The Ultimate Advice for Every 20 Year Old

In this episode of the GaryVee Audio Experience, I talk about how the truth of who you are will always beat the version of you you wish you were. I share why the number one mistake young creators make is overselling themselves instead of documenting the journey, and why nobody's writing a check to a person — you have to put your thing into a container that's investable. I also discuss why money isn't the problem, why the world will give it to you once you package it, and why nobody you've ever met got there without the hard work. You'll learn about: • Showing Up To The Funeral• Documenting The Journey• Packaging Yourself As An Investment• Document Over Create• Working On Yourself First

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. What you're about to watch is something that I know will bring value to so, so many of you. It's a long clip, but it's advice that 65% of my audience really needs, and I hope you enjoy it. How old are you?

• 0:18Speaker 01

  22.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  Perfect. You're at the point now where, why don't you just take three years and just do and see what that tastes like? Because you know what fucking filling journals taste like. Because I think one of the things that really works for me is I'm not worried about the micro, but I think about the macro. "Oh, I don't know where the fuck this just came from, but I just walked in and saw it." This helps me a lot. Like, I just, like, what the fuck am I doing with you right now? There's a lot more to do with the fucking showing up to the funeral than it has to do with fucking the bank account. And you know what's funny is if you actually live your life like the funeral, you end up making stuff for the bank account by accident. You end up meeting somebody who, you know? Like, it's so crazy. When I think about like how I invested in Twitter and made all that money,

• 1:03Speaker 00

  it was more about giving a shit about my funeral, like doing the right thing by a bunch of people, which, you know, led to going to South by Southwest, which led to me meeting the Twitter guys, which meant, you know, like it's just...

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, like following your passion, following your place.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, just gotta really think about like how, like, I'll tell you, like, even in four seconds, maybe some of the context Robert gave me, maybe making some assumptions, but when you're thoughtful, like, I think one of the things that people feel, like, struggle with is actually being very real with themselves. The difference between being, you know, the difference between understanding who you are versus who you wish you were. And I think that's something that I'm always very fascinated by when I have a meeting like this. Like, what kind of read do you have on yourself? And how, like, you know, I think I would struggle a lot if I didn't really genuinely know who I was. And then, once you know who you are, you get more comfortable with what you're up to.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  So like, if I asked you right now, and I think it ebbs and flows when you're 28, when you're 32, when you're 57, like, if I asked you right this second, like, "What do you want to happen?", and like, what would you say?

• 2:13Speaker 01

  What what I want to happen with like my creative projects or just with life or what way?

• 2:17Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  All of it, all of it. Uh, what I want to happen, I...

• 2:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wanna have a life where I'm able to create with fun, create with the team. I want to put out content that affects people's lives for the better in terms of helping them feel good or better about themselves and their relationships and cultivating relationships that are meaningful. I want to like travel with my man and like have property, international property and like travel for fun and also for play and also a little bit of time for work, but controlling and maneuvering life with ease and also impacting people for the better in the process.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  It's cool. Wha- what are you hoping, as you're like rolling up to this office, what are you like, what are you hoping for?

• 3:08Speaker 01

  You know what?

• 3:09Speaker 00

  For real, by the way.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, for real, for real. I mean, there are like, you know shit that I do not know. So I honestly just want to pick your brain about a couple of key things. Um, and I, I, I really like ideally like what I was hoping and what I expected like to get in a place where like I know you and I could...

• 3:28Speaker 00

  Hit me up.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  Really have a meeting.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  Start building, start the process of building a relationship.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:32Speaker 00

  Okay. Let's start with this. If you wanna, like, listening to what you said, the first thing I will tell you, the best thing I, I think, I hope, I think the first best thing I can tell you is, don't front. The number one mistake, the people that aspire to the sentences that you just spit out of your mouth, the number one mistake they make is they try to oversell themselves because they think they need it to have people's attention.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Try to oversell themselves.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  Correct. So, let me give you an example. Whether it's life coach, inspirational figure, business coach, whatever form it takes.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  I think it's much smarter for you to talk to the world about your process of going through this than the advice that you think you should be giving them.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 4:24Speaker 00

