Balancing Passion and Practicality | A Conversation with Mattel

0:00This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. Hey everybody, before we start today's podcast I put out a new deck I know the pyramid deck changed everyone's life Go to garyvee.com slash attention A free, how many pages is it Sid? A free 47 page deck That is free That will change your business, your life, your brand, your world Go check it out Now to the podcast Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary V. Welcome Good to be here Thank you for having us A few things on Gary. He is a serial entrepreneur, chairman of VaynerX, CEO of VaynerMedia, and creator and CEO of VFriends. Known as Gary V, he is considered one of the leading global minds on what's next in culture, relevance, and the internet.

0:47Gary is a bestselling author who has written eight books, including two released this year. It's like three more than I've read. Day trading attention, and the one that I want to talk a little bit about, Meet Me in the Middle. I know the two books that you just came out with. Mattel Creations partnered with Gary and VFriends on Uno VFriends. Now, it's almost been three years. Crazy. Sold out. We also did a Masters of the Universe Skeletor, Skilled Skeleton 2-pack a couple years ago, which was amazing. Yep. We're going to figure out what's next. Yeah, we're talking right before it. It might be time for a third collab.

1:21Yeah, I think we're ready. We're ready for it. All right. Let's start off with just VCon itself. We're here. We're live. For folks that don't know about VCon. When vFriends was invented as a brand, I always knew I would do trading cards and collabs and Cartoons like we just now meet me in the middle kids books, but it launched as a digital collectible and then ft But what was important about those digital collectibles unlike physical collectibles is you could have a contract on The token and so I wanted to bring very high value For the original vFriends launch where if God forbid the digital click double didn't take off what you were really buying was the three years worth of the conference.

2:01And so that's what we did. And VCon is the foundation. This is year three. We did it in U.S. Bank Stadium where the Vikings play in year one in Minnesota. Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis where the Colts play. And this year we mixed it up. We went to a bigger city and a non-football stadium. We thought LA Live was the right location. And based on yesterday's vibes, I think we're off to a good start. I agree. I agree. Good vibe, amazing vibe here. There's a level of camaraderie here, of getting to meet new people, something you've talked a lot about. What is that kind of culture that you're instilling and you're looking to instill with folks as they go about and think about their lives and being here today?

2:42Good virtues matter to me. I don't know. I want to be one of the most successful businessmen of all time, but I'm not willing to compromise. You've had the luxury of interacting with me behind the camera. I'd like to think we haven't talked about this, but I'd like to think in every turn You can tell like oh this is a good dude like my people seem like they're happy with you know That matters to me at every situation even when there's adversity or issues I'm so flattered to hear what you just said I think in the last 24 hours the people that have never been to a V con Have never double clicked into what I'm doing here in my other parts of my world have universally been texting me My phone is being blown up of like, man, the way people are talking in the elevator or I was getting a cup of coffee.

3:25There's a level of positivity, but it's practical. I will leave with this. It's positivity, but it's not delusional cult baloney. It's positivity, but it's practical. Hard work matters. That's why there's the hardworking wombat. You know? And so that's where it's at. Yeah. As we all come out of the pandemic. Yes. And a lot of things have changed. Yes. Some things have not. What have you seen kind of change? And you talked a little bit about earlier that combination of passion and practicality. Yes. Kind of finding yourself and understanding the duality of it. How do you think COVID has impacted folks?

4:03And are we still coming through that kind of? I mean, massively. Massively. I mean, I can't wait for the documentaries and the movies and the books written about COVID on a human post effect. I think a lot of us realized we reconnected with our spouses. or our parents or our kids changed us forever. I think a lot of people started realizing we do a lot of silly things like travel for one meeting. You know, we've learned a lot. People have found some of their passions, running, family, Friday night dinner, Sunday night dinner, music, they rekindled with it. But I think right now we're finding more of our practicality.

4:42I think we've gone through the ups and the downs and I think we're gonna find that middle. That's why I wrote Mean Me in the Middle. I think everything is good if it's in balance. Work-life balance is great, but if you go all life and the business goes out of business, well, then you're not going to have life. And so on the flip side, I'm such a workaholic. I can tell you from personal experience and people around me, when you're all in on work, you sometimes pick up your head and you're like, wait a minute. I've got my college buddies here, for example, who are my homies. but my 20s and 30s, they'll tell you they barely saw me.

5:21I was building. And we're at dinner late last night and they're telling stories that I wasn't there. One part of me is happy and proud. I built something for my family. Another part of me is like, man, I could have went to that weekend. Like in hindsight, I could have went to Vegas for that weekend. And so balance is the key to life. Yeah, for definite. Your parents are here today. What were the values they instilled in you when you were growing up? One of the reasons I like being a public figure is all the accolades I get aren't mine. They're theirs. Real talk. Like when you think about being a human being, like what did you do?

5:57Like you had your DNA and then you had your parents and the only other thing that gets any impact is your environment, your hood, right? What era you grew up in. And that's a person. So when I get these all these nice accolades, I get happy because my parents killed it. I was born in the Soviet Union. when we came to America, I lived in a studio apartment smaller than the stage you and I are on right now with six family members. I had nothing. But I had love in the house and my mom made it so cozy. So I knew early on money had no impact on happiness. And then my dad, he worked his face off every minute.

