What WWE and Building a Brand have in Common: StoryTelling

In this episode of the GaryVee Audio Experience, I sit down to discuss the massive influence professional wrestling had on my career and how "cutting a promo" made me a better public speaker. I dive deep into why execution is the only thing that separates winners from dreamers. I also share the personal breakthrough that led me to prioritize my health at age 38 and why I believe parenting is all about building self-esteem.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Right now, we're in a time in society where unfortunately, a lot of people's lives are gonna be much shittier because they decided to believe someone who's spewing hate. Every one of us have been affected by someone else's words. You know how insane that is?

• 0:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:12Speaker 00

  That's why I keep yapping. Whether it was your grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, brother, sister, best friend, or someone you admire, every one of you right now can rec- everyone who's watching can recall something right now that was said that had an impact on them. What did Gandhi or Martin Luther King, what did these people, it was words, brother. Fucking words matter, cuz you change someone's perspective. By the way, whether pro or con, this is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for coming in.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  I've always been a fan, but when I found out that you liked wrestling, it was like that scene from Step Brothers. Did we just become best friends? Yep.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  It's real. Anytime you have like a passion, I mean, if I literally see someone wearing a Jets hat or like hoodie, it happened the other day in the city, it's scary how the instant connection is. And if I saw someone wearing a 1980's retro Roddy Roddy Piper t-shirt, I would get fired up too. It's just the way the world works.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  I saw a guy wearing a Rock shirt recently, and I said, "Where'd you get that shirt from?" "It doesn't matter where you got that shirt from."

• 1:12Speaker 00

  Did he do that?

• 1:12Speaker 01

  No, I didn't do that.

• 1:13Speaker 00

  Oh, got it, got it, got it.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  "You got me, you got me." Where does it go back to for you? When did you start to become a wrestling fan?

• 1:20Speaker 00

  I'm actually trying to think about it. I mean, I'm 50, so I was fully caught up, like, you know, Hogan beating Sheik in Madison Square Garden. That's a very early memory. I was, WrestleMania 2 was something I was excited for, knew it was coming. Underneath that, it gets a little blurry of where I sat with WrestleMania 1. I was super aware, like, the whole Cyndi Lauper MTV interaction, so... I would say, you know, anyone of my age, you know, I was an immigrant, I was, you know, ironically, A very big father figure to me was my dad's uncle. But the way my dad and grandma, like the way our family worked, he was only eight years younger than his uncle.

• 2:02Speaker 00

  And I'm eight years younger than his son. He passed away, but a very big influence in my life was a gentleman by the name of Misha Shafrin, who like, because my dad worked all the time, would go to my games and was a very big part of my childhood. He watched wrestling when we first came to America and thought it was real. And thought it was like epic. But I don't really remember that. That was more through the stories he told me and my mom told me. But I'm definitely in 84, 85 in that era. I remember when Macho Man beat Tito Santana for the Intercontinental Title. That was massive for me. I remember when he came to the WWF. I will reference it as WWF, everyone.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  Fair enough.

• 2:46Speaker 00

  Quite a bit in here, but I'll try to be politically correct with E. But yeah, it was really 84, 85. You know, I don't really remember 83. Like, I watched old stuff, old VHS tapes later. But wrestling first hit when I was nine or 10.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Who was your guy growing up?

• 3:03Speaker 00

  Macho Man. I was very, I very much liked the underdog. Macho Man was huge for me. The way they entered him into the WWF was like all the managers wanted him, right? And then he said, "And my manager's Elizabeth." And she comes out and like I was getting the age where I'm like, "Oh, that's a pretty girl."

• 3:19Speaker 01

  I love how everyone can do a Macho Man.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, everyone can do a Macho Man. And so Macho Man was my guy when, like, I grew up a four-sport fan. Rangers, Knicks, Yankees, Jets. And I didn't win my first championship until 94, when I was 18, senior year of high school, when the Rangers won the cup.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:40Speaker 00

  And the reason I was okay with that was Macho Man winning the tournament for the heavyweight title. Was the biggest thing of my childhood. That was my first championship. So I was huge Macho Man over everyone. Even when he was a bad guy, when he beat Tito Santana for the title. That was massive for me. I was like all proud in school. That was my guy. So it was weird. It was a bad guy when he first came. But there was just his charisma. You know, the way they brought him into the WWF. That was an incredible era of how Mr. Perfect or Razor Ramon, and obviously before that Macho Man and everybody, Billy Jack Hayes. I remember Badness Brown. Like what Vince had in that era of introducing someone for weeks before they got into the ring.

• 4:25Speaker 00

  By the time Macho Man wrestled, the first match I ever saw him wrestle, I was already hook, line and sinker.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  It was the beauty of the vignettes back then.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Like, I'm sure you remember the Mr. Perfect.

• 4:35Speaker 00

  Well, that's, that's why I referenced it, right? Like, there's nothing like that. That was the apex. But Razor Ramon was big too. Like, I was like, who's this guy? You know? But Macho Man was kind of, it was, you know, the whole like, you know. I'll never forget that interview he did with, by the poolside with Mean G. And he's like, "There's a plane going, boy, and I'm not on it." Mean G, like, it was just a different, he was a superhero to me. And obviously that was pre-internet, 36 channels if you were bougie and had cable. And I watched a lot of like those late night shows. I don't remember if it was on TNT or USA, Vince McMahon interviewing. And I remember Macho Man's interview there. So I was a huge Macho Man guy. And I never, ever, ever had another one that was close. I was very into Y2J.

• 5:19Speaker 00

  I was into Jericho. That probably would be the closest in that Attitude Era kind of. But he was like a 2 to Macho Man's 10. Macho Man was my number one guy forever.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  And then Jericho's still doing it.

• 5:33Speaker 00

  I know, it's crazy.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Still doing it.

• 5:35Speaker 00

  He's amazing.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  What do you think it is about pro wrestling that makes people such fanatics of it?

• 5:41Speaker 00

  Oh, it's storytelling. You know, it's why people love movies. It's why people love cartoons. It's why people love Spider-Man and Superman and Mickey Mouse and the Care Bears. It is the human storytelling, you know? And to me, it's the framework of sports. Meaning, I think Vince McMahon is...

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Much more similar to David Stern and Dana White than people realize. The only difference is, and he's close to Walt Disney and Jim Henson, like, he blended characters and humans in a way that good sports, you know, Steph Curry for my son, he's a hero, like a little guy, he can do it. Katelyn Clark, there's, you know, like, athletes when they're at the apex, Jordan, we were talking about your Jordans on the way here.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  You said you'll never wear Jordans.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  I never have, uh, because I'm a Knicks fan. They're superheroes, and wrestlers are superheroes, you know, there's, like, maybe the greatest superhero of my life, of my childhood was Hulk Hogan. He was everyone's superhero, and so, they're superheroes, they're stories, they're, they're, they're soap operas, which, novellas, they're like, they're like, story arcs are perfect. And you know this, and everybody listening to this podcast, when they're good, there's nothing better.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  And when they're bad, you're just waiting for them to get good.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Right? That's why there's been different eras of wrestling.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  I feel like I was so inspired growing up, like in those formidable years, especially in high school, by like, the promos I saw, the characters I saw on TV. Like, I was coming into being a teenager during the Attitude Era.

• 7:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  How much of what you do and the way you speak now is inspired by the wrestling you saw growing up?

• 7:23Speaker 00

  Clearly you've done your homework, because I've said this out loud. I really do believe that one of the reasons I popped as a content creator is because, like, when I, early in my career, when I was starting to speak on stages, you know, I was an internet personality, so the, like, this is very early, I'm talking 2007, 8, 9, 10, and they would ask me to cut a promo, like, you know, they're like, "Hey, I'm gonna be in Montreal speaking, dah dah." And like, as, like, I didn't even know I was doing it, but every time I would submit them, they're like, "That's amazing, this and that." And then finally, like, three years later, it might have been D-Rock when I first started really filming, he's like, He would have the bull and brace, you know this, we do this now. It's like, "Hey, you gotta make this thing, you're gonna be in St. Louis."

• 8:05Speaker 00

  And it would literally be like, "This Thursday night at the Civic Center, I'm gonna take you down." You know, like, there was an element of like, me doing a promo cut. I know that Macho Man and Richard Pryor are deeply ingrained into how I do public speaking and internet videos, and very influential.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  I think any great speaker is like taking people on this journey, right? It's the lows of the lows, the highs of the highs when you get excited. That's a wrestling promo.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  I'm very affected by wrestling promos. I mean, I, you know, I, it was, it might have been, I might have liked the promos more than the matches. It was so big.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  When you were doing a lot of the rant-style videos, those to me felt like a heel promo.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  100%, 100%. Yeah, yeah, and to me, like, you don't even realize it when it's happening, and then you realize it, and then you're like, then you're almost trying to not be a caricature of yourself. But, yeah, those are, my early content is incredibly inspired by wrestling content.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  You put out a video titled, "Why Bret Hart is a Better Businessman Than You."

• 9:11Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Why is Bret Hart a better businessman than someone?

• 9:15Speaker 00

  You know, if I recall that article in that moment, you know, the excellence of execution. Execution, to me, is everything. You know, so many of you right now that are watching, you're really creative, you have ideas. You know, like, and you see other people, like, "Oh, I had that idea." Like, that's nice, but like, you've gotta actually do it. And, you know, everybody watching here, regardless, you know, I know Bret's popularity or like people's point of view on Bret, you know, these days is kind of like a little more mixed, but I'm a huge fan, my sister was a huge fan of Bret Hart. She thought he was super cute in those days, we watched a lot of wrestling. My sister's behind the camera, everyone. And, um, and...

