Chris Williamson | The Power of Building Influence, Authenticity, & Connection

29:19Now in the last three years, we've lived through the TikTokification of all social media. Now it is - What do you mean when you say that? We now live in a social media world where somebody listening right now, that 17-year-old you and I, does not even have a profile, starts a TikTok account, and her or his third post gets 2 million views. That didn't exist ever for the first decade. It couldn't happen. She would have only had 11 followers. Now, the TikTok-ification, the For You page-ification of every platform, the AI algorithms, the it is now around interests, not around who you follow, means that every individual piece of content now has the potential to reach a level of awareness that is far outreaching the effort you've put it into it.

30:03It's the ozempic and steroids of social media. It's made social media much more egalitarian. Bingo. The meritocracy that we're living in right now. I always know when I, we're talking about something important right now. This is how I'm always right. The goosebumps are... The animalistic attraction as well. the fucking, you mean to you? Yes, you are very handsome. No, when I know I'm talking about something that matters, I get goosebumps, which is why. You know, some people, you know, Bartlett talks about AI or pressing a button. I just look at my goosebumps. I'm like, Dustin, make sure we clip this.

30:37The merit of this fucking game right now, and it intoxicates me, and I fucking got the gray hairs and the fucking wrinkles. I've put in the fucking work for the last 20 years, and I'm pumped that I've been commoditized on the merit of the fucking, it's the lion eats lion it's the sports you can't cheat like what I love about social media right now is it's fucking merit based I don't I don't want to eat as good as your next post I fucking when I tell you I want to eat this fucking that excites the fuck out of me and I love that for everyone who is sitting right now I mean talk about something inspirational you're listening right now because you motivate them and they see me on it I'm like yeah either I like that guy or fuck that guy but they're listening right they're sitting right now and they're fucking not in a good place.

31:21They're like, fuck man, I blew it or I missed it. The fact that if they believe me, because it's 100 % true, if they're sitting there and be like, wait a minute, my single post about what I know about Zelda, my individual post back to UK culture of like, wait, if I nerd out about darts in detail, is that what these two fuckers are? I fucking love that. What do I think about British culture? Darts. Like that's where you go. It's darts, fish and chips and tea. You know, if you really think about that, you know, going global, like wait, my unbelievable knowledge of cricket, if I break that down in a green screen or do this like knitting, right, or like Nick Moraitis, one of my top dogs at VaynerMedia, because he finally heard me and he wanted to be a practitioner, not just an executive, he flips egg omelets.

32:14Flips them, you might have seen them. He's the guy who takes an egg, like just egg omelet, flips an ear and catches it. he has a fucking TikTok or Instagram I think that has more views than I've ever had in my career. That's fucking amazing. Like to me, I just love the opportunities of back to finding what you're looking for. For everyone who's listening right now who still has either a lot or a glimpse of optimism left, please listen one more time because I'm gonna repeat it for the fuckers in the back. The fact that tomorrow you can start. You decide to go after something you either really know or you really love.

32:46Going back to what's changed, the day before I started Wine Library TV. I can't believe I'm saying this 18 years later because I lived it. I sat there and said, I'm doing this YouTube thing and I debated two things. Will I do a wine show because I know more about that than anything? Or will I do a show about the New York Jets because it's the thing I love the most? I almost did a jet show and I ended up doing a wine show. And I want everyone listening right now about their content on social. Am I gonna talk about something I know the most? I'm an accountant. I don't love it. I don't hate it. because if you hate it, you'll be dead.

33:18I don't hate it, but I don't love it. But motherfucker, I know accounting and I also know I'm silly and I'm a bro or silly girl and I'm just gonna make it a little more entertaining. Or I'm fucking obsessed with Avatar and I'm just gonna make unlimited Avatar movie content. I don't think people realize that most people, if they go hard for a couple of years on what I'm saying, that on a bad day, they're making 80 to 150 ,000 a year in merch and a couple brand deals in pre-roll, right? And for a lot of fucking people on earth, making 150 talking about proper football instead of making 230 being an executive in the state organization doing landscaping is a much better life or even better, because I actually believe the even more extreme.

34:09I think over time, everybody will make more than if they hate their job of making social media content around their passions or expertise. And I think that's a level of merit, long tail entrepreneurship. Because we think about this shit from a Mr. Beast, from a Logan Paul standpoint. Most people are not gonna make millions of dollars a year in social, but most people have the opportunity to make hundreds of thousands. And that long tail is misunderstood right now. Talk to me about when it comes to the specifics of content style, what do you think have got the greatest upside at the moment. Everyone's talking about vertical video, about face to camera.

34:48Substack, I think, has got tremendous, it's one of my favorite, I don't know whether you'd call it social media, I guess it's kind of what Medium should have been. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's content, subscription. I think Medium shit the bed there, and absolutely, I mean, they had it. They absolutely had it. I mean, Eb Williams is probably one of my three favorites. Is that the dude behind Medium? Eb Williams, he's also the dude behind Twitter. I know Jack gets a lot of the credit now. Okay. In 2006, 7, 8. Jack invented the concept. Ev ran the company. Ev was the guy. At bare minimum, they were the co-guys.

35:22But the 2006, 7, 8, 9 era of Twitter was Ev Williams. He also was Bebo. He's like, not Bebo, excuse me. Blogspot. He sold something to Google. I apologize. It definitely wasn't Bebo. It was something else. I think Blogspot or something of that nature. and he also then did a pod after he sold a big company to Google he was about to build a podcast company and then Apple Podcasts came out and he was smart and he was like this is going to lose shut it down very smart and then Twitter he did Medium you're right they were very close I was so bullish on Medium and Substack I think innovated that same similar to Dig and Reddit Dig was Reddit and then Reddit Blogger thank you Blogger is what Ed Williams did from content strategy side someone says Gary I found my thing I have an idea what my thing might be it's going to be cricket or fucking tea or darts what should somebody be thinking about I think a lot of people get stuck in the what to make mechanisms let's go into it let's go nerdy first it's a self-awareness game there is multiple mediums that work in communicating I'm glad you brought up substack because it allows me to go there there is the written word there are people listening right now who know more about video game 1980s culture than anybody in the world however they're very self-aware and they're like fuck this shit i'm not going on camera i don't have the gift of gab i'm incredibly awkward with my words i'm shy i don't like it good news do you like to write huh i'm a little bit more there or they have great gift of gab but the camera makes them it kills them great you've got video you've got audio and you've got the written word if you want to go to the extremes you could even animate and cartoon it you could even go that far but that's a little bit of a further putt but what would i say first you have to know your medium the preference is video because video is a starting point to everything else i do audio and written word without doing it because everything's extracted from my video so video is the holy grail, no question.

37:34Video killed the radio star. Like, that's right. However, it is not required. That's very important for people to hear. Number two, once you decide to do it, you have to decide your medium. So for example, if somebody who's listening is really into modern IP law with AI coming, with NFT culture, with Disney, with Pokemon, LinkedIn and YouTube are going to be much better mediums for them potentially than let's say Facebook. right but if you're into parenting Dr. Becky big shout out she's getting a lot of momentum Facebook's a fucking dream so you have to know where your audiences are you have to know what mediums and then per medium becomes the creative variable meaning LinkedIn is a fucking monster for the written word you write a fucking epic four sub stack like New York Times opt-in blogging medium you write fucking 12 a newsletter person you write fucking 12 paragraphs of fucking fire about something b2b or business oriented and you post that on linkedin with a good picture they're now for you page stuff will get you lots of fucking views lots of reads and and linkedin is a very different audience you get one proper fucker to read that you're getting a message on linkedin that's gonna make you money b2b and like and like grown-up business linkedin is one of the the biggest opportunities that people miss.

