Pod Insights The GaryVee Audio Experience Why I'm Comfortable Giving People Advice About this episode In this episode of the GaryVee Audio Experience, I sit down for a very sentimental Q&A about life and my strengths from 2019. I hit social media and give insights into why I'm so locked in on human behavior. Let me hear your thoughts on this episode in the comments!
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.
0:04 Speaker 01 Listen, how does one become an expert on a thing that is still growing and people still try to figure it out? I mean, social media?
0:13 Speaker 00 By being a practitioner. You know, there was a day when painting was new. And the people that became good at it were the ones that were painting. It's amazing to me how many people have opinions about Facebook, or Instagram, or LinkedIn, or making videos, or doing this kind of podcast and getting people to listen to it. A whole lot of people with opinions who've never done it. And so I believe the great way to be great at anything is to be a practitioner. You know, people ask me all the time, I make the analogy, you know, you can read about push-ups, but if you want the results that push-ups give you, you have to do the push-ups. And I just think a lot of people with business, entrepreneurship,
0:55 Speaker 00 and specifically being a social media content creator, or a modern media digital creator, read a lot, talk a lot, pontificate a lot, and don't do a lot. The way I figured out how to have my podcast, the way I figured out my YouTube show, the way I figured out everything I do, is by doing. And you're gonna get some bumps and you're gonna make some mistakes. I think most people don't do because they're worried about what other people think.
1:21 Speaker 01 And who are they? What kind of generation are we talking about?
1:24 Speaker 00 Everybody. You know, I think everybody. I think... I don't think this is as generational as people think. I think this is more psychology than it is, you know... None of the four people sitting in this room, well, Babin's young, but the three of us... You're pretty... how old are you? 35. Yeah.
1:42 Speaker 01 Gary's talking to our sound engineer.
1:44 Speaker 00 That's right. I bring everybody into these podcasts. I like to break the walls and visualize for you, everybody who's listening. Look, the three of us sitting, like, 35, I'm saying, look... You know, it's not about how old you... I'm 42 and I feel more curious and more understanding of the culture and the game than plenty of people that are 18. I think it's a mindset. And so, it's a very interesting time to be alive. There's so much opportunity and I'm excited to be a part of it.
2:12 Speaker 01 But you are a very, how do you say?
2:15 Speaker 00 Special.
2:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, yes, you're very special. No, the thing is that you have this psychological skill that a lot of people come to you with a lot of problems. And they try to get advices from you and you just give them advices. What kind of skill is that?
2:32 Speaker 00 That's psychiatrist, that's, you know, psychologist, that's right. You know, if I was the son of me, instead of me, I would have probably went to a top-five university and been a big-time psychiatrist or psychologist, like 100%. Because I was born an immigrant in a different environment and probably had a little bit too much, you know, competitive entrepreneurial DNA. But, yeah, I think it's interesting as my life evolves that some of my natural skills are becoming more clear and it's less about being a salesman or being good at digital marketing. I'm very comfortable giving advice
3:14 Speaker 00 because I think I'm undereducated and I keep things very simple. Like, human behavior comes very natural to me, which is why I've been very good at predicting what people are gonna do next. It's also the same skill that allows me to know that most of people's issues come from their parents or the environment they were born in. Most things are very simple. We don't wanna look them in the face. You know, Facebook's not changing us, Facebook's not making us bad people. Facebook's exposing that we were bad to begin with. You know, like, these are funny things to me. They're historical. I'm a big fan of history. It was the one class I was actually decent at and I think that's another thing that's worked well for me. This is just rinse and repeat.
3:58 Speaker 00 You know, what's happening right now on Facebook and Twitter is the same reason that governments, when they wanna be dictatorships, control the media. Because the media controls the mindset. And so, you know, I think my skill is... Human behavior. And I think my vice, or my intrigue on another part of my life is building businesses. And I think that's what, you know, I bought Bitcoin in 2014. Not because I guessed, not because of anything else, but because I could see what was gonna happen in 17 and 18. Yeah, I think, you know, I make the joke earlier about special, but I do feel special. And I don't say that with ego.
