299 Gary Vaynerchuk on Leveraging Your Strengths to Win

"I'm good at knowing what I'm good at." - Gary Vaynerchuk If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/299 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is episode number 299 with New York Times bestselling author Gary Vaynerchuk. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  Welcome everyone to today's show. Our guest is the legendary Gary Vaynerchuk. That's right. Gary runs VaynerMedia, which is one of the world's hottest digital agencies. He's also a prolific angel investor and venture capitalist, investing in companies like Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Uber, and Birchbox. He also hosts the AskGaryVee Show and is a public speaker that delivers keynotes all over the world at a number of different events. I've been friends with Gary for a number of years. I think six or seven years I've known him, maybe even longer. I've seen him speak all over the world. I've had some one-on-one interactions and intimate conversations with him.

• 1:14Speaker 00

  I've had conversations with him in group settings. I've seen him in every different type of setting. And I've watched a number of his videos, you know, heard it all. And so I wanted to make sure I asked questions that people haven't heard of his answers before. And people haven't heard at all. And so I really wanted to dive in today and get real and ask the questions that not a lot of people are asking Gary. So some of the things we covered today is how Gary's new book is different from all his previous ones. What failure is doing to young men and women in entrepreneurship today and how it's affecting them. The truth about Gary's work-life balance and what you don't see on Snapchat.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  And this was a pretty raw conversation topic and answer that he gave, so make sure to listen to that part. Why Gary recently got serious about his fitness and the long game for it, how he preps and prepares.

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  ...before every big speech and so much more. We cover a lot of great stuff here. I think you're really gonna love this one. Make sure to share this out with your friends right now while you're listening. It's LewisHowes.com/299. You can check out all the show notes and resources that we talked about in today's episode. Also, the full video interview is back there as well. Again, LewisHowes.com/299. And without further ado, let me introduce you to the one, the only Gary Vaynerchuk. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about our guest today. His name is Gary Vaynerchuk. Good to see you, my man. How you doing?

• 2:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Good to see you. I'm glad we get to do this in person this time.

• 2:53Lewis Howes?

  I know, man. I'm super pumped. And I appreciate you having me on your show a couple months ago for my book. So, thank you for that big push. And a lot of people have said they found me because of you.

• 3:01Gary Vaynerchuk?

  No worries, brother.

• 3:02Lewis Howes?

  Thank you. Appreciate it. So, hopefully I can repay the favor and we can sell a ton of books for you. You've got a new book out called #AskGaryVee, #AskGaryVee, One Entrepreneur's Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness. And let's start with that. Why did you decide to write this book? You've written a number of books on social media, marketing, and thought leadership. Why this book? Why now?

• 3:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, it's a good question. You know what? And I'm just, I'm starting off my tour now, so I need to figure out how I'm gonna answer this question. I mean, there's a lot of different variables that happen. Number one, it wrote itself, right? The fact that I've done so many episodes, I had so much content to put out. And I realized what the #AskGaryVee show on YouTube was doing for me was, it was allowing me to find different things about myself and bring different things to people that I hadn't historically done. And so, even if you look at the subtitle, self-awareness is not something I've been talking about or not something that's been associated with me.

• 3:59Lewis Howes?

  Until recently.

• 4:00Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Right. And what's happened is, this book more so, probably the most since Crush It, is a more 360 view. Think Economy was very narrow to this, you know, kind of like new world we lived in where if you give, you get, things of that nature. Jab-Jab was basically a textbook, like literally, I didn't even do an audiobook, because it's all pictures and dissecting content on the internet. This, I talk about parenthood, I talk about, you know, being a leader, you know, and you know this, I've built two actual businesses.

• 4:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 4:34Gary Vaynerchuk?

  A bricks and mortar e-commerce wine business that I grew from three to 60 million, and now a digital social agency, modern day Mad Men company, that I've grown from three to 100 million in revenue in four years. And I knew that there was more than I was giving about how I did that. That was one of the reasons I started the AskGaryVee Show. It felt like the right thing to make a book out of. And the truth is, it's a self fulfilling prophecy too, because the book itself is gonna lead to awareness around the show, and it just becomes this one cycle, so.

• 5:08Lewis Howes?

  That's why I did my book, you know, it's like building around the podcast.

• 5:11Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's a very, very similar situation to what you did with your book. And the truth is, and I wonder how you think about this, I do think I will sell less books. And yours, you know, look, yours is, even though it's about you and you're hardcore on the cover, I'm looking at it right now, it's still called The School of Greatness. Mine is literally called AskGaryVee, right? And so, I do think that will make it narrow. You know, to me, what I wrote is The Modern Entrepreneurial Blueprint. And that's what it is. And I think if it was called The Modern Entrepreneurial Blueprint, a lot of people at an airport or Barnes and Noble would buy it.

• 5:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 5:46Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Now it's like, who's this dude? Fuck this dude.

• 5:49Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:49Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, so, I think word of mouth is what's gonna take this book to a different place. So far, I've been flabbergasted, I mean, literally two people who do not like me. There's just nothing else to say. There are people who think I have too much ego, or I'm too loud, or I'm too much for them in media, who got galleys from my publisher, who I'd never send galleys to, because I wouldn't even want to disrespect them, because I know they don't love my shtick. Loved it.

• 6:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 6:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And so I think it has a chance to be a big one for me.

• 6:16Lewis Howes?

  I wish I could see it right now.

• 6:18Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I know I'm a dick, right? Such a huge mistake.

• 6:20Lewis Howes?

  You'll send me another gallon.

• 6:21Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You're like, hey, you're like, where is it? I'm like, uh, sorry about that.

• 6:25Lewis Howes?

  It's all good. Speaking of entrepreneurship, I've got a lot of people asking questions that wanted to ask you questions from my social media, and one of them was about the recent video that you posted on entrepreneurship where you said it can't be taught.

• 6:40Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yes.

• 6:40Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean by that?

• 6:41Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So, I need to be, I need to be smart about, I have to go look back in how we titled it, but I know what I said. Which is, it can be taught, but you can only go so far because of natural talent. You know, it's fun to have this conversation with you because you're such an athletic freak. You know, most people don't lay on the couch and say, "I'm gonna be on Olympic team," and then pull it off. Um, you know, look, I think that I could play basketball every day, every day of my life, from the time I was 15 and put in 15 hours a day, and I think I'd be really good. I'd have a much better handle, I'd shoot better, I would've been more competitive with you on the boat that day. But would I've been good enough to be in the NBA? Absolutely not.

• 7:24Lewis Howes?

  Maybe, maybe D3.

• 7:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Maybe.

• 7:26Lewis Howes?

  College.

• 7:27Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Maybe, maybe. And I do think right now that everybody thinks they can be an entrepreneur. And so, my point was, it's much more talent than the current conversation. I don't think you can read The School of Greatness, and my books, and all these other books, and watch SkillShares, and watch Chase Darvis, and listen to Ferris, and read Branson, and even go to business school, and have mentors, and go to Y Combinator, and then all of a sudden, just because of that, you become a great entrepreneur. I think of it like the music industry. Think about all the kids that are born into, you know, you're Clive Davis's grandson, or you're Whitney Houston's daughter, or you have nothing but access, you're in the studio all the time, you learn the business, but if you don't have the chops, if you don't

• 8:11Gary Vaynerchuk?

  have the vocals, you're only gonna go so far.

• 8:13Lewis Howes?

  Right. Same thing with football players, or like in athletics too. You see some children of former NBA or NFL stars who excel, but then others who are, don't do anything.

• 8:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Here's the punchline. It's much more talent than people realize. I see it every day, and the video I made was like, "Look, you have to be okay that by pouring in 18 hours a day and learning everything, might only allow you to build a business that makes $100,000 a year."