• 9:57Speaker 00

  And he was unbelievable in the ring, we all know that. There's no one, no matter if you like Bret or the shit he talks about these days, everyone knows exactly what kind of wrestler he was. And I think that's business too, like for what you do for a living. You know wrestling, a lot of people know wrestling. You have gift of gab, a lot of people have gift of gab. Being disciplined, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, the ask, team setup, like it's all fucking execution. And so I wanted to write that article because I'm always looking for ways to integrate wrestling, if I can, and I do think people underestimate that execution's the punchline. All, the best ideas in the world have never been executed because the human that came up with it was unable to execute it.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  So two things on that. One, you can go back and watch any Bret Hart match versus anybody and you're like, damn, that's a great match that holds up to this day.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  He put everyone on.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  So good.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  He was like during the time when he was on, in the eighties when he was Tag Team Champion, a lot of the untelevised shows, like they would use Bret. If Vince thought he had something visually, like all the wrestlers we make fun of because they weren't great wrestlers, Ultimate Warrior, Hogan, like, you know, the early kids that Vince tried to put on in the eighties, how shows untelevised, he would use Bret.

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• 12:01Speaker 00

  You know how good of a wrestler you have to be to make someone else that doesn't know how to wrestle look good in front of everyone? That is an incredible skill. He's an Mount Rushmore, in my opinion, just on that, if you care about, not your emotions, but like, the craft. And I feel that way about entrepreneurship. A lot of people have a lot of opinions about entrepreneurship. A lot of people think they can do it, which I think is great. Everyone should try, in my opinion, to see if you are or you aren't. But when you get into depths of entrepreneurship... The reason I root for a lot of entrepreneurs in a world where I think a lot of people have envy and jealousy, is I know how hard it is. And I know that, like, this concept of deploying luck, like, "Oh, they got lucky." You might get serendipitous.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Timing might be on your side. But when people use "lucky," that means they're weaponizing and trying to take things away from you. You know, back to wrestling. Terry Taylor could have picked Mr. Perfect. He had first choice. He chose Red Rooster.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  What a reference.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  Like, "Listen, I'm gonna impress your crowd. Friends, I don't know what you think about me, whether you like me, don't like me, but one thing you're gonna leave this podcast with of like, 'Oh, fuck, Gary knows way more about wrestling than I thought he did.'" Terry Taylor had first pick. He decided to be Red Rooster. If he picks Mr. Perfect, maybe we talk about him today different. We all know Terry Taylor was a great wrestler. Is that luck? Is that intuition? That's just serendipity. It's how life works out. But I hate when people weaponize luck to make themselves feel better and try to shit on someone who's put in a lot of work, which I admire. And so, that's how I feel about Bret. Obviously Bret had the luxury of growing up in a family that was very deep in wrestling culture.

• 13:45Speaker 00

  And so, at a young age, you know, while Hogan was playing music in his teenage years, Bret was spending his thousandth hour in the ring. Of course, he's gonna be a better wrestler. I don't know, I think about those things a lot, and execution matters to me.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  So, the second point on that, when we're talking about execution. What do you think it is that keeps people from doing it? Is it they're comfortable where they are? Is it fear of the unknown?

• 14:09Speaker 00

  We could sit here for an hour and bring up the other ones.

• 14:15Speaker 00

  There's so much to it. The people fear judgment. So it's easier to stand on the sidelines and say everyone sucks than going on the field and sucking and having people tell you you suck.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  The man in the arena.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  Right? There's their childhood. They just, you know, like sometimes people are trained their whole life to be comfortable and like it's hard to get uncomfortable, right? 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. Self-awareness. Some people like, look, I, you know, I really wish I was a, I wish I was a wrestler. Like, you know, like, but like some people don't have the skill sets. You don't have the athletic ability or the mobility or like, you know, like there's just a million things that go into it. I think a lot of it is grounded in insecurity. I think a lot of it's grounded in a poor perspective.

• 15:13Speaker 00

  I think a lot of stuff I talk about, whether it's patience or accountability is grounded in these things that I think about, but there's a million different reasons why someone doesn't get in, but most of them are grounded in excuses. You know, podcasting, you put in the work, like, like there's a lot of people watching this show right now that actually know more about wrestling than you do.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 15:32Speaker 00

  It exists.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  But you've put in the work and like, so there's the outcome, you know, and you've put in the work to educate. I'm sure when you really got even more serious, you became more educated about wrestling. You, at night, you researched things. Like, I just think a lot of people also don't want it. You know, like, and I actually am going to throw you a curve ball right now. I don't think people should be judged based on their ambition. I think people should be judged on the authenticity, meaning if you just want simplicity, if you don't want it, if you think a better life is simple, which, first of all, you're going to find someone who is ambitious agreeing with you. I think more people should live more simple lives. I think a lot of people put themselves in a rat race that they shouldn't be a part

• 16:19Speaker 00

  of and they're trying to go up to social norms. I always think about the stay-at-home father. I just wonder how many people in their soul, right this second, want to be a stay-at-home father, but they don't think they can because we as society look down on that. Or someone who wants to live in a really, really, really rural town. And like have a low-cost life and enjoy their 5pm to 9pm. They want to literally play softball afterward, go to the bar, softball, and then watch wrestling, and shoot the shit with their buddies, and that's like, good. And I think that those people should feel more comfortable in their skin. Um, I don't know, I just think self-awareness. I think a lot of people don't go in because they don't want to go in,

• 17:04Speaker 00

  because they can't deal with the heat. Or they don't want to deal with the heat because the heat's not worth it. And I respect all of that, but that's the answer.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  I think there's a lot of people that try. They make a video, or they make a podcast, or they post a video on YouTube and it gets 7 views. And then the next video gets 8. And then the next video after that gets 4, and they go, "Well, this isn't for me."

• 17:26Speaker 00

  Well, a lot of people want to roll in the mud of like, "I tried, but I couldn't." And they want your sympathy. They're addicted to sympathy.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  A lot of people live their lives to paint a picture that they tried, but the system's fucked. So see, and like, take care of me. Financially, emotionally. And you know, that's a, that's a really tough place to be. Um, and I'm empathetic to that, but yeah, a lot of people are not willing to put in the work. I don't understand how people think, you know, it can be so easy. You know, I always use, "You're in good shape." Like, I look, I look at a lot of people, you know, a lot of real estate agents and, and physical, and, and...

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Personal trainers?

• 18:15Speaker 00

  Thank you. And personal trainers were two of the groups that first started popping up when I was making my content in 2006, 7, 8, 9. They were quick to jump in. And I was always fascinated by the personal trainers, because they would email me and be like, "Eh, like, I made 4 videos and nothing happened." I was like, "Dick, aren't you making content that says if you do 4 pushups, you're not gonna get fucking muscles?" Like, if anyone should understand that this is fucking work, and what is required, it's you. You're out there, you know, but then, like, you know, people are disciplined in some arenas and not in others. And we're all like that, and I'm not disciplined with what I eat. And I'm incredibly disciplined in how I work, and so everyone's different.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  But I remember you made a shift where like... Your appearance, like, working out and eating.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, 12 years ago. It was a huge shift. I, like, I was, I mean, I, this was something I remember vividly. I was flying back from Houston after a speech. I was 38 and a half. I always like to say half, because I'm like 6. 6 and a half. I was 38 and a half. I had my head on the pillow. My back has always been bothering me, this, that. I was like, like, I had plenty of fat in my, and I was just like, "This can't be good." Like, "This is not gonna work out." And, um, and I decided I wanted to get healthier. And I decided, before our plane took off, I decided, at 40, "I'm gonna get serious. I'm gonna," I think I had a, I had a breakthrough. I was like, "You know what? If I hire someone full-time, and I was at a point in my life where I could afford that now." I'm like, "I think that might work. I feel like I'm very accountable to others, not to myself.

• 19:49Speaker 00

  And I won't want, want to let my trainer down." And I was right. That was the insight, the breakthrough. And then halfway through the flight, I'm like, "Why am I waiting to 40? I'll start at 39." It was like, you know, May, June, it was around this time. I was like, my birthday's in November. I'm like, "I'm gonna start." And by the time I landed, I was like, "That's stupid. I'll start now." And I called Mike Vacanti, who is currently my trainer, who I had like 35 sessions with. He was the last person I tried to work out with. We had like 35 book sessions that I paid for, and I showed up to like 3. And I called him and said, "Hey." And he was busy, and I knew he was doing well, so I didn't think it was him. I was like, "Hey, do you know a kid like you that can like,

• 20:30Speaker 00

  get rid of all their clients, travel with me, and like, work for me, just on me?" And he's like, "What about me?" And I'm like, "You, you will?" He's like, "Yeah." And we met, and he was my trainer for 3 years, transformed my life. Then Jordan Sia came in, worked with me for 2, 3 years, and then Mike came back. And so like, for the last 12 years, I've had the same 2 trainers full-time, and it's transformed my life and fixed my, so many things. My QL issues, my, you know, soft tissue, and I have so much more strength, and I'm really grateful that I, and, and, and by the way, going through that, addressing something that doesn't come natural to me. Like, yesterday, when I was in Springfield, Massachusetts, for my son's basketball tournament, waking up early to go in the gym,

• 21:15Speaker 00

  like, I'd rather somebody come and rake my eyes out. That's how much I didn't want to do it. But the fact that I've gotten into a place in my life where I like, fought through and was disciplined enough to do the right thing. That's what makes me think people can do anything. Because there are very few things that I thought I would be able to accomplish in my life that didn't come natural to me. At the bottom of that list would have been working out every day, but I've done it. And it makes me feel that other people can break through their hardest challenges too.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  You just turned 50 last year.

