GaryVee On Advice To Young People And Being A Contextual Creator

0:00Hey, everyone. Welcome to another exciting episode with me, Sriram. and this is name arty sorry space for the second and uh you know well as you can see we are jittery because we have somebody who needs absolutely no introduction on our show we try and cover people who have made it from being on the outside to the very tippy top uh to the very inside to the virtue of their grit hustle and nobody i mean nobody exemplifies this more than our guest who needs absolutely no introduction you know and that's a cliche but in this case is true. The one, the only Gary, Gary Vee, welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much.

0:37It's so good to see you too. When I saw this first pop up on my radar, your show, I smiled so hard because both of you know we've run in similar circles for a long time. I was very much at the forefront of being a human being that made content. That came with a lot of baggage. First in the wine business, it was really looked down on. Then just the sheer amount of volume I was posting. Then I took it to the most difficult chapter where I was actually filming my life, which I very much understood was going to come with certain levels of judgment. But I've always believed that there's so many different people that could bring value to the world through their content.

1:22Most of all, there are great, great-grandchildren who will be able to watch all these things. You know, I lost both my grandfathers before I got to know them. And I wish they lived my life where I could watch all that wisdom, all those things, the mannerisms, the history. So when I saw your show, it really hit me because I remember vividly thinking at one point, obviously, we shared a nice weekend together once. And I remember actively thinking to myself, because this was a while ago, man, those two should do a podcast. Really? Wow. That was a long time ago before we had any kind of idea on what we were thinking and doing.

2:05And it was because you guys, in a weird way, this is a funny way to start the show. It was because I saw you two, in combination, have the ability to do what I do as one person. And I'll explain what I mean. I feel like the EQ, IQ, the pulse, like the personalities, because during that wedding, three, four days, I got to really get a real sense of you as shared a cabin. I was like, fuck, it will work. Because they cover everything together. And so I really wanted to do this show because of that. and I wanted to start the show by telling you that. And there's no surprise to me that people find value in your show and I'm happy for you too.

2:48Oh my goodness. I feel like we should wrap the show right now. It can't go any higher from here. Oh man, that genuinely means a lot. And you're such an amazing human being. And I would say for the audience, a lot of folks here might just see Gary on the internet, on TikTok, on Facebook. I've seen Gary in all different walks of life and all kinds of different situations. And what you see is what you fucking get. But Gary is Gary in every single situation. He's absolutely the same. And maybe, you know, this is a good place to start. So we have known you for over a decade now, probably, right? And, you know, you've been through, you started with wine and, you know, you've been through over 10 years of life experiences, business experiences.

3:27How does the Gary V of 2022 differ in the kind of content and the approach he puts out versus the Gary V of, say, 2012? You know, it's funny. I was with another couple that I'm very fond of, Dave and Britt Morin the other day. And this got brought up right away as we were catching up. And I said something and it really, I could see on their faces how much it clicked. Let me give you something that I know is gonna do the same thing with you and maybe some of the audience. A lot less different than people would perceive. And let me explain why. I know, and this is a question that's coming up a lot.

4:08I know why it's coming up a lot because now I have a lot of receipts. And it is very clear that the early Gary V content was around work ethic and opportunity and going hard. And I think a lot of my content in the last three or four years has been very much around happiness and emotional intelligence. And so on paper, it's very easy to see and it's very easy to make the assumption of like, I'm more mature, I'm more soft. I get it. I would argue that my number one strategy, and this is gonna make a ton of sense to you too, and I'm hoping a lot of the audience, given that it's you too, my greatest operational capability of the last 15 years has been making creative content that is contextual.

5:01Explain. I will. One of the reasons I've been consistently strong of building an audience at every one of the social platforms that oh by the way you've basically worked for all of them, right? It is not because I'm a star, it's because I'm a contextual creative. Meaning I understand that when I'm making a snap spotlight that yes, what you see is what you get and I'm always me. But if I'm on stage in front of 15 ,000 people versus us three sitting in a cabin two hours before a cocktail party, it's me, but it's contextual me. I mean, I'm not gonna be, you know, even right now I'm more animated because I can sense the hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands and through the decades, millions of eyeballs and ears for this show.

5:51So I'm in subconscious, conscious now, entertainment, not just information, right? Like there's a lot going through. So I've been very contextual. all yeah that's i you know here's something i'm very proud of i have been very aggressively against best practices of most of the platforms when they give advice to big brands on how to succeed on their platforms because i'm so native to the platforms i know what actually works versus the business advice that meta and snap you guys right so yeah i'm empathetic i don't think the platforms are trying to be mean to fortune 500 but between agencies and what they're trying to accomplish, they can't even get them to do the right thing.