• 8:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:44Gary Vaynerchuk?

  There is an absolute misconception that the American dream is entrepreneurship, and everybody can do it. The difference between entrepreneurship and football is, everybody who's listening right now or watching can start a business.

• 8:58Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Not everybody can go work out for the New York Yankees. There's a system. There's no system in place for entrepreneurship.

• 9:05Lewis Howes?

  Anyone can do it.

• 9:06Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That yeah, at 16 or 22 stops you and says, hey, man, you're gonna lose a shitload of money and be miserable. And, and literally, you know, I'll be honest with you. I'm, I'm starting this conversation for quite a noble reason. This is not me to impose my will and say, look how special I am. As a matter of fact, I'd rather think it's been the hard work than the talent. You know, I'd rather think it was something I did versus mom and dad had sex at the right moment. I'd much rather think that. The reason I'm going down this path is there's a recent phenomenon that's not being talked enough about in our culture and specifically in our world, which is what failure is doing to the young men and women in our space.

• 9:49Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And, you know, we're sweeping under the rug a couple of the suicides in our space. We're sweeping under the rug the heavy depression and alcohol use. We're sweeping things under the rug. We want to show all the hoopla. I hate what's going on on Instagram right now. Everybody living their fake life, putting up pictures of like baby giraffes and like hot chicks and, and $50,000 cash on a bed and, and a boat and painting a lifestyle that is not realistic. And, and I, I want to have this conversation because I think that I have a big enough voice to start the conversation about, look, this, there is a level of talent here and what we need to all be doing is figuring out what we're best at and going all in on that.

• 10:32Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And by the way, do you know how much, do you know how much more money the number two, seven, 15, 44th person at Facebook has than you and I?

• 10:42Lewis Howes?

  Billions.

• 10:43Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Billions?

• 10:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:44Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So I'm a little bit disappointed in a lot of ways. One, people that are bottom feeding and like signing up for every ebook and mastermind and course and they're, and they're not talented enough and they're chasing a lottery ticket and they're gonna get depressed and get sick. Or... Great kids that have tons of talent, who would have been great number fours and made tens of millions of dollars and had work-life balance, who are being pressured into becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg and are gonna fail multiple times in a startup and not really start becoming that executive until they're 32, 33, 34, and learn some things but be behind the ball in a world that they could have been successful in. There's absolutely a ton of kids right now that would have been better off being kids that were in their twenties and thirties in the eighties and nineties because they would have been consultants

• 11:27Gary Vaynerchuk?

  and COOs and CFOs and had an incredible life. And instead, they're only gonna get really started at 32, 33, and they'll win a lot of experience and they'll have hopefully a lot of fun. But unfortunately, I know a lot of Bs and I know a lot of Twos, and that's not for their makeup either. So for me, like, you know, I have to do this.

• 11:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:46Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I've been, you know, it's why I failed school, it's why I sold baseball cards when I was 14. So for me, I'm okay with the failures, the losses along the way. It's my natural state. I just want people who are listening to find their natural state and not force into the current narrative.

• 12:00Lewis Howes?

  So how does someone find out what they're best at? And what are you best at?

• 12:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, I'm best at selling. I'm best at using my words to make things happen, whether that's selling me, whether that's selling my agency, whether that's selling a bottle of wine, whether that's selling a book. I'm good at that.

• 12:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm good at storytelling to make a transaction happen. How one finds it, you know, I don't know. And I think about this a lot. I think about self-awareness, I think about EQ, I think about finding that. I've been talking more about finding the five people that are closest to you to tell you the truth.

• 12:30Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:31Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, to tell you-

• 12:34Lewis Howes?

  Have you done that?

• 12:35Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Have I done it for myself or for other people?

• 12:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you've found five people or-

• 12:37Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I don't feel like I needed it, but I could be wrong. But I, but I feel like, um, you know, the truth with me, especially, you know, meditation's about to explode, right? I'm probably saying this-

• 12:45Lewis Howes?

  It's already been exploding, yeah.

• 12:46Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah, but it's about to become Starbucks and SoulCycle.

• 12:48Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:49Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I'm probably saying this just because I need a recall in three years to say I told you so, so you're gonna get some traffic to this episode from me in four years. Meditation's gonna go very mainstream, right? Like, everybody will go to meditation.

• 13:00Lewis Howes?

  There's already a studio here in LA that's-

• 13:02Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Of course. LA, New York, it's just happening. It's, it's, four years from now, it will be just like working out.

• 13:06Lewis Howes?

  Headspace, all these apps, yeah, yeah.

• 13:08Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Hundred percent, hundred percent. Where was it going? Oh, I'm scared to get into it because I'm so goddamn happy that I'm scared that if I meditate, it's going to open up another path in my brain that may lead to something that isn't what I have right now. That's why I'm also not trying to explore more self-awareness.

• 13:25Lewis Howes?

  Give me feedback.

• 13:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I don't need it. I'm so goddamn happy, I'm scared to like quit it.

• 13:28Lewis Howes?

  You don't want to mess with it. Yeah, it's already working for you. So let's talk about work-life balance. Yes. You mentioned that with, you know, the twos and the Bs and everything. A bunch of people ask this question. I'll just kind of paraphrase it. How are, and I'm sure you've been answering this a lot, but how does work-life balance work for you? And essentially, when you're doing all these daily Vs now from 5:00 AM working out till 12:30 AM, 15, 20 hour days.

• 13:53Gary Vaynerchuk?

  This daily V-vlog has been an interesting thing in my life for two reasons. Number one, the ego part of me. I'm so pumped that I'm finally establishing that nobody's outworking me. Like, people like you-

• 14:06Lewis Howes?

  Because you're documenting it now.

• 14:07Gary Vaynerchuk?

  People like you, like my inner, like people that were either in my inner circle or really knew who I was or have spent some time with me. You know, you know, because you would email Matt DeMayo or Nate back in the day, or Phil Toronto, and they would say, "Cool, can you meet from 11:15 to 11:19 on what, you know?" And so my friends or people that I was closer to or businesses, they kind of over the last four or five years, figured it out. I'm so pumped that the market is starting to understand. On the flip side, it has brought up a lot of questions about my work-life balance. Because what's happened in parallel is like, wait a minute. This guy really is working 6:00 to 11:30 every day. When the hell does he have time for his family? I couldn't do that. This seems extreme. Is this healthy?

• 14:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like, how does this end up? Twofold. Number one, my work-life balance is the way everyone's work-life balance is, which is everybody has their own version. I feel like it's very similar to parenting. I would never give people parenting advice. You can see in my book, I talk about parenting, but I hedge every answer, which is like, "You do you. By the way, this is what I'm doing." You do you, like, the thought of telling people how to parent is insane. You have no context. You know, listen, I have empathy that most people don't have context for Lizzie and I's relationship. They don't understand her independence. They don't understand that she also is emphatic that she and the kids are not involved in any of my public domain. So, you know, if you watch my-

• 15:31Lewis Howes?

  I mean, you don't talk about them.

• 15:32Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's right. If you watch Snap and my Snapchat stories and my Daily V carefully, and by the way, I recommend this for nobody because nobody should watch me that carefully, but you can see where there's hours of blocks of time. You know, there is nothing going on on the weekends. The, you know, there's these, you know, I was thinking about it the other day, uh, two Fridays ago, you know, I was gone at noon with the kids and spending a ton of time all day. We went away together a little bit. There was no content, but because of that, you know, I'm painting a picture. I'm controlling my story.

• 16:03Lewis Howes?

