Everybody Else Sucks Too.

0:00This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. So this is just a fun, fun morning for me. Couple things, I'm gonna shoot it a little bit here, give a little context, but the reality is I wanna take advantage of the fact that we're actually here together, and so I'll create a little bit of a framework, but I'd love to do as much Q &A as possible, so if anything of stuff you've seen or context you've had in the past or anything I touch on here, you know, I think the Q &A part is the most valuable thing. I think about leverage a lot. And so the biggest thing that I think about when I'm in this room, especially for all the kids in the room, for 95%, 90 % of you, right now may be the most leverage you ever have.

0:45And I wanna start there because it's super important to me. When I think about being a college athlete in a place where the sport is so looked at, the truth is the percentage of people that are in this room that go on to the league and make enough money in the league to take care of their whole life is remarkably low. It's just fucking remarkably low. Meanwhile, I keep thinking about this former Louisville safety that played for the Jets for a couple years and I DM'd him a couple times on Twitter and talked to some of his homies and I kept saying the same thing which is I would hit him up because I'm a Jets fan and his homies would hit me up because they knew what I was doing in entrepreneurship but we never connected.

1:33He never made the time to chop it up and I remember one time I DM'd him when it was very clear to me that his career was gonna be short and I literally just DM'd him and said, yo bro, you're fucking up because right now I'm dying to have an hour with you in a world where people pay$100 ,000 to have an hour with me and in a couple of months you're gonna get cut and I have no time to fucking even reply to you. Because the leverage you have with the logo right now is my biggest passion in the world and the day you don't wear that logo, I don't give a fuck about you. And the reality is that's exactly what happened and that he hit me up nine months later and because I'm a good dude, I replied but with a reply of I've got no time for you.

2:15And that's how I think about this. Not to come harsh or what have you, I just know because I'm a Jersey boy and I know the business world and the world that there's a fuckload of people that are Rutgers alums that are super interested in you right now and the second you don't have that big R on your chest, they're not. And how to balance, bless you, and how to balance that with academics, with film work, with practice, with doing what you're doing here is super interesting to me because it's a fine line, right? One of the biggest things I hear from a lot of coaches both actually all three levels, high school, professional and college is kids, especially with what I talk about and what I want for you is like, how do we find that balance to let kids build their brand on social and marketing?

3:03I think everybody in this room knows, you know, the thing that worked out for me as somebody who loves athletes is 20 years ago, athletes didn't give a shit about entrepreneurs. Now the top 100 athletes in the world are DMing me on a consistent basis. so it's crazy to watch entrepreneurship blow up. Even when you guys were kids, even as young as you are, you know that this entrepreneur thing is really just five, ten years old where people really, really fuck with it heavy. And so, you know, to me, finding that balance of how you leverage where you are in your life right now while staying focused is the number one thing I come into this morning on.

3:38Because the reality is I want you to leverage it because I want your life to be happy. and for me, I think it starts in a couple places. So the biggest thing that I've observed when I've talked to teams and now speaking to a lot of kids, the top, top for me is how many people in this room when they go to class or on campus are in a place where their headphones in focus on their shit given that you have the leverage right now and the reality is the kids around you that want to say what's up are gonna have the leverage in a decade. I think about this every day. I think about like, I was, you know, it's funny.

4:13When I talk, I always think about, it's funny to have AJ here. By having a brother who's 11 years younger, I kind of got a lot of practice early to like spit wisdom or try to be a mentor. I think about what I would tell AJ if he was dramatically more athletic and was sitting in this room. And I would say like, yo bro, like, you know, this is just the math around it. Yet, there's 100 people on campus right now who are gonna be the biggest CEOs or players in New York City in seven years. and right now they're dying to take a selfie with you, but you have no time because you might be caught up that you have the leverage right now and that's the biggest mistake.

4:52It's the biggest, I call it the high school girl rule, right? A lot of people didn't want to talk to certain girls in high school, but six years later, they really want to talk to them, but they fucked up the leverage because they were a dick in high school and I think about that a lot and I think a lot of you are in that position right now. Please don't underestimate or take for granted. Obviously, if you're in this room, for the far majority of you, you had leverage in high school too from your athletics. And so you're used to that by now, whether it's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven years.

