Commercetainment is the future, don’t miss this opportunity | Tea with GaryVee Ep. 72

0:00Good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to another episode of Tea with Gary V. I am Gary V. I'm here in New York City on this, what is this? Very nice day actually outside. Let's get into the show, Tea with Gary V. My momentum is starting to build up. I like it. Mackenzie, don't give me a fucking question. It's gonna piss me off. Okay. All right, go ahead. Before you listen to today's podcast, I want you to go to my Instagram right now, Gary VEE, and add me to your favorites to make sure you don't miss any of my Instagram posts. That's what I want you to do. And now enjoy the podcast.

0:36Sammy asks, last show you mentioned commerce attainment. Can you say more and why does live shopping work? Last show I talked about this term commerce attainment, which is we're literally living in the meadow right now. That's what I'm doing right now. Like right now. As a matter of fact, let's do that. Corso, put up 20 packs in the store. I'm gonna answer by living it right now. These are the very rare series two cards before the tops chrome card comes out These are$40 a pack if you're into Pokemon that kind of stuff you'll know what's going on I'm gonna put up these packs right now because I know a lot of collectors are in the room.

1:11They're up. Can you pin them? All right, so packs are up. There you go. So the hero packs, right? So I'm doing tea with Gary V right now. I'll interject I'll interject now real quick everybody if it's your first time ordering You can actually get this for 25 bucks by clicking this little show notes and and click that and hit the VF15 button, right? But, you know, EWAS Direct just bought. So I'm having a show, but there's content. There's, excuse me, commerce in it. Right now, what's going on in social shopping, why does it work? Because human behavior likes to buy in real time. I personally, me, Gary, who's extremely disciplined and doesn't like to buy stuff, have bought things on Whatnot and TikTok Shop in the live experience because of the momentum.

1:53You're almost paying for an experience. like here's a good question what do you get when you go to a stand-up comedy show or a concert or a sporting event what do you get what do you take home nothing physical but you're paying for the entertainment i believe that there's a subconscious underlining layer of the entertainment value that's going on and i think the hype and the excitement is why people do well and not well on qvc some people are good at it some people are not and it's enjoyable it's a it's a more fun way to shop than to see like a picture in your Instagram feed. Think about the difference of somebody just seeing a picture of this.

2:30Me and Sid, we do our best. We have a picture, even a video, or even a video of me being like, this is the next Pokemon, get in early. You're gonna regret not buying this for 40 bucks. I'm fucking Gary Vee, I'm telling you right now, you're gonna regret not buying this for 40 bucks. That's a good ad, it'll do fine. But I'm telling you, it'll do even better right now in real time, right? Because it can also interact, right? And so there's just so much to this. I don't know, I'm really excited about it. So commerce attainment to me is when you're doing a live show selling stuff like I am now, but you're more focused on entertainment and value.

3:02Tea with Gary Vee. I'm more focused on bringing people value right now. And there's an element of them tipping me for that and wanting to support me. Right? Like they know me. I'm bringing them value. And they're like, you know, if this is important to Gary, let me buy a$40 pack. Shit, he might be right. I might be happy I have these in a couple years and sell them on the bay. The bay is eBay. so that's what I see my man Hi Gary B What's your name? Where are you from? My name is Harun Nair I spoke to you a couple of weeks back Can you guys get new people motherfuckers? Go ahead brother Yeah so I told you that I'm going to start my own business Yes I remember Yeah so basically I'm going to finish my notice period in another three days and like everyone I'm feeling very scared that I'm going to quit my high paying job and start everything from scratch with being very unsure about my income potential.

4:00So I really need some motivation from you. And also the other thing is I have some money accumulated, which I have considered as my freeway for the next six months or one year to survive while I'm not earning. I also have that feeling that should I go backwards instead of, you know, or start something else? I got it. Yeah. I'm going to say this nice and slow. I can't motivate you out of your fear consistently. I can make you feel better for the next hour, but I'm going to give you information that might make you feel better forever. I have no idea if you're going to pull this off or not, but I'm so happy for you because high paying jobs for someone like you are always gonna be there.

4:48My brother, these corporations need you. There's gonna always be a seat at that cubicle for you. So you're gonna go do this. I have no clue if you're gonna win or lose. Even if you were meant to win, maybe the global economy melts, right? Anything can happen. This is business. This is life. But you've already won, brother. here's why the amount of people that are 67 year old you who wanted to try and did not and every day it eats at them every day you will never have that you may lose your savings but you're a fucking kid you're gonna make more savings again and there's nothing embarrassing about not being an entrepreneur fuck motherfucker i i'm pissed i'm an entrepreneur 90 of the time You know what I mean?