  You're showing that you're with your family or-

• 16:05Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm not showing it. And I'd love to in some ways because I think it'd be cool to document it for the kids one day, but I don't want to make the decision for them to be public. Um, and so, look, my work-life balance is more extreme than 99% of people. I recognize that. For now, and that's the important part, for now, it's working for my wife and I and family. I don't think it's sustainable. I don't even want it. My kids are six and three now. They're starting to become real.

• 16:30Lewis Howes?

  Six and three, man. I remember when the first one was born. It's crazy.

• 16:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  We're getting old, brother. Uh-

• 16:34Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy.

• 16:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, I don't want to miss stuff. I haven't. I've, anytime I'm in New York, I'm not missing any recital or things like that. But if there's one today, I'm missing it. I'm in LA, right? Um, and it's a constant process. But yes, I, uh, I'm working a lot.

• 16:50Lewis Howes?

  What would you say, um, percentage-wise of spending time with family every week versus work is, you know, 80/20?

• 16:57Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Uh, let's see. So, two days a week is of seven, you know, so that's 30. I mean, it's probably 65, 35, 70, 30 work.

• 17:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:10Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But that's only because I'm all in on the weekends. And um, and over this next kind of six, seven week period because I'm doing a lot of stuff for the book. There's some Saturdays that I'll miss here and there. So, you know, it can be sixty, it can be seventy thirty, seventy five, twenty five during a normal week. But I'm also taking about six to seven weeks vacation. That's a hundred percent family. Two weeks in August, two weeks in December when everybody shut down. And then usually two, a week in, you know, March for spring break and a week in June or July. So I'm taking a lot more vacation time than I used to. I'm up from two weeks. So, listen, I'm like everybody who's listening right now. I'm doing the best that I can. I, I, I need everybody to understand this. If I didn't do what came naturally to me, there'd be much bigger problems.

• 17:55Lewis Howes?

  You'd be miserable.

• 17:56Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's right.

• 17:57Lewis Howes?

  You'd be miserable. You'd be think, you wouldn't be present when you're there with your family either probably.

• 18:00Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I, and I, and I challenge a lot of people to understand that when they're there with their family, a lot of you are coming home at five o'clock, but you're also going to the bowling team. You're also playing Halo. You're also like,

• 18:09Lewis Howes?

  Watching TV.

• 18:10Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You're watching TV and the kids are on the iPad. So what I'm trying to do is maximize the attention time when I'm there, not only just the physical time. And so, look, I don't think I'm crushing it. I don't think I, I don't think I'm right for most people. You know, I think I'm very affected by the fact that my dad wasn't around until I was fourteen. And that meant I worked at the store and got to see him. So I, I lived in an extreme work-life balance scenario that I grew up with, which probably gives me comfort. I was talking to one of my buddies whose dad was home at five o'clock every night and it's foreign to him. And so I, I have empathy for that. My wife also grew up with a dad that was constantly away and was building his career. So she's used to it. So I know that we mix that way. That works. If my, if I married a woman whose dad was home at five, I'm sure there'd be more tension.

• 18:52Gary Vaynerchuk?

  If I had a dad that was home at five every day or mom, you know, if they were working, then I'm sure I wouldn't be comfortable with it. But I think the circumstances of our lives have created our situation. And I think that we're dramatically happier than a lot of people that spend eighty percent of their time together. And so, you know, you fight for it.

• 19:08Lewis Howes?

  And when you're with your family, are you ever on your phone? Are you thinking about business or do you allow yourself to shut off?

• 19:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I mean, I would be, I'm desperately trying for one hundred percent attention. I'm probably achieving eighty. Which is better than 50, which is where I was probably three years ago. So chipping away and on vacation, I've gotten to 100. Which is why those have become very special things. We also bought a summer home now and I'm hoping that I can hack into more time that way.

• 19:34Lewis Howes?

  Upstate New York or something?

• 19:35Gary Vaynerchuk?

  In the Hamptons.

• 19:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh, nice.

• 19:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And so it's a little bougie, but

• 19:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:38Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's super fucking cliche. So, but that's a great story.

• 19:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:43Gary Vaynerchuk?

  We tried not to buy in the Hamptons because I was worried that I'd be in the work zone. Last year, we went on a kind of four-year tour, different places. Last year, first day, we're in the Hamptons, first day. I walked to the market with my, my little guy. I run into the guy that runs Pinterest in New York. Four-minute conversation leads to business. It was only four minutes. I walk back home and I go to Lizzie, "Let's buy here." And, and, and because it's, you know, and that whole summer, I probably spent 6% of my time at work, a couple of breakfasts, a couple, you know, dinner, a couple of things. If, so I'll call that a 50/50, but I'd call 6% as the net score and I needed that 6%. You can't, look, my friends, you can't run away from who you are. You can try to mold yourself into a politically correct world and luckily, we're way beyond,

• 20:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  well, not way beyond, this is unfair, but I'm glad the world is now focusing on other variables. We'll always have race and religion and sexism and those things, but now we're leveling up even into like, what's a modern dad and like, you know, what, work-life balance and things of that nature. Look, I know the optics. I know I'm living a public persona. I know I have to answer these questions. Look how many work-life questions you got. I'd like to be politically correct. I'd like to be perfect. I'd like to make it easy on myself to not have to deal with the stress of the optics on the outside. Here is the punchline problem. You can't run away from who you are. You can't. And so, I'm ambitious. Like, I want it and I want it real bad.

• 21:05Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 21:06Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm not sure, you know, I was born an immigrant. I'm not super tall. You know, I like losing. I like, I like, I like what happens to my testosterone and my energy when I take a loss. It gets me more motivated. I love-

• 21:19Lewis Howes?

  We should play ping pong more often.

• 21:20Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I love my legacy, you know, I want to be remembered as a good dude and somebody who did it right. I'm, I'm, I'm, I feel the pressure of my talent. I know I have something and I feel like equal gratitude as I do pressure to execute against it. I'm, I'm aware, I'm aware that I'm different and it would be such a, I, I want, look, I lived 22 to 30, building a big business, but I wasn't doing outrageously special things and I felt it.

• 21:51Lewis Howes?

  You're consistently growing something.

• 21:54Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I was building a business, I'm super proud of that, I'm pumped that I didn't come out and become a pundit and a talking head at 22 and all these 18 year old life coaches on Instagram, like, I'm not into that. So I'm glad I had that meat and potatoes to come out and say, look, I built this, this had nothing to do with books or speeches or personal brand, this was a business I built. I was 32 years old before I said anything about business to the world. I have a lot of pride in that. At the same token, while I was in it, I knew there was more. I knew there was this Gary V thing. I knew that there was bigger and better and all time stuff and so, you know, it's a seesaw of trying to find your cadence. And I think one of the things that I would tell a lot of people who are listening, and I know you have a young crew. I see a lot of, you know, and when I say young, I mean, under 40.

• 22:35Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's stunning and not, look, I'm 40, you could be 46 and it's a mindset, but here's where I'm going with it. It's stunning how much time you have to pull it off.

• 22:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:44Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know?

• 22:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:45Gary Vaynerchuk?

  When were you on the couch in your sister's, how old?

• 22:48Lewis Howes?

  24.

• 22:49Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know what I mean? A lot of, there's a lot of 24 year olds listening right now.

• 22:52Lewis Howes?

  And I had nothing, you know?

• 22:53Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Right, and they're confused, they're like, well, you know, I need to do it and this and that and so. I think, um, I think I love life and I think that I don't want to die. And I think the only way that I know how not to die is to leave a big time legacy.

• 23:08Lewis Howes?

  This is interesting, Jerick Robbins, I think you know, he said, um, but what if he got to the end of the journey in life? And on the very last day figured out he was dead wrong. Just makes you put things in perspective. Truth is, no one actually knows, I'd be curious to hear what his response is.

