This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.
Jared, I promise you, and I know most people, a lot of people struggle with my point of view on this, real talk. And I'm incredibly aware of some of the stresses money takes off the table, but,
The amount of people that have money that I know that are incredibly unhappy, deeply insecure, deeply in depression, is so much you couldn't even imagine. Money accelerates one's truth. If you're happy, you're happier. But if you're angry, you're more angry. Money exposes us. It doesn't change us.
Alright, hi everyone, my name is Michael McPherson. I'm an alumni here from Miami Country Day 2019. My question for you Gary, are you familiar with the law of diminishing returns graph? Yep. Okay, great. So for anyone who isn't, it's basically the notion where, you know, you have one donut, two donuts, it's great. By the time you get to 10 donuts, you're probably not feeling too well.
So at what point, Gary, does that graph start to go down for you in any of your decisions, motives, business ideas? Where do you start to say, okay, any further investment is not going to bring a return, but rather the opposite effect? I only know it when it starts to happen, right? I have no idea. That's the coolest part of like being a human.
I have no clue. What I'm very good at is when it happens, I adjust my life. What I'm incredibly strong at, and I feel comfortable saying this, I think I just think of most things, like every other person, bless you. But I think, maybe one of my greatest core strengths is being able to make hard decisions when I'm no longer happy.
And I fight for that. It's something I think about every day. And so for me, it was really easy because I'm only talking to you about emotional things. The laws of diminishing returns were never real for me on physical things. I don't want anything. I don't need stuff. I don't want stuff. I want to feel. And so usually for me, it's going through a journey. I'll give you a good example.
for the first 10, 12 years of my growth as a public figure. When I would walk through an airport, I would look at every single person dead in their face with the hopes that they knew who I was so we could talk.
now because of hitting enough of a level of that. And it wasn't so much that I needed it for my ego, though I always try to ask myself that. It goes back to what I said earlier. I just really enjoy interacting with people. I like it so much. But I equally like my alone time. And so what ended up happening was walking through an airport used to be 100% alone.
Now that it could be predominantly taken up by people saying hello, wanting to pitch me their business or tell me a story or take a photo. Now I'm valuing, having a little balance of my own time during that time to catch up on work or family or whatever I'm doing. So I don't look at every person in the face anymore when I'm at the airport. I noticed that today even, right? And so I adjust it.
There was a point two years ago, three years ago, where I just changed. And so the answer is I'm not sure, brother, but what I would tell everybody is, I don't sit on it the way most normal people do. And I see normal people like, I'm just so, this goes back to gratitude. I'm not sure how I got that. DNA, I don't know, I don't know what happened, but I don't tend to sit in a place of unhappiness very long. I can't function there.
I really can't. That's what led to my weakness of candor. I don't like negativity, right? And so I don't know, but I also know that the second I start feeling it, if it sits for a sustained period of time, I'm not knee jerk. I can deal with inconvenience or even dealing with a difficult situation, but I will not dwell in it. I think one thing my parents definitely taught me that I highly recommend everyone is we need to stop complaining so much.
I think that's huge for me because I think one of the reasons I act a lot and fix is because I don't know how to really complain. Like I don't really like the concept. I also think the people that listen to you complaining are just either enablers or other people that like to complain so they're waiting for their turn.
And so I think we need more accountability. And I'm incredibly accountable. If I am unhappy, I don't think it's the president's fault. I don't think it's my parents' fault. I don't think it's anyone's fault, but myself and I'm in control. And so I act on it. That's the insight there. Thank you.
You're not even young, you're not even born yet.
Go ahead, brother. I know what I want to be so shy. Look for it, or should I come to me, which I do? Well, let's talk about it in a different way. So why do you want to know what you're going to be? So I can prepare for it, you know, maybe study for it? Yeah, I mean, definitely don't study for it. I mean that in a really important way, meaning of course you need to know it, you know.
Sorry, Nima. What the fuck did you think was gonna happen up here? Not all studying is bad. By the way, to his, let me explain what I mean by that. Actually to his point, I studied 24-7. I will, tonight, after I've dinner with my parents, lay in the apartment from 11 or 12 whenever one done to one, I will spend at least an hour studying what's happening in popular culture.
