Gary Vee on The #1 Reason You’re Unhappy: Do This to Overcome Anxiety & Unlock Emotional Peace

Get ready to dive into a captivating conversation with the dynamic and unapologetically real entrepreneur, Gary Vaynerchuk, widely known as Gary Vee. Through an engaging dialogue, Gary shares personal anecdotes, valuable insights into his business journey, and thought-provoking wisdom on embracing emotional growth and self-awareness. Join us as we uncover the multifaceted world of Gary Vee, getting into topics ranging from accountability and gratitude to the future of attention and social media impact. This is an incredible episode full of authenticity, inspiration, and valuable life lessons. Buy Gary's book, Day Trading Attention, for yourself and a friend! Pre-order Gary's new children's book, Meet Me In The Middle, today! In this episode you will learn:Gary's upbringing and the impact of his early sense of responsibility and financial burden. The need for individuals to fall in love with the middle ground and the importance of instilling positive virtues in children. Overcoming natural instincts and habits in order to improve mental well-being and productivity. The influence of toxic or enabling people in one's life and the impact of family and friends on behavior and mindset. Gary's perspective on Generation Z, work ethic, and the impact of upbringing on instilling a strong work ethic. The transformation in Gary's approach to retaining underperforming employees and his reflections on being a competitive and confident individual. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1618For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Chris Bumstead- https://lewishowes.com/1602Venus Williams- https://lewishowes.com/1591Becky Lynch- https://lewishowes.com/1594 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Gary Vaynerchuk?

  The quality of me as a human matters to me, not as me as a businessman. I'm aware that I love it. I love being an entrepreneur, but it is not how I can think about myself.

• 0:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 0:08Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's my favorite game. It is my passion. It's not who I am.

• 0:13Speaker 02

  Entrepreneur, investor. A New York Times bestselling author. Founder of VaynerMedia. Digital media mogul Gary Vaynerchuk.

• 0:18Speaker 03

  Please welcome Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary Vaynerchuk.

• 0:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I remember when I was first popping off in that 2007, 08 Twitter world, a lot of people were like, "The wine guy's gonna be around just for a year. This is too much." It's all sizzle, no steak. Money and fame and success doesn't change you, it exposes you. I just have a very simple question for people. Explain to me any justification to [BLEEP] on another human being. If you're not happy, if you're anxious, if you're feeling a lot of pressure, the answer is ironically, you have to start doing the opposite of everything you naturally want to do. That's the other thing that I don't understand what these people are doing, as if anyone on earth- Is perfect. Is perfect. You want to have a real moment in this podcast? Everybody, I'm looking at all the [BLEEP] cameras right now.

• 1:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm sorry about that. It's alright. But I was going for a fact.

• 1:05Lewis Howes?

  You said you want to live to 105.

• 1:07Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 1:07Lewis Howes?

  You get to do one final livestream.

• 1:09Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 1:10Lewis Howes?

  And all you get to leave behind is three truths.

• 1:12Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I promise you, this is the most truth I've learned in 105 years.

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Gary Vaynerchuk in the house. My man, so good to see you. It's been 15 years since we met each other.

• 1:27Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yes.

• 1:27Lewis Howes?

  You have continued to be a leader in the creator economy, entrepreneurship, emotional intelligence, and so many other things. So I want to acknowledge you first, Gary, for your continued evolution, innovation, and leadership as a human being. And also your friendship. You have thousands of connections that you probably text with on a monthly basis. And you have a lot of people in your inner circle, but then outer circle, right?

• 1:54Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 1:55Lewis Howes?

  And I would say I'm someone like in the inner, outer circle. You know, we don't see each other a lot, but when we connect, we connect and we have a lot of memories together. And I always appreciate that when there's something happens in my life, you reach out. So I want to acknowledge you for just being on top of things, reaching out when things really matter.

• 2:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Well, I love for you.

• 2:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I appreciate it. And one of the things I want to talk about first in today is you've got a lot that's always happening, but one of the things is this book called Day Trading Attention.

• 2:24Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yes.

• 2:25Lewis Howes?

  It seemed, and we were just talking about this right before we started. You were asking me, you know, what's new for you? And I said, feeling emotionally peaceful and abundant and loved is new for me. Because in a world of online marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, business, competition, I was driven to grow, grow, grow. And I was always accomplishing and getting results.

• 2:50Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 2:50Lewis Howes?

  But in the last, you know, year, there's been changes, ups, downs. For the first time, I feel peaceful about me and love myself, even if I'm not growing at the rate that I always have.

• 3:02Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Even if you're ranked 113 instead of 7.

• 3:05Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. My question for you to start is, it seems like people are more stressed and overwhelmed and trapped than ever, trying to keep up with the algorithms, likes, views.

• 3:15Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 3:16Lewis Howes?

  Changes in platforms, one platform being hot, then potentially TikTok going away in a few months, who knows? Like,

• 3:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Right.

• 3:22Lewis Howes?

  And people are on this hamster wheel of needing to grow and create, create, create in order to be relevant.

• 3:28Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yes.

• 3:30Lewis Howes?

  Is that sustainable? And how can people stay healthy and love themselves when they're hot and when they're not? And how do they not chase the hamster wheel of success with social? And stay more sustainable?

• 3:42Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Great question. Um, is it sustainable? Yes, if you're in the place that I think you're emerging into. Where you enjoy it and it doesn't define you. And you can love yourself and you're good, whether you're making a million dollars a year or 40,000 a year, whether you've got a million followers or 40,000, or the thing that you're going through, that I go through and many others, when you have momentum and you're hot, hot, and then you're not as hot and you go up and down. So I think it's remarkably sustainable. I also believe that 99%, 97%, 90%, I don't know what the number is, are not in that place yet.

• 4:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  They're not in a place where they don't live for outside validation. They're not in a place where they've hit that maximum place of self-love. You know, I talk a lot about my mom.

• 4:35Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's very clear to me that whatever she gave me in DNA and how she parented me and the circumstances of the environment I grew up in, Edison, New Jersey, in the 80s, created a perfect storm where my relationship with me was so good, even in high school. I think about it now a lot. I didn't realize it when I was first coming up and getting notoriety. I didn't realize like how insane in hindsight. And Dustin, who's filming me right now, like, he also grew up in Jersey. He like really understands what I'm about to say, even though I'm older, he really knows what I'm saying. Like 90s, late 90s, early 2000s, like, you know, high school in Jersey in 1990 to 94, when I was there, like, that was like real kind of like hardcore, you know?

• 5:21Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Meaning, it now blows me away in hindsight that I did not, not only did I not succumb to peer pressure,

• 5:31Gary Vaynerchuk?

  that it didn't even begin to gain momentum with me.

• 5:35Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 5:35Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I had a lot of-

• 5:36Lewis Howes?

  Were you like the only one in high school that this didn't happen to?

• 5:38Gary Vaynerchuk?

  No, I think there's others, but I, and this is why I'm trying to tap into it. So for me, what you're entering, I believe, is what I got lucky in. I'm using, I hate to, you know, I hate luck because people love to weaponize it against people they envy. And it's a real lazy trait, but there's a million variables that are luck or serendipity or whatever you want to call it.

• 6:00Lewis Howes?

  But your parents instilled that in you and gave you that skill.

• 6:02Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, my dad instilled other things in me. And honestly, I was with my mom predominantly from 14. And then ironically, the time I'm talking about now is when I started to really get to know my dad because I had to work in the liquor store a lot of hours. Um, I just liked myself and didn't think-

• 6:18Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You're a perfect example. You're like, I was four foot eleven, the day I walked into high school.

• 6:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I was six three. Now I'm six four.

• 6:27Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Right, so like, I'm using you because you're a perfect cop. Like, even if the most handsome, like, big dude, who was in my grade, made fun of me, and I remember within the first couple of weeks, big shout out, if anybody can find Paige Parlow. Paige Parlow is two years older than us, or maybe one. All my high school friends are about to laugh. She was such a pretty girl. I think she was a junior, we were freshmen, right? And she had, like, cliche, this is literally September 1990. Her boyfriend is like a smoker dude, like, literally like a John Travolta type of dude. Literally out of Central Casting. I somehow get lost, this is literally like week one or two, get lost of which class I'm going to, so I'm like two, three minutes after the bell rang,

• 7:09Gary Vaynerchuk?

  and I'm like walking the hall trying to figure, like, literally like a fucking movie. And they're outside. I already know who this, the, those two people are. And we're only a week or two in, right?

• 7:20Lewis Howes?

  The legends of high school, yeah.

• 7:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And literally, they're outside one of, either her or his locker, making out as I'm walking by. And everything in my life is just walk by and have nothing happen, right? Sure enough, I get by, I'm like, ah, and it's literally a fucking movie. It's literally a coming-of-age movie. He goes, "Hey." I'm like, I turn back, he goes, "The nursery school's right over there."

• 7:46Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wait.

• 7:47Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But you have to understand why this is extra funny. Our high school was a vocational high school. And I don't know if you know what this is, but vocational high schools, because we were in rural New Jersey. I moved from Edison to Hunterdon County. We had a auto body shop, we had a salon, and we had a daycare in our high school. And some of the juniors and seniors were taking classes to become teachers. So I was literally ironically, I didn't know where it was at the time. I'm telling you, the first two, three weeks of high school, he goes, "Hey, kid." And they laugh, and I'm like, ah, like, literally, but here's what's so funny about it. This is the most meta moment. I literally said to myself in that moment, not, "I'm a piece of [BLEEP], or "I'll never be cool," or "I suck," or "I can't wait to grow," or whatever the [BLEEP].

• 8:31Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I said to myself, what's happening right this second? I'm like, huh, that's gonna be a really funny story one day. Wow. I literally, actually, at 14 years old, said that, and here I am, 34 years later, delivering on the promise I made to myself about that moment. So the answer is, is it sustainable? Of course it is. But the only thing that is sustainable is when your relationship with yourself is so good, you can deal with the death of a parent, a partner, even the worst extreme, a child. You can deal with getting laid off. You can get, you can deal with. Breakups. How about athlete life that you grew up with? Who are the kids that are bound to be professional athletes?

• 9:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Jay Williams, was supposed to be the best basketball player. Got into a motorcycle accident. Obviously, he has a great career, he's a great entrepreneur, he's on TV, he's a good dude. But, but that's maybe not what he thought his whole life was gonna be for the first 20 years of his life. Or the ones that don't make it. Or the ones that come from a wealthy family and then the mother or father die of a heart attack, it spins out the whole family. Or they get raided by the FBI. Like, people have things. My mom lost her mom at five. My dad lost his dad at 15. Those are game-changing moments. How does one deal that they're in a good place? Last night I had dinner. One of the people at dinner was talking about their sibling, their younger sister passing away. This woman was in her 60s. She was talking about her 58-year-old sister, and she was talking about the children.

• 9:58Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And, and she's talking about the children in their 30s, just on full-tilt entitlement. Like, she literally said, quote-unquote, "One of them is waiting for the father to pass so they can inherit the money." Oh, man. And, you know, I think about those things, and I'm like, what, what does that? And that's the extreme in the other direction. So there's the, "I love myself." You know, listen, you know this about me, and you brought it up in the intro. I love being nice. But I'm in ca- of course I'm nice, cuz I'm good with me. Of course, most people that aren't nice, aren't nice because they're not good with themselves. Right. So for me, you know, this is why entrepreneurship has been so easy. I'm not scared to lose. And it is the direct correlation.

• 10:40Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Uh, your, your capacity with losing has an incredible correlation to what you're gonna achieve as an entrepreneur sustainably. Because when you're deeply insecure...

• 10:53Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And it's not good, you equally might create massive success because you're using it as the makeup.

• 10:59Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:59Gary Vaynerchuk?

  If I put up the points on the board, everyone will think I'm good, even though I secretly don't think I'm good.

• 11:05Lewis Howes?

  And what happens when you succeed, but you're not good with yourself?

