How to Grow as a Creator in the Interest Media Era

29:19And the people have called my content raw or frictionless. I say low production value. Most of it's in my car. Most of it is shoulders up. But I believe redefining quality is super important. There's lighting. There's mics. We were talking about this. I rely entirely on my ability to communicate proficiently. Jim Rohn has this great quote. He says, adequate communication is 20 % what we know and 80 % how we feel about what we know. And in essence, at purity, we are all communicators. That's all we are. We're as good as our ability to tell a story and convey a message, as are you. And so for me, if I'm going to get people to listen to me instead of one of the other 10 ,000 fitness mindset personal development influencers within my immediate proximity, I have to believe what I'm saying because that energy is perceived through the screen.

30:02So I think there's a time to be vulnerable with – or authenticity in the form of vulnerability because I think that is a true superpower. and really taking off the mask because I believe people are incredibly attracted to that because that's what everybody wants to be, is unapologetically themselves. And if you were even a little bit perceived as that, people are drawn to it, whether they're necessarily in love with what you talk about or not. I think a master class of this is Leo Skeppi. High-level authority, top-ranking podcast, total goofball, unapologetically himself. You can play in both spectrums.

30:34And I think I'll close with this. is so much of this is giving yourself permission to create what you feel inspired to create. And that niche that you talked about that creators get stuck in is so fabricated inside of their own minds. Their followers aren't DMing them saying, you better never create anything different or I'll unfollow you. No, they create this narrative about what they have to do because that's what's always worked. But my most viewed video ever is a video of me drinking the Oreo flavored Coke Zero. Nothing to do with my business, nothing to do with my content, but it showed 40 million people my face.

31:04By the way, I've literally, literally made all what I've done over 20 years, my most viewed video is me professing that no one likes blueberries more than me. It's very real. I mean, I think what you're getting at is fear is dramatically driving people's actions. Like, the fear is such a crippler, and it's weaponized. It's incredibly effectively been weaponized by politicians. It's weaponized by parents. it's weaponized by bosses. Melting down what you just said is, where's everyone sitting here with their relationship with fear? Where's everyone's, I said it earlier, humility is disproportionately the weapon of choice for all of you of where you're at right now.

31:50The more you lean into your humility, the more it will get good. The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek. That's it. And if you're gonna continue to tell a story, then for me, I'll put this about, about me and not about anybody else. I can only grow my platform to the ability of which I am willing to be authentic. Because if I convey a message I don't care about, nobody's gonna watch. I have to throw my weird, authentic edge on the content. I watch his videos, because he's walking, he's himself, he's exactly as he appears in real life, and I can feel that, people can feel that, and that's what's really important to me.

32:22It's also hard to remember bullshit. Yeah. It's really crazy we're talking about this. This is a really fun thing, especially with live social shopping in the air. When I started Wine Library TV, that's how I started. On February 21st, 2006, I ask all the youngsters here, what were you doing in 2006? In February 21st, 2006, I made a 22-minute YouTube video and within a week had YouTube, before they were bought by Google, reach out to me and ask me why it was doing well. Because no video over a minute, this is real, no video over a minute had done well before and my literal answer was I have no idea because it was that early and I had been a wine salesman at that point.

33:09I didn't view myself as somebody that people would want to watch but literally the hour before I started Wine Library TV my plan was to do QVC. I thought I was going on this video and was going to make a video and sell these three bottles of wine and post it on YouTube and hopefully people would see it. I would give them deeper education that I was able to do in my email and we would sell it. Literally within the first second of being a creator, in hindsight, my life changed. The camera goes on just like that. A little camera, no mic, no lighting. And in one second, I was like, fuck, if I'm about to tell people what I, literally this is what went through my mind.

33:48Oh shit, I, these three wines, and the three wines in front of me were very expensive, very good wines. But I remember saying to myself, I can't have this be QVC. I need this to be the wine spectator. Meaning, I have to tell people what I actually think about these wines because in my mind, I literally thought, you know how the brain can think a ton of shit in one second? I was like, if this works, I kind of knew right away. I'm sure you've had these moments. I just knew. I was like, fuck, I think this might work. I'm like, if this works and I'm out and someone's like, hey, Gary. If you were like, hey, do you like this wine?

34:21And I was like, no. And you're like, motherfucker, you said it was good. I was scared about that. So literally, literally, in the first seconds of me ever making content, I was like, fuck, I'm just forever gonna say what I believe. I just don't wanna be in that gotcha moment. Like I don't need Dateline rolling up on me being like, yo, you said you liked that wine and you don't like, I was like, fuck it, I'm just gonna go. And real talk, like when I first hit the scene, CAA told me I could be a successful public speaker but I had to stop the curse. Everybody told me in 2006, seven, eight, nine that I had to dress up.

35:01I was way too casual. Like all that stuff that is now like mainstream real life but in 2006, seven, eight, it was like unacceptable. And I think like if you're authentic and not just bullshit authentic, like the bad version of using authenticity as a cloak for not being authentic. If you're actually authentic, I've known some of you for 20 years. I am who I am the whole way through. If you're authentic, the world will come to you. Instead of you trying to be, I'm telling you if you're authentic, the world will come to you. This is the first time you've alluded to the fact that the real superpower in that is that there's no need to ever wear a mask.

35:43There's no need to play the character. So you can't get gashed. I never have to worry about someone saying I'm way more direct than I am in my videos. My videos are as direct as I'm going to be. So if I soften up, it's even a benefit. There's no need to put a facade on because our lives are so intertwined in our careers, unlike most people with other jobs, that that would be exhausting and eventually someone cracks. I do get a lot of people that do say that I'm dramatically more attractive in real life than on video. But I believe in that. All right, who else go? Who else has got something to add to this?

36:15Go ahead. Please. Hey, what's up? Famous Katie, I'm Carson. Very nice to meet you all. Excited to be here tonight. I am new guard. It feels like a lot of y 'all are old guards. We're talking about being here for a long time, building a brand over many years. In April, I had 500 followers. And in June, I had 250 ,000. It occurred overnight for me, working a finance job, totally organically, on accident, not something I ever set out to do or intended to do or ever even thought was possible. The fact that I'm here right now is insanity. Wake me up, I can't believe this is done. I just started doing funny running vlogs.

36:50I was posting for years. I was doing baking stuff. I was just being myself. I had some friends tell me it was all like blurry pictures of bread with like a blog gallery. My buddy said, hey, you're funny. You know, you're a personable guy. Put yourself in front of the camera more. Be yourself more. And I started setting things up. I started being myself more. And I think people crave, if I wanted to right now, I could have a podcast that's super overproduced. And I think that people try to gather around the production of their thing and to speak to Mr. Hyrup Wellness. Like, it's so nice. If you go on your Instagram page right now, everything has an intro sequence and a jingle with it and a beautiful, nice layout.

37:27Like, I just started showing my camera at the end of my videos. Couldn't see me anymore because I was so sweaty from running. Like, it's my authentic self. I was presenting myself to the world and it made this thing occur that I think people crave and need and everything is overproduced. And if you can just be a friend to somebody, I, I speaking of being vulnerable, like I put most of myself online. I show my family again, I'm new, so tell me maybe to stop, but I'm figuring out this whole thing. And I think that people enjoy that. Like people want, when people approach me in the streets, which is insane in its own right, like they feel like they're my friend and it's beautiful.

38:00And I put out kind stuff and kind of people come to me. I think that being yourself is such an important weapon that you have to be able to be productive in this new environment. there's giant media companies and I'm getting more views than them what do you mean, Carson's doing better than NBC? what do we talk about? it's preposterous, so I very much am of the school of show yourself, be vulnerable be authentic, and I love that nobody could ever approach me and be like you're not, you were, you're being I show yourself, and I am being online as a consumer of Carson's content, which I came across to you maybe when you got like 50k, and then all of a sudden I didn't see you again, and all of a sudden you're like I have 250 ,000 followers and all of them came in, I think it was June or something like that.

38:42So I'm one of those people where there's this parasocial relationship where I saw you today and I'm like, oh, hey, I just saw you. I literally saw an Nespresso ad you were doing, which was fantastic. We do such a great job. I think a lot of what we're talking about is this thing that I hear is basically a personal monopoly, which is like, what is it? Where are your unique interests and everything intersect? and I think for you, right, like, you've got to do running content. There's so many, like, running content creators. Each of them have been surviving because they all have their unique infusion, and, like, for you, you're not just a running content creator.

39:13You bake, and, like, you have this unique, like, monopoly over being a running baker and doing so in such a unique way. Nobody's in the crossroads of running and baking, right? But it's also such, like, carbs and running, and you do such a great job doing that, and I think that makes it unique where you're not just running. and who knows what you, if you start sharing more fitness content, it's great, but then you also show this side of like, I'm eating carbs and I had so much bread tonight and you're really real about that. You all sort of like, I had three cocktails last night. You add this, see, I'm - I gotta run the morning, I swear.

39:45But I think you have this nice personal monopoly with that and that makes people follow you even if they follow five other running content creators. That's a great term. There's unlimited attention in play. you know like I like the term using a personal monopoly I would I would argue that even like I mean this has been proven I know you're in this space you know it like there's 7600 people that can dominate makeup tutorials I think people are so incredibly obsessed with a math that doesn't exist like I'm sure you all know this it's run through your mind and it's definitely been things that people have brought up to you I get 8 trillion DMs that are like Gary every niche has been taken like I can't find my spot.

40:30I'm like, the answer is, it's you. Like, you don't even need to decide to be a wuzzle, which is a term none of you will understand. There was a cartoon in 1985 that only ran for one season. I know, that's why I'm dropping it. It was called Wuzzles. I'm fascinated by this cartoon. It should have been a hit. It was half butterfly, half hippo, half frog, half like dog. It was this really cool concept. It didn't work, but I've always stuck with me. You don't need to be a wuzzle and be like the running baker. You could literally just be runner or just baker. That's how much attention is actually at play.

41:08So cool, you want to be the Caesar salad baking rapper who also knows a lot about fucking polo? Knock yourself out if you want to fucking take yourself there. And I'm actually a buyer of that. I think the more you show yourself interests, passions, or things you know, I think are incredibly fruitful. I think I'm doing pretty good with the business wine Jets fan niche who likes to garage sale. But I think it really works both ends. You could go four different narrow subject matters that you work with. But you can literally be baker and dominate. That's how much it goes down to the unique connection of humanity.