38:56Because for example, this iconic CPG brand you're building. If you write four paragraphs on your strategy of something you see on LinkedIn, that may lead to a business development deal that will never happen on Instagram where you're building consumer. Distributed from Walmart habits to come across it. You got it? Right, and LinkedIn is so global, it could even be a small, you know, live shopping player in China. People don't understand what's going on. So to answer the question is they'll all work. When you go into them, it starts getting into real culture. When you're writing something, your headline matters.

39:31It's good old newspaper. If that LinkedIn post, the variable is going to be your opening headline. What do you think about when it comes to copy for a headline? I think about like what is unique? Can you say it different? What can, and I, I'll tell you the biggest thing. Actually, thank you for being so good at interviewing. You're pushing me in a good place. when I think about social media creative I think about it in consumer segmentation something I call cohorts so when I make content I'll make content for I'll think like okay I'm making this for 48 to 55 year old parents of a 21 year old and it's a wealthy family and the kid is lazy but they were the parents that made all the money because they grew up poor and they have anxiety that their kid's lazy but they're the ones that created the nepotism because they pay them money That's the content being made for.

40:19Cohorts with teeth. That was a very narrow thing. I wasn't saying parents. So I think when I think in headlines, I'm like, what narrow group am I writing this for? I'm gonna write this article, and this headline is gonna be written for the buyers of the biggest retailers in America. Title, what big box retailers don't know about beverages. You see what I just did? Improv. That my brother. Uh oh. That my brother. That's why I wrote this book. that's what I know is missing right now. People are trying to hack the algos. They're looking for best practice. That's wonderful. That's called P, platform strategy.

40:54But then there's the C. I call it PAC, platforms and culture. And then you have to have consumer cohorts. So you have to know the platforms. Absolutely. Vertical this, carousel that, live stream this, like best practices. As you know this, TikTok and Instagram are now littered with characters that do the Gary V thing and tell people what the best platform things are. But the platforms tell you. The fucking Instagram guys making content every day like this is what Instagram cares about. You just follow, every time TikTok puts out an announcement, that's what they're gonna do. It doesn't take a fucking superhero to understand if Meta says, we now care about carousels, go make fucking carousels.

41:28Like Jesus, the culture, the strategy, the headline, like the way I'm thinking here, like who are you making it for? Why are you bringing, let's go back to something I said earlier. Okay, so now you're writing a LinkedIn post. What big box retailers don't know about the beverage market. If you write this as a fucking press release for you, you're being selfish with the hope that the Walmart buys you, that article's not gonna hit. If you really take a step back and spend 30 hours analyzing what's happening at Big Box Retailer with drinks and understanding something that they're overestimating, you can now say, you could start it with like, one of the biggest mistakes about how Big Box Retailers think about their relationships with Coca-Cola and Dr.

42:05Pepper is they overvalue what Poppy was able to do do do do do do do do do do do. What Prime was able to do do do do do do do do do do. Got it? Liquid death got it? That shit. I fucking love that shit. That level of depth is missing in the game right now and that goes for everything. You want to be a fashion brand? What's the micro-influencer strategy? Do you go to Coachella not to be at Coachella but to film everything for you to post-produce it for your social content because no photo shoot in a studio like this could ever replicate the actual energy of a fucking festival where the cool fucking kids are cooling out.

42:41Things like that. Talk to me from a platform perspective, a lot of people are going to be asking this question. Okay, so I have a number that are in front of me. I can do written word on LinkedIn. I can do written word on Substack. I can do vertical video, TikTok, Instagram. I can even do that on Facebook. I can just simul post it from Instagram across on Facebook. I can do YouTube shorts, et cetera. What are the platforms over the next three to five years that you're the most bullish and bearish on? I can't answer that question because it's not how my brain thinks. Let me explain what I mean.

43:10Day trading attention is don't romanticize about yesterday. Instagram and don't try to get too excited about tomorrow Elon posts yesterday Vine question mark right so Vine's coming don't overthink today I don't know what's going to be there in three to five years I definitely wouldn't like the reason I'm good at my game is when it happens I'm all in so I can only speak about today and anybody worried about three to five and people ask me all the time what's next three to five years I don't know I know that Meta and Google are not going to disappear so I continue to think I think they'll innovate or M &A and be in the game as macro companies.

43:46But YouTube Shorts was not in the cards for me three years ago, right? But then TikTok's pressure made them go there. I think Vine is gonna be massively interesting to watch when they reboot it. Are they coming back? 100%. Elon's too smart to not do it. Does Twitter own Vine? Yes. Right, okay. And that was part of the deal? Yes, but they shut it down, but it's still there. And they own the IP. and you know, I mean, Vine is the absolute seed of this generation. Short phone video started on Vine. It was a profound thing when it hit. I remember looking at it day one, I was like, ooh, this is different, different.

44:22And it just completely captured youth culture at that time and I was very serious about it. As a matter of fact, I launched, you can Google this right now, everyone listening, I launched probably, I mean the article said it, like the first influencer agency called Grape Story with Jerome Jarre, one of the first celebrities on Vine and we signed Logan Paul, Rudy Mancusi, like all of these characters, Brittany Furlong, like we were talking to all of them. So to answer your question directly and not get too scattered here, I don't know what three to five years is gonna bring. I know that for everyone who's listening, the answer is more and yes and and.

44:59Meaning my argument with everyone here today is every minute that you don't spend on gathering more attention is a minute that you're potentially declining on your long-term opportunity. There's times to cash in on your attention. There's times to do other things. But I feel like a lot of people will go, you know, we talked earlier about regret. The only things I regret as a businessman is not going harder on my thumb on the scale every time where I knew the attention was. I should have made more TikTok videos six years ago. I should have done more Google ads in 2001. I should have sent more emails in 96.

45:33I should have done more tweets in 2007. And so whether it's, you know, we haven't talked about live streaming. I mean, there's so much going on with Twitch and all these live streaming platforms. TikTok Live is very important. Look, we don't, three to five years, what if fucking TikTok gets banned by America in seven months? Where does all that attention go, right? I mean, to me, that's a huge opportunity for Vine. If I'm Elon, I'm sitting like, okay, if I time this perfectly, and I'm fucking Elon, right? Like, I'm that guy. If I fucking announce Vine the day, I could probably get every, It could happen in, that would be insane.

46:08What a fucking strategy. And so I don't know. I know that as I sit here today, right this nanosecond, Instagram's harder than ever because the supply and demand curve on Instagram is hard. More content was made on Instagram yesterday than ever in the history of Instagram. But the attention has been fragmented into YouTube Shorts, into TikTok. So how can Instagram be as good as it was four years ago? It's not. Supply and demand, supply and demand, supply and demand of attention. I know that YouTube shorts has a longer tail on its views than anything else because YouTube's the second biggest search engine in the world.

46:41So I know when I make a short on YouTube I title it in a way that more matches search than I would on TikTok because I want somebody in four months to search how do I do and I show up, right? These are the things I obsess over. This is why I went so nerdy in this book. I went so fucking detailed. That was only a recent update with regards to shorts that they were using keywords in title for search. It has only been a recent thing more people have talked about, but from the day it started, shorts were showing up in results. Yeah, it's something that we've certainly used on the channel that we'll put, if there's a short that comes up from this, it'll be whatever the title of it is, line, Gary Vee, Gary Vaynerchuk.

47:23That's right. Whichever's based on. Of course, of course, of course. Okay, so...

47:31is there room, in your opinion, actually even better question than that, Naval released AirChat this week. What's your thoughts? I love it. I'm really enjoying it. I went ham this weekend. This has been a crazy week for me, so I've been a little bit sad that I haven't been able to jam with it as much. First of all, I love the beginning stages of seeing AI so integrated into native social. So for everybody who doesn't know, AirChat, it's ironic, you may know this, it's been around for almost four years. They keep iterating it and the latest version of it has really caught fire last week with, by the way, all those nerds from 2006, 2007, the Josh Elmans, the Mazios, like all my favorite homies from back in the day, they're all there.