5:40There is nothing wrong with not being an entrepreneur. There's nothing wrong with being a great team player in a corporation or a company. It'd be nice for you to pick a company you enjoy being in. You enjoy the people you're around. That's important. That's a real quality of life issue. But you'll never, ever, ever wonder if you could have. And it's gonna be a tremendous experience and I'm proud of you and I'm happy for you. I needed this. Thank you so much. You got it, my brother. McKenzie, what do you got for me? Ben asks, how do you let go of early employees in a startup who helped you get from zero to one, but aren't the right people to get you from one to two or one to three?

6:17That's a really good question. The way you do that is by realizing, unfortunately, that's just the game. And, you know, again, the problem with business is it's not charity, it's not altruism, it's not a fucking fairy tale. The best thing you can do is do right by the person the best you can afford, right? and so give them better severance give them a warning give them respect give them respect by telling them the truth that's just it it's fucking hard out here when you have to make those decisions because you have a lot of love and gratitude for that person you know and so you know I think the way to do it is in order clarity respect and then if you can afford to be a little gracious because you feel like they put you on they helped you they were there then you're in your spot and very honestly I was great at number three but it took me a while to get decent at number one and two and that's that lack of candor that I've talked about and so I encourage this kid I wish somebody told me this when I was a kid candor is going to make this the best it can be if you give them candor up front I used to use money to like hide the candor I'd give them a bigger severance they just they sunk they sucked but because I knew I wasn't shooting it straight you know I would just like give them an extra severance and that made me feel better and I was in some ways probably better for them but emotionally Financially it was better, but emotionally it didn't feel that taste wasn't good enough And I apologized to everybody in my 20s and 30s and even to my 40s that I wasn't able to tell them You're not part of this train anymore.

7:51I've made a subjective decision You know that you're not you know, I appreciate what you've done But you can't continue because you haven't you're not good enough In my subjective opinion, I could be wrong and please god go out there and prove me wrong and I'm glad I'm in a place in my life as I go into my 50th year, turn 50 in November, where I think I'm getting better. I've been doing some of that even this week, even yesterday. Something I couldn't have done five years ago. And so I want that for people. You know? I want that. So that's the answer. Hey everybody, actually, if you're a really hardcore listener and you know I never do this, everybody else is getting people to review on Spotify and Apple and like the Vayner Nation does none of that.

8:25Leave a review, an actual review. Four or five stars and the actual details of why. Yeah, that would mean something for me. So thanks. Now back to the podcast. Mackenzie or on the screen, where are we going? Tony asks, you keep mentioning organic social media. What do you mean by that? Tony, to clear that up, when I say organic social media, I mean just posting on social media without using media dollars to amplify your post. So just a normal post on social media. That's called organic. When you use paid, it's called paid. So that's the definition. Got it? That's what I'm talking about. Go ahead, Mackenzie.

9:00Next question. Leticia asks, how do you handle situations where you feel undervalued as part of a team, overlooked compared to leadership, or when others doubt you, your place in influential spaces? The first two are about you controlling the situation with an action. The third one is you controlling the situation with a macro action, not a micro action. The first two is you quit. You know, this is the same old shit. If you don't like your job, if you feel your boss thinks you suck if you don't like it if you don't feel valued or validated live on fucking indeed and linkedin until you get a fucking new job like you know people just love people just love rolling in their mud we're just i feel like the world is just a bunch of hogs and pigs you know how those animals love the mud you know when you go to the farm and shit you see the hogs they just fucking and roll in that mud, and you look at their face, their fucking face, and they're just fucking happy.

10:00Unfortunately, that's what a lot of people are in life. People just wanna fucking roll in their mud. Like just, they literally live in complaining about their husband every day. Live in life complaining about their job, their wife, their girlfriend. They love, they love to point fingers about how their older brother or younger sister got lucky. or they have it so good, stop rolling in fucking mud. New York City says life is tough or life is easy. Simplify your shit. Take control. McKenna, do you know how many people are much happier right now than they've been historically because this last political cycle, they were just like, fuck it, I'm just not even gonna pay attention.

