You Were Born in the Best Era to Build a Business

In this episode of The GaryVee Audio Experience, I talk about dreaming bigger while staying humble and self-aware enough to understand what you actually want. I share why curiosity, perspective, and emotional resilience matter, and why learning about AI has to turn into using it. I also discuss focusing on customers instead of comparison, moving beyond envy, and doing the work rather than collecting more information. You'll learn about: Balancing Ambition With Self-Awareness Moving Beyond Envy And Comparison Turning AI Learning Into Practice Curiosity As A Business Advantage Building Emotional Resilience And Discipline

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I have really good news for all of you. You were born at the best possible time. All of you are incredibly lucky that you were born in the single greatest time to ever be born as a human being. Even, one thing that I firmly believe in is the world is uncomfortably abundant and every human thinks it's not. So much of the anxiety for people is they don't realize how infinite the resources of love, money, and opportunity actually are. You are uncomfortably lucky to be sitting here right now. Okay?

• 0:38Speaker 00

  And by the way, America's got unlimited fucking problems. I'm talking about real life, not bullshit ideology life. Real life is options. I have given all of you every step by step. It's TikTok, it's live shopping, it was Twitter, it's LinkedIn, it's content, it's podcast. I've given it to you. Now the question is, why aren't you doing it? This is not a game of knowing what to do. This is the great era of exposing everyone who's not willing to do it. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  Anger, just so all of you know, because I know plenty of you have it in you right now. Anger always starts with envy. This is very important. Like, I'm gonna say a lot of pretty fucking amazing shit for the next hour.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  So, like, so, I'd like you to lock in, but I'm pretty sure that I'm not gonna say anything better than I just said. If I could get everyone here to leave this event and walk out and decide where their anger comes from, they will, I promise you, it comes from envy, including anger you have to parents or other things because you think the things they did did not let you accomplish things you envy that other people did. This is super important because I will tell you, I always think about why someone is here right now. Like, I, oh, when I'm sitting, right now I'm sitting here and I'm looking at all these amazing faces.

• 2:18Speaker 00

  I'm like, why are you here? Like, for example, I would never come to this.

• 2:26Speaker 00

  Like, there's, like, because there's no scenario where I could because I'm too on the offense. I, I don't have time to go to something like this. It's not the thing I need. It's, there's many things I do need, but this isn't it. And I think about that from a professional or an emotional lens. And I think about why you are here. And all I ever try to do when I'm on here is unlock the things that allow you to never come here again. And this is the difference between offense and defense. And I think about this all the time. And what I know is that the primary reason you need it is because you're wasting too many hours on defense. It is shocking

• 3:10Speaker 00

  how little I pay attention to anything that anyone else on earth does, especially often the people I compete with in the same arena I'm in. One thing that I used to always razz my father for was he always wanted to know, it's so funny, my sister and my good friend Lou Jeno are sitting together. I met Lou in the liquor business. And my father would spend more time figuring out if Lou was giving a deal to another liquor store. All of his time worrying about every other store. What deal were they getting? What were they doing? What were they getting that he wasn't? And I spent zero seconds of my career on that. Zero. 100% of my seconds were on my customer, my employees,

• 3:53Speaker 00

  and like, what I was trying to accomplish. You would be stunned, my friends, how much further along you would be on whatever journey you want to be on if you stopped paying attention to any other human on earth. I literally live my life, this is real talk, in my soul. My currency, my currency in my soul is as if I'm the only human on earth. And let me tell you what happens when you actually believe you're the only human on earth. You fear nothing because the judgment of others can't exist because there's no one else out there.

• 4:30Speaker 00

  Oh, I mean, it's, it's the foundation of my life, like, the only thing I, there's, there's very few things I believe in. One thing that I firmly believe in is the world is uncomfortably abundant and every human thinks it's not. So much of the anxiety for people is they don't realize how infinite the resources of love, money, and opportunity actually are. And that's the trigger to envy because if you actually believed everything was abundant, you would never have the capacity to be jealous of someone else because you knew that they weren't taking from you. I never felt, I still don't, even when it's super narrow. By the way, this is why I am so envious in sports. It is not abundant. Like, somebody wins and loses.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  Like, you know, like, I actually understand life because of football. I literally, if I wasn't a Jets fan, I wouldn't understand envy.

