Listen If You Are Scared to Get Into Content Creation

0:00I think that most people are scared to do stuff because they're not sure if it's gonna work but it's definitely not gonna work if you're gonna just keep talking to each other. That's guaranteed. It's guaranteed that nothing's gonna happen if you keep talking to each other. And there's a high percentage chance that it won't work out but at least you won't regret it in 13 years that you never did it. Well listen, it's a real pleasure to be with you. Thrilled to answer anything, any way I can provide value. So let's just maximize time before they drag me on stage. So anybody, fire away. So the last couple of days it's become really clear that you're all about being genuine and providing value.

0:38Yes. And you said yesterday that you never get asked this question. So as content creators, how can we provide our audience more? Yeah, what he's referencing is I believe that a lot of people hit, you know, all of you are on your journey. And we, you know, I've been really focusing on this space since 2006. it's a long time back to being 10 years you know like fuck i'm so old 10 years right you know but it's very clear to me you know 15 almost 20 years later everyone here has gotten to a place based on their talent their creativity their work ethic and like anyone in anything then especially in this game with an audience you then hit a place you're in a place like of course you keep growing but like there's a place and I think the thing that I'm most fascinated by is if people could really take that next step with themselves and say okay I've been producing in a manner that has a lot of energy towards what am I going to get out of it I want to be famous I want to make money I want to send them to our page and turn them into a paying customer I want more followers I want more likes.

1:48If you can make that shift to why would anybody want to watch this thing that I'm about to post? It can make them laugh. That's escapism. You may be an attractive person. That brings value. You may give business advice. There's a million reasons why something could be valuable, but really starting to push yourself into what's very clear, what works for me, and what I see in others that take the next steps is genuinely pushing yourself to try to provide actual value, actually. And so that's it. It's not a super complicated. It's kind of like, I think of these things similar to the way I think about health and fitness.

2:25Like it's not that complicated to get into better shape. Like there's a calorie situation. There's a protein situation. There's going to the actual gym and doing it. Of course there's technique if you want to maximize your muscles. But the reality is it's not so complicated. It's hard to do. right you know it's what i just said is profoundly simple do you think every time you post how is this actually bringing value or do you think about this is going to do well and get me more followers or this is going to lead to sales of a t-shirt or this and that and so but i don't i think people should worry about what they want i'm talking about a group like this that's already gotten to a real place and it's thinking about how do i get to the next place and i think adding the element of selflessness is a incredible formula for growth and it feels nice thank you you're welcome i brought an interesting one actually sorry please no worries brother no worries um but like kind of jumping off that then what's your thoughts on you know how there's like the 80 20 rule year for making money so like in business venture towards what that 80 percent and it's the most and then whatever else is like, over the 20%.

3:42What if that 20 % is the shit that you really love to do, but it's not making that much money, and 80 % is what's making you all your money? Like, would you split that lower to 50-50, or would you keep doing that 80-20 until the 20 becomes 40 or something? My goal would be for the second thing to be 100 and then live within the means of what that provides. I think that's the ultimate goal of a human being. like I really question the concept of the next variable after one makes the money so if you think about it right you're saying hey 80 is what makes the money 20 is what brings me to happiness my you know if we're having dinner for four hours and become great great friends over time I'm looking forward to it you know from scene to best friends right you know like to me the To me, the question I have with all the people that most are important to me is, let's just play this out.

4:36Like, what's the money for? How much money? For what? And like, what ends up happening is, what I know is that when you're, how old are you, dad? 51. I'm 47, right? So we're in a different place than a lot of people in this room. I know that the people that I talk to that are a generation above us, 82, 91, like the money talk starts to dissipate very quickly. And so the question becomes, you know, my recommendation is to spend as much time as possible on the 20%, you know, because happiness is just so much more sustainable. And more importantly, what are you doing with the money that you make on the 80 %?

5:16I think most people are buying a proxy to happiness, not actual happiness. They think they're buying happiness, but it's not their actual happiness. And so I'm very fascinated by that question. I would push you as much as possible to the other stuff as much as humanly possible this is the 20 % vlogging good for you brother and what you know if vlogging is your 20 % then you're starting to go into my territory my happiness comes from being a businessman when I was 5 or 6 or 7 or 3 when everyone in high school was trying to like party and hook up and have fun the most fun thing for me was going to the flea market and selling shit that was more fun for me you know what I mean like I really like it more like I like it more than going to a concert though I understand that that's a minority I can't help my chemicals it is more fun for me to go to the baseball card show or to work at my dad's liquor store stocking shelves than to do what most people find fun that worked out for me because what I find the most enjoyable and fun and that I was naturally good at also has a direct correlation to creating money.