I study so much, it's scary. By the way, while I was getting D's and F's, I was studying. I memorized the price of every baseball card in the world. I'm being dead serious. By the time I was in high school, I read the wine spectator cover to cover and was studying to understand every wine, what wines. I've been studying. I only study. But where I'm going with this, my man is
I just want to make sure that a couple things happen. First, I promise you that everyone in this room that's 35 years and older wishes they enjoyed their childhood a little more. A little more fun, a little more playing, a couple more times to hang out. We were all so focused.
on where we were going, we weren't able to fully maximize what we were in. You're 14 years old, like you're actually actually, especially with, I don't know if anybody's paying attention to modern medicine, this dude's gonna live for 130 more years. Like actually, this dude's gonna be 150 years old one day on earth still. So bro, you got a lot of time. And so,
Here's what I will say. And this is actually a lot of fun because this actually goes for all the 40 and 50 year olds in the crowd as well who think they've wrapped up back to modern medicine and the fact that the far majority as I look around here, pretty much the majority of this room isn't at halftime in their lives. I would tell you to get really focused on something called curiosity.
If I could give you one good piece of advice, the biggest mistake that kids make in high school is they're worried about high school social dynamics. And so they don't go do things that they want to do or learn about because it might not be cool or their friend group might not be about it. So if you're into theater or if you're into science or robotics or comedy or I have no idea what's running through your mind that catches your eye on YouTube or TikTok or things of that nature.
but the way you're gonna find what you should do in life in the best way, the way the people that are the happiest at what they do is you gotta go try it. You like comedy, go try to do a stand-up set somewhere. You know what I mean? Like, go try stuff, because you don't know if you love it until you try it. I think of life the way I think about food. Watch this kid. How many people here do not like oysters? Raise your hand. It's okay. Just raise it high. Raise it high, or please, for the little guy?
Okay, of those people, keep your hands up, do not like oysters. Don't lie, how many have never had one. That's life, brother. That is the thing I am most interested in, what I just showed you in real life. A lot of people make decisions without ever trying.
Is that cool? It's curiosity. Like, you just don't know. You don't know unless you try. Like, you just don't know. And we don't try enough stuff. All of us. Try more stuff. Hi, Gary. Thank you for being so inspirational. Thank you. What's your name? My name is Jen Abbott. And I'm a luxury real estate agent. And I just sold to the most famous soccer player in the world. You went to Saudi Arabia and sold to Ronaldo?
I'm curious, like, how do I ride that wave with being respectful to the celebrity and keeping it classy? Yeah, that's a, by the way, that's a tremendous question. I mean, I think first, respect comes in asking, right? And the truth is, it's probably there's a potential aspect where it's even awkward to ask, right?
Look, I think some things do a little bit better in a B2B environment than a B2C environment. I think one-on-one with people in this room, in your circles, in the small scene that is super luxury real estate in this town, I think people know. And there's an opportunity for you to feel comfortable in closed environments to talk about the truth. I think starting to put it on blast publicly, which would lead to a lot more awareness, I'm aware,
may start to cross that chasm that may be a little, you know, more of a disrespectful move. And I think, you know, back to who we're referencing, that's such a one-of-one. Like, that's a small group of people. So, you know, for me, I think it's about permission.
So I think if you want to go there and you have the strength to ask that question, if it would be okay to respectfully and lightly reference it, I think that's a question you can ask. And because the worst that can happen is no reply or a no.
I think if you don't want to go there, my personal point of view, but this is a subjective opinion, is it's better for smaller groups behind the scenes than the good news is, you know this. And the game that you're playing, it's not about reaching the masses. Most people can't afford what you're selling. And so the behind the scenes stuff I think could be effective. Welcome. Thank you for exploring that.
I just wanted to ask, what do you think is the key to being an individual when it comes to entrepreneurship so you and your business stands out more than the rest of us? By spending 100% of your time on the customer and spending almost no time paying attention to your competitors. Oh, you guys like that one?