  And that's where people are struggling. I got real lucky. I've never said this, D-Rock, so pay real close fucking attention. I'm not sure that if the internet was around in its current form, that I would be as successful. Because at 22 and 23, I knew I was special. And I might have not been patient enough to first build a business, first get experience. I didn't start talking to the world until I was 35.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  And I love to say to you, be patient, to you to be patient. I'm not sure if I would have been. I'd like to think I would have been. But the freedom of putting, like, I love to hear myself talk.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Like, you know, and I think anybody that is, like, think about, so do you. And so do so many of you, like, that's what it is. And it's nice, there's nothing wrong with that, it sounds bad. It's funny, a lot of what I deal with now is being okay with not being politically correct. Work-life balance. Cursing. Whatever. Meritocracy, you know, I don't know if you've seen this. Did you see that I was on The Breakfast Club? So, I don't know if you watched that interview or some of the content that I've been building on. I'm on a hot no excuses kick. I have a lot of female entrepreneurs. I have a lot of fans that are African-Americans. I spent a lot of time in that community in my college years.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  I just think I'm giving the best advice to women and minorities in business today, which is tough. And it's crazy, like, you have to understand, in my body right now, it doesn't feel great. It feels a lot better going somewhere else. The problem is, it's the truth. Like, the market just doesn't care. And what's cool is, when you actually say, "Fuck it", then you start betting on your strengths. Do you know I was a businessman in a world where going to smart colleges was the only thing that mattered for businessmen? You were only a good businessman if you went to Harvard Business School. And then I reversed it. Like, I'm like, I'm a DNF student.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  Like, I curse, I don't dress the part. I do me, and then you know what happened? The world came to me.

• 6:39Speaker 00

  And so, I would tell you that the best thing that you're gonna walk out of here with is something that took me a long time to really realize, is if you wanna pull this off and you want people listening to you, there's only one thing: the truth.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Just more of your authentic questions.

• 6:53Speaker 00

  The fucking, and no, everybody says that fucking cliche term.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  You just beat yourself in all that shit.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  It's unbelievable how much that's the reason I'm winning.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  And I think it's easier when you have a level of success, and it's harder when you're climbing up the ladder, but I think that there's a lot of people who if they talked about the journey of the climb, could win. I think it's the best piece of advice I can give right now to a bunch of 20 to 30-year-olds that feel that they should be talking to the world and bringing value. Talk about your journey of trying to find that voice and synthesize it properly versus, let me tell, go find, you know, because the problem is, a 30, 40, 50-year-old listening to your one-minute rant video on Instagram, even if it's powerful, there's a level of cynicism of like, "But what do you know?"

• 7:47Speaker 00

  And I think that that's fair, and look, you could just be a whiz kid about the world, and that exists, but I do think there's a smarter way to context it. You know, it's like starting the sentence of "you should" versus... You know, it's funny, right now I can say "you should" because I've built so much. But if I was at 20, it'd need to be like, "My intuition says", and that changes everything.

• 8:14Speaker 00

  Or "when I look at",

• 8:17Speaker 00

  or "when I met with Gary today, the takeaway I got was", that's, got it? 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.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's your perspective is on cultivating relationships with people who not only believe in your ideas, could actually help fund or will point you to funds? Because right now, all of my friends are broke and trying to create some shit. You know, it's like, I can't borrow from your negative bank account. So like, how do you get into a position where you are around people who are influencers or who also will donate or whatever the case may be?

• 8:56Speaker 00

  The market will give you money, the market will give you money, whether it's Kickstarter, I'll give you money, you just have to give somebody what you want it against. So the biggest problem right now is finding money is not the problem. Really, it's not. I'll explain.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  That's definitely my problem right now.

• 9:11Speaker 00

  Well, let me explain. It's not. It's how you're looking at the world.

• 9:15Speaker 00

  There's things like Angel List and Kickstarter. Do you know how much harder it was for your mother to get money?