• 21:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  How did that milestone change you, if at all?

• 21:49Speaker 00

  Didn't change me at all. Meant absolutely nothing.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'd love to make up something for you and your viewers. It like was a complete non-event emotionally.

• 22:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't really, you know, I can't even come up with something small like.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. It was, I didn't really think about it.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Do you like that way where like every day is another day? Or like every birthday is just, you know, it's another day?

• 22:16Speaker 00

  I don't love my birthday. It's really weird. It's, it's actually the thing that I have not figured out about myself. In a world where I like love being known and love to be about my stuff and me and this stuff, I get very weird about my birthday. I like can't wait for it to be over. Like, um, and I used to think it was because I was getting older because I love life so much and this and that. There's something that feels very unearned about the attention of your birthday. That is the latest theory I have, which is like, I don't feel like I earned anything. So why are we like doing anything about? I don't know. I don't know what it is. It's always, it's been going on now for 15 years or so.

• 22:55Speaker 00

  No, I live my life every day with gratitude, brother.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 22:58Speaker 00

  Like real talk, I love life, like I really worry about myself in my older age. Like I am concerned. I think about it quite a bit in the scheme of things of like, am I just so happy because I have so much life in front of me? And like when I'm 90, will I be like, fuck, like will I get sad? Like, I don't know, I hope not. And I, maybe I'm talking it out to prepare myself, but like, I love life so much that, you know, whether it's my birthday or not my birthday, it's like a great day and I'm grateful for it and, you know, I'm, I'm pretty joyful.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Do you have a number in mind that you wanna hope that you get to?

• 23:32Speaker 00

  Eight?

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  A hundred.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  That's it?

• 23:36Speaker 00

  I'd like more because I know modern medicine and all that, but like, like if you put a

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Pretty great.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  If you put a contract down that like I can get it, if I sign it, I would sign it. But I do think by the time I'm 150 years, that everyone who's listening has no idea how good of life quality people that can afford it, which I'll be one of, 100 can be. It's one of the reasons I started working out. One of the most interesting data points to me is life expectancy, based on how strong your legs are and your glutes and everything. Because so many people fall in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. And so like, I mean, no one wants to do a leg day less than me.

• 24:16Speaker 00

  And by the way, I'm so grateful that both my trainers kept me on the leg day thing the whole time because, like, you're pretty bulky. Like, do you have shitty legs? Or are you doing good?

• 24:25Speaker 01

  No, they're not.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  Alright. Like, the weirdest guy in the gym is the guy who's like super top-heavy with like no legs.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Chicken legs, yeah.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, but um, I would take 100. I expect like 80 to 90 to be high quality. Obviously, you have no control over like diseases and different things of that nature, but like, especially with AI now, like, we're really starting to figure out how to like attack a lot of things. And I'm incredibly optimistic. And I am curious with all the advancements. Like, am I part of the last generation that doesn't live to 150 or 200? Because we're getting close, which is, I'm gonna be really pissed. I'm gonna be super pissed if I'm like 94 and it's like, "Breaking news, everyone can live to 200 if you're under 70." I've actually been thinking about writing a movie about this. This is real, by the way.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:13Speaker 00

  I've been thinking about this movie plot where the world announces that if you're under a certain age, you can live forever. And the story is basically about the people that are older than that number revolting. And like, this really cool movie, but I'll work on it later.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Well, they say motion is lotion. Like, you move and you're, you know, always like, you move in your mind, you're always doing things, right? I feel like you'll be completely fine.

• 25:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then I'm also fine with knowing that like you can't control it, right? So many people are like, "Oh, I gotta do this, and this, and this." And they think that's gonna... And then like, we know of unlimited people who've done everything right. And unfortunately, the way their cells were structured, X, Y, Z happens, and it's unfortunate. I'm at peace with anything, but I have incredible hope and optimism to enjoy it because... Man, I think life is really, really good and I'm very aware that many don't. But I don't do the things that those people do, which is they get caught up in listening to people that peddle negativity and hate.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  There's two words that always, you always come back to. Gratitude's a huge one, it's a massive one for me as well. Empathy is another one. Which one of those do you think is your superpower?

• 26:23Speaker 00

  I think empathy more. And gratitude keeps me happy, but if you ask superpower, when you walk into any room and you can feel what other people are feeling, and I mean all of them, and then it almost becomes like you know what they're actually thinking. Like, do you know the reason I believe in like psychics and other random shit is because I know I have something? You know, like when you have extreme emotional intelligence, I don't think like I'm the greatest person gifted with the most weird traits, but I can tell you right now, in fact, I hate doing podcasts because I always interrupt people, and it's just because I really know what someone's gonna say. Like, it's this weird thing and so, I would say empathy, because I do think it's a very special gift. And empathy is different than compassion and sympathy. Some people are incredibly compassionate.

• 27:07Speaker 00

  You know, they feel compassion for someone else. They feel for you. They're like, "Oh, I'm so sad that happened to you", but they can't feel you. When you can feel, you become a good showman, you become a good salesman, of course I'm good at sales. I know what to say to sell you.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  And I mean if you just walked up right now and looked at my baseball cards, at 15 years old, within a second or two, I know what to say to you.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Where's that come from?

• 27:32Speaker 00

  Fuck me. You know? I have no idea.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  But it is really special. It's also, you know, it's funny, in my older age, it made me feel even better about myself because I was like, at some point, probably my 30s or maybe 40s, but I think 30s, I was like, "Wait a minute!" I'm such a good person. I have this gift that could fucking be really bad. I could like really do bad shit. I could like trick all of you into doing bad. Like I could really build a fucked up cult. And make everyone drink bad Kool-Aid. And so, you know, I'm very grateful that I have it. And I'm grateful that I was gifted good intent. And I feel like I know what to do with it. And that's my day to day.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  I feel like me and you together here is throwing a lot of positivity out there. But I've heard you talk about it as practical positivity. And I love that. It's not just positivity for the sake of positivity, right?

• 28:24Speaker 00

  I get so mad when people get like triggered by my positivity.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Toxic positivity, I've heard it thrown around.

• 28:30Speaker 00

  I'm like, fine, yes, give it to me. I'm the toxic. You know the Toxic Avenger? That real fucking weird green guy with the green face and his eyes up here? I'm like, I'll look like that if that's who I am. Like, I'm all about toxic positivity. I mean, it is such a ludicrous... Anyone who weaponizes that word is called toxically cynical. Like, why can't you be toxic positivity? But when you're cynical, dark person, you're keeping it real. Yeah, I don't buy it. I'm fine with it. Throw it at me. Like, I don't even know... The world is dramatically better when you're optimistic and positive.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  But you're practical about it. And I think that that's what makes it work.

• 29:17Speaker 00

  Yes, I don't think like, hey, everyone, just sit on your fucking ass and cross your fingers. And like, just hope for millions of dollars and it will drop it. Like, of course you have to be practical, because nothing happens without action. But yeah, you know, I choose to be practically optimistic about everything. I believe in it. And I don't... It's not a focus group of one. I, for a living, watch the world. And I can tell you, it's not super complicated. That like the people that go through that lens... I always say this, in life, you find what you're looking for. If I decided to look for negativity, I can sit here right now and rattle off unlimited things. You know why? Because there's unlimited news and social media content about everything negative in the world. My question is, are you looking for positivity?

• 30:02Speaker 00

  You know, like, if you're choosing to watch podcasts around extreme politics to the left and right, I have good news for you. You're going to be scared and unhappy. If you watch something that talks about the missing link and Bad News Brown, you know, and the Rock and Roll Express, like you'll smile and think back to your nostalgia and you'll be in a good mood.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  This is that Tony Robbins thing he talks about where it's like, "Look around the room, tell me all the green things that you see, right? Look at all the green things. Close your eyes, now tell me all the blue things you saw."

• 30:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course. Life is what you're looking for.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:36Speaker 00

  And like, if you're looking for negativity that was in your DNA, that was in your parenting, that was in your circumstances, that was in the luck of the draw, but you're able to get out of it. And I think, once you become accountable and realize you're capable. Like, I always ask this, I'm like, "At what age are you now a grown-up? Like, at what age is it no longer everyone else's fault? Is it 18? Is it 22? Is it 25? Is it 30? Is it 35? Like, at what age? Because it's gotta be some age. I think.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  It's funny, because, yeah, because you legally become an adult at 18, but really, uh, figured anything out?

• 31:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, like, at 18, you could literally go to a foreign country and fight a war, but like, we have unlimited 35-year-olds running around, spending 100% of their time crying about mommy and daddy. You know, and I get it, and like, some people have some incredibly challenging circumstances. The problem is, is like, everyone else has problems too. And so, like, you know, what are you trying to do? Like, too many people want to just lay in their mud. They want to re-up their mud. They want to re-up their mud. You know, and I get it, because people are hurt and they didn't have the emotional strength. It's just like, you know, "I was not raised, nor did I have the DNA to go to the gym."

