23 Minutes of Advice to Get You Ready For The Work Week

0:00A lot of people are very bad at time management. I had this kid at the airport, it's like, you spit all this stuff. I ain't got time. I'm like, take out your phone. He's like, all right. I'm like, show me your calendar. He's like, nah, I'm like, show me your fucking calendar. Takes out his calendar. Dude's got three meetings. I do 78 meetings a day, 15 minutes, because 30-minute meetings are really 15, and one-hour meetings are really 30. If you're doing a two-hour lunch meeting, you got time. Attention is the number one asset. Let's rock. Hello, how are you? My name's Ismael. Ismael, great pleasure.

0:30So I have a question for you about NFTs. Please. Where do you see that going in the next three to five years? Three to five? So had you been following this space for a while? A little bit, yeah. So thank God, and I felt it in August of 2020, thank God I started making all those videos that 99 % of these things were going to zero. Because if I didn't, I'd be in a very different place with my brand. If you remember those videos I put out a year and a half ago, the reason I thought this was going to happen was because it just became about greed. And that's what I saw with the internet stocks in 1997.

1:06To give you a history lesson, because there's a lot of youngsters in here, the first wave of internet stocks in 1997, 8, 9, we had companies like Pets.com be worth like$5 billion, but hadn't even sold anything yet. It was just early internet. And the internet was right, Ismail, right? But those companies were overvalued. The reason I said 99 % were gonna go to zero is NFTs are right. First of all, NFTs are a major technology. It's not just collectibles. It's where all of you are gonna, by the way, especially for this industry, all the deeds, all the mortgages, all the leases, they're going to be on the blockchain.

1:41There's no reason for it to sit in a municipality where the shit can burn down. Like in the next decade, especially with AI and deep fake videos, this world is gonna start understanding why the blockchain's a big deal. But what we just had the last two years was complete speculation, ridiculousness that, and listen, you all know this, We see that in real estate, we see that in trading cards, we see that in art, you have these ebbs and flows. But where do I see it? I see it similar to the internet. I think the blockchain will be one of the most profound technologies. I think NFTs definition will broaden into many things.

2:15And just like trading cards, 99 % of trading cards, bro, are worthless. But Michael Jordan rookie cards are valuable. 99 % of sneakers are not collectible, but StockX does drillions on the ones that are. 99 % of art is garbage. 99 % of watches are not worth shit. So that's where everybody gets caught up. They're like all of NFTs. Nah, they were confused. They didn't want to hear it. People were talking from a place of greed. And so for me, it was exciting because I always wanted to buy like an old IP like Smurfs or Scooby Doo or like the Care Bears. I always wanted to buy one and refurbish it.

2:50It allowed me to do my Pokemon meets Sesame Street V friends and I love the space but it's gonna need three to four years to get the stigma off of what just happened and the technology will grow and then I think it'll be meaningful. Pleasure. Of course, my man. Thank you. Hey, Gary, good to see you again. You were talking earlier about essentially marketing versus selling. Yes, branding versus sales. Correct. And both matter. Right. But when people do branding and marketing, they actually are trying to say, I need to sell and they don't realize it, which then why it's all confusing for everyone.

3:29Correct. So in the podcast episode, you and I did, we talked a little bit about this, but for especially an audience of large mortgage and real estate for people that don't necessarily have money to invest in help and they're out there trying to sell and get the transaction. Can you go a little bit deeper on how to balance the two? Because as you said, a lot of us bought clothes and items based more on brand than the actual call to action sales for the smaller business or for the individual professional. How do you unpack that? Look, that was the first eight years of my life. Just going to the reverse of what I just told you earlier, before there were 29 employees on my content, I did eight and a half years all by myself.

4:15So what do I think everyone should do? That. I think that a lot of people are very bad at time management. They tell me, I had this kid at the airport, it's like, yo, I hear all your fucking spit, great kid, I liked him, that's why I shopped with him, he's like, you spit all this stuff, he's like, I ain't got time, I'm like, take out your phone. He's like, all right, I'm like, show me your calendar. He's like, nah, I'm like, show me your fucking calendar. Takes out his Dude's got three meetings. Bro, you know what my calendar looks like. I do 78 meetings a day, 15 minutes because 30 minute meetings are really 15 and one hour meetings are really 30.

4:53If you're doing a two hour lunch meeting, you got time. So what do I think? I think people need to make content. And I gave them permission today. You know, I know you know my stuff. I'm starting to really, because I'm writing the new book. Like, you don't want to be on camera because you're a little, because people beat themselves up visually. Like I really believe in that everyone's beautiful thing. I understand some people are universally considered attractive versus not, but like the thought that our people are here are not gonna build their actual business and dream because they're scared of one person saying they're ugly in a comment on Instagram breaks my heart.

