Pod Insights The GaryVee Audio Experience How to (Actually) Build Culture in Your Business in 2026 About this episode In this episode, I sit down with leaders in the self-storage industry on the No Vacancy Podcast to discuss the vital importance of culture in a commoditized world. I dive deep into why the intent of a leader is the foundation of any successful business and why I’m visceral to negativity in the workplace. I also share my perspective on whether empathy is a "teachable" trait and provide an update on my lifelong goal of buying the New York Jets.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 What is the intent of the actual leader? Does the actual leader give any craps about their people? Or is it all about selfish need for them to maximize all the money for themselves? And buy whatever they need to buy to close the gap of their insecurities? This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.
0:20 Speaker 01 I'm Chris, you know Andrew, this is Brian over here. Good day. Thank you so much for your time. We want to get right to it if that's alright with you.
0:27 Speaker 00 Please.
0:28 Speaker 01 Keep it productive, okay, great. We're in the self-storage industry. Fairly commoditized industry. What do you think the best way for a fairly commoditized industry to go about building a culture?
0:45 Speaker 00 A culture? An internal culture?
0:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's the best way to get that started. And do you think it's valuable for a commodity like self-storage?
0:55 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, I would argue, most businesses are actually a commodity. That most businesses actually have enough different competitors, that there's optionality for the end consumer, which then creates the framework of commodity. And I would argue, that most businesses will shine predicated on two things, culture and marketing. Right? And so, if you're selling a commodity, which again, I'm gonna sit here and argue almost everything is, going about building a culture is no different in any company, which is, what is the intent of the actual leader? Does the actual leader give any craps about their people?
1:40 Speaker 00 Or is it all about selfish need for them to maximize all the money for themselves? And buy whatever they need to buy to close the gap of their insecurities? So, you know, I think it's effort, I think it's mindset, and I think it's actually living the bullshit that comes out of your mouth.
1:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, absolutely, sure. In that same vein, you seem to be a very empathetic person. The way through a good life is to be an empath. Is that teachable?
2:13 Speaker 00 That's a really darn good question.
2:16 Speaker 00 Boy, this is a challenging one because nobody has tried to teach it more than me and I don't mean the Gary Vee content you've all seen for the last 15, 10 years. I mean Gary Vaynerchuk from the ages of 14 to 34, trying to deploy it into his favorite person, his father Sasha Vaynerchuk. My dad is incredibly compassionate, has a real like soft spot. But he does not have empathy. He has complete inability to feel another person's feelings. And I spent 20 years, 15 hours a day, trying to impose it, educate on it, teach it. And I would say that, like everything in life,
3:00 Speaker 00 I think my father has come along tremendously by my subjective opinion. I'm something I really wished on him because I do think it is the path to a happier life. But I do think it's like sports or like singing or like anything in life. I think we need to face the truth that we are all born with DNA. We are all raised a certain way. We have an environment outside of our parenting in our home that also impacts us in our youth. And then you kind of form into what you are in your early teenage years, young years. And then you start the process of like, what do you want to work on, right? Like, you know, it took me into my late 40s, mid 40s to realize candor was a strength publicly and a weakness privately.
3:43 Speaker 00 Over the last 5 to 7 years, I've gotten much better at candor, but I've gone from like a 2 to like a 6. And like, do I think I'll ever be as candorous as my father, which is a strength of his, other than the delivery mechanism he's decided to use for his candor? I would say no, I don't think I can be as candorous as my father even up in the 70s when I hoped to be at the height of my candorous powers. So...
4:14 Speaker 00 Yes, I think empathy can be taught, but I do think that we all have ceilings on physical and emotional capabilities. But I think we should always be trying to be a better tennis player, golfer, cooker, empath, sympathetic, accountable, patient, all those things.
4:35 Speaker 01 Have you ever, regarding empathy, going back to that, have you ever considered that once you had kids, that that empathy and way of looking at it even increased more?
4:49 Speaker 00 No, I don't believe that is true for me. I'm sure it has happened for some because I was born selfless. So I think I've noticed in friends and family and acquaintances and through all that I read and watch and culture, inherently insanely selfish people that are often selfish because they're insecure. When they have a child, it becomes the first moment where they think about someone else beside themselves.
5:21 Speaker 01 Yep.
5:22 Speaker 00 But I don't believe that they become inherently more empathetic. I surely did not become more selfless because of my children. I was born selfless and then I was raised by a selfless woman who imposed even more selflessness. So I was kind of at end state. I didn't feel any different, but I've seen it in many. But I think it's more of a selfish, selfless framework, more so than more empathy.