5:20That leverage is everything in society. It's crazy. I watch it every day. The whole social media thing, watching the biggest, most famous people in our society only five to seven years ago be slow to Instagram because they thought they were fancy and they were celebrities, so they didn't go on and they made fun of Instagram models and they made fun of Instagram comedians and they made fun of people and now where that is the currency and they're not on it, just watching the most famous people in our society grabbing at straws, hitting me up of like how do I do this when just five years ago they had all the leverage and now we forgot who they were or don't give a shit is fascinating.

6:02That is where you're at. Right now, for a lot of you, this is the most leverage you will ever have. How you figure out how to use that to connect with people, which are the only leverage in actual life, is probably the biggest thing that I want to get across. That's it. Think about it so much. A couple other things, coach, without knowing all the rules of how you think about social and what have you, so take it for what it's worth. Communicating and engaging with people is enormous. And again, you know, anytime I go into somebody's living room, I come with massive respect, right? Make sure you take your shoes off, make sure you don't step on shit.

6:41Like, you know, I think about it. So I come here with a lot of respect, but if you find time to balance your time, you know, I always think about like, instead of that hour on Fortnite or Call of Duty or 2K, if that kid at that university spends 20 minutes replying to people on Twitter who are talking about their school's program in that sport, what that actually means in life. I think people are very confused about serendipity and communication. Like literally just going to Twitter search or going to Instagram and searching hashtags and putting Rutgers football, somebody says they're excited for the Iowa game and you say thanks?

7:22It just blows my mind that that is actually your internship. That is actually your career. I think about that every day. I see it every day. And I see it with kids that follow me that don't have leverage the way you have it. that are just doing it randomly hoping, yet you've got all the leverage that they are actually super interested in what you do right now. So to me, that, you know, it's funny, I was driving here this morning, I was like, what do I wanna get off? What do I wanna make sure they know? And that's it. Like, you know, I was trying to conjure up like a second, a third, a fourth thing to take up the time, and I'll do that.

7:58I'll improv on you right now, but the number one thing if I leave this morning that I hope is for people to realize how much leverage they have, how you, just like weight room and film, you've got to put in work to get what you want and how what social media and the internet have done is given you so much opportunity to take advantage of who you engage with around what you want. You know, if you just deployed the leverage you have and the way you think about sliding into DMs on girls with it, if you just deployed that strategy to business and life on social media, the reality is the far majority of you would get so much more ROI of the number you have on your back right now for the next year to three years.

8:47It's crazy and it's real. It's crazy and it's real. A couple other things I want to talk about. I'm real passionate about patience. I think the biggest vulnerability to this room, including the coaches and us old guys, is patience. I wish the coaches over here knew how young they were. Watching 30, 40, 50 year olds completely confused by the context of time is one of the most fascinating things I see in our society. Like people always come up to me and they're like, Gary, when are you gonna buy the Jets? And I'm like, 25 years. And they get sad as fuck. Like they think, they like want me to have it tomorrow.

9:24And I'm like, I just don't build wealth like that. I'm just like one brick at a time. I'm not gambling out here or hoping or dreaming. I already fucked up by passing on Uber twice in the angel round. That would have made me my billion. So I missed that shot. So the reality is that I'm just building blocks. And so whether you deploy this, what I'm talking about right now, to how you're thinking about cracking the starting lineup or why you're pissed you're on special teams but you should be starting or whatever bullshit excuses you come up with in your own head, the reality is patience as an overlay is remarkably important.

10:00it's remarkably important. Like, you're gonna be done with school, you're gonna be a professional, whether in the league or CFL or XFL or whatever your major is or your passion is or entrepreneurship, you're gonna be done here, do whatever I just said for 10 more years and then be 32 and young as fuck. And the reality is, you have no concept of that now because you can't, because the way time works in our brains. I remember when I got out of school, I couldn't wait in Springfield, New Jersey, not far from here either, to work in the wine store and blow it up like I said I was going to, and I did.