6:29If your fun is blogging, that has a direct correlation to making money because you're building branded awareness. Yeah, so my 80 % is like different content. My transition content, I've still got employees to pay and stuff like that. I totally understand. The question, the other side of the pillow of what we were just talking about is the tolerance for the 80%. The other thing that's interesting is when you're doing something that is paying for your livelihood, where are you? Are you in, I used to fucking love it and now I just like it. That's fucking amazing. I kind of used to like it and now I'm just kind of like whatever with it, like neutral, still pretty good.

7:10I've never really loved it and now I fucking hate it. Now I'm starting to get scared. That's where I've seen so many of my friends in so many people for so many years starting to get into a dangerous place because hate it starts to leave opening for them to take their money and spend it on shit to close the gap on them hating their day to day, which gets into dangerous territory. So, you know, for all the people that are tolerating or going through the reality of there's something that provides you the money and you're not doing your passion, I just need to know where you sit on that. Like, kind of okay, I can tolerate it when it starts bleeding into I hate it, you have to be careful.

7:51Very good, thank you. You're welcome, brother. Because what I see so often is when they hate it, then what they're using their money for is to close the gap on pain, and that gets into alcoholism and drugs and thrills and womanizing and just all the stuff that can really ultimately lead to hitting rock bottom emotionally. Lots of UFC cards. Well, that I love. UFC cards are good. um where do you think so we struggle a lot with um getting videos demonetized and censorship and stuff like that where do you think social media is going i think there'll be i think there'll be decentralized social networks built on the blockchain that'll have no no censorship and you'll be like you know athletes that are professional athletes are always mad at the next generation because they make much more money but they're not as good at them uh you'll have that same feeling they'll be in 15 years there'll be a crew and you're gonna look at them and be like they're not even as good as us but they don't have the same headaches you had because that's just how the world works but you have it better than the people 20 years ago that had to go to hollywood and be discovered do you think platforms like rumble and twitter because they don't obviously censor anything do you think they'll start growing and overtaking the others or do you know i think it's been very proven that things that are censored are always a smaller niche than things that aren't i don't feel overtake i think you'll have options you know what I mean you know they won't overtake and what gets censored changes over time too you know what we deem as censorable or like my career which we've talked about a couple times on this trip because Steve works at Vayner Speakers and we've known each other a long time before he worked with me and like I mean I was told to my face that I could never be a big speaker in 2009 because I cursed too much and that I dressed too casual for the business crowd.

9:43So, you know, I think, and I left a lot of money on the table, just like you're leaving money on the table because you can't monetize against things of that nature. It goes back to his question. Are you going to change or are you just going to be patient to when, you know, and that becomes the game? You could also do what you're doing content-wise. You could make content that is beeping out or slightly more edited and social, but then drive them to your environment and be as crazy as fucking you want to be. And as you should. So don't be philosophical or emotional about it. Double down on the truth.

10:17One of the biggest strengths I have is I leave my feelings at the door when I do business. Instead of being like, fuck the system. And, you know, I just make fucking mundane content and like with beeps and slightly altered and censored and drive it to my site. You know, because every minute that you two say, fuck you know meta or instagram or tiktok is a second that you're not putting into creativity to drive people to go to your website fighting the punchline is not interesting give it no energy and then where people get caught is they go to rumble and they think like or this and they're like but it's a small percent like they're they're cutting their nose despite their face proving nothing to nobody they're just getting steamed in their own room Like this is where the whole world is right now.

11:07They're just fucking festering with each other on some shit that doesn't mean anything. Make fucking one, make the censored content on social, siphon them off and live your happiness. I got a question. Yes brother. There's a lot of things, like I'm a bit different to the other people in this room. Okay. Content threads or anything like that. At the moment, I'm doing like sales and everything. Yes. It's a really good skill to learn. It is. And a few of my friends are YouTubers and everything and they tell me, oh, James, you'd be great on the camera. You can talk to people.

11:41Do you want to? Yeah, I do. Okay. Harry and I were thinking, like, because he wants to change up his content a little bit. He obviously needs someone in front of the camera. So, like, it's just transitioning into that. Why do you have to transition? Why don't you just do both for a time? Yeah. Well, it's also actually doing the content. Because we talk about it all the time. doing videos and stuff like that, but it never actually gets done. What are you guys scared of? I don't know. Probably. I think I'm just safe with what I can do, which is the festival. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. Makes sense. Well, it's what you can do now.

12:21I think that most people are scared to do stuff because they're not sure if it's going to work. But it's definitely not going to work if you're going to just keep talking to each other. That's guaranteed. Yeah, I mean, it's guaranteed that nothing's gonna happen if you keep talking to each other. And there's a high percentage chance that it won't work out. But at least you won't regret it in 13 years that you never did it. Regret is the poison of society.