• 11:08Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Exactly what you know what happens. You better, you and I now have, I have way more than you, but you're starting to get, I saw that the other, saw the last time I saw you in New York for a second, I'm like, uh. So fun to see you. Yeah, we're maturing and you know this, many of our contemporaries or guys and gals we looked up to. We've watched get to high levels and collapse.

• 11:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, crash.

• 11:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Crash. Some of it, the public knows because it's very famous. Others, we know. Where like someone that was in our circle, speaking or writing books, like made a lot of money, but like gone through really bad stuff and drug problems and worse and like, like we know and that's what happens. You know, money and fame and success and followers doesn't change you, it exposes you. Right? And so, you know, I think, you know, for me, it was the, the serendipity of being in that good place. And it's probably why I, if you look at my journey, it's funny, Day Trading Attention's a funny book for me. It's a little bit back to 2009, Gary. It's very tactical. Social's changed a lot.

• 12:08Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I just wanted to give people like, here it is. Like go run for the next 24 months. But, but you know, my last book, 12 and a half, I, you know, and you know this again, because we've been together through this journey. Somewhere along the line, six, seven years into giving tactical, black and white, marketing and business advice that will work. I got to a place where I'm like, wait a minute. Oh, people are doing this not because they don't know what to do. It's because they're not in a good place from a perspective, from a mentality, from a internal place. And that's when my content started to evolve into security, kindness, like that's, that's emotional intelligence. I mean, I didn't even know what the term emotional.

• 12:49Lewis Howes?

  Not tactics.

• 12:50Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah, because I thought when I came out in nine, 2009, 10, 11, 12, that I just built from 96 to 2000. That was the other thing was a little bit different about me in that era. I was also someone had already really done a lot.

• 13:01Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 13:02Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And so I was talking about I did, not that might happen.

• 13:05Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 13:05Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I think that's what made me explode pretty quickly, besides ability to communicate and that kind of level of. Communication charisma, it was, there was meat there. I remember, you may remember this, this is actually an interesting question to you. I remember when I was first popping off in that 2007, 8 Twitter world. I'm so animated, I'm so over the top. What I was used to laugh about, similar to getting made fun of that day in high school was, a lot of people were like, oh, this guy's gonna, the wine guy's gonna be around just for a year. This is too much.

• 13:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 13:34Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's all sizzle, no steak. And I would read those tweets, because I'd go and give a talk at the affiliate summit. And I would read the comments and someone's like, this guy won't even be around in a year. And it was very similar to getting made fun of in freshman year of high school. I'm like, I can't wait to recall this, because I know who I am. I'm an incredibly patient operator. And I build slow and quietly. VaynerMedia, VaynerX, has 2,000 employees.

• 14:03Lewis Howes?

  That's incredible, man. I thought it was only 1,000.

• 14:06Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's 2,000 employees. You were there.

• 14:08Lewis Howes?

  I was there when you had 4.

• 14:09Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Correct.

• 14:09Lewis Howes?

  I remember there with like, you guys were in, I can't remember, Soho or something?

• 14:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Sunshine Suites, down on DeBrosse's Street. I remember.

• 14:16Lewis Howes?

  You got a ping pong table and like 4 people around the table.

• 14:18Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's right.

• 14:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:19Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's right.

• 14:20Lewis Howes?

  Like 3, 4 clients like trying to figure it out.

• 14:23Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And now, that's a $350 million a year business. It's a real business.

• 14:27Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 14:28Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And that was built from me and AJ in Mike Lazaro's Buddy Media Conference Center's office, 6 months before you saw us down in DeBrosse's. And that rent, for the first year, was free, because I traded cut marketing services for the space. Because the story that most people don't understand about me, and I know you know this, is, I didn't have any money. I was built, I built my dad's business.

• 14:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And he didn't pay me much.

• 14:52Lewis Howes?

  Right, you got a salary.

• 14:54Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But like, 60 and 70,000 a year.

• 14:57Lewis Howes?

  Not much in New York City.

• 14:59Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Now, I was in Jersey, living in a shitty apartment in Springfield, Jersey, but it didn't matter. And I was able to save money, because I worked 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Saturday. I didn't even have time to spend money. And the internet didn't work the way it did back then, so it wasn't like I could gamble or buy. Like, like, like, it was just like a very, I had a, I, I'm starting to realize in my late 40s, I'm like, man, my life was weird, weird. Like, like, like, it was weird. I was like, in a very weird emotional place, which is amazing. Like off the charts lucky, just like being an athlete or any work. You know, Beyonce's born with her voice. She put in the work.

• 15:41Lewis Howes?

  She developed it, but she had it.

• 15:43Gary Vaynerchuk?

  LeBron was born with what he is. Put in the work, and that's how I feel about myself. I was given a lot of talent emotionally and a lot of entrepreneurial talent. And I've put in a obnoxious amount of work and here comes the outcomes. But like, also, just like anybody else, I've gone through my journey along the way. My last book, 12 and a half, I talk a lot about candor being my weakness. My kryptonite.

• 16:04Lewis Howes?

  Candor, what do you mean by that?

• 16:05Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Well, Gary Vee's candorous. Next hour here, I'll fucking shoot, I'll be like, you, you know? And I do that well as Gary Vee, but as Gary Vaynerchuk, when I have an employee that stinks, I, for my whole career, to this day, it's a problem. To this day, I'm a five out of 10, me a 4.7.

• 16:23Lewis Howes?

  At being honest or being?

• 16:24Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Being, uh, see, that even like, honestly, that like made me crumble. I hate that candor is.

• 16:30Lewis Howes?

  Well, I mean.

• 16:30Gary Vaynerchuk?

  No, no, no, you're right. No, no, you're right. Candor is a synonym or whatever the fuck it's called of honesty. My ability to be honest with an employee that has been around my company for a period of time, and now I like them, who's underperforming.

• 16:45Lewis Howes?

  That's so hard.

• 16:46Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Has been the disproportionate kryptonite of my career. Which surprises people. Because Gary Vee on stage or on podcast, that's my strength. But I'm talking to the world.

• 16:59Lewis Howes?

  When it's one-on-one and you care about someone and.

• 17:01Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I know everything about them. I know that their dad this and their mom this, and I know they're having struggles at home, or I know they came in and had $50,000 in college debt, and I'm like, oh, like. And, and so I've realized one of my great weaknesses of my career. Is that I bleed, I bleed too much charity into my work.

• 17:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 17:20Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And one of our biggest connection point in our friendship is, you know, pencils of promise, right? And, and I've done a good job in doing charity work, but I haven't been able to take off like, I really envy the people who like, don't bleed in charity. Charity has been an element of my investing. I've invested in companies that if my life depended on it, I would never have invested in. I 100% knew it wouldn't work, but I wanted to write a 20 to 50,000 dollar check because I liked the person.

• 17:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I have kept many employees within my companies for a long time. And here's the worst part. I've taken the brunt of that because it's lost profit, right? It's, it's reputational damage. People are like, why is Gary keeping around Sally? And then what ends up happening is eventually there is a moment where that person goes, but it's always been sloppy because of the lack of.

• 18:11Lewis Howes?

  A year or two after they should have.

• 18:12Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And then I'm the bad guy. And it's all because, and so candor has been something I've developed a lot more, a lot more. It's still.

• 18:21Lewis Howes?

  So challenging.

• 18:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Back to, we were joking about, I just read the audio book. Like, there are a couple of things on earth that come incredibly hard to me. One is candor to nice people when I have to let them go in a business. And two is reading my audio book.

• 18:38Lewis Howes?

  I know, man.

• 18:39Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Which is a grind.

• 18:40Lewis Howes?

  Oh, but you mentioned you're in your late 40s now, is that right? I just turned 41.

• 18:44Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I'm 40.

• 18:45Lewis Howes?

  A couple of weeks ago, 40, 48. If you could go back to 40.

• 18:49Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Okay.

• 18:50Lewis Howes?

  And think about all the things that you struggled with in the last, I guess, eight years.

• 18:55Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 18:56Lewis Howes?

  You've had, you know, people see your wins and successes nonstop.

• 19:00Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 19:00Lewis Howes?

  Like all the exits and investments and the growth, the VaynerMedia and the books and the York Times, NFT, all these different things that people see that. But for you, what do you think are the two or three things that have been beyond candor? Your biggest struggles or the hardest things you've had to overcome?

• 19:17Gary Vaynerchuk?

  One is very real right now, which is I am atrocious at smelling the roses.

• 19:27Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Because the whole game for me is smelling the roses. However, I'm sensing like, but would I have enjoyed the memories of the more extreme version of smelling the roses? Let me explain what I mean. Yeah. So, when I have wins, I don't celebrate them. Like, there's no, like, in my world, we just landed a twenty million dollar client.

• 19:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 19:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's a lot. It's a big client. And a bunch of the people at Vayner, they've worked at other places. They're like, so when's the... So, when are we doing like the celebration dinner?

• 20:00Lewis Howes?

  The party, yeah, yeah.

• 20:00Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I'm like, what are you... I don't, like, my brain's like, I don't understand what you're saying. Right? And not that like I'm like some tyrant. It's almost like just my energy goes to like problems. I'm a fi... you know? As I continue to go through my own journey, it'll be very clear that I was I was blessed with many things as a child, but I was also burdened with some. Like, I was the oldest from the old country. I mean, when I tell you since the time I was five years old, I remember being ingrained.

• 20:30Lewis Howes?

  Like responsibility, responsibility.

• 20:32Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Take your sister. Take your, like, my mom, and I admire that from my mom. Do I also understand like anything, if anything's too extreme, one or the other?

• 20:40Lewis Howes?

  There's a weight to it, yeah.

• 20:41Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Between that, and then don't forget, at fourteen, I come into my dad's business. By the time I'm like fifteen and a half, when you still used to even use a half, it became clear like I was a talent. Back to the great Kobe Bryant that you got to do a podcast with.

• 20:54Lewis Howes?

  We're up twenty, thirty percent, you know, this year, because you're in there frickin' razzle-dazzle people.

• 20:58Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So, guess what happens? Now I'm seventeen and eighteen and nineteen, and I'm feeling the financial burden. Right? And now that was, I want to be very careful here. It's not like my father came to me and said, "You need to..." Absolutely not. I did that to myself, but it was hardwired in early. And my environment's like, ah, my responsibility, you know? I think a lot of first-generation oldest immigrants that were born in the old country, and their siblings were born here, actually, that's really cool. Anybody who's watching, email me at gary@vaynerx, if you're this exact person. You're an immigrant yourself, you immigrated to America, or any first-world country, London, anywhere else, uh, and you're the only sibling that was born in the old country, but you have siblings that were born in the new world.

• 21:44Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I think there's something there.

• 21:45Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 21:46Gary Vaynerchuk?

  There's something there. I felt half-parent my whole life.

• 21:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  AJ, who you know well. I mean, minimumly, I feel 50% dad, 50%.

• 21:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow, really?

• 21:58Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Of course, he's 11 years younger than me.

• 21:59Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 22:00Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, so you're 18 and he's seven, and forget about the 11 years. Like I just told you earlier, I felt that way towards my sister, who's only three and a half years younger. There was just something like, you're the, and again, I think back. This is where, I'll say something very important right now, I, I believe. I think we judge our parents too much.

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 22:18Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like, I don't sit here and say, "Mom." Like, you know, I think people really dwell too much. I understand, my mom lost her mom at five, and then her dad went to jail for 10 years in the Soviet Union, because every entrepreneur did. And so, her and her brother.

• 22:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I get it.

• 22:35Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Were the world, so she made, I mean, bratyn sestra, shenegalava, was like propaganda into my head of like, my relationship with my sister.

• 22:44Lewis Howes?

  But it's hard when you're eight to, to think that way, to not think, your parents should be trying to protect you, and educate you, and, you know, elevate you.

• 22:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah, but there is no should.

• 22:53Lewis Howes?

  I get it.