I think it's fun to have my dad here because this was a very big thing that I was passionate about naturally in my teenage years. I would tell my dad, I was a very unusual kid in that I was obsessed with business. And my dad and mom lived about 45 minutes away from my dad's store. And so we had long drives both to and from the store.
You know, I talked a lot and those tribes and my dad would listen and we would talk and I remember being passionate with my dad and my teenage years and in my early 20s of like, it doesn't matter what our competition does. It really doesn't. Like as long as we focused on the consumer and I think I've always innovated because an Avery and Nick who are with me on my journey in VaynerX, like they are probably laughing inside. I can't even name
most of the companies that VaynerMedia compete with. I definitely can't name the CEOs of my competitor. It's just irrelevant. And so what I think happens when you just focus on the customer, actually, like no bullshit, like focused 100% energy on the customer, you end up innovating, because you're so close to the customer, you have a pulse of what they want now, not what worked for someone else yesterday. Welcome.
I consumed your first piece of content, I think like eight, nine years ago, you weren't already in college, I remember, and then I talk around it, you're also here in an academic setting, but throughout eight years also consumed your content on social media, I've always been curious to ask this question, which is, you've maintained relevance
for seven, eight years, which is quite difficult to do, especially in social media. You talk about practice and the influence we call some learning. You just spoke about hustle and how you changed your definition at work.
How do you actually, what's the actual practice for your look like? What does that study actually look like? Because on social media within that domain, it's so difficult with the barrage of information that's coming at you, right? Like you read comments or you're talking about the street. How do you make the decision to say hustle is not the right word to continue hitting the right message with my audience?
So the hustle thing or where I'm at now, which is different than the reason I'm gonna answer this twice is I'm about to give you advice. I'm about to give you insight to someone who has a large audience and I'm aware that most people don't. Today it's easy. When I said tonight I'll spend an hour, I will. Now I may go into trending topics and read a trillion different news outlets and look at my stream and see if there's anything happening. Or I might just spend, which happens way more often, the entire hour reading all my DMs.
And in the DMs is where I got the, by the way, I have no feelings towards eighth place trophies nine years ago.
I really was indifferent, genuinely. I just didn't think it was a big deal until I read a million comments from 22 and 23 and 24 year olds and got more insight to why so many people are so scared to fail and started to backtrack and have conversations. So today, my friend to answer the question, it's because unlike the far majority of my contemporaries who are fortunate enough and earned enormously large audiences,
I've doubled down on being close to them instead of the reverse. Most of the people that have made it from a following standpoint either gave up on reading the comments when it got too much or never really did it in the first place. For me, it's how I got there. By the way, a lot of people don't know this. The real way the Gary Vee thing happened was when Twitter came out and started really hitting in 2007, I spent 10 hours a day on it talking to people.
every day. I actually spent four years straight not going to sleep until I replied to every tweet and every email I got from 2007 to 2011. So I got here this way and so now it's easy for me to keep a pulse on it because it's coming to me. For everyone who's trying to build it, I still think the way to do it is to join into the conversation, meaning
I think too many people think they need to consume it without participating. So going on X slash Twitter, going into Instagram post where there's content and then replying to three or four people that are replying to it, I don't think we network or engage or conversate enough. And now it's incredibly impossible because politics on both sides of the aisle, both selfier,
in different form and now everyone's scared to talk to everyone because everything in next year is going to be a mess because everyone's going to be untilled because it's a presidential election and nobody wants to deal with all that negativity. You feel like you're not even sure you could say anything and it becomes something that people want to fight about and so it's really unfortunate
I have a very talk about auditing your close like front group. Yes. That's where all these circles change. What's your advice on staying authentic with those that you truly connect with? Even though you might be outgrown. By just reallocation. You know, a lot of people here, so what he's referring to is I talk a lot about like, I was just touching on a little bit. Like, here's my punchline. I think people spend way too much time on negativity.