6:33That's where I got taught the work ethic and my mom for that matter. So they taught me hard work. They taught me, you know, word is bond. They taught me like family over everything. So I'm an incredibly fortunate dude. And I would argue a lot of what I do with Gary Vee and VeeFriends is me scaling what they did for me. Amazing. Amazing. Talk a little bit about the new book you've got, Meet Me in the Middle. It's an interesting way to tell a story. Thank you. It's a two-sided book. Big shout out to Manny Galan, who used to work at VeeFriends, kind of pitched me the idea. Because he knew that this whole world is pulling from opposite directions.

7:11so it's a kids book that you can read from either side so one side is patient pig story and the other side is eager eagle story and they're both going to play basketball patient pig's just a little too patient and that patience is the best but if it becomes complacency you lose eagerness is amazing but if you're a little too eager you get sloppy and you make mistakes and you see the values of being eager and the values of being patient and then they meet in the middle and help each other get a little to the middle. It's been very satisfying. I've gotten emails my whole life back to these books from grown-ups saying, you help my business, you help my family.

7:50This is the first time that I'm getting emails from parents saying, my kids have asked to read the book 10 nights in a row. That's a different kind of feeling. That's very cool. That's awesome. This fall, you've got a cartoon, animated series coming with the guys at Moonbug. Tell us a little bit about it. Moonbug and I have teamed up for the VFriends cartoons. We just played the first ever public preview for 30 seconds on stage. I'm very excited about it. We focus on six core characters of our 250 plus characters in our world. It's a big deal. Like I said on stage, if I don't figure out how to get people to fall in love with those characters, the reason everybody wants Skeletor is because I watched He-Man after school every day from 1984 to 1986.

8:33And now I love Skeletor. You know, if you are unable to get people to fall in love with your characters, you will not build anything. There's nothing like YouTube Kids right now. That's the Saturday morning cartoons, after school cartoons for us. Right? That's how we watched them. YouTube Kids is that now. And I know that I have to win on YouTube Kids, which is why I went to one of the most significant, you know, animation production companies in the world in Moonbug. And I'm excited about it. That's awesome. That's awesome. You're a public figure. You're doing a lot of things. You work a ton.

9:04You also talk about wellness and the need for all of us. How do you approach wellness for yourself? I think that balance and wellness comes in different forms. I've been good about passion and mental, but food and working out didn't come natural to me. Still doesn't, but I've gotten better at it the last 10 years because I want to live longer and happier. So that one is a perseverance through being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Doing something that doesn't come natural to me. And that's something I think all of us have to develop as human beings. If you're unable to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, it's very unlikely you will achieve.

9:47Yeah. You've talked a lot about the need for adversity. I think adversity is the foundation of success. Yeah. We've all had failures in life. Yeah. What is one that you've had that's formed you, shaped you, that's made you a little bit better afterwards? It's a crazy one because as a public figure it's my strength, but in private it's my weakness. I struggle with candor with people I love I Kill it enough like I can candor publicly like nobody's business But like Dustin who I care about it does it's harder for me to my mom to my relationships to my children Candor is hard for me because I don't want to scare people or upset them especially in the workplace I really struggle with it and I've had to really in my mid 40s three four years ago I I had to kind of look myself in the mirror and say look I don't want to go to the grave being a hypocrite I talked about fighting through being accountable I need to finally be accountable that this is my kryptonite like I got real lucky most things work for me But this was a real vulnerability and my life is better for it and my companies are better for it and my relationships are better for it Yeah.

10:59Yeah. VFriends is an example of a personal brand CPG. You've talked a little bit about this. Yeah. Consumer packaged goods. Why do you think that there's a larger kind of constellation now of personal brand CPGs that are... The distribution of media and retail have been commoditized. Logan Paul and KSI didn't have the money to do television commercials and get Walmart distribution in 1994. for. Today they do. I believe that I did Empathy Wines in 2017. So I did this seven years ago, built a part of, and I sold that to Constellation Brands. It was a huge deal for me and my partners. I feel like we're the preview.

11:44I think in 15 years, many of the popcorns, sneakers, I mean, everything will be owned by the human being. They will be the face and the owner, not the spokesperson. When you own the brand, you're married. Yeah. Different game. Totally. Uno. Yes. If you could play with anyone, dead or alive. Randy the Macho Man Savage. Ooh. Why? Tell us why. He's one of the only people I grew up idolizing and loving that I never got to meet because he passed away. My career didn't get to that level where those things were afforded to me at the time. And I really am sad. I would have liked to thank him for so much happiness that he brought me.

12:23and the promos that he used to cut were crazy. And so he was just flammable. He plays Queen Elizabeth, like his manager. I feel like the first time I saw her was the first time I'm like, wait a minute, I'm becoming a man. And so he means a lot in my life and I would have loved to give him a little reverse and draw four and see him react. Macho Man versus me in Uno would have been a... It's amazing how much we are shaped by the experiences we have when we are young. That's why I love your business. That's why I love your company. Seven to 15, four to 13. You know, some of us just grew up faster than others.

13:02Like childhood, just rage. Yeah, all of it, yeah. But like that moment where you're not a gaga goo goo and you're not a grown up, that middle, that childhood era that shapes so much of your life. I'm so grateful that we all now live in an era where grownups can be kids. When we were growing up, you had to like give up being a kid. now comic-con and all this like all the like it's so cool and uh and it's one of the reasons i think your company is having such an incredible resurgence and um and i i cheer for y 'all you have so many big ips big jim i'd love to see that come back a little bit of conversations about i would love to see big jim make a run back and so it's a big factor in one's life