The #1 Quality to Look for When Hiring in 2026

In this episode of the GaryVee Audio Experience, I dive deep into the nuances of parenting and leadership. I share personal stories about how my mother, Tamara Vaynerchuk, shaped me through extreme positive reinforcement while simultaneously holding me to a standard of zero excuses. We discuss why empathy is a massive competitive advantage and why "tough love" is a necessary ingredient for raising accountable humans. You’ll learn about:Why Empathy is a Human Strength, Not a WeaknessThe McDonald’s Story: Shaping a Child’s North StarWhy Parenting and Leadership are the Same Skill Set

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I was really, really good at baseball. One day, after a game, I struck out. In the car ride home, I kind of just tried to say that the reason I struck out was that the sun got in my eye. I believe many modern parents, A, let that go, B, sometimes add to it. My mother was like, "There was no sun. You struck out." This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  So as you know, my mom and I, we wrote some children's books. And they're kids' books, but really, they're secret stories to help with hard conversations, what we call productive conversations, what you might call kind candor tools. And we really lead with empathy. And so, there's all these business guys, like Elon Musk. My mom sent me a quote that was like, "Empathy is the fundamental weakness of society." They say shit like that. I want to know, how are you counteracting that sentence? In your home, in your business, in your everyday? That empathy is the weakness of our society?

• 1:04Speaker 00

  I mean, me personally, I've been pretty loud and aggressive for over a decade publicly, on an almost weekly basis, that I think empathy is one of the great human strengths of our society. So, you know...

• 1:20Speaker 02

  Well, we set you up for that because, exactly. Like, when we hear really powerful people spreading messages like that, like, I'm like, "Okay, yeah, cool." And now, how do you...

• 1:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, ladies, I think, look, from my perspective,

• 1:43Speaker 00

  the world is entitled to think what they think, right? Like, I surely put no one on a pedestal, let alone someone who's made a lot of money. Like, or, like, so like, when I hear, if that's Elon's quote, right? Like, I just, I take the counter, right? But I take the counter on...

• 2:07Speaker 00

  The complete other side too, right? There's people that, I think, have created extraordinary amounts of entitlement and wah-wah culture. And I've, you know, I kind of sit in this really funny spot where like, on both sides of, let's say, the warmth versus the hardcore, or the this versus the that, or let's just get right to the punchline, the right versus the left, or the, like, you know, I'm of a place where like, do you know what my reaction is? I feel bad that Elon believes that.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  I know.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  You too.

• 2:42Speaker 00

  Like, I feel like, oh damn, like, clearly, you know, I don't, you know, obviously Elon is more political than I am, so that might just be posturing for an agenda that I'm unaware. I don't know if that is his belief, right? I know unlimited people on both the left and right that say many things they don't actually believe in, which is the thing I most disrespect in life, for other reasons, but any human that thinks empathy is a weakness is deeply emotionally confused. That is my personal opinion.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Well, I think guys like Elon, I also feel empathy and compassion for someone who is believing that, or even spreading that message, because, you know, our origin story, the first book that we wrote, the children's book, is called Captain Complainer. And, um, and so the kids that grow up that are the Captain Complainers, I think a lot of times are what I would think maybe Elon was, which is, you know, where they're feeling sort of out of control inside their bodies, and they're acting out on the outside, and they're complaining a lot, and their behavior problems.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  It feels contrarian, but really it's dysregulation, and so what we...

• 3:59Speaker 00

  Could be, could be. Yeah, could be. I would, I would also take a different point of view, my personal opinion. The biggest complainers I know, and I mean, I know them. I'm talking, I've known them for 40 years, 30 years, 50 years, by a country mile, are not people that are struggling with internal trauma, or ADHD, or dyslexia, or like, like something is triggering something. They're people who...

• 4:32Speaker 00

  Had parents that overcompensated and created enormous entitlement and rewarded complaining versus accountability.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  The single, like when you said Captain Complaining, I thought you were going in such a different path. Like the top 30 Captain Complainers in my life, which is like me really knowing, let alone the 10,000 DMs I get a day, the hundreds of thousands I know of through my life. I'm talking the 30 people I know everything about. Their parents, their DNA, their life. The top 30 complainers I know

• 5:11Speaker 00

  had parents that created complete entitlement.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  But you know what's interesting is my mom, I would say that she didn't create that. And my brother was the Captain Complainer is based off of. And he is wonderful and he is not a Captain Complainer anymore. He's 28 now. He's 28, yeah.