48:13It's the way that it always works. The nerds are always a few minutes before the cool kids. So, but now you see a blend back to cool kids being on there over the weekend in a way that we've never seen before. Not even Clubhouse. It's usually the nerds. Now, for Air Chat to not become Clubhouse or other things, aka a feature, right? Because Twitter spaces is Clubhouse. It needs to keep innovating, but it's really cool, right? So for everybody that doesn't know, it's very much like Twitter, but the difference is it's all audio. So you record your tweet, but then it transcribes it into the written word.

48:46But when you consume it, you can read it or listen to it. And when there's a conversation or a thread of tweets, it will just play almost like a podcast. It's really neat. There's a lot of cool things in it. so the way I think about things are are they features or are they permanent platforms so it's going to get gobbled up by some existing larger platform and just get folded into the correct feature list that's right so obviously twitter would be a natural because it looks most like twitter but this might have too much friction for that the answer is the verdict's still out but when I think about the things that people have asked me about in the last several years uh Dustin is filming in the background right now you remember I was really on it with be real People are like, B-Real's next.

49:26I'm like, I think it's gonna be a feature, right? Like I don't, like now, B-Real could have built on top of it, snapped it, snap early could have been a feature and then they built more things into it and then obviously their killer feature stories became foundational to every platform. So, you know, I'm always paying attention when new platforms pop, Reclip, I don't know if you've seen this. This one's on my mind a little bit. Again, I've been watching it for several months. It hasn't popped yet. It's on your phone. It's recording everything that you're talking about. It's a recorder of everything.

50:00Oh, it's Amazon. It's what people are scared of thinking what Alexa is. Talk about conspiracy theorists. But here's the interesting part. It's only recording the last two minutes. So it doesn't record everything. It's a rolling last two minutes. You know what that allows to happen? Oh, we just said that thing. Oh, that's very smart. That's cool. It's very. The reason I thought TikTok was gonna explode musically was I'm like, oh my God, this is social media with training wheels. They're giving people music, they're giving people all these edits. It's gonna help non-creators be better creators. The reason I like Reclip, it allows everybody in the world to be an audio content creator or video because then when you're done with the Reclip, you can add features to it and it becomes like a TikTok.

50:45I think they're onto something. Again, I'm always watching, but I don't anoint, it's even rare for me to mention something like Reclip in such a prominent platform like this podcast because I don't want, on the record, AirTrack, Reclip, I don't know, but I'm always in the lab watching. I'm always refining my day-to-day social back to day trading attention and I'm always watching for the next wave and sometimes something, I'll tell you this, what I learned on SocialCam, SocialCam was a social network, I think in 2011 or 12, that was hot for, I don't know, 48 seconds, aka a summer. but I created on it.

51:25That helped me understand what to do on Vine. It was even, like Vine actually hit, Social Cam didn't, but it was short form video. And so when Vine came, I was like, wait a minute. And then obviously when the whole next era came, I was ready for short form video. Talk to me about long form content versus short form. And we can fold into that conversation. Volume versus quality slash depth of content as well. I think a lot to talk about there. Yes to your first question. They both work. People watch a three hour movie if they love it or a 45 minute vlog. I did very well with DailyVee. They were long.

52:04And people watch seven second videos that crush and people will not watch seven second videos because they're garbage and people will definitely not watch 25 minute videos if they're garbage. So that goes back to self-awareness. Like are you capable of doing a vlog or a great video series or are you not? Same with short form. Quantity, quality. Quantity is not debatable. You either make 97 pieces of content in a month or you don't. Quality is completely subjective. Either this person's attractive, funny, insightful, or not. I'm very high on that. However, I do think that people, I think I didn't do a good enough job contextualizing when I would always, I've been screaming on social for seven years, volume, volume, volume, volume.

52:49The reality is it's a quality quantity ratio. Volume if you're capable. If you have a lot to say, if you have a lot of jokes, if you have a lot of good looks, if you have a lot of techniques, if you have shit to say, go, go, go, go, go, different ways, edits, different, you know? If you don't, of course not. This goes back to earlier why I'm obsessed with passion or expertise. You're dead if you're not doing passion or expertise. You just won't have enough juice. There's not enough fucking fuel in it. Passion will take you forever, which is why I like that actually more. But expertise, especially if you don't hate it.

53:24I always get worried about expertise because a lot of people's thing that they know because it's their profession, they don't like. And I do think that fuel will run out as well. But to answer your question one more time to recap for everybody, both long and short form work and don't work. It's based on how good are you. I think quantity matters in the future AI world, you're gonna get drowned out by the quantity of content if you're not committed to quantity. But yes, of course it's predicated on the quality of that quantity. I just think you should have more at-bats. Many of the posts I put out, with all this 20 years of expertise and writing the fucking book and being that fucking guy, I miss all the time.

53:59But I love that feeling. Like, I'm trying to learn. I saw somebody the other day in a piece of content making fun of me and my team for doing all sorts of different shit. And I was laughing, because I'm like, no, no, that's the game. The point I think he was trying to make is like, he's lost his way, he doesn't know what he's doing, he's just throwing, we're not throwing against a wall to see what sticks, we're exploring different features and things to try to learn what's next. And I have the humility for it to not do well. Do you know that the reason most people suck at social media is they're scared to not get as many views as their little fragile ego needs to go through the day?

54:33I don't give a fuck. I'm streaming on Twitch on mute in my office, 83 people are watching. I don't give a fuck. that doesn't take away from everything I'm doing. Do you not think that there's a degree of optics? Like people naturally use popularity as a proxy for quality. Of course. So to a degree, if there is, if you're consistently posting in a way that isn't getting, not saying that this is what you're doing, but if you're consistently posting in a way and it's like 83 likes, nine likes, like that says something to your audience about, you know, when you look at YouTube and you see thumbnail, you see title, you see the name of the creator, you see how long it is, like those are important metrics.

55:26But when you go on, you see how many people have viewed that video. It depends on what, if you're trading for popularity, sure, or the perception of popularity, sure. Depends on what you're trading on. For me, if 80 people are watching me on Twitch while I'm on mute all day, there's really no reason to watch it, but I'm just experimenting. If someone then decides like Gary Vee fell off or sucks, that person is incredibly not smart. I'm not super worried about losing with losing players. Yeah, that's an interesting way. I think a lot about the time of cultivating the audience that you want and being very careful about the sort of people that you attract.

56:08Of course. You can throw red meat and you can do the audience capture thing and you can be predictable. I could get 100 million views tomorrow if I decide to go fucking crazy on something I don't believe on that will goad the entire audience into watching. Who the fuck wants that? Like, it depends on what you're playing for. Too many people are trying to win with losing players and too many people are not trying to win with winning players. One of the things I tell a lot of kids that fake the funk when they pitch me, businesses, I see you're gathering your thoughts because I want you to hear this.

56:37I think you're gonna really like this. No, no. I totally get it. One of my favorite meetings to have is a kid that comes in that's got it. You know, the fucking juice. But I'm like listening. I love listening to a pitch. And I realized that she or he just pitched me and it would work on 99%, but not the 1%. And what I mean by that is I'll go into something specific they go where I know they're embellishing. And I'll go very narrow. If it's a place I'm comfortable, I know what I'm talking about. And I know a lot about a lot of stuff. This is why I started VaynerMedia. The main reason I started VaynerMedia was to know as many different things about as many different businesses as possible and build the biggest marketing communications company in the world that I could deploy against my other behaviors when I got older.

57:19For me, it's always been about 60 to 70. Like that's when I'm gonna strike like a cobra. This right now is just fuckin' foreplay. This is just a setup. This is the fuckin' jab. Anyway, when I'm in a meeting like that, I had this happen the other day with a kid and I went deep and I was like da-da-da-da-da-da. And I could see the kid was a little bit like, because I was like calling him out. By the way, he crushed it. I'm like, this kid's gonna fucking win. You know, that charisma, that salesmanship. And there was a lot of good stuff. But he was full of shit on like three or four things. But it was complicated to know it.