41:46And how it all actually works. And just how much sheer attention there actually is in these platforms. Can you actually go a little bit deeper into the segmentation of different interests and how because of algorithmic silos it's way more sophisticated. Let me go right into it. This is how sick this shit's getting. I would argue within 24 months if anyone here decided to make a video about Charleston Chew, the candy bar. Right? Like literally you're just walking on the street and eating a Charleston Chew and like me you think that Charleston Chew is one of the three best candy bars in the world, that when you post it, within the first 150 people that see it are all human beings that actually have interacted or shown some sort of affinity towards Charleston Chew and how they do with it will start to begin the process of your reach, which will then force everyone to understand the power of niches because the AI is getting so advanced.

42:48Even if Sarah was to make a video right now, even the backdrop of that pattern is going to be understood and ultimately shown to people that have a higher propensity of enjoying that background. My wife would hate that. Too chaotic, right? Not shown. And because of sophistication of AI. Correct. Okay. The sophistication of the AI is going to transcribe every word out of your, like literally, back to growth hacking and stuff that's not authentic and all that stuff, you will see people in 24 months say things like, out of complete context of their video, say things like, and Star Wars. Like back to like the growth, because what they're gonna know is at that point, that video will likely be shown to people that have a high propensity for Star Wars.

43:32What those growth hackers won't understand is that none of those Star Wars people are gonna like this, because you're talking about, you know, Taco Bell, and like that's not the point. Now, you see where I'm going, but to go deeper, brother, the AI is getting extremely advanced. The platform, so real quick, as a step back, just so everybody, maybe this will bring value. The reason this is all happening is the platforms make money if they keep you on the platform, right? Make sense? So the reason they went to interest media versus social media is you will stay on the platform longer if you're seeing stuff you want.

44:01If you're currently into soccer, that's more likely to keep you there than if a photo from someone you followed when you went to high school with them shows a picture of them going to fucking, you know what I mean, taking their kid to school. So it will keep going further down that path for quite a while. And so it's just getting better and better and trained and it's understanding your content more and more and more. And I think that has the potential to be remarkable for a lot of people here because it might give you the courage to widen the things you talk correct. So basically to your point, if Carson decides to post one video about baking today, second video about running, third video about his time in finance, fourth video about talking with Gary Vee, all four videos have the potential in an excellent format to go viral.

44:48Yes, I believe that. but I would argue that what you've done with yourself and broken into three different handles and that I'm encouraging others has not necessarily reach of the creative value but maybe some secondary or tertiary values of brand positioning or what you want to deal with, right? As someone who wants to talk about politics, I'm sure it's not lost to anyone, you just may not want to deal with that corroding everything you do and another handle may help you. Now, real talk, the AI is getting so good that just because you're talking about politics on a different handle, people, the AI's gonna know that other people like your food content, they're gonna know your image and they're gonna serve it to them at first so you're not gonna be able to keep people away from the politics talk and these are all things that we're gonna be figuring out.

45:33But what I, I'm sorry to interrupt, like the one thing I just wanna push everyone towards because it's where it's going and I think it can help all of you, anything that you're deeply knowledgeable about or anything that you're like deeply into and I always think cool kids get fucked the most because they're stuck in cool thinking. like if you're a cool kid but you fuck heavy with Legos like you need to make Lego content. I know they are but you know what I mean. An older person might think that's not cool even though it's now cool. You know what I mean? Whatever you deem is not as cool like if you're passionate about something that you're holding back I could not push you harder to consider to start flirting with it.

46:10Can I give you guys a couple of mental models to think about? So the first one that I think we're all putting in on is I always tell the terms to all of our most successful creators escape competition through authenticity escape competition through authenticity I think is the greatest form factor to understand what we're all saying which is there are a million people that would do fitness content there's only one person who is you and has your unique stories and your unique values and what the algorithm is doing is just connecting you with a million other people because there are 8 billion people in this world who fuck with you and your specific story the second mental model I would give specifically back to Sammy is you are in a more professional trade industry and so being thoughtful around portraying the news while also bringing in your person there's like political commentators and decide what you want to do at the end of the day the next little model I give is like we are all just new-age media of old-school media and so in the world I would ask myself who are the old-school anchors so whether it's Katie Couric or what have you that I look up to the most that I envy them like that I think have the most successful girls that I personally respect.

47:15And I would ask myself, how much did they share of their personal lives? And that you can use that as a model. The other one that I would ask myself there is like, how much, at the end of the day, something you're very good at, what does your gut say, dude? That's just it. What does authenticity, what does your gut say? Like, you shared your stuff on the honeymoon in Bali and I was like, hype as fuck for you. I was like, I fucking love Bali. It's my whole personality. Right? But like, you know, and I think you have to be thoughtful. I do think you have to be thoughtful and intentional about like, how much do you share?

47:42I think Kali's a pretty apolitical subject, but you do have to think about that. The next, there's one other thing, oh. I will give now a personal example for my own content. Mino down there is super crack by the way. How old are you Mino? 22. 22? Mino and I were joking about League of Legends, which is a really lame game. What do you mean lame? What the fuck are you talking about? What do you mean lame? 60 ,000 people go to fucking stadiums to watch it played. What do you mean lame? So, that's true. So, anyways, it's like a very nerdy game. Point being is Mino and I were talking about league and I was like stuck at this certain rink.

48:22And I like spent late nights playing it, I sucked, and I was like fuck it. This 22 year old is roasting me for being bad at this game. So over the next four days, I basically got to the rink that I wanted. And on LinkedIn, I was like, I post a lot of LinkedIn, it's actually one of my main platforms. I really love writing thoughtful content. And you would never expect anyone to post anything about breaking a rank on League of Legends. And because of that, there are certain moments where you're super thoughtful about what you share about yourself. I saw the alpha, and my post was like, skull emoji, skull emoji, just broke gold in League of Legends.

48:57And I posted a video of me breaking that rank at the moment. And it was one of my highest engaged posts in a way that like, I remember seeing AOC back in the day post that she played League of Legends. and I was like, holy shit, AOC has an entirely new dimension that I didn't expect. So as you think about, I personally believe it's like your gut plus authenticity plus a little bit of intention around what you share that has the opportunity and you're thoughtful about that. All that he said, the last mental model I'll give you there is I really respect Taylor Swift as an entrepreneur and a thoughtful artist and a personality.

49:30There's a reason why I really respect the Taylor Swift and the artist tour, which is like, she's one of few artists and celebrities who has maintained their relevance across generations and decades. And very few of us... The addressable market is crazy. Insane. Yeah, the addressable market. But keep in mind, she started as a niche country star. Right. And so I think all of us as human beings have the desire to be our full selves online. The reality is, I think society and the market can only accept and ingest so much of you at one time. And it's really cool to see her have eras, she's lasted that long, where she's been able to inject her personality in different parts of herself.

50:06through decades. And so I would just have you think about what are the things that I potentially know, right? Did it so well. I don't know who that is to you. Yes, you do. You sure do. One thing is, how do you intentionally think through? You are this full, multi-potentiate person, but what are the different parts of your personality that you introduce over time is maybe something I would think through. So how do you be fully authentic yourself, but also be intentional about what you show? I want to click back on that, John. And I think everyone at this table can probably agree with this and Austin kind of started this conversation earlier because I feel like Gary has laid the groundwork because the number one biggest pet peeve I have with influencers right now as things get bigger and bigger and there's more competition is they build their following and then they put up a paywall and we all need to make money but they lose the authenticity and stop providing value to their audience to get the pay wall up and running and make money and I think Gary you've you know you've inspired so many of us because you've never put the paywall up and I talked about you when I first really blew up three four years ago I was like look I'm gonna follow the Gary Vee model I'm gonna just provide so much value that people can't stop me and then it will monetize itself through brand goes in the rich habits podcast and our network and all the things we do with Stan so I I think that's the most important part for me is provide the value and the money will come rather than build the audience on vanity metrics and then try to model.

51:39Yeah, I think an understanding as a build that value comes in all shapes and sizes, right? Like I was, how many people are streaming live at this point? A little bit? That's another subject we should talk about. Like the one that I would tell all of you to start with is TikTok Live. Because TikTok, yeah, TikTok Live's the only streaming platform that gives you audience. I literally, back to being the OG and I love the old jokes, I'm about to stab you. I'm realizing it's a funny bit. Yeah, I agree. I was on this morning, 3 ,000 people watching me, and I just go live. As you all know, it goes into FYP, random people are showing up, and every 10 minutes I just ask how many of you in this and I'm trying to make a point to my audience it's really meta I'm doing my thing and I'm trying to teach my audience to do the thing I'm doing and this crushes them because a lot of them know who I am obviously I've been around for a long time but every 10 minutes I'm saying hey how many of you have never seen me I don't mean like I fell off with you and you're just re-catching up with me I don't mean like you've seen two or three of the videos that I've made or photos like you kind of have heard of me.

52:55How many of you right here in the room right now have literally never fucking seen me, have no idea who I am, have no clue what the fuck is going on, say never seen? And I do this every like 10 minutes. It's like, it's like, and like the rest of my audience is like, what the fuck? Because, you know, 20 years, 55 million followers, like I've been out there and it reminds people that there's 8.3 billion people on earth. And it reminds people, and for all, if I'm at a place where I'm addicted with everything going on to be on there as much as possible because for me, it is awareness that I can't achieve in any other way.

53:31I promise you, all of you should be considering to do it. It's an incredible opportunity and I just had drinks. I'm sorry, I'm late. The reason I was running late is I was having drinks with the CEO of Twitch and obviously they're the OG and obviously everything's, so many platforms are moving to live but I think I have found and I believe many of you in this table have clearly won on content creation. I would argue live streaming, right? The Kais, you guys know it, Speed, you know, all that stuff. Aiden, all the kick, all the Twitch stuff. Live streaming, right? Just live chilling. And then social live shopping, like what's been happening in, those two, I am dying to see and can't wait to see a lot of you because we're in phase one of the creator economy, which is just pure content.

