1-Hour of Advice About Sales, Self-Belief, and Winning in Business

27:11I don't know if you guys remember this, some of you, like half my class was like architect and fourth grade was when I realized because I was really good in sports in first, second, and third grade because my hand-eye coordination is fucking gangster. But fourth grade is when everybody got a little bit bigger and stronger and faster. I was like, oh shit. And so fourth grade was when I decided instead of being a Jets player, I was gonna be the Jets owner. I didn't even really know what that meant.

27:37But I just have been pretty intentional about this. I've thought about it. The Jets thing has been there my whole life, but it's funny, there's a lot going on with sports teams, especially NFL, like private equity can buy in now. And every two or three years, there's a rumor that Woody's selling the team. I'm not ready financially. And I think a lot about someone else buying the Jets, how big of a news cycle that's gonna be for me, right? If like three years from now, Sally Thompson buys the Jets, I'm gonna have like a month's worth of tweets and social media posts and be like, oh, Gary V, what happened?

28:11Or like, how do you feel, Gary? And the truth is, I feel nothing. I'm completely detached from my lifelong dream. I'm completely detached from my professional success. I'm complete, I get, I need everyone to hear this. Sharon, I want to make sure you, oh, hear what he left. I want everyone to hear this. I get 0.0 of my self-validation from my professional success and notoriety. Zero.

28:45I like being a good entrepreneur. I like putting out content every day that brings people value. I get zero validation from it. I get validation from knowing that I've executed the way I was parented. I get validation from how I show up when things are hard. You know, I get validation from things that none of you will ever see.

29:16And that's what I think about when you ask me that question, my brother, which is, I'm 49. I turned 50 in like three weeks. Like, I'm fucking grown now. And what I know about that means this isn't gonna change, nothing's gonna change, this is who I'm gonna be, and I wanna be a nice dude who tries to do cool things and communicate what I see with the hopes that other people can get some value out of it like you did yourself. You know what that feels like to me back there? Do you know what that feels like to have someone who's accomplished and talented, well-intended, to say, hey, you wrote a book and it really helped me.

29:56what, I mean, how many people here are a parent? Raise your hands. Great. Then all of, you know this, like, real talk, like, you know, what are we doing here? Like, have you hung out with 99-year-olds that aren't your grandparents? Nobody gives a fuck how much money you made. No fucking 99-year-olds running around. Like, I promise you, like, you care about, like, what you feel about yourself. and you know I think about trying to be a good dad and try to be a good husband and I think about trying to be you know just a good person and that's what I spend my time and energy on. I'm going to tell you the most interesting thing that I've observed in my half century on life.

30:48literally and this is pretty I'm pretty pumped right now literally literally this is real and this is like scary to me and is shockingly not talked about literally if you sit here right now and you don't blindly 100 % love yourself which I'm gonna argue almost no one has and some of you have it really tough I've been around my whole life deeply in secure people, I need you to hear something. This validation from within. Because almost everyone who isn't where they want to be is in a relationship with themselves where themselves are telling themselves that they're not good enough or not awesome enough.

31:36Here's the coolest thing about this conversation. Literally, every self-doubt or nitpick or razz or insult you are telling yourself was put inside of you by someone else. Yeah.

31:58I need you to really play with me on this one, please. Literally, you think you're telling yourself that you suck or you're not good looking enough or not fast enough or not smart enough or not good. You think you're talking to you and you're not. you've accepted, often a parent, potentially a sibling, you have accepted something that was instilled in you to create self-doubt. It's not yours. It's fucking not yours. That's what I think. So I think it is the most important conversation. most people most people on earth do not have two parents that give them perfect self esteem metrics there's almost none and that shouldn't make you mad at your parents in fact in one keynote my favorite thing I ever said in front of like 20 ,000 people was fuck your grandparents

33:11and let me tell you why I said that. I think a lot of you were sitting here as I was just talking going to either your mom and dad. I believe that to be true and I think that means you lack empathy for your mom and dad because you are acting as if your mom and dad were the beginning of this game. In fact, I watch friends and acquaintances who are so angry at their parents but loved their grandma because they gave them a cookie? And meanwhile, grandma was the one that fucked up your mom.

33:51So let's break this down. You, likely for mom or dad, maybe someone else, in fact, actually, ironically, for a lot of people, it is grandparents that spent a lot of time with them, living with them, that were the ones that instilled this. Someone instilled doubt in you. Made you feel lesser than. Created a belief system within you that you weren't good enough. Shamed. It's not real, they did that. But I don't want you to be angry at them. I want you to be compassionate, empathetic, and sympathetic to them, because someone did that to them. So many of you are right now parenting your children with the same shit that you were mad that your parents did to you.