• 5:28Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm being dead, by the way, I'm being dead serious. Like, I genuinely in my soul cannot hate others. Politics, religion, zero. Cannot, it can't, I can't get the door open. Someone could fund it, thank you for that. It's real. I can't, I do not have the capacity to hate when someone is even poking at something I dearly love. I do not have it. But in football?

• 5:55Speaker 00

  I'm being serious. Like, if, God forbid, the Jets lose to the Dolphins this weekend and I'll be at the game, I wanna fight. And I'm, and I'm serious. I wanna physically, very aggressively physically fight people that are wearing Dolphin jerseys. The way that people look at religious, you know, crosses and stars, like, I genuinely only understand hate and envy through the framework of sports. I'm just very grateful that I deploy that energy in something silly and trivial. And I, I cry for the fact that people do that in real life.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  Let me tell you something else that I would love to get out of this time together. Every single person here has to dramatically dream bigger.

• 6:45Speaker 00

  I'm, this is something I spent a lot of time thinking about. And I, a lot of my life has been like, things were naturally happening with me and then as I got older, I started to understand them better. Like, so much of my professional success is predicated on my goal was so big that like, all the big winnings I was doing felt small because I was going so big. It's just so obvious. I, I really, now, this is important. Having goals and dreams that are grounded in delusion is a problem. My goal in life was not to be the quarterback of the New York Jets. That stopped around 4th grade.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  And so, I do think everyone here needs to dream bigger. And again, I wanna make this multi-dimensional. This is not just about a financial, professional outcome. I, in fact, I would argue for most of you in this room, there's better dreaming in your family dynamics or in your peace of mind or like, lack of weight on your chest. In fact, one of my great fears is that the popularization of entrepreneurship over the last 20 years has caused a lot of people to dream to be entrepreneurs when they're not actually entrepreneurs. You know, like, there is a level of self-awareness and humility that is so required to dream. It's important, right? It seems like a very strong counter-argument, right?

• 8:14Speaker 00

  Dream bigger, but have the humility to know what you're limited at. I think when you can get those two opposites to pull together, that's when you're building strength. And I think if you can challenge yourself on both pushing your ambitions, but also being incredibly humble and self-aware, those are the challenges and those will be the unlocks both professionally and financially and definitely in your relationships and emotionally. It is only humility that will get you to reconcile your problems.

• 8:47Speaker 00

  That is, Sean, you know, it's, that's, that's only where a Lou or my sister or anybody else here that, like, you know, like, the thing that is not clear in my content, the thing that is not clear to all of you that don't know me, like, how many people here have consumed my content for more than 5 years?

• 9:07Speaker 00

  Thank you. So, you've consumed a lot. You have a lot of context. What is not clear is you don't know that it is humility that is my foundation. Because that is the least obvious thing that happens when I make content.

• 9:23Speaker 00

  Um, and I, I do think that people struggle with it.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  How do you define humility?

• 9:28Speaker 00

  Um, I define humility as like, realizing you don't mean shit.

• 9:36Speaker 00

  That I am gonna, here's how I, how it goes through my head. I am looking to seriously leave a deposit on earth before I die. Right? I plan on doing so much damage in a positive way in the next 40, 50 years, let alone what I've been able to accomplish so far. Right?

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Then I will die. I will get a nice 24 hours from the general pop public on whatever the Twitter or social media of the day is. And then all you fuckers will move on with your life.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  And my family will sit on it a little bit longer, because that's family. But they also will have to move on. And that's life. And so, that's how I think about it. And I also think about it very selflessly. You know, I am shocked that people think the world revolves around them.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  I'm just fascinated by people watching and just watching how all of you move as if your problem should be something that another human has on their mind.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  You're so vain. You saw that. I do not understand how all of you think your problem is something that someone else should care about. Now, I'm huge on compassion. My life is about being empathetic and sympathetic and compassionate. I do carry the burden of, let alone my family, acquaintances and random people's problems. But that is not required. I am stunned by your audacity to not realize everybody else has a problem too. 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.

