Gary Vee: The Inconvenient Truth About Winning in the Interest Media Era

0:00Mick Hunt:Are you struggling with your social media likes, clicks, engagement? It's probably because you're thinking about social media and you should be thinking about it as interest media. In this podcast episode, I sit down with the goat. He's going to break down literally every single thing that you need to know about interest media. But we're going to go further. We're going to go deeper. We're going to talk about some things that you've never heard Gary Vee talk about. This podcast is the one you want to listen to. Buckle up. It's live. Gary, how are you doing today, brother? That's very kind, my man.

0:31Thank you so much. I'm doing quite well and I'm glad to be here.

0:34Mick Hunt:I'm the honored one. Man, you don't know how much you mean to me, to my life, to my businesses. Most importantly, to my podcast, man. I started this podcast 18 months ago. So well before it became the number one self-improvement podcast, before it started doing crazy numbers, you were in my ear. And you said, Mick, if you're going to do a podcast, do it with purpose and do it like a business. because so many people play. If you want to make impact, do it for real. So I owe you that, man. And no one knows that. I've never told you that. But that's why I do what I do, because in my ear, you said, run it like a freaking business or don't do it at all.

1:13Thank you, my man. Thank you so much. I mean, you know, I'm in this great point in my career where I'm detached from it because, you know, as the great poet once said, never get high on your own supply, right? I'm detached from what I know I've been able to accomplish. The humility comes very natural to me because I was well mothered. But God, it feels really nice, man. Like to really know that I'm putting out stuff there for the last 15 years that people that have amassed more wealth, more fame, more happiness than I have on the backs of the content and the words that I've put out over this last decade and a half, it feels like a life worth living and I hope God blesses me with another 50 years to keep building on it because I um it really is intoxicating to me it is those compliments those words are dramatically more delicious to me than any of the fruits of my labor there's no private flight there's no car or watch or vacation well vacation because it's family life but There's very few things outside of my family that bring me more joy than those words.

2:28And I'll tell you why. Because I actually think it's a bigger cosine, hat tip, flower to my parents, to New Jersey, to America, to good parenting than it is to me. I'm the byproduct, my man.

2:42Mick Hunt:Yeah. You know, I'm the byproduct of humble beginnings. You know, so thank you. And I will pass those words on to my parents. I love that, brother. Tell them I said hello. And speaking of your parents and your journey and all the generosity that you do, man, like you do so much for free, like so much. Just here's some tips. Here's how you can do it. I've always wanted to ask you, like, what's your because? What's your purpose? That thing that's deeper than your why for doing the things that you do? because I'm good. You know, it's, you know, when you're full, you're not really eating everyone's food.

3:21You're not, you know, like when you're full, you're handing out food. You know, that's the real answer. I talk about this concept of gratitude and guilt sometimes to that question, because I do feel unbelievably grateful for, again, I started with it impromptu. the parents I had, especially my mom, the way she raised me, being born in the Soviet Union, coming to America, living in a household full of love with no money. So by the time I was 10, it was ingrained in me that money had no impact on happiness. I'm so happy I grew up in the early 80s, 80s, 90s in Edison, New Jersey. I'm happy I went to Martin Luther King Elementary School.

4:02I'm sure for everyone listening knows that means I knew how to scrap. I knew how to play spades and CeeLo. I grew up with such humble beginnings and such diversity back to MLK. MLK was not just black kids, black, white, Indian, Asian. I have so much love in my heart. I grew up with all kinds of people. Now that I'm 49, I've lived and been in the muck when I first came to America in a studio apartment in Queens. I've been poor. I've been in the poor rooms. I've been rich. I'm in the richest rooms. And when you live a coast to coast life, whether you go from rich to poor, which is obviously incredibly challenging, or from poor to rich, when you've seen happiness and you've seen despair, you know, when you've seen light and you've seen darkness, you have clarity and I do the things I do because when I started giving away all my information my wisdom my hope my happiness and my best practices um I was already good my man you know I was financially less successful than I am today at 31 32 when this started happening but I was I was equally happy yeah you know and I was equally gracious and I was equally humble and I was equally hopeful.