• 31:59Speaker 00

  And I really, really worked at it mentally for eight years, before it finally tipped and it became a habit. And that's a lightweight, not important thing, but for many people, I always say this, if anyone in the world figured out your circumstance, then you can too. If anyone with a drug-infested father and a mom that ran away on the second day, got to a place where they worked through it, and got to a productive, solid place, well, then you can too in that extremely challenging circumstance. And I don't know why someone wouldn't choose hope. I don't understand why, "Let me just stay in this dark place in perpetuity." And I know why, because it's hard. It's fucking hard, but like, everything good is hard.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  Everything good is hard.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. You went all in on social media and YouTube way before anybody saw it really happening. What made you make that decision?

• 32:56Speaker 00

  I'm, you know, back to extreme empathy, I have a very good read on what people are gonna do before they know it. That's what I'm good at.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're really good at reading trends.

• 33:04Speaker 00

  It's because I put in the work to pay attention and it comes natural to me. You know, some people can sing, some people can throw a baseball, some people can cook, like, I can, I can understand consumer trends and then I put in work, like, like, it's not like, again, I just sit there, like, I do the reading, I do the research, I pay attention, and, um, it was very obvious to me that YouTube was gonna hit. I just kinda knew, like, it wasn't complicated, even though there was no video platform on the internet, people watched unlimited television. I was like, what's the fucking difference? It's just video. And so I'm very good at understanding things that are historically true, that Substack, Hannah's here in the background, like, she was early on it, like, of course it was, like, people read the,

• 33:49Speaker 00

  people always ask me, Gary, why do you write books? You're such a digital guy, I'm like, because people read them.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Isn't it interesting that you write books but don't read books?

• 33:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you know, there's some of the best head coaches of all time didn't play the sport. Like, I don't think I need to read books to be able to write books that are commercially successful.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  But I'm saying the inverse of that, it's amazing that you've written so many books that have inspired so many people, and you're like, I'm just not really a reader.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  Well, because I don't have reading comprehension. Like, when, like, when you completely waste your time reading anything, I mean, Hanako from the V Friends team just texted me something, it was three sentences, I was walking with my sister just now, and I was like, I don't understand. I called her, like, and I was laughing because I thought about it while I was calling, I'm like, 99.9% of people would understand this and what's like, and in fact, it saves, reading saves people a lot of time. You know, I have to call a lot of five-minute meetings because I don't understand what you wrote in this paragraph. You know, like, it's just not how my brain works and I'm comfortable with that.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  I started my YouTube channel, my first YouTube channel. Youtube channel in 2007 because I was working on TV. I was interviewing some of the biggest stars on the planet. And I'm like, man, unless you're watching TV in this city on this day at this exact time, you're never going to see my interview with whoever it is. So I went behind my boss's back. I created a Youtube channel under some other like name. And I started posting my interviews on there because I'm like, if you're a fan of this celebrity, this actor, this band, you're going to want to find out about all these things they said in this interview.

• 35:14Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  And that was like early, early in the days of Youtube.

• 35:18Speaker 00

  Youtube was obvious to me. It took off so quickly. Um, I remember when it sold for two, 1.7 billion dollars.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  And people were like, that's way too much money. That's crazy.

• 35:29Speaker 00

  For everybody who's listening, now everyone's a billionaire. Like, that was like me saying that something just sold for 78 trillion dollars. It was such a big number. And it really, that sale changed my career because I read all about it. In one of the articles, it said angel investor Ron Conway was set to make XYZ amount of money. I had never heard that term. I Googled what an angel investor was and decided that day in the liquor store that I was going to become an angel investor. And within a year, I invested in Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 36:00Speaker 00

  So the Youtube sale to, was, Youtube was massive in my career. Not only did it change the course of my life with Wine Library TV, but its sale to Google and the articles written about it were the inspiration to why I wanted to become an investor.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  And I think the stat now is like, whatever it sold for, they now make in like four days or something.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. It's like, it's one of the great acquisitions of all time.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  What's been your best investment ever?

• 36:25Speaker 00

  Facebook.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Like, how early were you in on Facebook?

• 36:29Speaker 00

  Early. I mean, probably two years before it's, I mean, not in the angel round, but I invested in 07. It was years before it went public.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Wow, yeah.

• 36:39Speaker 00

  And I never sold a share.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Still to this day?

• 36:42Speaker 00

  Still to this day.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  I promised myself when I invested in it that I would hold on to it until Mark was no longer there. Because I just knew he would, the thing I knew about Mark early on was a skill that I have, which is he would adapt to the consumer behavior. And he's, he's absolutely proven that to be true. And that was a very good hypothesis of mine. A lot of my friends who were early at Facebook, it opened at $42 a share. When you work at a company, everybody pre-IPO, you can't sell your stock for the first six months usually. The six-month mark of Facebook, the stock went down from forty-two to nineteen dollars. Many of my friends sold at nineteen because they were all in their twenties and thirties and they had a lot more than I had.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  They were employees, even though I invested and, but I mean, it's, I mean, that's six hundred dollars a share now. It's thirty X and when you sold, you know, fifty million dollars worth of stock, you know, and it changed your life as a thirty-year-old, that was amazing.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  Except now it's, you know, fifteen years later, you're like, wait, that's one point five billion. It starts to get really scary when you think about it.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  You said you were a fan of four New York teams growing up, Jets, Rangers, Yankees and Knicks.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  And I heard you say that you stopped being a Rangers fan after they won the cup in nineteen ninety-four.

• 37:57Speaker 00

  That's correct.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  And then you stopped being a Yankees fan in ninety-six after they won the World Series.

• 38:01Speaker 00

  That is also true.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  I know you were a hardcore Jets fan.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  If the Jets somehow get good, will you stop being a Jets fan if they win the Super Bowl?

• 38:12Speaker 00

  Well, before we go to the Jets, the second we're filming this is the Monday after the Knicks have found out they're playing Cleveland. So the Knicks are about to play Cleveland in the Eastern Conference Finals. There's a really nice chance that the Knicks will win this series.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Did you see Dan Housen curse them, then uncurse them? This is a big reason why the, why the Knicks are winning.

• 38:31Speaker 00

  Yes, I did see that.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  It's Dan Housen.

• 38:33Speaker 00

  You know, and I do think the Spurs are the only team that can beat the, I don't, I currently sit and think the Thunder would be too tough of a matchup for the Knicks in the finals. But I think the Spurs match up well with them and I think Knicks match up well with the Spurs. Plus, game three of the NBA Finals, for some unknown reason, I am going to San Antonio for a public speech and it's the first time I'll ever be in San Antonio, which is interesting, which now I've decided, and by the way, that's game three of the NBA Finals, which means the Spurs would be playing the Knicks in New York and I'd be missing the game. I've now decided that's a sign. And that the Spurs are gonna stun the Thunder and the Knicks are gonna make it. So, the Jets are on a planet by themselves.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:14Speaker 00

  Because they're, they're a different thing for me. The answer is, I don't know, and because football is on Sundays and only 17 games, probably soon to be 18, my intuition, if I'm answering honestly, is that I would continue to root for them and be in it, with a very different energy.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Look, I'm a Browns fan.

• 39:32Speaker 00

  Yes, hard.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  So, yes, just as hard as being a Jets fan.

• 39:36Speaker 00

  The Knicks is the interesting one, and I would really like to find out here in the next six weeks.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Do you still have aspirations to buy the Jets one day?

• 39:45Speaker 00

  Forever. I mean, it's been there forever. It's been...

• 39:48Speaker 01

  And is that just a pie in the sky goal that seems unachievable, so you'll just keep shooting at it?

• 39:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, at some level, I think later in my life, you know, at the time when I started thinking about it, when I was a young kid, it was silly. I don't even know where it really came from. I don't know how I thought it. As I, you know, and then my twenties and thirties, it, it was, owning a sports team wasn't what it is today. Like, the numbers were still achievable-ish. In the last 15 years, 10 years, it's really changed. It's become like, the most sought-after thing.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like a status quo.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, which has made it challenging, because they've gotten much more expensive.

• 40:30Speaker 00

  You know, it's kind of like, you know how like, little kids have like, a favorite doll or blanket, and they're like, they'll like, take it to college? I think at some level with my entrepreneurial journey, like, this like, little, I'm gonna buy the Jets is almost like that little baby blanket. Like, it's been part of this whole journey with me. When I was selling baseball cards, I was like, one day I'm gonna open all 100 baseball card stores and buy the Jets. Like, it's just, it's a very warm, personal, meaningful thing to me. And it's obviously changed in culture. When I used to say it, it didn't seem like a big deal. Like, like, yeah, it was a lot of money, but it was like, oh, that's interesting. Now it's different in culture, but it's not different to me.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Does the owner of the Jets know that you wanna buy the Jets?

• 41:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, sure. No, because I'm not in a position to buy it, and I think I wouldn't embarrass myself to have that conversation. You know, I'll have it when I really can do it. And the Johnson family has no interest in selling, it seems, which is good for me because I need way more time to amass the wealth to get there. And so that's where we're at.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  You posted a video recently on social media that I loved so much. And it's this woman coming up to you saying, "I know one day I'm gonna be somebody."

• 41:48Speaker 01

  And you said, "Please, look at my face. You're somebody now."

• 41:52Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Why do you think that hits so hard?

• 41:56Speaker 00

  It's something I believe in so much. And I believe it hits so hard because the world is really confused right now. We have never been more materialistic. We have never been more status symbol. We've never been more... How many followers you have, how much money you have, what things you have to justify who you are. We've never been more detached from simplicity, you know? And I'm really sad about that. And I want to be a beacon of changing the conversation. I'm aware that I'm successful and things of that nature, but it's not my identity. It's not how I get my validation.