• 11:30Speaker 00

  And let me go somewhere because I'm gonna roll here a little bit.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  This is important. This is like this building. This building is obviously designed. You see what the lighting is, the stage, the color of the carpet. But this building is built on concrete and steel. And then we get into all of this. Before I talk to you about what you should do on TikTok Shop, or how you should post on LinkedIn, or what you should be writing on Substack, or where the opportunity is to build a harness and an open claw, to build an AI framework so it can do things. Before I tell you any of this stuff, if you do not have your emotional concrete and steel down, you will fucking lose.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  The main reason, the main singular reason that most people lose in business is because they're not strong enough to absorb the punch in the face.

• 12:21Speaker 00

  Everyone here who's failed multiple times can only fail for two reasons. One, you're emotionally soft and the adversity makes you fold. Or two, you just fucking suck at business.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  Because it is a skill.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  So in that skill, right? What do you think are the most critically valuable things in this time for a master like yourself that people don't get? So if you could just speak to some people for 1, 2, 3, 5 minutes right now and give them the most foundational concrete and steel about business so they can not suck, what would you tell them?

• 13:03Speaker 00

  It starts with self-awareness. I've referenced it. Are you a salesperson or you not? Are you organized or are you not? Do you have good work ethic or don't you? Do you even understand why you want to build a business? The greatest tell that I know someone's gonna fail is they want to build a business for the money.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  It's just so obvious. Like, you know, all of you, by the way, some of you are this person and some of you know these people, right? You've got friends that like 7 years ago, they're a cannabis entrepreneur. And then 4 years ago, they're a crypto entrepreneur. And today, they're an AI entrepreneur. All they're doing is following where they think the money is. That's always a failure. So I think curiosity is a weird one that's not talked about enough. I think a lot of people fail because they're not inherently curious. Curiosity will open the door often to advantages that others can't see.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  But this all goes to a foundational thing that is just been really funny to watch society struggle with this. Like,

• 14:19Speaker 00

  let's talk about the way you asked the question, the way I think this event is structured. Do people even understand the math around being someone who makes a million dollars a year? I agree with you. No, they don't. Like, just so everybody knows, this is Amer- I don't know if you guys know, this is America. We're in America. I don't know if you know where America sits in the world out of the 8.3 billion people. Back to you being lucky, you are uncomfortably lucky to be sitting here right now. Okay?

• 14:55Speaker 00

  And by the way, America's got unlimited fucking problems. I'm talking about real life, not bullshit ideology life. Real life is options. Like, you have options. Like, I promise you, you may be confused because of the political climate, but I promise you, there's not a lot of places. Now, it might be more right for you because of the kind of person you- but, but. So that's number one. Number two, do you understand that in America, let me say it nice and slow, the richest country in the world, China obviously, but like one of the two, like you could play it out and debate it, that the top 1%, I'm gonna stand for this one,

• 15:33Speaker 00

  that the top 1% earners in this country, 1%, not top 10%, not top half, that the top 1% earners in this country start at somewhere around 650,000 a year. That if you're in the 1% of the richest country in the world, you know, it's blended out, it depends on how people, you could, let me just even go on the high side of it. It starts at 780,000 dollars a year. That if you make 780,000 dollars a year, you're in the 1% of the richest country in the world. And our society has all of you walking around that if you don't make a million a year, you're a fucking loser.

• 16:16Speaker 00

  I want to leave right now because that in itself is the punchline of all this to me. To answer your question directly, Sean, the answer is perspective. What do they need? What is this all about? Life is perspective. Life is how you see it. Some of you right now are literally hearing this and were like, literally 4 minutes ago, we're like, if I don't make a million a year, like I'm really not it. And like, the math does not support that. We have a massive disconnect. And so, I think it starts with even understanding what you're up to doing, what, where you're at, what's going on, all these things. Like, I think people are incredibly confused. And I think people are inherently impatient. And I think people want to impress everyone except themselves.

• 17:02Speaker 00

  And I think like, I don't know, bro, I think everyone's super fucking confused.

• 17:10Speaker 00

  You know, I think this might be hard for everyone, but like, could you even imagine life without electricity? Do you know how recent of an invention it actually is? It's like, you know, this is where, you know, I was a really poor student, but history was my jam. And as I've gotten older, back to what I referenced earlier, I realized, oh, I liked history because I was gonna end up using it as my pattern recognition vehicle for business. Like, it is our generation's electricity. This is the biggest invention we've had. It's going to be bigger. It's, I don't know if it's bigger than the internet because fuck, man, the internet was a big deal and clearly has been, but this is on that level. This is not the iPhone. You know, this is gonna change every person's lives in here.