6:36So goals are different. The incentive structures are different. You also know the skill set you do, Gary. So you have to dumb it down for people. My favorite line that you mentioned in one of your videos was not television, but Baskin Robbins, which I think is just a great way of framing contextualization. Everybody wants to make the analogy there is if you make vanilla ice cream and try to push it down to everybody, TV, well some people like vanilla but unfortunately not everybody all the time always forever whereas if you go Baskin Robbins up you can really achieve a lot more consideration which leads to people doing what you want them to do whether that's care about a cause or buy a pack of bubblegum so anyway to just finish the thought when I started making content I made wine content and it was about it was very light-hearted when I started doing Gary V and and Crush It came out, the world was melting.

7:34Every email I got was, I'm out of a job, what do I do? So the content was, well, you're in a really tough spot. Please don't dwell, realize this is actually the greatest era, but you're gonna have to go at it because we don't have options. We're struggling. And so if you look very carefully at the content narrative of the last 15 years that I've put out, it's a lot of macro of what's going on and it's very heavily predicated on opportunity. For example, five years ago, it was so clear to me that musically was gonna happen and then TikTok M &A happened quickly that even when people were trying to hustle shame me and I was trying to not use the word anymore and I started using work ethic because the thought, and again, you've gotten to know me a little bit and you see me in different settings, the least thing I'm interested in is money.

8:28The thought of like burnout to get money has never been. But I understand as my popularity got bigger, people would use me as their opportunity for them to build off of. And that just comes with the territory. But I was always, I was very sad, especially because a lot of my coastal friends sometimes believed it, even though they knew it wasn't true. And that really hurt me as a person. But I understood why I was compassionate to it. I live my truth. I have empathy and compassionate understanding. But I'm excited, I like where I'm living now. I always like that the truth will always win in the end and I just keep doing what I do.

9:05But I would say the content has always been one of two things, very consistent, both contextually and the macro, what's going on in the world. So typically TikTok was going on, even though people were trying to get me a little bit on that narrative, I still told everybody to go hard on TikTok because I knew it was a long grab and I gotta tell you, maybe I can take some, maybe it's not fun to take judgment of people you respect. And that happens to me a lot. Because I'm a little wild and a little more silly, I get underestimated from the quality of my thinking. And sometimes that leads to people that don't know me as well to write me off.

9:43And I'm a human. And like, if I admire someone and they think I'm a joker, that's not fun. Yeah. However, last point and then jump in. However, when I get seven fucking hundred emails a month from people who said, you changed my life because I went into TikTok and this happened. That always makes up for the cliche VC that I admire who thinks I'm a snake oil salesman. It always does. And that's why I've stayed consistent for 15 years. Do you take the hate and make it work for you? Or do you have the Michael Jordan mentality? I hate Michael Jordan, but yes, I do. 100 now i would say it's not as vindictive to be frank like mine's mine's kind of a little bit more like i don't need to show you because i don't need your validation yeah mine's more like this is gonna happen one way or another i'm gonna fucking win the whole goddamn thing and you're gonna have to eat your fucking words and somebody's gonna know that you ate your words totally i think by the way you know i think one of your superpowers is your ability to be vulnerable and put yourself out there in ways where people sometimes in our worlds or the social circles we run in might think of as cringe and i think i've started to learn to do that but you've lived that and i'm pretty sure even this very video you're going to get some notes from people being like are they going to eye roll uh how did you get over there was just something you're born with but you know because we sometimes all want the approval of some of these social circles we get it i just wonder if part of it is just the immigrant mentality you know a little bit to your point it's all of the above it's a DNA.

11:21You know, my brother and sister are different than me. I can see it every day. DNA, circumstance, which is probably a bigger reason my brother and sister are different, right? I was born in the old country. My greatest strength is humility, which is my superpower against judgment. When you don't think you're special to begin with, you're not overly worried about tricking fancy people to think you're special. Yep. So that helps. I had incredible parenting, predominantly my mother with a hint of my father. He's gonna get upset, but it's true. My mom, you know, he was working all the time. My mom raised me.

11:58My dad taught me word is bond, created a lot of good variables for me later in my life. So great parenting, great circumstances. You two know the immigrant thing is an advantage if it's harnessed properly. It can be a disadvantage. There's a lot, you know, lately I'm starting to spend a little more time on the immigrant stuff. Like there are way too many people continuously and we all have it when we come from that culture. And I mean, everyone who wasn't born in America that moved to America, we all want to make our parents proud more than our American counterparts. It's just a thing. But when you start living for your parents validation, that's the easiest way to not be happy.