• 5:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, to your point, yeah, to your point, I get it, but let me explain something that's worth looking at.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  You got a different version of your mom than he did.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  I know this as a parent. I know this as being the child of a parent who, as you probably both know, because you know a little about me, I put on a pedestal as the greatest parent of all time, my mother. But I will tell you that if I brought her here and said, "Mom, did you parent me exactly the same way that you parented Liz and AJ?" She would say, "Absolutely not," in hindsight.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  So, yes, but don't forget, we all have different DNA. You had a certain DNA that might have been a perfect dancing partner for your mom. I sure did for my mom. Whereas my sister had a different one that created a different version of my mom. I see this too. By the way, you want to hear the wildest thing of all time?

• 6:58Speaker 03

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• 7:28Speaker 00

  I'm good at creating entitlement. I created lack of accountability in all my companies. I have it in me too. Even though it's the thing I believe in the most, I couldn't see it. Because sometimes kindness and empathy, like anything, loses its way. So obviously, I have no context of what I'm talking about here, of what mom did with you versus your brother, but you know, a lot of times, it's the reaction of the parent to the natural DNA of the child that creates the framework, not just the DNA. Hey everybody, I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast, that's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Well, I was gonna say, you know, the entitlement is... I wouldn't call it entitlement. I would actually push back on it. That what happens is, is when a kid is complaining about everything, like kids are, you know, even if you're wired a little more towards the negative. So I would say, my first kid, my... Exactly to your point. I was a different version of me when I had her brother. He's three and a half years older than her. And I was learning. I had never been a mom before, and I had a baby that cried all the time. And I was just trying to make him happy constantly. And I was learning, you know? And I knew a lot more three and a half years later.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  And she was born, and she came into the world wired differently.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  But I think that what happens is, is you know, I was like a dog with a bone, reading all these books, trying to figure out, like, why the hell is my baby crying all the time? Why is my kid so fetching? You know, like, really? And it was, my husband was like, "What the hell are you reading now?"

• 9:11Speaker 00

  Was he colic?

• 9:13Speaker 02

  He was, he was colicky, he was, I think, responding to me being like, I, I, I'm not ready for all this. I think I was stressed, he was stressed, I think he is a more introverted person naturally. I think he had a sensitive nervous system and I think sounds were louder, smells were smellier, and that's how he was wired.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  Which, which are actually superpowers in the end.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  It, which have turned in, he's, his self-awareness is off the charts as an adult, I mean.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  Literally, this is what I'm playing with as I'm talking to you, literally. Me, me, me too, I cried my entire childhood.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  Yes, he's, he, he was wired in that way and so I was like, I gotta figure this kid out. And I think what you call entitlement, I call parents that are so uncomfortable with their kid's discomfort, that they're, and I, I did this at times, they're jumping through hoops to try and make them happy and they're not holding them accountable to sit and build that stress tolerance.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  Which is the definition of entitlement. You're talking about the ac- you're talking about the actions that led to it.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  I just think.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  You know that you just defined, you like, actually, Google it, like, like, I, listen, by the way, I, I just wanna take a step back, cuz I like talking, I'm much more obsessed with talking in general than actually something direct. Cuz, boy oh boy, is there nothing harder than being a parent, you love these little fuckers more than life itself. Like, it's all easy to talk about on a podcast, but then you're in the tra- I mean, you should've seen me last night! Because my 13-year-old son is crying about the Knicks loss as we're walking out of Madison Square Garden. Like, I could talk, in theory, all you want, all I wanted to do was like, don't worry, boy, it's gonna get, like, I get it, so, I wanna take it a little away from your son and your specific situation, for me, if I may,

• 11:19Speaker 00

  but, I will say, in that last exchange, there's a million variables why, why it happens. A million. Right?