• 17:55Speaker 00

  No one in here, no one in here in 10 years isn't fully AI'd out in their full life. So, I really need everyone to hear this. The sooner you start using these tools, the better. You know, because your healthcare will be running through it. Like, I think you all know this, like, actually, be honest with me, it's okay. Like, I have no judgment on this, but I really need to know the temperament. Who here has been hesitant to AI, is not really using AI besides searching maybe in ChatGPT or Claude instead of Google? Who's kind of limited in their AI journey for now? Raise your hands. So, for the people that raised their hand, and I know a lot of you held it because I know you.

• 18:38Speaker 00

  You need to hear this. Remember like 25 years ago or 15 years ago, like you made fun of your grandma because like she didn't know how to use like AOL Instant Messenger? Or, or she, you know, like, remember the buddies that like were scared to get an iPhone because they were obsessed with the BlackBerry? Like, you know, like all the stuff, like, yeah. All of you know that, like, all of you made, looking at the age group here, all of you made fun of the generation above you or two above you because they were slow to use the things you were using. I just need you to all know, you've become your grandma.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  Like, this is inevitable. There is not one person here. Like, you can't put your head in the sand at the Jersey Shore and think it's all gonna be okay. Every one of you will be forced, just like your dad and your mom. Like, the people that loved their pager and were like, "I'm never getting a mobile device." Remember that? Like, everybody I knew who loved their pager and said they were never getting a phone because they didn't want people to call them anytime they wanted. Remember that one? All those people do not have a pager anymore. All of you will be forced to even be a functional human in our society to interact with AI every minute of every second of your life in a decade. I think you all know that.

• 20:04Speaker 00

  You're old enough to have lived to watch it happen every time. So if you know that, what the fuck are you waiting for? I need you to fucking study because you need to study. You need to watch podcasts. You need to watch YouTube videos. You need to read a book. You need to read for Substacks. And most of all, you can't read about doing push-ups. You've gotta do the push-ups. So you've gotta read and learn, but then you've gotta download every one of these apps and start using it. Let me say it this way. Let's say if we were here today a long time ago and last week, the gun was invented. The gun. Before, we fucking threw rocks and spear it. Now, there's this fucking thing and I can shoot that dude in the back with the vest.

• 20:48Speaker 00

  Every one of us, if we never saw the gun before... Do you understand what humans did when they heard about the gun? They all sat around and said, "Well, that's it. We're done." Or the atomic bomb? Like, do you understand if I was giving a keynote right now and telling you that the atomic bomb was gonna lead to peace, not war? You wouldn't have bought it. It would've been 1950. The US just dropped a big one. We're just done with 40 years of two world wars. And I tell you, in the next decade, seven other countries are gonna get the atomic bomb. And then I tell you that I'm from the future and over the next 70 years, it will never be used again and we will not have a singular world war. No one would've bought it.

• 21:32Speaker 00

  The thing you demonize often is the thing you need.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  I think you are gonna be shook how much value. And I actually see it. Only 15, 20 years ago, social media came along and everything about it was Nirvana, Nirvana, Nirvana. And then what happened was 15 years later, we realized, "Oh, wait, the technology's awesome. Humans suck."

• 22:03Speaker 00

  You're worried about shit you can't control. It's the biggest problem you have in your life. You can't control anything but yourself. You can't control your fucking kids. You're gonna control the government?

• 22:16Speaker 00

  So, like, what are we talking about here? So, you need to control what you can control. And listen, this is important. I started with this and bringing it up again. The current flavor of choice of companies, corporations, and politicians is they figured you all out, unfortunately, the last 15 years. They've got you fully controlled. They have weaponized fear on you at the highest levels. Do you know why kids don't play outside? Because the news pumped kidnapping propaganda in the late 70s and 80s. They got you controlled. You're scared. I need everyone to leave this conference, go to their car, look in the mirror, and utter the words, "I'm a bitch."

• 23:06Speaker 00

  This is real talk, y'all. I need you to go in the car,

• 23:12Speaker 00

  open the mirror, look at it, and utter, "I'm a bitch." And the second you get that poison out and you realize you're a bitch, is actually day one of you starting to be a winner. Sitting around fucking all day and texting your friends on your family group chat of how fucked up the world is, you're contributing zero. And so, like, we have become the great generation of dwellers and complainers. And like I said, I need you to go to the car.