• 22:53Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, you want to have a real moment in this podcast? Everybody, I'm looking at all the cameras right now, there is no should. That's the biggest thing, right? Because then we could say, "Your parents should do this," and then I'll tell you the biggest pandemic in the world right now, which is 22 to 30-year-olds, who are really struggling with standing on their own two feet, because their parents went too far to what you just said.

• 23:14Lewis Howes?

  They took care of them too much.

• 23:15Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Too much. So this, Purple, by the way, look at these two books.

• 23:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 23:19Gary Vaynerchuk?

  This is Purple for a specific reason, I'm not a Lakers fan.

• 23:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And Meet Me in the Middle. What I can tell you has become very clear to me, is I believe that the world desperately needs to figure out how to fall in love with purple, not red or blue.

• 23:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Because they both have major valid points, and they both have major flaws. And the middle, especially parenting. One of the reasons I started Be Friends is, I knew what was happening with Gary Vee. You know this, we've run enough similar circles. I've been very blessed, that because of where I was, I was then able to be, what my mom, and my circumstance, in a lot of ways, did for me, I've been able to do for a lot of people. Right?

• 24:05Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It feels nice.

• 24:06Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 24:06Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You get it too. It feels nice for people to say, "Hey, you've really helped me." For me, children, you get in that early. It's one thing if I meet you in 2009 in St. Louis and could be a positive deposit. You've been built, though. There's a lot of shit there. You had to do a lot of your work. I had, I couldn't do, I can't do that as an outsized, outside motivation or inspiration or perspective.

• 24:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:31Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But when you get in early, so for example, in V Friends, there's a character called Accountable Ant. I'm obsessed with this character. I believe that if I can make that character cool, like Pikachu or Spider-Man, right? That if you're a kid that falls in love with the cartoons I'm gonna put out, or the kids' books, or the video games, and you're like, "I f*** with Accountable Ant, that's my guy," right?

• 24:56Lewis Howes?

  I am accountable for everything in my life.

• 24:57Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Think about what happens. If you love Spider-Man, or you love Wolverine, or you love Pikachu, like, you're subconsciously getting in virtues of that. Like, or you envy it because you don't have it. If all of a sudden Accountable Ant is your guy and you're wearing hoodies with it, it kind of gets hard if you're like, "I f*** with Accountable Ant."

• 25:16Lewis Howes?

  And you're not being it.

• 25:16Gary Vaynerchuk?

  To not be accountable, or at least strive to it, or at least even know the existence. There's many people watching, listening, that don't even realize that they live in a full dwelling, complaining, blaming framework. I've had many friends, relatives, and relationships, acquaintances, and business partners, because I'm, my parents too far went with no complaining, which meant keeping things in, right? But as you can imagine, if you're visceral to complaining, you smell it from a mile away.

• 25:46Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 25:46Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And then if you're really visceral to it and you smell it from a mile away, well, you're aware that someone's constantly dwelling, dwelling and blaming. And so, to me, like, what was most fascinating in my 30s and 40s as I've gone through this journey is, they don't see it, which led me to the great breakthrough of candor. I, Louis, I didn't know, when we met, that that was my kryptonite. I thought it was my strength. How about that?

• 26:10Lewis Howes?

  Because you're being honest online and you're being honest onstage, you mean?

• 26:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Nope. Because I, because in, I didn't even realize that the economy of that. I just thought I was being nice. I was like, "Look what I'm doing for Sally. Two more years of payroll when she sucks. Look what I'm doing for Ricky."

• 26:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 26:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  "This guy blows. He'll never be okay out there." There was probably a mix of little ego, like, "Jump on my shoulders, I'll be Superman", which is why I'm using the kryptonite example. But there was also, I thought it was being good. Life's hard lessons. I had to wake up in my mid-40s and go, "Why is anyone that's ever worked for me not like me?" Because, you know, you'd read a tweet and be like, "Gary", like, I'd be like, "Fuck, how's that possible? I was so nice to Johnny." I had to really do that work.

• 26:52Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think that people maybe don't like you?

• 26:55Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Well, people in the outside world who don't know me don't like me. The reason they wouldn't like it is because either my communication style isn't their jam, which I understand. Like, when you're aggressive and confident and competitive and Jersey and, like, my shtick in their mind, like, it doesn't work for them. I understand that. Some people are more chill, like, you know, like, the reason people don't like, "I love to live in New York City", some people come and are like, "Get me the [__] out of here", on that, right? It's too much. That I respect. Number two...

• 27:24Lewis Howes?

  The people that know you or worked for you or...

• 27:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah, let me finish this. I think, because I think this will help people, because what I'm really trying to do in this is not saying about me. I'm hoping that people can start having a better relationship with people not liking them that don't know them.

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's good.

• 27:37Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So, number two, it's, it's their own... They want to be a successful entrepreneur, and I'm triggering, you know, affirmation of like, "They're not there yet", and they're like, "You [__] this guy", right? Three, they overly put me on a pedestal, and then I do something that they don't agree with, and it [__] them up, which is very flattering, but very understanding. But it's all wrapped up in who they are with themselves. On the version of people that do know me, the only thing, the black and white thing, was the inability, it's only the people closest that didn't get the candor that I actually ironically liked the most. Now, what's been nice, you know what got me away with it for a long time? Was people's own accountability.

• 28:21Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Why I was getting away with it in my own mind to my own self was people would hit me up three, four years later with emails like, "I'm sorry." Because they had gone through, "Look, if you're, if you're like, if you're a C player, you're good for me." Because I think you need all kinds. It was D and F. So you could ima- and that was a subjective opinion, whether I'm right or wrong. But as you can imagine, it's not like I'm bad at it, I've been doing it my whole life. So a lot of those people really were D-ing and F-ing it. And they threw their own work on themselves, actually were able to go back and actually see a lot of the, they were able to see so many of the nice things I was doing, even though I was sloppy on the candor and on the firing.

• 29:02Lewis Howes?

  It's kind of like when you get older and you look back at your parents. You blame your parents as a kid, "Oh, they didn't give me this, they didn't do this." But then, I know they were just doing the best they could, or they really tried hard here, and they were giving me so much here, they sacrificed.

• 29:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Especially if you become a parent yourself.

• 29:15Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 29:16Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Then you're like, "Oh."

• 29:17Lewis Howes?

  I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it.

• 29:20Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's, it's almost like the way I think about athletes, like, "Boo, you suck." I'm like, "You go out there."

• 29:24Lewis Howes?

  You go try that, yeah, yeah. I mean, speaking about this topic, I mean, just start with, you know, still kind of with this first question, is this sustainable? What you just said right here, I think is one of the biggest things that holds people back, whether that's creating content online, starting a business, or putting themselves out there in any endeavor, is people care so much what other people think about them.

• 29:47Gary Vaynerchuk?

  The end.

• 29:48Lewis Howes?

  How do people overcome the opinions and judgments of others with their craft, business, or art?

• 29:56Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Therapy, positive consumption, new friends, exercise, psychedelics, true [__] work that is starting with, do you understand that that's what is actually happening? I believe that that is a blind spot to everyone. They don't realize why they wear designer clothes. They, you know, for so many people, it's attracting the opposite sex because they're looking for that closing of the gap of love, right? So of course, alpha guys, like, "I gotta get a [__]." You know, think about all the trends we see, right? Like, "These [__] girls won't like me if I'm not rich," right?

• 30:39Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like, but it's all like deeper than that. That's the surface level, like, pizzazz. It's like, they're looking for love. And love is important as fuck. And, and so because they're looking for that, they believe they need the proxies to get it. Without realizing that's often going to attract not the clean version of love you're actually looking for. It's a whole, it's almost, you know, it's funny. I said something to Nick, one of my key executives at VaynerMedia. He came from Sachi and Sachi, a very classic, you know, Mad Men era, right? And about six months in, I could see he had it and all this. And then, and then he was like doing a bunch of stuff and I kind of recognized what was happening.

• 31:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I sat him down and I said, Nick, I want you for the next year in this company, if you want to grow, do the opposite of everything you intuitively think you want to do. What was he doing? He would do like, for example, at Vayner, what I try to teach people, I talk about the irony about what I'm saying. So Be candid, be candid. Give me your hand. This is so crazy. I launched, you know, Dustin, uh, we just launched something called Elephant Meetings. Let's get the elephant out of the room. That's good. It's saving our company, bro. And when I say saving, our retention is going to explode because of this. Wow. So what he and every advertising person, I'm laughing right now because I know every single ad agency,

• 32:04Gary Vaynerchuk?

  marketing agency, social media agency person is about to smile. Whether they consciously or subconsciously do it, everything is based on save the customer, which means you're just eating, like you're just yesing them to death, even though they're wrong. Like I'll give you an example of social media. Louis, I want you to post on MySpace. That's where we need to be. And you're like, yes, sir, Gary, we will. And you know, that's not what you should do today. And so just like classic stuff or like putting a television commercial on a pedestal versus a social media post, which is my whole thesis. So there was just a lot of stuff. He was coming with a lot of baggage. Anyway, I know he's going to smile right now because I know it's been a big factor in his life. And it's kind of what I want to say to everyone right now.

• 32:49Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's almost like if you're not happy. As you're listening right now, if you're anxious, if you feel a lot of pressure, the answer is ironically, you have to start doing the opposite of everything you naturally want to do.

• 33:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So, right? So you naturally want to be at night dealing with this and you're all stressed. So what you want to naturally do is go grab another bottle of vodka. What you're supposed to do is not do that and wake up tomorrow morning and go to the gym. You know, like, I do think the other thing is, let's talk about, people like to say the toxic people around you. I'm going to give you a different one. What about the enablers?

• 33:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:27Gary Vaynerchuk?

  What about the people like your mom or dad or brother and sister or best friends? Who are letting you get away with your bad behavior because they have my flaw. They don't have candor. So what people understand is like-

• 33:41Lewis Howes?

  They're not going to give you tough love or tough communication or just challenging communication.

• 33:45Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's really crazy, right? Like, like, it's like in, in, in my real life, in the Gary Vee part of it, all the admiration comes from like, you're the one that told me like, shut up.

• 33:57Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Right? But in real-

• 33:58Lewis Howes?

  To the public, right?

• 33:59Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Right. But in real life, I'm very fortunate. I have a pretty stable epic family situation where there's like, we don't have any, like, off the reservation family members where like, but like, friends and stuff like that, like, I, I was, I was taught and it's ingrained in me to be the superhero. I want to fix. But that's what gets parents in a bad place of paying for their kids and all that. So, these are complicated things, but I would say to people, pay attention to your circle because it's everything. You know, it's a cliche, it's not like I'm inventing a saying. The five people you're around, you know, all that. It's real. It's real. I really watched that and I'm like, that's real life stuff.

• 34:37Lewis Howes?

  How worried are you for Gen Z?

• 34:39Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Not at all.

• 34:40Lewis Howes?

  You're not worried?

• 34:41Gary Vaynerchuk?

  No. I'll explain why. Because there's unlimited entitled lazy boomers. Now, do I think that stereotypes have merit in them? Of course, that's how they happen. So like, do I think that the circumstances of parents over coddling as a generational truth, eighth place trophies as a generational truth? And then covid, where the government paid you more money to stay home. Do I think it's created entitlement and some vulnerabilities? I do. And I get it. Like, if you've been over coddled, you're scared to lose. We were laughing a little bit before about our famous thumb wrestling match where you destroyed me on Summit at Sea. I viewed that as like fun. Like, literally every time I see you, my chemicals go in a good way of like, that dude, I gotta get him.

• 35:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, that's a good thing, not like, I'm a loser, he's better than me.

• 35:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:30Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know?

• 35:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:31Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I just, you know, I think, I'm not worried about it because I know too many, like, I think about my company, we have a lot, right? We have both full extremes. There are people walking around currently in my company who are out of their mind expectation wise, like, literally, like, if they could say it, they want me to like come to their house, pick them up, walk them to, like, you know what I mean?

• 35:54Lewis Howes?

  Of what they want.