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember that shit.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  Like, do you know how hard somebody would slap you? Do you know that the 1973 version of you, if he was sitting here, would punch you in your fucking mouth? Because money is the last thing you have to worry about. Angel List, Kickstarter, the world can give it to you. You start a Kickstarter? Can. You know why most of them fail? Because most shit is whack. Because most stuff isn't good. Because most people don't give a fuck. You can go to Angel List and hit up all the angel investors. The real question is, before you go there, is I think most people say... Everybody says to me, "Gary, I can't find money." And then I go, "Cool, I'll give you money. What do you got?" And then they don't know. So tell me, what am I buying?

• 10:08Speaker 00

  Your brand? What, in perpetuity? Got it? We're living through a really interesting time in the world right now, where people don't like... Where art and science and business are colliding, and they're all very different. I understand the art that's in your heart, but how are you gonna... Yeah, see, I got lucky. I had the art and the business. But like, okay, what am I buying? There's no buying... Buying into Gary Vaynerchuk would have been a really good idea for a lot of people, but it wasn't for sale. And I didn't even know how to sell that. Like, what do you sell? Like, what are you gonna make 20% of my speaking fees? Or my book deal? Or my TV deal or just like, right? I guess you can do that. I actually do think that plays out over time. But if I said to you, "Cool, I got money for you",

• 10:53Speaker 00

  what are you selling me? Like, what's the business?

• 10:55Speaker 01

  What I hear in that is when you show up with more content, that allows people to see more of what they're investing in.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  No. What I would say is, what's the container I'm putting my money in? You could have unlimited content. You could have 4,000 episodes of a podcast, and the greatest Instagram account I've ever seen, and the funniest Snapchat and Instagram stories I've ever seen. Great.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  So that's not inherently letting people know what they're investing in?

• 11:18Speaker 00

  That lets them know a little bit about you, but what's the vessel?

• 11:23Speaker 00

  Got it?

• 11:23Speaker 01

  So you say-

• 11:24Speaker 00

  So when I meet Fuck Jerry, or when I meet the Fat Jewish, I know they've got attention on Instagram 3 years ago that really matters. What am I investing in? "Oh, oh Fat Jewish, you're making a rosé? Oh, I can put $25,000 into that and own 8%? Now you've given me something to put the container in. Oh Fuck Jerry, you want to become BuzzFeed? You're gonna build a website? And have traffic and sell ads? You gotta come to me and say, what am I investing in?" You have to put your thing into a container that's investable. Nobody's writing a check to a person.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, package it.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  Package it. And then, and then it gets hard. Because once you package it, you have to be able to explain it in business terms. And that's not necessarily what everybody does. This is where it gets into partnerships. One thing I would tell you, based on the vibe I'm picking up,

• 12:17Speaker 00

  if you and I both grew up in Milwaukee, you know, I would have been a great partner for you, because I could have been the businessman to the art. If that's how you're thinking about it. Maybe you're the business part, but it's not what you've been bringing up yet.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  I don't know, I've been in a position where I've had to do like both, right now, you know?

• 12:34Speaker 00

  Well, look, I mean, you should, you should be putting out content on a very regular basis. You should start a pillar show, whether it's, I mean, vlogging, I think, is very fascinating. You know, you should be doing Instagram stories and Snapchat stories at scale. You should be putting out 7 to 25 pieces of content on both those platforms, a day.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  A day?

• 12:55Speaker 00

  And let me explain how. Don't go fancy. Document versus create. When you, when you make- You like that, right? It's a big, it's a big shift. When I say 7 to 25, you say, "My God, how do I produce 7 to 25 meaningful things that will have me respected?" Versus, document.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  See, that's, that's, that's always the thing, is like, meaningful that will get me respected. I feel like, anybody can put out shit. You know, I don't want to put out shit.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  But shit is subjective, my man.

• 13:30Speaker 00

  And, I got good news for you. You're fully in control.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  People are always like, "Jerry, you put out..." Like, I'm in control. How many things I say no? They send me quotes to put out on Instagram? Nope. I'm in control.

• 13:46Speaker 00

  Who makes the final call on like productions? The producer, the director, I don't know, whoever. Who's the final person?