• 11:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  But, but I will say, humbly, it all leads to the actions that do create the thing.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:39Speaker 00

  Like, there's so many, I mean, I know, I mean, it's so funny what's racing through my head right now, and I won't share because it's other people's businesses, but social skills, where it was fine until six, but then, "Oh, wait a minute, you're not so likeable in school", or, or bad grades, or something happening in the household, or one that I've got in my mind that breaks my soul, one of the parents dying prematurely, and then the single parent is overreacting properly. This is so much dr- like, there's just a million things that can happen, but when you melt it down, even in the mo- you know, I think about, I think about the reverse.

• 12:20Speaker 00

  I think about people that I've watched get to the other side in more adverse situations, but where the parent, for some reason, had the ability to draw lines in the sand. It's really fascinating. I would argue, if I may, that, um, that whatever circumstance that lead to it, including the natural DNA of the child making it easier to do it or not, there is nothing harder than to be disciplined and hold a child accountable when you're a parent. I will die on that hill. I will die on that hill. Comma, there's nothing more black and white to me than that's the punchline.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  And how you get, and how-

• 13:00Speaker 02

  The word entitlement to me feels-

• 13:03Speaker 00

  Triggering?

• 13:04Speaker 02

  Like, like, no, it feels like it has to do with when I think of people of privilege and feeling entitled to the car on the 16th birthday.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  I understand, I understand. And I would, and I would argue that that's your definition, makes sense. We all interpret. For me, entitlement is an expectation for others to do something when you wah-wah.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 13:29Speaker 00

  When I wah-wah-

• 13:29Speaker 02

  No, I agree, I agree.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  When I wah-wah, from the luck of my draw, there's never been a day in my life that I can recall where I expected someone to do something about it besides myself.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  And Captain Complainer is complaining because they expect other people to do something about it.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're calling attention to something that's happening in them. And I think, you know, you said something about, you know, you parent each kid differently. And it's true in our books, like, our first book, Captain Complainer, it's a dysregulated kid or maybe an entitled kid, as you would say. And then the second book, Screaming Sis, is when I would react to Captain Complainer. And then the third book is my little brother, which is Beginner Brave. And that's uplifting, and that's mom kind of knowing exactly what to say.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, and by the way, it goes in, again, like, you know, for every parent that's listening, I just hope this is encouraging and honestly grounded in truth. It goes a million different ways. I mean, like, you know, again, I'm an immigrant, so I've heard this version a lot. So many immigrant parents have talked to me about actually getting it right the first time, because they were grounded in the old world. And then as they got Americanized, they went in reverse of what you just said. The amount of parents I've talked to, that if, like, you know, now we're talking over a third glass of wine, you know, you're getting real with friends or new acquaintances, and they're like, "I actually got it wrong along the way." Because as more success for our family happened, I got away from what I learned in Colombia or Poland or, you know, India.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  And kid three got the reverse, but it's all still back to the same thing that I believe, which is, what is boundaries? What is accountability? What is... Tough love's so interesting, right? Because it ends with love. You know, and I think we blurred, like, you know, kind of like, discipline with like abuse. Right? Like, what is today by modern parenting standards, like, unacceptable, was mundane forty years ago. And I think a lot about that. And, by the way, not everything we do today is wrong, or not better. Much of it is better. I think we do, though, have to look at things. Sitting here and saying, "Me, I, my brother, my sister, your brother," that's silly. That's like, seven people.

• 15:48Speaker 00

  I think if we take a step back, I think we can all agree that, you know, the average twenty to thirty-year-old in society across the world...