• 42:41Speaker 00

  I like being a good entrepreneur, but I don't think it's what makes me me. And, you know, it was a very simple interaction. She actually snuck out. It was really funny where that was filmed. It's what's fun about vlogging. She snuck out. I was giving a talk. I was just about to go in the car. She snuck out, and the bodyguards wanted to stop her. And I was like, "No, no, let her come." And we had this moment, and I knew it when it happened. Like, I got in the car. I'm like, "Ooh, that might be good." Because I felt it, but it was very natural, and it's what I believe. And I think it hits so hard because it's the truth, and right now everyone's confused.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Instead of people taking their validation from the amount of followers that they have, or the amount of money they make, or the house they live in, or the car they drive, should that validation be coming from being a great father, being a great friend, being a great mother, being whatever it happens to be? Is that what people should be looking at?

• 43:34Speaker 00

  All of those sounded great.

• 43:37Speaker 00

  Being a nice neighbor, contributing to another human being. I mean, we can sit here for an hour and bring up a million things that we all think are good attributes of a human being.

• 43:48Speaker 00

  Yes, to any of the things you said and many others.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  You had another one that hit because I'm a fairly new father.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, congrats.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Thank you. My daughter's three, my son is about a year and a half. And this woman was talking to you about how do you shield your kids from the dangers of the internet?

• 44:06Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  And you said the number one most important thing is you gotta build their self-esteem.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  How do you do that?

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• 44:54Speaker 00

  You know, I think everyone's different. You know, I have two children, they're different. I'm one of three. We're all different. You know, I think there's, it's a very nuanced question, but I can tell you, let's first go to the first part. Parents try to focus on the sink, not the well. You can't be there with your kids every time. You're not gonna be at that party where people pull out cocaine for the first time. You're not gonna be there where their drunk buddy is like, "I'll drive", and you need them to step up and say no. You can't be there when everyone's jumping off a cliff, you know, on a trip and it's kinda dangerous and like they decide yes or no. Like, you can't be there. You know, you know, like this whole world we live in now, like,

• 45:38Speaker 00

  you know, I can't get over the fact that there are like 27-year-old men walking around Earth that have their parents following them on the phone. And you have moms like calling 27-year-old men on Wednesday night being like, "Honey, you should go back home. Why are you out?" Like, you can't parent forever. And so the only thing you can do is instill the characteristics that will allow them to make good decisions. So what I was telling that woman, it was in Romania, I'll remember that moment forever too. I was like, "Listen, you, you can block their phone, and you know this. You were a teenager once. When we're all teenagers, anything our parents tell us we can't makes you want it more." Right? And so, you know, I knew unlimited kids from my high school and then in college,

• 46:23Speaker 00

  who were really the byproduct of strict parents, and they literally went to college, and within the first 30 days, fucking did drugs, alcohol, and hoarded up like no one's fucking business because it was all suppressed. And then you had parents, and my sister and I didn't grow up with this, or my brother, like, my parent mom was very like, "No alcohol, this and that", but then we had friends, and we would always marvel about it, where like, they would like, let their kids drink senior year of high school, as long as it was in their home, and a lot of, I watched a lot of those kids have much better relationships with alcohol and things of that nature, and so, you gotta find a fine line.

• 47:00Speaker 00

  But I think it is simplicity. I think it is real, you know, I think one thing that parents should watch out for is shaming anything. You know, like, I think that becomes something you want to pay attention to. I also think what you're cheering for amongst your kid, like, if the number one thing you're clapping for, and giving trophies to your kids for, is getting straight A's, I have bad news. That's a fucking bad formula. Because you're telling your child to conform to a subjective machine every three months, which is why so many people go into companies and just work for their review, like, you've gotta be more well-rounded than one-dimensional. If you only cheer for your kid,

• 47:45Speaker 00

  the only thing you tell your kid, the only thing you tell your kid about positive reinforcement is how good they are at a sport, and then they eventually, you know, like, 99.999% of people do not make it to the NBA, well, what is that kid left with? So I think it's important to think about what you cheer, what you shame. And I think, the other thing is, I think you gotta tell your kids the truth. You know, like, there's an age where your child starts to know that you're full of shit. And I think you have to be very thoughtful about that. And that comes to mind, but listen, it's the hardest job on earth. Everybody, everybody, everybody. No matter how, I talk about this all the time, how much I admire my mom,

• 48:31Speaker 00

  I can rattle off things she didn't do. Like, every kid is gonna play Monday morning quarterback with their parents. You just wanna get them into a place where they're strong enough to be accountable and say, "Okay, my mom and dad did this wrong, I'm gonna do better." And then you wanna find balance, because I think right now we have a parenting generation that overcorrected for what their parents did and went too far the other route. And it's like, listen, it's really hard to find the middle.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  We've talked about a few of your videos that went viral, you've had many of them. Do you think that one piece of content has the ability to change someone's life slash career?

• 49:06Speaker 00

  Of course. That's what the whole world's about. That's everyone's life, you know? There's seven of us in this room and there'll be millions that watch us over the next 50 years. Every one of us have been affected by someone else's words. You know how insane that is?

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  That's why I keep yapping.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  I've heard you say that like, one sentence from a podcast, boom, can change somebody's life.

• 49:28Speaker 00

  I'm literally looking at the five people behind the camera now. Whether it's your grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, brother, sister, best friend, or someone you admire, every one of you right now can, everyone who's watching can recall something right now that was said that had an impact on them. Why do, what did Gandhi or Martin Luther King or any of the, like, you know, like, what are these people? It was words, brother. Fucking words matter. Because you changed someone's perspective. By the way, whether pro or con.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 50:00Speaker 00

  This is why words are dangerous, too. There are a lot of people, right now, we're in a time in society where unfortunately a lot of people's lives are gonna be much shittier because they decided to believe someone who's spewing hate.

• 50:13Speaker 00

  Their whole life will be shittier. Like, if they grew up 40 years earlier and nobody was talking that jargon, they would've lived a different life. But right now, they're sitting in their head mad at someone they've never met because someone put something in their mind that they believed.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  So I just choose to go the other side and try to make it positive because life is positive if you decide it's positive.

• 50:33Speaker 01

  What was the sentence that changed your life?

• 50:36Speaker 00

  You know, that's a good question. I would say, um, I wanna really give this a real thought.

• 50:45Speaker 00

  You know, I'm gonna give you a real answer. And it's blurry because it was reinforced. But my mother, early on in my life, and again, I probably am saying this because my sister's here with me. She rarely travels with me, but like, I very much remember, as a child, my mom telling me like, "I was responsible for my sister." Like that, you know, it was just very, very early. Like, my mom was instilling a lot of things into me, like, "You're the example. You're in charge if something happens."

• 51:17Speaker 01

  How long were you there?

• 51:18Speaker 00

  Three and a half years. And it happened at a very young age. And listen, my mom was the byproduct of very, very challenging circumstances. And I've said this publicly now for a while. I've come to realize my childhood was shaped by my fear that my parents were gonna die. My mom lost her mom at five, my dad lost his dad at 15. And it was the soundtrack of my youth. I was scared of it. You know, there was one time, you know, I'm so glad smartphones exist. I really wish I grew up in that era, because I know how everyone shits on it. Let me tell you right now, for all the shitting on smartphones, the most, one of the most traumatic events of my life was when I was babysitting my brother and sister,

• 52:00Speaker 00

  when I was probably 13 or 14, maybe 15, but 14, I think. And my mom went somewhere, and there was a massive accident on the highway that made her super late. And I forced my sister to go on the porch with me and pray. I don't know why we had to do it outside, but like, think about that level of fear. That is not a normal child's thinking. Maybe, if your mom's like an hour late and whatever, but like, I really thought it was over. And like, it was just such a current, in fact, I think my life is grounded on gratitude in my adulthood, because I made it to 18 and they were both there, and they're still here, thank God, and...

• 52:41Speaker 00

  But yes, I would say the conversations I had with my mother when I was six, seven, eight, nine, of like, "You're the oldest, you're the..." you know, shaped me quite a bit.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  I'm gonna bring it back around to wrestling here.

• 52:56Speaker 00

  Thank God.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  You were at WrestleMania 35.

• 52:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  I was at WrestleMania 35.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  It was like the longest WrestleMania ever. Which WrestleManias have you been to?

• 53:05Speaker 00

  The first WrestleMania I went to, and I need everybody right now, because this is a wrestling crew, to go back if you have this footage. I went to the... What's the WrestleMania that Mike Tyson in Boston? Do you know what number that is?

• 53:16Speaker 01

  It was 14, I think.

• 53:19Speaker 00

  So, that was the first WrestleMania I went to. Yeah, take a look.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's just...

• 53:23Speaker 00

  It was in Boston, it was in 1998.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  WrestleMania 14.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  Thank you. So that's the first WrestleMania. During the dumpster tag team match, iconic. Everybody, if you go to the dumpster tag team match, this is the era of like, everyone has a sign. It's in Boston. The Jets just stole Curtis Martin from the Patriots, and I get a Curtis Martin Jets jersey, and I bring it to the arena, and I had a sign that said "Jets", like a Jets sign. And during the dumpster match, I walked down and I hang it up there, and I'm literally in WrestleMania with my Jets sign in the aisle. Please, someone clip that and post it on social. I'd like to have it.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  Troy will be all over this.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  So, that was the first WrestleMania I've been to. Then I was one at the Meadowlands in 18 or 19, right? And then I was in Philly.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  35, yeah.