5:25And the truth is the last 10 years of the world, you know, this given those beautiful words and I'm thankful for them. I have stayed me through every twist and turn, every twist and turn in my own life. But then even more hard when I look at public figures, the culture, and I don't mean black culture, which is actually the culture. I mean, popular culture, culture, political culture, the atmosphere in our society has changed a lot in the last 15 years.

5:52Mick Hunt:Yeah. And a lot of people talked about optimism and love and now pontificate hate in disguise of political views or strategy or bullshit. So the thing I'm most proud of is I'm consistent. I haven't been caught up when the left wanted me to left and when the right wanted me to right. I'm just right here in the fucking middle. I got love for everyone. life is complicated I don't have the audacity to think that everyone should see the world the way I think I'm blown away by people's audacity to think that everyone should see the world the way they see the world yeah so I'm staying kind of in my pocket I'm in my studio even though I have no music skills I think of it as like I'm in my studio I'm working I'm writing I'm making beats I'm putting out music I just do that in a different way but I'm not trying to go to the red carpet I'm not trying to go to Ibiza and party.

6:46I'm a true musician. And without a musical bone in my body, I'm just in my fucking cocoon, spitting my words, building my businesses, because I think that's important. If I'm going to pontificate about what to do, I don't want to be a professor. Yeah. You know, when I say do this, I did it. When I'm out there today, my morning post, everybody should do social shopping, live shopping. Social media is about to be QVC. well I'm doing 100 ,000 a night selling shit on whatnot.

7:16Mick Hunt:Yeah. You know what I mean? So I think that's something else I'm proud of. And you know, now you're running these circles. What's cool for me is before we started, we talked a little bit about Damon. What I like about my life is I'm so fortunate that I have men like you saying what you just said. But what I know is that Damon knows me more and he likes me even more than that because he knows the shit I do behind the camera. Right. There's so many people that are their best selves in front of the camera and they fucking disappoint you off camera. My best work is done when y 'all don't see me. Yep.

7:53Mick Hunt:Yep. Absolutely, man. You know, it's the same thing. I was just telling you, Robert Irvine and I talked about you for a couple of hours, not even trying to talk about you. You were just a part of the conversation. And we both said the most consistent, authentic person we know is Gary V. Right. And I call you, and Robert was laughing, but he goes, you're right. I said, what I call Gary Vee is the inconvenient truth. He is always going to be consistent. He's going to tell you like it is, and you're going to learn on everything that he says. Whether you agree with it or not, which is, I don't know why you would not agree, but you are the inconvenient truth, brother.

8:31You know what's funny? It comes from an interesting place, and I hope, you know, when I do something like this, I want people to get value. So let me tell you all where that comes from. that compliment. It comes from two very, very interesting things. One, it comes from intent. Mick, what makes me super different in hindsight, I knew it was happening along the way and now it is just on wax, as they say, is I've never thought about anything I've done publicly from any other lens than the intent of why would this be good for Mick? I believe most of the content we consume in our streams, the person that's making it is making it for their best interest.

9:13Buy my course. Make me famous. I want your follow. I want to make money. So make me famous or buy my thing. Like you can smell the intent. My intent has been I'm going to give you all everything I got. the shit I can charge unlimited amounts of money for if I had a masterclass, if I had an island, if I had courses, if I had mentorship programs, inner circles. I'm going to give you all better shit than the people at the top of the game that do that shit. And yes, occasionally I'm going to be like, yo, you want to buy my dad's wine? You want to buy my collectibles at VFRE? I'm going know have things i'm a businessman right but i have no expectations of anyone that extracts unbelievable value for my free shit i do not expect them to buy a v friends trading card or a wine i don't expect anyone who's listening right now to sign up for wine text.com but i said wine text.com because i'd love for them to do it because it's my dad's business and i want to help him always and if they buy wine don't buy it on bullshit wine.com buy it on wine text.com if i've brought you value, but nothing I do is to then later get the thing.

10:30And that's why I'm who I am. And I think people forget that humans are animals. I think y 'all can smell it. If I'm out here trying to fake it, if I'm here out fronting, because I really deeply just want you to buy X. I think most of us know it. Even the ones that are not that in tune, eventually they're going to know it. The other shoe always drops, my man.