• 15:58Speaker 00

  Es en un lugar diferente a donde estábamos hace 40 años Y esta excusa de que son los algoritmos o las redes sociales Es una conveniencia para, creo, una tendencia mayor, que es la prosperidad global a escala Y, no sé, todos amamos burlarnos de los niños ricos de cuarto generación Como los bebés nepo, y mirarlos, y da-da-da Pero no se dan cuenta que esas cosas están sucediendo en nuestras familias naturales también Porque cada generación, con suerte, es un poco mejor, el mundo es un poco mejor Y así, no sé, hay muchas cosas que tratan este tema que me emociona Sabes, puedes ver, como, amo nerdear contigo también Sí, y amo jamear contigo, las veces que he podido, como, este es un tema importante

• 16:39Speaker 00

  Y diré, creo que todos sabemos que la respuesta es encontrar el medio, encontrar el equilibrio Como, todos sabemos eso, todos, a cualquier extremo que puedas estar Creo que ha habido mucha corrección excesiva en los últimos 40 años

• 16:54Speaker 02

  No, completamente estoy de acuerdo contigo Creo que cuando nos enfocamos un poco en el micro, las historias micro Y he visto esto, solo en los años en los que he estado hablando, ya sabes, siendo padre Lo cual creo que realmente es ser un buen líder

• 17:10Speaker 00

  Sí

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Y creo que el jardín de la crianza y la liderazgo

• 17:12Speaker 00

  Es uno y lo mismo

• 17:13Speaker 02

  Son los mismos

• 17:14Speaker 00

  Es el mismo juego

• 17:14Speaker 02

  ¿Verdad? Y creo que muchas veces cuando hablamos del micro, ya sabes, la gente está pensando, hm Porque muchas veces cuando cojo a la gente, son como, "Tengo más de eso que la otra persona siendo coach" Sobre su escenario, que a veces cuando estoy en la cama

• 17:33Speaker 01

  También, un tema tabu extraño, como, siento que la gente está tan aterrada en hablar de sus cagadas Aunque sea la experiencia más común compartida, como, todos han sido niños La mayoría de la gente, o no la mayoría, pero muchas personas terminan siendo padres Es como hablar de sexo o dinero, es extraño

• 17:48Speaker 00

  Sí, quiero decir, es extraño porque, mira, la cosa más grande que ha pasado en mi vida es Algún nivel de, como, extremo, "No me importa lo que tú dos piensen de mí" Que yo he, como, yo beso el suelo en el que mi madre camina Y, ya sabes, desafortunadamente un día, como, visitaremos a su final lugar de descanso Y besar ese lugar para siempre, por mí no darme cuenta de lo que la gente piensa de mí Es el gran desbloque Las cosas son tabú porque te preocupas por lo que la gente piensa de tu vida sexual De tu situación de dinero, tu crianza, es lo que hacemos

• 18:24Speaker 02

  Well, your mom, I mean, I've heard the stories. That McDonald's story.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Is all time.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Hooked me on you.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  It's, I was like, bow down to Tamara Maynercheck. Am I pronouncing her name correctly?

• 18:38Speaker 00

  You are, and she'd take, if she was here, she would say she'll take anything. Like Tamara, Tamara, like, except Tuesday. We used to have, we used to have a handyman that would come around, and he literally thought my mom's name was Tuesday. And, and so she said she'll take any version of it as long as it's not Tuesday.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean. I heard that McDonald's story, I want to say in 2017.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  When I was trying to run a business and thinking, I need to learn about marketing.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  And I wasn't, and I was really just interested in your personal stories.

• 19:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  Unfortunately, I should have learned more. But, um, but I heard that McDonald's story, and I was like, this is a good boy.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  This is a good guy.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  That's it.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  That's everything.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  Well, it's because you're smart about the most important, I'm the same way. I, I will know pretty quickly what the punchline of someone is if I can get enough details. You're absolutely right. You're like, oh, this is the byproduct of a mother that knew exactly.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  When you tell the story, you tell the story.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  Sure, I mean, it's so simple. And talk about, I'm gonna get emotional because I want this so badly for everyone. This is why I like being a good person. I'm about to explain many stories, but I've never really said this. It kind of just clicked in my head. I will tell you why I want to be a good person, and it has to do with this story. This happened forty years ago. And when I, wait, I want to keep building this up because people are gonna really find this fascinating. The level of mundaneness to this story is profound. I played a little league baseball game. We went to McDonald's after the game.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  For immigrant family like us that grew up with nothing, going to McDonald's was like flying private to Turks and Caicos. Me and my sister are losing our mind that we're even going to McDonald's. This is like profound. Like, that's how special it was. We go, and I am, you know, high energy, who knows what the hell chemicals I have in me, right? We didn't diagnose back then. And I like run ahead, and I just happened to open the door, because I was a little bit ahead of my mom and sister, for an elderly lady. She walked in. If you understood the circus my mom created around that moment.