34:35Oh, notice how quiet it got there. They didn't want to admit that. My friends, you can chop this if you start to understand what's happening here. So what would I say to people that have self-doubt and are looking for validations from themselves? It's the most natural thing to fully believe in yourself. The problem is from the second you hit earth, you start going into a game where others are trying to influence that. And they're not trying to do it on purpose. it's just the way the human flight is. I think you need to blindly fall in love with yourself. Like I wanna break this down a little bit.

35:11Like why wouldn't you love yourself? Let me ask you a question. You think no other human on earth made a mistake?

35:22Like every single fucking person in this room has made significant mistakes in their life. Me included. We are all human beings. Like everybody else sucks too.

35:41Please stop putting other people on a pedestal. For what? They made more money than you? They're more attractive than you? Like more people think they're cool? It's not fucking high school anymore. Stop putting other people on a pedestal and start putting yourself on a pedestal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

36:06And let me tell you why. Because you can choose what to put yourself on a pedestal of. I know unlimited millionaires who are straight pieces of shit. I respect them zero.

36:19So for me, I put people that are incredibly nice on a pedestal. So if you're sitting here and you're dead fucking broke, but you're actually extremely nice, you are more a winner to me than someone who has a million dollars in their bank account. Now, this is important. Thank you. This is important. I don't know if I'm right or wrong about that. There's some people sitting here and being like, fuck Gary. You're allowed. You are allowed to sit here and say someone who's a millionaire is better than someone who's nice. You're allowed. What I'm saying is you're allowed to decide why you're putting yourself on a pedestal.

37:06Maybe you're not great at sales or business, but you are a remarkable loving mother or sister. Or maybe you're just a very loyal sports fan like you and me. And you decide that loyalty to a shit sports team is the ultimate way to be a human and thus you are on the top shelf. it may sound silly but I need you to understand you are the judge and jury of everything and that's that

37:59in Ethernet where they put a p jeste.

38:35Something happened early on that, and when I say early on, I'll call it five to 12, that I just got really comfortable with being uncomfortable. I'm telling you, this is why I make, how many people here follow my content? Raise your hands. so thank you. For the people that raised your hands how many people have been following my content for more than seven years? Raise your hands. So thank you for that. So the people that raised our hands you're gonna know where you're right bro? What the fuck just happened? All you did was raise your hand. You okay? Yeah.

39:17Stick with us here.

39:22So for the people that just raised their hands that have been on this journey with me for a while, you can tell how much in the last five years my content got around parenting. And it's not because my kid, you know, I was 16 and 13. It wasn't so much of my own journey. It was when I was getting feedback from all my DMs. I read, you know, one of the things that I think makes me who I am is I read my messages from people in social at a level that I don't really even know anybody else who does it at the level I do it. I mean, I will literally, I just landed this morning from Saudi Arabia. On the flight here, I read 2 ,000 direct messages from random people.

40:01I believe there are people that have the kind of profile that I have that haven't read 2 ,000 messages from people in their life. And so I'm, what I think makes me, you know, it's funny, this is going to make sense to you based on me now starting to understand you. I'm a better listener than most people.

40:23which is weird, right, for a lot of people, especially if I don't get to know you because I'm always talking. But I feel like I'm always talking because I'm doing so much listening. And I like to talk in places where I have things to contribute. In fact, I just was in an offsite in Lake Como in Italy on Tuesday and Wednesday at this fancy thing where I talked nothing, even though everybody was talking. and a lot of people knew who I was there and they're like, what the fuck is going on? You're not talking. And I said, well, I don't have anything to contribute to nuclear energy.

41:01And then the next topic was like, this guy from the US military talking about us versus China and war games that we ran in 1994. I'm like, I don't know about that shit. I don't like talking when I don't know and I like talking a lot when I know. I think this goes back to what I talked about earlier. I got really comfortable with being uncomfortable. The reason I just talked about my content changing, parents of someone between five and 18, raise your hands. Parents of five to 18, real high, I just want to know. I'm telling all of you that just raised your hand. Us, we fucked up. I don't mean you did.

41:41I don't know who's doing what. I don't like talking, I like talking about parenting in general, but I would never talk about how you should raise your, everyone has their own circumstances. But we've over coddled them.

41:55My mom is the most nurturing human on earth. You guys, my mom's the fucking best of the best of the best. That's the real answer to all these questions.