4:41 Speaker 00 I say that as a compliment to my parents and to my circumstance and to America and to the Soviet Union for that matter. The circumstances of who I became are far more of the factor than me. But I do see around corners. And not because I'm Nostradamus, but because I deeply am consumer-centric. I watch what people wear. When haircuts change, I'm fascinated by that. You know, when fashion, I would have been great in fashion. I would have been, if I had that gene. Like, my daughter's very creative, and I can see she has a lot of me in her. I can see her being a big-time fashion player in the future.
5:22 Speaker 00 Because if she deploys her creativity to fashion and she can see around corners, she'll be an innovator of style. And so, yeah, things are very simple to me.
5:31 Speaker 01 But social media and the human brain goes hand in hand. I mean, psychology.
5:40 Speaker 00 And human brain goes hand in hand with everything. Social media is very important because it's communication. You and I, right now, are sitting in some room at some conference. This amazingly handsome, talented sound engineer has a very small device. Doesn't look so complicated to me. I wouldn't know what to do with it, but it's not big. And I know that this whole enterprise here is not costing a whole lot to create. And not costing a whole lot to distribute, if you guys know what you're doing. It doesn't cost me a lot to distribute on my podcast, which is a top 50 podcast in the world. That whole enterprise used to cost millions of dollars. In studio costs, in distribution.
6:23 Speaker 00 It's, we're living in the internet age.
6:27 Speaker 01 Why don't people get this more and faster? I mean...
6:30 Speaker 00 Because people look backwards instead of looking forward. 90% of people default into looking behind them instead of looking ahead of them. It's the human psyche. I think most people are scared of change and they look for negatives. There's people that are trying to blame suicide rates on social media. It's laughable. The issue with suicide rates in the world is bad parenting and many other variables, and maybe social media. But to binarily blame a media is silly. And so I think, when I look at what happens, so I think there's a lot of technology fear mongering.
7:13 Speaker 00 One thing I like to say a lot is that we put writing a letter on a pedestal, but kids that are texting are bad. I think that's crazy. The message is important, not the thing that delivers it.
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8:12 Speaker 01 But how can you inspire your kids? I mean, you had a totally different...
8:17 Speaker 00 I can't inspire them the way that I was inspired. You know, when I was...
8:21 Speaker 01 Because they have too much...
8:22 Speaker 00 100%.
8:25 Speaker 00 And they have other things. They have a father who's gonna end up being famous. And that might be good or bad. First, the way I'm gonna inspire my kids is to first do what I always do, which is audit who they are, not who I hope they are. I first have to deploy self-awareness and empathy and understand who they are. So for my daughter, who's eight, I'm starting to get a understanding. And in three or four or five years, I think I'm gonna have a very good understanding. I'm gonna inspire my two children. And what I try to inspire everybody who's listening to this is I don't want them to become me. I only want one thing for people that I have. Really, outside of health, the only thing I wish for people is them to love what they do as much as I do.
9:07 Speaker 00 When I do new podcasts or new video shows, I love reading the comments of the audience that don't know me. Inevitably, 5% of the audience will leave a comment that refers to drugs. If they wanna be really snarky, they'll say, "I, you know, cocaine, Ritalin," you know. They think that I'm on something. And I always reply, because I've never tried smoking a cigarette, let alone done Adderall. I reply with "grat," so they'll say "cocaine," and I'll reply "gratitude." I'm so grateful that I do what I love every day.
9:50 Speaker 00 And what I love, for clarification, is just being an entrepreneur, playing. The challenges, the risk, the excitement.
9:58 Speaker 01 But you're also high on your own energy. You have tremendous energy.
10:01 Speaker 00 I have tremendous energy because it builds momentum. When you're doing what you wanna be doing for a long period of time, it builds momentum. I didn't have the same energy in school. I hated school. I was optimistic. I was high-energy. That's my DNA. But not like this. This is now a supernova, because now I'm 20 years into being in my zone. The breath of fresh air, the exhale I had on the first day that I worked at my dad's liquor store, like worked, like there was no more school ever again, that...