• 54:10Speaker 00

  And that's 35.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  40.

• 54:12Speaker 00

  Yep, and then Philly was amazing.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  WrestleMania 40, oh my gosh. Like, that's gonna be the benchmark for people who are relatively new wrestling fans.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  And they got to see WrestleMania 40 when they're two, three, four, five years into being a wrestling fan. They're gonna think that every WrestleMania needs to be that good.

• 54:29Speaker 00

  So...

• 54:29Speaker 01

  It should.

• 54:30Speaker 00

  I think I've been to three or four. I wish I'd been to more, but like, I tend to work and I'm busy, but I, um... WrestleMania 4 is like...

• 54:40Speaker 00

  My life. It's one of the best days of my life. When Macho Man wins that title, it's like, even right now, the chemicals are going through my body. Like, when Hogan, and, you know, I, you know, it was right around the time where I kind of like, was like, "Okay, this is like, fake-ish, maybe." Like, you know, you're still in that, or, you know, this is a long time ago. I could feel he was gonna win it, which also reared its head the next year where I feared he was gonna lose it to Hogan in WrestleMania 5. I'm still mad at Hogan for that. May he rest in peace. Um, Macho Man's the one person I regret not meeting in my life. Yeah, when he died, I was at the, I felt like I was gonna meet anyone and everyone I ever wanted to.

• 55:24Speaker 00

  I always believed in myself. I knew my life was gonna be a certain way. That one really hurt. That one really hurt. He was such a big deal for me.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  Who's on your wrestling Mount Rushmore?

• 55:37Speaker 00

  Damn, I should've been more prepared for this. This is such the cliche question. I don't know how this like, wasn't in my, Macho Man, uh, uh, mine, or who I think the four most important wrestlers are of all time?

• 55:46Speaker 01

  It's yours. You're the one sitting across from me.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  My favorite, my, my Mount Rushmore, I'm gonna go with the Mount Rushmore, cuz I don't even know if I, I don't really, I'm pretty funny, like, I love Macho Man, and I gave Y2K some, you know, excuse me, I gave Jericho some love, but like, after that, it's, like, I loved the British Bulldogs. Like, the British Bulldogs as a tag team was very big for me. Um,

• 56:12Speaker 00

  my Mount Rushmore is Barry Horowitz, Steve Lombardi,

• 56:16Speaker 01

  You're going with all the, all the Joppers.

• 56:19Speaker 00

  Iron Mike Sharp.

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Enhancement guys.

• 56:23Speaker 00

  Those guys deserved a lot of credit. They built up the guys, but I would say, um,

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Brooklyn Brawler was a fantastic guest on my show.

• 56:30Speaker 00

  I'm sure. He's awesome. Um, I think the Mount Rushmore of wrestling is Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, and...

• 56:43Speaker 00

  I gotta give one to the Attitude Era. I will go with, believe it or not, I'm gonna go with The Undertaker, actually. I know Rock and Austin, and Bret Hart and Michaels.

• 56:57Speaker 00

  But I think those, I think, I don't think people understand, Andre the Giant carried wrestling through the 70s.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  Cause he was the attraction.

• 57:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, and remember, it was regional, and when he would go, like, I just think he's just all time. I mean, he just, I, I'm devastated, and I watch a lot of clips where people do their Mount Rushmore. Andre should be in everyone, and Hogan changed everything.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, he made it mainstream.

• 57:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then Flair, when you say Flair, you're also giving love to Michaels, and Bret Hart, and Ricky Steamboat, like, great wrestler, he was a great wrestler. And then obviously, pop culture, and like, you know, I mean, the guy literally used to cut promos, and be like, "We're gonna be in Atl-" like, he would literally cut wrestling promos to tell all the groupie girls where they were gonna be that night. They're like, "We're gonna be in Atlanta tonight at 8:30 in the-" like, literally. And, and when I was growing up, WCW, you know, NWA, like, that was grown-up shit, whereas WWF was for the kids. So like, as I was getting older, 12, 13, I'm like, "Ooh, that's a little-" you know?

• 58:05Speaker 00

  And then, so I, I don't know how Andre and Hogan, and again, I love Macho Man 10,000 times more than both of them combined, but I don't know if we're actually gonna do the actual debate of Mount Rushmore, how you can't understand that those two have to be there. And then Flair, look, Harley Race, I think is like, really lost in history. Like, what a massively important champion he was. And then it becomes regional, right? Like, if you grew up in Texas, and you don't say one of the Von Ericks, you're a bad person. And then if you grew up, right, and if you're from the Midwest and Minnesota-

• 58:41Speaker 01

  You don't immediately say Bret Hart's the greatest.

• 58:43Speaker 00

  Of course, and he deserves it, and like, and Gagne's, you know, and that whole, you know, but... And then I start thinking about weird things, like, you know, like-

• 58:56Speaker 00

  Gorilla Monsoon, like, let me give you some weird, now I'm just getting nerdy. Like, our generation, Gorilla Monsoon was the announcer, Ross, all these guys now, but, like, Gorilla Monsoon was him and Jesse Ventura and McMahon would get in there. By the way, when I got older and was like, "Fucking, what a genius Vince McMahon is." Not only would he create the league, but then he was the announcer? So he could tell you what the fuck you needed to think. He was narrat— I told my brother AJ when we started VaynerMedia, he's like, literally, he asked me, he's like, "Any advice?" I'll never forget, it was day one. Even though we hung out every day and worked together, it was kind of day one of our company. And he said, "Any advice in marketing?" And I said, "Just tell America what to think, and it will work." Which has really been weird to see play out in politics, but it's what Vince did.

• 59:41Speaker 00

  He's like, "This guy's really scary." I'm like, "Ooh, this guy's really scary." And that's what he wanted us to think. But there's, you know, superstar Billy Graham, Bruno, that whole crew, Ivan Koloff. You know, then you go into WCW, you go to the Sting, and there's just some really big people that deserve a lot of credit, and it's so fun to debate this. But Andre and Hogan, I don't know how you don't have them, and I would say Flair is right there, and then I think it gets blurry. So many people younger than me are gonna go Austin and The Rock and under—I— The reason I put Undertaker in there is I think Undertaker's continuity. Undertaker's the bridge. Right, Tuesday in Texas, right? Tuesday in Texas with Hogan, all the way through being like so important during the

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  Attitude Era, and then even post, right? You know, Undertaker's there, and Tuesday in Texas with Hogan, and he's there after Austin and Rock. And I think that longevity, and at the level, and then even like losing to Lesnar in Wrestle— Like, he did everything right.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  He's there till the Boneyard match in 2020, WrestleMania 36. Yeah, he's there through all of the important—

• 1:00:49Speaker 00

  I think that, I think that Undertaker, I actually think will, you know, I think about this a lot, politicians, businessmen and women, people in pop culture, entrepreneurs. I, I actually think I live my life this way. I think some people get even more flowers after they're gone, and get more understood. I think Undertaker will continue over time.

• 1:01:14Speaker 00

  Get more and more credit because when someone's watching this long after we're gone and they haven't seen anyone, because we're all recency bias. Like for me, it's my guys. Like I think Big John Stud matters.

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  That's because nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

• 1:01:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you also saw it. I got to see Big John Stud move around the ring when he was still healthy as a massive dude. You know, that to me is like the way that your era saw Big Show and like, how does that guy be so athletic? I mean, Big Show fucking did a dropkick off the top rope. And I think that's crazy to me, how athletic, but like you get the, you know, this is back to the basketball argument. The amount of kids that argue Magic and Bird and Michael Jordan and Will Chamberlain and Kareem, but never watch them play and watch some highlights. Everybody looks great in their highlights. What about in their day-to-day mundane? And so, I don't know, I think Undertaker is gonna get a lot of love as like time goes on.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Who do you think is a completely underrated wrestler?

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  Wrestler?

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:16Speaker 00

  Macho Man Randy Savage. I'll tell you why, because as a wrestler, I will say right now that if you do not think that Ricky the Dragon Steamboat, Macho Man Randy Savage, WrestleMania 3 is not a top 2, 3, 4 match of all time, I have bad news for you. And this is just with love, you do not know what the fuck wrestling's about.

• 1:02:38Speaker 00

  I really believe this.

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  It's hard to argue with that, that's such a good match, way out of its time.

• 1:02:42Speaker 00

  Macho Man was, do you know how I think he is more charismatic than Bret Hart?

• 1:02:50Speaker 00

  I, you know, I think about Shawn Michaels as Macho Man a lot, like a modern Macho Man, like as a wrestler, you know?

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  He said that he was inspired, his, the stuff he wore to the ring was inspired by Macho Man.

• 1:03:03Speaker 00

  I didn't know that.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:04Speaker 00

  It's funny, just being a fan, but not as deep as like some of the people watching or you, like I feel Shawn Michaels a lot in Macho Man, because it's a great wrestler and a great showman. Bret was a different, Bret was cool and like his promos were a certain way. Macho Man could like Macho Man became famous, right? Like Slim Jim commercials, he'd do, he would do the Arsenio Hall, like he was famous. And he was a technically strong wrestler.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  And he can work as a babyface, he can work great as a heel.

• 1:03:36Speaker 00

  But that's just me giving him matcha man flowers, let me give you some good ones. I think, I do think Kurt Hennig is underrated.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  Crazy to think he never won a title in a major company, a world title in a major company.

