of you listen to it at least, this podcast, if I can get one of you, one person listening to this, to dump one loser person in their circle and add one, whoever's that smiley, happy as fuck person at work that you don't talk to that much, that's at the cubicle around the way, or that awesome, like that, you know how everybody has like, you have a friend, but they're friend, like went to college with them, you don't really know them, but like the 3 times you see them a year, they're positive as shit, and like they're fucking doing things, surround yourself with those people. Seek out your friend's friend who brings positive vibes and make them part of your world, and cut out your homie from college that thinks the world sucks. Watch what that addition and subtraction does to your life. If you're trying to reach the decision maker at a retail organization, That guy or gal is also the same person that I want to reach to sell a bottle of wine or a book to. And that space in his and her Facebook feed is only one space. So that is supply and demand. I used to buy that space 4 years ago for $1 for every 1,000 impressions. Now it's $7. The longer you think this world doesn't exist, and you fearmonger it, the longer you don't put money in, the longer I can extract all the value. I've lived this game. I'm not a hero because I took it from $3 to $50 million, $60 million, my dad's business. I actually am a schmuck. I should have spent more on Google. I had it figured out. Every time you typed in Cabernet Merlot, Silver Oak, Caymus, Napa, Bordeaux, I was showing up first because nobody realized it was good real estate. And it was only costing me 5 or 10 cents a click, and I was making between $7 and $80 in profit for something that was costing me $3 to get you through the funnel on the average of 60 people coming and 1 converting. I was stupid. I'm being serious with you. I stand here and have passion about LinkedIn and Facebook marketing in a B2B environment today out of regret for what I did from 2002 to 2005 because I should have spent more It was basic math, but I just didn't understand because I was young in my career and it just— I don't even know how to explain it to you. When it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true, right? I'm an immigrant. I was cynical. I just didn't— plus I also thought it was important to do direct mail and local commercials and magazine ads. I was doing it all, but in hindsight, it was the great mistake of my career. The great mistake of my career was not spending more money on Google, and I promise you the great mistake of your accelerated growth for the 80% that just raised their hand is not taking advertising on LinkedIn and Facebook seriously because you don't think your person is on it. I've heard every— guys, I've been doing this for 10 years. I know what your excuse is gonna be. I can't wait to the Q&A. I'm gonna stand here and one of you, but Gary, my target person is a 63-year-old man. He's not on it. Bullshit. Of course he's on it. Who do you think is spreading all the Democratic and Republican propaganda on Facebook? Today I lost 50% of all the money that I have. People are ditching me because they don't want to go to the conference anymore, so I've been just full-on fucking pissed. Right, getting shit on today. That sounds awesome. All today. Yeah, I like it. It fucking hit me. I like it. I like it, I'll tell you why, 'cause even I can tell by your demeanor that you're gonna be okay. The fact that you realize that that negative moment has positive impact, the question is why did it happen? And that's where you have to be honest with yourself. I don't know, you know, but that's, you know, I'm pumped that you can have the, I mean, you're more positive than half the people here and it sounds like you're having a terrible day. [LAUGHTER] [Speaker] Today I feel like shit, you know, super rage, that's why I wanted to ask you, how do you keep the positivity, the calmness when everything is hitting the fan? [Speaker] Because basically when things happen, I go the other way. So tonight, I just was reminding myself every time you came and the next person came, I was just reminding myself, literally in my own head, saying, you don't mean shit. I said it to one of you. I said, they said, how do you stay humble when you're so successful? I'm like, because I know if I die tomorrow, I'll have a good day on social media. Like, most comments ever on my latest post on Instagram, and everybody's gonna be like, oh, fuck, that was the last one, weird. And I know that all of you will be on with your life a week later. You have to balance your ego with humility in the same way when I'm having my worst day, I realize I'm the best. I'm gonna be the best that ever does this. And so the way I handle things is when something's going one way, I use all my emotional strength to push the other way. What are you gonna cry for the rest of your life 'cause the conference got fucked up? Like I just, like to me it's