• 35:55Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah, there's just like a lot of expectations. We've demonized companies. You know, the problem for companies is they're not governments, or schools, or your parents. Governments, schools, or your parents don't have merit with you. Meaning, a company, if it runs out of money, it closes.

• 36:12Lewis Howes?

  It can't pay you.

• 36:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's over. And, you know, your parents, like, they'll constantly run up their own credit card for you, if they're those kind of parents. The government is fucking full of, can print money in perpetuity. Just for more money. And by the way, if I could print money, I'd give.

• 36:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And, and schools, that's fake-o land.

• 36:35Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 36:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You're talking to somebody who, this is real now, in that famous four years of high school, never opened a book once, never did one piece of homework, never, never spent one minute studying for a test.

• 36:46Lewis Howes?

  How'd you pass?

• 36:48Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I figured out somewhere around freshman year that the school was going for blue ribbon status, and they needed everyone to pass.

• 36:55Lewis Howes?

  Wow. They were just enabling people to get through. Wow.

• 37:00Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I was like, good, this works for me. And I'm, I'm an entrepreneur.

• 37:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  One day I'm gonna be.

• 37:04Lewis Howes?

  On the weekends.

• 37:04Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I also knew that I was gonna be like such a workaholic that I was like, let me take these last couple years of enjoyment and get some, bank up some rest.

• 37:11Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 37:12Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, and so this goes back to being weird. Like I have a lot of weird dynamics now that I realized like the world. I'm like, oh, because before I lived in my own life, in my own family, in my own neighborhood with no internet. I didn't know that my life was weird.

• 37:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 37:24Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, and so anyway, and then I've got Gen Z'ers who are 20 year olds, you and me.

• 37:30Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 37:31Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Fire coming out of their.

• 37:32Lewis Howes?

  Work. Yeah.

• 37:34Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like, you know, and not because they eat spicy food, because they're just like, I'm gonna, like, look me dead in the face and saying, I'm gonna run this whole company one day. And I'm like, let's fucking go, Sally. Let's fucking go.

• 37:44Lewis Howes?

  So what would you say to someone in their twenties who maybe wants to accomplish a lot? And maybe didn't have it that hard growing up and they feel like it's gonna come easily to them?

• 37:57Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Force the hard.

• 37:58Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 37:59Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Create the struggle.

• 38:00Lewis Howes?

  Why is that necessary?

• 38:01Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I said it to a friend, you know, it's crazy. My friends I grew up with, like in our era, their kids now are 18. Like, right? If you had a kid, right? It's crazy. So I'm now having the craziest talks like ever. I'm like, I knew this kid when he was two and I'm talking to him now like my audience. And I tell a lot of these kids and a lot of them, especially the ones I was close with and we did a lot of business, some of these parents really made money. You know, like those early Facebook and Twitter and like, you know, like, then you're like, so these kids are bougie.

• 38:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I.

• 38:34Lewis Howes?

  They're wearing bad clothes and you?

• 38:35Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I told, hell yes.

• 38:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:37Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Though this gap with he's fresh.

• 38:38Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty money.

• 38:39Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Richard, good. Um, I tell them like, yo, bro, I had a very, very real conversation two weeks ago. I said, bro, I said, you got two choices here. You take mommy and daddy's money and create some sort of fake picture and all the real ones know. So you're not tricking winners and you're tricking 98% of the losing players. And you can live that life and many do.

• 39:01Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. That's the easy way.

• 39:04Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Or if you're telling me, because the kid had good words coming out of his mouth. I'm like, if you mean it, well, then you go, you need to go work at a fucking company and work your fucking ass off.

• 39:12Lewis Howes?

  And learn, yeah.

• 39:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And you need to eat and you need to get three roommates instead of your own place. And you need to, if you do not take their money. Then you can do it. So if you were fully taken care of your whole life, you were allowed to say, "Mom, Dad, no." You're allowed. The problem is, too many people like to talk out of both sides of their mouth. They want to shit on Mom and Dad, but they want the unlimited credit card. They like that they bought them an apartment.

• 39:45Lewis Howes?

  How are you teaching your kids about life?

• 39:48Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I'm doing it right now. My kids can watch this. They're going to watch it, right? Think about this, no kid listens to their parents. So like me and my friends who like think about thoughtful, we all laugh. They're like, "Can you talk to my kids?" I'm like, "Yeah, but can you talk to them?"

• 40:03Lewis Howes?

  Because your kids won't listen to you.

• 40:04Gary Vaynerchuk?

  My kids are like, "You, Gary Vee." They really don't. I'm very fortunate, but, but no, no. In the way that I'm saying it, they're not paying attention. They're fully saying it, they're like, "Dad, it's Dad."

• 40:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 40:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  They're not about, they didn't find me on the For You page and be like, "Who's this cool guy?" And they're like, "No way, bro, I'm not listening to you." And I'm smart enough, I don't know if smart is the right word, I'm, I'm aware enough to know like, I'm not gonna be, listen, I'm Dad. And every dad and mom has, have obnoxious impact on their kid. But I'm gonna be Dad to them, which means an outside voice, like I'm able to be a contributor to so many. I can't be that for my kids, because I'm the main thing.

• 40:42Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 40:43Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So other people have to be contributors.

• 40:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:45Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But it's cool, because I understand it. I'm pretty fortunate. I know a lot of people that I think are really positive contributors to the conversation. And I can't wait, just like my friends now are like, like, the last four years have been phenomenal, especially five years, because of TikTok, because it even started a little bit earlier. There isn't a week that doesn't go by, that a business acquaintance, all the way, you know, that's over here, to you, to the inner circle, right? That my social graph, that I will get a text and be like, and like, it's so funny, because it's happening so common, it's always the same thing. You'll never believe this. And at first, I didn't know what it was, and then, and then a couple years in, I was like, "What?" But I knew and I would smile.

• 41:29Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But now, I reply immediately, I'm like, "Your kids follow me on TikTok and they think I'm cool?" They're like, "How'd you know?" I'm like, you know, I'm like, "That's how day trading attention works." But, you know, it's really, really cool. I can't wait for my son, who's 11, in like four years, six years, to text me like, "Dad, do you know who Lewis Howes is?"

• 41:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Or dad, how do you know Lewis Howes? Or dad, you've known him since, like, taking a picture of us at World Cost Plus Market or wherever we went, right? That's gonna be interesting, but I'm aware that I'm dad, so I'm trying to give them all the shit I believe in. But I know it's a different version than what Gary Vee is because they're gonna have supplement complement voices to their world and it'll be interesting to see what they gravitate towards. They may be like many kids, they may gravitate away from my message.

• 42:20Lewis Howes?

  They may reject it.

• 42:21Gary Vaynerchuk?

  They'd be like, purple, I wanna be extreme blue or extreme red, bang bang.

• 42:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:24Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I, and I think, notice how I'm saying that, I'm not scared of that. When you love, when you try, when you have intent, when you're ready for it. It's like a game, it's like business, I'm ready for the trials and tribulation of fatherhood, I'm ready for the trials and tribulation of a human being. I anticipate heartbreak, I anticipate my parents passing away because it will happen. It would be very good for my parents to pass away before I pass away, mainly because I wouldn't want that for them. Right? So like, I mean, like, you know, but those things don't cripple me. Those things, I actually are the enhancer of me enjoying a day like this. It is a good day.

• 43:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:08Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Everybody I love is good.

• 43:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:10Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know what I mean?

• 43:10Lewis Howes?

  What does cripple you?

• 43:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Not much, brother. I think the thing that cripples me is I haven't had the extreme heartbreak of losing a family member that's within my inner six or seven.

• 43:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:24Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know? That scares the shit out of me.

• 43:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's tough.

• 43:27Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I couldn't comprehend losing a sibling, a parent, a niece, a nephew, a child, that just, it's, I'm not ready for that game. I really, my heart cries deeply for every human that has ever had the taste the sorrow of losing a child.

• 43:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:47Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And then for the people that are lucky, like me, who are deeply grateful and love with their parents, that's also a crusher, right? Again, now I'm 48, I have so many 60, 70 year old friends. Like, it's really fascinating, you can see it. I mean, I have friends who I can see it on their face. They genuinely, not that they want their mom or dad to die, but that relationship is so not good, that there's a part of them that's a cleansing. And like, they kind of-

• 44:15Lewis Howes?

  Like a freeing of, yeah.

• 44:16Gary Vaynerchuk?

  They kind of like, you know? They definitely don't think about it the way I do, which is like, please God, don't let it happen for another 40 years. You know what I mean?

• 44:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 44:24Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So, you know, that's, that's important to me, but I keep life very basic. I keep it very binary, it's um-

• 44:30Lewis Howes?

  I mean, you say that, but from the outside, people see that you have, you know, 2,000 employees. You've got, I don't know, 100 bazillion social media followers, you've got 1,000 pieces of content going out every day.

• 44:42Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And V Friends, and V Friends, and the Pickleball Team.

• 44:45Lewis Howes?

  You've got all these different, you invest in, I don't know, a million different companies. You've got thousands of relationships that are constantly texting you.

• 44:52Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's because people don't understand the root cause of why that's happening. The root cause is because it's simple.

• 44:58Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 44:58Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Sure.

• 44:59Lewis Howes?

  But how do you, how do you-

• 45:00Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'll explain.

• 45:00Lewis Howes?

  How do you navigate all of these businesses, relationships, content?

• 45:06Gary Vaynerchuk?

  How much do you, how much, how much do you bench?

• 45:09Lewis Howes?

  I mean, I can, well, I recently did 225, 11 times.

• 45:12Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Okay, I cannot do that.

• 45:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  How did you do that? Two things, you were physically gifted in your birth, and then you put in work.

• 45:20Lewis Howes?

  I trained.

• 45:20Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I have a funny feeling, uh, uh, am I wrong? You, you've benched more at certain parts in your life, because you're, right?

• 45:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  How, how much did you do at the most?

• 45:28Lewis Howes?

  15 times, maybe, 225.

• 45:30Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Great, so why 15 that time and 11 this time?

• 45:32Lewis Howes?

  Well, I'm building it back up now.

• 45:34Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Right, exactly, this is where I'm going.

• 45:35Lewis Howes?

  Training.

• 45:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You have put in more work. How am I able to do this? I was gifted in being a purebred entrepreneur, which means I want to do a lot of different things. Purebred. There are not a lot of people who never opened up a book, even the worst of the worst. I'm telling you.

• 45:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:52Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Because I was selling baseball. Come home, book that down, start pricing my baseball cards for the card show.

• 45:56Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:57Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And then the next year, it was my dad's world. Come home and read the one. Wasn't that I wasn't working? What did I do on Wednesday, October 9th, 1991? When I got home? I went into my room, put on SportsCenter, and got the latest issue of The Wine Spectator and read it.

• 46:13Lewis Howes?

  Or Beckett, or whatever it was back then.

• 46:15Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Beckett was 90, and then it started being 91, and then it started being Wine Spectator. It wasn't complicated. I was going deep. And so, you know, how do I do it?

• 46:25Lewis Howes?

  How do you navigate and manage all of it?

• 46:27Gary Vaynerchuk?

  By not being scared to drop it. That's the key. Because I have 43 balls up. I'm gonna have 17 fall. I think we live in a world back to insecurity and confidence, where people have one ball, and they're petrified for it to fall. I have 43, and 17 fall. And I don't care if somebody... Um, let's pick a business. Vayner Speakers, our speaking bureau. If there's a press release that says, "Vayner X is shutting down Vayner Speakers", I, like a logical human, like anybody else, would be like, "Oh, they couldn't pull it off." It didn't work. Gary couldn't do it. It didn't go good.

• 47:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:05Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's a loss. That's right. I just don't know how to be concerned with Louis and Dustin and everybody right now, reading that and saying, "Gary's not..." What are you gonna say? "Gary's not as good as he thinks?" I don't think.

• 47:21Lewis Howes?

  Have you never been concerned about what people think about you with a loss or a challenging time?

• 47:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Not a loss or a challenging time.