• 1:03:47Speaker 00

  He, he was very underrated.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  I think, um, um, you know, you know who I think was underrated? I think Big Boss Man was underrated. I think like, like there were some heels that came along that really mattered. I was a big fan of Bad News Brown. Abdullah the Butcher.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:09Speaker 00

  I think Abdullah the Butcher deserves more credit for what he represented. Similar to Andre, he was traveling. Um, Rick Rude. I think Rick Rude's underrated.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:19Speaker 00

  I think Rick Rude, first of all, his physique was so ahead of its time.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:23Speaker 00

  Um, and just the way he healed, when he used to have like the, those, the tights with the faces, I think. And he was really, really strong down in, you know, when he was wrestling Ultimate Warrior, when the Ultimate Warrior was Dingo Warrior. Prior to them both coming.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:37Speaker 00

  Dibiyasi. I think, I think Ted is a little bit underrated, um, in a real way. Davy Boy Smith.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  Oh, so good.

• 1:04:49Speaker 00

  I think is, doesn't have the flowers he deserves for, I mean, the British Bulldogs is, was such an important tag team. Um, you know, so some of those guys stand out. I thought Orndorf deserves a little more credit. He was really instrumental in those early days. Yeah. Again, physique, pile driver, executed it well. Did, you know, that's a tough move. People get hurt, as you know, from that move. And I thought he did that well. Um, you know, some people.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  Some good ones. What's your all-time favorite match?

• 1:05:23Speaker 00

  Right, I already said it, no question. I mean, even though it devastated, I cried like a baby. I still hate George the Animal Steel. I still hate George the Animal Steel. And he had a green tongue and I'm a huge Jets fan. So I liked him right away because he had a green tongue and that associated it. Um, what a great wrestler he was, by the way.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  So good.

• 1:05:41Speaker 00

  And his longevity, you know? Uh, that's my favorite match. I would also say that, um.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  Wait, which one?

• 1:05:47Speaker 00

  WrestleMania 3, Steamboat, you know, that is, that is the match. Um.

• 1:05:55Speaker 00

  You know who I liked a lot? It's a little blurry for me because it was my brother's era. And AJ had a funny one, he's 11 years younger to me. You're 43?

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:04Speaker 00

  He's 39, and he was into it early because of me. So he was like, before the Attitude Era, he was in that middle thing.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Sure, there were some rough years there.

• 1:06:13Speaker 00

  Duke the Dumpster Drosy, and Haku, like, Repo Man. Who was Demolition, right?

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  Who was also...

• 1:06:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, Axe.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:23Speaker 00

  And Tatanka.

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:25Speaker 00

  And like, they tried all these weird guys, you know.

• 1:06:29Speaker 01

  Well, super character-based, right?

• 1:06:30Speaker 00

  Super character-based.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  And then WCW...

• 1:06:32Speaker 00

  Well, because Doink was so big.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:06:34Speaker 00

  Doink the Clown.

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  Then WCW started doing some stuff that was a little more reality-based than the NWO, and I think WWF went, "Oh."

• 1:06:42Speaker 00

  Well, NWO, as you know, was a story plot from Japan.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:47Speaker 00

  And that was just a good... you know, Bishop, who I love, just did a great job of taking something that worked elsewhere and made it his own. That is the greatest storyline of our last 50 years.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  Oh, it's so good. So no one expected Hogan. Even though it was like, "Whose side is he on?" As he was walking out, it's like, "What do you mean, whose side is he on?"

• 1:07:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, Hogan, you know, the documentary shed some light on this recently, like, Hogan felt the heat, he knew it was time, like, makes sense, it always happens. But, by the way, it's how I root for things. Like, I love a good underdog. Golden State Warriors sucked when I was a kid. So when they were coming up with Steph and Klay, I was rooting for them.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:26Speaker 00

  By the time they won their second championship, I was rooting fully against them. You know, it's just kind of like how, when you don't care, you'll always gravitate towards the underdog.

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Do you feel like that's happened in your career? People were rooting for you, and then you became popular, famous?

• 1:07:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm sure.

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  That people went, "Oh, hmm."

• 1:07:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think...

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  I don't know if I can relate anymore.

• 1:07:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think, I think that's right. I think there's some truth to that, you know. I mean, I think it's just natural, right? Like, we always love a good Britney's back bitch, right? Like, we'll build up Britney, then we'll tear her down, and then we just can't wait for Britney to come back. It's, the general public will do that. We, in America, we will cheer for her to rise, and then when it gets Taylor Swift, right? Like, everyone cheered, then it gets to the White Heat, and we're like, "Fuck that, tear down." And then after a little while, we're like, "No, no, no, bring it back." I mean, it's just what we do in pop culture. Boy bands.

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:15Speaker 00

  We love the Backstreet Boys. Then we're like, "They're corny." And now we're like, "Yay, they're back." You know, like, it's just what we do in society. So, yeah, I think the more notoriety, the more awareness, fame you have, it comes along with the territory. You know, like, people love their band when no one knows it, then the band gets big, and then they shit on it. Like, you know, "Oh, well, I knew Green Day when they were playing a thousand people, and now that they're playing stadiums, like, fuck you." Like, it's just, it's just what we do. Can we talk more nerd wrestling stuff?

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  You have a lot of wrestling-

• 1:08:43Speaker 00

  We haven't talked about Jake the Snake Roberts yet.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 1:08:45Speaker 00

  The missing link. I've got, like, spitting the Killer Khan. Like, I got some stuff that I want to get off my chest here.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  You have a lot of great wrestling collectibles that we see in the background in your office. A lot of LJN. You've got the Winged Eagle cut in half.

• 1:08:58Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  Why is it cut in half?

• 1:08:59Speaker 00

  There was a, uh, um, what is it? What is the name of their channel? A really great YouTube channel. A father and son, will it cut?

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  Oh, they were looking on the inside of it?

• 1:09:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're the best. They did that for me.

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:09:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:11Speaker 01

  Do you have a wrestling piece of memorabilia or collectible that you're super proud of?

• 1:09:17Speaker 00

  I just bought it.

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:09:20Speaker 00

  I just bought a, so LJNs are my favorite collectible. Maybe, period.

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  That's a huge-

• 1:09:24Speaker 00

  And I mean, I'm a huge sports card guy, but like, maybe my favorite thing, and again, probably because my sis is here. Like, she knows, we had this one holiday where our brother was about to be born, and our mom was very frugal. We were immigrants. But this one holiday, she just went ham, and we got everything. She got, like, the Barbie stuff, I got the wrestling stuff, and we always think about it. And, but, in general, the LJN wrestling figure is everything to me. Like, it is everything to me.

• 1:09:53Speaker 00

  I just bought, so I don't know if you know this, in the LJNs, when you bought them, it came with a poster.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:00Speaker 00

  And it's just like, you know, my sister might not even know this, because I would lose things immediately when I would get a new toy. The second Star Wars was my first love, when I would get a Star Wars action figure, the lightsaber, I would literally lose it within two hours. Within two hours, I had to go to my mom's kitchen and be like, "Mom, do you have toothpicks?" Because I had to use the toothpick as the lightsaber. Same with the wrestling figures. That poster would be gone in a second. But the wrestling figures came with posters. And I don't know if you, do you know them?

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  I remember, yeah.

• 1:10:27Speaker 00

  It was very like drawn a certain way. Anyway, on Heritage Auctions a few weeks ago, the original art, like the art that made the posters went up for sale, and I bought a bunch. Mr. Fuji.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:10:41Speaker 00

  Who I loved, I loved Mr. Fuji. I'm thinking about becoming a wrestling manager.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  Is that right?

• 1:10:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's on my mind, by the way, just to pivot hard. I'm thinking that I need to hit up Triple H and like, I think I should have one stint as a manager.

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  Okay, maybe next time WrestleMania is in New York.

• 1:10:59Speaker 00

  I think I'm ready to do it. I think I should be Logan Paul's manager and maybe turn him good. He's still heel, right?

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, people hate Logan Paul, hate the character of Logan.

• 1:11:09Speaker 00

  He's gonna, he's gotta have an era where he turns good. Since I discovered him in social media, I think it's a perfect plot.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  You discovered Logan Paul?

• 1:11:18Speaker 00

  That's right. Like, I'm being dead serious. Logan Paul's first, I didn't, listen, Logan was gonna get discovered.

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  That's a good line to say as a wrestling manager.

• 1:11:27Speaker 00

  No, I'm very, "I discovered Logan Paul and I'm gonna flip him." You know?

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  I'm gonna bring him back to the good side.

• 1:11:34Speaker 00

  I knew him long before the fame. Yeah, his first marketing campaigns were with VaynerMedia.

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:11:42Speaker 00

  Truth be told, Jerome Jar, who was a Vine celebrity himself, discovered Logan, put him in front of me and I said, "This kid's got it." And we put him in a Sour Patch Kids campaign. We did a contest called for Virgin Mobile, Finding the Next Vine Star. And he was the winner. But, um, I, I, I bought these original drawings of the LJN posters and I'm just, besides myself, happy. I have a bunch of black cards, I have a ton of Hasbro, green cards, 123 Kid, AKA Lightning Kid.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  What about, I know you're deep into sports cards. Do you have any wrestling sports cards?

• 1:12:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have Andre's Rookie, which is the hand-cut 1978 black and white. I have one of the only PSA 10 Ric Flair rookies.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  The 1982.

• 1:12:32Speaker 00

  I've got Macho Man 85 Tops Rookie. I got Hogan, I think I have a Hogan PSA 982. I have a bunch of The Rocks, the Bumblebee Rock.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  All the.

