Business Advice: Pivoting Your Career, Fear Of Wasting Time, How To Stop Overthinking & Difficult Life Transitions | Tea with GaryVee ep. 69

0:28Good morning, good morning, good morning. if you could leave a review for this episode. All right, back to the show. Anthony? Yo. What's good, brother? Where are you from? Good to see you. I'm from LA. We've met a few times at V-Con. Great to see you, brother. Yeah, bro. I know exactly who you are, my man. It's great to see you again. Yeah, good to see you, too. Dude, should I ask my question? Hell yeah. Okay, yeah. So basically, I've kind of reached a point with you last maybe six months I've kind of realized that I'm plateauing at work. Okay. What do you do? I write code. Okay. Inspired by VCon1, by the way.

1:08If it wasn't for VCon1, I wouldn't. It's like what got me into software. I love it. And I was like really about it, man. Like hustling. Like I did nothing for two years, but like very little friends, very little like social life. Just put my head down, grinded, and like got to where I'm at now with work, which is like a good spot of making like a good amount of money. I moved down to Puerto Rico. I live with some of the guys from my team. You're allowed to fucking change your mind. I'm sure six months ago, a year ago, you were like, yeah, we're gonna fucking, me and my boys are gonna go to Puerto Rico.

1:42We're not gonna fucking pay taxes. We're gonna fucking run into Jake Paul and be in the fucking ring, like rips. And we're gonna fucking do all this stuff and it's gonna be fucking awesome. And the girls down there are crazy. And it's all fucking exciting. And now it's nine months later and you're like, yo we're just sitting in this fucking house i'm bored of shit coding and this fucking blows that you're allowed you're allowed to feel that way and change your mind and move back to the fucking mainland you're allowed here's the thing i don't want to leave so so don't leave since i got here i picked up mma um and so i've been training like non-stop for the last six months i have to so become a fighter but that's the thing i don't know if i want i like i like mma but i don't think i want to be a fighter you've met me dude i'm like a nice nice guy look at me i've met a lot of fucking scrawny ass motherfuckers who can fight mma have you ever seen o'malley yeah yeah but by the way don't be a fucking fighter and don't be a fucking coder i don't know if you know this there's 97 trillion other fucking things you can do right let's keep talking well because with the coding I'm like getting to a point where like like I just grind it out of like my beginner stages so now I'm like at a point where I can like start making right you've invested into this skill but you've realized you don't like it I don't love it I don't love it right so you've got two choices you eat shit for a while and cash in on the skill that you've built and fucking learn how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable for three to five years or you check the fuck out of it because you're young as fuck and you can and you go become a i don't know a fucking working clown or you know a hot dog salesman or a fucking i don't know ventriloquist or a male nanny or a bricklayer or a fucking snow cone maker or a hairstylist or a fucking toothpick salesman.

3:53It's up to me. I can choose to continue eating shit and cash in or I can just hit and go. Or you could do what most people do. You can eat shit for a little while until the shit tastes so fucking bad that you crack and you go on to the next thing. Bro, I ate shit from 22 to 34. Do you know what it feels like to work 100 hours a week to build a business? I mean, I love my dad more than anything but like I was 34 years old and had no money and worked 100 hours and was the reason a business exploded and then finally at 34 I was like I'm done eating this shit and I felt great about it I did good for my family and now it's on to my world like we all have different journeys

4:36yeah yeah I got it yeah no you're right it just felt like I've been kind of like wasting like just no that's it that's it that's it brother i was waiting for this moment because it's not just about you it's about the thousands that are watching everybody's obsessed with this notion of wasted time oh fuck i wasted a year learning how to code and now i don't want to go cash in on it because i hate it you didn't waste that time you learned how to fucking code you learned the process you had your fucking memories of being with your boys in a house in puerto rico Everybody's obsessed with like, I wasted time.

5:12Everyone's wasted time always, forever and ever. There's people who built$10 million companies, made a ton of money in their life, and they wake up at 42 and say, I wasted time. I didn't create a family. I made money, but I wasted time. I didn't create a family. There's other people that fucking went balls to the wall, family, fun, chill. They wake up at 41 and they got$100 ,000 in debt and they're like, fuck, I wasted time. No, you didn't. You lived the life you wanted to for 20 years, enjoyed the fuck out of it. Now you woke up to something different. Now we can adjust. You can go get a bullshit job that's high paying for three years to pay off your debt.