• 23:44Speaker 02

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• 24:16Speaker 00

  Life only runs on the currency of information and perspective. It's a very simple game. How do you see the world and what do you know? I'm spending most of my time here trying to make you turn your head and look at something a different way. Because that's the important part. The information part? We, again, looking at everyone here, remember when being smart had value?

• 24:45Speaker 00

  Like, really, like, remember when... Like, again, looking at the crowd, especially for anyone who's 50 or older like me. Like, back in the day, someone who knew shit and memorized it was considered valuable. They are worthless.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  I mean it. What would you like to know? What would you fucking like to know?

• 25:06Speaker 00

  This is why the school system is some bullshit. The concept of having kids memorize stuff, regurgitate it 30 days later, and move on and never remember anything is worthless. It was worthless then, it's double worthless now.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  Information, just like software because of AI, is about to be worthless. What is worthy is emotional intelligence. What is worthy is resilience. What is worthy is optimism. And what is worthy is being a practitioner. When you say, "What else? I don't know. I don't know these people." Whatever you want to know, you can type it into Claude or Gemini or ChatGPT and get the fucking answer. The problem is, what are you gonna do about it? This is not a game of knowing what to do. This is the great era of exposing everyone who's not willing to do it.

• 26:09Speaker 00

  For example, if you said, "Gary, tell all of them how to lose 15 pounds and get more muscles." Right? Everyone here knows how to get more fit. Eat cleaner and better and protein and all this, and go to the fucking gym. There is no debate anymore of what all of you need to do to feel and look better. Correct? We agree?

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Now, do you have the discipline to not eat the fucking gummy bears?

• 26:36Speaker 00

  Because I don't, because I ate a bunch yesterday at the American Airlines suite. And I was pissed. I knew better. I knew what to do, but I didn't have it in me. I wasn't disciplined. You can sit here all day and hear from other people. Jim Quick's gonna cry. Like, you can hear everything. I can give you every step by step. And by the way, I have given all of you every step by step. It's TikTok, it's live shopping, it was Twitter, it's LinkedIn, it's content, it's podcast. I've given it to you. Now, the question is, why aren't you doing it? And that's why my content evolved from the early 2010s when it was all tactical, when I had the epiphany of like, "Oh, shit. I was blessed with a mother that gave me confidence.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  I was blessed to grow up in an immigrant family that work ethic mattered." But I'm not, like, sure, I'm not the kind of person being like, "You're soft and you're not working enough." I'm wondering why you're not working enough. And then it becomes a question of, "Are you working for the money? Because if you are, you're gonna lose because you won't work enough to do it because it gets too hard. Because if you don't like it, just like I don't like not eating gummy bears."

• 27:45Speaker 00

  I mean it. And so, like, what everyone needs to do is realize this is not an information game. If you came here for information, you're a fucking idiot.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  This is a perspective and discipline game. This is a being honest with yourself game. This is a, are you grown enough to learn today that anyone that you're tricking in your life is a loser? And that every smart person in your life sees you for the losing things you're doing? Are you ready to cross that chasm and realize that's a truth? Because your gift of gab or how you're posturing is only tricking other losing players.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  For the people in here that love to complain, pay attention to who's listening to your complaining. Only two people. No, no. No, no, people are listening. If you're complaining, you're complaining to someone, obviously to yourself, but to someone. There are plenty of people here who complain, who love a good dwell. I need you to pay attention to who's listening to you. Only two people. One, the enabler. The person that loves you so much that they're willing to give you that time. And number two, the person that can't wait for you to finish so that they can complain back to you about their shit.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  You must pay attention if you complain and dwell because you only have the enabler and the ping-pong-er. And neither of them are helping you.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  Neither, my friend. And so, this is a binary game of, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Are you a cynic or a practical? And most of all, are you a winner or are you a bitch?

• 29:32Speaker 00

  Everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this.

• 29:42Speaker 03

  If you're building AI agents, you should check out Strands Agents. It's an open-source SDK for Python and TypeScript. The idea is simple. Give a model some tools, let it decide what to call and when, and loop until it's done. No chain configs, no graph orchestration, and works with any model provider. It's also open-source and built and tested for production agents. Get started at strandsagents.com.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  Journey. See you later.