10:58Mick Hunt:Always. And so, A, why am I an inconvenient truth? Why am I consistent? Because my intent is consistent. The other reason I think I'm consistent or have inconvenient truths is I'm about that life. Meaning when I say I'm in my studio. I often say I'm in my cocoon. What's wild about me is I'm such a talker and I'm so out there, but the reality is, is almost all of my time is spent listening, not talking. When I come up for air and do this podcast, it's on the back of fucking the last 8 ,000 hours I've spent this year studying live social shopping, studying Sabrina Carpenter versus Netflix versus Andrew Schultz and Shane Gillis versus La Boo Boo's versus baggy jeans versus poppy soda versus Netflix versus Hulu versus UF.

11:53I'm a culture savant. Right. So I'm consistent because I don't talk. You know how they say there's that old saying that I like a lot like measure twice cut once i'm so petrified to be wrong and lose equity i'm out here measuring 45 times cutting once yes by the time i'm gonna talk about something that shit has been fucking quadruple checked it's real it happened i'm not guessing out here i get a lot of extra credit for he sees around corners he predicts the future i'm like nah i'm just in it day to day and i'm willing to talk about it faster than most people because I'm in it day to day. I don't need, nobody else is Gary being me.

12:37Y 'all are Gary being me. I'm telling people things and then people are moving. The way I'm learning is not from Johnny or Sally or some other person. I'm in the trenches with all 8 billion of you. And then I'm creating observations which I think makes me unique, fresh because I'm not parroting someone else. I'm in my own feelings. When I know Substack's going to be big a year ago, I'm not going to see who's already talking about Substack, if there's anyone talking about Substack. I'm living Substack, and then I'll talk about Substack, which then makes my point of view original. I'm using music for some weird reason a lot in this interview.

13:22The people that blew us away, lauren hill tyler the creator like like whoever right i believe that they're influenced by people before them but what they did well was they stayed in their own pocket and they felt unique to us because they are unique to us they still might have been influenced right by michael jackson or aretha franklin or prince or pink floyd but they're they feel original because they are original and I think other artists come along and have commercial success, but they listened too much. They copied prior people too much. And so they were just half or 25 % original, which was good enough to give them some pop and maybe even a hit record and this and that, but they're not the icons that changed it completely for us.

14:14I'm not saying I'm an icon or completely changed it for us, but using your kind opening, I do understand why I've hit. And now let me bring it for everyone who's listening. The more you're you, I'm gonna say it nice and slow for the kids in the back. You can slow down your, what is that thing you run on, your treadmill right now, or you can let your dog pee real quick, or you can pull over on the side of the road if you're listening right now. I need you to hear this. The more you're you, and I mean all the way you. I've cursed twice, Mick, in this interview so far. It is not awesome. It's not lost on me that 15 to 5 ,000 people just decided, okay, I'm not with Gary V because I don't, you know, especially you grew up in the South, you grew up with that kind of grandma.

15:01Like, I respect that. But I have no other year besides being me. And I grew up in Queens and New Jersey. And cursing is every third word in our lives.

15:14Mick Hunt:Yeah. Yeah. Dude. Again, that's who you are. if I got anything from you and Damon John, it was this. And it's just what you just say. Mick, you are the brand. Correct. You're the and whatever you're people. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I apologize. It just happened two minutes ago. Two people today in my office asked me their young kids who are interning, who then going to go back to college and they want to build personal brands because, you know, every kid now wants to be famous. Right. And like, how how do I find my niche? Everything feels overcrowded. I'm like, everything is over crap i'm like the only niche you have is you we could end right now but we're not going to because again you and damon both 18 months ago when i started the podcast and i was like all right i'm gonna run it like a business but i do so many things how do i figure out what's the angle what's the lane and damon goes mick just be you just be the brand and then the things that you do are the services or products that you provide.

16:18When I started doing those garage sale videos, Trash Talk, right?