5:51This concept that we've fucked up all the time fucks me up. I think the reverse. I have things that are obviously a waste of time, obviously a disaster, obviously wasn't good, Obviously I shouldn't have done. And I look at it as like, I'm glad I did that shit. I went through the process, I'm living fucking life. I'm a fucking human being, I'm living, I'm fucking learning, it's fucking life. You think anybody goes to fucking heaven and played it 100 % correct? Who the fuck played it 100 % correct? Thank you, Mason, you're feeling this one, right? Like the fuck? Everyone's like stuck on fucking, I wasted time, I made a wrong decision, I married the wrong person.

6:35I picked the wrong job. I moved to the wrong city. How about not believing that? How about believing it was just part of your fucking story? You think any book that's interesting doesn't have the chapters where there's adversity, there's conflict? You ever watch a fucking movie? They get you all juiced up and uh oh, here comes the fucked up part, but good news, here comes the fucking fixed part. Like, you're fucking living, how old are you? 23. You're fucking 23 years old. You're fucking a kid. You've done everything right. Do you know how many fuckers I've met that are 59 that are like, I wish I went to Puerto Rico for a year and hung out with my boys, but I just went right into a real job.

7:17Bro, you didn't waste shit. That, fuck that word. I fucking hate that word and I hate using hate, but you didn't waste shit. But it's weird though, cause like, like these like last like six months that i've been here it's been like one of the best seasons like of my life in recent memory so that's why it's super weird right because of course of course it's been of recent memory you're fucking 23 you were like sperm six seconds ago no shit it's like the best season of your life of recent memory your memory is like fucking one second old but go ahead you know that's that's true i've had a couple seasons though you know since turning 18 um respect but but um it's going really well man like i'm really happy like i wake up i walk to the fucking beach come like write some code we build cool shit um i go train at like six i'm training till like 10 um and then i like call my mom call my dad like it's good fucking life but i just feel like like the nine like i i don't know i feel like it could be a little more fulfilling and so that's well listen i don't i'm never gonna begrudge ambition ambition's amazing but you know giving yourself a little grace

8:46you know be nice to yourself like everything you just described sound like mike was sitting here like nodding his head i almost his head almost fell off his body's like that life sounded great as shit poor fucker has to get here early prep for tea with gary v stressed if the fucking edit's gonna be good but just give yourself a little time look look blonde blondie and blonde said that he's so cute learned guitar. You got fucking blondes hitting on you in the chat. Life is fucking good. The fuck are you fucking upset about? Bro, give yourself a little bit of grace. Just a little bit of like, you know?

9:30Your mustache is coming in now? Bro, you're about to win. Look at that, that mustache is coming in. you know what you're doing i'll see you later next question my man what's your name where you from gary v is today in space it's alex what's going on man alex real pleasure how are things good good i'm staying busy good my friend what uh what's your question uh so i'm doing a lot more storytelling on the podcast and i am wondering what you think about uh ideas that have can they have too much gravity can they distract from the story that you're trying to tell um or does it just require does just require like better storytelling better storytelling like the reality is when you look at the history of storytelling everything niche and everything broad has worked and everything niche and everything broad has not worked it's been the context of storytelling it's been the storyteller it's been the distribution that the story is being told on different formats create different things, right?

10:35Right, right. One of the things I'm trying to do with Tea with Gary Vee aggressively is teach people how to integrate content and commerce in this live shopping world, right? So for example, I can say right now to Rips, put this up and it's literally in the show. It's in this video right now for 20 bucks and people can buy it while they're passively watching. You can't do that on a different format. So I think it really comes down to the storyteller. And as a storyteller, I would tell you that what you wanna really focus on is trying different things when something's not working. It's the storyteller, brother.

11:14Try different shit, okay? All right, man. Love you, stay well. Mackenzie, get in here. Sneak in here, one from the text. All right, we got Trisha. Trisha. How do you feel confident in a nearing recession when you're a nice to have product business? By doubling down. like the fact that she knows but first of all I'm not so sold that there's a recession coming I don't know about that the fact is people debate recessions all the time now some would argue that we've been in a recession right so I think she's navigated some sort of version of a micro recession but if you feel like in some level at some level McKenz almost everything is nice to have at some level right obviously you have to put food in your body but at some level almost everything is nice to have and so I wouldn't again we talked about this yesterday I think a lot of people put themselves into a negative mindset or into you know over concerning themselves about shit that doesn't actually exist a lot of fear in the system I tell her to not even give a fuck I think I think just double down if you actually believe your business is in trouble then you have to go harder and you have to innovate that's it next question hello I'm Tjasa I come from Slovenia but I'm living in Berlin amazing so um I have started my I'm a violin uh concert violinist and I have my academy okay and I started my IG uh profile in uh when COVID started started okay yes yes listening to you and my brother said to me like just just do shit unless the market is tired.