• 23:23Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's a great question. I will tell you that if my DNA continues to go the way it goes, I'm not capable of crying about spilled milk. And if I'm laying on my deathbed one day to go. And I say, you know, I should have been a stay at home dad or shit. I should have invested in Uber in the angel round when I said no.

• 23:43Lewis Howes?

  You have two opportunities for that?

• 23:44Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Let's not talk about it. And, uh, and you know, what are those things? Um, oh, I got a picture to show you. Check out this picture of Travis at the Super Bowl with Woody Johnson.

• 23:55Lewis Howes?

  See Travis who?

• 23:56Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Travis Kalgner, the CEO of Uber.

• 23:59Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 23:59Gary Vaynerchuk?

  One of my best buds is a picture of him with Woody Johnson and it says, you're out of the deal.

• 24:05Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 24:06Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And the scary part is my homie Travis can actually buy the Jets.

• 24:10Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:10Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Um, so that kind of shit motivates me, right? Travis is my buddy and crush it. Travis is like traveling around with me to my keynotes, just hanging out.

• 24:21Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 24:21Gary Vaynerchuk?

  In between his gigs, angel investing, right? And now he's like one of the four or five most prominent technology CEOs and one of the wealthiest on paper.

• 24:30Lewis Howes?

  Crazy. What's he worth now? Well, what's Uber?

• 24:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Eighty billion. So he's probably, I mean, he's gotta be 10, 12, seven, nine. I mean, something just mind boggling. And, you know, that's motivating. This is my homie who, you know, who I acknowledge and crush it. The only person I acknowledge besides my family.

• 24:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:49Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And asked me to invest in this company and I'm an investor and I passed twice an angel at four million.

• 24:53Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 24:54Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Stupid stuff. I just bought a new apartment. I was super not liquid. I was using my own money back then. And Travis and Garrett, who's founded, weren't going to run it. And I was doing a lot of side projects that weren't working at the time. And so just one of those things, right? Like, like I just missed it. Anyway, um, yeah, I just, I just, um, I'm just living life like everybody else. I just, uh, I just, uh, want to squeeze that orange harder than most people.

• 25:20Lewis Howes?

  You know, you're, you're so good at investing and predicting what's going to be big. You've been talking about Snapchat, what I want to dive into in a second, but how come you haven't started your own app? Your own social, you know, like Snapchat or Uber or something like that?

• 25:31Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm good at knowing what I'm good at.

• 25:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, self-awareness. I think I have it. I don't think I'm Travis or Zucks or,

• 25:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:40Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, Ev or, you know, any of the Kevin Systrom. I don't have a drive in my stomach to create a product. There's a couple that I've thought of, but for now, I still think I can get around to it. Um, I'm feeling good about what I'm doing right now. I'm building VaynerMedia to be a machine for me for the rest of my life.

• 26:00Lewis Howes?

  How many, how many employees?

• 26:01Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Six hundred.

• 26:02Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy. I remember going in your first office with like four of you.

• 26:05Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah.

• 26:06Lewis Howes?

  In New York.

• 26:06Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's right. And so I'm proud of that. You know, it's a hundred million dollar business. I mean, look, I told AJ the other day, I'm like, VaynerMedia is going to end up being the by accident billion dollar company. You know, I right now have nothing but my health stopping me from building a billion dollar agency. Which is wild. You know, that's kind of weird to me that in 10 years, if I don't want to do anything else and if I don't get distracted 10 years from today. I mean, probably sooner, which is scary. Company's probably worth 300 million right now. And I know most people that follow me carefully don't realize that. There's a funny, uh, there's a funny, uh, Google result of what my, the second search on me is what's my net worth? And there's one of these cockamamie sites that's, that says it's 10 million dollars, right?

• 26:48Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And so I laugh at that because people tweet about that quite a bit and ask me like, why am I doing so poorly? And then I, I try to remind them, I'm like, guys, how in the world do you think my net worth is 10 million dollars when? You know, like they, they like add up all the conversations of businesses and like, I'm always confused by how people don't like, it's stunning what people will believe. Some random like SEO based website that's hacking people's names is their belief. Meanwhile, they know I co-own a 60 million dollar business. Which in that world is probably worth anywhere between 40 and 80. You could probably sell Wine Library for a little less. It's revenue a little bit more, right?

• 27:28Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So that's 20 to 40. The property Wine Library is on is worth 10. And it's like, I've, I've been stunned to learn, I guess, I, I'm not going there with humble bragging or, and or clarification. I'm going there with, people just don't understand business. Like people like, I don't know, like, I'm sure you've had people say, oh, that's how many books you sold, you made, like, they don't even think about that. You don't get all that mu- like, somebody once said to me.

• 27:49Lewis Howes?

  You get like a dollar.

• 27:49Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah. They're like, oh, you sold all these. I'm like, don't you know there's a publisher? Don't you know there's like, like, it's just people's basic business knowledge is interesting to me. And, um, and just, it's just an interesting time.

• 28:01Lewis Howes?

  Right. So why heavily vested in, you're the one who got me on a Snapchat. I was on there like a year before you told me for like a couple of weeks, I didn't get it. And then you said at the dinner with Jim Quick, you were like, you gotta get on there. And I'm really grateful I did because I sold a ton of books through it and it's been really helpful for me.

• 28:17Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Attention. I will go down in history as somebody who understood consumer attention. What am I good at? Not only am I good at telling you a story to get you to do something, regardless of if I'm doing it for myself, my client, whatever. I'm really good at understanding where to find you to tell you that story. And I'm really good at understanding when there's not a lot of other voices trying to get you to buy something. That is my narrative. 1996 e-commerce site, nobody was doing it. 1997 email service, 90% open rates, nobody was doing email marketing. Google AdWords, 5 cents a click. Youtube, and then the Youtube part is fun because everybody who's listening right now can go watch episode 1 of Wine Library TV, which was February of 2006, which is less than a year after Youtube was out.

• 29:02Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And to make everybody understand the internet 10 years ago, people were still not on it. And they were definitely not looking for the next cool thing. And so, and then Twitter, and then Facebook, and then Instagram. Instagram was a little bit slower, truthfully. We did a marketing campaign 11 days after Instagram came out. I'm not good at taking pictures, and that was a platform that was hard for me to really get going. I finally got serious about it when I rebooted my personal brand 18 months ago. You know, I was real quiet in between, you know, probably 11 to 14. Like, for me, there's not a lot of content. There's not a lot of content. There was, Thank You Economy is my least selling book because I didn't promote it very heavily. And, but Snapchat, I'm going to end up being very right about.

• 29:45Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's been fun because I didn't realize how, and I kind of give you depths for this and several others. I kind of did an interview the other day, and everyone's like, "Why are you getting so..." Like, you made everybody go on Snapchat that wasn't on it. Kids are dead. And I said, "You know, it's not that my brand is that big, it's really not. It's that so many people that have followed me the last 5 to 7 years, they've gotten big. You've gotten big. Other people have gotten big, and they know that I'm right because they've been with it."

• 30:12Lewis Howes?

  We're all attracting more people on, yeah, yeah.

• 30:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Exactly.

• 30:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's interesting, because I think you said, I think I saw one of your videos where you said you get 25,000 views on Snapchat right now, is that about right?

• 30:20Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm about 27 to 8, almost 30 now, finally.

• 30:23Lewis Howes?

  It's huge. I'm at like 2,000 on a good day, and I'm like, but it's still really powerful. Those 2,000 views are so much more powerful than whatever.

• 30:30Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Well, Louis, Nate Westhyer, a good friend of mine, you know Nate?

• 30:33Lewis Howes?

  Not sure.

• 30:34Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Really good guy from the early tech days, New York guy. When I had 5,000 Facebook Twitter followers, 5,000, in 2007, 08, and we were at South by 2008, I think, and I said, "Follow my friend Nate." A thousand people followed.