12:51You know, like, you just gotta get, you know, I think the thing to think about is,

12:59like, what are you gonna get made fun of by your friends because your YouTube channel didn't do well? Who gives a shit? What are you? You know what I mean? They're not in junior high. Like it's gonna be okay. Yeah, of course. I started on a business last year and it failed, right? And I learned so much from that where I could grow more from that. So those things are starting up, you've learned from that and you can grow and become bigger from that. And there's people who fail 16 times in a row and decide to never try again. But at least when they go into the ground, they knew they took a fucking swing.

13:35Have you had any failures in recent years? Businesses or? Like, yes in the micro of them, not in the macro. You know? But I'm also an extremely experienced operator who like has a really good sense of like what he does. You know, like most of the business, like I'm extremely good at my craft, but I would fail at most things that I wasn't good at my craft and I was doing for the first time. like you know i got my ass kicked the first time i played pickleball i'm taking up jujitsu in september i don't think it's going to go very well the first year i have a funny feeling i'm going to get hurt and lose a lot like you know so you know for me in business you're now talking about the place i've been training since i was six like and i had natural talent in it and i don't even logically know how to launch a business that would fail like i don't even know how to do that no different than people here would couldn't fail at the thing that they were meant to do like if you're funny or like if you have athletic ability like there's some people are just athletic and the first time they do anything it's going to be pretty fucking solid they'll hone their skills but they're athletic if i'm not capable of starting a business that's gonna fail if I'm running it.

14:56I've had a lot of failures where I'm like kind of like partners with someone and I'm not doing it or I'm like helping out. But if I'm driving the fucking car, there's no fucking chance. But that's also because I'm 40 years into practice and I was naturally good at it. If you've never done it, if you go from never doing it to having a business, well, that makes a fucking ton of sense. Like if I was forced right now to sing a fucking concert, it would be a fucking shit show. you know but do but do i but do i think in 13 years i could put on something that was at least serviceable with 13 years of fucking singing lessons i do at least serviceable probably not good because it wasn't an act i'm not fucking beyonce but it would be a hell of a lot better than if i just went out there and sang fucking nine songs right now there'd be like three people left in the fucking crowd you know so i think i think we don't talk enough about that with business everyone's like i'm just gonna be a creator and i'm just gonna run a business i'm like okay fucking Mazel Tov, but like, if you've never fucking tried, like, this is gonna be gnarly.

15:55You know, like, I made videos on YouTube in February of 2006 every day, till today. I've made video content on the internet every day since. Pretty much, I mean, there's, you know, and so like, that's a lot of practice. But the first time I spoke in 2007, it was good. Because I was naturally talented at it. And then I got better. and so like people spend too much time wanting to be something they're not instead of analyzing who they are and then you make decisions. Back to that question, you just might want to be a rapper and it's okay to be a non-commercially successful rapper because it gives you tremendous joy and if you live within the means of what you've been able to accomplish but being the 70th trillionth best rapper in the world, that's a happy life.

16:41These are the convos we need to have more of. I prepared something for you. Yeah.

16:50I'm happy to do it. Sure.

17:05We're here with Gary. I am here. Gary, have you ever heard of a car story before? No. You've never heard of it? Nope. I wrote a story with a pack of cards. Okay. I'm gonna shuffle these cards, just like so. Give it a suck jam shuffle. All the cards, you can see they're all normal, right? All the cards. Yeah? Well, hold on. Is this normal? Is that a joker? That's a joker, yeah. Okay, fine. This story is about a guy named Jack. Okay. He was born in 1975. That's me. Oh. But what's crazy is he had a mom, he had his dad, and Jack at the age of just 8 years old. He started a lemonade store and he started selling lemonade for 25 cents.

17:54What? Crazy right? When he was only 14, he started making$2000 per week, doing all his business, current sales, all that card selling. VaynerMedia, VaynerX, started making tens, hundreds, thousands, millions of dollars. Crazy respect right there, right? Here we have 2, 0, 2, 1, the year 2021. He had over 8.9 million followers on Instagram, 3.6 million Twitter followers, and 3.4 million YouTube subscribers with over 379 million channel views. Pretty crazy, fam. But here he was impressing all the ladies, all the guys. Today the man is 47 years old, written six books and I'm not joking Gary, these six books he wrote, Jack had over five times New York bestseller.

18:52That's, round applause right there guys, come on, that's a big thing. He's telling people ace life, literally with this content he's helping people to ace life. Jack had one dream, to buy the New York Jets which is currently worth 5.4 billion dollars. But wait, why does he want to do this? Because of his mom. The real reason was because of his mom. Because when this guy was only 7 years old, he wanted to buy the jersey and couldn't afford at the time, so he made a dream, so he would buy that jersey, go to that stadium, own the team, put it right in front of it. And you know how long it took his mom to make that jersey?