57:51But it just happened to be in a space that I knew enough to be able to go there. He really took it well, which was what I wanted to see. Which gave me even more confidence that he's just 24 and he's gonna get there. And then I said something to him that I really, I say a lot of shit and I'm into this shit. but I like those moments where I'm like fuck I think this person just internalized this and it's gonna be like a thing and I can't wait for them to dominate and I'm gonna be old and they're gonna be like Gary Newell and said to me 30, I like that stuff and I like it for him and I said brother you're gonna win with 99 % of losing players the problem is you do that pitch again to the 1 % winners you're gonna lose with all of them and they're the only people that matter and that recaps what we just talked about so yes, do I think perception is reality?

58:31Yes I do do I think brand matters over everything? I sure do but I think that if people the biggest issue with the world right now is people want to take everything out of context, have no concept of, we've eliminated intent. People are trying to cancel everybody. Cancel culture was a disaster because it tried to cancel people without understanding their intent. If somebody's a beautiful person, they just didn't know the proper slang or didn't know, and they just had no ill will, the fuck are you trying to get them fired for? Similar to somebody seeing a video of like Mr. Beast on a post on Snap, only have 80 ,000 views and be like, oh, he fell.

59:06That's not smart. That's not understanding what people, and by the way, back to your journey and his journey and the journey that I had with Empathy Wines and kind of knew CPG was next and why I talked about it forever and why I built VaynerMedia to be in CPG. A lot of creators are gonna care less about how many maximizing views. They're gonna care about views that translate into CPG sales or hours allocated to meetings in Bentonville or hours allocated to being on TikTok Live. Like, shit's gonna change. Shit changes. But the lack of courage and curiosity of the A-list to try new shit because they're worried about what we just talked about is why a lot of those people are gonna end up in the B-list.

59:50Give me a handful of creators that if you could bet on them somehow over the next couple of years, you would think about. Or it could just be the ones that you find yourself coming back to. Like, you can't wait when you see their videos. I'll tell you, I love you for adjusting based on my facial reaction. That's not why I made that face. I'm very weird when it comes. Let me explain what I mean by this. I don't consume, like, let me give you an example. I don't know if I'm betting on her. Nick Dio hit me up with someone yesterday, and I spent, like, I loved it. It's not that I'm betting on her.

1:00:31let me see if I can fucking find this she's like an intern like this she's got 37 followers on Instagram or 137 and Dio said I bet she has 50 ,000 in a month and I'm like you're right let me tell you where I'm going with this I don't go deep on people or influencers or content creators I go very wide I'm looking for macro trends and things that I think I can contribute to the conversation in podcasts like this. So for me, I don't actually consume anything. And I consume everything. I'm trying to like really, the reason I said I'm weird, I'm trying to figure out how I can break this down. I am,

1:01:22seven years ago I would have answered Mr. Beast. Yet I've never watched a Mr. Beast video in my life. like Charlie D 'Amelio was in my office for her first business meeting I might have watched one full eight second dance video of hers to know like I'm going so broad right 310 baby as a rapper of like do I think like I'll listen to a song first minute there's something in the way that I because I'm trying to consume everything it's almost like I don't have the time to go deep enough and so I'm not great I'm disappointed in a weird way I'm disappointed in myself to not be able to answer your question because I've seen 50 of them in the last 50 weeks but I a I have some form of reading comprehension issues and dyslexia where like words are hard for me so like I could tell someone that I saw them in an airport in Dubai for and I could tell them we talked about peanuts 13 years ago and I could I would have seen their social media 90 times and they could say, what's my name?

1:02:26And I'm like, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of, I guess. So I guess. I've got it in my head that you're like a meteorologist, but for social media. You're trying to be the weather report. You're trying to take the - Yeah, I'm just, that's, and I'll see things and I'll like, like, but it's very hard for me to say, especially because I like being historically correct. So I'm not gonna sit here and say, like, you know, I think I can tell you the profile, because this might help a lot of people. What's the kind of person that can succeed over the next few years on social media? The ones that can get the noise out.

1:03:04The biggest reason people won't win in social media is people don't have the stomach to handle the feedback. People won't have the stomach for the changing winds of day trading. They'll be on a pedestal on TikTok. All these TikTok fuckers, and I say fuckers like I'm one of them. Like the people that are winning on TikTok right now, their day will come. Their day will come where the attention shifts and they won't be ready. And will they be ready after having four years of being on to do it again? Do you have the intestinal fortitude to be in perfect, you, you're in such great shape. If you go through a period of your life for three years where you do all the wrong things and you wake up three years later and say, fuck, I'm getting back to this dude.

1:03:50do you have the fucking strength because once you know the hardest thing is once you were there when you lose it to get back right if you were making five million a year let's say you were making 40 ,000 a year and then you blew up on social and you had two years where you made three million a year but then you're not popping on social anymore do you have the strength to go back and put the work in to get back to that place that do you have the emotional capability to take one step backwards to then take two steps forward do you have the grit Do you have the self-esteem? Do you have the ability to deal with the ebb and flow?

1:04:27Do you have, think about the people that get trolled. Are you gonna cry and disappear? Or are you gonna be Logan Paul and become a WWE superstar? Like, do you have the strength to deal with criticism at scale? Do you have the strength to deal with the toe bumps? The biggest reason people aren't entrepreneurs is entrepreneurship is losing constantly with the occasional win. It looks cool, but people don't love eating shit. Talk to me about how you deal with criticism and the inevitable ups and downs of success. You're someone that has got both. By being empathetic to it being a reality of life.

1:05:07It's inconceivable that you want attention and you're not gonna have judgment in a world that is obsessed with taking things out of context and only headline reading. there's no common sense to that i don't take it personal i care about the judgment of the most inner circles that i have family and friends employees inner circles acquaintances that became friends like i can't be upset if johnny 97 thinks i'm a dick face because my energy is too much i'm also empathetic i know that my alpha competitive high energy jersey like i know what this is. That's not for everybody. Some people want to zen out.

1:05:47If you want to zen the fuck out, I'm not your guy. And so I'm just too empathetic. I also think it's humility. At the end of the day, I'm like, who the fuck am I? Who gives a fuck? If I die tomorrow, what's going to happen? I'll get 24 hours of love on social. Right? People will be like, oh man, this, what the fuck? None of you are like that. Do you remember Gary Vee? 100%. And luckily, we live in a era where we're more like, all of us are more like the most famous people in the world. Like we'll live forever. Like a clip from this, like do you know how cool it is that our great, do you know how fun it will be?

1:06:21This is insane. Your and my great, great, great grandchildren will somehow realize, because last names, things will change, but somehow if they became great friends, would somehow family tree it and be like, holy fuck. And they're gonna, hey Jeremiah 794, like they will literally watch this. Do you know how cool that is? But at the end of the day, how do I handle it? Humility and empathy. Talk to me about just that immediate emotional reaction. I think that overcoming that is something that a lot of people struggle with. Well, I think that's right. You know, look, I think - It's nice in the stark contrast with the nice perspective.

1:07:01And I don't disagree. Price it in is the cost of doing business. Cost of doing business, you put things on the internet, people are gonna say mean stuff to you. And fighting against that is like King Canuck trying to stop the tide. Do you know fighting? Yes. You know how some people like getting punched in the face? Yes, I'm friends with Tim Kennedy, yes. I like getting punched in the face. That's my answer. I don't know what else to tell you. It's my nature. I was shit on my whole life. I was a Russian immigrant. I came over here. Russia was the bad guys when I came here. So I got shit on in grade school.