• 30:49Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy.

• 30:50Gary Vaynerchuk?

  A thousand.

• 30:50Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 30:52Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And so now I have 1.2 million. If I said, follow my homie Lewis.

• 30:55Lewis Howes?

  Twenty maybe.

• 30:55Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You'd get like eighteen.

• 30:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:56Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Thirty-four. So, you know, it's a noise ratio thing.

• 30:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:00Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And Snapchat has attention right now at scale.

• 31:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 31:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's, it's a Snapchat Instagram world with Facebook still being really the world. But you've got to do paid. And so from an organic reach standpoint, for everybody who's listening to build, it's an, it's an absolute Instagram Snapchat world.

• 31:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and even just your, your buddy, your fitness trainer.

• 31:21Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Mike.

• 31:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, he's even.

• 31:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  He's exploded.

• 31:23Lewis Howes?

  He's building his business more on Snapchat with probably.

• 31:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  He's freaking out.

• 31:26Lewis Howes?

  Five hundred views.

• 31:27Gary Vaynerchuk?

  He's freaking out. Four hundred dollars a month for his virtual fitness thing. And Snapchat's becoming the most important thing.

• 31:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  He couldn't believe it. And this is, I yelled at him on, at CS, January 4th. He started getting serious. Where, where are we? Six weeks in?

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:42Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And more than SEO, more than email, more than Facebook ads, Snapchat is driving.

• 31:47Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy. It's amazing.

• 31:49Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Lewis, you should probably get even a little bit more serious about, like, when I think about how many people listen to this podcast. You need to think about throwing this extreme right hook maybe in this episode or, or maybe doing a Snapchat only episode, like. You've got to be able to get another five to eight thousand people.

• 32:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:05Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Out of this listenership to follow you guys.

• 32:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:07Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Follow Gary V E E on Snapchat.

• 32:09Lewis Howes?

  I'll, I'll make sure to get that linked up too. Um, yeah, I've been promoting it more and more. It's just, uh. I don't know. I have some of these big YouTuber friends that get like half a million views on Snapchat. You're just like, how is this even possible?

• 32:21Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, they're, they're doing that because their audience is younger.

• 32:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:25Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And into that kind of content.

• 32:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Us business or motivation or life stuff, we're never going to have those kind of audiences. What I'm proud of though is the impact is.

• 32:33Lewis Howes?

  But they're buyers too and they're.

• 32:34Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Oh, they're incredible. I mean, listen, I wish I was sixteen years old with light blue eyes and every teenage girl in America liked me too. Or I wish I was a straight ten chick and like could, my body was on.

• 32:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:46Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I mean, like, I mean, being a hot girl is like my dream. I wish that's who I was when I grew up. You know, like, that's leverage for days.

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:53Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I know exactly what to do with that. Um, you know, but, uh, you know, that's just not our truth.

• 32:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What do you think is going to be the best platform for you selling books with this new book coming out? What's? What do you think is it? Because I saw you doing the Instagram. Snap a photo, Snapchat, Facebook. What's going to sell the most?

• 33:12Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Influencers.

• 33:13Lewis Howes?

  Getting other influencers to promote, yeah. Podcasts and other promotion.

• 33:16Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Podcasts, as we all know, are doing extremely well. It's why I'm here hustling and like I know there's 20 to 40% of your audience, especially with your growth, that has never heard of me and as much as we're all out there, you still find pockets and I'm excited about that. Hello, everybody who I've never met before. Number two, I'm very hot on this Instagram book review thing I'm gonna do.

• 33:35Lewis Howes?

  I saw you promoting that.

• 33:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm gonna be very aggressive about this. Basically, all my friends that I think are not gonna buy 20 to 400 books, and you know, I think that was one of the best pieces of advice I gave you, which is just go in and ask.

• 33:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, which I did and sold, I don't know, got around 10,000 pre-orders just from asking people.

• 33:52Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Huge, right?

• 33:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it was huge.

• 33:53Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You just go in for it and you tell, and you make them feel safe. Like, hey, homie, you know, I know we're best friends. I know I've done you nine favors, but you can't do it? Cool. You might not be liquid. You might not want to do it. You know, I don't know. So I don't, as long as you're capable of not being disappointed that somebody you've done a lot for doesn't buy any, you do it. But for everybody else who's not gonna do that, I'm gonna push very hardly for, hard for a very real Instagram book review. Picture the book.

• 34:18Lewis Howes?

  That's powerful. It's been huge for me because a lot of people are still tagging me every day that they're reading the book. And then I just see the comments of people like, oh, I should go buy that book or I should check it out.

• 34:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So I'm gonna, I'm gonna force that in the same way that, so I would say what you're doing with that is the pre model that I came up with, which was you send an email blast to everybody and say, look, I never do that. You know, you remember those?

• 34:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:39Gary Vaynerchuk?

  The email is, I never normally do this, but this book really means a lot to me and duh, duh, duh. And what that did was it gave everybody permission to not do. That's what I think having serendipitous book reviews on Instagram is right now. I'm gonna go out and actually fundamentally have 700 to 1,400 people leave a substantial review. And what's cool about that is a person who has 297 people following them on Instagram, 150 of them are really gonna consume it. Whereas that same friend has 11,000 Twitter followers and like four are gonna really consume it. And this is why Twitter has a problem. It's not about width, it's about depth. It's not how many you reach, it's how many you touch with it.

• 35:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Okay, health and fitness. We got about 15 minutes before I know you gotta bounce.

• 35:29Lewis Howes?

  Why did you invest, I think it was 15 or 18 months ago, you started investing in your health. Now, I've always seen the importance of training like a pro athlete in business, because I feel like it's what gives me my edge. It gives me my competitiveness, keeps me sharp, keeps me confident. I have like that momentum every single day. But why did you decide that it was important? And also, how have you seen the benefits and the results in business? Has it translated?

• 35:51Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'll answer number two, zero. And it's like, the answer that nobody wants me to give, but it's the truth, because I had the energy before. You know, I had the sharpness. I just don't see it. I have not seen it. It doesn't feel different. Number one's the more interesting question.

• 36:08Lewis Howes?

  Before you go into the one, would it in 20 years?

• 36:12Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Of course, that's the answer.

• 36:14Lewis Howes?

  Would you have the energy?

• 36:14Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Of course, that's the answer. I am successful in business, because I don't give a about tomorrow. I care about 36 months from now, 52 months from now, 83 months from now. When everybody's, when everybody who's our contemporary is saying now, Gary Snapchat, what like, I'm like, cool. You're judging Snapchat right this second. You haven't started doing it. Or you just started and you only have 187 people watching your stories.

• 36:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you're going to where the puck's gonna be.

• 36:41Gary Vaynerchuk?

  100%. You know, you're not worried about 2022, when your email service and your Twitter account aren't relevant. And what are you gonna do? So, I'm definitely in a place where at 38 and a half, I'm on this random flight, I like how I'm saying 38 and a half, 38 and a half, I'm on this random flight, I'm just laying there, not feeling tired, not feeling lethargic, no cliche thing, no heartburn, that I think I'm getting a heart attack, nothing. I'm just laying there and I'm saying, you know, if I treated my health, the way I treated businesses, I'd win. And so, I just started, actually, I remember what happened, because I was like, that's not, doesn't feel right. I was thinking about my 40th birthday. And

• 37:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I was thinking, you know, at 30, I changed my life. I went from the executor to, I need to go for it. If I don't do from 30 to 40, it's not gonna happen. So let me go for it in that decade. And I was like, what am I gonna do at 40? Weirdly, I don't feel the same pressure I did at 30. I think I'm on a better career path. Like, I don't feel the angst to like, it didn't feel right to triple down on work. And so I said, health. Health is nowhere close to where it should be. I'm, I'm, I'm, the way I make fun of people in business, you're not doing anything right that's gonna help you long-term. I'm not doing anything right with health. When I turn 40, I'm gonna get serious. So then a week later, I'm on a flight, again, flights made me think. And I'm like, am I waiting to 44? I could do a lot of bad in this next 18 months.