5:28Let me just talk on that real quick because I know this shit stops y 'all. If somebody takes the time out of their day to go around the internet to find you and tell you that you're ugly or stupid, think about how sad their fucking life is. Stop feeling bad for you when people say that to you. Start feeling bad for them. So I think people should do what I started doing 15 years ago. I believe everyone here should make content. I believe it is absolutely enormous. Not to mention, even if they never hit it in social, it's them practicing their sales pitch. it's them engaging with people. A lot of you are trying to get to people.

6:13Let me give you an example of a real estate or a mortgage professional that is all day long one of the most clever moves everyone can do here. You start a podcast around the town you do business in and now you're reaching out to people that you want to do business with and instead of trying to sell to them, you tell the rich dentist in your town, hey, you're a pretty amazing dentist, you want to be on my podcast to tell people about your dentistry? now you've just turned a sales pitch and not into a sales pitch but now you're giving the dentist a platform. Now that dude's coming to your fucking house.

6:45Now you're fucking friends. Now you get the fucking business. That's a good idea. And by the way, let me tell you about humans. They've all got egos. Even though nobody's listening to your podcast nobody asked that dentist to ever be on a podcast before and he's fucking pumped.

7:03My man. Hey Gary, Spencer here. Spencer. As a DTC e-commerce brand, at kind of a impulse purchase price point, how much? $30 to$50. Nice. That's not the number one. Like it. Okay, so as that brand, what paid advertising platform would you target before others if you were to just choose that person? Facebook, number one. Which is crazy, right? But the way you asked the question, I only have so much money. Your biggest upside is probably TikTok, but TikTok ad product is not as refined as Facebook right now for DTC, and there's enough vulnerability there that I'm not sure you know how to make the content for TikTok.

7:55What made everybody win in DTC with Facebook is you didn't have to make good content. Facebook was so fucking effective, the math worked for everyone. They didn't realize they were doing crappy ads. it just worked because the media was so goddamn underpriced. And big companies would rather do a million dollars doing TV commercial that none of you would watch than put into Facebook and that's where the arb was. So I still think it's Facebook, believe it or not. But I would say that if you feel in your heart or your stomach, you understand what I'm saying about like make content for the platform and you understand the kind of content that could work on TikTok.

8:32And I would also say here's a real good hack for all of you selling something in that range, post like crazy organically, and when something goes viral, turn that creative into an ad. I call that brandformance. You're doing brand, but the second the world told you, like I like this video, you retake it and you turn it into an ad, you almost turn it into QVC, not a TV show. You tweak it a little bit with a call to action and hard right hitting like bye, bye, bye, and that will do extremely well. Yeah, we've got some content on TikTok that's doing well organically. So that's why I was peering towards that, but meta ads.

9:11Meta ads crush that platform's so fucking advanced, and Facebook specifically, because you have an older demo that has a higher propensity to buy. But TikTok, the ads, the videos that have gone well, take them out again, tweak them with a call to action, put a price overlay. It's okay to turn it into an ad and rerun it as an ad, I think you'll be surprised. You got it. Appreciate it.

9:41Who do we got? All right, right here. My man. How you doing, my man? I'm good, bro. Hey, so when you were talking about doing six to 10, whatever posts per day, is there a ramp up that you recommend, right? Going from zero to 100. Are you like, just go for it? 100%. I'm trying to show an ideal space, but bro, if you do one versus zero a day, I'm thrilled. That's the sweet spot. But this is why I use the physical thing. You do 10 push-ups a day, you're gonna get 10 push-up a day results. You do 100, you're gonna get 100. This is what's so fun about being in this game. It's like, oh, damn. This is one of the most merit-based...

10:26The reason I love sports is you can hide almost everywhere in life, even entrepreneurship. I got friends who've had three failed businesses and they suck shit at entrepreneurship, but if you look at their Instagram, you'd think they're the fucking greatest of all time. But sports, you can't hide. You play one-on-one and you lose 11-3, you lost 11-3. What I really like about social, you can sit here and say people got lucky, but it's not true. People are like, Gary, I've been shadow banned. I'm like, you haven't been shadow banned, you just suck.

11:00So, yeah bro, to your point, going zero to 100 is hard. But let me tell you how I think about it. If you go and film something for an hour, whatever it is, a day at work, why is Dustin here right now? I would tell you that I probably still public speak for the content more than the speech. That the filming of this is incredibly valuable for me because I'm gonna get six to seven. I mean, how many people here follow me pretty well, just to give me a sense? That's super humbling, thank you. So y 'all know, I don't make content. I just film my life. I'm too busy to film content. I'm not an influencer.