• 20:58Speaker 00

  "You're such a good boy, you have a golden heart, I love what you just did." I mean, we talked about it the whole time. She just repeated what I'd done, it's profound. You would've thought I won the Nobel Peace Prize. That's it, that's the end of the story. That sticking with me and becoming a North Star is why I do what I do. It's why I'm doing this podcast right now. Knowing that I might say something.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  And this is why I repeat the same shit over and over. Knowing that I might say something when the person's ready to receive it. It is not lost on me that my mom must've done that a lot of other times that are lost in the ether because I don't remember them.

• 21:40Speaker 00

  But knowing that we, the three of us, anybody else, the thing that motivates me to make content by a country mile is not what it's gonna lead to in business, though I'm not against it. It is fully knowing that I might say one sentence at the right, exact time for the person to hear it, that fundamentally changes the course of their lives.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:00Speaker 00

  Now, obviously, a mother to a son at 10 is gonna have more weight than me being someone on the internet. But I'm on the receiving end of unlimited messages that look like that. And it's very intoxicating and it is what has absolutely shaped me. And I will tell you

• 22:19Speaker 00

  that when I die,

• 22:22Speaker 00

  I need, when I get my five minutes on whatever Twitter is of the day in 50 years, God willing, I need it to be that he was a nice guy. I don't need it that he made all this money or that he did all these things. What's gonna, what drives me is my grandchildren hearing stories that no one knows about, from people, about things I did for their parents or grandparents. That is my North Star.

• 23:19Speaker 03

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• 23:49Speaker 02

  Avery, will you read the intention that I wrote just for us at the top of our note, preparing for this conversation?

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, she said, "Intention: To help even one person out there think differently about their kid."

• 24:02Speaker 00

  It's a great intention. It's super powerful. It's a life worth living. It's what everybody gets to in the end. I mean, it's incredible. Like, I'm this full-bred entrepreneur. Nothing excites me more than selling stuff. Wine, collectibles, stuff that means nothing in the scheme of things, though the emotions they invoke are kind of interesting to me, especially collectibles, nostalgia, all that stuff.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  I have all this, such a materialistic commerce, capitalistic part of me. Yet, I hate all of it, because I know it's what people do to hide up what's going on inside. So it's crazy. It's like, it's so wild. It's like Clark Kent in Superman. It's like this bizarro, two-sided life I have, which is like, I spend my days trying to get people not to buy things to cover up emotional insecurities, and I spend my nights selling things, hopefully with a deeper meaning. Like, it's so funny, the two core things I've sold in my life, wine and collectibles, I actually think are really interesting. I think they're gateway drugs to personal connection.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Like, obviously, there's a lot of ways to use wine. If you drink nine bottles by yourself at night, that's really bad. But if you share one bottle with four friends and reminisce, I think it's a beautiful gateway to community. Collectibles. If you spend all your money on it speculating and gambling and then it hurts you versus it becomes a sense of community, you go to Comic Con and you meet your best friends. So like, everything in life is interesting to me that way. But yeah, I uh, I love your intentionality. I, I wake up every day with it, by the way. Every single day. I think there's a reason I look the way I look to... If, when I'm, you know, I'm often misunderstood, I'm often overrated, I'm often underrated.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  When I'm really well analyzed, one day. Whatever the extreme AI is, that's perfect. I, I, I do feel proud. I feel like people will understand I had a real purpose and agenda. It was always clear to me. I was the 5th grade president for a reason. Like, I know what I want to do. I know why I want to lead. And it is not to fulfill a gap that was left in my childhood. It is almost like a gratitude guilt potion for knowing how good my childhood was that I want to give it and pass it on.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  Well, you, you kind of proved my hypothesis. Of, like, your mom instilled that McDonald's message. Okay, so I, I teach this thing called pack leadership. And I'm teaching moms, like, "This is your pack. It's pretty primal, and you're the leader." "So, we're gonna show up loving, but also firm." And so to offset that McDonald's story, will you also tell the accountability baseball story?