• 38:07Gary Vaynerchuk?

  39, in November, this is around May. And in November, I'm gonna go for it. And literally the next morning, I'm like, why? And I literally called Mike.

• 38:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:17Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And who was my last trainer. Did I call, yes, John originally did, Roman.

• 38:24Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And then, did I call Roman and ask him for a kid? No, I called Mike. I called Mike and I said, Mike, do you have a kid? Who you think would follow me around 24/7 for two years? Sign up, I'll pay him out. He's my personal, personal. Food, workout. And he's like, well, what about me? I'm like, but don't you, aren't you doing too much money? Like, isn't it going too well? And he said, yeah, but it's worth it. I mean, what's, his strategy in this was huge. He got paid a lot of money and his business is five-axed.

• 38:53Lewis Howes?

  There you go, the online business.

• 38:54Gary Vaynerchuk?

  He sat at VaynerMedia and just watched all the behavior. I mean, like, he should have paid me, Mike, you should have paid me. Um, this next person I'm hiring is gonna do me and my wife.

• 39:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And is gonna get paid a lot less because I know I'm gonna help him build a business.

• 39:07Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 39:08Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And the third person, I might just make it like a barter. And the fourth person, I might actually make them pay me.

• 39:12Lewis Howes?

  Right, that's interesting, because someone asked a question.

• 39:16Lewis Howes?

  What would it take for someone to work with you at VaynerMedia and to be close to you throughout all the time?

• 39:23Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, there's an eight-person Gary team for content and biz dev and all that. That's the closest thing. Either one of my assistants, you know, I'm about to go to two assistants. So one, my assistant, or that eight-person team. The truth is, it's been complete serendipity. The way it's really worked is they've either been a fan of me or not, gone into Vayner, worked there a year, out hustled everybody and had talent and then caught my eye and then I brought them into my inner team. So that's the answer. You gotta go work at Vayner.

• 39:51Lewis Howes?

  Put your time in.

• 39:52Gary Vaynerchuk?

  A ton of fans have come to work at Vayner, mainly just to get close to me and sucked and I lost a lot of equity with them immediately and they've lost. A lot of people interested in me have come, fall in love with the business and don't even want to be part of my team and want to do that. And there's been people that have come in and have joined my team.

• 40:09Lewis Howes?

  Right. What's your biggest weakness or the thing you're trying to overcome lately?

• 40:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I think my weakness will end up being too much patience. You know, I can be a lot richer, I can be a lot more powerful, I'm always hedging, I'm always hedging, I'm pushing, I'm always worried about where the puck's going instead of, at times when I went to where the puck was going and I got there, I didn't squeeze it hard enough.

• 40:31Lewis Howes?

  Can you give me an example?

• 40:32Gary Vaynerchuk?

  YouTube, I was so right, but then I left it.

• 40:35Lewis Howes?

  You went to Vidler, right?

• 40:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Exactly.

• 40:37Lewis Howes?

  Is Vidler even around right now?

• 40:38Gary Vaynerchuk?

  No, I, yes, but no. I, email marketing, I could have met much harder, Google AdWords, I was so right and that's why I've really squeezed social much harder, because I learned from digital 1.0, all the mistakes I made by leaving too early. So, the global version of that, back to Jarek's question, is at 85, 90, the one thing I will say is I didn't throw enough right hooks and I, if I don't get what I want, I'm gonna blame it on not going in for the close as much as I could have.

• 41:08Lewis Howes?

  How do you judge how much you're closing, if it's too much or if you're?

• 41:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Intuition, yeah, just my gut, right?

• 41:15Lewis Howes?

  If people are reacting like, they're not.

• 41:17Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And I get so mad when I go in for the right hooks like this book right now, there's people like, "Oh Gary, throwing way too many right hooks, you're starting to become spammy." I'm like, dude, for the last two years I put out nothing but content for free. Yes, I understand in this 45 day promotion period, it's gonna feel like a little much, it's a global right hook. Consider the next 90 days, a right hook. And if I'm not interesting, unfollow me, tune me out, I'll be back to your regular scheduled program in July where you're getting nothing but content from me for free while you're paying some fucking douchebag 180 bucks for his ebook or $10,000 a year for a mastermind where they tell you nothing. I'm giving you true value and vice for free, sorry I'm asking you for an $18 book.

• 42:00Lewis Howes?

  I know. It's like 15 on Amazon, right? It's interesting because when my book came out, you know, I've been doing this podcast for two and a half years before the book came out. Three episodes a week, just producing content, spending money on a, you know, a video person, editing it. It's like only for free. And I didn't have sponsors the first couple of years. And, and I did the same thing. I was like, okay, for 30 or 45 days, I want to push this hard. But people said the same thing. I'm like, I give you so much for free.

• 42:30Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And listen, by the way, they're right. Not me and you. You and I are crying right now. They're the market. They're right.

• 42:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 42:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I just have gotten to a place where I'm like, look, like I, I'm willing to take that loss with that individual because I've been through four or five rodeos now. I know that they'll come back because my value's too much. Like, truth is, it's just too valuable. Like, cool, but like, it's just too valuable. In a world where, where a lot of people just made a lot of money by following my blueprint on Snap. Do you know how many people literally watch everything I say? And then create $200 programs and run Facebook ads of like, and they're experts on Snapchat. And literally, literally, I have a message from them on Snapchat from five and a half weeks ago that says, "You really think this is gonna be big?" Literally. Literally, I can name two people right now

• 43:18Gary Vaynerchuk?

  that I have an email, like the Snap message from saying, "You really think so?" Or the second guy's really funny. "I don't see it," is his first Snapchat message to me. Right now, running Facebook ads for his $300 Snapchat blueprint book and making bank.

• 43:35Lewis Howes?

  Making bank.

• 43:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Running them against people that are fans of me. And my fans are falling for it. And then yelling at me for asking for an $18 book.

• 43:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:45Gary Vaynerchuk?

  When I'm, I mean, just the whole thing's so fucked.

• 43:47Lewis Howes?

  Why, why haven't you ever gotten to creating online courses and teaching these strategies?

• 43:50Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know what?

• 43:51Lewis Howes?

  And making, and leveraging that.

• 43:52Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, I just did something, Udemy and, and I thought, yeah, Udemy, excuse me. See exactly how much I'm paying attention to it.

• 43:57Lewis Howes?

  I see their ads all over Instagram for you.

• 43:59Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah. I mean, like, you know, I'm letting some of the platforms take free money from me. Uh, because I, because I think four or five years ago, online courses were done by the lowest of the low and I didn't want the association.

• 44:11Lewis Howes?

  Now they're a lot more professional with CreativeLive and Udemy.

• 44:13Gary Vaynerchuk?

  CreativeLive, Chase is doing a great job, Skillshare. So. I'm not against it.

• 44:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:18Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm not against it. I'm, and honestly, if I have a really bad experience and too many people get upset about me going right hook, I'll just shut the whole thing down and go only paid.

• 44:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:29Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And then, and then, and then see how much they like the alternative of getting everything for free every day.

• 44:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And now having to pay a hundred bucks a month to get access to it. And they won't cry about the eighteen dollar book as much.