10:46They took control of what they consumed and thus they were less anxious and upset. Like, I don't know, man, like, fuck. and then the third one is stop valuing other people's opinions when you go somewhere and people make you feel lesser than fuck them the fuck are you looking up to celebrities for the fuck are you looking up to business people that made more money than you for the fuck are we looking up to we completely lost our way we still look up to fucking our grandpa we used to look up to fucking religious figures right we used to look up to you know who used to be famous in 1950 in America, pilots and astronauts and politicians.

11:24Now it's fucking people who are selling sex on apps.

11:31Yeah, I went there. I mean, fuck man, what are we fucking looking up to? Like, don't look up to me because I'm good at making money. Look up to me because I treat people nice. Don't look up to me because how many followers I have. Look up to me because I'm sitting here and I'm trying to give value. The fuck are we looking up to? You feel lesser than in a room? Fuck that room. Fuck that room. I don't fucking give a fuck about any room that doesn't fucking want you there. Fuck that room. If a room doesn't want me, they fucking lost. I promise you that. Your self-esteem is broken. You're not confident enough that you can get another job.

12:08You're not confident enough that you're better than the room. I've been in every room. I've been in every room. And guess what? I don't give a fuck about any room I've ever been in. not the biggest boardrooms in the world, not the Oval Office under both administrations, Republicans, I don't give a fuck about the room. I respect the room. I'm empathetic to the room. I understand the room, but fuck the room. Do you know how many events I go into where I don't get into the VIP and the people in the VIP are less money than me, less clout than me, less, it doesn't even go through my fucking mind. Good for them, I'm happy for them.

12:43You think I fucking give a fuck about a velvet rope? The fuck's the matter with people? Enough. Can we just fucking end this shit? Fuck. My man. Hello. Hello. Yeah, hi, Gary. Hi. Hi, how are you? Yeah, I'm fine. I'm 23 years old. Very nice. I'm young and very ambitious. And this is my dream come true, talk with you in life. Thank you, my friend. Well, I'm very humbled. for the last three years following your content and learning from you and watching your business videos and podcasts and all, yeah. Thank you, my friend. Thank you so much. It's a real pleasure. But I have the fear of what is like a FOMO, you can say that?

13:32You have a FOMO, yep. Yeah. My fear of missing out in life because I cannot achieve any big things. I have big goals. Like I want to be a successful entrepreneur or like public speaker like you. but every time I struggle with I'm doing a full time job as well but every time I struggle with like what do I want to pursue like in the long term like I want to do the public speaking for years otherwise I want to pursue the entrepreneurship how old are you? 23 until I was 34 years old I worked in a liquor store I okay so what do we talk about here? I'm very young and I'm so I have time Yeah, maybe. You have unbelief, what do you mean maybe?

14:19You're fucking 23. I know you get the beard and shit and you think you're 27, but you're 23, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bro, you still got braces. You're 23. Yeah, yeah. The fuck are we? Yeah, bro. No, no, the braces are perfect. I'm saying you're young. You're young. You're young. Right now what you're probably doing is you're checking the box to get your foundation, you know, help yourself, help your family. I understand, I did that. But you have unlimited time to achieve your goals. But what's the crucial step to take? When you're figuring what to know, what to say? I'll tell you. Action. By taking action.

15:05By emailing every single conference that is within two hours driving of you or train or bus and emailing them and saying, I would like to speak for free at your conference and having 50 of them say no and then one says yes and then you gave your first talk and then you learn how to give speeches. Yeah, yeah. Action. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm doing some like creative content and building my personal brand as well for this foundation. Yeah, recently started it. Brother, you know the answers. Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm gonna say. Yeah. But I know that every time I struggle with this, I say why it is not working, what means I'm doing on the wrong stuff.

15:53Only because you're judging actions, you're judging things in too small of a window. Yeah, yeah. When I was 27 years old and a customer came in and they were grabbing a bottle of wine and they dropped that bottle of wine and the bottle falls and it spills. And I went to the back room and got the mop to clean it up. Do you think anybody watching me at that moment at 27 years old, mopping up wine in a liquor store in Springfield, New Jersey said, you know what? That kid is going to be a world-renowned entrepreneur and on the cover of magazines and fucking taking the biggest stages in the world. Do you think people thought that?