• 1:12:44Speaker 00

  University of Miami football card.

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  Perforated edges.

• 1:12:48Speaker 00

  Bumblebee tuna fish. Bumblebee tuna fish.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  And there's a story behind that. My buddy Jamil loves to tell this because he's a Miami guy. It rained that day. So you got the entire team in this like perforated thing. It rained that day.

• 1:13:02Speaker 00

  So a bunch of them must have got fucked up.

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  But I think a lot of people were just using it as like protection from the rain.

• 1:13:07Speaker 00

  I didn't know that story. That's crazy.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  So that's why there's even less.

• 1:13:09Speaker 00

  I have a serious wrestling card collection. And, and I have some weird stuff like stickers, like a lot of fun stuff. I also love like Nikita Koloff, you know, I love the Free Birds. And like I've picked up a bunch of, I've been thinking about starting to collect old wrestling mags. Because I used to really love those. I used to buy them in Krausers on Oak Tree Road in Edison. And that's how I learned, you know, before ESPN started to air other wrestling, the AWA and the Texas League stuff. The only way I even knew other wrestlers existed outside of WWF was the magazines, you know, like who's Dr. Death, Steve Williams, you know, like I was like,

• 1:13:51Speaker 00

  who's that guy? And like the Blade Runners, the Ultimate Warrior and Sting were Tag Team Champions, I think in the UWF as the Blade Runners.

• 1:13:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:00Speaker 00

  Like, like I had a lot of wrestling knowledge back then.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  And you still do. Like, so you mentioned Jake the Snake Roberts. What a promo.

• 1:14:09Speaker 00

  Bro, I was so scared of that snake.

• 1:14:13Speaker 00

  I'm still scared of that steak, like-

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  Damian.

• 1:14:16Speaker 00

  Damian scared the fuck out of me. And when Earthquake sat on Damian and killed Damian, it's still one of the great wrestling movies. I loved Earthquake and Typhoon, the natural disasters.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  Do you remember when Damian legitimately bit Macho Man?

• 1:14:30Speaker 00

  That's right, that's right.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  And there was blood coming out of his arm?

• 1:14:33Speaker 00

  That era, you know what I remember that I rarely see people talk about? Is on Saturday Night's Main Event, when Orndorff and Hogan both jumped out of the ring and landed at the same time and they called it a tie. Do you know this? That was a re- Saturday Night's Main Event? Like, again, I wish the kids understood what the world was like pre-internet. Pre-internet, there was so limited information and stuff, everything was a big event. I saw something online the other day that said like 1985 was like the best year ever? Like for pop culture, and maybe it was Bill Simmons? They just rattled off that, it was like Ghostbusters, it was just like, and I was listening, I was like, "Man, that's right", and I was 10. By the way, I would tell you V Friends.

• 1:15:19Speaker 00

  I'm pretty sure the reason I created V Friends is how affected I was that I grew up in this iconic 80s pop culture IP. But like Saturday Night's Main Event? You have to understand, with no internet and no phone, you didn't know shit was happening. You'd just be watching TV and they'd be like, "This week, Saturday Night's Main Event", I'm like, "This"? Like you'd be stunned and pumped and you'd try to stay up late because you were young and it was like Air Late instead of SNL and- But that Hogan-Orndorff match, I'll never forget, because I thought Orndorff won, which was like stunning, but they both landed at the same time. I'll never forget that.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  And then you would wait to get to school on Monday morning.

• 1:15:57Speaker 00

  And talk all about it.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  Yes, and you would find your best friend who also loved wrestling, you'd be like, "Can you believe what happened?"

• 1:16:04Speaker 00

  Correct, whereas now my son, him and I were watching Ronda Rousey winning 17 seconds on Netflix the other night, and he's talking to a friend about it in a second, so there was no holding on to it. There was no that anticipation of like talking about it on the bus. Like, yeah, I mean, those things are romantic to us, but I'll say this to everyone who's romanticizing. Technology always goes forward. Today, what ki- like, one day my son's gonna be like, "Remember when it was just texting? Not going into a time machine and showing", like, it's gonna keep advancing. You know?

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I say this all the time, nostalgia is a hell of a drug. But I think that recency bias also plays a big factor in the...

• 1:16:40Speaker 00

  Oh, it's why everyone's Mount Rushmore's are broken. I'm kidding, I'm kidding everyone, but it is true, like, if you're of my era, and then, like, I learned wrest- you know, I'm rapping about some wrestling here. I learned a lot of my wrestling, there was a... Liz, I don't know if you know this, there was a guy who lived by Michael Geralico, like, like on the other side. He must have only been 10 or 15 years older than us, he was probably in his twenties, but he felt like he was 80 years old. But he was the one that taught me a lot about wrestling. He would wash his car, and we were just riding our bikes. He told me about Koloff dropping the knee on Bruno Sammartino, Madison Square Garden, and winning the title. And again, there's no internet, there's no book, like, you know, it was just like, and

• 1:17:22Speaker 00

  for him, he's, if he's still alive, I hope you are, and he's watching this, he, he's like, "What are you talking about, Bruno's on the..." Because even though I'm going old school, I can't go back to Bruno, or further, or, you know, you go back far enough, like, you know, um, you go into like Buddy Rogers, you go into like, you can go very old school, right? And then there's like Dusty Rhodes, and there's just like a lot of people to mention. It's hard to pick for.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  I have loved talking wrestling with you. And I want to be super respectful of your time, this has been amazing. Gratitude's such a huge thing for you and your life, it's a massive thing for me and my life, I wake up every day, say out loud three things I'm grateful for, do the same thing, my wife and I do it before we go to bed. It's the last question I ask everybody at the end of every episode, so Gary, what are three things you're grateful for right now?

• 1:18:12Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm only grateful for the health of my family. Like, I, I do not comprehend anything else to be grateful for. Like, meaning, I keep it so basic, I just want the people I love to be healthy. Like, I, you know, I can be grateful for a million things, but they all feel frivolous. And that level of simplicity is, um, really real. I'm also grateful that the Knicks are in the Eastern Conference Finals. I'm really happy about that.

• 1:18:45Speaker 01

  By the time this airs, they may be in the NBA Finals.

• 1:18:47Speaker 00

  That would be, when is this airing?

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  Oh, maybe like two-ish weeks.

• 1:18:50Speaker 00

  Okay, good, they may be. Honestly, that has been the framework of my life. I think it's important to go lower than that for fun. But if you're asking the truth, it's really hard for me to get excited about much outside of that. And I would say, in that quiet, in that understanding, all the highlights, all the lowlights, all the fancy things, all the com- things, they're just all so secondary. I've not been able to live my life for a very long time now in any other way than thinking, okay, this thing or that thing, how much does it really matter if XYZ is happening, which is ultimately, somebody in my family is not in a good spot health-wise? So I'm only grateful for that. It's the only thing worth being grateful for.

• 1:19:35Speaker 00

  For me, with me, everybody else can do what they do, but for me, it's how I see it.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  I love that. I also want to thank you because randomly,

• 1:19:43Speaker 00

  Yes, I remember. For a very specific reason.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  You DM'd me on December 8th, 2022. Keep going, CVV. That's it.

• 1:19:51Speaker 00

  Can I tell you why I did that? This has been maybe the coolest chapter of my professional career. Probably around that time, maybe a couple of years earlier, I'm like, oh my God. If I take one sec- so I'm consuming content.

• 1:20:06Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:20:07Speaker 00

  If I see something I like, if I take one second and DM this person, they're gonna think it's cool. That was super, you know, that's not how I ever saw my life playing out. You know, I always just wanted to be a businessman. I never knew that people would know who I was. I wrote an article about this called the Ricky Henderson Rule. Ricky Henderson, when I was 10 years old, I went to a Yankee game and I thought he winked at me and it meant everything to me. I've now come to realize he probably winked at a girl in the crowd that I was sitting next to. But, I mean, here I am, 40 years later. I can feel the way I felt when I thought Ricky Henderson winked at me. To feel that for you when you got, do you remember?

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember.

• 1:20:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, it felt good. Yeah. By the way.

• 1:20:54Speaker 01

  Did Gary?

• 1:20:55Speaker 00

  Back to wrestling. When The Rock followed me, that meant something to me. Like, I know what it feels like and so I want to scale positivity. And I don't do it for this league. I want to do it for things that I think someone's emerging, someone's doing something interesting. I think people need, you know, I know it might be, I know the game's hard too. I know what people do when they make content, when it's not an easy game, it's so easy to quit. You know, you talked about the cliche one. One video, seven, nine, 10, almost everyone does that. Do you know how many get somewhere and then still give up? Get to 150,000 followers, but then they get stale for six months? And for some reason they stop and they never get back on?

• 1:21:37Speaker 00

  So I know that, I don't know what is happening with you on the other side when I say that. Or to the thousands that I've sent that message to. But I know the outcome can't be bad. You know, either they needed it as an extra boost to keep going? Or they think it's super cool? Or even if they don't think I'm cool? It's like, it's just nice, like, even if it doesn't carry a lot of weight with them, who doesn't want to hear like you're doing a good job?

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, The Rock always says this quote that I love. "It's nice to be important, it's more important to be nice."

• 1:22:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, that's very real. I believe in that the most. It's a great quote.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  So good. Gary Vee, thank you so much.

• 1:22:16Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me. 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.

• 1:22:26Speaker 02

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 1:22:38Speaker 03

  Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

• 1:22:40Speaker 00

  Journey. See you later.