1:07:36I didn't speak English. This is a story I tell very rarely. Very rarely, I think I've done it once or twice. I'm going there. I often talk about, I lived in, people that really know me, my story is I went from Queens to Edison, New Jersey. Edison, New Jersey is where I became a Jets fan and an entrepreneur. But it's not fully true. Queens to Dover for a year, then Edison. Dover doesn't make my story, I never understood why, but I'm starting to tap into it. It was fucking bad. Because I didn't speak English and because I went outside a lot, I got picked on a lot. And it was a rough neighborhood.

1:08:09I remember one story that's the main story I remember of that era where I saw the kid pee in the Pepsi cup like by the tree and they came over and the seven of them bullied me to drink it. I was five, I was fucking five. And I kind of like tried, like if I, it's very blurry, I mean it's 43 years ago. But like I didn't speak English. Obviously when you're an animal like a human at five you know what's happening. but like then I was a terrible student. I was D's and F's and this was the 80s. There was no political correctness. My teachers literally would look me in the face. These are grownups. They're your teachers.

1:08:47You look up to them. They're like you are a loser. You're dumb. You're gonna fail. You're gonna be a garbage man. Then I also loved sports. I played sports all the time. Do you know what happens when you play sports? You lose a lot. You win sometimes but you lose a lot. Video games, this. and then I sold stuff. I did lemonade stands. I would sit on Tingley Lane in Edison, New Jersey as a nine year old and I would watch millions, let me take a step back. I would see hundreds of cars drop by and not stop for my sign and occasionally get one. I live life under the mindset of it's all shit but it doesn't matter.

1:09:26The shit doesn't matter. It's the fucking sunshine, the occasional sunshines that is everything and I think people live the reverse. a little ounce of poopy makes them cry because they're fucking soft, because they're not fucking hard enough, because they're not loving themselves. I love myself too much to give a fuck about you. I don't know what else to tell you. I don't want to be delusional. I don't want to be fucking living in my own egos. I respect other opinions. I internalize for processing other opinions, but I have no interest in putting your fucking subjective opinion about me above my opinion above me.

1:10:12That's how I deal with it. Neediness occurs when you place someone else's opinion of you above your opinion of you. Period. I don't put my parents' opinion above me. I don't even, if I'm not gonna do that with my parents who I love the most, who built me, if I'm not putting my mom's opinion about me above me on me, how the fuck am I gonna do that about Charlie or Rick or Susan or Haseem? Fuck you. I'm interested in what drives you now. I get when there's a point to prove that when you're an immigrant, that when you've been picked on, that when you've been - But you know what's funny? You know what's funny?

1:10:46My spirit doesn't come from that chip on the shoulder, even though I just spoke with passion about it. Mine's about curiosity. I like the game. I'm curious in a wild I would have loved to have been a professional athlete I'm so sad I wasn't that would have really really satisfied me because the data was there if I was a running back in the NFL I would have been it would have been over and I would have ranked 97th in career rushing yards 400th in career touchdowns right uh 18th in receptions by a running back and I could have I would have enjoyed that. I would have been like, ah, good for Barry Sanders.

1:11:24He was better than me. And like, fuck you, fucking Ricky Williams. I was better than you. That's what drives the shit out of me in entrepreneurship. I love this game of brand building and business building. I'm talking what drives me as a professional. As a human, what drives me is to be happy as often as possible and interact with the people I like the most as often as possible. But so much of what I love and what makes me smile is the friendships I make through the process of business, the family I make through business. It's so fun for me. And I'm curious. I love where I'm at right now. I've done well.

1:12:07But there are unlimited people on stats that have done better than me. But I have a sneaky feeling that I'm gonna catch up. And so what drives me is I think I've been built for the fourth quarter of my whole life. I alluded to it earlier everything I've been building is for 60 to 70 so do you still want to be working and grinding when you're 60 and 70? of course because it's my hobby I don't want to do anything that I don't like I was a DNF student because I didn't like it I was smart enough to get B's and C's but I didn't even have that gear in me if you said to me hey great interview do me a favor can you help me hang this picture real quick I'd be dead I'd literally rather give you like lots of money or like do anything.

1:12:49Like I would go on a conference call to all of your employees for 14 hours that I don't have sooner than help you hang that picture. So of course I want to do that because I don't think of it as grinding. I don't think of it as hustle porn. I think of it as doing the thing that brings me the most joy. I would rather be in a business meeting than on a golf course. I would rather be in a business meeting than sailing. I would rather be in a business meeting than cooking. I'd rather be in a business meeting than watching a movie. I'd rather be really watching the Jets, having dinner with my family, love dinners with people, love jam sessions.

1:13:24It's so fun to be in Austin. This is where I learned to love it. South by Southwest on the ground in hotel rooms. Give me 25, seven, 19, eight, 13 smart people, clever people, thinking people, thoughtful people and just jam about it. I'll take that over working every day of the week. But there's just not a lot of things, garage sailing. I know that's like a funny, like people, like a lot of the kids because my tiktok videos go a lot of the kids think of me as the garage sale guy because my tiktok videos do like i just but even that's business marketing buy sell trade you know i really love it and so of course i want to be doing like i i mean i you know there you hear these stories i'm sure this has crossed your paths of the people who retire at 81 and then die at 82 i know why they thought it was what they were supposed to do and it took the life out of I have two important things to say about this.

1:14:14One, I will do this forever and I really hope to live to at least 100 doing it. Two, I'm incredibly excited of making my last social media post a split screen of this where I just ranted here and now 71-year-old me is making a video and saying, today's the day I'm retiring both from running businesses and making content. This has been the great joy of my life. I love all of you. I hope that all the archives of everything I've put out can bring value to all of you. But today was the day I woke up and I said, I don't like this anymore. So you're open to this trajectory not continuing in the way that you see it right now?

1:14:48In a way that would make your fucking head spin. In equal, visceral, high energy of like, the day I wake up and I'm like, fuck this shit, I'm out. In the same way that I have full conviction as I sit here right now that that day will never come. How will you, or do you think about the myth of identity at all? The fact that you can, so much of you and who you are is wrapped up in being that guy. Not for me. I'm aware. Not for me. One of the reasons humility is my partner is I don't give a fuck about Gary V. I'm proud of it. But it is not who I think I am. It is not my identity. Where do you take that from?

1:15:32That detachment of it? No, where do you take who you are from if it's not from the things that you spend, And you know, you ever take pride in being successful? In order, starting with my mom and dad, then my sister, then my brother, in order, probably the top 100 people that have spent the most minutes with me in my life and what they think about me.

1:15:54So for people who are wanting to go on a path of success and exposure to the real world, is that a prophylactic, having a circle of people that you trust, that you have faith, have their best faith in you and care about you beyond not just what you do, but who you are? The reverse. The having those 100 people be someone that you want to do the best for. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Right? Like, to me, like, you become sustainable and unbeatable if your framework is giving, not taking. And if you do that with those 100 people, of course the outcome of them caring about you will happen you've been giving them deposits of love and emotional strength financial strength whatever you're providing for them and so yeah i think simplicity is a big game it's really cool how this all worked out for me i could have been born in any era the fact that i'm born in the era where the merit of attention and business is all based on the internet now no gatekeepers good for me i'm good with that two the era of judgment at scale that will disintegrate the most insecure and allow the most confident to shine, leave impact, inspire the next generation to get the true self-esteem, not fake self-esteem, and be able to navigate these choppy waters, good for me.

1:17:18I read a really interesting Twitter thread last week about, I've thought about this for ages, I called it the elderly clout paradox, which is we're often told about the perils of fame too young. the Britney Spears and that if you have never known life as anything other than private jets and screaming fans and paparazzi it can be disquieting because you don't actually know what life is for most people and if that ever gets taken away from you who are you, what's your identity but no one ever talks about the perils of fame too old and what does it mean if you're some, let's say dusty Canadian psychologist working in the annals of Toronto University and then a bald MMA commentator plucks you out of obscurity and puts you on one of the biggest world tours that any speaking tour has ever been, maybe one of the biggest speaking tours in history and sell 20 million, 30 million, 40 million bucks and now so many people criticizing you and all the rest of this stuff.