54:20but we are literally right now in the pre-dawns of super scale of live streaming content creation which is here FaZe Clan, Aiden Roth all the stuff you guys know Marlon you know it all and live social shopping the fact that everybody at this table literally has two new full genres QVC or just Truman Show is a really big deal and for back to like being relevant over and over like Taylor like I think about my career of like I went on YouTube, then it was Twitter, then I was the Twitter guy, and on and on and on. A lot of you have the personality, the tenacity, the creativity. I'm sure you see what the guys are doing on Twitter with their show.

55:02Live is very real for a lot of you. And live shopping is very real for a lot of you. And for a lot of you, they will be dramatically more lucrative than what's going on right now. And all of that attention goes into digital products or other things. And it is a give, give, give, and occasionally ask. I've never paywalled, but I ask people to buy wine from my dad's store. I've had sneakers. I've had books. I have VFriends. I really think the live component, and it's funny, I keep looking at you because it's so hard for me to find people that have really watched me do it for 20 years, but it's funny.

55:36When I blew up, Twitter and YouTube get a lot of credit, but there was a site called Ustream, which before Twitch, before Justin TV, that I really cooked on. And like, it really worked for me. And you know, watching this live revolution the last five years and now we're, like 2026 will be the year of live streaming and live social shopping. And a lot of you are gonna be wildly positively affected and that makes me happy. Can I add to that? Please. Yeah, I wanna add to that. Intro. I just wanna say I am a fashion and marketing coach. I have been doing this full time since 2020 during the pandemic.

56:14So I got fired from my job. and it was either two things. It was either you had to panic or you pivoted. And I definitely pivoted. I pivoted into conversation and I started working with a lot of brands and then I scaled that to about six figures just with brand deals alone. So I worked with all the favorite brands that you guys probably know, like Wendy's, Taco Bell, Febreze, all these different brands. And then also I wanted to, you know, make my brand a little bit more lucrative. So I just decided to pivot again and I went into just coaching on just how to get the brand deals and how to actually, you know, just in digital products and things like that.

56:44and the reason why I'm saying that is because you brought up a good point of TikTok Live so this year guys I did a million dollars on TikTok Live alone so when you brought that up that is a very big situation because literally I get on live I got on live every day since January 1st and I would just sell my digital products every day I would sell them every single day and I would just have the strategy so when you went back to value that whole science of just giving people value for 45 minutes, 46 minutes, and then the science of selling on live, and then doing 6k days, and 7k days, and 8k days, and things like that.

57:21TikTok live is literally where it's at. Definitely did like seven figures on live this year. Did you have previous um falling before you like yeah so I had so um that's actually a science as well so I had like 90k on TikTok and then but that was from fashion videos. That was just strictly for fashion videos and then I I got on live and then I grew 100 ,000 just by getting on TikTok Live alone. So there's just a science to that. So if you're somebody who is just not really a TikTok fan because I really care to post on there, the algorithm is still gonna notice you because you have all these new followers now so the 40 page actually sees you.

57:55And that's why I really love TikTok Live because people who don't know you are gonna see you on that platform. I could not push all of you more to literally tomorrow just go live and just chop it up. you will be flabbergasted. There is, as we sit here today, there is no discovery mechanism that is even within a distant mile of going live on TikTok. So how many people here have gone live on Instagram? Raise your hands, just curious. Have gone live. So the people that have gone live, of course you hate it, because let me explain why. You go live on Instagram, here's what happens. You go live, it pings your community, shows up.

58:34You go live, first couple seconds, it goes to 500, 1 ,000, 4 ,000, I don't know where everyone's at. Everyone's got different numbers. And then as you stay on, it declines and declines. Yes, Chloe. It's like sad. I get it, Chloe. Where are you guys going? I get it. Now let me tell you about TikTok. When you get good at it, you start small. And then if you're really in the zone and you're not paying attention and you look up in 25 minutes, you're like, there's 2 ,000 people here? No. No, it's actually insane. I think Instagram is very like, Instagram still has this like personal feel. Yeah. where you see like Brett join and it's like, oh, I'm out.

59:09You know, for TikTok, it's like a couple of girls in the morning. But I do have a question. I'm curious if anyone has a follow-up. What is it about live? Well, I think there's a supply and demand element. There's not that many people that are going live, so it's gonna push you, but like... It's the ultimate form of authenticity. It goes back to what Michael's hitting on, which, well, why? Here's why. Yeah, here's why. You know that subconsciously, you know it's harder to hide. no post production no and you'll like this I'm gonna use SNL and general pop acting there's a lot of actors that win Academy Awards and we all revere who don't do SNL cause they can't do improv they can't do improv I mean wouldn't you also argue is because of AI like AI slob content all this things I don't know because this was happening this has been happening for four or five years I would listen there's some dynamics that are brewing on that I wouldn't say that's because of this.

1:00:05I'm gonna say that there are certain, there are people in this room, I'm gonna say it again, there are people in this room that are winning. This is not people that haven't figured it out yet. This is a room of people that have figured it out and I know as I sit here that multiple people in this room are gonna be dramatically more successful as a live streamer or as a live shopping seller than they are currently sitting here as a successful content creator. They're just different. I'm inspired. Good. Go live right now.

1:00:37Ladies first. Yes. Okay, my name's quick. When you are going live, any of you guys, do you find that traffic is, there's a difference or it's better when you announce, like, hey, I'm going to be going live tomorrow for this thing, the scheduled things, or even when you're spontaneous, you're like, it's fucking here. Yeah, so for me, I think at the beginning, I would make an announcement, but I guess as I got really consistent, like, people were just, yeah, the 40 pages kind of put me on the forefront, so not everybody was there. You have to understand how the dynamics work. If all of you were to do it on Instagram and you did weeks of promoting it in your stories, it will do better.

1:01:12TikTok is an algorithm that randomly shows you based on the momentum you're building and the things you're talking about. In fact, I don't know if you noticed what I'm doing. I'm promoting Stand Store, but I'm not even using the.com. I don't know if you've figured this out yet. You start promoting things off-platform, your viewership goes down. It does. When I mentioned, I was doing it early on a couple weeks ago. I'm like, you gotta watch me on Whatnot. and I was like 2 ,800 tanks it. Tanks it. So TikTok is so advanced. They want to keep you on platform. So I was paying attention to you saying 6 ,000, 7 ,000.

1:01:44Like that's impressive. Either A, the algo didn't hit it. You found a way to promote it without the algo realizing it. But like every time I'd be like, check out garyvee.com slash stand store. Crap. Like so the algo is very, so really what you want to do on live is just build your brand and bring value. You don't want to be like, and sign up for my newsletter. And go to, I was like, go to, and you know, I'm happy to promote at times, especially these last couple months, it's like Black Friday and wine time. So I was like, oh, and my dad would love for you to sign on Wine Text. I'd be like, I'm looking at the number, 1800, 1400.

1:02:17I'm like, motherfucker. Like, you know, like, the algorithm's that advanced. But on the flip side, if you appear and bring tons of value, this is when you're just live, not shop. When you're on TikTok shop and doing QVC, you are selling, but that's a different version of selling and you're selling within TikTok so they're like yay because they're making a rake, right? You sell something, they take a percentage so just think logically. I'm gonna go live, I'm gonna sell something and they're gonna get 10 % they're gonna pump you. So I don't know who here has physical items they can sell that are easier than alcohol like me and you but if you, how many of you here sell something physical?

1:02:57I mean I could not push you harder on TikTok shop. You should also look at Whatnot. That's the independent standalone app that's crushing. Very real. I did a collaboration with the supplement company I'm sponsored by for a magnesium line. One magnesium supplement from zero. We took it to $900 ,000 in eight months. And that's only 91 % of the revenue was nine videos that I made. And they're running ads against the video. Yes. But the return on time in that is insane. It was probably 20 minutes of combined effort on nine videos that generated almost a million dollars for the brand. A lot of people want to win on organic.

1:03:36We've talked about that in our partnership, but the real game is the organic that then gets amplified with media that's ROI positive on the ROAS. If you want, scale, scale. You're saying I'm a strong organic. Sorry. I'm saying in your version, there's a lot of things going for it. You are you and there's that. There's recognition. the paid might work but for that supplement company putting out 45 pieces of creative from that shoot day and then running ads against the ones that most over indexed organically especially if they post produced it after it did well organically to add an element of sales DNA to it would have probably outperformed the nine testing things on a better CAC.

1:04:17I've run 7 ,000 different ads for Wine Text my dad's wine thing all of them roughly average at$42.41 if they're good. One radio appearance I did on Boomer Asiason's AM sports show, the way the hosts were talking about, that one ran at$14 customer acquisition and we ran millions of dollars against it and it never tapped out. Creative is the variable of success. Creative is the variable of success. When you guys are doing the lives right now, I apologize, real quick, last thing, and I'll answer that. There's some of you who have not talked. And I'm looking at some of you. I just want you to know you're gonna be dragged in in a second if you don't jump in yourselves.

1:04:58So keep that in mind. Go ahead. When you guys are right now for the physical products with the friends, you're going live on TikTok, you're going live on... Whatnot. Whatnot. Yes. Are you doing it simultaneously? No. You're doing one or the other? One or the other. Okay. You really kind of can't do it simultaneously. You can, but there's, for the consumer on the other side, you're being very direct. If we went live, notice the algorithm. If we went live on Whatnot and TikTok and started making references on Whatnot, like the giveaways up on whatnot. We're gonna lose anyway on TikTok. So you don't go simulcast.

1:05:30But back to numbers. So again, VFriends, some of you may have started as an NFT project for me but it's a full media thing now. It's comic books, trading cards, Squishmallows, Uno. I'm truly trying to build Harry Potter and Pokemon. On Black Friday on whatnot, which was giving us no traffic. So not TikTok. On whatnot, with 700 people watching, we did 240 ,000 in sales. Wow. The thing all of you are gonna learn if you start selling online and live is there's a term in CPG land, consumer packaged goods land, that's called heavy users. Every brand on earth, I'm talking Coca-Cola, Gucci, Dove Soap, every brand on earth has 1 % of their customers that means so much you couldn't imagine.