12:33And that's very hard. We know a lot of our Indian friends who go through. Oh, it's huge. It's huge. In the Asian, Indian, and certain parts of Eastern Europe. Ooh, it's a big one, boy. Oh, yeah, yeah. So anyway, I think it was a matter of a lot of nature, nurture, circumstance. And then really loving being an underdog. I like being an underdog. So for me, I don't want to be accepted in the circles. And you two will really understand this. I was so far ahead of everybody in those circles, I could have moonwalked into those circles. I was already in those circles when the circles were forming and I kind of walked away from the circles, not purposely, by the way, just because I'm a busy operator.

13:20But I so don't need validation of circles in the world that we're talking. For anybody who's a fan of mine, we're talking strictly that mid-2000s Silicon Valley elite. I was there. I was there. I mean, I just had all the relationships, but I didn't need it. I didn't shun it. It's not like I'm disrespectful to it. It's just I need to be an operator. Yes. Not. You have other things to go do than to feel like this is validation. I want to rewind back to something you said earlier about context. Now, a lot of the context is you are a man of the moment, you know, with the economy and everything that's going on.

14:04but the other is the platform. So give us the 101 on what it means to do great content for TikTok, for Reels, for Facebook, and YouTube, at least for a start. Because I know a lot of smart people listen to your show, so I'll go with the smarter part first. The best practices are easy, aka it's easy for anyone, especially all the A plus students in our worlds to understand all the feature sets of every platform. It doesn't take a whole lot for a bright person to spend a week and have all 10 platforms, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, YouTube shorts, Instagram, Snap, and understand, okay, this is how spotlight works versus this is what LinkedIn is, this is a Facebook carousel.

14:50It's not hard. It's very achievable. the reason most people struggle and the real answer to your question of how to succeed is do you understand the other human being on the other side of the contents psycho nature the psychograph of who they are when they're consuming aka you too are you you are who you are but when you are going in a stream of linkedin versus when you're going through your stream on TikTok, you are contextually different and are looking for different things and are in a different mindset, thus rendering the content to need to be contextual to that, aka three of us in a boardroom meeting are going to be very different than we are in this right now, which is very different than if the three of us went to a concert of our favorite, you know, we're just going to be different.

15:50And so it's the contextual difference of when you're in different rooms. Everyone's different in a boardroom than they are with co-workers than that same person is in Las Vegas for a weekend with their best friends. Right. Okay. I want to switch gears. So one of my closest friends at work is a person named Courtney, who's a huge, huge fan of yours and is so excited for doing this. And she has a 23-year-old son, Spencer, who's an even bigger fan of yours. And so this comes from them. But you have a lot of audience who are in that age group, early 20s, trying to pick up their first job. What is your advice for somebody in that age group, especially when it comes to accountability?

16:34Because I know you think a lot about young people and accountability. Thank you. Thank you for knowing that. Yes, it is definitely something I'm spending a lot of time thinking about. Whether it's true or not, that's the most important part of this sentence. Whether it is true or not, the concept of spending energy blaming others or systems or the world for anything that's making you unhappy is an incredibly challenging perspective if you're in search of content and joy. That is my number one thing for 23 years. Whether your parents, for example, this one blew me away because it's surely not how I grew up and I didn't see this one coming.

17:19And this goes back to what I do for a living. I tell everybody that I'm, what do you do for a living? I'm an entrepreneur, but I happen to be a PCS. What's a PCS? It is a title I made up at VaynerMedia. It's called Post Creative Strategists. These are people who read the quantum, who read the qual data on creative. they read the comments on creative on the internet which i believe gives you the greatest insight to actually what's happening in the trends of the moment in society if you are the kind of human that has a brain that is very good at synthesizing insights from lots of people writing lots of words give us an example from right now like what's an example of this uh the example is why did the corn on TikTok, if you look carefully, this is what I'm good at, it's because the world is anxious and anything that's a simple smile is really valuable right now, more than if it was during when Bill Clinton was president in 1999.

18:23Got it? Things like that, or knowing, why was I close to Logan Paul and Charli D 'Amelio early? That doesn't come by accident. Yeah. Like, why was Gunna in this office right here long before he was Gunna? That doesn't happen by accident. That's watching how people read. It's not just numbers. If it was numbers, all the math kids would beat me. It's not data, it's data in qual, not quant form, matched with quant, intuition, duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh. So anyway, what I would say is, reading all my DMs, and I read a lot of them, because people are very real in those DMs. I didn't realize how many wealthy kids resented the living shit out of their parents for paying for everything, thus rendering them to realize that their parents don't believe in them.