• 44:39Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 44:39Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And like, I'm so, like, by the way, everybody who's listening, I am salty about it. Because there's a reason to be salty about it. We live in a world right now where there are very few people that are giving away the best information for free. And when I see people doing it, I have a Jason Freed, nothing but a respect for that man. You know, like, like, you know, when you see it, you've got to, you've got to acknowledge it. And so, I, uh, I'm, uh, I'm, I'm a little bit disappointed with certain individuals' response to the post that says, "Buy my book." I mean, like, what the fuck are we talking about?

• 45:15Lewis Howes?

  I mean, how much are you investing in your content, your free content every year that you put in? You've got two video, full-time video people, you've got a whole team for AskGaryVee.

• 45:22Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And by the way, again, I can feel myself right now in my heart saying, "But they're right." Like, it's crazy, right? Like, I'm pulling from these very opposite directions, which is, I have empathy, I get it.

• 45:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:32Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Like, you don't want to, especially when you're not used to it. I get it, it's funny, it's almost like the Donald Trump thing. I think a lot of people are buying from these spammer people because that's all they hear from them, and they don't expect anything less, and so, whatever.

• 45:45Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 45:46Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You know, it's, it's a ver, you know, it really, so my jab, jab, jab right hook thing. The truth is, though, I think we're also being a little sensitive. When I look at my mass numbers, the thirteen people that are complaining about it compared to the million that aren't, I think I'm being a little bit soft here, so. Cue Gary, I just needed to say that.

• 46:02Lewis Howes?

  All right, I got a few questions left.

• 46:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yes, let's do power round.

• 46:04Lewis Howes?

  I've got so many more.

• 46:05Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Let's, let's, let's go speed round then.

• 46:06Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. What day and year are you gonna buy the Jets and how much is it gonna be for?

• 46:12Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's a fun question. Uh, I'm forty, uh, twenty, uh, two thousand, two thousand forty-one. Uh, January twelfth, two thousand forty-one, January twelfth, the Jets won the Super Bowl in nineteen sixty-nine. Seven billion.

• 46:26Lewis Howes?

  2041.

• 46:28Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I need time.

• 46:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 46:29Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm not doing behavior that's gonna make me rich enough.

• 46:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm a, I'm a tortoise in a hare's body.

• 46:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Seven billion. How old will you be then?

• 46:38Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Sixty-five.

• 46:39Lewis Howes?

  Sixty-five.

• 46:40Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And you know what? Now that I hang out with a lot of sixty-five and seventy and seventy-five year olds, like, remember how old you thought a forty-year-old was five minutes ago?

• 46:46Lewis Howes?

  So old.

• 46:46Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm forty. I feel like, right?

• 46:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:48Gary Vaynerchuk?

  You think we're homies, right?

• 46:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:50Gary Vaynerchuk?

  But like, four, like, when you were twenty-four, you were like, that's finished.

• 46:54Lewis Howes?

  I'm gonna be thirty-three in a month, then I'm like, forty's gonna be here before I know it.

• 46:57Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yep.

• 46:58Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 46:59Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It sure is.

• 47:00Lewis Howes?

  I bet you when you were thirty-two or thirty-three.

• 47:01Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yeah, that's exactly right.

• 47:02Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 47:03Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Let's do it.

• 47:04Lewis Howes?

  What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 47:06Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Recently?

• 47:07Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:08Gary Vaynerchuk?

  The, the continuous health of my inner circle. I'm just flabbergasted that I'm forty years old and still haven't had a devastating death in my family.

• 47:17Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 47:17Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Now, that comes from an unfortunate place. I lost three of my four grandparents before I was born. Um, but I'm very lucky.

• 47:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. If you could be any pro athlete right now, who would you be and why?

• 47:30Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Uh, Ryan Fitzpatrick, because he's probably gonna be the Jets quarterback this season, and I would feel that that would put me in the most control to win a Super Bowl.

• 47:37Lewis Howes?

  Ha. Uh, what's the pro athlete, any sport, that you think resembles you the most?

• 47:44Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's a great question. Probably Kobe, cuz Kobe's super competitive wh- when he's in his zone on the field. I don't know Kobe. I don't, so first of all, I don't know Kobe. Second of all, just, I'm nasty. Uh, you know, Kobe and Donna McSue, I'm bad. I'm a ba- I'm actually a very bad guy. I wish AJ was here. I once punched AJ in the face, and that was only seven years ago.

• 48:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow. In a basketball game or what?

• 48:08Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I, there, you know, um, there was something very weird that happened at, uh, Vayner Media. I, um, we play, we play basketball every morning, and, um, we have a couple of female players who are really legit, and one was on a breakaway, and I disproportionately flagrant fouled her, and I looked back at everybody, and the level of disgust.

• 48:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  On my employees/friends faces, I turned back like, "Yeah, right, no easy baskets." And they were looking at me like, "You are the worst human being on earth." I get into fights at sporting events, I yell at little kids and old men. There was an old guy walking up, the Jets were beating the Steelers two years ago. Late in the game, this 80-year-old guy's walking up the stairs in a Steelers jersey. I stand up and go, "Hey, old man, you're finished." And everybody laughed because they thought I was talking about the game, but I was actually talking about in life. Like, I get really like, so I think the players that are dirty, or highly competitive, throw elbows, dirty players. Finney again, that corner from, you know, Odell Beckham's little outrage.

• 49:16Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Those, I'm not a good person.

• 49:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What's something every day that's non-negotiable for you? Working out, you know, a certain amount of sleep, a certain amount of...

• 49:27Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's great. That's a fun question.

• 49:31Lewis Howes?

  Saying "I love you"...

• 49:32Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Nothing. No. I'd be lying.

• 49:34Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 49:35Gary Vaynerchuk?

  The truth is, nothing.

• 49:36Lewis Howes?

  Is there a ritual that you follow with all this crazy madness? Or is it just kind of like, whatever comes up, comes up?

• 49:42Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I think really the closest thing to it is that I think about how grateful I am. Gratitude is the closest. Not "I love you," all the things I'd like to say for everybody to think I'm a better person. Saying "I love you" to my wife, hugging my kids, you know, putting in a good day's work, workout, calling my mother, like, nothing. That's just the truth.

• 50:05Lewis Howes?

  When you look yourself in the mirror, what do you see and what do you say to yourself?

• 50:09Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Probably the most egotistical things that I say. I'm probably most egged out when I'm talking to myself, which means that I've got a lot of confidence in ego. I really, whenever I talk to myself in the mirror, it's always the same thing, which is like, "You're gonna do it, man. You're good." Like, it's real good stuff. And it's not like false pumping up, I only do it seven times a year, but like, something would have just happened, either adversity or something great, and I'll look myself and say, "Mm-hmm, we got this." I got a funny, Kevin Durant walked off the field, off the court the other day against the Warriors. And it was a big game, day before the Super Bowl, and they lost. The first time they played and the Warriors are having probably the greatest season of any basketball, right?

• 50:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:54Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And he did something that me and AJ took note of. He kind of shook his head and said, "Okay, yeah." And he gave me that like, "Okay, you won, but we'll see you and we got a shot. I got this."

• 51:04Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 51:05Gary Vaynerchuk?

  And it was, that's what I do with myself. Like, if something good or bad's happening, I'll look myself in the mirror and be, and I'll just say, "Mm-hmm." Like, I know I'm built for this.

• 51:14Lewis Howes?

  Two minutes before a big speech or big presentation, what do you say to yourself or what do you? Is there anything that you do?

• 51:19Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I've got a big one today. I go into an absolute Rocky Balboa boxer zone and I get very competitive against my audience. I want to go out there and compete with them. I want to compete for their attention versus their phone. I want to compete for the greatest talk that they've ever seen. I want to inspire them, to make them understand they aren't working hard or smart enough. I just know it. I just know it. And so I get very combative with them. Equally, I'm very compassionate and want to only bring them value. I am going to this conference today, there's like 12,000 people, a lot of digital marketing shit. There won't be a single ounce of me that cares about any one of them buying a book.