1:06:14Like you couldn't comprehend. Bro, it's not 80-20, it's 99-1. Heavy users. the 1 % top users of literally anything you can think of a toothpaste fucking Dr. Pepper like I don't give a fuck what you think mad happy hoodies like you cannot understand what the 1 % means that 1 % is showing up in live shopping and that's why this is so lucrative I would let me say this this is like a very hyperbolized not hyperbolized statement I would rather have 1 ,000 psychotic live shopping viewers than 50 million followers on social media Yeah. I was gonna say, Kevin, Kevin, right? True fans, different. It's like we grew up true fans different.

1:06:58One thousand psychotic live shopping customers. You know, I know what a thousand of your 50 million followers means in social. I've built on that, I've lived that. I'm saying something different. One thousand psychotic live shop. So you all know what QVC is, right? QVC today is doing billions in sales. Nobody, what? Who watches it? Billions. Nobody has cable. Billions. Because all they need is like 20 ,000 middle America moms watching. They're like, I need that precious moment. And they call. They're like, fucking cute. Like this is, I don't know how many of you bought on live shopping. This is like, Apple pay, done.

1:07:43You think it's easy to buy shit on Instagram? Live shopping takes that to like a fucking psychotic level. Yep. Gary, I think this might be a good transition to the next question. Please. Which is how all of you guys are thinking about building your businesses, right? How are you thinking about monetizing? I'm curious, like, if anyone has any top struggles that they're thinking through, anything that they're aspiring to. Can I add to that? Yeah. Hi, everyone. I'm Austin. Nice to meet you guys. Thank you. Something I've been struggling with, I'm trying to balance, and I think you both are good examples of this, are entrepreneurs that are also content creators.

1:08:20Maybe not creators that are entrepreneurs, but I kind of think we're all kind of... But there's some of us that are really entrepreneurial, but we are kind of... Not maybe forced to be creators, but we're also creators. How do you guys balance... And this is for everyone in the room, right? How are you guys balancing your creative business with content? It's really hard. Yeah. Really hard. Just like... Honestly, a main thing for me every day is how the fuck do I set up my day? Yes. I'm the CEO of an alcohol company. I run it every day. I have to cook and I have to put out content because when I do that, I have a cookbook deal with Simon Schuster in 27.

1:08:58I don't even know how that happened. It's just from putting out content. I have a podcast that the more I am myself in long form, the deeper my relationship gets with my audience everywhere else. The more people buy Spirit Society when I tell them to. the more people engage with my cooking content the more I create it's just the more I do the better everything else there's a halo effect right so that it's it's setting up it's setting up your day for me every single day I start out I make a list I know it's very simple but that really really helps me I wake up I prioritize what am I gonna do today I can't give a hundred percent to everything every day.

1:09:42So today, I'm going to give, like Thursdays, I give 100 % to cooking. That's really helped me when I have 100 % to cooking on Thursdays and sort of banking it out that way. Really, that really helps me. Something I'm really fascinated about, and I love that all of us are here because I would hope you'd be honest about this and you just share it, is I'd be curious for everyone's businesses, and of course with Stan, right? It's like thinking about how much of your creator business from a revenue perspective is coming from your audience directly, like you're monetizing your audience if it's with a product or whatever's going on there, versus depending on the marketing budgets of Fortune 1000 companies.

1:10:24Because I feel like that's something, I wouldn't say I've struggled with it, but I've really reflected upon it. It's like, back in 2022, the stock market started going down, the economy's kind of a little weird, and so I saw that pullback in those marketing budgets myself. I'm like, man, I monetized my audience more. I need to figure this out. And so I'd be curious, anyone chime in, you know, what does that look like for you? Yeah. Hi, my name is Mai Pham. I started YouTube when I was seven back in 2010. And I've been doing it for fun for 15 years, but full time for seven years now. So I've really seen the creator economy shift a lot, and I really started as a hobby when I was a kid.

1:11:03But slowly I've seen everything shift. And I think since back then it wasn't something you could really make money on. working in marketing budgets like there were back then I really had to tap into my community and also I lived in Canada years ago and they had no money back then it was only US creators had it so I really had to tap into community aspect and tonight I've heard you talk about how you have another account and how like whenever you post on there it's like hey that's not me that's this account so I get to say whatever I want and I heard John speak about Taylor Swift and her how she's evolved around the eras and I've also heard Gary talk about getting another account and different platforms and I feel like hearing all this it's connected to a lot of things so bear with me here because I haven't said anything but I also have a brand myself it's called Alchemy and we sell custom milled fabric one size hoodies but if it size extra small to 3xl and we price them around 140 USD which is a lot for somebody that makes a product and I'm to touch on a couple topics here but I think with the second accounts thing and building a community in the Taylor Swift I'm actually deeply inspired by the way Taylor Swift builds her and I've done a lot of research about her and I've read about her and I think something she really taps into is making people feel very special and maybe you don't outreach and reach millions of people or get virality you know I've had spurts of virality here and there but I've been doing it so long that I'll take breaks.

1:12:30Honestly, like I, I struggle a lot with mental health and sometimes I'll just feel like I can't post. Like I just can't feel like myself. And during the winters that typically happens. And maybe I'll only post like one YouTube video every month or one YouTube video every two months, which might stress a lot of people out because you're like, people are going to forget about me when I come back. Like they're not going to care anymore. And I think that that is true. Some people do forget about you, but the reason why I've been able to do it for so long and have a successful brand, even though I take a lot of breaks is through having a second account and I have a private account it doesn't have to be private but I started my private account and the reason why I did was when I was 15 I got suspended from high school and possibly use my sister's ID and took went to the tattoo shop when I got a tattoo I made a YouTube video I'm gonna go do a glow up so I got a tattoo my family to see so I was like you know you guys if you guys want to go see what my tattoo looks like follow this account but I made it private so that my parents couldn't follow my sister couldn't follow no one could follow except I could see the people that were going to come in so that's how the private account started that's so good this was like seven years ago so it wasn't a strategy but I used that account to kind of post whatever pictures I wanted I spammed the stories to this day I just like post a bunch of random stories I don't think twice about it I just post because the people that follow it sat there on the way like on the private list and like they wanted to follow it they didn't just follow it and they felt like they're forcing like you're force-feeding them content they intentionally want to see more about your life so the people that are there will like actually care and you don't have to think about you know am i sharing too much like like is it annoying it's like no the people that wanted to be there are are there and um that's what i've been able to use to you know kind of like rest assured like things will be okay because even though maybe publicly i'm not posting a lot i'm still there and like there's like the 10 000 people that will like my pictures or like there's like you know like there's the people that will watch my stories and will see the process of what you're going through behind the scenes but also So I've used that towards my business, and that's how my business really took off in the way that it is.

1:14:24Because like you said about having 1 ,000 live shoppers that are super crazy about you, it's like, yeah, this kind of takes the thing about having 100 true fans and 100 ,000 crazy worldwide fans. And I think Taylor Swift does a really good job at that because she has so many core true followers, and I think that's also probably a big reason as to why her career has so much longevity. and I think that I've seen that throughout my career even though the creator economy is just really starting to boom I've noticed throughout the 15 years is having a really core group of people aids that longevity because no matter if you switch you're not so anxious about your views going down because you have a core group of people that are there to follow you and to really see you and to go to the grand part about being an entrepreneur I post a lot of behind the scenes on that second page and I think people can utilize their stories even if they don't want to use a second page or what you said about using another platform I'm probably going to start hopping on snapchat or youtube shorts and just posting random things and I won't care about it as much probably because there's it's starting at zero like who cares it's a different audience and I'm to jump in because that's first of all you just shared such incredible stuff the who's care part is the part that I get excited about back to mental health self-worth I I really think for example as you know and you're being very, you're actually digging into something pretty powerful.

1:15:45You've inspired me. I just literally took an Instagram story. Like stories was such a good function for a lot of people. I really believe people's preciousness with their core grid on Instagram is literally the limiter of their upside and happiness. I will die on this hill. The preciousness of the Instagram grid has destroyed so many people's upside. You got there by being free and then once you got it, it became your jail. You have a good scripture for this? I feel like you did. I felt like it was coming. I felt it because, right, it is the power and fame and money thing becomes, right? But I could feel it coming for you because it's real, right?

1:16:28Yeah, I feel that all the time. Right. In my heart, I wish I could get everyone on earth to just be free on their grid. In knowing that I've been fighting that battle for a decade and gotten not as far as I would like to is where platform and handle came from. All of the magic is in the creativity and the lightness and the lack of angst and the humility and the not giving a fuck and not keeping up with the Joneses. I'm obsessed with this new thought in my mind. Literally 8.3 billion people have found unhappiness by comparing themselves to 83 people. People are walking around and comparing themselves to Elon and fucking, you know, like Kylie Jenner and they're like, well, I'm not like, and I'm like, there's like 80 people that have made 8 billion people unhappy because we've become uncomfortably envious, uncomfortably materialistic, uncomfortably lacking self-esteem and it's, I'm very passionate.

1:17:27It's funny, that has so much to do with why I'm building VFriends. I'm building this entire universe that I'm trying to really make very popular with five, six, seven year olds and get them into accountability and kindness and patience and tenacity. It's just really interesting. And you're such a great case study and I knew a lot about how long you've been in the game. But even listening carefully to your words and I'm sorry to jump in, but I was inspired. Not caring. Right? Because everyone's so, again, I say this a lot. so many of you are stuck in a jail because I normally get 800 ,000 views.

1:18:04I normally get 2 million views and all you actually consciously or subconsciously are thinking about is what do I need to make to hit that metric? Because anything you do that will deviate a round from it or something you haven't shared yet will not hit that metric. Yet, it also is the piece of creative that probably starts the process of your next happiness. And if you have to use training wheels of a Finsta or Stories or a different platform or a different handle, mazel tov. But you've got to start putting out more random shit. It will set you fucking free. Hi. Hi. Hi, I'm Anya. I'm a creator marketing.