42:06Yet, literally from the age of seven to 14, here was my mom's interaction with me. Let's just use the summer because it's a little bit more in control without school. I would wake up at eight. I would have breakfast at 8.30. I walked out the house at nine. She had no fucking idea what I was doing until 12.30. I came home. I ate lunch for nine minutes. I went back outside and I came home at six and my mom had no fucking clue what I was doing. Now, how many people here are parents of 22 to 30? Raise your hands. Do you know how many people who just raised their hands have a tracking on their kids right now on 27-year-old grown-ass men and are texting them like, why are you still not home?

42:57We have fucked up.

43:08I'm standing up. You can see how passionate I'm getting. I really want to go here, slow. This is very important. I feel like this is the most impactful thing I can do today. How many people, just raise your hands, and please don't be embarrassed because we're all doing it so there's no judgment. This is about trying to help some one person. One, how many people, again, have 22 to 30 year old, I'm gonna stick with this first. Men, not even gonna call them boys. You have a 22 to 30, 22 and older son in your life. Raise your hands. How many of the, keep, go high. You should be proud of that. I need you to be honest with me.

43:47It's okay. If the people, now you're allowed, keep your hands up. You're strong. You're good. Keep your hands up. If you have one of these find my, track my shits with your children, keep your hand up. If you don't, you're allowed to put it down. Keep it up. I'm telling, I'm telling the 11 of you, thank you. I'm telling the 11 of you that are, still have a tracking device on your son. This is very important. You're gonna tell me, no, but Gary's safety and all this. The fuck do you think was going on every time before we had these phones to track? I'm telling you right now, the number one direct message I get is from a 22 to 35 year old male who says one of two things.

44:32My parents still have tracking on me or my parents still give me money. and the next thing out of their mouth is I'm a fucking loser and the next one and stick with me here if you have a 22 year old or older male in your life that you give money to because he's asking literally thousands of messages in the last six months alone of I asked them for money but I wish they didn't give it to me because it proves they think I'm a fucking loser so we have a group appearance in here who think they're doing the right thing. I get it. Gary, you don't get it. Inflation. These kids have it harder than us when we had it.

45:18There's fucking millions of kids 19 years old making a million dollars a year on TikTok. Word is right.

45:26Stop treating grownups like children. It is destroying their self-esteem and you know what else is fucked up and I see a lot of your parents, I see you right now in your faces. I get it. and no judgment because you love these little fuckers more than anything.

45:43These are grown ass men. You're treating them like children. It's destroying their self-worth. They're so fucked up that they can't get out of the circle because they still want the money. They want the BMW. They want the Uber. They want big fucking things. They're not earning it. And we are destroying them and they're so deep they can't pull themselves out. so you have to cut them off. The first six months are going to be atrocious. They're going to be like, fuck Gary V.

46:17And then in nine months, I'm going to get a text. I'm going to get a DM from them and I'm going to say thank you.

46:28The earlier you can start this, the better. My mom is an angel, but she was cheap as shit. And I knew by 10, if I wanted fucking Nintendo, I better sell lemonade. So do you want to know how I got up here? Love, but no fucking coddling. When mommy takes care of everything, shit gets fucked up. What do you think of where AI comes in? Where's it all over here? I think most of you will have grandchildren that marry an AI robot.

47:20We took a hard fucking turn, huh?

47:25AI will be the most significant innovation, invention, technology that you will see in your life. and a lot of us have lived through the internet, which, again, saw some hands for some of the youngsters in here. You have no idea how crazy life was before the internet. It was like, right? Like it's fucking... Before cell phones. Before cell phones. Remember when we were growing up? I remember growing up and you'd go meet your friend at the mall, but if you hit traffic, like if there was an accident and you were 15 minutes late from meeting at the fountain, it was over. You made a new thing. I showed up at the fountain.

48:02My friend wasn't there. I walked around the mall for 20 minutes, couldn't find him, went home. Shit was wild.

48:13AI, so a couple things. Let me really break this down. I think most of you are scared of AI. No. Good. But I think... Not this group. You should be.

48:30You should be. I don't know what you guys are thinking. This thing's coming and it doesn't give a fuck. So here's what I would say. You have to be such a gangster to win an AI. Like you have to be so committed. So a couple things. AI is the biggest tidal wave that's ever come. You really need to know how to surf. Everyone's like, yeah, we're ready for it. I'm hyped. I feel your energy. If you are not prompt engineering for an hour a day, you're nothing.

49:19I'm just walking right into it now. In our vision in the program, we are building AI. If you're in the vision in your program, and raise your hand and say yes. Yes! We're prompt engineers every day together. Love, love, love. Friends, keep quadruple down on this energy. It's gonna really matter and it's coming very fast. Even, you know, I always get worried when big technologies comes and you're in the 60 year old, 70 year old, 80 year old set which I feel a couple of you are in this room. This is like 24, 36 months from now. The world's completely different and for a lot of people, this is going to be remarkably phenomenal and for some people it's not.