10:34 Speaker 00 Was incredible. That is a... I will never replicate that feeling again. I miss that feeling. It's funny, I've never talked about this out loud. That might have been the best day of my life in a lot of ways. Knowing that I was embarking on the thing that I was meant to do. So if my children want to give away all my money, want to paint in the Himalayas, want to start a school, want to... Or want to climb the mountain and be bigger than me. I just want to inspire them to be themselves and support them mentally.
11:05 Speaker 01 But shouldn't you, that didn't like the school system at all, shouldn't you be the one to start a school?
11:11 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm. I sure should.
11:14 Speaker 01 And?
11:15 Speaker 00 And I will.
11:16 Speaker 01 Call me.
11:17 Speaker 00 You got it.
11:19 Speaker 00 And by the way, I think I am. And this is, and I've always dreamed of starting a school because I wanted to fucking stick it back to them so that we could build a school for people like me. What's interesting is I'm realizing I'm doing it now. I have an enormous amount of 10 to 15-year-olds following me across YouTube and Instagram. And I'm teaching them, boy. You know, maybe I'm not teaching them the way that people think teaching is done, but I am teaching them, and I see it. And, ooh, I have a great story. I was flying yesterday from Gottingen to Stockholm, and I sat with a man whose 18-year-old son is obsessed with me. He lives in New Jersey, of all places, small world. And he said that I made a... So he's telling, I mean, he's, you know,
12:03 Speaker 00 he's telling me everything, and I'm very flattered. And he's a young man, this father, he's 44, I'm 42, but he has an 18-year-old son. And he says, "My son's..." You know, "I was a good student," the father's saying. "My son wasn't as good, but he wants to be an entrepreneur." And every day, he lives at home still, and every day I walk to work, come home. Anytime I'm going by him, when he's out and not in his room and working on the kitchen or living room, I hear your voice. And then he turned to me, very emotionally, and he said "thank you", and you know, it's kinda making me a little bit emotional right now. He said, "my son's such a better man now because of you", and then he started telling me reasons, accountability.
12:44 Speaker 00 You know, I'm teaching real stuff, not memorizing who the fourth president was. And then he talked about me talking about my father, and he says that his son's very competitive with him, and I was very competitive with my father, but I put out some content about how I think about my dad, even though we're different, even though there's a lot I don't agree with. And he said to me that his relationship with his son has fundamentally changed since then.
13:07 Speaker 01 But what do you say, what do you say to these youngsters that make such an impact to those who are listening and maybe haven't heard you yet?
13:18 Speaker 00 I tell them the truth.
13:21 Speaker 00 I tell them the truth. Their parents aren't telling them the truth, their school isn't telling them the truth. I tell them the truth. I tell them a lot of things they like to hear, like "fuck the system", "forget about what your parents want for you, this is your life, do not live with regret", and then I tell them other truths they don't like, which is, "you're fucking entitled, you haven't proven shit, stop being full of shit", like "life is long, be kind", "nobody gives a shit if you have a Mercedes or a Rolex", "shut the fuck up, get to work", I tell them the truth.
13:52 Speaker 01 Okay, I'm laughing here, Thomas as well, because we have teenagers and... You're right.
13:59 Speaker 01 Anyway...
14:00 Speaker 00 And you know what, let's hold on to that second, for a second, because it could be very valuable for your listeners.
14:06 Speaker 00 I'm fascinated by what you just did to what I just said, and how that plays out in my entire life. When I go to Cannes for the marketing festival, and I go onstage and I talk, and I talk about stuff nobody agrees with me in the industry, but then at 2 o'clock in the morning, they'll say to me after a couple of cocktails, "you're right", when parents hear my stuff, and they're smart, and they're smart, they don't like a lot of what I say, but they'll tell me, "you're right", "you just did it", what I'm trying to figure out is what makes one... Do something that they know isn't right when they know it's right? What is creating that behavior? What I think is happening is they're worried about what other people think.
14:51 Speaker 00 I have a lot of empathy for a 49-year-old woman raising two teenagers in a neighborhood where she has a lot of friends, where she believes in something, but she doesn't do it because she doesn't want the scrutiny from the other moms. I understand. I just don't know why she's choosing herself over her children. I think about that stuff. I don't want my kids to be entrepreneurs. Too many people think of their children as property and as indicators of who they are. Hey everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.
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