1:18:46And I worked at, I, hi Jeff. I worked at Instagram and I was on the team that launched Reels. And when I was also on the team that tried to launch Instagram shopping and fail and for that I was in fashion at Chime, Lyft, lucky to be here now. When I was helping to launch Reels I was in charge of a team ambassador program at Instagram and I was studying how people ages I think age 16 have to be had to be 16 at time and we had to be able to have teen accounts to 22 were growing on the platform of all stripes and sizes and we were you know it was 2020 we were up against tiktok we could not get people to use reels the internal where she was literally called make reels and saying it was pathetic and what i discovered is just talking to people is something i coined i called the perfection barrier on tiktok you can go viral in the anonymous my most viral tiktok that has almost three million views is of me failing to make a popsicle out of a coconut water starting heatwave um 2.8 million people saw that site my parents in on Instagram your social graph your teachers all of a sudden for these people for gen Z and gen alpha it's there it doesn't matter that you can toggle between your grid and trial reels and feel you're only a foot that's visible on the real side you still have that desire in your mind of I need to be perfect here I'm going to be judged here I can't be free and hinged in the same way I am on the good platforms I think that's what's limiting so many of us it's certainly what's limited me on my own journey.

1:20:19And I think that it's so founded in the belief that as you get older you stop learning. I think adults are really scared of failing and being bad at stuff. When we're kids we're told like try the trombone, like try, learn how to like double or write a word. But like I honestly I'm worried about getting dementia so I'm trying to teach myself new things. And... Can I interrupt for one second? Yeah, interrupt for that. The fact that such a young woman in today's society is already thinking about dementia is also the thing that I think a lot about. Like, I promise you, no one on earth in 1984, your age, even knew what the word dementia was.

1:20:58Well, I'm like the only person in my family who's not a doctor, so maybe I'm not a doctor. But, and, you know, my grandparents had it. But I really think that, like, continuing to learn, no matter how successful you are, is the key to, like, helping you to success and liberation. I actually recently brought a brick to block social media on my phone from 8 p.m. to 11 a.m. every morning. It's messing with my serotonin levels. And my content, like I've become a lot more consistent in posting content as a result of limiting my access. And pushing myself to try these different things. So the thing I'll close with is I don't do New Year's resolutions.

1:21:36I try to do four things other than my job that I'm proud of every year. And I think that that really brings me to the start of this conversation. because my first job, I did social media for Marc Jacobs, and this is a little personal, but while I was working in the fashion industry, I developed an eating disorder that was pretty bad. My identity was very connected to my work. Of course. I was constantly comparing myself to, like, sharing an elevator with Emily Ratajewski, like, how could a 22-year-old girl, like, feel good about herself in that context? And what I learned from that was I really needed to separate my identity from my work.

1:22:08So that's when I started this practice of every year, I need to do four things other than my mom that I'm proud of, and I don't, I try to make decisions around that, but I also can look back and reframe how I think about things. And I think that this is, I don't know, those are all things that have helped me. It's cool. I have nowhere near the amount of followers you all do, but I think it's so important to continue these conversations and just be honest about where our fear lies, like you said earlier. Yeah, I mean, back to not having as many followers, I would argue that it is very clear to me, being in this for so long, that I think all of you have heard this fame, money, power it exposes you it doesn't change you.

1:22:49I feel like we've gotten very lazy and we try to blame the algorithms and the social platforms for the issues. I think these are incredibly obvious social issues. I think modern parenting was very challenged over the last 40 years and created a lot of dynamics that we're all dealing with now. But you know I would argue

1:23:12that your self-awareness of what works for you is kind of ultimate end state. Like, I will never need to turn off from eight to 11, right? That will never be part of my journey. And I don't view that as me being good, bad, or indifferent. That's the serendipity of how my life played out. But there's other things I do need to do, and everybody, I needed to never share my personal life. I knew that in 2006, I knew not to share my kids or family. When none of this even could begin to be thought about, but I needed that for me. Back to, Carson, back to you, brother. Like, you being new to it, like, maybe that's not an issue for you.

1:23:52You know what I mean? Like, I think this is a massive game of being quite self-aware. Like, challenge yourself to actually, no one here should be like anyone else, but do you understand yourself? and are you selling out for short term gains from what's actually in your soul is like a really good question. Are you willing to like go against what feels right to you because you want the money, the fame, the girl, the boy, the thing, the thing, the thing? That's the ultimate game of this because there's no right. There's right for you. And by the way, there's no right. There's only right for you and there's only right for you at moments in time.

1:24:29What works for you now could change dramatically. We were talking about that early on. she was talking about like I was a stay at home mom and I needed this and I said yeah and in 10 years when your kids are two or three years away from going to college after you've done 10 years of this you might be like oh fuck it I actually need to go back to like full I need to milk it before they go like you're just allowed to fundamentally change your fucking mind and I think a lot of people get one of the biggest things I see a lot of people struggling with is you think whatever you're deciding now is like locked for good like you're allowed to do this for three years and then completely hard pivot I filmed by the way to answer your question of how you handle being an entrepreneur but a content creator.

1:25:04At the height of my height, pre-COVID with DailyVee and where I was really exploding, I was, you know this, I mean, you know, like I was working 18 hours a day running companies and yet was the most prolific content creator because I filmed every minute of my life for five and a half years to be able to make the content. COVID came, we stopped. Right, Document Don't Create was like my platform. I have not been able to get back to filming that way because I got out of practice and now when train comes, like train knows this, train's newer in my world, like a lot of times like, no, no, no. When that would have been like definitely filmed this five years ago, it's to my, there's really no reason I'm saying no to him.

1:25:46It's actually leaving upside an opportunity on the table. I'm just conditioned right now to not be back in it that way. But like a year from now, I might be back in it. I think this concept of like thinking the decision you're making for yourself right now is forever. is fucking insanity. You could like flip the fucking switch completely. You could disappear. I talk about this a lot in my content. I always wonder if I'm just gonna disappear like literally out of nowhere and never be seen again after being as publicly. And I'm good with that. And I'm good with like going in a cave and having a beard and fucking being like Yoda for five years.

1:26:20And then I might just be there for five years and be like, no, fuck it. I gotta be back. It's just that flexibility of knowing yourself is a very big deal. You asked me if I had scripture for this. Unfortunately, I do. I'm fortunate I'm excited to hear what it is Proverbs 13 12 says hope deferred makes the heart sick but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life like you alluded to your soul what your soul wants to do you alluded to your preciousness of your grit is your prison you alluded to creators getting trapped in niches they have the dream fulfilled is a tree of life to me is like I trust where the message on my heart is going even if it has nothing to do with what I've talked about and that tree of life is the self-sustaining energy source that is our creativity.

1:27:03Hope deferred makes the heart sick and that Proverbs verse is the creator who feels stuck in their niche and now they can't come up with any videos. Because their heart is literally sick because they know deep down they want to do something else so the best thing they can do to serve their career is completely paradoxical. It's follow the inspiration that feels frictional. A hundred. I could not. It's super real. It's super obvious. Please. To your question. I was thinking about this. There's a lot of, I consider myself a founder first. I create content by way of what I do with my businesses, community media and software.

1:27:35And many of you, I've been following for a while. I'm a fan of it. It's very cool. There's this element of being a creator versus being an influencer, which is what leads me into kind of John's question, where like you talk about your document, you're sharing your life, you're sharing your kids, right? Your kids are eventually going to one day be 30 years old, right? At a certain point, right? What does that look like for you when you're no longer like the mom of younger kids? and so it's like how do you have yourself live on where I feel like when influencer basically is built an audience based off of their like their lifestyle their beauty their personal relationships and they end up monetizing that because the attention they're getting whereas a creator is essentially building an audience based off of their mission or their knowledge or something and then they're able to kind of monetize that and that to me is a bit more sustainable long-term than it is when you're influencing based off those relationships and things because they ebbs and float so much and so I just challenge people in the room who might gear more towards whatever an influencer might be to think about how do I lean more on the creator side and how do I think about what that longevity looks like because you might hit that moment where like Maya you're talking about like there are weeks when like I don't want to create content not to talk about but it just thought it was relatable I certainly feel that when I'm creating content like LinkedIn is my main platform so when you are in your 50s right Like, at a certain point, you need things to be more sustainable.

1:28:58I mean, I think you're a great example. I've been following you for a long time. You've successfully pivoted into, like, what would be a more sustainable element, right? Well, you kind of became a founder. So it's kind of just like, what does that mindset look like when you're thinking long-term, and how do you start to kind of plant the seeds of that? Because you can't be an influencer forever. You know, there's only a few Kim Garnashians, right? At a certain point, you might get less and less interesting, or you might not care to do what you were doing now when you're 27, right? So how do you kind of figure out what is that sustainable path forward to keep building that sustainable brand?

1:29:33I mean, it's why Kim launched Skins or something like that. I'm curious of anyone's feelings or thoughts around that. I love to talk about sustainability. My name's Elliot. Elliot. Elliot. I'm a customer of this. I'm on YouTube mostly. And yeah, I think like when I think about sustainability, I think about myself in high school doing like photography and I was really into photography, I love photography. I could not get my hands off the camera and I would like go to the woods and take pictures of leaves and it was amazing and it was like super creative and I loved it. And then I started doing like senior portrait shoots.

1:30:06But I needed to make money, right? So it's like make it sustainable. Okay, let me try to go make money off of it. Destroyed my love for photography. Uh-huh. And you know, I made money but it wasn't really worth it in hindsight. And so when I started doing videos, I was like, okay, even if I make money off of it, try to make it sustainable as a career, monetize off of it, I need to make sure I never lose my love for the craft. And I was doing a little reflection with Claude and AI today. It's like my journal. But I had a topic that came up which was like, hey, when was the last time you made a video for yourself?

1:30:45And you did a post. And I feel like it's really easy to get caught up in, and we have to be doing live, we have to be posting, we have to do stories, and we have to be doing all this. Whatever you're outputting is, put it out there. But I really relate to that topic of like, you gotta keep some stuff for yourself because ultimately, if you give everything away, then you have to be live. And it's funny, right? There's something in the way I process that nothing that's been talked about, I think about as I have to, I think of it as I could. Right, even the way you're using the terminology, OG, you could be doing live.