50:04And again, you know, the first thing everyone goes to is jobs, right? Which if you really understand what's happening and that's fair. But like nobody, do you know how many sales people the Yellow Pages had when Google came along and said fuck you? Like none of you were crying for the Yellow Pages sales people.

50:23Do you understand that some poor guy bought a thousand horses the day before the car was invented?

50:33This is life. Shit happens. Go read articles about what they said about the tractor when it was invented. 84 % of society worked on farms when the tractor was invented. So this is humongous. The opportunities are enormous. Similar to the internet, a computer, a cell phone. There's how many people, this will be good for the kids. Do this for the kids, everyone. How many in here, when the iPhone came out, refused to get it because they loved the buttons on the Blackberry? Raise your hands. Right? And everyone said, and all those people, kids, that raised their hands said they were never gonna get one.

51:12But of course, but of course, but of course they were gonna get one because better technology always wins. So this is the biggest of them all. So for example, you, every person in here, forget about AI prompt engineering. When you realize that you're gonna have 37 agents working for you, AI agents, working for you. 2 ,000. It depends on how it plays out. It could be four, because four can do the work of 4 ,000. Karen, if I should share this one quick set. This is totally amazing. So Kevin Mayer, who created, do you know Kevin? I know Kevin very well. Okay, Kevin's at Nazi. How disruptive is Kevin Mayer at our athletic company?

52:05Yeah, Kevin's amazing. My point is that these folks in this room, we're building all of this. Love, so let's just keep playing the chess out. You will not do a single thing that you do now. You will never go to the store to buy something again. Your agent will, buy it for you. Every single physical item in the world will be internet and AI enabled. Your refrigerator will reorder your favorite beer once you're down to one instead of six.

52:39Stand up, sir. You're the best fucking gangster here.

52:48This motherfucker hasn't clapped for me once yet. I said your refrigerator is gonna reorder your six pack of beer, and he lost his fucking mind.

53:08So, couple things. Let's just talk about business. My number one businesses that I'm investing in now are real world stuff. Music festivals, skiing, surfing, What's about to happen is there's a significant chance that in the next decade we will be going to a three or four day work week in the hardest working country in the world. Let's say we do because the efficiencies get so high and all this shit gets changed. The fuck are you gonna do for four days?

53:44Right? If really we're working three days a week for real, the fuck are you gonna do for four days? and so you know people are going to lean into the arts into their creative side into their experiential side the world is about to be rewritten in a significant way and I think you need to start training for that marathon right now applause applause applause when this had been

54:34Thank you.

55:06By the way, I think I'm gonna jump on that. I really think that made me a man. You know, basically when I was 11 years old, here's what I knew in life. One, protect my sister. Two, I have to buy my own shit. The fuck us as a man. We must focus on that shit for sure. For sure. And that was the first part, right? So I think, you know, I think, I think people point fingers. I think we're addicted to pointing fingers. I'm just gonna say something. You point a finger? For example. is there, here's a good one I think about all the time. Entrepreneurs, my fellow entrepreneurs make me laugh about how they think about politics.

55:54I made money with Clinton. I made money with Bush. I made money with Obama. I made money with Trump. I made money with Biden. I made money with Trump. Like, no president has ever stopped you from succeeding.

56:18We blame everybody. The governor. You guys are all hyped up about the Jersey governor's race. Neither one of these fuckers are going to help you.

56:32Like, we like to blame our parents. We talked about that already. Like, society. Like, there's always shit. There's always going to be something. And there's always something. Of course there's racism. of course there's sexism, of course there's anti-Semitism and Muslim, there's always been something, we act, like the thing that's blowing my mind brother is everyone's all shocked and if you look at real data it's never been better. And that's important, that's important. Now it might not be better for you because that's how life works, there's individual circumstances. But once you really understand that, In life you find what you're looking for.

57:15Ah, here's something I want to talk about. The algorithm. Let's talk about the algorithm. The amount of people that want to blame the algorithm has me super, super giggly.

57:34Friends, a couple things. The algorithm. The algorithm did not change you. The algorithm exposed you.

57:51If I open my algorithm right now, there's Jets highlights, baseball cards, sunshine and rainbows and happiness and love. They're not pumping anything towards you. The algorithm has one job. One, to keep you on the platform. How does it keep you on the platform? Correct. We don't even live in social media anymore. We live in interest media. But how does it know what you like? You're telling it. It's what you, you don't even have to like it or share it. If you sit on it, they know. You're the problem.