just like look what the fuck's going, guys, if you're in this room right now, let me just remind you that there are 7.7 billion people literally right now Right now, as we stand here, there are women being shipped to be strippers in parts of our world. Right now, as we stand here, there are women who are basically caged, mentally usually, and are being shipped to dance on a pole in Manhattan and in London. Like, do you understand what's— there's genocide going on right now. Like, what do you think's going on? We lack perspective. Your conference got fucked up? Boo-hoo. I lost a client? Boo-hoo. There's people fucking dying out there. So when Americans or Europeans talk to me about race or gender, I'm sad. It's their real life. But I remind them, 'cause it's a positive thing, cool, but let me tell you about the person that's ranked 7 billion in the world. They fucking have it bad. And so I just, I struggle. Listen, I'm weird. I think about things like animals. I don't know. If you're the best elephant, we are still better than you. You know, we got real, listen, you know I got hot on this about a year ago, the 400 trillion to one. It's impossible to be a human being. You won. I don't know how to get upset after that. I keep shit in perspective, right? You're gonna learn from this. You fucked up. I promise you it's failing 'cause of you. And when you start owning your shit, and not blaming other people, and I think this is the kick I've been on lately on Instagram, right? Blame yourself. You know why I'm always happy? I blame myself. When you blame yourself for real, you're gonna always be happy because you don't feel like somebody else controls you. A lot of your advice is geared to college grads, but I'm old, I'm 40. What would your advice be for Or someone who's 40 but starting out where most of your audience is starting out when they're 20 or 30? Well, it's interesting. No joke, I don't know if you saw this, I literally posted a video today to 47-year-olds. I did not see that yet. So, to me, everybody's going through different things, you know. I, to your point, in the last 12 to 18 months, I found myself producing a lot more content to youth than I have in the past, which was usually to more 40-year-old business people. Look, I think the biggest thing with 40 to 50 is that it's now you've lived life and you're still young as fuck, and you're like, now what, right? You have like an entire second life to live, and it's a very interesting time in people's lives where they have to be really retrospective of like, how self-aware are they? But honestly, I think 40's young, man, I really, really do, and so I would say a lot of the advice I give to 20-year-olds maps pretty well to 40-year-olds, which is, you know, take some risks, you've tasted some stuff, you know, happiness is the ROI, and so, you know, figure out what makes you happy. Is it the pursuit of money, or is it actual money? Do materials make you happy? If materials make you happy, is that really just insecurity and you need to have, you know, a BMW to make yourself feel good? Like, what's making you tick? But I would say the biggest thing that I would tell any 40-year-old a 40-year-old is you've got 50 years to live. Please get the I'm finished or I fucked up, like eliminate dwelling 'cause you're just starting. I really believe that by the way. This is not some motivational rah-rah shit. I just think it's true. I just think you've got 40 adult years to live. That's 20 more than you've lived. There's just so much opportunity. If you're self-aware, you don't try to do things you can't do. You focus on things you do like. You don't try to be something you're not. If you have self-esteem, you're not scared to put it out, the content, the video, the picture, the audio, because you're not worried if SallyPants49 thinks you're ugly. You're not worried that Rick Thompson from a competitive company says you're stupid. You're just not worried. You're not worried that you have bags under your eyes, or you're overweight, or you're losing your hair. You're just not worried. You're focused on your self-esteem, you're focused on yourself, you're focused on your self-awareness, which puts you in a position to succeed. And so all of you, one of the worst, not worst, one of the challenging times in my career was around 2012 when people all wanted to be like me. And I'm a very, very over-the-top, high-energy personality who's very, very comfortable on video. And that is just not gonna be the case for everybody, and I tell everybody, And it took me a while to get to this good answer, which I think has helped people. Listen, my friends, if you're watching this right now and being like, okay, I see what Gary's setting up. He's gonna ask me to start producing a lot more content. That's the answer, by the way. Well, I don't wanna do video. Well, I'm like, good news, Sarah, you don't have to do video. For example, I'm a terrible writer. If I was a great writer, I'd be writing a lot more, 'cause