19:12And that's how they interpret it. A 24 year old that has everything paid for actually interprets that quite often that, oh my God, my parents don't believe in me. So they're paying for it because they don't think I can make it. Interesting, wow. Which crushes their confidence. Now the world, All their friends are already telling them, you suck, your mommy and daddy are putting you on. You're privileged and blah, blah, blah. That's the worst. But that doesn't even fuck with them. What's fucking with them is, my parents don't think I can do it. And that seems like, and so, but then I say to those kids, this is how accountability got going for me five years ago.

19:49I'm like, because I'm weird. I just start replying and people are like, whoa, I have to make a video, no, it's really me. Like the whole thing, you know? and I tell them this was unbelievable when I was doing this three four years ago a lot and led to me in doing this research work I replied don't take the money accountability Gary you don't get it my mom and dad fucked me like they paid for everything you talk about being a zoo animal and in the wild I'm that zoo animal I was fucking taking care of my mom's a parent standpoint they were just trying to help out and do the right thing i can imagine you know we grew up with much less means you don't want your kids to fail you just want to help the problem is the way to make sure your kids don't fail is not to do it for them but parents can't help it yeah they can't help it especially when their parents like you guys me like you just want it for them yeah you can't help it the problem is we never had it growing up so i want it for them of course but i'm promising you right now it's not gonna work

20:53yeah it or like and by the way if you research wealthy and listen you guys are enough in these circles you see it you see people that have kids that are really great you see people are really not great and look you start looking under the hood and a lot of it has to do when did they cut them off financially yeah we think a lot about this because you know we grew up you know with much less means obviously than we have now and our kids would have and you know and we're thinking about like well how spoiled or how much of a brat are they going to be because we do see some really messed up kids and we all see some very well-adjusted kids also so yeah and even the well-adjusted kids oftentimes lack the belief that they can do crazy things because it was just it's very hard to be hungry when you're fed right right and so anyway nonetheless this all led to an interesting thing i'm like well if you're so mad at them and it sucks so bad well then stop taking the money yeah that's when it gets that's when accountability gets interesting because everybody loves to blame their parents.

21:46They love to blame the government. It's Biden's fault. It's Trump's fault. They love to blame social. I mean, the new favorite step is social media, right? Social media, of course, is everybody's problem, right? But can you talk about that? How much do you think young people growing up, their identity expressed through social media means they have a very different experience than Benji? Of course. But I want to remind everybody who's 45 years old on here we also were scared shitless to go to junior high and not look good like I would argue that social media has allowed people who are insecure to find friends they're trying do you know how many kids are making meaningful relationships on fortnight that are real friends of theirs now that they would have never met in 1984 and now they have a friend to rely on versus being the only not having a friend to like we always look at the negative negatives yeah and And by the way, parents are like, Gary, the social media.

22:43I'm like, don't let your kids on it. Yeah. Well, well, what? Well, oh, but all their friends are on it. Yeah, you're a parent. You're not here to be your fucking kid's best friend. Yeah. But that's what everybody wants to be. Eighth place trophies destroyed kids. We don't want anybody to feel bad. You've completely eliminated merit. Yeah. Have completely eliminated. Which is like a really controversial thing to say now. Especially in California. Yeah. Well, listen, it's, yeah, but meanwhile, it's controversial when your kids are three, seven, nine, 14, but go talk to people who have 25 year old kids.

23:20They really wish they didn't give that eighth place trophy out. Yeah, eighth place trophy. And so for me, I have no interest in talking about people that are in it. I have people interested in people that have lived it, and there is no debate on this issue. Eighth place trophies are bad. Well, I think pretty much every Asian parent would definitely agree. I wanna, you know, one thing I wanna - But you know this, every Asian parent of your parents' generation, y 'all are all about eight place trophies. Meaning not you, you know what I'm saying? Like this second generation wealth Asian India. Oh, my God.

23:53I see it every day. Really? Yeah. But you think it's because of guilt and maybe wanting to make up for some of the traumatic childhood experiences we had? Of course. Of course. You're pissed at your mom and dad for where they went too hard to be the best at tennis and piano and this. So you're overcompensating in the other direction. Oh my God. As the world is going red and blue, all the answers are purple. So because you were driven too hard, you're overcompensating in the other direction. But the way to fix it is not overcompensation. It's center. Yeah. Yeah. Find the balance. Artie's parents watch this show, by the way.