• 47:27Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 47:28Gary Vaynerchuk?

  The reason I've spent so much time trying to figure out candor is I really care. Let's use Max Bass. Great former employee, I love him. We just want to give him a shout out. Plus, I'm looking at this purple and yellow. He's a big Lakers fan. And he's in L.A., so it's probably one I keep to mind. I care if Max Bass thinks I'm a good dude. Spent too much time with him. The quality of me as a human matters to me, not as me as a businessman. I'm aware that I love it. I love being an entrepreneur. I'm famously an entrepreneur. I was one of the entrepreneurs that happened to be in place when it became the thing.

• 48:00Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But it is not how I fucking think about myself.

• 48:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 48:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's what I do. It's my favorite game. It is my passion. It's not who I am.

• 48:08Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 48:11Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So it's made it very easy. Plus, I'm very fucking, you know, I'm fu- I'm very like happy-go-lucky, but I'm competitive, meaning, you know, like, meaning like,

• 48:21Gary Vaynerchuk?

  let's say a coconut hit your head and you became a totally different kind of guy. And that, let's keep playing that scenario. Vayner Speaker shuts down and you text me, "Ha, ha, ha, bro. You thought you could do everything?" I'd be like, "Bro, you lost too."

• 48:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 48:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like, that's the other gear I have. First, I'm empathetic, which is like, "Oh, you must not be in a good place if you wanna kick me when I'm down." And then second, I'm like, "You." That's the other thing that I don't understand what these people are doing. As if any human on earth today hasn't up multiple parts of their life. Maybe they're not a good dad. Maybe they're not a good mom. Maybe they're not a good employee. Maybe they're a bad sister. Maybe they're not good to their mother. Maybe they're bad at driving. Maybe they don't know how to cook. Maybe they, maybe they're 400 pounds overweight 'cause they don't have a good relationship with like, as if anyone on earth-

• 49:08Lewis Howes?

  Is perfect.

• 49:09Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Is perfect.

• 49:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:11Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I mean, this is insane to me.

• 49:12Lewis Howes?

  When you see people getting attacked-

• 49:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Do you know how many things Michael Jordan is not good at?

• 49:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:17Gary Vaynerchuk?

  How many things Tom Brady is not good at? You can be the greatest at something and suck at something else. I can write six New York Times bestselling books, but I'm aware, based on the last three days, that I'm not in the tep- in the top four million people that should be reading an audiobook. Now, everybody will love it. And this is why I do it, because I get the feedback, because they want it to be me, and I go off script and I add stuff, but the skill of reading, I blow. That's why I was a bad student in hindsight. I didn't know the fuck was going on. I was like-

• 49:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 49:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And that's why I was good at history. The only reason, the only class I did well at was history is because I listened during class.

• 49:58Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:59Gary Vaynerchuk?

  My audio was tough.

• 50:02Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Oh, Shanghai Shaq?

• 50:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:04Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know what I mean? Oh, that's what Germany did? Oh, that's who the president was? Oh, Walter Mondale? Lost every state but one to Reagan? Like, that's why I know that, because I listened.

• 50:13Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. Wow. When people criticize you for being too busy or doing too many entrepreneurial things, and they have no clue about your personal life, but they'll criticize you, "Oh, he's probably not showing up for his kids," or "He's not there for his, you know, relationships," or whatever it might be. How do you navigate that conversation? When people say, "Oh, he's just a business guy, but he's really not good at family, intimate relationships, personal life."

• 50:44Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I mean, if my mom said that, then I'd be like, "Let's have this conversation." If JohnnyPants49 in the comment section says it, I'm like, "Johnny Pants, I don't know you." Usually, it's a direct reflection of their own anxiety. Louis, think about this. Could you imagine taking time to go into somebody else's account?

• 51:03Lewis Howes?

  Criticizing them.

• 51:04Gary Vaynerchuk?

  To try to make them feel bad?

• 51:05Lewis Howes?

  No, no.

• 51:06Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I don't like, you know, this, I'm trying to change some words in society. Let's take criticizing out. It sounds like classic. No, no, no. You are going to some, I want to go back to first grade talk.

• 51:16Lewis Howes?

  To try to pull them down.

• 51:18Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You're trying to make someone feel bad.

• 51:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, shame them.

• 51:21Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You're trying to make someone feel bad.

• 51:22Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:24Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I don't know, man, like, I just don't have that gear.

• 51:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And, and I don't judge those people either. My lack of judgment against haters, trolls, negative people is, is a very big power.

• 51:35Lewis Howes?

  How do you not take that personally when so many people do?

• 51:38Gary Vaynerchuk?

  They don't, they don't know me.

• 51:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:40Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's, honestly, brother, it's logical. It's actually very logical.

• 51:47Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I would have to think you care more about what I think about you than someone you've never met, because we've interacted 31 times. It would just be logical.

• 51:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I, I had to learn this probably the hard way for many years, really until the last five years, when it started to be like, okay, when people are saying nasty things about me online, or leaving a nasty comment, or whatever it is. I could literally take it as a neutral information and not take it personally anymore. But it took me a decade of being in this world.

• 52:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Look, brother, I'm not a robot.

• 52:15Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 52:16Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's not like, you know, you know, especially like, I'll give you a big one. The proudest thing I have in my life professionally is that I sacrificed the first 12 full years of my career to build a business for my mom and dad.

• 52:30Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 52:30Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It is the single thing I'm proudest of. It has also been the thing historically that people weaponize against me.

• 52:36Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 52:37Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Don't listen to him because they don't know my story. You know, on the TikTok, he inherited a winery.

• 52:41Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 52:42Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Okay, first one was a liquor store in New Jersey. I didn't inherit. I'm one of the few people on earth that was the direct correlation for massive growth for their family and extracted no financial value.

• 52:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:54Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm the opposite of what you think you're weaponizing against me. But you're weaponizing that against me. It's all just logic. You're saying that because what I'm saying in this video is hard. I'm saying, you, stop blaming the government, the school system, your parents. And what about you? You're a grown ass kid now. You're 26. The are you crying about? You don't like it? Put in the work. You've got unlimited people look up to. You're talking about over five years, putting in the work. I'm sitting here saying, man, I'm still working on. I'm not even, I'm not even like, I'm 4.7 is what I scored me. And I'm, and think about it, I'm grading my own homework, which means it's really a 3.2. Like, like, why are you not capable of being accountable?

• 53:38Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Or like, we all, like, you eventually have to man and woman up, no matter how toxic. Like, there are, when people say to me, well, but my dad, I'm like, bro, there are people who had their uncles abduct them. There are people who watched their parents drive out of the driveway and get hit by a truck and get killed. There are so much extreme.

• 54:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like as if your circumstance is the single worst one. We both are very active in a charity that is trying to help 800 million people. I'm sorry about that.

• 54:17Lewis Howes?

  Sorry.

• 54:18Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But I was going for a fact.

• 54:18Lewis Howes?

  You're kidding.

• 54:19Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Brother, 800 million people on earth did not have access to what I just dumped.

• 54:24Lewis Howes?

  Water.

• 54:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You and I spend real time on that. 800 million people can't get clean water within a day right now on earth.

• 54:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:34Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And you're telling me your mom hurt your feelings? I get it, that's real. But you're not capable of being accountable and saying, you know what? This, I'm gonna be the one that fixes it. How many, I met a man, by the way, I'm recalling now, had drinks the other day. A gentleman who said I was the one that broke the pattern of alcoholism in my family. My great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, and I said, no. And everything was there for me to do it. I was on the streets at 13, I started to go down it, and I was like, no. So why him? He's not special, I'm not special, you're not special. We have talents.

• 55:13Lewis Howes?

  The thing I love about what you're doing with Meet Me in the Middle is you're teaching, I mean adults, anyone, kids, but adults as well,

• 55:23Lewis Howes?

  emotional accountability. You're teaching emotional intelligence, you're teaching skills that can be applied towards day trading.

• 55:30Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Correct.

• 55:31Lewis Howes?

  And content and business and just navigating the business world.

• 55:35Gary Vaynerchuk?

  High-low, right?

• 55:36Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 55:37Gary Vaynerchuk?

  If I can get you right here, like if you read this as a kid, then like the amount of people that are gonna...

• 55:42Lewis Howes?

  This is easy then.

• 55:43Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Bro, the amount of, when I tell, you know me pretty well.

• 55:45Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 55:46Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I know that this book is gonna slay, cuz I'm straight up in feeding you like, here's the medicine. Like I was bored reading my book. Right Dustin, like my first half, because it's so in detail, it's like

• 55:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, step by step, do this, and then add this, and then do this.

• 56:01Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And jab, jab, jab, right hook did really well, and I was like, okay, because they get so much top level for me every day on social, let me in book form give them something that they could like, right?

• 56:11Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 56:11Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I know this will crush. Here's the problem too, where you're about to go. If they don't have their together, they're gonna start, it's double screwed. It's gonna start working a little bit, and then they're gonna get Johnny Pants saying, "Fuck you," and they're gonna be like, "Ah." So it doesn't even matter.

• 56:25Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 56:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's why I need yin and yang.

• 56:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's why I had all the drive for most of my life. I was like, I need to be successful, I'm gonna get better in sports. I was willing to put in the work and do whatever it took to win, right? And that helped me become accomplished, but it left me feeling insecure, alone, and still not enough inside. No matter how much I had, and how many accomplishments, or success, or accolades, or whatever it might be, or people telling me, followers, it didn't make me feel loved. Didn't bring me peace. That's why I was telling you before, you were like, "What's different in your life right now?" And I said, "I feel peace, I feel abundant, I feel grateful, I feel blessed, and I feel loved." And it wasn't because I've accomplished more, it's because I went inside, and I started really connecting with my heart,

• 57:11Lewis Howes?

  my emotions, childhood stuff, and just allowing myself the time and space to heal. And that, and it's, that's been the hardest work. That has been harder than building business, and doing the podcast for 11 years every week, and all these different things, but actually, looking at the insecurities in front of me, from as far back as I could go, looking at my younger self in front of me, and developing a new relationship with self.

• 57:41Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Brother, it's everything.

• 57:42Lewis Howes?

  And it's given me peace with the ups and downs. You know, it's just given me a different perspective of gratitude. I've always been grateful, but this has given me more gratitude towards everything. And I want to share the skill that I think has really helped me, the thing that I've had to learn, that I didn't have for most of my life, that has really given me this perspective in a moment. But I want to ask you with Meet Me in the Middle.

• 58:10Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yes.

• 58:12Lewis Howes?

  If you could only give people three talents that they should work on, focus on, develop, that is gonna help them in this, is gonna help them with relationships, health, everything. You've got a lot of different things with meeting in the middle. A lot of different characters and archetypes and identities that people can build into. But three emotional skills that people can master in their twenties, thirties and beyond, what would those three things be?

• 58:42Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'll tell them in V Friends forums. For people that don't know, there's 250 plus, I think it's 283 V Friends, and they're named as alliterations of things I believe in. So this book is Patient Pig and Eager Eagle. So you can imagine how they can meet in the middle, right? To answer your question directly, I will start first with self-aware hair. Self-awareness. And self-awareness has, becomes the gateway drug to self-love. Once you can see it in yourself, like I didn't see the lack of candor. And I'm, my, my superpower is self-awareness. This is why I was so good. I was like, I'm this, but I'm not this, and I'm this, and I'm not this. And I didn't envy or have jealousy towards that I wasn't 6'3". I wish I was.

• 59:27Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 59:28Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I wanted to play for the Jets instead of owning them one day, right? But, but it didn't happen.

• 59:32Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 59:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I wish I was like, could sing, cuz I wanna be a Backstreet Boy. But that seemed fun, but, but I didn't have that. And there was never like, I got really, so self-awareness was really, really strong, and I think it would help a lot of people.

• 59:47Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 59:47Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's okay to be what you are, but do you even know what you are?

• 59:52Lewis Howes?

  How do you know what you are?