16:21Mick Hunt:Yeah. Where I go out and spend 113 bucks buying a bunch of trash at garage sales and then show people that it's worth 800 on eBay. I had billionaires, the titans, the most famous people on earth that we all follow and think are the best businessmen and women literally reach out to me and say, why are you doing this? You're belittling yourself. and I said the reason I'm doing it is because when I do podcasts like Mick and I talk about investing$25 ,000 into Twitter and it's changing my life or things like that or Facebook or this I get a lot of DMs and emails saying Gary B I fuck with you but yo fuck you man I don't have $25 ,000 to put into Twitter I got$19 in Wells Fargo and after reading enough of those I'm like well guess what I had$19 in Chase Bank too one day when I was 20 getting paid nothing building my dad's business for him, by the way, not for me.

17:11On Saturdays or Sundays or Friday afternoons, I had to sometimes step out of the store real quick and go to a estate sale or garage sale and buy something for 18 bucks and then sell it on eBay for 109. Cause that was money to me. I said, you know what? I'm going to start making those videos. So I'm driving around Jersey and fancy cars, or sometimes even with a driver garage sale it. Why back to the beginning, because I wanted to make content for people that have$99 to their name because I know, and it's already happened. I did that in 17, 18, 19 before COVID. There's not a month that goes by that I don't meet someone in the real world at a restaurant or at an airport where they don't literally, Mick, literally come up to me, open up their eBay app and show me they have$59 ,000 in there.

17:56And they're like, that's you, bro. I had$9, I was making eight bucks an hour at fucking Walmart. and you made that video about garage sales and I've been flipping since and this has made my family be able to go to good vacations I can send my kid to private school because of you that's why I did it I don't give a fuck if a billionaire thinks I'm a schlub because I'm going to a garage sale in fact I'd prefer them to think I'm a schlub

18:21Mick Hunt:the inconvenient truth every time big topic I'm just going to say the two words interest media my man you're listening because you and I are on the same vibe there I've been telling people for the past six months it's not social anymore there's nothing social about anything you're doing on Instagram LinkedIn Twitter or X whatever they call it now like there's nothing social about that it's interest yeah it's interest media you know there is something social the comments are still an incredible opportunity that people are missing out on Mick huge missed opportunity. In fact, watch this. I'm going to throw a right hook for you.

19:03Everybody, we take so many things for granted in life. If you love what Mick's done for you with this podcast, please take the time. It'll take three minutes. It would mean the world to me, but I know even more for him. Please take three minutes right now and like close out or minimize or maybe at the end of this podcast, don't forget. And I know some of you forget, so jot it down. Please go to Spotify or Apple and leave with preferably a five-star review if you love this podcast, but look, if you think Mick's at a four-star level, give him the four, make it true. There might be a three-star person on here.

19:36Please leave a review. That's social, Mick, right? Like if right now what I just did for you leads to a couple thousand people actually leaving a review on both of those platforms, it's gonna make you get more listeners. So there is some things left social. If everyone who's listening here that wanted to grow actually replied to every comment on every Instagram post, you would grow a lot. So social still is out there. Now, what you and I are referring to and what I've been yelling about for about three years and I kind of like got this term down now because it makes it very easy to understand is the algorithm doesn't work the same way.

20:09Social media for 15 years, as you know, I've said this a bunch, used to work like email marketing. Get as many followers as you can and a certain percentage of them will see it. Now, literally me and you are cooking, we're growing. There's somebody listening right now who's never posted once but they own three dry cleaners and you know what? They're like, you know, I want to be like Mick and Gary too. and they're literally gonna be inspired by this little rant, and they're about to make a video, literally. They're on their way to work right now. Literally, they're gonna make their first video telling the story of how they built these three dry cleaners, and they're gonna post it on TikTok, and it might get 90 views, but they might get a message that kind of gives them a little more juice, and their ninth video they make is gonna get one million views, lead to more business, and they're gonna be on their way to be us, and that excites me, and that's not how it was from 06 to call it 21, but that is how it is now.