16:36I did. Yeah, I know. Maybe. You know? don't judge your actions within a little window to justify where you're going you like that mckenz mckenz likes that that was a good one it's a little different that was a little different do you know do you know why i like patience yeah do you know why because it's great things take time maybe no because we have no choice it's practical here are your options for success believe in patience do the right things and build your foundation or say fuck you Gary and go try to do quick rich schemes until they all fail and you're 40 and you're a fucking loser and nobody wants to be around you I don't want any I want to be rich even I have that goal as well, but I want to build the right skillset.

17:36So, Go do shit. My man, my man, how many hours a day do you work at your job? I do like nine to 10 hours. Like, yeah. Great. What do you do with the other 14 hours of your life? I'm creating some content. Another time I'm learning from this personal brand, like attending these workshops. Another time I'm exploring some new ideas, like how to like speak on the stages and practicing the public speaking skills and all that. I think you're how much do you sleep? I sleep like six to seven hours. Wonderful. You're winning. You're winning. You're doing everything right. Yeah. Stop being scared. I think I'm not like I'm not I'm not on a right track because I know I am young but I have these goals like past two years but I procrastinate on it.

18:29Why? So I regret now, why I have wasted the time. So I have regret. Brother, you can't. Listen, having ambition is phenomenal, but beating yourself up on little technicalities is a problem. Yeah, yeah. And I struggle with procrastination as well, because I cannot say discipline and self-foundable for myself. So I'm learning that how to be disciplined and how to stay consistent on my game. Can I ask you one favor? And then I have to go on. Can I ask you one favor? Yeah, I get it. Yeah, sure, yeah. Now that we have this moment, can you promise me one thing? Yeah. Be nicer to yourself. Yeah. Have good confidence in myself, yeah.

19:16Not confidence. Be nicer to yourself. Yeah, yeah. Last year, I would say my impact was minuscule. I had to build a foundation for VaynerX's infrastructure. I had to build a foundation for V friends to be a live commerce and product company. You guys all know here, you all know here. I sat in that fucking room 12 hours a day the whole year. I didn't Gary V it. I wasn't on stage. I wasn't making brand happen. We struggled with content all year cause I wasn't feeding you like I'm doing finally now again. I would fucking sat in that fucking office for 12 hours a day. No big meetings. Nobody fancy.

19:52You watched it. You just not you hearing my stories in the liquor store. you fucking watched it at the height of my career I sat in that fucking office for 12 hours a day yeah yeah that's a true hazard so bro I don't know what you're worried about I don't know what you're worried about the last two years what? one last thing I have a smaller time when I'm passing my entrepreneurship means I'm helping with my mom's business like food business and I want to do other business as well means exploring some ideas what's a good firm when starting a business a good book? no book Can you chat GPT and ask questions that are on your mind?

20:29Yeah. Like even I have some new ideas, but I will struggle with what idea, how to start. Have some like a startup ideas, and want to build some event hosting platforms, other similar ideas. Brother, you don't have ideas problems, you have action problems. Yeah, yeah. Maybe the execution is the game, yeah. And the action will come once you build a nice foundation from your patients. You understand? Yeah, yeah. All right, I love you. I gotta move. Oh, that was good. Listen, I got a little emotional there for a second. You guys know how I roll. Like, did you see what? I fucking sat in that room. Like, please, everybody.

21:08There's gonna be years that are not like how you thought they were gonna be. There's gonna be moments. Then there's some real gangster bad shit that happened. By the way, nobody's crying for me that I sat there for 12 hours. Some people lost their mom and dad. Some people lost their spouse. Some people had their child diagnosed with leukemia. Many people had their whole fucking house burnt down in Los Angeles. The fuck are we crying about out here? Everybody forget about those fucking unbelievable amounts of people that lost their fucking home in LA? Of course they have. Most people didn't even think about it in the first place.

21:43Cause you're all worried about your fucking shit. And your shit is good. I promise you right now, if it's 937 in the morning Eastern, and you were watching me on Whatnot, your life is good. All right, Mackenzie, I'm ready. Max asks, I drop out of school at 17 because I thought I was an entrepreneur, but I failed. I don't have money to go back to school now. How do I reset? By getting a job. Outside of the fact that I met Sid at the college that I was speaking at, I do not know if anyone here graduated college and even more funny, where they went. I could not tell you where any of you went. I have no clue.

22:21Get a fucking job, bro Oh, hi Hi I can hear you, what's your name? OGs can buy Hi Amanda Oh my gosh, this is crazy to talk to you Where are you from? So, hey We live near Austin, Texas You actually jumped on my son's Whatnot Live one night He sells sneakers like Nike stuff. Oh, yes. Yes. I don't know if you remember that. I do recall. Wait, wait, wait. Amanda, please do not drive while you're talking to me or don't look at me. No, no, no. I'm sorry. Look at this. I'm playing. Okay, good. Okay, respect, respect. All right, go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so he's 14, almost 15. He got into selling Nikes on whatnot and like he's killing it.