• 59:53Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Do you know that, that you're tenacious? Do you know that you're competitive? Do you, and, and I think you need to double down on those things, not smooth them out, or what a lot of people do, over-obsess of what you're not.

• 1:00:07Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You need to tweak things.

• 1:00:09Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:00:09Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Anyway, so self-awareness.

• 1:00:10Lewis Howes?

  Yes. How do you develop more self-awareness?

• 1:00:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'll go into that in a minute because I've thought about that a lot. I actually think it's about communication around your inner circle to let them feel safe to tell you the truth.

• 1:00:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:00:23Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's a wild one.

• 1:00:24Lewis Howes?

  Like, tell me what?

• 1:00:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah, if you're listening right now.

• 1:00:26Lewis Howes?

  What my strengths are, what my weaknesses are.

• 1:00:27Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm gonna give it to you right now. Because I just can feel the listener on the other side. Hey, everyone, real talk. If you're like, oh, this is hitting me, I've got a big one for you because I said this in my last book and I've got a lot of reach out on this. Just pick the two or three people, probably your sister, your brother, probably your mom or dad, definitely your best friend, definitely your best friend, and maybe like an epic person you work with, like your favorite boss ever or current, and literally invite them to a dinner, literally, I'm not joking, and say, "This is gonna be a weird, fun dinner. I'll surprise you when we get there," because you don't want them to overthink.

• 1:01:04Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:05Gary Vaynerchuk?

  When you get there, you're gonna say, "You'll never believe this. I was listening to Lewis's podcast, Gary Vee was on." I'm really not joking. I don't, I don't, this is a very important part of this little narrative, the thing that I'm telling you. You're gonna say to them, "It's unlikely you'll be able to deliver on what I'm about to ask right this second."

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:01:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But if you're wondering why my best friend's here and my boss that none of you have ever met and my sister and my aunt are here, let me tell you why.

• 1:01:30Lewis Howes?

  Oh, bring them all together in one?

• 1:01:31Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yes.

• 1:01:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:01:32Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Because what you want to do is suffocate. It's kind of like posting your weight on the internet and like, you want to suffocate yourself.

• 1:01:40Lewis Howes?

  Correct.

• 1:01:41Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You're saying, "I want to be more self-aware. I need all of you to tell me the full truth. All of you are the people I deem that I think love me the most, which means it's gonna be hard for you to say, but I'm bringing you all together to say what I need is this." And you don't have to do it now because, "Boss, you might feel weird saying it in front of my mom the first time you've ever met her, but I need it ASAP. Tomorrow's fine, one-on-one." And every family.

• 1:02:08Lewis Howes?

  Things will open up.

• 1:02:08Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah, every circle's gonna be different.

• 1:02:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:10Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Every circle's gonna be different.

• 1:02:11Lewis Howes?

  This is like almost creating a self-intervention.

• 1:02:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Correct.

• 1:02:14Lewis Howes?

  Most people aren't willing to do that.

• 1:02:16Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Correct. This is if, this, again, I think three to 11 people listening right now, and I know a lot of people are gonna listen between both of our platforms, I think only three to 11 people are gonna do this.

• 1:02:25Lewis Howes?

  And they should send us a message after they do.

• 1:02:27Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's gonna be amazing. And so that would be how you find self-awareness because someone's gonna, like, if I had done that. Either my mom, who struggles with it as well, my dad, who recognizes it, Brandon Warnicki, my best friend, who runs Wine Library and Wine Text, also struggles with it. So he might have not even been able to say it. My brother might have been able to come through. My sister now would have been able to see it more than 10 years. But if I had done it, somebody in that circle might have been like, "You're too full of [BLEEP], you're too nice."

• 1:02:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:02:59Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Somebody might have, if I did what I'm saying here, which is like, "Say it, it's okay. I know you don't believe me." And I was a challenge for people always, because I was always providing so much emotional and financial value.

• 1:03:13Lewis Howes?

  Of course, yeah.

• 1:03:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm a real piece of work for most people, because it is very common for me to be either, and often both, the emotional and financial value in the relationship.

• 1:03:25Lewis Howes?

  And they don't want to ruin the relationship.

• 1:03:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Of course.

• 1:03:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:28Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like, you know, it's a vulnerability for me. It's my coping mechanism. I always have the leverage.

• 1:03:35Lewis Howes?

  You can take care of people, yeah.

• 1:03:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I just always have the leverage. I mean, those are the two things on earth. Emotional and financial, that's the game.

• 1:03:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:43Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I'm good at both, and generous with both.

• 1:03:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay, so that's number one. Self-awareness.

• 1:03:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Number two. Gratitude gorilla. I think if you can learn, and this is just killing people on earth, you would be flabbergasted what would happen. And I've seen it with people around me recently, where you just decide, right now on this podcast, that instead of waking up in the morning, which so many people do, being all upset, and having all of their perspective and energy towards what's not good, "I should be making more money, I don't like my job. This person I just woke up next to is, I don't like him anymore." Like, all the tough stuff. Instead deciding to be like, I'm glad I woke up and didn't die last night. Simplicity.

• 1:04:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Gratitude comes from simplicity.

• 1:04:40Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like it's like, you know, back to your point, like everyone's like, Gary, social media is up, everybody. They think they need this stuff. I'm like, do you understand that I grew up watching lifestyles of the rich and famous?

• 1:04:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:04:50Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like, like, have you heard of MTV Cribs? Everybody saw that.

• 1:04:55Lewis Howes?

  Everyone's showing the over the top.

• 1:04:57Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Pimp my ride. Like if you had a $400 used car, that felt.

• 1:05:02Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:05:02Gary Vaynerchuk?

  This is not a new phenomenon. Like as if, what, you didn't go to school and one of the kids was the richest kid in school?

• 1:05:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:10Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You didn't have envy that they had a brand new BMW and you had to walk to school? Get the out of here with envy and jealousy. It's as old as like time.

• 1:05:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:05:20Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So gratitude, what do you have? Again, I said something to somebody who was complaining in my inner circle about three, four years ago. And they were just like, but you to me and then to other stuff, right? And I finally said, I said, ex person, let's bump this dinner because this is not like fun. Instead of telling me like why I have it better. Why, and this is somebody I really know, why this person has it better, why your older brother has it better. This is the real example. I'm like, for next 20 minutes while we eat this chicken. Can you please tell me?

• 1:05:53Lewis Howes?

  Hand it to us perfectly.

• 1:05:54Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm gonna like this. I said, can you tell me who you have it better than?

• 1:05:58Lewis Howes?

  Who?

• 1:05:59Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And it was a really interesting moment and I know that person's smiling right now and I'll probably get a text. I think it really had an impact on them. Because I suffocated it. They're like, oh, I was like, no, no, just appease me. We're like, we're here. Who do you have it better than? And then he went into like all our common people, which he definitely had it better than.

• 1:06:19Lewis Howes?

  And you're like, yeah, 99% of people.

• 1:06:21Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And then I went into my, and I'm like, okay. And what about everybody who is in Africa right now in concentration and the people in China like, like, like people like, what about real?

• 1:06:34Gary Vaynerchuk?

  What about somebody who during this dinner, got diagnosed with terminal cancer? And during this dinner, looked down at their phone real quick and got into a car accident that took their life? And what about the two 14-year-old twin daughters that lost their mom in that picture I just paid? Since we've been sitting here. I just don't understand how people don't understand what the [__] is going on. Since you and I have been sitting, recording this podcast, of the 8 billion people on Earth, thousands-

• 1:07:01Lewis Howes?

  Have died.

• 1:07:02Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Have not only died, correct, but have gotten devastating news.

• 1:07:07Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. I saw this stat maybe five years ago that has given me a completely different perspective on gratitude. That roughly 150,000 people a day die. We woke up today, we're not one of them. And if we can just have that one perspective, 150,000 people a day die-

• 1:07:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Bro, I live on that, Louis. And honestly, death is less scary than something- Notice where I went with it. You said "die", and I jumped in with devastating news.

• 1:07:35Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:07:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Right? I ask this to myself and I ask it to everyone. Is it better for you to die? Or is it better for the person you love the most on Earth and can't live without dying? I think most people are gonna choose themselves in that scenario. So there's just a lot going on. So I just think gratitude, number three, and we already talked about it, but I can't get away from it. If you can learn that pointing a thumb will lead to ultimate happiness, and pointing a finger will compound your unhappiness, you will realize that accountability is the- I almost have delusional, not even healthy accountability. That's how much I like it. Like, I really do believe what I'm about to say.

• 1:08:20Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Every single thing at VaynerX, and Be Friends, and Vayner Sports, and every one of my companies that is a problem is 100% my fault. I'm at the top. So if Sally screwed up, well, I hired the person that hired the person that hired the person that hired Sally. I did. So, you know, I think that- Accountability is the anecdote. It's the formula. It's the solution. It's the medicine. And I believe the reason everyone's talking about a lot of rough stuff right now is we are in the greatest era of blame in a very long time.

• 1:08:56Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:08:57Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It is everyone's fault but yourself.

• 1:08:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:09:00Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And that's because politicians are [bleep] up everything. So it's very easy to be like, this, either this side. Parenting has definitely gone awry where it goes too far, one or another. In general, there's tons of great parents. I just think, you know, we're in a little bit of a pickle. People lack civility, which is not nice to each other. People are just talking so negative. People being excited about people's downfalls, right? I mean, I had a real moment on all this stuff very recently with what happened with Kate Middleton, right?

• 1:09:31Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, what happened?

• 1:09:32Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, I don't know, I always, I hate talking about things I don't know. So I'm gonna go very headline reading. I, I guess, you know, recently, like, there was some

• 1:09:40Lewis Howes?

  She was missing or something, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:41Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And it was like a cropped up photo and everyone had jokes and everyone had jokes. And then she [bleep] made a video and said, "I have cancer."

• 1:09:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:09:49Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And everyone's like, I'm, like, "I'm sorry." What do you mean, "I'm sorry"? Or, "I'm embarrassed"? What about not doing it in the first place? The [bleep] thing on people for? I just have a very simple question for people. Explain to me any justification to [bleep] on another human being.

• 1:10:09Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Yeah, I guess the only thing I could think they might be thinking is, well, to hold people accountable if they're doing harm to others.

• 1:10:15Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Who the fuck are you?

• 1:10:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:19Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I am no se- I love when people are like, "Uh, like, I have..." Humility would have been the next- As if I'm supposed to- Who the [bleep] are you that you're ho- You're supposed to hold Kate Middleton accountable?

• 1:10:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:10:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Who the fuck do you think you are? I don't think I'm supposed to hold anybody accountable at some level, including, including employees, children. You're part of it. That's ego. That's delusion. I'm gonna hold you accountable for what? That you married into the royal fit? What the [bleep] is the matter with you? And sometimes when people play this chess game with me, they go, "But what if somebody came up on you and punched you in the face?" My brain goes into, "That person's in a really [bleep] place."

• 1:11:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Before I, like, you know, like, I just, I don't think people have a good relationship with understanding where anger, negativity, and darkness comes from.

• 1:11:10Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:11:11Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It always comes from a place of weakness.

• 1:11:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I, I struggle to be mad at someone when my first default thought is to have compassion for them.

• 1:11:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's a, that's a superpower.

• 1:11:23Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's, it's a blessing. I see it in my mom. I know she gave me that DNA, and then she obviously fostered it. Um, but it is how I see the world, and I really wish the rest of the world saw it that way, too.

• 1:11:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:11:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Because I, we'll tell you what happens with that. You don't have the capacity to hate someone for being different than you.

• 1:11:41Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 1:11:42Gary Vaynerchuk?

  When that happens.

• 1:11:42Lewis Howes?

  Doesn't mean you have to allow it to continue to happen.

• 1:11:44Gary Vaynerchuk?

  No, well, this.

• 1:11:45Lewis Howes?

  Create boundaries, you know what I mean?

• 1:11:47Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah, this is where, I love you for that. I just feel super in charge. Well, Gary, what if, I'm like, well, then I can stop talking to them.