21:00Followers are diminishing in your guarantee to get views and awareness. The content now is finding their audience. Let me give you a for instance. If I make a video, ah, we talked about it, I think before, yeah, we didn't talk about spades here. We were talking about it before we went on. You and I are both passionate about spades. If I make a video right now about spades, okay? Like I love spades. Like I know how to sneak it in. You're never gonna catch me. I know what to do. I've got hand signals with my partner. We know what to do. If I did that in 2017 to the audience I had, it would be a low performing piece of content because people are like, occasionally they want a little randomness for me, but they want their business stuff, their motivation stuff.

21:43Today, if I posted that on TikTok, especially, but more and more every other platform too, that is literally gonna show up in the feeds of people who don't even know who I am that fuck with spades. Now, it's gonna show up to 12 or 15 people, and if none of them react, that it'll probably die pretty quickly, and it will low for four. But I made a video years ago that still gets brought up all the time of me talking about how much I love blueberries and that I can eat blueberries better than anyone. And that video got five million views at the time when most of my stuff was getting 500 ,000. And so that one just hit.

22:17And that goes back to you are the niche, that goes back to talk about what you love or you know, and that is the truth of interest media now. If you make content that is random, that is true and honest or passionate to you, it will find audience versus not. Now again, don't get discouraged. Let's say someone got excited about what I just said and they made a post tomorrow about Stratego the board game and the following day about lasagna and the next day about Run DMC and all three did way worse than the stuff they normally do. I don't need a DM from y 'all saying, Gary Vee, you're wrong. You lost it.

22:54You're the worst. You just did three. If you do a hundred of them, then I'm about that life. Then you can come and yell at me. But I have a funny feeling on your road to a hundred, something good's about to happen.

23:04Mick Hunt:Damn right. Damn right. It is. You know, Gary, I tell all my friends, you're, you personally are like my brother from another mother. About a month ago, we're on a live on whatnot, right? And a person, I'm not going to say their name in the comments was trying to go for sympathy and it went something like this gary my company is ending remote work in the next nine months i don't think this is a great place because we can continue to work from home we are just ineligible for raises in order to get a raise you're gonna have to come back into the office no no by the way me the company just to add color because I went crazy on this one too.

23:48Yes. I'm glad you brought this up. The company is moving to Florida from wherever they were. Obviously, they're doing that because of the taxes and all the things happen. But also, we're living in this AI world. The fact that this company said, we're moving to Florida, but all of you get to keep your jobs and we're giving you a year's notice that we're moving and you get to keep your jobs and can be 100 % remote. But as you can imagine, because HQ is in Florida, the promotion cycles and the rising will be a little bit different and they're clowning on that i lost my shit shit dude i

24:23Mick Hunt:was writing down because if you didn't say anything i was literally gonna go do an instagram post about that because how freaking titled bougie of yourself how entitled for you to be upset and i'm sure it's a six-figure job that that person was complaining about like even if it's a five-figure job the here's where we're at and you know this big and boy do i have a funny feeling knowing your audience and what you talk about like shit got soft out here and like do you understand what our grandmas would think about the work ethic of our children our great grandmothers would be rolling in their goddamn graves if they understood what these kids expectations and entitlement was We got soft.

25:12And that's what empires do. We need to be real with ourselves in America. And I'm not even talking about rich people. Like I'm not even, like I'm talking the, let me go this route. The average person that makes 60 ,000 a year right now, which is not an extraordinary amount of money, but way closer to the average of what Americans make than people realize. Everybody thinks everyone makes a million dollars now. When people live, when I was growing up and I was poor, very poor, like poor, then it was lower middle class, then lower, lower, then it was lower, then it was middle class. When I was coming up in my life, all the way to high school, and then I went to college where literally, and this is where I got my spades skills from, I went to a school where 90 % of the kids that I went to school with were on financial aid.

25:59I grew up humbly. These kids were from hood, hood culture, okay? When we all grew up, when you had humble stuff you didn't buy 30 pairs of sneakers you weren't buying starbucks you weren't ordering uber you weren't fucking what has happened is yes there's a separation of wealth issue which i fully believe in but you're not allowed to complain when you're buying a 36 cocktail on a thursday night happy hour when your money's tight you're not allowed to complain when you've got Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and fucking Paramount. Plus, when your money's tight, you're not allowed to complain when you've got eight different kith and essential hoodies when your money's tight.