23:15He's crushing it. He's doing a good job. I guess my question is like coming from a kid that like you know you were an entrepreneur from a young age like what did your parents do to help you and support you and what ways like did they blow it because i kind of want to not blow it with my kid you know the way that my parents helped me with my entrepreneurship was by staying the fuck out of it which is the number one hard thing for parents in 2025 five parents are too involved i'm trying to stay out of it my husband helps him find shoes to flip so they kind of that's amazing yep that's amazing yeah it's really helped him and you know to get somewhere with this up front but um yeah okay that's good to know that's good to know and i mean like he'll go days without doing a show and we'll be like hey you're gonna do a show you know we just kind of nudge him but try not to pressure it I guess but first of all I love talking about parenting but I never ever will ever give a parent direct advice about their direct situation because every situation is too nuanced and who the fuck am I I don't know 99.9999999 % of it so that's number one so I would say that you know as parents we always want to help and you you just gotta rely on your intuition on when you should be as far away as possible to let him breathe.

24:40And then it's great that you might feel like there's a moment, like look, if you're a parent and the kid is doing this thing, now he's making money and now with that money he's starting to hang around with kids that you don't like, that's a place where you can nudge, right? You know, and how you nudge needs to be strategic. I like to talk to kids that are 15, like grownups. like if I was talking to that kid I'm like so let me get this straight you work your face off to build a sneaker flipping business now you got a little bit of money and what you're gonna hang out with dudes that smoke fucking weed all day and be a loser that's a fun like that's now that would work for some kids for other kids maybe that's not your temperament maybe that not will work like there's just a lot of different ways to look at it but what I would say what I would say is that for an entrepreneur, he needs to lose.

25:33The biggest mistake that your husband and you can make in this situation is protect him from losing. Do you know how many times I made money and lost all of it between 13 and 17? That's why I don't lose it anymore. The best thing that can happen to your son, the single best thing, is for him to lose all his money. that he's made up to this point. It is the single best thing that could happen. And it's not even close. And it's not even close. Good, good. He might lose it all because he's gotta pay for a car. Well, that's different. That's not losing it. That's not what I'm saying. And I love that you're making him pay for a car.

26:17That's like great parenting to begin with. But I'm telling you right now, the number one thing that you and your husband have to watch out for, the best thing that can happen to this kid on earth and it's not even close is he decides to go put all his money into something because he wants to get a better car and it goes to zero and you don't buy him a car it's the single best thing that can happen

26:42that's actually great advice because the last thing we want to see our kids do is like work so hard and then lose everything and then we think that it's going to hold them back but really it's not Correct. Yeah. What do you want him to be a fake entrepreneur? No. So? No. Entrepreneurs fucking lose. Let him keep going. Let him win and lose. Stay the fuck out other than if he's doing something egregious or illegal or something that's against your moral compass. Well thank you much. Do you have any advice for him moving forward? Probably. You know, I just need to talk to him and understand what his questions are but let him email me at gary at vfriends.com.

27:25What's his channel so people here can go check him out? Yeah, it's at Texas Sneakers. So at T-X-N-S-N-K-R-S. He went cool like that. I like it. Listen, I got two final things to say. Number one, your boy sounds like he got very lucky in his DNA and that's you and your husband. And two, it sounds like he's got really good parents. You're doing a good job. Now get the fuck out of his way. Thanks. Will do. You're welcome. Thanks, Gary. Mackenzie, what do you got? Melanie asks, if the economy crashed tomorrow, what's the first move you'd make? Stop buying dumb shit. Completely go humble. Lean into humble hedgehog and humble hummingbird.

28:09I would immediately, as a matter of fact, there's a lot of indications that the economy might be crashing. Warren Buttman just took all his money into cash. He's usually right. I would tell everybody right now to go to your credit card statement and unsubscribe to the automatic things that you're being billed for that you don't use. Mike, how many streaming services are you signed up for? Tell the truth. Three. Three. Mike, I know how much you get paid. You need to have two. Mike? I needed to hear that. Mike, you need to have two, bro. Like, you should not have three, Mike. I know. I don't use the three.

28:41No.