• 1:11:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:54Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Well, what if it's your mom? You can stop talking to your mom.

• 1:11:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:11:57Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I don't recommend it. I'd rather you go to therapy, push, like, I'd rather something, they're being, but you are fully in charge. Gary, everything's, oh, man, I had this dinner the other night. God, a lot of dinners, as you can hear.

• 1:12:09Lewis Howes?

  But I want to be respectful of your talk, too.

• 1:12:10Gary Vaynerchuk?

  No worries, but I'm getting hyped right now. This guy's like, everything's up in America. I finally looked at him, I said, "Move."

• 1:12:17Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. Quit blaming.

• 1:12:19Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Move!

• 1:12:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You like Canada?

• 1:12:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:12:23Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Epic. Mexico, epic. Like, I don't know, Sweden sounds nice, like, Spain's lovely this time of year. I don't, shut the up.

• 1:12:34Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And, and I'm not saying that negatively. I'm saying that encouragingly.

• 1:12:39Lewis Howes?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:12:39Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Dwelling and complaining, and envy and jealousy are massive weaknesses. I go on Twitter, and I look at all of this, and I'm like, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, and left, right, left, right, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, insecure, bad place, bad place, bad place, bad. And, and I, not with judgment, with deep...

• 1:13:00Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Hope that I and many others that are in a good place can figure out the single word to say, that do the single podcast, write the single book, post a single quote that might help one of those people say, "Fuck it." Because for me, what has definitely made me successful and was a kissing cousin to my inability to be candorous is, I care about positivity. I don't do well in negativity. And so I have this yearning to do it for the world because I'm already full. It's like back to the cup. Okay, my cup is full. Well, when you're lucky, and I think you're going through this journey right now, so this is going to be really understandable to you. I'm good. So what do you do next?

• 1:13:45Lewis Howes?

  Help others.

• 1:13:46Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You don't know what to do with it. It's the only thing that makes you feel good because you don't need any more water. Your water's full. You don't have room. I'm good. Now, I'm going to end with this. Multiple times a day, I have micro moments of like, "Ooh, fucker." But they don't have sustainability. Got it?

• 1:14:05Lewis Howes?

  You catch it and you move on.

• 1:14:06Gary Vaynerchuk?

  We lost a big, two big clients yesterday. One in Asia, one in Europe.

• 1:14:12Gary Vaynerchuk?

  There's a lot of work to be done. But like, I'm not like, "I'm dead." You know, like, or like, you know, like, there's always something.

• 1:14:19Lewis Howes?

  Two books I got going on, Meet Me in the Middle. I think everyone should be getting this, especially parents get this so you can have this for your kids.

• 1:14:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Well, the cool thing with Meet Me in the Middle and the cartoons I'm doing this summer that are going to be launching on YouTube Kids is I'm making them both for the parents and the kids. So what I'm most excited about is when the parents read this, I'm poking at them too.

• 1:14:38Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:14:39Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And that, that is going to be, if I pull anything off, if I pull off the dream I have over the next 40 years, 50 years of be friends, hopefully, what am I, 48, 98? I want 105. So over the next 57 years,

• 1:14:53Gary Vaynerchuk?

  is that I got to them both. Like, I dream so hard right now that a parent is laying in bed with their five-year-old, reading it. And they're like, and yeah, and they're like, oh.

• 1:15:05Lewis Howes?

  I gotta read this myself, yeah. So you guys can get a copy, go on Amazon or anywhere, books are sold, Meet Me in the Middle, make sure you get this. Again, I don't think day trading attention is as valuable unless you get Meet Me in the Middle first, because then you can appreciate what you're creating in your freelance business, solo entrepreneur, you know, if your career, whatever it might be, day trading attention.

• 1:15:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That said, though, I think about you a lot, because I met you when you were the LinkedIn guy in 2009, right? And then you were a pioneer in podcasting. What is exciting about, what tricked me for so long was the advice that's tactical of the moment like this. It works for everyone. It's not sustainable work if you don't do the thing you're talking about, right? So 2011, you would have read this and tripled.

• 1:15:51Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:15:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And you would have texted me, be like, "Bro, I love you." To your point, you would have still had this day of reckoning. You still had to get to that place.

• 1:15:58Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:15:59Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And then that place becomes where you become the ultimate version.

• 1:16:02Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, so get both, obviously. But day trading attention is about how to actually build brand and sales in the new social media world. Again, this is required reading for anyone in online marketing, social media, content creation, business. Make sure you get a copy of this, it's step by step. It's 20 years of experience with Gary on social media and obsessive with data and results and putting it into one book. So this is required reading.

• 1:16:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Of the moment, right?

• 1:16:27Lewis Howes?

  Of the moment, yeah, of course.

• 1:16:28Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So this book was called Jab, Jab, Jab, Left Hook Until the Last Moment. It's like, I need to write this book every, I should be writing it every year, like the dummies.

• 1:16:37Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:16:38Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But right now, I'm every 10 years and hopefully I'll close the gap. But what I'm excited about is it is pattern recognition expertise, but it is of this second.

• 1:16:47Lewis Howes?

  Yes, absolutely, so get that book.

• 1:16:51Lewis Howes?

  Two final questions before I ask the moment, acknowledge you again, Gary, for just being a real human being, for being a real friend, for showing up consistently for so many people. Again, personally in your life, but for the world that follows your content. I just appreciate how you continue to evolve, show up. And the thing that I think I love the most about you is how you took your health to a whole nother level. Seven, eight years ago, I think you went all in.

• 1:17:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  10.

• 1:17:14Lewis Howes?

  10 years ago, and I think that is. For me, the most inspiring thing, because people can see the business success and be like, "I want that," and then miss out on the health.

• 1:17:24Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:25Lewis Howes?

  So the fact that you keep

• 1:17:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Thank you.

• 1:17:26Lewis Howes?

  going all in on that and you look better now than you did 10 years ago, is something I really appreciate and respect because I think that's what the world's gonna need more of, is focusing on their own health. I asked you about your three truths before. I'm gonna skip this question. I'm gonna go to the final question, which is, what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:17:44Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That you gave more than you took. I really, I really love this talk. I'm excited about this podcast. I think the extra time, usually I do 45 or, you know? I think the extra time slowed me down. I think one of the reasons I'm not good at being a podcast host is that they're very, no, really. They're very tight times. I always have a meeting after. And people get frustrated with me because I talk over my guests, because I'm not relaxed, because I know I don't have a lot of time, and I want to get to a bunch of punchlines for them. But then it becomes awkward and I'm talking over them and I'm interrupting. They're like, "Gary, he just wants to talk." And the audience is not wrong that gets frustrated by that version. Some people love it because they have brains like mine.

• 1:18:28Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But nonetheless, I really do think we touched on the thing that is greatness, which is like, look, one of the things I've done well in my life is I was attracted to older people my whole life. When I was seven, 10, 13, I'd always go and talk to 80, 90-year-olds at the bench, at the park. It was big. And I used to think it was because I didn't have grandparents. Because I lost three of my four grandparents. I had my grandma, Esther, thank God. But, and I was like, oh, especially grandfathers I would go to a lot. So more specifically, I didn't have grandfathers. I've come to realize that's not true. It's that I'm addicted to wisdom and like the actual game. And I think, you know, greatness comes in like, you know, I think about like,

• 1:19:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  there's been a lot of great athletes. And again, I'm bringing up Kobe again because I'm so glad you got to do that podcast. It's so devastating that he's not on this earth. But Kobe was different because he was more like us in the way that like, it wasn't that he was just a great athlete. He gave a about like higher thinking and like competition as a healthy, like, it was just more thoughtful.

• 1:19:36Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:19:37Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And, you know, I think that I think the reason he's revered is he gave to us.

• 1:19:42Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:19:43Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Right? And I think greatness comes in like what like I think my mom is the greatest parent of all time. And when I think about why I believe that is she can only the reason I believe that is there's others that tie her. But they could only tie her because my definition of a parent is there's many things to it, but my personal subjective definition is how much did you give to those kids?

• 1:20:06Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:20:07Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I just think my mom gave it all, like all of it. And I just know that that means for every other mom and dad that has done that, they can only tie my mom for the greatest, but it is a giving game.

• 1:20:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:20:18Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And so I do a lot of things of gaining, building my companies and dollars and followers and attention. I understand that. But I'm outpacing it with my giving and I think I will continue to do that. And that is where the V Friends strategy came from. I was like, oh, I can take this. This is what Disney and actually now I realize this is why Sesame Street and Jim Henson is a legend. And I'm going to do that too. I'm going to create characters that people are going to fall in love with, but I'm going to do it around collectability. Like Pokemon. Because what I know about Pokemon and Marvel is that old G's still like it. Whereas Big Bird and and you know Cookie Monster, we're done with.

• 1:20:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:56Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But if I take what's epic about the Pokemon doesn't bring the value.

• 1:21:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:21:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That that Sesame Street does. But if I take the best of Sesame Street and the best of Pokemon and I smash that together and I put my marketing capabilities and my collectible and business strategies and I build something, man, I can really leave a positive impact.

• 1:21:18Lewis Howes?

  The one question I wanted to ask you is oh, so many of them, but one that's on my mind right now is you've always told me and a lot of your followers ahead of time, this is what's coming.

• 1:21:30Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yes.

• 1:21:31Lewis Howes?

  Uh, you know, you are early Twitter.

• 1:21:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yep.

• 1:21:34Lewis Howes?

  Be on Twitter. This is what's happening. This is what's happening now. Early Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, you were like always pushing TikTok. You were like the first one on TikTok, Snapchat. I remember you looking me in the eye saying, be on Snapchat. That was the only thing that like didn't work for me, but everything else has worked for me. Who knows what's gonna happen with TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, all of these different platforms? Uh, when we're thinking of attention in the future.

• 1:21:58Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:58Lewis Howes?

  AI and the frickin' mobile devices and the...

• 1:22:01Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Here are the things that have a chance. As you know, what I'm great at is not predicting, but moving so goddamn fast when it happens.

• 1:22:08Lewis Howes?

  And then going all in.

• 1:22:08Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah, that I have that advantage.

• 1:22:10Lewis Howes?

  What is, what is coming?

• 1:22:11Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Here's, here's things that have, are coming. One, for people like you and I, all of our content in every language at scale.

• 1:22:19Lewis Howes?

  We've got a million subscribers on Spanish on YouTube.

• 1:22:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  In our voice.

• 1:22:23Lewis Howes?

  Oh yeah, that's the key. That's what we're working on now. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So I, and, and we, you've seen it already Dustin, like we're pretty close, we're almost done. I'll be speaking every language, in my voice, in my little high pitches, in me. That's gonna be huge for every...

• 1:22:36Lewis Howes?

  Through AI, right?

• 1:22:37Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's right.

• 1:22:38Lewis Howes?

  Is there a tool specifically you're looking at that you're...

• 1:22:41Gary Vaynerchuk?

  We're using Respeech or there's a, there's, I mean, it's moving so...

• 1:22:44Lewis Howes?

  Fifty of them.

• 1:22:45Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Notice how I hesitated? You know, I'm a big fan of Respeech.

• 1:22:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it may be gone in...

• 1:22:48Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah. That game is, AI eating itself up is just like crazy.

• 1:22:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:53Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Um...

• 1:22:54Lewis Howes?

  So AI.

• 1:22:55Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Virtual influencers.

• 1:22:58Lewis Howes?

  Oh yeah, that's coming. I've seen the, people are blowing up already with, you mean just like made up influencers?

• 1:23:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's right.

• 1:23:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:04Gary Vaynerchuk?

  AKA very attractive people.

• 1:23:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:06Gary Vaynerchuk?

  On Instagram that you're like... And that will go, that will go not just, right now the early movers like always are like models and like all that, but it will be full pledge. Ricky Thompson, forty-seven year old, marketing expert, who's gonna have fourteen million followers, and it's Jo, and it's Joanna Thompson in, in Australia that actually owns him.

• 1:23:29Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 1:23:29Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Oh, it's gonna be huge. So virtual influencers.