1:18:17No one talks about that. I feel way better for Jordan than I feel for Charlie. Jordan Peterson was a grown man and has built foundational abilities to have a relationship, right? This is why the only thing that I don't quite know about that, it's difficult to be thrust into the world and never know what it's like to be normal before you've got a sense of who you are as a person. I don't disagree. I don't disagree if that's something that's tough. But what about when you're ripped from your moorings and you thought you knew who you were? You thought you knew. Well, the good news is for both those people, you're fundamentally in control.

1:18:53Both Charlie D 'Amelio and Jordan Peterson are fully allowed to disappear. Would they be? How would they be able to hide? They're going to be noticed every single place that they go. The most famous people in the world over time, once they stop feeding them system, can disappear into obscurity. Do you know how not relevant Jordan Peterson and Charlie D 'Amelio are in 10 years if they never show up again? Day trading attention. Yeah, the pace of the news cycle means that you're only as good as your next video. And if you stop producing, you'll become obsolete very quickly. A hundred, it happens all the time.

1:19:27do you know how fucking famous tv stars were 15 years ago like tom sellick was the most famous fucking 1980s like you know what i mean my mom fancies tom sellick she was like his crush of course i mean yeah like he's my crushes every i literally half the dudes in the world and every girl did in 1983 but not now like you know no i fuck's tom selling you know and listen that's a legend it's different and it's like play but like i mean it happens all the time like lonely girl 15 was the most famous person on YouTube in 2006. Right? Like, it happens all the time. Jerome Jarre. I mentioned him earlier.

1:20:07Jerome Jarre was the most famous person on Vine. He represented what, take whoever you think is the single hottest young person right now on TikTok is, he represented that. And then he went to Africa and disappeared off the face of the earth. This is the best part of life. You are in control. You want to shit about the president, either side, leave America. You want to say that your mom is toxic, stop talking to her. You want to, like, your buddies are dragging you down, leave your friends. You don't, you know, Europe is not entrepreneurial enough, come here. Like, stop fucking crying. Like, I'm not gonna cry for Charlie or Jordan or me or you because I genuinely believe we have the capacity to make change.

1:20:58You mentioned earlier on about how there is a temptation for creators to try and cash in too quickly. That they can continue to put their thumb on the scale. Yes. I was saying like extracting attention. You know, when you have this competitive advantage you know that this music video style works and like you only made 13 of them, not 700. Correct. Go ahead. I understand. That's less cashing in. That's more like extracting the most value out of the moment. So it's the inverse that I'm talking about. So someone has a competitive advantage at the moment. They continue to place their thumb on the scale.

1:21:32They continue to rinse and repeat with authenticity and originality and quality and quantity. This thing that is going to continue to spin the wheels and get the engine moving. How do you know when it is time to cash in? Because if, as you say, I am worried for these TikTok pockets. How do you know when to get married? you make an emotional in your body things start to happen you like and feel subjectively you feel like you're making a subjective decision people I don't know whether people should be making business decisions with as much emotion as they do for getting married well but I think would you not be more strategic than that like well a couple things I think there's a lot of validity in that sentence I think I'm making a slightly different parallel which is nobody will know you never actually really know if you made the right decision until the post game so when should someone cash in where i was trying to go with that and maybe i was going down a bad path or maybe i'm still there i'm going to hold on to it for a second is you need to just kind of make a call like you know there's been many people that sold too soon and there's many people that sold too late right so So that happens all the time.

1:22:46Instagram. Universally, people thought Facebook was stupid and they thought Instagram pulled one off. They were wrong. One billion was one of the great M &A steals of all time. Right? On the flip side, there's been many companies, I mean the amount of entrepreneurs that are listening right now that had a$30 million offer on their business, they're like, fuck you, I'm fucking Bezos motherfucker and then a year later have zero. You know that, right? You've been around enough already to know So unlimited, especially that, notice what number I used, that nice little 15, 30, and they're dead inside.

1:23:22They're dead inside. This goes back to who's gonna win, the one that could say, I sit here, when I tell you it is insane that I did not invest in Uber's angel round, there's no logic behind it. He was my best bud, I was investing constantly in that era, and the serendipity of me playing just enough defense, because I just bought my first real apartment in New York, It was just a little less liquid than the ideology I had fucked me on an investment that I could have made $500 million on and I love it. I love it. But for a lot of people that's the death blow. That's why most people get the fuck out of this game.

1:23:57They can't deal with like the what if. Fuck a what if. There only is. So when should people cash in? I don't know. I think they need to make a decision on what feels right and when they go to sell something or when they go to sell it or when they never monetized their audience but now they want to sell their first sneaker or wine or book or collectible digital aspect like you just got to go with it when you got to go with it there's you can feel crescendo you by the way you might here's a let me give you a let me go actually detailed instead of macro let me go micro here's a good reason to sell something or cash in you're tired you've been going really hard for six years you didn't come for much you're watching your single your father passed away when when you were nine, you're watching your mom grind.

1:24:43She's 61, you just went over for dinner and she looks tired as fuck, and you're like, you know what, even though I wanna keep building more equity with my audience before I cash in, I'm gonna go in for a cash in right now because you know what, a couple million bucks right now, I can get my mom to retire, I'm gonna buy her a little house, her sisters live down in the middle of fucking nowhere in North Carolina, I could buy a fucking house for$200 ,000,$180 ,000, she'll be happy. I could use a fucking vacation actually I'm doing too many things I could use a couple of those bucks to add two teammates I don't need to edit anymore right that's a for instance what's your perspective on continuing to ladder up as you're growing continuing to just do little bits little bits little bits as opposed to waiting until you have a huge amount of latent both work right both can work look I view this as a value exchange framework If you're bringing value, one of the reasons I like selling stuff is I believe in what I sell.

1:25:43I have a funny feeling you believe in that drink. I don't think you mailed that in. No, we were involved every single step of the way. 12 months of development, six months of taste. Brother, when I tell you, you know how Amazon works. Until it comes out, you don't actually know the price because they keep lowering it. What? This$27 worth of fucking thinking. like I believe in this more than my life I know that I'm one of the few people that does hundreds but that's not a lot of 8 billion I'm one of the hundreds of people that could have wrote this book because I'm that much of a practitioner on every platform there are very few people on earth that give as much fucks about LinkedIn as they do about TikTok and everything in between as I do who also have a 2 ,000 person 350 million dollar agency that works with spends billions of dollars in media on social like I got it you know how good I feel you know how nice it is to sell this if you believe in what you're selling there is no better thing if you don't believe in what you're selling there is no worse thing yeah I mean that Naval quote you're doing sales because you sucked at marketing you're doing marketing because you sucked at product and I think authenticity is a word that comes up a lot in the book and I think rightly so people are so concerned in in an age of high mistrust of messaging from mainstream media, from independent media, all of the guardrails are off so the independent media can talk about whatever they want.

1:27:11Apparently the guardrails don't even exist for fucking mainstream media anymore now. That's right. AI, deep face, automation, all of this stuff. I think the more that you can signal, I am a person of trustworthy, verifiable, authentic, real, relatable. And then back up the signal. Yes, yes, and here is some proof. Here is some proof. You know how proof happens? Time. These fucking kids hate me for pushing patients like it's the fucking cure, but motherfucker, I know all these Alpha A and B fucking winners that I see. I see them every day. I read all their DMs. I watch them. I may not remember their name, but I can tell you the joke they made.

1:27:51Nicky Cass, right? I know that fucking kid is funny as fuck and he's got fire in his belly. And I can do shit like that and I'm telling you right now, the number one kryptonite for all these fucking and super men and women is fucking patience. They want this shit so fast, because they're insecure. They wanna show everybody they already won, because they play for them, not themselves. Could you imagine if athletes played for the audience? Can you imagine if athletes cried when the home, the Knicks get booed, I'm so pumped about the Knicks right now, finally. The Knicks get booed every single game, every single basketball team that plays in a major city.