24:28We're definitely going to get a call about this right after, for sure. You know what's funny? And you know this. The other thing is I'm starting to get a lot of emails from Artie's parents. I was getting a lot of negative emails from the generation we're talking about, our parents, our three, right? I was getting them. Look, you're putting out content that's getting 14 million views on TikTok that says fuck school to an Asian or Eastern European immigrant. And they're like, fuck you. And so they weren't happy. But I'm telling you, this is back to reading everything. Over the last year, I've gotten more emails from 55 to 75 and DMs and usually on LinkedIn where they tend to find me on Facebook that say, dear Gary, I would have absolutely thought you were disgusting five years ago with this video, but I've got to tell you, I had this crazy conversation with my daughter a month ago.

25:21I see something in my granddaughter. People are starting to realize the middle. And so I'm sensing a shift and I saw it coming, but accountability is the big one. We got a little sidetracked because I want to get this off in case this helps someone. Blaming and feeling helpless leads to very, very, very sad places. So even if it's true that somebody else is fucking it up, being accountable to what you can do about it is incredibly powerful. So let's say you're a 21, 22 year old. What should you look for in your first job? To try to be as close to a human being that does the thing that is your dream.

26:06Meaning, I think more kids should take way more humble jobs. I think admin life is the most underrated thing. This is one thing I think Hollywood got right. If you look at Hollywood, this whole mailroom assistant thing to the agent, I can tell you from my organization, I didn't even realize I was doing it. And then I was like, wait a minute. Cause then when I started learning what Hollywood, I'm like, I thought I like was doing something smart. I'm like, my admins are gonna become my future CEOs. Then I got the Hollywood world when I started getting popular in my content and met some of those people.

26:36I'm like, wait a minute, William Morris has been doing this for a hundred, I'm no innovator. You see it in Hollywood, you see it less in other industries. For example, AJ, my brother, who's 11 years younger, we were right there and AJ's like, oh my God, he got an internship at Digg. In hindsight, I wish he was Kevin Rose's admin. Right. Interesting. Right? So my number one piece of advice is you're 21, One, live as humble as you can, not on your parents' dollar. Because that goes back to what we talked about. So live with four roommates, but be the admin, the assistant, the intern to the intern of Chris Dixon.

27:16You want to be an all-time great VC? Chris Dixon's admin's intern, even though you went to Penn. Because if you can see their actions, why are so many of my former admins, my partners in business, The president of BeFriends, former intern. The partners in empathy, both interns. Why? Because they learn most by watching me do weird things. That's true. Right? So if you want to be Anna Wintour, if you want to be LeBron James, Maverick Carter, if you want to be whoever you think is the coolest, right? Yeah. Sarah Blakely, you know, whoever you want to be, figure out at all costs from 18 to 25, when I think it's very easy to do what I'm saying, though a lot of people will think it's hard because they don't have the humility.

28:06They don't really mean it when they say they want something. They want it easy, they don't want it. And if you can be the intern or admin for the person that you most want to be like, even if that person disappoints you, one of the things I'm most proud of is, I think I surprise people in the positive. When they get here, if they're a Garrett, now that people know who I am, I've had, and because of that, I actually get a lot of emails like, like, hey, Gary, my friend works in your company and she says you're the sweetest. I have a situation here. I've always looked up to X. I work here. He or she is a piece of crap.

28:41I'm really shook. What do I do? So, and I'm going to say this, even if that person, so that's why I'm bringing this up. Even if that person disappoints you, you'll be able to watch what you don't like and what you do like that they do, but you're going to learn so much when you're closest to the sun. So, you know, Chris Brickley, a great NBA basketball shooting coach. And on Instagram and just amazing. I love him. If you're right now 19 and you're like, I don't want to be a doc back to Asian Eastern European. I don't want to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer. I want to be a basketball trading. Well then DM Chris Brickley 25 times like nicely.

29:18Don't be a spam bot. Try your way different ways. Cause you got to ask more than once if you want to get to the sun and ask to be the intern. but too many people lack the humility they're like i'm gonna go to goldman sachs and i'm like you know like if you want what's my advice or they don't they don't they're not that foofy and they don't real they they'll go make 65k at any corporation instead of making 29k being right there next to the person they want to be and let me tell you about these people and you've seen this a lot you you know this you get a lot of people reaching out to us all the time and some of them are amazing, these young kids.

29:54We've ended up working with a few of them too. It's just, it's amazing. Yeah. So, and there's super fancier people than us three and you know the stories of them taking a random intern or an assistant and what happened and what that meant. You know. Being in the room is so powerful. Okay. I'm going to switch gears. I'm going to, you know, you mentioned a couple of these folks. I'm going to give you a name and I want to get your reaction of why they are so successful, right? And the first one is somebody close to our hearts, Logan Paul, and especially his time at WWE. By the way, I don't know if you can see this behind me.