11:39I run businesses. I have 4 ,000 employees with all the businesses combined. Like when people come to VaynerMedia, they're like, what's this? Like most people think I'm like a motivational speaker. I'm like, I'm a fucking operator, dick. Like, so I figured out, cause I knew it was so valuable. Okay, wait a minute. If I film my everyday, that's how I'll get my content. Cause I ain't got time to like sit behind a green screen or, you know, but most people do. And you don't think there's too much. Bro, nobody's going to see your shit. No overkill. No, I don't think there's too much. You're going to post tomorrow and nine people are going to see it.

12:15There's 8 billion people on earth. Right, but let's say, you got LinkedIn or whatever platform serves up the people who interact and engage with your stuff, right? There's never too much of a good thing. To your point. So as long as the content is quality, right? This goes back to the merit. When I popped out in like 2006, seven, eight, most people actually thought I'd be gone in a year debating on like who was going to win because I'm too much. I'm a lot. And people thought, okay, this is all sizzle. The reason I'm still here is I have it enough to say. I'm good enough. By the way, the reason I still operate is the day you stop operating, you're out of touch.

12:53The reason I'm contemporary and good is because I'm actually doing it and then I just talk about what I'm doing. It's really hard to talk about TikTok properly if you've never done TikTok. So, no, I don't think there's too much, brother. Look, if you're, and remember, when I say four or five times a day, six times a day, I think you need to be on seven platforms. So it's not six on LinkedIn. The problem with most people here is they're one dimensional or just on Instagram. I'm talking about Twitter X, Facebook, and then inside of it, there's, now you got me, it's Facebook and Facebook Reels. It's Instagram and Instagram Stories.

13:27It's Pinterest. Tons of people here should be doing stuff on Pinterest, not even thinking about it. LinkedIn's a monster for everyone here. Facebook's still a monster. YouTube Shorts is a monster. YouTube Longform monster. her like there's a lot going on out here so that my man go ahead my man Brandon Zylstra how are you I'm doing well put your mic to you can you hear me now we're good uh just something Jamie and I actually talk about quite a bit is just your time management because I know you're running bajillion companies you still have a social life you're still losing to your brother in golf I was just curious like what advice do you have and whatnot for managing all these different for companies in a given day or month?

14:10Couple things on the record. Regardless of what AJ told you, I've only played golf like seven times. Though he's beaten me every time because I've only played seven times. I touched on it earlier, my brother. So first of all, I have three full-time assistants and two chiefs of staff, five human beings whose full life is to manage every one of my minutes. But again, because I just did it with content, the first 11, 1998, the first 13 years of my career I managed it myself. And what I learned when I managed it myself was the number one thing I'm positive of, I'll die on this hill, every one of you spend too much time in meetings that mean nothing.

14:52And so the time management to me is the obsession with it being valuable because I'm hungry. But I don't judge, I wanna take a big step back. If you're sitting here and you're good, you're good emotionally and you're good financially besides protecting your moat that's working for you I don't care if you do anything I'm saying but if you're looking to grow you just realize time is the one thing and I think people don't invest in time there's a lot of people here who are doing pretty well and still don't have a full time admin because they think of it as a cost and don't realize they'll double their salary right?

15:32they're like fuck I don't want to give up 70k for that or they're too private. My dad doesn't have an admin because he was born in Russia and he doesn't want anybody to know his shit. Meanwhile, the last seven assistants I've had can memorize, like literally can rattle off my social security number right now for you. So like we're really the two extremes and everyone here is in between, but the way I think about it and what I do is like I put money into capable people to make it go well and then I refine it and refine it and refine it. I'll give you a couple other tactics that might help people here?

16:05How many people here have an admin? So one big thing is how often I meet with my admin team every Thursday for an hour or 30 minutes to look at the week ahead. And even though like on Monday I'm like, this is the most important meeting, book it next week for an hour, literally by Thursday when we do it, I'm like cancel that meeting. Because shit's moving and things change. And so again, it's kind of like that chicken and egg game. I don't think people are committing enough dollars and time to manage their time and that's how I do it and then back to your point VaynerSports with AJ my pickleball team that I own the esports team that I own VaynerX has eight companies in it VFriends, the other thing is I put family in charge of my businesses whether it's my actual family like my brother AJ or my family like Andy who's been with me for 11 years and he runs VFriends if people are gonna go to a real high level and I hope all of you do if that's what you want please remember that adage of like don't bring friends and family into the business is just as wrong as nice guys finish last.