12:55That's right. And yes, and that came, I have now around 90k. This is everything organic. But I have started first with music tutorials and then I switched to music videos. Okay. I have one another account for my academy where I have around 1000 followers and I want to share now more tutorials and I tried that to do on my main account. Okay. And it's just, I have the feeling that the people, I mean, I don't know what to do. Should I really make separate? Like, yeah. Go ahead. So look, I think, first of all, accounts are changing right in front of our eyes. I'm going to show you something right now.

13:45So this is my TikTok, right? I'm going to show you. Let me show you my main one first. I want to show everybody this very carefully. This is going to answer your question, okay? I have 15 million followers on TikTok, right? My latest post on TikTok right there has 25 ,000 views, right? Do you see it? Now, I'm starting a new account where I'm just going around TikTok and I'm replying to people, okay? It's called Gary Vee Replies. Everybody can follow it now. There's 461 followers, right? This video, the one that I just posted, has 32 ,000 and I only have 461 followers. It doesn't matter what account you're posting on more and more every day.

14:31The quality of the content is what's going to matter. Whether you start new accounts that have old accounts, of course some level of the algorithm is based on the following count, but more and more every day, more and more every day, it's about the piece of content. Got it? Okay, because on TikTok, I have a mix of everything. I'm sure. Yeah. Everything's going to be a mix of everything because the way the social media works now is content is finding its audience. It's not how it used to be where you get a bunch of followers and they see your stuff every time or a percentage of them see your stuff every time.

15:07It's now about the piece of content finding the audience. You should make a video about making a salad. you should make a video today talking about music and vinyl inning while you make a salad okay now I know I'm confusing you with that but the reason I'm doing that for you and this entire audience is I'm trying to teach you that different pieces of context content in different contexts in different environments with different ideas can lead to breakthroughs and insights and new audiences okay do not think about where do i post it think about how do i make content that's different and interesting and brings value to the audience

15:56okay because i have the feeling that if i post on my main account uh how to i don't know play i don't know what that i mean i see that my followers are not so much engaged because they are mainly watching only my music videos. You know what I mean? Yes, but the answer is both. And, and. There's plenty of content I put out that doesn't get as much engagement as my normal posts. I don't give a shit. I just post the next day. Okay. And if they follow me and don't want to follow me, like that's not true. Who gives a shit? Find new people. Yeah. No defense. All offense. All right, good luck. Thank you so much.

16:37All right, Mackenzie, what do you got for me? I got Elizabeth. Elizabeth. If you have an idea and want to implement it, but it needs to be a brick and mortar location, how do you know where to look for the best location to set up? There's people that literally for a career know how to find good locations. I think this requires homework. This is not an easy question of like, ah, just do it. You can pick the wrong location and be in deep shit. And so what I would tell her is that she needs to find someone who actually does this for a living and give them money if she has it and if she doesn't have that she has to start really using chat gpt perplexity and other and google and youtube and spend 10 hours getting herself educated and then finally and this is an answer to everybody fucking common sense so if she can't afford an expert to find a location and if she's too lazy to do 25 to 50 hours of homework to get better at understanding how to pick locations for a retail store, then she needs to fucking use common sense.

17:39Like, you know, if you're on a side street that nobody fucking walks down, even though it's a good deal, you're gonna be out of fucking business because, you know, nobody fucking walks down that street. Got it? Awesome. Mackenzie, what do you got for me? We got Davin. Gavin? Davin. Davin. What does Davin say? How do people balance their relationship with social media to build their business while not becoming addicted to it. For example. Discipline. Mackenzie, discipline. Turn it off. Discipline. Do you understand? That's how. How do you use social for your business but not get caught up in it?

18:19The way I do it every day. I use it for business and I'm barely on it unless some crazy fucking Jets or Knicks news hits. And then I'm using it for research. You know how we do. You've become very good at it. I'm very proud of your career growth. It's fucking discipline. That's like saying, yo, how do I fucking not get drunk when there's fucking liquor and beer all over my house? Yes, Dustin, don't put your hand on the face. It's called discipline. Can we get into discipline? Are we allowed to get into discipline? Is discipline allowed? How do I, you tell me to use social for business, but Gary, when I open it, I spent nine hours scrolling.