writing on LinkedIn crushes. As a matter of fact, my team loves when I, I write all the copy on my Instagram posts, right? I write all of them, everyone, every post in my life. And they get pumped when I get motivated and write a real good one, 'cause we know the post does better. Copy is the most underrated thing in social media today. It drives so much of the success of the picture and the video. So, by the way, you might be an audio, you might be a talker, but you're insecure about your visual of how you look, or the camera makes you freeze, but you're great with talking, so good. Good, there's now Clubhouse, an incredible app you can go and be a thought leader in. There's just recording audio and posting that on your LinkedIn. LinkedIn for this group, knowing who's in the room, is equivalent to what Facebook was in 2012. That will lead to incredible financial and emotional success to those in here that heed the call that I'm yelling today. Period, end of story. I could not be more passionate about everybody here getting very serious, and then what you put out is up to you. You know, my recommendation is that it brings value to people, whether it's entertaining, whether it's informational, but I also believe that stories, stories are easier for people. This is something that I'm gonna start talking a lot more about. I think stories, just stories, like life lessons, grandma told me, and then if you're good at, and I've already We've already brought this up, I'm gonna bring it up again cuz I'm trying to help everybody here, give you some training wheels. If you say, hi, I'm Karen, I'm a sales lead at this company. This is for my team, but honestly this is for the broader world cuz all you sales leaders, I know how it is. When I was 9, my grandmother took me to a Girl Scouts event and Sarah Johnson did this and I did this and grandma told me to do that and then I did this. And me and Sarah Johnson were best friends in high school, and that's ironic because I had a big tiff between Carl and Carla recently on my team, and I did this like my grandma did that, and now they just closed the biggest account together. That story, that should come very natural, and by the way, you don't need to call out Carl and Carla, right? 'Cause that's active, you're in the world right now. You could be two people on my team. Just think about how easy that is for what everyone's struggling with, which is, well, what do I post? What do I post is grounded in lack of self-esteem and lack of strategy. Period. And so I'm here today to build your self-esteem, and not in a delusional way. I'm just trying to encourage you to realize how real this is because the content creators that build awareness and audiences will have the leverage in business, whether it's a small narrow world And by the way, this is a small, narrow sector, most of the business people on this call in this thing. That's great, actually. The reality is, that's great, because then you run a couple dollars in ads on LinkedIn against targets of companies that are in your sector, and you're getting exactly who you want. I actually like when groups are narrow, 'cause you can get so much more specific. So anyway, I'm just very excited to be here. I want to encourage I want everyone to realize the opportunity. Evan, thank you so much for having a couple seconds and being able to tell the Believe Nation a little bit about Empathy Wines. It means a lot to me that you would take this valuable real estate and time on your channel to give me some love. It means a lot. It's just good karma points, and so you're just, you're awesome. Thank you. Believe Nation, if you're into wine at all, go to empathywines.com. My whole career's work was poured into Producing wine that rivaled $40 to $60 wine for $20 a bottle. I'm just super excited about this subscription-based wine business. You can order 3, 6, or 12 bottles in subscription form, rosé, white, red. If you search on Instagram or Twitter, you will be blown away. People are literally like, "I don't even like GaryVee, but the wine's good." Super proud of the effort. Thanks, Evan, for the time. Wishing you guys all happy holidays. Healthy.

Because you made it this far in the video, I want to celebrate you. Most people start and don't finish. Most people never actually follow through. Most people say they want something, but they don't ever do the work to actually get it. But you are different. You are special. Believe Nation, you made it here all the way to the end, and I love you. So as a special Celebration: if you put a hashtag #believe down in the comments below on this video, I will showcase you and celebrate you somewhere on the screen in a future video because you are awesome. If you want to see the last one-on-one I did with Gary Vaynerchuk, check out the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.

I'm talking about something that the world thinks is a contradiction. I don't understand why anybody should ever verbally dress down an employee.