Business Advice: Pivoting Your Career, Fear of Wasting Time, How To Stop Overthinking & Difficult Life Transitions l Best Episodes of 2025

0:00This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. Good morning, good morning. This is T with Gary Vee live from New York City. Oh, first question here, my man. 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. If 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 soulful life, just put my head down, grinded and like got to where I'm at now with work which is like a good spot.

0:42I'm making like a good amount of money. I moved down to Puerto Rico and 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. We'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 like do all this stuff and it's gonna be fucking awesome and the girls down there are crazy and it's all fucking like 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 two 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?

1:54Yeah, yeah. 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 getting to a point where I just grind it out of my beginner stages, so now I'm at a point where I can 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, I don't know, a fucking working clown or a hot dog salesman.

2:51or 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. It'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 I was 34 years old and had no money, and worked 100 hours and was the reason a business exploded.

3:38And 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. We all have different journeys. Yeah, yeah, I got it. Yeah, no, you're right. It just felt like I've been kind of like wasting. 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.

4:16You learned how to fucking code. You learned a 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. Everyone's wasted time always, forever and ever. There's people who've 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.

4:53No, 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. This 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.

5:32You 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, I 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.

6:12Like you're fucking living life. 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. Bro, you didn't waste shit. That fucked that word. I fucking hate that word and I hate using hate, but you didn't waste shit but it's weird though because 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.

8:01You 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. He's like, that life sounded great as shit. Poor fucker has to get here early, prep for a tea with Gary Vee, stressed if the fucking edit's gonna be good. But just give yourself a little time. Look, look, Blondie and Blonde said 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?

8:45Your 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. Hey, everybody. Hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy. Next question. My man, what's your name? Where are you from? Gary Vee 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's your question? So, I'm doing a lot more storytelling on the podcast.

9:22and I am wondering what you think about ideas that have, can they have too much gravity? Can they distract from the story that you're trying to tell? Or does it just require better storytelling? Better storytelling. 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? Right, right. One of the things I'm trying to do with Tea with Gary V aggressively is teach people how to integrate content and commerce in this live shopping world, right?

10:11So for example, I can say right now to Rips, put this up and it's literally in the show, it's in the 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 want to really focus on is trying different things when something's not working. It's the storyteller, brother. Try different shit, okay? All right, man. Thank you. Love you. Stay well. Mackenzie, get in here. Sneak in here. One from the text. All right. We got Trisha.

10:46Trisha. 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, McKen's, 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.

11:27And 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 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 tjasha 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 Thank you.

12:15And my brother said to me, like, just do shit unless the market is tired. That'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 another account for my academy where I have around 1 ,000 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.

13:07I'm going to show you something right now. So 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.

13:50It doesn't matter what account you're posting on more and more every day. The 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 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.

14:32It'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.

15:21Okay. Because I have the feeling that if I post on my main account 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. No defense, all offense. All right, good luck. Thank you so much.

16:02All 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, Like, ah, just do it. Like, 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.

16:46And 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. Like, 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?

17:22How do people balance their relationship with social media to build their business while not becoming addicted to it? 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? The 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?

18:09Yes, 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 brain rot I have 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 is 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?

19:00I 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. Maybe. 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.

19:46Enough of this bullshit. Stop blaming everybody. you want to 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 blamers you You 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.

20:34$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 Giants the Jets for sure what? let's go Nez I'm gonna answer your question let's go I get it 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.

21:26I 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. School starts at 930 and then I have to pick them up. And I don't have any babysitters. Like it's just me. So I don't, I need to work from home. I think that's the best way to do it because I don't, I can't bring kids to work with me. So I'm just looking for guidance on how to.

22:08I got you. 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. The 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.

22:48Let'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. Why? Now let's go back a different way. What 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.

23:29That's number two. Let me ask you another important question. do you have an Instagram yes one of honestly one of the things I want to do right now is shout out your are you living in Boston yes 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 would that be okay yeah that'd be great what's your instagram uh that vegan photog i love it all one word yes yes oh first of all good little work a little thousand i like it i like it all right look at this i'm gonna follow you back now you're at 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 the 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 2 3 that would be awesome like what's on my Instagram is landscape and Astro, but I have experience with wedding photography and everything like that.

24:56My website's on there and I have galleries of my work. And 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, ten days, okay? On the same Instagram? Yep. Got it. Even though I don't have anything new Is it like just old stuff? Yep. Okay. Awesome. Gary, thank you so much. You 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.

25:39Okay. 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 is now roll up on the boss and 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 uh and 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.

26:21He'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. breaking 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 where you 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 uh i'm scattered squirrel so if we can work that into a book that's what we need is scattered squirrel.

27:12So 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 have 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 of coloring book so I'm going to publish that just so 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 first of all let me go in the micro and I'll go to the macro to your question On the micro, GaryVee.com slash attention.

28:11I made a 44 page deck. 44? 47? 47. A 47 page deck for free. I 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.

28:58Go with your gut and just double down on something and just go for a year on it. That'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 now I know it's a rants all my stuff is rants I have like rants and lessons by the way me too I've been ranting all fucking morning I need to just know what 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 I'm a shit fixer which is my thing so it sounds like 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 but they're not operational and they don't know how to fucking thick shit and maybe maybe they're your natural business partner no i'm rants and lessons is uh my instagram so i'm primarily on tiktok and i don't i haven't gone too much into instagram because it's with the oversaturation that i hear you talking no 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.

30:31I want you on everything. Okay. All right? Hey everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.