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Producer.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  Great, you're the producer, my man. Right? I don't know, you take a selfie with a nice skyline and you're like eh. But, you gotta put out stuff. And you gotta fabricate it. Like, I still can't believe how many people that live in New York don't use New York people. If I were you, and I had an hour right now, go in the fucking park right now, like, I don't know, like go back to your basketball roots, stand outside the garden right there and be like, "What do you think about the Knicks upcoming season?" Yeah, interview four people, one person gets into a thoughtful conversation, "He was the former ball boy in 1957, it's a nice story," and boom. You see where I'm going? People aren't starting.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  People aren't starting.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  They're just not making. They're thinking, they're pondering, they're strategizing, they're debating.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  The difference between people like me and the far majority is, I'm just doing it all times. I'm doing so much that I've decided to have a fucking man walk around with a camera and follow me, because who knows when it's gonna happen? And you know what's so funny? In parallel in my brain right now, when I'm gonna leave here, I'm gonna say to him, "D-Rock, I want this whole thing cut, the whole thing." Like, what I'm giving you, so many need right now, so I'm like, "Fuck it, let's just put it out." Right?

• 15:04Speaker 01

  So, like you mentioned before, you know, you have to be putting out content all the time. I personally go through these periods of like extreme creativity and extreme just chill. You know, like I'm not feeling that. How do you motivate yourself, or how do you continue this process of like, go, go, go, go, go? And balance that with like self-care and checking in with yourself, you know?

• 15:21Speaker 00

  I do what feels right to me.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  You do what feels right to you?

• 15:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, so if I gotta check out for the week, I check out for the weekends all the time, no creations, people are like, "Where's your Snapchats?" Like, I don't know, gotta be with my family, like, I don't punish myself.

• 15:36Speaker 00

  But...

• 15:36Speaker 01

  That's really hard for me in right now.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  Good, of course.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  I feel that same thing of like, dude, you're not putting shit out, you're not doing enough. You had a following, you're not doing shit.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  I agree.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  You see where I'm going?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  I don't know, life.

• 15:52Speaker 00

  I don't think you should squander it, but like, I mean like, you just gotta, you know, listen. This is back to, do you know yourself? Or do you aspire to be something you might actually not be? This is the toughest question of it all, my man. I mean, if you wanna be respected and really known?

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Show up.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Show the fuck up. Are you fucking kidding me with a week, going a week without doing something?

• 16:20Speaker 00

  You know, I don't know how much into my content you are, but I always say, nobody you've ever met got there without the hard work. Nobody you know. It's just real. You know, do you know how insane Daily V and the Snapchat stories has been to everybody? They didn't realize how hard I was going at it. You can't believe how many, you can't believe how many people's... You know how many fucking people used to say the word luck? That word luck has gone right back, like, nobody has the audacity to say that to my face now. And I love it. And that's why I did it. I did it. I made it for you because you can watch it and be like, okay. But I think yours is different. I think a lot of theirs is different. It's because I'm not fancy about it.

• 17:03Speaker 00

  Document over create.

• 17:08Speaker 00

  I mean, there's so much magic going on. Dude, you're in fucking New York City. You know how many people, again, I'm gonna cut this whole thing because this device has been easy. You know how many of them sitting in a place that's not New York City? You got a billion fucking stories out there. You don't feel motivated that you need to tell a story today or create? Go let somebody else to do it. You have so much charisma. You walked in here in two seconds. You walked in here in two seconds and I'm like, okay, this kid's got a little... Like, you can roll up on anybody and get them feel comfortable. Except racists.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  I do that shit every day. I can do that too.

• 17:40Speaker 00

  But do you know what I mean? That's so fucking awesome. So you can't create? Distribute.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  Got it? You can't create today?

• 17:49Speaker 01

  That's what I have.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  Facilitate. You know?

• 17:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, man.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:55Speaker 00

  There's no excuse for not talking to the world. It just doesn't have to be your thoughts and words every time.

• 18:03Speaker 00

  I'm on fire right now, I'm on fire, D-Rock!