• 1:23:32Lewis Howes?

  Are you getting into some of that too?

• 1:23:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah, I'm really starting to go deep on that. Live streaming as, as a more scaled everyday thing. Let me explain what I mean by that. Me saying live streaming is important, it's not Kai Sinat and like Aiden Ross and like Ninja clicks, like plenty of people are crushing on Twitch and other things. No, I mean what I'm up to now, which is I have a camera in my office on mute for 13 hours a day and I'm just sitting there and it's entrepreneurial ASMR.

• 1:24:01Lewis Howes?

  It's mute?

• 1:24:02Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Mute, because I'm having real meetings.

• 1:24:04Lewis Howes?

  So people are watching you?

• 1:24:05Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Watching me.

• 1:24:06Lewis Howes?

  But not hearing you?

• 1:24:07Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's right. And I try to unmute and Dustin did a good thing for me, he created unmute counter and I'm like looking at him like, oh, I haven't unmuted yet. Hey, everyone, like, literally.

• 1:24:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow, 13 hours a day?

• 1:24:18Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's right. People making pizza, people, I predict in five years, someone who loves to mow their lawn, law, law, mow their lawn, dyslexic, mow their lawn, will go from like, that's that classic dad who does it.

• 1:24:33Lewis Howes?

  True.

• 1:24:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  The modern dad, the 28 year old who's destined to be a 48 year old dad who loves to mow their lawn, like loves it, is destined right now as we're speaking to one time in seven years, as he's on that journey, streaming it for some weird reason. Today, every 42 year old, 61 year old man or woman that loves to mow their lawn for an hour and a half, a big lawn, does not think, let me set up a laptop and stream live on Twitch. Doesn't cross their mind. I believe it will become known.

• 1:25:03Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:25:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I believe one of them will do it. I believe for whatever reason it will crush. And I believe that person will, a year later, retire from being a principal in a high school to making a million dollars a year.

• 1:25:14Lewis Howes?

  Mowing lawns.

• 1:25:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Mowing their lawn.

• 1:25:15Lewis Howes?

  Live streaming it.

• 1:25:16Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Live streaming it. So think about how different that is than what I predicted would crush it. Remember what I predicted would crush it? Which was insane, which is influencers are gonna make money. I didn't call it influencers, we didn't have the term yet. People will make money on the internet being themselves. That was like, right now, somebody's like, wait a minute, I will literally make a full time living by streaming, making breakfast for my family every morning?

• 1:25:41Lewis Howes?

  Dude.

• 1:25:41Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Let me just say that, you know how insane that is?

• 1:25:43Lewis Howes?

  Crazy, man.

• 1:25:44Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like literally a mom or dad, let's say a stay at home dad or mom, is literally gonna start streaming her 6 a.m. to 7:30 of prepping breakfast for everybody? And it's gonna capture a fever?

• 1:25:56Lewis Howes?

  And they're gonna get millions of viewers every morning.

• 1:25:58Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And they're gonna get subscribers for two bucks, and they're gonna get merch deals.

• 1:26:01Lewis Howes?

  And book, book deals, yeah. I'm seeing if there's a guy on TikTok who goes live, it must be all day he's live. He owns a little fruit stand. He's just cutting up fruit.

• 1:26:10Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's right.

• 1:26:11Lewis Howes?

  And he's got a massive line every day that just wants to like be in the stream for a second.

• 1:26:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's right.

• 1:26:15Lewis Howes?

  Live streaming, cutting fruit. It's crazy.

• 1:26:18Gary Vaynerchuk?

  The extreme version of what I saw happening with Crush It is about to happen with live streaming because it takes it to passive instead of progressive. I had to sit down and do the wine show. Now it becomes passive. I will stream while I'm running my wine store.

• 1:26:34Lewis Howes?

  But will people watch?

• 1:26:35Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yes.

• 1:26:36Lewis Howes?

  Hours of content when you need to be five seconds of videos that people are like losing attention?

• 1:26:42Gary Vaynerchuk?

  No, because people are watching long form content at scale right now. You know this.

• 1:26:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:46Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You just don't want to be in the middle. You want to either be great at short form or you want to be great at long form.

• 1:26:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:53Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You just don't want to be the middle or you don't want to be bad at long form or bad at short form. You could make, people will watch a, people binge watch an entire season of something on Netflix or sit. I have people that sit with me, you know this, sit with me the whole day.

• 1:27:06Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 1:27:07Gary Vaynerchuk?

  They sit there the whole day and talk to each other.

• 1:27:10Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 1:27:11Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Well, that's community.

• 1:27:12Lewis Howes?

  I mean, it's amazing. It's crazy. It's cool.

• 1:27:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's funny. It reminded me, you might remember this, when I was coming up the game on Twitter and Vidler and YouTube.

• 1:27:21Lewis Howes?

  What was it? Periscope?

• 1:27:23Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Well, that was later and Meerkat.

• 1:27:25Lewis Howes?

  Meerkat.

• 1:27:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But what about before that?

• 1:27:27Lewis Howes?

  Daily Booth.

• 1:27:27Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Ustream.

• 1:27:28Lewis Howes?

  Ustream, man.

• 1:27:29Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Ustream. And that was big for me.

• 1:27:31Lewis Howes?

  Wow, I remember that.

• 1:27:32Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I would have been a huge streamer, but now I'm too busy.

• 1:27:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So my, by the way, a couple hundred people, I have nothing because I'm not, there's nothing.

• 1:27:41Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:27:41Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Now, to Dustin and the team's credit, now they're playing my recent videos in the top right corner.

• 1:27:47Lewis Howes?

  During the live stream.

• 1:27:48Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So, right, so I'm on mute, but on the top right corner in a smaller box is gonna be this, literally this. And like, so like, you know, like we're figuring it out and like, and again, I think there's gonna be way more compelling ASMR. I can tell you right now, it would have been much more compelling to follow me tasting wine all day. What I'm doing right now is really boring. I'm sitting in an office for like 12 hours a day just doing meetings. I'm not even in the old D-Rock, Daily V world where I was moving around a lot.

• 1:28:15Lewis Howes?

  You're just sitting there.

• 1:28:16Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Because I'm in full operations mode on VaynerX and BackBreds right now. I'm in one of those modes. You know, I'm not in Gary Vee land as much.

• 1:28:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. One final question then. Be respectful of your time. Three truths. I think you answered this probably five years ago, last time you were on. You said you want to live to 105.

• 1:28:32Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:32Lewis Howes?

  Imagine you get to create everything from this moment until then.

• 1:28:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Okay.

• 1:28:37Lewis Howes?

  Your vision, your relationships, all of it happens. But you have to take everything with you. So, once you leave, no one has access to V Friends, VaynerMedia, it's all gone. All the content you've created, gone, erased from time.

• 1:28:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Okay.

• 1:28:52Lewis Howes?

  Hypothetical scenario.

• 1:28:53Gary Vaynerchuk?

  No, I like, I like, you got me intrigued, go ahead. So, I die at 105 and everything disappears?

• 1:28:58Lewis Howes?

  All the content you've made, gone.

• 1:28:59Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Okay.

• 1:29:00Lewis Howes?

  Everyone lives.

• 1:29:00Gary Vaynerchuk?

  What about the relationships I've made?

• 1:29:02Lewis Howes?

  Those are there.

• 1:29:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Okay, got it. So, content, got it, okay.

• 1:29:05Lewis Howes?

  Content is gone.

• 1:29:05Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Got it.

• 1:29:06Lewis Howes?

  Business, content. But on your final day.

• 1:29:10Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:11Lewis Howes?

  You get to do one final livestream.

• 1:29:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:14Lewis Howes?

  And all you get to leave behind is three truths.

• 1:29:16Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:17Lewis Howes?

  Three things you know to be true, if you could go 60 years in the future.

• 1:29:21Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I could do it right now. I would talk to them and say, listen to me.

• 1:29:23Lewis Howes?

  All they would have to remind you of.

• 1:29:24Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'd say, first of all, thank you for this journey. I'm gonna miss every one of you deeply. This sucks. I really wish I could go to 110. I don't know why I said 105.

• 1:29:32Lewis Howes?

  Right, but three things you can leave behind.

• 1:29:34Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I would say to them that like, you're one hu- you've, in life, I would say to everybody, I would hope that I would have the entire 8 billion people on earth watching me on this last day, if we all knew it was going down. The first thing I would say to them is, I promise you, this is the most truth I've learned in 105 years. In life, you find what you're looking for. If you are looking for negativity and pain, you will find it. And if you are looking for joy and happiness, you will find it.

• 1:30:02Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I would expand on that in my three truths, because that's the game. You find what you're looking for. If you're in a good place, you're gonna find good. I, I, you can't imagine, I'm just breaking out of this question for a second. Bro, I consume positive content all day while everyone's telling me the world's never been worse. The world's never been better.

• 1:30:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like, and I read some shit the other day of like, pig liver or whatever, something's about to go in our body now, like, we're gonna cure that one too, like, we're fixing shit. Like, the world was worse. Like, they're like, "It's never been worse!" I'm like, "Have you heard about the Holocaust?"

• 1:30:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  The Black Plague?

• 1:30:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:38Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like, Covid was fucked up, the Black Plague wiped out like, the majority of us. Like, World War I was nasty.

• 1:30:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:46Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like, I just don't understand people's lack of perspective, so, I really am hot on that.

• 1:30:50Lewis Howes?

  Okay, number one, number two?

• 1:30:52Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That love is worth fighting for.

• 1:30:54Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 1:30:55Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That you must destroy yourself for it. Meaning, not destroy yourself, meaning like, up what you think you value, if you don't have it. A current relationship that might be comfortable, which is very hard. I appreciate your reaction to that. That's probably the hardest advice I just gave, which is, you know that you're in a relationship, but it is not the right one, but it's your children, it's comfortable, all real stuff, you know? You like them. Like, you like them. That love is worth fighting for.

• 1:31:30Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:31:31Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know?

• 1:31:32Lewis Howes?

  And the third one?

• 1:31:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Man, it's so funny how simple my brain goes. Those two really, really, like, choosing happiness and love are so obvious to me. You know what? I'm gonna go with a funny one, cuz I have a funny feeling that I would go out funny.

• 1:31:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I would go out with a good curse, I think. I would say this, cuz I feel it very heavily right now. Until you realize that competition is one of the great traits in life. That it is good. That like, anything, out of balance, it's bad. But the, but the elimination of merit, the demonization of alpha skills has really fucked it up. Telling a six-year-old that it's just a game, who was born with the gift of being an alpha and on fire and competitive, is the worst thing you could do as a parent.

• 1:32:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:32:28Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I despise it, and I don't like that word despise. Watching parents that are wildly well-intended, systematically suck out the magic of a kid who was born a magician, is devastating and one of the real issues. And I hope in the next 50 years it gets figured out. But right now, so I'll use it as an opportunity to make this point. Competition is one of the best things on earth. And we have gotten really bad on the left side of things in understanding it. And it's people up because if you're successful in sucking out competition of an alpha six-year-old,

• 1:33:11Gary Vaynerchuk?

  if you're successful in those 12 years that you have them in your roof, you've put indifference on a pedestal. And so what you've done is you've taken someone who was destined to do some really good. And you've actually put a kid into a place of thinking things don't matter. And when you don't think anything matters, and you don't think anything's worth anything, you go down a very dangerous road. And I'm gonna go very, very cautious here because what I'm alluding to is almost inappropriate, which is I worry that a lot of the things that we most worried about, I'll say it, suicide and other things, are not a product of social media.

• 1:33:54Gary Vaynerchuk?

  They're a product of us not recognizing things out of whack. Competition is one of the great traits in society. And we must at all costs stop demonizing it.

• 1:34:09Lewis Howes?

  Gary Vee, love you, brother. Thanks for being here, man.

• 1:34:11Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Love you, bro.

• 1:34:11Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. Wow. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

• 1:34:56Lewis Howes?

  And now it's time to go out there and do something great.