17:14It is dangerous and you could if you if you care more about your money than your best friend or your sister well then you're vulnerable. But if you don't and you understand that shit is bullshit compared to that relationship then you should only surround yourself with family and best friends. It's the best. It's the best. But most people are scared to do it because they have a belief. And listen, I have no interest in judging. I'm just sharing shit that I see and not just my own life. I get to look at a lot of businesses and I'm older now. I'm grown. I've seen it. I'm so fortunate. I'm not attached to my money.

17:52I'm not attached to my notoriety. I don't have my self-worth wrapped up into Gary Vee or my bank account. I have it to like who I am as a dude. So I got lucky. I know that's not everyone. But if that's not you, if like you need that blue check mark, if you need that million followers, if you need that million dollars, that's something you should really work on because you'll always be vulnerable if that's true. That means you value other people's opinion more than your own opinion about your own self.

18:28Let's keep it going. This is all I want to do. Oh, shit, one more? That's it? Fuck. All right, one more. Where are we going? Who's got it? Hi, Gary. I'm Max Elkin, and I'm 17, which is like practically a kid. And I just want to ask... Not practically, bro. Yeah. Like super fucking kid. I just want to ask you if you are now, and you wanted to tell your younger 17-year-old self a quote, what would it be? I would tell the 17 year old kid I'll talk to you as if I'm talking to myself at 17 Bro you got really lucky in the DNA game. Your mom and dad had sex at the right second and a lot of things went well for you.

19:07You stunningly got a ton of shit figured out but you have one major problem. Your lack of candor to people that you love is going to fuck you up It's going to be your kryptonite and so work on that and start telling people how you actually feel and that will really help you even if it might hurt their micro feelings you won't build resentment and it won't fuck up your game. Besides that, keep doing what you've been doing, which is, and this is now the advice I've given you, Max brother, listen to me. At 17, the biggest mistake that every 17 year old makes on earth is they think they're supposed to.

19:41That's where I end it. You think you're supposed to, based on your family, based on what content you consume, based on your life, you think you're supposed to X, you think you're supposed to Y, right? Now with the way the world is, some 17 year olds live in families where they think they're supposed to not go to college and be an entrepreneur because their folks are. But maybe you fucking love going to school that way and that's your path and you fear being an entrepreneur because you've seen your parents struggle with entrepreneurship. More likely, you think you're supposed to do this college thing or be a this or be a that or you want to be an influencer or you're supposed to be a lawyer.

20:19Bro, at 17, what you need to realize is how lucky you are. How many people here would give it all up to be 17 again? Raise your hand. One more time, because I want this kid to have a moment. This is a room of some, by the way, I don't know if you saw how fast my fucking hand went up. How many people in this room, no bullshit, would give it all up to be 17 again? Raise your hands. Brother, listen to me. You could literally do nothing right for the next 13 years of your life. Actually, let me say it a different way. You could literally do nothing right for the next 17 years of your life. Do you know what I was doing professionally at 34 years old?

20:58What? I worked in my father's liquor store. I haven't even started what I am now today to everyone here. You have such a scary amount of time. What would I tell you to do? To like take a step back and really think about what you like. Like what you watch. Gaming, music, rock climbing. I don't fucking know you. You know what I mean? But whatever it is, you have so much time to actually go chase it. Live humbly though. Don't have your parents or grandparents support your dream. If you have a dream and you want to live it, then fucking live on the floor with your buddies, right? Don't become entitled and have someone pay for your dream.

21:37But if you have a dream, go try to go after it for six, seven, 10 years. And after 10 years, 12 years, 17 years, then you can be like, all right, look, I went after it. When I'm 80, I'll never regret. I want it to be this. You gotta be self-aware. You can't look at yourself. I couldn't look at myself and be like, I wanna be in the NBA. That's delusional. You know, you can't be delusional. But you can absolutely fucking do anything and none of it, if it goes wrong, will matter other than you need to make sure you do it the proper way. And what you need to do is, and do you know why everybody raised their hand?

22:14Because as you get older, this very scary thing starts to creep in. You don't know about this shit yet, Mac, but let me tell you what it's called. It's called regret. And regret is the fucking worst. And so what I want you to do for the next 17 years is live your life without regret. Don't blame your parents for making you go to this or become that. Do what the fuck you want on your own two feet, not their paper. Do it the right way and do it for a decade. And if it doesn't work out, then you can get a bullshit job. I thank you so much. Thank you Dallas.