1:31:20You could be doing live shopping, but I think it's funny to like, that's what I just picked up on. I think a lot of people process to I have to be. And I think a lot about, if everybody, this is like a fun exercise, if you literally in your own self talk, in running a company, making content, early, OG, whatever it is, if you literally just change the word have to to could be, it changes the relationship with it in an enormous way. This is gonna make a lot of you actually laugh. There have been many things I've publicly told the world that there was opportunity in that I started doing that I just got too busy to fully take advantage of and everybody that followed me crushed it way more than me because I was in could have versus have to and that made everything cool.

1:32:10I like knowing what I could be doing. I like having the inner dialogue and the concept of like I'd like to get to it I told Ben about a new business I'm going to be launching next year we saw each other at a birthday party in August he just asked me what's up I'm like a little behind like I am behind on it it's likely going to happen next year but between now and let's say October when it opens in Soho somebody else might do it and in that window hey that won't stop me but it would take a little bit out of it but like I'm not devastated because I didn't feel like I had to but I felt like I could and I think that's something that I mean to take it a little further I would tell you as someone who has been doing it for a little while I'm completely detached from my entire professional career and Gary V and I mean completely when I I wish all of you really knew me like really knew me or that there was technology and AI that could like I could swallow a pill right now and it would show you the truth.

1:33:14It is scary even to me, even as I'm saying it, I'm stunned by how detached I am from all of it. I think one of the things that hurts everyone is how much they are attached to their financial, back to the grid. I could care less, I get pumped. I mean, if you looked at my TikTok right now, if you went through right now, there's videos that have like 7 ,000 views, I have 15 million followers. I'm not archiving that. Like I'm pumped. It goes back to like scars or authenticity or the sweat on the camera. People like to talk about it with content but how authentic are you when you post something that doesn't do well?

1:33:53Are you hiding it? Like these become real questions about how far deep are you willing to go into pure authenticity but I think full detachment like literally really truly understanding that not one fucking thing we all talked about here today matters at all that's when this shit gets real good. When you understand the whole thing from the get to right this second literally is bullshit. Literally if God forbid somebody in your life that you love the most was sick right now and it was a six month thing that nothing we talked about would be on your fucking mind you get into that gangster place this shit really gets fun.

1:34:32But also, can I just add to that? One thing I've gone by like for my whole life just career on social media is don't let the algorithm steal your joy. I go by that every single time I'm about to post and that's why I'm so like, kind of like you, detached, because when I see something that doesn't do well, I'm like, okay, and? Can I build on that because that's brilliance? I just need everyone to understand. Do you know what the algorithm is? It is an enormous amount of people having, or, because remember, if I showed you 3 ,000 people right now in this room, you'd be like, fucking shit. but when you see 3 ,000 in your views, you're like, right?

1:35:13The algorithm is many, many, many people got this served and this one just wasn't it. There's no algorithm, there's people on the other side that just decided this one wasn't it and that's cool. Yeah, that's what I was saying, like I was gonna piggyback up what you said, like if a video has 800 views, like could you fit 800 people in your room right now? like can you ask yourself that question if you get big on that can 700 people fit in your room right now and that's how i look at it's good you know things like that so i do that's really important just even just as a you talk about like content creation and revenue this guy in the corner here just even with that too um i'm a conversions guy so whether i have a thousand followers or whether i have 10 can you convert 10 of that that's what i think about all the time so i think just in general a lot of people are so stoked on you know followers equals dollars but it's a new conversion.

1:36:04So what does that look like to you, right? Like if you have 200 ,000, because if you can't convert at 200 followers, you can't convert at 200 ,000. So you have to think about it in that way. And there's another build on that, and you touched on this. Also, another thing, because this is the era of monetization. Again, back to some of the OGs, I had seven years of like, and I believe in this right now, I'm going to say something as an additive, something I think could bring you value, because you're doing your thing right, but I'm going to add an and. I will say this, the longer you can hold your breath in monetizing your audience, the more you will win.

1:36:42You know, that goes, you know, so especially you, because I remember our video, I've watched a little of your stuff. You are, for example, the live shopping thing didn't surprise me at all. You fit the category for me, subjectively. I could be wrong. I've only consumed a little bit. But you fit the category for me, subjectively, as somebody who will do better in live shopping than even content. Because you've got a sales DNA that others at this table don't have. But ironically for you, the counter move of doing as many things as possible just to bring value to the audience with no thought of conversion is actually going to lead a lot more to you.

1:37:17Whereas for other people here, understanding a little bit more about the live shopping dynamics with Matt, it's funny how it works. And it ebbs and flows within each other. You get, you know, like I always know when I've been pushing VFriends or the wine thing or a book too much. I'll go like on a one year cleanse of like not a peep of anything. Stan's store was challenging for me. I really thought it was gonna be really great. I think the company's gonna be great. I think John is that kind of entrepreneur. I really view him as like, I really, especially with the deal we made, I really hope Stan wins, but I know John will win whether Stan wins or not.

1:37:49Meaning, you know, Ev Williams lost with ODO and then Twitter was next. Like, winners win kind of like is a big belief of mine. But Stan was a challenge for me because I'm very deep in V friends right now. and live shopping. And like, I'm doing more selling than I'm accustomed to and prefer. In fact, one of the reasons I'm live streaming on TikTok so much is it allows me to provide more value. I'm allocating more time for my business work to provide more value because I'm aware that I'm pushing Stand Store, that I'm pushing VFriends, and I need to get the right cadence of value exchange. I banked a lot, but again, you know this, like, you might have banked a lot with the people that are most psycho into your shit, but somebody finding you for the first day and be like, oh, you know, and so it's a tough challenge for all of us.

1:38:34Yeah. We got acquired by a company called Maker Studios. Of course. And Maker was essentially the first iteration of sort of this professionalization and really the idea of monetizing in ways outside of traditional sort of platform revenue or brand sponsorship, right? And so the thing that I've been obsessed with in the last 15 years is how creators, and I think it's really fitting that you talk about scripture because when I zoom out, and I don't think this would be very novel to this room, I talk about this all the time. When you say creator and you call someone like Iman or Donald Trump a cult of personality or my kids, I'm Korean, my kids listen to K-pop idols.

1:39:15Sure. I don't think that those words are mistakes and I also don't think about value and utility and serve. You don't use these words sort of interchangeably. it is because for the communities that you're actually connected with and have a two-way arrow and an actual relationship with, you are providing that value. The same thing that's ultimately a religion, right? So when you think about that and you think about monetization, someone rocking a cross or a Star of David, that's merch, right? When you think about Patreon, when you think about Patreon, that's tiny. That's no different than giving a certain percentage of your income to what it is, right?

1:39:53100%. So this is something that, you know, and I've spent the last 10 years investing in creators because I think. Ultimately, if you have that distribution, you have an inherent advantage over everybody else because you're competing with a big CPG company, a multinational corporation that might have all of the retail shelf space. But at the end of the day, all of that is becoming commoditized. In a real way. In a very real way, right? And Jake, he mentioned AI. It's like technology's deflationary, right? And I actually think that when technology's deflationary, I think this is my sort of hot take and sort of my steel man on the authenticity and sort of what's going on.

1:40:33I actually think we're the post creators. I think what most people understand as the creator economy and all the skills built towards the things that I've seen with creators over the last 10 years, like really good programming, being able to optimize, all of these types of things are irrelevant. We talked about follower count before. Follower count is an irrelevant venture. Correct. The channel strategy, trying to build and drive people to your own and own, that's no longer relevant. Correct. If you look at the best creators and the people that are sort of out there, they're taking a completely different approach towards ubiquity, right?

1:41:05It's like, and you know live, I'm super bullish on live too because I think that that's the clearest way to show a level of authenticity. And by the way, like what Speed Show's doing, there's a ton of production that's going into that, right? And I saw this at YouTube and at Maker. I think the first sort of people that are getting on are sort of the most outlandish and the most bright. But at the end of the day, in - In long tails. Yeah, in 10 years, in 5 years, you're going to start seeing live the most mundane things the same way that YouTube right now is an index of live. essentially like an encyclopedia.

1:41:38So anyway, I say this all to say, the thing that I've been obsessed with and sort of thinking about, and my question to you is when distribution no longer matters, and the marginal cost of being able to create goes to zero, what are you going to do, and what are the ideas and tactics that you're trying to employ to stay relevant? Because I think authenticity is a really funny word. I think authenticity, community, these words, it almost became like 2016 Facebook, you know? Like, oh, you have a Facebook group. Like, it's a checkbox that everyone says because you have a Discord group, right? But it doesn't actually mean anything unless it's actually critical to the utility of the product that you're building, right?

1:42:20Or to the connection that your audience has. Or there's actual depth in it, right? Yeah, right? So, like, what do you... Well, I think, you know what's so profound, Bri, about how thoughtful what you said, if I just may? Yeah. To add into it, there is another massive paradigm shift along with AI, and we didn't fully get into it yet, is I don't know how many of you are aware of this. I have a sense you do have a read on this. We're pretty much within a decade of the phone not being primary. Right. Like, I think the most interesting, especially how young this crew is, and it looks like about half are wearing glasses right now, the fact that every person on Earth is going to be wearing glasses, glasses are coming.

1:43:01and the phone's gonna be dead. Straight up. Anyone here who doesn't wear glasses hate wearing glasses on their face by chance? Just like hate having something on their face? I think it becomes normalized very quickly, right? I become so used to these on my face that when I wear my contacts, I'll catch myself going like this, but I know people who hate, like they can't, it's almost like you can't look at the dog. Here's what's gonna happen. Let me tell you, so a big argument I had back to being the elder statesman, everybody was addicted to the Blackberry. And when the iPhone came out, I was like, this is gonna win.

1:43:33And all the homies were like, no, no, no. Gary, you don't get it. I can type without looking at it. And I said, no, motherfucker, you don't get it. This has the fucking internet. And has apps. And once the app, you know, the first app that went viral on the iPhone was the beer app. You could drink a beer, remember? That meant nothing. But then you started having fucking Tinder and Uber and fucking Instagram. So everyone's gonna wear glasses because there's gonna be a killer AR app that you're gonna feel so left out because literally everyone who's wearing glasses right now is gonna be like, holy shit!