10:37And I remember walking in, my cousin worked, you know, this is family business. My cousin, my dad's first cousin worked there, but the way that our grandparents were, he was closer in age to me than my dad, or in between actually. He was 30, and I was 22, and I remember that first month working with him every day, and I was like, this guy's old as fuck. And he was 30. And I'm 43 right now, thinking about how you're thinking about my age versus yours, and I feel young as fuck. Right? And I think about that. I'm like, how the hell do I communicate that to kids that you're going to live, like I'm double the age of the majority of you.

11:13Double. You're going to live an entire another fucking life and still have your whole life in front of you. Yet everybody's impatient as fuck. Shortcuts. That's what kills everybody. It just does. Shortcuts, because you decided in your own head focus group of one that you deserve something. I think about that a lot. And I think about that in athletics a lot. And I see it commonly. People start cutting corners, getting themselves into trouble by not putting in the work or doing dumb shit or whatever the fuck it is. Because, listen, four of your friends in your dorm or from back home gassing you up of what's supposed to be happening versus what's happening is the biggest mistake everybody makes.

11:56and the amount of heads that shook their head makes me feel excited that I hit that point. Four or five people in your family or friends or from back home or who you're in the quad with gassing you up with the way it should be versus the way it is is the biggest vulnerability athletes have, entrepreneurs have, business people have. I just see it. Parents see it every day. Results speak and the reality is coaches have that subjective call. You might be right. They just might like a skill set from somebody else a little bit more in the way it works on the overall. Who knows? Or maybe most likely, which I see a ton, they just don't like the way you're handling it.

12:33Hey everybody, I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy. So, to me, I would rip both my arms and legs off to be as fortunate as you are to be at this age during the internet's maturity at this age. I'd probably own the Jets by now if I was lucky enough to have the internet around at this age. The remarkable nature of that machine, and everybody's shitting on it now for hate and all the fucked up things that people think, social media isn't changing us, social media's exposing us.

13:11It's not Instagram's fault, it's not Twitter's fault you're angry or you hate, it's your fault. These platforms are exposing us. And so I really highly recommend than you figure out your relationship with these powerful platforms, because regardless of what anybody's opinions are of them, they will be the currency of our society for a very long time. You figuring out how to use it, let me give you a couple things about social that might matter for somebody who's out there and is getting judged because one thing I have so much respect for you guys is regardless of how great you are, you've got multiple moments of people booing you at scale.

13:52Right? Like one thing I love about athletes is if they get to the right place mentally, they're in a place where they're always ready to get booed. I genuinely think the reason I'm super successful is because I got booed my whole life. I was an immigrant, couldn't speak English, got booed. I was a fucking terrible student. Couple miles away from here, got booed, right? I was small as fuck and not good enough at sports, got booed. I got booed at everything which made me a great entrepreneur because I'm ready to get booed. I love being booed. I love L's. The reason I love the Jets and Knicks so much is they haven't won shit.

14:27I grew up a huge Yankees and Rangers fan. As soon as they won a title, I was out. I'm about to climb. I love losses. I love pain. I'm serious. I love it. And so I think once you figure out how to mentally embrace taking an L, but real quick on that front, on social, I watch so many kids that I'm looking at watching them progress, have a terrible game, throw four picks, delete their shit. Delete it. Hit me up on DM. I'm gonna, Gary Vee, I'm gonna detox off Insta. I know we've been talking, but like, off this game last week, I'm done. I'm coming back in October. And I always think about that shit.

15:03And we all have to figure out our relationship with technology. But here's how I take it from my purview. I think people get too high when they get cheered. I think the reason people struggle when people shit on them in comments is because they're taking other people's opinions way too serious. the best way to be able to help take care of and deal with people shitting on you is not getting too high when they're giving you accolades when i watch videos like that when people give right now i'm on that place where i get so much love i i don't hear them i really don't i understand i appreciate it feels humbling as fuck you know but i don't hear them i still People think I suck, I'm grinding, I'm in the process, it's early.

15:48Which is why when people shit on me, and they do, a lot, because when you're out there like that, that's just how it is, I can't hear them either. And so one thing I would consider is actually using social media's negativity and judgment as an ability to actually absorb it, create a framework where you can actually accept both pros and cons at scale, instead of running away from it. Every time I see somebody shutting down and deleting, I get nervous because I don't see it as a detox for 99 % of the people I talk to. I see it running away from judgment. And judgment is the only thing I promise you that you'll have for the rest of your life and that you have had.