5:51 Speaker 01 Gotcha. What do you think that a self-storage company would do immediately to change their culture today? If you were to take over a self-storage company, is there an immediate impact that your outlook would bring?
6:13 Speaker 00 I mean, you know, I believe that kind, optimistic, practical leadership is rare. And when it happens, you see a lot of success around it. And, you know, I've been the beneficiary of that. And I say those things because I don't feel like I did that. I feel like my mother did that, you know, my father, my circumstances. So I say that not humbly. I say that as if it's not even my own credit. But that is what I am. And when I see it in others, I've invested in companies that have it. You know, like, it's a winning formula. So, you know, if I went to every self-storage company in the country or in the world, my intuition is that 90% of them, minimumly,
6:54 Speaker 00 are not run by someone who is deeply optimistic, deeply practical, wildly accountable, and prefers sunshines and rainbows as their leadership style versus scaring people that if we don't hit the numbers this month, they might be in trouble. You know, I think most leaders weaponize fear versus optimism. And so, yeah, of course, I would impact it. And then if I was, let's say, on the board of a company, not the actual CEO, and the CEO was actually one of those people, and, but the culture wasn't great, what would be very obvious to me is that she or he has a direct report that's very senior, that is not positive.
7:37 Speaker 00 They are negative force to the company. But that the CEO looked the other way because she or he is the best salesman. They need them for X, Y, and Z. And so I would tell everybody who's listening to this podcast, some of you are well-intended and want a great culture, but your right hand or your left hand is doing the dirty work for you. And you're allowing them to do that because you need the dirty work in your mind. And/or, they're not doing the dirty work for you. They're fucking up the culture. But you're looking the other way because they're the biggest impact on the P and L besides you. And I would tell you that cancer spreads, and you must cut out cancer at all costs, even when it's painful.
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9:16 Speaker 01 Sometimes it's tough to make that sacrifice, but you have to do it for the greater good.
9:20 Speaker 00 Yeah, and if the greater good is that you want to sleep, like for me, again, this is just like pure like, this is why my life is light. I'm just fortunate emotionally, meaning, for me, the greater good is I don't sleep well at night if there's negative, you know, I'm visceral to negativity. So, you know, it's not very hard for me to like live, like I would say I'm probably inappropriately visceral to it, right? There's probably a balance, right?
9:53 Speaker 00 But I just don't like it. I don't think it's worth it. And, you know, for me, I don't, I've had years where we, three years ago at Vayner, we barely made any money compared to what we should have. I made a lot of decisions that didn't pan out to the following year, so we had a bad P and L year, right? I slept like a baby all year. I didn't give a fuck that we weren't going to make money. But when there's like one new hire, that's awesome, but she or he's a jerk, and like I know that I have to like, and I do business in London, LA, New York, like there's a lot of bullshit laws for businesses. So I know I have to, I know that the person's already fired in my brain, but I know I have to cross all the Ts legally and do all the right things, and they're going to be in my halls for another two months,
10:37 Speaker 00 doing damage, undermining the culture. That shit keeps me up at night. So the greater good for me is the culture and then the money comes in my opinion. But for a lot of people, they aren't as financially and fiscally and building a business capable as I am. So they don't have the fat for it to be about the culture, right? That if they fire Sam, the best salesperson, the business might really actually tank. So it's all nice and games here on a podcast, me talking about rainbows and sunshine. But then there's real life. My point to that leader is, but Sam's gonna fuck you in the end anyway. Sam's gonna cap the business anyway.
11:20 Speaker 00 So you gotta find Sally to replace Sam along the way. You need to be interviewing every day for the replacement. Or looking underneath Sam, Sam's direct report Carl might be a sweetheart. She says he stinks because she's suppressing him, but he's actually capable of doing the job. This is real life human management.
11:40 Speaker 01 Culture is a long game though, do you think?
11:42 Speaker 00 I know. Culture is playing the long game. Not playing culture, right. Not playing culture is the short game. You're choosing money over feelings. Fine, I get it. In the end, the feelings of the team is gonna matter because where companies get caught a lot, where I get emails after doing podcasts like this, it's like, "You're so right." And you know what it is? It's, "Everything was going great for seven years, then four people quit because the Sam sucked and everything fell apart." So it doesn't feel bad those seven years where you're making more money than you would have. Especially for bosses that, you know, I'm an active boss. Some people are not active bosses. So the Sam allows them to play golf today on a sunny day. They get the benefits, buy a second home down the shore.
12:28 Speaker 00 But then when it all falls apart.
12:32 Speaker 01 Right, yeah. Yeah, that's a tough thing to get out after it falls apart. Writing that shit, telling everybody that Sam wasn't the right person at the time. But that's a, that's a, that's quite a hill. So you mentioned culture, you mentioned the NFL draft. I'd be remiss to ask you about the Jets. I see you're decked out in green. Yes, sir.