1:44:05And all of us are gonna be like, what the fuck? You know, it's just gonna be so obvious. And that reset of distribution, and obviously it's gonna be fascinating to see the battle to win the face between these seven to 10 tech companies, the stakes are high. this was high but that shit's on your that's every that's literally everything and again you will feel left out of the world because the world will start to AR activate like you'll be I'll go to a Knicks game and if I'm like no fuck the machine I'm fucking not doing the glasses like the game itself is going to be different for me what's like social media right now so people who don't want their kids correct don't have a kid so yeah they don't want their Scott Gallagher talks about this a lot and he's like you don't want your kid on social but all their friends are on social so like you're almost restricting them correct and I've always argued that social on the phone is gonna be mundane because we demonized the typewriter did you ever see the signs about electricity when electricity came into hotels they had to put signs that say Thomas Edison's electricity does not bring demons into this room do not light the switch I'm just gonna say Let me say this slow.

1:45:24For the first 10 years that electricity was invented in Manhattan, in hotels, there was a sign by the light switch that said, step one. This, by the way, this is 100 years ago. 150 years ago, I'm that old. It's funny though, it's funny. I showed him my report card today. All bad grades, except gym class. A and P only. But he didn't catch this part because we were streaming. I didn't get B's and C's in history. History will tell you the future. every light switch in every hotel in this city only 120 years ago which is really not that long of a period of time ago had a sign that says do not light this switch on fire literally people thought the way to use electricity was to spark a match and put it on the flip like I don't think people understand that innovation goes forever and it's definitely not gonna stop while you're alive.

1:46:21This is the fucking beeper and means nothing. So everyone who's keeping their kid off the iPad and the phone is in for a rude fucking awakening because their kids are gonna marry a fucking robot. As creators though, as creators with the glasses which as you say are coming, I believe it. But again, 10 years is a long time. Before you get too hot of like, oh fuck, it's a long time. But go ahead. Go ahead, finish. I'm sorry. Can we talk about our kids gonna marry Yes, I will. I'll answer that. Because I think that goes to the point that I was trying to make about authenticity. That's scary. It's coming.

1:46:54Authenticity is being redefined. Yeah, I agree. Go ahead. I'm going to start to see if I do it. Yeah. Well, first of all, Japan, it's happening already. Yes. Like, it happened. This is not predicting, but go ahead. Well, I think so much of us are thinking of entrepreneurship either through the lens of building companies or being creators ourselves. What would be your POV or advice then? if the distribution channel is changing, right? The phone is dying. We're now going to be seeing things through our glasses. That one person, not one person here should factor that in. That a decade is too far for everybody.

1:47:30Understanding it, being curious, it's good to know. To change a business strategy at this level makes no sense. But AI generated content, it's coming very quickly. It's here. It's here. That's different. Everybody here tonight, tomorrow, should use Nano Banano and understand it. Tomorrow, tomorrow. Your content with AI is like, to your point brother, is like, glasses, it's coming. It'll be good to remember tonight in six years, once you see something, you'll be like, wait, this is good knowledge for that. Kind of like I saw Bitcoin in 14, that led me to understand digital collectibles. Obviously, NFTs greed fucked it up, but like long term it's a lot there it was a 14 conversation ownership you can't own anything on the internet those are servers you own everything on the blockchain right so if money is on the blockchain so is everything collectible and physical and da da da so like that's how I view what I'm doing right now is what Aaron Battalion for Living Social did for me in 14 to explain no no a blockchain's decentralized servers meaning no one owns it which means a human can own it because no one owns it I'm like ah got it Right?

1:48:42That's like, what I'm doing here is like, hey, today, it's good for you to know in 12 or 13 years, in six years, somebody might say something like, I'm building an, God willing, all of you do very successfully, and you're in a place where you wanna deploy some capital for alternative investments, right? And you're in a place where like, you meet someone in seven years, you're like, I'm building an AR business. You're like, okay, wait a minute. Recall 2026 dinner. I'm hearing more that the glasses are a year away. AR is gonna really whirl in that, You see what I mean? Not today. AI, not one person here should not be making content with AI creative tools starting tomorrow.

1:49:22Like you have to understand it. What's contentious? I mean, yeah, the stuff that you're saying. No, you're saying no? No, no, I'm saying yes. Like the agent avatars that are now running and sort of like allowing people to scale is bananas. One thing to the point of distribution though, the counterpoint to that is distribution in real life. So I think that's, whether it's that or live, this need and yearning for synchronous, because everything that we've had is all asynchronous. It's where you want, how you want. But I think this sort of, the synchronous stuff. I apologize, they're gonna kick us out a little bit.

1:50:00I'm gonna sneak something really quickly in that is very tangible for all of you, and that's building on this theme. real life businesses in real life are about to explode. Yeah, basically it is. Correct. It's right here. That's right. And live sports and concerts and restaurants. Like, for a lot of you there's a real parallel to build business around you know, inhuman shit. Fashion shows and like real inhuman shit is... Like creative meetups and... Like non-scalable. Like what's gonna happen is there's gonna be no middle. it's gonna be deep advancement of tech over here agentic AI agents doing all like just shit that's like you gotta really start to study and then over here is like take me out to the ball game and like go to a stand up comedy show and do a if you're a fashion influencer doing your own fashion show and then meet up with all your fans and do meet and creep and step and repeat like it's about to be like Jetsons and Flintstones and nothing in between the mental model for that is the barbell right You don't want to get stuck in the middle of the market.

1:51:05You want to be on one side where it's about utility, accessibility, and ubiquity, or on the other end you want to be prestigious, highly gate-kept, you want to be protected by the moment. Yeah, by the way, you'll watch LVMH start to decline because they've made them brands too accessible. And if you look at high fashion, some of you are probably into this, like LVMH became too accessible and you start looking at some of the brands that are winning or some of the more of the Italian brands or a mess. Correct. Like Lori Piano is a great example. Like they didn't make as much money but they kept the line and now what you're seeing is as wealth goes up it's like wait a minute like LVMH, like Louis Vuitton is actually mid in the middle now all of a sudden you can already see the early signs of LVMH being in a very vulnerable side whereas Bruno and Piano and others are actually growing immensely.

1:51:56It isn't that valuable. You're too young and there's too much to do so you're valuing a hypothesis over getting such meaningful feedback that would actually allow you to guide your next move. The reason I do so many things is the data's more valuable than the outcome. And you're right because in the instances where I have tried random things I always gain, there's never a moment where I'm like oh I shouldn't have done that. Every single waste of time for me has been too valuable in information in return. People overvalue their time. Heavy. It's lack of humility, honestly. Challenging you because it's very clear that you already know so you just need to push.

1:52:42Yeah. That's what these things are for. Nights like this are that. Totally. Literally, I posted an Instagram story because I was inspired by everybody here needs to think about it's very clear that you're holding back and one man's point of view, like I can smell it from a mile away that that's hurting you, not helping you. Yeah, I think also sometimes I find it, because this type of content that I make is super hyper-specific and I'm okay with that. That's good. Yeah, like I'm not trying to diversify necessarily, but I do feel like... Do you yearn to sometimes share other things?

1:53:21I don't know, because I think that my concept of that is like sharing my personal life, but I don't necessarily know if there are other parts of, I don't know. There's not necessarily a baking thing that I want to share or something like that. Yeah, I get it. But I think what does interest me is the idea of other platforms and the live streaming and diversifying in that way. That's right. But I do have a hard time conceptualizing. That's distribution, not content. Right. I have a hard time conceptualizing how my world maps into that world because what I do, there's so much post-production involved.

1:53:56and so it feels very weird and like. Well, bare minimum, like sure, Twitch and Kik might be different, but where do you post social creative? Instagram and TikTok. Great, so like Google Shorts and Facebook Blue, there's no restriction to that. Yeah, spotlight. What about, because you were saying like with the spotlight thing, right? Like you're talking about frequency of content and I think that's another barrier for me is I don't post very frequently because the content I make is quite high lift. So don't. But like, yeah, okay. This goes back to, you don't have to, like I always talk about, this has been something, four posts a day, like blah, blah, blah.

1:54:38But like that's could. That's not have to. What you definitely don't have any restriction against is posting that on Shorts and on Spotlight and LinkedIn could be massive for you. I mean, there's a lot of us here that are very affected by LinkedIn. and like, you know, so. You see what I mean? Like some of this, like the reason I jumped in and went deep is because I think this is helping others. Some of the things we just talked about for three minutes are incredibly easy and others are things that you don't want to jump over and that goes back to, you know, could versus have to. There's everybody, that's why I love platform expansion.

1:55:15Even if you did it in a way, my ideal way for all of you to platform expand is get good enough to know the subtle differences of thumbnails, first three seconds in copy on all seven platforms. But if I just accomplish tonight all of you posting the same exact video with the same copy on three more of the platforms, it's still gonna work enough to have substantial returns on your ambitions. You're right. I wanna ask, incredible day, incredible dinner, how can we all help Stan grow better? John? What can we do better? This conversation would be you and Austin. What can we do to help you guys grow better because you built this incredible thing for all of us?

1:56:03What can we do to help? Did you invest in Stan? What's that? Did you invest in Stan? Ask John. He just did, actually. So did Gary. Robert, thank you for that. What I care most about with Stan is the mission, which is to empower anyone to get to work, make a living working for themselves. We're all here sitting here, coming from pretty humble backgrounds, having built something for ourselves in a way that in all society's time, it has literally never happened before, this ability to democratize success. And so I think the first thing that I care most about is like we recognize that we have the opportunity to inspire generations to come in a way that right now in society I think it's really easy to be super cynical and like recognize this is going on in geopolitics or this is going on with climate change and to recognize that like we are the change we want to see in this world is most important to me like we have the influence to spread the right values to have the right message and so that's actually what's most important to me around Stan and the business whatever it's the brand that I care about in the movement we want to create and so my ask would be like yo just keep doing what you guys are doing the reason why you guys were invited here was very intentional it's like we're trying to find our people who feel that way and can spread that message in terms of actually working with Stan spreading the message of like what we do when you're when you're inspiring other people to go after their dreams you can mention Stan what have you and then also those of you who don't we don't work with on a very like contractual or personal level we love the work you guys do on that thank you talk about so what would you talk about this how you want to move to curve up the oh yeah this is this is very personal to me um so at this point like my co-founder I talk a lot but stand about like why we're still doing it because at this point you get to some sort of financial security you're like oh wait it's her like some sort of thing I'm sure you guys have all felt this out.