16:31So I'm offense. This might be too old school of a sports reference, but some of the coaches might remember this. Back in the day, there was a really famous basketball college team, Loyola Marymount, that had Hank Gathers who unfortunately passed away during a game. It was real crazy in the culture back in 89. But every time I think about that team, it's how I think about my life and how I think about myself as an entrepreneur. They were winning college basketball games like 147 to 132. They were just run and shoot. They were just, they just pushed it. Their games were crazy. And that's how I think about life.

17:06I think too many people are playing defense. I think too many people are trying to win like the 94 Knicks. like 79 to 76. And I'm out here trying to win 149 to 146. Offense. Because once you stop hearing judgment and you're not actually worried about what people have to say, you can just go fast. You start doing shit. Do you know how many of you right now in this room have a real passion for some shit that isn't cool right now and so you're just not doing it? Yet it's exactly the right thing. The amount of friends I had back in the day that loved video games but got off of it because they didn't see a career for it or even at one time, believe it or not, video games was dorky shit who now regret at 40 because they were fucking great at it and they could be the Tony Hawk of esports right now.

17:54They could have been that OG but they just didn't see it because they worried about judgment and they didn't realize the world evolved. That gets to me to my final point and then we can get into real specific questions. Whatever your, you know, The biggest eye opener for AJ going into the football business, as hardcore fans as we've been, as how close we've been to teams and owners, the owner of Miami Dolphins is my business partner. As close as I've been to it, now that I'm really, really in it, I just can't believe how many of you don't fully love the game. It's just your ticket. It's just your process.

18:28It's amazing. I don't throw that as judgment. I think that's fucking fresh. It makes sense to me. like I love it so much and I so wish I could right that I was naive and did what I always make fun of people like focus group of one it has been eye opening to how many people actually don't love it they were just blessed see I got real real real lucky the luckiest shit on earth is the thing you love is the thing that you're best at and I think that's me like when I was six I wanted to wash people's cars when it snowed and we had snow days here I was shoveling snow not making snow men right like literally I don't know how many of you follow me but if you see what I'm doing in garage sale and around here in Jersey like I'm not doing that for show I fucking love it like I'd rather wake up on Saturday at six in the morning and drive to fucking you know Metuchen's town wide garage sale and buy some shit for a dollar and sell it for 11 bucks on eBay that fucking gives me way bigger of a high than fucking almost anything besides watching a Jets game that is literally probably my favorite thing except a Sunday in the fall and so that gets me to my final point if you're sitting here right now and you're real real fucking passionate about something that doesn't have to do with the four walls we're in right now you need to lean into that shit because that's the thing the internet's doing the amount of people that can make a real living around having a podcast or a vlog or flipping shit they love versus getting a job they fucking hate and they can make as much or around the same much around having a fucking podcast around Fortnite versus going and working in finance because they interned this summer in Wall Street and they think that's where the money is.

20:06That shit, I know nobody here believes but I've been saying it for a decade and I'm watching it every day and it's real. And so I highly recommend, like I'm really hopeful. Like honestly, when I come, just to put into context, including the left side here, when I come to these rooms, honestly, I'm real realistic. I'm just hoping to penetrate one head, one dome. I'm aware that like I'll come in it'll be good talk it'll be cool you know if some friends that think I'm cool you think I'm cool it's great I'm hoping but on God I'm hoping to get through one person's head on some of these things because I know I see shit that other people don't that's been my calling card and so I hope you've been really listening I really do and I hope we can like add on to like like right now what I'm trying to set up for the coaches too like I'm trying to set up context I'd love to like by the way if you have context on me like what to invest in next how do I grow my father I wanna create, what I'm doing on this little rant is permission and safety for you to ask your actual question that's running through your head because I think the Q &A part, at least three or four times I've done this, has always been the part that really has brought the most value and I wanna bring value.