19:03Brain rot. I am brain rot. You're not fucking disciplined, you motherfuckers. Are we allowed to fucking, can discipline come back? We put fucking aura on a pedestal. We love aura. Aura's great, right? Aura. But we can't fucking focus on discipline. You know why you fuckers are losing? You don't have discipline. You know why at 38 and a half, my back hurt? I was chubby as fuck and fucking not feeling great? Because I wasn't disciplined with my food and exercise. You know what I did? I got disciplined. It got better. You're not, you always have bad relationships. Maybe it's your fault. Maybe you're peaking fucking scumbuck at dudes because you're insecure.

19:56Maybe. Is anybody ready for us to get out of this last 15 years of like surface level bullshit? You think an ice plunge is gonna fix your life? You think jumping in a pool with ice is gonna fix you? You think you're gonna meditate for 15 minutes when you wake up and it's all gonna be good? We need to fucking get in our fucking feelings of our truth. Enough of this bullshit. Stop blaming everybody. You wanna get fucking happy? Get to discipline. Stop fucking blaming. enough of pointing fingers it's mom's fault it's dad's fault it's your boss's fault it's your girl's fault it's your ex-brother-in-law's fault it's your fucking ex-boyfriend's fault as if i will bring it back the thing from yesterday as if the republic of china the communist engine is sitting around being like donnie in idaho let's fuck him up enough of this shit you fucking You motherfucking blamers.

20:52You motherfucking blamers. Stop blaming. Fucking cry babies. And you're sitting literally right before this show looking at your Wells Fargo and seeing$9.06 in it and blaming inflation. $19 blueberries are not fucking you up. Your mindset's fucking you up. Who you spend your time with is fucking you up. How you see life is fucking you up. Fuck man. Who's on the show? I see a black screen. Hi. Hi. What's your name? Where are you from? I can't believe I'm actually on. My name's Nez. I'm in Boston. It's a pleasure. Wait a minute. Are you a Patriots fan, Nez? No. Yankees, actually. Very good. Oh, I like it.

21:42Giants. The Jets, for sure. What? Let's go, Nez. I'm going to answer your question. New York. Let's go. Yeah. I get it. What's cooking? So my question that was on there, I am a single mom in the middle of a nasty divorce. I've been a stay at home for the past like 15 years. I mean, that's the marriage, but my kids are only six and seven. And I put my career photography on the back burner and lost all my contacts and all of that. And trying to start that over, I'm not going to be able to pay for rent or anything like that. and I'm still living in the same household. So I don't even know. And I need to get my kids to school.

22:26School starts at 9.30 and then I have to pick them up. And I don't have any babysitters. Like it's just me. So I need to work from home. I think that's the best way to do it because I can't bring kids to work with me. So I'm just looking for guidance on how to - I got you. Nez, so now we're getting into some real shit. This is complicated and challenging. But solvable, let's break this down. Number one, let's go into gratitude. Thank God this is not 1984 where you couldn't work from home. Let's start with that, right? We gotta, you know, in all the adversity you're dealing with right now, the way you're actually gonna win is if you focus very seriously on the blessings.

23:10The fact that you find, the fact that a terrible global pandemic came across that changed everything, that allows you to work from home while you got to take care of these two little babies is first a huge fucking blessing. Let's get into that, okay? That's number one. Two, are we talking about doing photography? Is that what you want to get back in that? That's your love? I would love to. Yes, that is my passion for sure. But I mean, at this point, I need to just think about them and how to put food on the table. Get it. And have a roof over their heads, so. Why? Now let's go back a different way.

23:44What about actually getting a job where you go into a place from 10.30 to three. Work has changed a lot where people are, like a lot of companies are not just locked into nine to five anymore. If we're at that place where we're just trying to put food on the table, there is optionality between 10.30 and three. That's number two. Let me ask you another important question. Do you have an Instagram? Yes. Honestly, one of the things I want to do right now is shout out, are you living in Boston? Yes. You know, one of the things I'd like to shout out right now is potentially your Instagram to let people who are listening to you that are doing work or own things in the Boston area to maybe reach out to you and give you an opportunity.

24:34Would that be okay? Yeah, that'd be great. What's your Instagram? Thatveganphotag. I love it. All one word? yes oh first of all good little work little thousand I like it I like it alright look at this I'm gonna follow you back now you're you're at 10-12 you're welcome you're welcome obviously you're doing you got some beautiful skills now we just need that vegan photog I just need people if you're in a Boston and mass area especially if you're looking for photography on the side or if you're if you got optionality in the Boston area for someone to work between 10, 30, 10, 30 to two, three. That would be awesome.