1:28:27If they're down 11-nothing and have to call a timeout because they came out shitty? Philly, New York, LA. They get booed. Could you imagine if you're like, I'm not going back out there. I just got booed. That's literally like being a content creator when somebody shits on you or you have a bad day and you don't want to post again. People don't have inner strength because they're insecure. That is what I'm obsessed about. 80 % of my content to find different ways to get people to self-love because it unlocks fucking everything. You can't play if you're not strong. What do you make of the culture of cynicism on the internet?

1:28:58that to me seems to be kind of the set point, ground zero for the way that people behave. The line is this cutting, very cynical zero sum mentality. I think the internet and social media doesn't exist. I think they're a mirror of human truth. So when I hear you say, what do I think about the cynicism of the internet? I take out the word internet and put it in society. Aren't people that cynical? Because they don't seem to behave that same way in the real world. That's because it's scarier to do it. You might get punched in the face. keyboard warriorship is real fun people do it in their own minds they don't say it to your face because they're weak the cynicism is happening in the airport right now they're like look at her who does the fuck she thinks she is dressing that way they just say it in their head the greatest thing that ever happened to the human being is social media it exposed the living fuck out of us and it will allow us over this next decade or two to take one step backwards to reassess to take two steps forward I believe this era of social media will create the great renaissance era of having real conversations around insecurity and self-esteem.

1:30:06Why? Because I think there's a lot of pressure. Because I think the conversation you and I are having right now. Because I think it's in everyone's face. Because I think people are scared. Because I think suicide and insecurity and unhappiness is fucking really feeling it. But the silly thing is, is there's much more negativity in mainstream media than there is in social media. You can't find positivity on mainstream media. You can find unlimited, come hang with me. You can find unlimited positivity and answers and things that have merit and trying to figure it out with optimism that is practical.

1:30:43So I laugh about where we're at right now on the shitting on social. I laugh because this is another cliche example of the world not understanding. We did this with alcohol. the 1930s in this country of america we banned alcohol i love when people are like we need to ban social media i'm like knock yourself out can't wait to see how that works out like people are so naive as if you need to ban the whole fucking internet if you don't want to deal with what we're dealing what do you think happens if we banned all social media reddit would be a cesspool even more than it is now forums comments on blog like humans are going to talk now on the internet because you can hide.

1:31:23The shit we used to think in our own heads or only talk to our one friend about or sit in our dinner table and talk about, we now talk about out loud. I've never even thought about that before. That's a very interesting insight that there was no outlet previously that permitted humans to say the fleeting negative things that came to their mind because the repercussions were too great and the effort of saying them was too high. And the platform did not exist. so we're gonna chisel it into a wall in ancient Rome there you go yes and so there you have it so friends nothing's changed as a matter of fact I would argue the world is happier than it's been historically overall the dark ages was bad world wars what do you think would be happening on social media if we were in world war 2 right now like I don't understand how people don't understand this they're like it's never been worse I'm like you know nothing about history If it was World War II right now, the fuck do you think would be going on on social media?

1:32:26You think Americans would be like, not saying bad things about Japanese people? Like, we put Japanese people in camps in America. Do you know your history? The fuck do you think? The only difference is it exists. And by the way, it's gonna be way crazier in VR and others, like people don't get, what country lines matter if we spend 24 hours a day in VR? How should people protect themselves if so much of our time is spent online and so much of our interactions with other people is mediated through the internet and social media and social media enables people to be the worst versions of themselves?

1:33:07Or best. And best versions of themselves too. They mediate through thoughtfulness. We have to get smarter. Discipline. that's a do you know how much of a drug sugar is do you know that my body every time I see a piece of candy loses its fucking mind do you know how fucking hard it is to meet for fight I was at Gap Inc. company the other day I'm having a pretty good week with nutrition I'm pretty happy with myself and these little no you know those fucking peach gummies the rings those fuckers I had to grab one and I was like fuck you Gary but I've been able to win most of this week and most of the week.

1:33:46You're allowed to pitch rain. Of course. I yourself have a pitch rain. And that's what I and I'm glad you said that. That's where I was going. And you're allowed to go on social media and do frivolous shit and look at bikinis or look at sports or even leave a negative comment. It's okay but not in sustained format. It's not okay to live your life going around the internet saying negative things because all it's doing is exposing that you're a piece of shit to yourself. You're not happy. misery loves company you need to get it out do you know honestly the way i deal with negative comments is empathy and compassion and sympathy they're not in a good place yeah i feel bad i don't feel bad for me i take it in to make sure again i'll say it again i never want to be delusional i never want to get high on my own supply i never want to buy into me i try that's why i stay away from me i'm gary vaynerchuk i know what gary v is it's me doing content publicly It's like me being a comedian on stage or me being, like, I love it.

1:34:42Like, I love it. I, it's, I'm not playing a character. It's still me, but it's not my identity and I could stay away from it because I also don't want to buy into it. It's also going well. I don't want to think that I'm better than. My favorite feeling is to not think that I'm better than, but want to be better than. I don't think I'm better than, but I strive to be better than. You know, it's a really cool relationship. But anyway, nonetheless, I'm so pumped about these last three, four, five minutes. I hope people rewind to the beginning of this. Again, this is gonna be a great era. Everyone has decided this is the worst.

1:35:18I just decided that this is the era where this had to be part of the equation. There used to be a world without guns, without atomic bombs, without written word, without like, do you know how demonized electricity was when it first was invented? It had demons in it, literally demonized. Shit happens. everyone's like oh we used to be awesome i'm like no we weren't the holocaust wasn't awesome slavery wasn't awesome like the black plague wasn't awesome world war one and two weren't awesome like vietnam sucked like like the civil war was bad you want you think social media is bad you think the democrat republican thing is bad now could you imagine if twitter was popping during the civil war i mean what the fuck's the matter with everybody it's so funny it's like everybody got an F in history.

1:36:05That's how everyone's talking right now. Like as if everyone got an F in history or people aren't good at critically thinking. People are not willing to be thoughtful. I think a combination of the two. One of my smartest friends has a question, which is what is currently ignored by the media but will be studied by historians? God, that's such a great thing. There's so much. You know, I'm trying to think about my knowledge of what the media is paying attention to right now.

1:36:35You know, one thing I'm very fascinated by is how much of Africa China owns. Yes, yes. I'm obsessed with Africa. They've basically made liquid. They've capitalized so much. And I'm obsessed with Africa. I think Africa's the next great continent of talent, of ideas, of impact, of culture, of pop culture. Like, I know pretty much as I sit here today as a 48-year-old man, that every day between now and my next 52 years, I'd really like to get to 100. I'll take anything after that. I'd be pissed in heaven for anything less. That Africa will, every day that goes by, the continent of Africa will be more and more important.

1:37:15And so I don't feel like the mainstream media covers enough of how great of a job China has done in very similar to what America did around the whole world. It's what America did from 1920 to 2000, really was able to influence and infrastructure so many parts of the world the english language like why do we all talk english you know between the uk and the u.s and so you know i think that's fascinating i think about that um you know i think but i actually i wonder if you asked this question because of what i just said i believe what the media has wrong and what has society has wrong about social media is they think it's changed us and I believe that social media has exposed us.

1:37:58And I think the only way an alcoholic, the only way an abusive spouse, the only way someone that's really struggling with something dark can actually fix it is the day he or she says, I am. And then they start the process of fixing it, right? I am not, by the way, I did this on a plane at 38 and a half years old in Houston in this great state of Texas, my head on the window, 30 and a half years old. I use a half because I'm 11 years old. And I say, I'm gonna die before 100 if I don't start taking care of myself. What were you doing? I just wasn't exercising or eating well. And I could feel it.