21:12So, damn it, suck that bad? I get it, I'm kidding. So yeah, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

21:27I left a lot of time for Q &A. The three or four times I've done this with teams, pro and college, I just get so many DMs after. I wish I asked this, I wish I asked this. So I wanted to leave a little more time. I got off what I want, so let's go with it. Three, two. What's your name, man? Ronnie, I do need a question. You said that we should take advantage of leveraging stuff and use social media, but what do you say to someone who's low-key and doesn't like putting their business out there, doesn't like having everything out there just for everybody else to see? What do you say to people like that?

21:57So check me, right? I'm putting out 100 pieces of content a day. I'm really at the tippy top right now and there's not a fucking photo of my family or kids on the internet. I don't share more than half my life. What I would say is you control it. That's what's great about social versus the media. Star-Ledger's gonna say what the fuck they want. You control none of that. You control your social. Now, you might not want to show anything and I'm cool with that too. but you're your PR agent on that platform. Now, don't confuse that with being full of shit on it because people will sniff that out. Everybody's faking it to the make, I mean, people are doing all sorts of crazy shit on Instagram, like jumping fences at private, private playing places, biggest problem right now is people jumping fences to take a photo acting like they took a private flight.

22:48So that shit's never gonna work because everybody will, you saw Bow Wow get exposed, like people get exposed. Don't go there. But the good news is if you're introverted and quiet, it's cool. First of all, you don't have to do it at all. Let's just start right there. Just because there's an opportunity doesn't mean you gotta do something. There's an opportunity to make a fuckload of money going to garage sales in New Jersey every Saturday. Doesn't mean you have to, but it's real big. And my big thing is especially, if I left here and then AJ hit me up in October and said, hey man, you've lit a real flame, I'm like, what do you mean?

23:22He's like, man, half the football team is replying to everybody on Twitter about Rutgers football team. That would be amazing because that would really work. Just thank you. You know, a lot of people can't think of what to say a lot of times. Just thank you. Thanks for supporting us. Appreciate it, you know? So you're in control. Don't do some shit because I said so. It's all self-awareness. However, you're in control, right? So if you don't want people to know your business, nobody wants that. That's the beauty of being able to control it. You control your part. You can't control somebody taking a picture when you're out.

23:56That's just the world we live in. But you can control what you have to say and what picture you want to paint. But make sure it's truth. You said you've been booed and failed tons of times in your life. Yeah. One of your biggest failures and how you decided to overcome it. You know, my failures are funny because I'm an immigrant, so I've always got, I never do shit that's like going to put me totally out of business. I always got a nest egg. I'm always on like third and a half bait. Like I'm never doing something that's like over the edge and if this fucks up, it's like, you know? My biggest mistakes have been the things I haven't done.

24:25I referenced it real quick. If you go read my first book in 2008, Crush It, 2008, I thank my family and one random person, Travis Kalkinick, who went on to start Uber, who used to, when me and AJ started VaynerMedia, used to fly around like in Vegas and shit and just hang out with us because he had no job. He was in between. Starts Uber. I'm investing like crazy on everything. He asked me to invest in Uber twice and I said no. because I just bought an apartment, I was a little less liquid, I thought it was a side project for him. I also thought Uber was like a rich man's game. Like it was originally like a limo on your phone.

25:01So I was like, you know, how big is that gonna be? And I passed twice. We got in a little bit later, you know, so we did all right. But, but I mean, I left, I mean, if I wrote my normal$50 ,000,$25 ,000 check, I probably left in the ballpark of$300 ,000 to$800 ,000 ,000 on the table. So that's an L.

25:23And on some real shit, like, I don't even feel it, because what I've started to really learn about myself in the last year or so, is I'm about the process, not the trophies. I'm just about the process. I love my game. I love my game so much. I want to win. I'd like to have that W.

25:45But money's funny, right? Like, anybody who doesn't have it thinks it's the key to happiness, and they're super confused and then they say, well easy for you to say, you have it. I was like, yo, I didn't have it for a long ass time. I lived in the villas in Springfield Avenue in Springfield in a shit fucking apartment until I was 28, buying nothing, making 40, 50 ,000 a year, working fucking 90 hours a week in a liquor store. So I've tasted both. So I made a lot of mistakes. I pass on all sorts of shit. I just don't know what the mistakes are because I say no so much because I'm so fucking busy.