• 26:54Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Because that's the firm, the firm part. I love that.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  You know, it's funny, they're very similar. They probably happened within, you know, it's funny, maybe you have much more insight to I, than I do, but like, this feels very like, I think there's a lot going on, like, 8, 9, 10. You know, it's, it's funny how much I feel like that was the era. And it could be circumstantial, we were getting out of like poverty into like, our, I don't know. But for me, a lot of the big foundational stories are, what I'm about to tell you might have happened within 6 months of the other story. In the same parking lot, the Bradley's McDonald's parking lot. Again, going to their, after, because my baseball field was very close to the shopping center and running errands. And... This one's blurrier, but I know the essence of it.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  When I tell it, I talk specifically, but I want to really break the story down. Punchline of this is, I was incredibly good at baseball as a child. Me and my brother, now my son, looks like his son too. We're not big enough, we're not strong enough, we're not athletic enough to be like great sportsmen. But boy, do we have really good understanding, like fast brains, and we have really good hand-eye coordination. So all of us excel in our youth. Before it gets about size, speed, agility, and athleticism.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  I was really, really good at baseball. Like, I was one of 10 kids, and now I'm just bragging. One of 10 10-year-olds that got drafted into the 13, 14, 15-year-old league. Jumped all my friends. It was awesome. One day, after a game, just mundane, I struck out. By the way, big shout out to John Longo. If you know John Longo, who grew up in Edison, New Jersey, in the early to mid 80s. He went to J.P. Stevens High School and John Adams Middle School. This kid was a beast too. He was a big, chunky Italian kid. And he struck me out.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  And in the car ride home, I kind of just tried to say that the reason I struck out was that the sun got in my eye. I believe many modern parents, A, let that go, B, sometimes add to it.

• 29:12Speaker 00

  My mother was like, "There was no sun. You struck out." And there was just something about it that just...

• 29:19Speaker 02

  So Russian.

• 29:20Speaker 00

  It was so...

• 29:24Speaker 00

  It was so big. It just got, back to complaining, back to excuses. It just started to teach me like, "Uh-uh, that's not what we're gonna be about around here."

• 29:33Speaker 00

  She was the leader of the pack. You know, she held me accountable. I have a terrible report card hanging in my office right now. It's okay, I know I usually grab it. We're wrapping up here. But she grounded me every... My mother told me I was gonna be wildly successful and happy, yet she grounded me every report card. Four times a year. Three, she kinda gave me a little pass for the last one, because it was summer. She grounded me every progress report that said... I'm gonna make a t-shirt called "In Danger of Failing." I don't know if anybody grew up in the 80s or 90s, and in their progress reports, they had a checkbox that said "in danger of failing." Like, it'd be like, "Good, moderate," and then there'll be a box, at least in my high school, that said "in danger..." All the way at the bottom, "in danger of failing." And my progress report...

• 30:16Speaker 00

  By the way, when I got into progress report culture, which was like the middle report card, that destroyed me. Because that meant I was punished eight times a year. And it was "in danger of failing." She grounded me every time.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  She also did something else that I kind of really think is real. And again, you guys can pontificate, because I gotta run.

• 30:40Speaker 00

  She would not allow... She would not allow me to disrespect her at any cost. In fact, on the record as a parting thought, this is real talk. I was scared to even think in my own brain that I was gonna disrespect her, because I thought she could feel it, that I was thinking it, and that would get me in trouble. Forget about what we see today where kids verbalize it and do it.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Couldn't even think.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  It's crazy. I'm 50 years old right now. I'm saying it, and I'm a little like, eh eh. It's a little uncomfortable, like, "I hope she's not..." Like, this is an angel of sweetness and love, and I could not comprehend disrespecting this woman.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  Because she was a pack leader. She embodied it.

• 31:29Speaker 00

  She lived it. Like, her lack of hypocrisy on her belief system is profound.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  That's amazing. Love it. Love it. Bravo.

• 31:39Speaker 00

  Love you. See ya.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 31:41Speaker 00

  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 this journey. See you later.

• 31:52Speaker 04

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• 32:22Speaker 05

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