1:38:43And I said, when I'm 40, I'm gonna start taking care of myself. And by the time, that's literally what I said to myself. And by the time I landed in New York three hours later, I said, the fuck am I waiting to 40? And I called Mike Vicanti, who was my last trainer, that I only showed up three times out of 14 sessions, but paid for them all. I said, Mike, do you know a young person that can travel with me? Because I've also figured out what I need. I need a babysitter. I'm very accountable to others, to my family, to my employees. I'm good. But to myself, I'm like, what up, bro? You know, and so.

1:39:14Me too. And he said, what about me? And I literally worked out with him this morning, 10 years later. He's moved to Minnesota now. He hasn't traveled with me full time, but he was on my FaceTime this morning in the hotel in Austin and we worked out and it changed my life but I knew it for a decade the first inclinings of 38 was 28 but it took me 10 years of subconscious and conscious talk with myself to finally have the tipping point moment I believe a lot of people know that I'm right that social media has exposed us not changed us but we're not there yet collectively as 8 billion people but when we get there we will look back in 70 years as social media on top of the internet was a great thing that happened to man it just was super painful for 20 25 years getting to the next place.

1:40:01I wonder how much of the reticence we have around not blaming social media for the way that we behave is that without social media we need to accept that fact. I love you so much. Accountability is the most interesting conversation on earth right now. We have become obsessed with fingers. Trump sucks. Biden sucks. America sucks. China sucks. My mom sucks. My dad sucks. My spouse sucks. My boss sucks. Everyone sucks but you. Everyone sucks but you. Our lack of accountability on the back of atrociously bad parenting that was well intended. Last 30 to 40 years, we over coddled kids. We made eighth place trophies.

1:40:47We did a bunch of dumb shit. We became friends with our kids, not parents that are friendly to our kids. And we lost our way. It was well intended. I have no judgment. As a parent myself, it's fucking impossible. It is the hardest. however it still is true and we have become incredible of course we blame everybody so many of us grew up with parents that fought our fights they ran to the school and yelled at the teacher how concerned are you about the relationship between teenagers and young kids and their use of social media I'm concerned if they have parents that didn't create boundaries and created self esteem so I'm concerned about the most insecure but I also see it another way that people don't see it.

1:41:29The 14-year-old that is getting bullied online was also the 14-year-old that was getting bullied at school when I was growing up. I saw all of them. But they had no outlet. The 14-year-old today that's getting bullied online can move from TikTok and delete it and start a Twitch stream and hang out with 12 new friends playing a new game and create a beautiful life for themselves. I see that all the time. The kid that I saw bullied, I'm thinking about one kid right now in Ethel Hoppock Middle School in Asbury, New Jersey in 1989, when I think about him and then what he did in North Hunterdon because I watched him for those four years, he had no outlet.

1:42:07There was no internet. He was the most lonely. We have decided that this is bad when it's good. These kids can find their friends in other places. On Fortnite, do you know how many kids that I know that are not socially winning in school are winning on Fortnite with other kids? Why are we not focusing on that? The reason we're not focusing on that is something atrocious happened. World leaders in politics have become incredibly not noble. The way that politicians around the world talk to each other is more similar to the way fifth graders talk to each other than grownups. The lack of civility in our society by world leaders is extraordinary.

1:42:54I mean, it's insanity. It's not statesman-like. You know what's so funny? It's not even human-like. Thank you, my brother. Statesman-like, I can deal with that. Just go even look at like five minutes ago, just go look at George Bush. Two, not even one. That's five minutes ago. We have completely, on both sides of the aisle, on the BRICS alliance and the US and NATO alliance, fear is being peddled on us at scale. it's super juvenile you know it's juvenile it's in juvenile i'm not saying that the uk is that much better but uh if you're thinking these are the people that are supposed to be the leaders of the country they're the ones absurd of course nobody feels good no and then you know what trickles down then teachers do it then parents do it well it's legitimated by the people that are in charge that's right and even if you know you can say that in the same breath as having the in a rebellious American spirit and saying, I am not beholden to any of you.

1:43:51Brother, I don't agree with most things that are accepted, but there's a way to do it. I may not agree with you, but I don't think you're a piece of shit and deserve to die. What the fuck's the matter with people? Talk to me about the future of Pickleball. You know, I fell in love with Pickleball here, the video, back to videoing everything, it's pretty cool. I did a DailyVee, it's probably six years old. It was me and Ryan Harwood playing with Andre Agassi and erotic here in Austin, Texas. You know, pickleball, esports, Paddle, darts, tag, there's a world tag league. I'm very fascinated by sports in this way.

1:44:32The first Super Bowl did not sell out the tickets to the game. Couldn't sell it out. The 1982 NBA Finals, one of the games was not even aired live in america it was on tape delay ufc i watched ufc one with my high school college buddies was like human cage fighting and would never make it another year and was going to be banned and our parents like of course we watched it because our parents didn't want us to watch it i'm fascinated by how sports emerge and how when i think about pickleball and why i like it tennis didn't exist all the time ping pong didn't exist all the time. I don't like the establishment so much.

1:45:16And I like consumer behavior and the truth and what people like. So the future of pickleball is bright-ish. It's early. It could fall off. But slam ball and all this other stuff. I know, just like UFC, in a 30-year window, went from non-existent to, I just watched UFC 300 and Max's knockout of Justin is one of the five best moments I've ever seen in sports. And I'm sad because I love them both. UFC fucks with me because I love all these dudes so much and they fucking bash each other. It's not like wrestling. Wrestling's fun. I love Macho Man. Fuck Hulk Hogan. UFC fucks with me heavy because literally 93.7 % of these guys and gals, I adore who they are outside the cage, who they are in the cage.

1:46:01It was iconic and I'll be honest with you and everyone's going ham on it. Every moment I'm like, man, I just had a lot of love for Justin. you know what I mean and I know Justin I don't know him I know Justin is such a beast I'm sure he like you know he's I mean he did that to Dustin like but it like it is what it is but the future of pickleball I'll go macro on it I have no idea where it plays out I hope it's a huge league because obviously I own a team the New Jersey Fives which means a lot to me if you go to my Instagram Gary VEE you can see my first pinned post you'll see why the number five means so much to me why I named my pickleball team after it, 76ers, who now I hate because the Knicks are playing in the first round fives.

1:46:43But I know in 30 years, you and I will be at a dinner. And I know there'll be a new sport that none of us see, back to media, what it's not covering, that has the complete attention of the world, is the coolest thing, sitting there with basketball and proper football and American football and UFC. And I'll be like, hey, and for some reason, my brain will recall this micro moment. I'm like, remember, do you remember? But I didn't call it. It's just history. There's always going to be a new sport every 30, 50 years that comes along. Esports seems very real, but there's so many different games. What's it going to be?

1:47:20VR is a good bet. Look, it's hard to see a world in 30 years out that VR isn't a big part of our lives. We're starting to see the previews now with Apple and Meta. And it's going to work. Just like Zoom's worked. Zoom's changed the world Private aviation with Zoom Have created a complete new framework I mean the US government's gonna have to figure out Tax law because of Zoom And private aviation It's not sustainable States are gonna have to compete with each other in a way that Is like really intense Civil war like Gary Vee, ladies and gentlemen Gary I appreciate you, your energy is very infectious I really really was looking forward to speaking to you And I like the fact that you're positive About the future I also think to kind of summarize what I've learned, the only other person that I know that's similar to yourself is Alex Hormozzi and he is someone for whom play and work are the same thing.

1:48:13And that's the fundamental misunderstanding that people have. I think so. If they realize that what you do for work is what you do for fun, that the work and fun question, the life balance question is out the window. And the life balance question is out the window for everyone because the concept of bearing your work for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years is not a good concept. I love people who are like, I work nine to five, but I have great work-life balance. I'm like, you sure don't. You hate 40 hours a week.