1:58:04And you're like, oh, wait a minute. The little kid inside of me that thought this would make me feel happy is like, oh, actually none of this matters. In fact, I don't want the thing. I don't want the notoriety. What matters to us now is legacy and impact. And when I think about how fucking hard this job is, like I think about how entrepreneurship is one of the greatest forms of self-development, right? Of how you have to like, to make your first job online, to go live with that confidence like you do to make a million dollars. Like, there's so much pre-work to make that first dollar. You're gonna just challenge for eight weeks with thousands of people trying to get them to make their first dollar.

1:58:40You have to be so many insecurities about yourself. We literally did our eighth call today and like the amount of people that are still have not posted their first piece of social media and I'm like on there for an hour fucking going. I was on with a lot of you. Like I'm like bringing every, you know like. I got so. I'm a shithead. I'm a shit head. I'm full of shit. I'm full of shit. I'm full of shit. I'm giving it every move. I'm like a ninja with all my weapons in the bag. For eight weeks, I'm doing everything I got. And this fear is deep. This fear is fucking deep. Everyone is literally stuck in seventh grade forever.

1:59:21Literally valuing the opinions of strangers that you don't even like. All of my partners made fun of me. Of course. They're like, what are you doing, bro? It's embarrassing. You're 50-some years old. TikTok and Instagram is for kids dancing and all this stuff. I go, you guys have no fucking clue what you're talking about. Literally no clue. And a month and a half later, I resigned and I've never spoken to any of them again because they wanted to diminish what I was working towards. Yeah, but there's another way to look at that. I would argue that the ones that make fun of you are envious of your courage.

1:59:56Correct. Well, that's the whole point. is because we're talking about Mike, me and I need to hang out way more often. You have to put the official scriptures, the shit that's naturally in me. Can you help me? It says the scripture, hey, it says the word, the scriptures. We need to hang around where you can be like, hey, that was 14. That's the version of Sally 17.4. I don't know the official shit, but I fucking know. The reason I'm bringing that up, brother, is because I like you a lot. I actually think cutting those people out is the counter move. I actually think having the compassion and empathy to understand they envy your courage.

2:00:31Like in fact, I actually challenge you to reach back out to them and check in and wish them well. I mean that. I get it. But I'll tell you what, I don't know all the details and I have a funny feeling the little jokes at the table wasn't fully the full story of why you're not there but I will argue one of my favorite things that I jumped on early, actually this may help some of you, the second you're able to be strong enough to engage with the negative feedback as with compassion and sympathy. I don't know all of you, but I've never in my life have gone on someone's account and said something negative.

2:01:09It wouldn't even run through my mind to take the 13 seconds or nine seconds to consume something to then even, and I'm talking about the height of politics and there's been a lot that's happened the last seven years and I'm passionate about a lot of things in my life, but I've never done that. and I don't judge if someone has there's been a lot of weak moments and everyone goes through shit but the concept of someone taking time like imagine living a life to go around and try to shit on someone they're miserable you know you know like I just I honestly don't know how to look at that with anything other than like first gratitude that I'm not in that place that the luck of parenting and circumstance and then second and just like, I feel bad, man.

2:01:57Like my happiness and joy, back to this group specifically, back to Chosen, a lot of people here are pushing in their own ways something that's pretty good and like, you know, it triggers, like basically when I'm, by the way, what I'm doing on TikTok Live is I'm poking at zits. I'm just pushing at everyone that like you need to be accountable. Like everything's in your control. Like we have to understand what's actually happening here. Politicians have had a great run of telling you, you suck and I'll take care of you. Both sides. They say the same thing. You're not capable, I got you. And my thing is like, I got real things to talk to you about, mentally and financially, but I actually can't help you.

2:02:41You're capable of helping you. And a lot of people aren't ready for that level of accountability. Like, I don't know where everyone's at, but like literally I'm just gonna keep it incredibly real with all of you. 100 % of everything in your life right now that's not going well is on you. Because you can control it. Meaning like there's bad stuff, like parents get sick, like real stuff, but you can still control how you deal with it. Parent gets sick, do you decide like this is the worst or are you grateful for the time you've had? Like you're in control. Don't like New York because of the new mayor?

2:03:13Move, dick. Like I don't know, like you're allowed. Like you know, don't like the president? Leave. Sweden's sick. It's a great book. Ryan Holiday's Stillness Is Thee. Well, all his books are really great. Yeah, Ryan's great. But it led to me having that thinking of any situation. Good. I was on a, when the airlines were all going to shit. Yeah. It's like, I tried to teach this to my girlfriend, but like, I was like, all right, like, there's nothing we can do. Correct. So I'm just gonna sit and do what I do. But like, when everyone's like complaining, it's like, what's the point? Like, there's nothing to do.

2:03:50And by the way, I travel a trillion times a day. Like, people yelling at people at the airport. And the thing that always fucks me up is like, almost all of the times, it's in the geist of keeping you safe. Like, we're not, like, we're gonna change this part in the plane because, you know, if we don't, we're gonna go up and we're gonna go down and be out. And you're crying because you're gonna be an hour late for your meet. And the people yelling at these poor people that, I have the most compassion for people at the airport. or they get fucking shit on. That's a real job.

2:04:26All right, so we're gonna talk about AI? Let's do it. You mean that AI influencers are gonna put you all out? Yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah, it's coming. Well, can I just put on the other point? Cut for it, Ben. I'm Sarah, by the way. I mean, spiritual communication contact. Ben's leaving, let's clap it up for him. Thanks, Michael. It's so nice to meet you all. This is really great. Have a great night, bro. Sarah? Yeah, I mean, to your point, I think something I've been really thinking about is like, and I mean, my whole career is basically mindset work with people. And what I've realized, and it just like actually saddens me so much to see how many people's dreams just dissipate because of mindset work.

2:05:11Like fundamentally, like, I think so often we're teaching strategy, do live, do this. you can fucking win with obsession alone. Like that is the only thing you need. Like I've seen so many people get an Alex Ramosi book. You read one Alex Ramosi book, you have the entire playbook. You don't need anything else. You don't need a video. You don't need, and it's like people will read every strategy and they will never take action. 100%. They will never win because there's something in their subconscious limiting that. Do you know that that's how my content changed? For four years, all I did was put out tactics.

2:05:44Like this is what works, this is what works, this is what works. and the reason I changed my content was like I couldn't understand why people wouldn't I would literally be like drink this it's free and it will work and people are like no and that is when I started talking about self esteem and insecurity it's only that it's only that what I don't like is that when people figure that out a lot of people this is my biggest issue with therapy I'm obsessed with therapy I am devastated by how many therapists don't look to solve the problem they keep the client in perpetuity they don't go to the places and I find that very selfish and I find a lot of influencers do that as well you're absolutely right there is no tactic that will mean anything if you're not there mentally none and you were talking about the victim mindset and everything and how so much of our lives are in control I was just thinking about how I was talking to my mom and I was like I think it's so Look, I had nothing growing up.

2:06:48And I was talking to her about it. And I was kind of getting into an argument where I was like, this is so unfair. Everything I have, I worked for. You didn't contribute a single thing to my success. And she was like, but aren't you only here because I gave you nothing? And it just like, and she's right. I would not be, I wouldn't have the grit, the, like anything. You know? And so I don't view it as like victimhood or like, I am who I am because of everything that led me here. Of course. I don't know. So I think it switched my perspective a lot because I did blame my parents a lot. And I didn't even come to New York City for years.

2:07:28I avoided this city because it reminded me of that. I get it. And I was like, look at this. There's not one person here. I have publicly spent hundreds of hours telling the world that my mom is the best of all time and I truly, truly believe it. I could spend the next 30 minutes of this dinner telling you many things that I feel my mom did wrong and put me in the wrong spot. There's not one person here that isn't, back to, who's a parent here? Who's a parent here, right? So, like, we can do everything we're gonna do. Like, there's 0.0 chance that they won't have those same things. It's just the way the game is built.

2:08:02But I think, to your point, if you're at a place where you're starting the process at this young of an age to realize that

2:08:15I had this conference called VCon that came along with my NFT for three years and my opening sentence in VCon 2, literally, just come on stage, 10 ,000 people, opening mic, literally opening mic, opening line, fuck your grandparents. And the whole crowd is like, what the fuck? Like literally everyone was like, what the fuck is going, like I never said it before, this is my core fandom, so I never heard it from it. And it's like, so, I'm like coming out like all smiley, but I knew where I wanted to go. I was like, all right, so let's go. Number one, fuck your grandparents. And everyone was like, what the fuck's going on?

2:08:48And I wanted to make a point. I was like, so many of you in this room are so bent out of shape about your parents and you don't realize the shit that they're doing to you, their mom did to you and you love grandma because she gave you cookies. And meanwhile, all your problems with mommy is because of grandma and you're giving her a pass. So on the record, fuck your grandparents. and I think when you start getting into that place of grace and understanding that like they had parents too and your grandpa I was really lucky I was born in the Soviet Union I immigrated here when I was three in Russia you literally had a baby nine months to the day I, Gary Vaynerchuk was born nine months to the day of my parents' wedding night the actual day everybody had a child within ten months everybody and everybody got married at 20 so I got very fortunate my mom's 20 years older than me, my grandma was 60 years older than me, and my great grandma, like I literally knew my great grandma well.

2:09:45And one of the things that worked, my father is incredibly flawed, has done so many things that could have broken me if I wasn't built by my mother, but I've never been able to fully get into a bad place with my dad, cause I knew his mom, and she was worse than him, and she fucked him up, and Grandma Esther was crazy. And then the reason I wasn't crazy bad to Grandma Esther is great grandma Anya. She was the fucking OG OG and she was even like, and then like, so I got lucky that I actually got to see, I lived with them in a studio apartment in Queens. Like we really grew up like that. I know most of you don't have that, but I promise you, whichever parent you're struggling with, their parent and then the great, great parent that most of you don't know.

2:10:31And like, I think that starts to help you as you get older to like kind of take that resentment away. and to her point, listen, there may not be a more significant statement than adversity is the foundation of success. Got it all joy when you face trials. Everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.