And I don't really tell you. And so there's a lot of people unhappy because you consume unhappy things, the news. And you hang around unhappy people, relatives that are unhappy. And I don't think you should cut out and no longer talk to your homies. I hate when people hear it and think they've outgrown their friends and they want to get bougie. That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying, pay attention to everybody you spend time with and what you consume. That whole saying when we were growing up, you become who you hang out with. It's just super real. Whatever you're consuming is what's dictating your point of view. I think the way you do that, because I believe in loyalty so much. I'm incredibly loyal to my friends. I'm still in touch with everybody I've ever grown up with.
But my allocation of time with them may be different than it was when I was best friends with them when I was 10 or 20. And so I would tell you, you don't have to cut people out of your life, but you need to communicate to them while you're limiting your time with them. And by the way, that may inspire them to look inside and pay attention to what they're thinking about.
How do you study trends? And the second question is what do you think the new generations should start investing in and how?
The way I study trends is that I think people have a very, very, very distorted view of social media. So social media, in my opinion, are empty pipes that people fill with information. Not the government, not though they're allowed, not some lords behind, not the Illuminati, us.
And I think what social media has done extremely well in the last five years, seven years, has not changed us. I think it's exposed us. And I don't think people like what they say.
But if you're like me, you love what you see. I consume unlimited amounts of social media personally, not when I'm doing my professional work, which I'll answer in a minute. And I see nothing but happiness because I choose to follow people that are optimistic and practical and trying to provide good. And I think everyone here, if I asked you to think of three very good people, you can do it.
The question is, why don't you spend more time with those people and less with the ones that are not as good? That becomes the interesting question. So how do I study trends? I consume Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and all the platforms as they pop up. And I watch what people are talking about and what they consume. I go to Google Trends. It's free. So if something catches my eye, I then go to Google Trends. I look at how many people are searching it. I put in the work. That's how I do it. As far as what I think you should invest in,
The answer to that question, my man, is self-esteem. Instead of crypto, or real estate, or cannabis, or trading cards, or something like that, definitely don't do cannabis at this age.
I think the biggest thing that will have an impact on you being able to achieve what you want is you need to start right now, which is what every person in this auditorium wish they did at your age. You need to start in realizing the most important truth in the world, which is you need to figure out how to start loving yourself yesterday. You need to figure out
My man, the world is going to be very good at telling you what you're not good at. What you need to focus on is realizing that you're good at plenty of things. You might have not found them all, but that you're a good person and you have good intent. And you really have to work on that. And I promise you,
especially at the age you're at right now, pay attention to the friends that you hang out with. You need to figure out if they make you feel good. And if they don't, even if they're the most popular or the coolest, you need to cut them out. If your friends do not make you feel good, they are not your friends. Thank you. Does that okay? Okay, go ahead brother, go fast.
Hi, Aaron. Thank you for coming. My name is Hylar Kuchuk. I'm an alumni for about 2017. And I really wish that people, like you, would come visit us more often when I was back in high school. I'm really glad that my own Kuchuk day is giving this opportunity for future generations. How old are you, brother? 24. You're young enough. I know. You're good. It's good. You have. Go ahead. My question is about networking.
That working. My current dream is to go back to you during an actual award and be part of rebuilding the new country's economy. That's awesome. And I really want to go into venture capital field. I currently do not have any real network in America because I was, I came back to America to go work again. And I'm trying to spend my network at the big sense. And I've been trying to do old calling, emailing,
LinkedIn messages, but I haven't been really getting a lot of advice. I was wondering if you have any advice to welcome you. I have a huge advice. So the issue with cold calling and cold emailing and LinkedIn is... And by the way, I'm a fan of it. The problem is you're asking.
This is a very simple game out here. It's a game of someone asks, and then there's the other person on the other side of it. And the other person on the other side of it, depending on how often they get asked, and depending on how they see the world, the likelihood of them reciprocating is quite low. So I'm a big believer of not being in a position where you're asking and don't have the leverage. I believe in the reverse, which is why I'm so passionate about content on the internet.
You want to be indentured capitalist. Okay, I understand theoretically why, but the question is, do you have anything to provide in value, right? And so I believe the answer is yes to everyone, but I think you need to put that out there. Here's what I mean.