58:34Let me tell you how I can prove it. Anyone who's still sitting here being like, nah Gary you don't get it it's fucking China or Zucks I'll tell you how you can do it if you don't like what your stream is doing if you feel anxious if you think social media is fucking you up open your app of choice go into search right now go into Instagram right now go to the top hit the search button and type in the following words happiness enter it will show you results and I want you to like three or four of those things next sunshine three or four of the rainbows Gary V.

59:12Right? Like all those things. Tonight, I mean it. If you're just curious, literally wake up tomorrow and tell me what your algorithm looks like. So we need to understand the algorithm thing and then, because I talk a lot about social media, I'll be at an airport, which I'm at a lot, and a parent will come up to me and be like, Gary V, I fuck with you, I think you're awesome. I gotta tell you though, I don't like the TikTok thing. I think you gotta stop talking about that. I think it's fucking up my kid. And I look at them and I'm like, I talk about TikTok from a business marketing standpoint. Go, what the fuck are you talking about?

59:44If you think your kid is getting ruined by TikTok, the hell are you talking to me about, too? Take the fucking app off your kid's fucking phone. Brother, the amount of people that social media is so bad. I grew up, again, 80s, 90s, like if my mom thought porn was bad, she didn't let me get Playboy.

1:00:07if you're like my mom was my cousins on this my mom was so anti-alcohol in a world of like russian culture being alcohol that like she scared the fuck out of me i didn't even contemplate drinking because my mom's an angel until so all these parents blaming tiktok and social media and other people blame yourself if you're sitting here right now and you're worried about your child because of social media, fucking take it off their phone. Oh and then you're gonna tell me, but you don't get it Gary, like peer pressure, kids in school, I'm like no I get it. You're a pussy.

1:00:53Because you're living in the era where we want to be friends with our kids when they need fucking parents.

1:01:08You can be friendly, but you are not their friend. That's right. And so stop blaming everybody and every tech company and everything. The only thing I know, more than the sun will come up tomorrow, is that everything that is wrong in your life is 100 % your fault. Yes.

1:01:33And for the people, and I see a lot of people that hit, but for the people where it's like, huh, I'm telling you, once you get into that place mentally, it makes your life awesome. Because once you realize everything's your fault, it gets fun because you're like, oh, wait a minute, that means I can do something about it. But if you think it's your mom or dad's fault, or the governor's fault, or this, Then you're stuck. You're like, shit, I can't do anything about it. You are fully in control. And I mean 100%. I just don't know what else to tell you. The most exciting and liberating and intoxicating feeling in the world is 100 % accountability.

1:02:23Like, you know, again, back to the content I make, I get all these messages like, having major issues with your partner and spouse? Forced therapy? They don't wanna go? Break up.

1:02:39Like, got quiet there for a second. Fuck yes! I'm not saying this is easy, I'm saying stop crying.

1:02:53Yeah, because here's the thing, crying about the same shit over and over to the one fucking person that will listen to you cry because they're your mom or because they're also a fucking loser is not effective. Pay very close attention. How many people, you know what? Let's get real with each other. How many people have the courage? How many people have the courage to raise their hands to the following question? How many people here feel that they complain too much? Raise your hands. This is incredible and I appreciate your humility. This is huge. I'm really excited that so many, this is huge, I'll tell you why.

1:03:30This is, man, I'm pumped. Listen to me. There is no more obvious wasted energy of the human being than complaining.

1:03:43It's actually really bad. Like, actually. Now, so many of you, man, I'm really like taken aback by how many of you raised your hand. it really means a lot to me and it speaks to this crew you've built. Listen to me. I'm gonna really go in with you on this one. Now think about who's listening to you. I want you to, a lot of you raise your hands. Think. Think about who's listening to you. Couple things. One, you just might have a spouse or a parent who's an enabler. Right? Two, they just blindly just like love you. Three, they might be stuck. You might be their boss. or four, or four, they're losing two.

1:04:30And they're only listening because they can't wait to complain back to you. You're playing fucked up ping pong.

1:04:41Because winners are now listening to you. People that are doing shit and trying to really fix shit. You've lost some people along the way with your complaining. think about those people and think about what's happening in their lives now of course some of them are fucked up too but a lot of times those people just were done they couldn't help it does it feel good to listening to complaining it just doesn't and here's the cool part once you realize all the complaining is 100 % your fault all your energy starts going to fixing it and it feels good to fix fucked up shit thank you thank you everybody everybody if you enjoyed this podcast please go back and look at the prior episodes they're loaded i appreciate your attention and uh thanks for being part of this journey see you later