12:55 Speaker 01 Is buying the Jets...
12:58 Speaker 01 A viable goal for you? And where are you with that plan?
13:05 Speaker 04 Before you answer that, Gary, as a Dolphins fan, I hope you never buy the Jets, because I think that you really would right the ship over there. I think there is a culture issue going on. I think that's kind of appropriate with the conversation we're having here. But I just wanted to sneak in that as a Dolphins fan, I really hope that never happens.
13:25 Speaker 00 That is very flattering.
13:26 Speaker 04 For you, I hope it does happen.
13:28 Speaker 00 You know, I hate the guy, but he delivered one of the biggest compliments of my life. Bob Kraft came up to me at a Super Bowl event and said, "I really hope you never buy them."
13:41 Speaker 00 I would say a couple of things. Is it viable? You know, the private equity thing that happened recently has definitely thrown a little bit of a curveball. Because now the valuations are going to go to the moon because you can sell fractionalizations to finance. So, look, I don't know. Like, you know, I've said this a lot publicly. The great joy of my life is chasing the buy. You know, I've said this a lot also publicly. When the Yankees and Rangers won their championships, I stopped caring. So, I've learned a long time ago that I'm a thrill of the hunt guy. Even as a child, this is really silly. When I was like in grammar school and middle school,
14:22 Speaker 00 I was like, I loved to try to get the girl that I liked to like me. But then when it would happen, A, at that age, I was still scared of girls. So I'd be like, "No way, Jose." But, you know, in everything I've done, you know, building my father's business before I left it, like, I've always been in it for the game. So, you know, there's almost a sick part of me that hopes it's always just like, you know, that I like 72...
14:50 Speaker 01 One of them is too far.
14:51 Speaker 00 Yeah. But I feel in my 70s, 80s, 90s, whatever, you know, whenever I'm triggered into a version of not 101% pure offense, but maybe 90% offense, that would be an interesting chapter in my life where it'll be interesting to see what I'm willing to do to get something... You know, listen, if the Jets ever come up, I'm going to make a real effort, right?
15:18 Speaker 00 I can only focus on creating the wealth. I've got some work to do, but listen. And by the way, this is a great way to end. Everyone should have massive dreams. And I'm talking about personally and professionally. Because I think when you stretch yourself for very big dreams, right? I'll give you a good dream on the other side of the pillow. I want to be a mother, I'm a working mother, I'm the breadwinner for the home, but I want to be home for dinner every night with my kids, even though I'm a CEO of a public company. And then I'll go right back out. And I would say that's a big dream. That's hard, right? What I just said is hard.
15:54 Speaker 00 You know, I want to, I'll go leisure again. I want to play golf every Friday. Like, I got all these responsibilities, family, business, but I'm gonna play golf every... Like, that's a hard, people don't realize, that's hard. The more you push yourself, obviously mine professionally has been ludicrous. When I did it in 4th grade, even through high school, even through college, even through my early twenties, these values were not that absurd. You know, it wasn't the thing it became. I was right, I was right that sports was gonna become the beacon of our society.
16:28 Speaker 00 To answer the question, for some reason, I think I'm gonna pull it off.
16:32 Speaker 04 Yeah, man.
16:33 Speaker 01 Yeah?
16:34 Speaker 04 I hope it takes a little while for my sake. Gary, I know we're up against this.
16:40 Speaker 00 Yeah, I gotta run.
16:41 Speaker 04 We had a theme on this podcast that we do. Do you have one minute?
16:44 Speaker 00 Yes, I'll do that.
16:46 Speaker 04 Can we fire a match here?
16:47 Speaker 01 Alright, first concert you ever attended?
16:50 Speaker 00 Uh, Boys to Men.
16:53 Speaker 01 Nice. Most recent concert you ever attended?
16:55 Speaker 00 Oh, that's a great question. What did I go to? Kygo at the Garden.
17:01 Speaker 01 Oh, very nice, good show?
17:03 Speaker 00 Yeah, he was great.
17:04 Speaker 01 Any baseball card that you sold as a child that you wish you had today? That you remember?
17:10 Speaker 00 Uh, 84, 84 Don Russ, Don Mattingly, that was sharp as hell, and I bet you would have PSA turned.
17:21 Speaker 01 Morning beverage of choice.
17:24 Speaker 00 Coffee, black coffee with a little bit of half and half.
17:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's what we got, Gary.
17:29 Speaker 00 Love you, boys. Stay well. Everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of the show.
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17:54 Speaker 00 Journey. See you later.
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