• 52:02Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It will be, and that's so different than my contemporaries. They go into sales mode. I go into the reverse. I go into, "I'm gonna deliver the biggest value they've ever seen in this talk, and I'm gonna guilt them into discovering more about me and converting."

• 52:16Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. I love that. Okay, three final questions.

• 52:18Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yes.

• 52:19Lewis Howes?

  It is your last day.

• 52:20Gary Vaynerchuk?

  On Earth.

• 52:21Lewis Howes?

  And everything you've created, and you know, you're 100 years old, everything you've created is gone. All the videos, all the daily V's, AskGaryVee's, everything you've ever put out there erased. Books, everything.

• 52:31Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'd kill myself.

• 52:32Lewis Howes?

  Media, gone.

• 52:33Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'd kill myself.

• 52:34Lewis Howes?

  All your friends and family are there.

• 52:36Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Kill myself.

• 52:36Lewis Howes?

  You're, you're healthy, you're happy, but it's the last day.

• 52:39Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Do I know it's the last day?

• 52:40Lewis Howes?

  It's the last day. You know, when you go to sleep at night, you're gonna, it's over. And they say, "We have nothing to remember you by."

• 52:47Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yes.

• 52:47Lewis Howes?

  It's all erased, everything. But here's a piece of paper and a pen.

• 52:50Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Yes.

• 52:51Lewis Howes?

  And you get to write down three truths. Three things that you know to be true about everything that you've experienced in life.

• 52:55Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I would only do one thing.

• 52:56Lewis Howes?

  What would you write down?

• 52:57Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I would only write one thing down.

• 52:58Lewis Howes?

  What would that be?

• 52:59Gary Vaynerchuk?

  5149. I would run a 51, I'd run a slash, and I'd write a 49.

• 53:04Lewis Howes?

  What's that mean?

• 53:05Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It would mean that I wanted to give everybody that ever came across me 51% of the value. And that's how I live my life. I so know what to do with the 49 that I want to give 51. It's leverage. It's how I think about it. It makes me feel good. I love being liked. Louis, look, you and I run in similar circles and around a lot of different... You know, you know what I'm about to say is so true, and I'm very proud of this. And I am saying this because I want everybody to hear it. Do you know how nice it feels for me to know that anybody that you talk to when my name gets brought up that knows me even a little bit thinks I'm great? And only the people that don't, don't? Like, whatever I have in hate, or they don't believe the hype, or what's he really about?

• 53:50Gary Vaynerchuk?

  They just don't know me. And anybody that's spent any amount of time, like, listen, there can be moments in time, but I know that the 137 times I've been brought up in different cocktail parties or dicks that... That you've rarely heard from somebody who's interacted with me, negative. It's always been positive, and I love that. And that's 5149, man.

• 54:09Lewis Howes?

  I like it. I want to make sure everyone goes to get the book. I have one final question. I want to make sure everyone gets the book. Where can we go to get it?

• 54:16Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's all, you know, you're doing real nice by me here, but I don't think anybody's confused where they can go and get it. You know, there's plenty of places.

• 54:22Lewis Howes?

  Where's the main thing we're gonna send people to right now? Is it the AskGaryVee? Is it the Daily Vee's?

• 54:26Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I think the Daily Vee'd be fun. You know, I think, I think there's, you know, because AskGaryVee, the video show... So for a lot of people that are listening, they're podcast listeners, right? So my podcast is not that strong because it's the transcribed audio from my video show. And I think AskGaryVee, the show, is really, really good. I am captivated by the reaction to Daily Vee.

• 54:44Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing, yeah.

• 54:45Gary Vaynerchuk?

  The Daily Vlog thing is really cool, so YouTube, Gary Vaynerchuk, youtube.com/GaryVaynerchuk. Google Vaynerchuk, it's a challenge.

• 54:53Lewis Howes?

  We'll link it up here in a second, yeah.

• 54:55Gary Vaynerchuk?

  So I would say that, because I'm curious for a lot of people here who don't know me. They watch two or three of those, I think they'll get a sense, and that's cool.

• 55:02Lewis Howes?

  We'll have them on the show notes as well. Make sure to follow Gary, @GaryVee, everywhere, especially Snapchat right now.

• 55:07Gary Vaynerchuk?

  That's V E E. I'm an idiot with that terrible branding. For such a smart branding guy, two silent E's.

• 55:12Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Gary. I acknowledge all my guests at the end for being yourself 100% unapologetically you and for not being afraid to be a dick. And I think it's, a lot of people are afraid to put themselves out there because they don't want to have people hate them or be talking bad about them. And I think it's, you know, a lot of people could say like you are a dick or this and that, or you've got an ego, but I think it's who you are and you care so deeply that you're willing to put it out there all in the line.

• 55:44Gary Vaynerchuk?

  I'm only doing that because people are accepting people with bad intentions. I'm only being a dick, like anybody that really knows me, I'm petrified to not be liked. I hate it. I hate it with all my heart. I'm uncomfortable in it. The only reason I'm a dick is like, and by the way, just for everybody who doesn't know me, the reason people think I'm a dick is because I'm combative around things that have been accepted as very lowest common denominator, marketing and business tactics. I'm talking about the things that we're all whispering about in the halls. I'm just putting them to the forefront. All the same things you're talking about, that person's really spam or they're really not that good or they're full of shit, I'm just saying it out loud in front of everybody because I want everybody to win.

• 56:26Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Well, I want to acknowledge you for setting the bar as well.

• 56:28Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Thank you.

• 56:28Lewis Howes?

  For all of us to really raise our game up there.

• 56:31Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Thank you, brother.

• 56:31Lewis Howes?

  So I appreciate it. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 56:35Gary Vaynerchuk?

  It's a great question. What's my definition of greatness? I think, I got one. I think that when it's all said and done, and we've been talking a lot about legacy, that when it's all said and done, you've achieved greatness when even though all along the way, there was a narrative of he's a dick, or he'll never pull it off, or what has he ever really done? Greatness is when you are on that last day, both the fans and the non-fans have to accept and acknowledge the results.

• 57:09Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Thanks for what I meant.

• 57:11Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Thanks, brother.

• 57:11Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it.

• 57:12Gary Vaynerchuk?

  Thank you.

• 57:14Speaker 00

  There you have it, greats. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed interviewing Gary. I always love when I get to chat with him one-on-one to get inside his mind and hopefully learn something new that I can apply to my life. Again, that's the whole goal for this podcast is for me to continue to grow as a human being, to develop, to become a better human being and a better man in the world, but also to dive into people's minds and share with you everything that I think is actionable, resourceful, valuable stuff that we can apply in our lives. So I hope you guys are getting a lot out of this podcast. I hope you, if this is your first time, make sure to subscribe over on iTunes and

• 57:58Speaker 00

  SoundCloud and Stitcher. And I hope you're sharing this, you know, consume the information, but also give it away. Give it away to your friends, email your friends, tag me on Instagram and on Twitter, on Facebook, and let people know. Again, this specific link is lewishouse.com/299. Also, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Someone left a comment over on one of the recent videos this week and said, "Wow, I just found out about your YouTube channel and I see you have all these incredible videos and interviews." So I haven't really been promoting it that much, but now I want to make sure you guys are aware of it because we have incredible video footage of a lot of these guests we've had on since starting in the beginning of this year. So make sure to check that out. It's youtube/lewishouse.

• 58:43Speaker 00

  And share this with your friends. I love you guys. I hope you enjoyed this. I hope you're getting value out of this each and every episode we put out. I couldn't do this without you, so I am very grateful for all that you do to support The School of Greatness. Thank you all so very much, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.