If I'm you, I'm putting out content on LinkedIn about your point of view on how to invest in startups, what you see in startups, what you see in small businesses. I would do history work and look at the two, three, four, five most recent examples of countries that are in post-war environments
and how that ecosystem was built to build it back up, right? What happened in the former Yugoslavia after what happened in the mid 90s and make content around your pattern recognition that you saw what happened in Serbia and Croatia post-war and how that worked over a 25-year window and how you see that playing out in the Ukraine. I promise you,
that if you had a thoughtful strategy like I just articulated to you, like I just talked about the former Yugoslavia, that you would catch people's attention if you posted 20, 30, 40, 50 times, not to mention, you'd have something to put in your email when you're cold calling, right, and you're cold emailing. So for everyone in this room, I'm stunned by how many people leave it to chance.
and luck and referral. The reality is the ultimate referral right now is the ability to post content anywhere for free. It's free. LinkedIn doesn't charge you to post and get people to see it. So if I'm you, I go heavy on the attack and don't be scared because the issue is everyone thinks they have to be an expert. You just have to be an enthusiast.
Let me say this slow, because this is huge. Most of you are not posting about something like this that you want, because you realize internally you're not educated, or you don't have strength in it. That's irrelevant. Meaning, it would be wonderful if you did. It's definitely good.
But if you have the humility to communicate from a point of view of enthusiasm, or subjective point of view, or hypothesis, we've just taken so many words out. Everyone thinks they have to be an expert, or a guru, that's silly. When I started my business journey, it was these are the things I felt naturally, aren't I right?
And over time, that built. And so you can go with like, look, here's my truth. I'm from this place. Here's what I sense. And by the way, a lot of people will value that from being from that part of the world. There are tons of American businessmen and women who know that they don't have the context of the area, but might see the opportunity and may need a liaison or a decoder or a translator. So you don't have to act.
or fake the funk. You just need to tell your truth of what you see and what you know about your people. And I think you need to post that. Otherwise, you'll reach out to people that get, do you know any cold emails I get a day? I have three full-time employees just to delete them.
And I'm weird and answer some of them. And I like it. So I think the reality is you have to put yourself in a position the way when I researched tonight, I may hit up a random kid in Alberta because I like what she or had said about something I'm paying attention to. Put yourself in a position for them to come to you instead of asking them. You got it. We're never going home. Good.
So, as a current high school student, my name is Logan Benito. I'm a 10th grader of the school. Awesome. So, as a current high school student, it seems everyone's telling me college is becoming more and more important. You know, we missed your money for not to call them out, but he really emphasizes how important college is in my parents' life, too.
After hearing that you were a successful person of mine, Scott D's and F's in school, but still is able to come out of school and get a job and become successful, I'm wondering, do you think today it's even more competitive and we've heard you get a job without a college degree? How important do you think it is today to do well in school and go to a good college? I think it's a very individual journey. You know, when I was in 10th grade, I was selling an ungodly amount of wine and baseball cards and making money. Are you doing that? Right, so we're different.
And so I think the thing that's dangerous about anything. By the way, there's unlimited people who've got straight days in their life and are dramatically more successful than me. And then obviously the theme of tonight, I think people are picking up on it. I'm not even worried about the successful part financially. I'm desperately petrified that most people don't understand how to become successfully, emotionally.
I promise you, at the end of the day, your parents, as you get older, will be much happier that you're happy versus how much income you make. I promise parents get caught up in the game, especially in incredible institutions like this. I'm empathetic to it.
But, you know, I think parents need to spend more time looking at people 20 or 30 years older than them and realize that there's unlimited parents right now in their 70s and 80s who are devastated that their children are unhappy, but they happen to be great lawyers and doctors and successful businessmen and women. So, brother, I promise you, both your parents and this incredible institution will be okay whether you get straight A's or B's or C's or that. I think the bigger question is, do you know yourself?
You know, I think like there's unlimited people who are successful and happy that got straight A's and there's unlimited people who are successful and happy who got D's and F's. The question is who are you? Which version of the game are you? What do you like? Who do you want to be? And I think that's what you need to focus on. Because that's going to lead to much better outcomes for the next hundred years of your life than whether you get A's or F's. I promise.