19:48Three weeks.

19:54That is incredible. Brother, that was really well done. Thank you for doing that. Give That was really nice. Really nice, brother. You really inspired me so much in the past 10 years of my life. And I've been doing magic, acting. I've got a lot of opportunities through YouTube because I've been grinding on social. I watched the video of yours when you, like, the video for 20-year-olds. Yes. And it was, like, high risk. Yep. And I was, at the beginning of the year, I finished my university degree in marketing media. I was doing a lot of crazy stuff here with filming and magic and all that. I went to LA and I started studying acting over there.

20:32I ended up getting a manager in acting and I started working a lot over there as well. And then I recently did my first feature film, which is by Dev Patel called Not. So it's been a hell of a journey and I just wanted to say that you have really done a lot. Thank you, brother. Thank you, brother. Thank you, Bruce. Amazing. So well done. It's crazy. That's good shit. It's amazing. So well done. It was an exciting moment. It sounded emotional. and you're gonna go outside. Yeah, it's really good. Thank you, brother. I'll let him wake you up. A few more minutes? Yeah, I'll let him wake you up. Okay.

21:05Do you wanna go down the ship? Yeah, that'd be great. All right, let's keep going. I wanna max you. Thank you, brother. Yes, go ahead. So obviously you make a lot of content. Do you obviously see the editing process? Do you get your editors to like fine tune what they're doing? Like do you? They're working. We have a WhatsApp. The whole team's on it. I will give feedback, but I'm pretty big on like letting them have the creative freedom posting and learning post game so i'll say things there's a lot of feedback i won't post it if i don't like it what would you say i would say almost 50 percent of what you i would say like 50 to 70 percent of what the team makes i don't post because i didn't feel it doesn't feel right a lot of times i write all the copy so a lot of times the video will get to a place and I know I can get my point across by adding the copy.

21:57But then we have meetings, I add my two cents, I talk about things. It's a constant conversation, but I'm very built in the volume and putting it out. I also like learning. I also like when I didn't like it and it does well, I'm learning. Going back to Maylan's question before the 80-20. Yes. How do you get better with time management when you've got so much going on and all are doing really well. I'm very good at that. So this is something I'm confident in. Go ahead. I guess because, and they're all different types of businesses too. So you've got your ad revenue. I got it. Then another one's the blog channel, which generates revenue to the merchandise or food sales.

22:40Yep. And then you have the subscription. You've just got so many things so important to your business. but you're just constantly flat out. How do you get better with trying to manage your time? People. What about when it's a brand so revolved around you? People. He just asked me about my own content that is me and I said giving people freedom. It's me. People. You have a direct leader for every one of the different businesses and you have people that manage, like you have real admins to manage your time. Your time is your game. I have, I would say that 30 % of my meetings Monday through Friday are 15 minutes or less.

23:29What if you're not in the position to employ someone to do that? Stop buying stuff. Stop being so good. You know what I mean, brother? Like, invest in your business and your infrastructure before you buy the stuff. Like when, you know, like if we were like boys, I'd be like, show me everything. I'd be like, do not buy a fucking Prada bag. Keep that and fucking employ someone. Like that to me is fucking religion. You know? Like you can afford it. Because by the way, everyone in here has achieved something that almost every 18 year old wants. Everyone's different, but we're so like rigid, but that would be my answer.

24:08You can afford it. There's different ways to think about it. You know what I mean? You know, first I look at your life. First I go into accountability of your lifestyle. Live a little less bougie and get an admin. And then I go into, and some people are like, fuck you, Gary, I don't have anything. I don't buy anything. I'm like, okay, let's go to the next thing. You do have your platform, and people want your platform. They want access to your platform. They think you're cool. Gary, thank you. Of course, brother. The whole world of AI is obviously massive in the future. Yes. How do you think that can be brought into content creation?

24:39It's going to be, I mean, it's already massive. like have you played with it have you played with it yes but I don't really know how to apply it to anything I have 30 employees whose job it is to watch all the footage right now and find the best moments and we've already tested rudimentary AI that's better than that and photoshop anybody need dustin you know you know what I mean like right like But it's not like it'll just make them do different things. It's not like, oh, now you're fine. They'll do different things. When the tractor was invented, in 1860, 80 % of the world worked on a farm. Then we invented tractors, and we didn't have to do that anymore.

25:27We did different shit. So I don't think this, everyone's demonizing AI. AI is going to commoditize certain things, and if you are an Adobe Photoshop designer that doesn't have a thought to their brain, and you make everything that someone else tells you, you might be in trouble. But if you are an Adobe Photoshop designer that thinks their ass off as they make their stuff, that's not being replaced tomorrow. But it's going to massively impact content creation. It's going to massively impact everything. I got to go. Thank you, everyone.

26:07Bye.