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Do you have like a few more minutes?

• 18:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, let's, I mean, look, I'm going until they pull me out. You're already eight minutes over, so you're winning, yeah.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Building a team.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  Don't even worry, don't even think about, you're not even close to that.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Why not?

• 18:17Speaker 00

  Because you don't have the money to like really build the team, right? You can have homies help you out along the way, truth is...

• 18:23Speaker 01

  I feel like I've exhausted those resources, though.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  Good, let me, let me give you a real good answer, I got a feel for you right now.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  You need to work on you before you worry about a team.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 18:31Speaker 00

  I mean, you gotta get your shit together. Like, you're, you're responding to the right thing, like, I don't know much. What, what I do well is I talk, and then through reaction, I listen. That's how I get a lot done in a meeting like this, right? I could tell that you, you've got certain things that you need to do, before you worry about a team, get your thing in place.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Consistency, basically.

• 18:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, get great at what we just talked about. If I go look now, and I'm gonna check, now I'm curious, if I go look in a couple weeks, and I'm like, "Oh my god, six, six, you know, Instagram stories per day, like, fucking, you know, four Instagram posts, like, he's been on Twitter on point, his Facebook, oh, he's got a YouTube channel now, he's, like, create, distribute, you know, do all that stuff, interview, like,

• 19:18Speaker 00

  there's so much creative shit, man, like, like, I'm way more creative than I realized, because stuff comes so natural to me, like, for example, like, do a meme, and that's just a slang term for it, like, go take a picture on every odd street in New York, in Manhattan, like, I don't know, like, go start at 113, and then 111, and 109, like, anything could be, like, right?

• 19:43Speaker 00

  Like, call it Odd Corner, and just literally do an interview every day on Instagram for a minute, starting at 113th, all the way down, that's cool, right? And like, that's something just making shit up, like, I don't know, like, Odd Corner, hashtag Odd Corner, it's your show, every fucking Monday, you go to fucking 113th, the next week 111th, and literally you stand there until somebody walks by, and you interview that person, and that's the fucking show.

• 20:10Speaker 00

  I think what I'm good at is building a pillar up top that creates content below. Daily V, Ask Gary Vee Show, right? And then all flows from there. Where did this quote come from? I don't know. You know, like, somewhere along the way, that's what's powerful. And I think you need to create... I think one thing that people struggle with is they need... They think they need to... It needs to come from them, and it needs to come from the structure down, instead of... Got it? And that's why you wake up, and you're like, "Damn, I'm not feeling..." You know how hard it is to manifest that kind of original, creative thing from the bottom?

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  But if you... If you made... If you literally lived your life under show... Think of yourself as like CNN, or MSNBC. "Monday is Odd Corner." That's it. Like, if you whiteboarded now on like, mini-shows that you could do? "Monday's Odd Corner." "Tuesday's like Subway shots." "Wednesday's like suburbs." You're just literally going out. Like, you know? And all of a sudden, suburbs clicks, and all of a sudden Toyota's hitting you up and saying, "Hey, we'll pay you, and you'll drive a Toyota to Jersey, to Long Island." See where I'm going? But you gotta put yourself in that position. But what you then are able to do is you don't have to think. You know why podcasts have worked for a lot of people? Because they interview people.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  So they don't have to do the work.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  They generate the content.

• 21:29Speaker 00

  That's right. That's why when everybody's like, "Oh, I love this podcast, oh, Gary Vee." And I'm like, "You don't get it." They're just interviewing people. I'm creating original from the get. My version of that was, what's a better version of that? Oh, answer people's questions. Also scalable, but brings value to those individuals and the entire community. So... Got it?

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  Good, man. Give me an update in 30 days. Send me an email. I'm dead serious. This is... You know, you came in here and said, "I'd like to start the process of a relationship." Ideas are shit. Execution's the game, right?

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  Email me in 30 days. Either you're gonna email me in 30 days and say, "Look what I did," or what you're gonna do is not email me.

• 22:12Speaker 00

  You got it, brother.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Appreciate you.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  Take care. Hey, 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.