25:24What's on my Instagram is landscape and astro, but I have experience with wedding photography and everything like that. My website's on there and I have galleries of my work. And Nez, listen. Nez, listen. Now you got this little moment that just happened. A lot of people are following and hitting you up. They're following, they're DMing you. I need you to post two things a day that show your other work for the next seven, eight, 10 days, okay? On the same Instagram? Yep. Got it. Even though it's not, I don't have anything new. Is it like just old stuff? Yep. Okay, awesome. Gary, thank you so much.

26:03You got it, Ness. All right. Mackenzie, what do you got for me? Ness. Andrew. Yes. I've been with the same company for 10 years Doing all of our social and digital marketing Okay Grown to 200k Facebook 76k Insta I've done all the work to get us there Plus other stuff I still make an okay salary When's it time to ask for equity Or bounce and start my own thing? Right now Because he's feeling it He wouldn't have sent that text If he's asking me that question The answer's now Roll up On the boss I'll be like yo Can I get something? Unlikely You know A lot of people don't just give out equity unless he's incredibly important, which he may be.

26:45And if that answer is no, now you got to know. And now you can decide, do I want to stay or do I want to bounce and do my own thing? But he's got to start with asking for equity with that person. He's scared because he's scared that person might fire him. Remember we talked about that the other day. I had a major rant on that. If you get fired for asking for a raise, you're lucky because you've left a piece of shit place. I hope he saw that. But the answer is, listen, the answer of when should I is almost always right now. Nobody has been happy that they've sat on something that's been eating away at them in the history of life.

27:21Breaking up, asking for a raise, changing shit, moving, no one. All right, Elizabeth, how are you? Good, holy fucking shit. Holy fucking shit is right. My face is next to your face. I'm losing my mind. Well, it's lovely to see you. So I love the live shopping. I'm obsessed. But my problem is I'm scattered squirrel. So if we can work that into a book, that's what we need is scattered squirrel. So I'm a mom of two. I work full time. I've been working at the same place for 18 years. I went out of the rat race, but I'm so trying to change my mindset into a forward business. like for i'm like i can save millions of dollars for another company i should be able to come up with enough to live on by myself so i've been looking into watch all your videos i've amazon kdb publishing writing's always been a thing i've been good at i'm a better writer than a talker so i'm like 98 done a coloring book um so i'm gonna publish that uh just so but i do tiktok content but I'm all just ranting f-bombs you know I got like 5 ,000 people on TikTok but I don't know where I should be from like a social media perspective because I don't really have a direction or a thing all right first of all uh let me go in the micro and I'll go to the macro to your question on the micro garyv.com slash attention I made a 44 page deck 44 47 47 a 47 page deck for free.

28:54I need you to really devour that deck. It's going to show you how to get more views, more stuff. That's the micro. In the macro, in the macro, I wouldn't be crippled yet by you being all over the place. I like being all over the place too. It means that you haven't found something that you want to quadruple down in. Right. You know what I mean? And so I would tell you that that is not a negative just yet. I would actually keep exploring more things. Parenting advice, cooking, your favorite TV shows. Like just keep playing for a little bit more and then no bullshit. Go with your gut and just double down on something and just go for a year on it.

29:37That's it. It doesn't have to be that complicated. I've been doing that for like a year. So now I'm just like, okay, what the fuck do I like put it off on? What do you want? What do you want to say? I know it's a rants. How? Why? Yeah. All my stuff is rants. so I have like rants and lessons, rants sold. Good, by the way, me too. I've been ranting all fucking morning. I need to just know what, you know, you need to figure out what you want to sell and just because you're good at saving companies millions of dollars, it doesn't mean that you're an entrepreneur. Right. And by the way, that's not a bad thing.

30:10I'm a shit fixer, which is my thing. It sounds like you're an operator and sometimes an operator is a good CEO or founder and sometimes they're not. Like for example, do you have an Instagram? Because I have a funny feeling there's a lot of people that are watching right now that are creative, have good businesses, but they're not operational and they don't know how to fucking fix shit. And maybe they're your natural business partner. Rants and lessons is my Instagram. So I'm primarily on TikTok and I haven't gone too much into Instagram because it's with the oversaturation that I hear you talking.

30:50no no do both do both that was my that was another part of my question is like do I keep pushing on Instagram as well both and Facebook you would crush on Facebook your audience is on Facebook I want you on Facebook I want you on YouTube shorts I want you on everything okay alright