Tea with Gary Vee Ep #76: Why Risk Is Your Best Business Strategy in Your 20s

0:00All right, all right, all right. we are in it good morning tea with gary b aaron i'm ready to go let's get into the show we've got a timely question it's graduation time for so many high school and college kids what's your one hint of advice for those hitting that milestone this weekend um look i think i've been very consistent on the issue of what should kids be thinking about my number one piece of advice if you're graduating high school or college is that you should be as high risk as possible. Meaning 18 to 30 is about dreams. It has to be. And I know so many people that I'm looking at right here did not go down that path.

0:43And all of you are so young and yet it is so obvious to me that this is still not an accepted point of view. But I really believe that 18 to 20 has to be about dreams because my belief is that dreams are funded with humility. Meaning, if you were humble enough to eat and live shitty at 22, you can literally cheat. Again, everyone thinks about this. I can't do it. I have to get a job. And I keep going to, you can do it because 18 to 30 is the only time that most people find it acceptable to live with two or three or four other people. And I know people do it in New York City. People come to New York City and LA and get roommates because it's so expensive to chase their dream.

1:35But people don't do it as much in places that are not as expensive. You have less roommate mentality of like, I'm going to live in Tulsa, Oklahoma with five other roommates. But that is out there for everyone, 18 to 30. and I you know my biggest piece of advice is if you're not going to follow or chase your dream of uh what you want to be when you grow up from 18 you know to 25 like when are you going to do it because you're definitely not going to do it when you have kids can everybody in the whatnot chat right now who's over the age of 35 and have children can you please leave a comment right now and explain to everybody in the chat how real what I'm saying is how literally utterly impossible it is to actually chase your dream once you feel that enormous stress and responsibility of taking care of your children until you have children even when you have a spouse you are still in play in a different way but the second that kid comes along i'm telling you it gets hard to really go there and 18 to 25 is when you can literally literally live humbly but the problem is everyone's so insecure and they want to show people they're successful and they want to buy stuff and so they sell out their dream to seem responsible or successful to parents friends and strangers which fucks my head up so that's my advice Aaron be be a dream chaser all right let's go to the next question Aaron one more from you um how do you get past what's your experience question when starting a company?

3:30One more time. How do you get past the what's your experience question when starting a company? People judging them for not having experience. Oh no, I understand. My face is of disgust. Aaron, do you know that most great companies of all time were started by people that never did anything before? What's my answer? Nothing. I'm not answering anybody. I guess, are they asking from the context of raising capital? Or is it about judgment? You don't know. I don't know. So you can answer whichever way. I'll answer both of them. If you're raising capital, you tell the person, I don't have any experience, but I believe I can do this.

4:09Mark Zuckerberg had no experience. Elon Musk had no experience when he was a co-founder at PayPal. Like, what? Like, most people don't have experience. That would be my answer. That would be for an investor. 99 % of investors will say no anyway this is just one of the reasons they would choose to say no to you and then as far as judgment of others I would tell them to go fuck themselves nicely like who gives somebody casting judgment like hey you can't do that you don't have experience I would say thanks Sally but fuck you I don't care about your opinion you're not an entrepreneur you're not living the life that I want to live because you know who would never say that Aaron me I would never say to someone you don't have any experience I may say hey go and work for someone that's like this if you want to get some experience to mitigate some of the risk of you doing this but I wouldn't judge them you know so all right do we have anybody on camera bro oh my gosh Gary V what's up man what's up Joey I'm trying to ask you a question Who do you think was going to be on the other side of the camera you press the button you're watching the show it's me Oh dude I'm so stoked I always do it brother sorry I know we don't got time so I'll ask you my question real quick I'm part of a super successful family business but I want to follow my dream and do music I know that's a real risky route I've been doing music for seven years trying to do both you can't serve two masters Is it okay to leave the family business to follow your dream?

5:44That's what I want to know it's not okay okay it is preferred gotcha it is i mean it's you you already know that this is what you want to do what's the downside the downside is you leave you fail in the music thing and then maybe i you know i don't know all the dynamics it's harder for you to come back into the family business and get the same financial weight because you had left and it's not fair for you to come back and get the same cut of the slice of the action. Would that be correct? Yeah, correct. Well, I don't know. I'm almost like the vice president right now. So if I leave, it's going to really shake things up.

6:28That's the problem I'm dealing with. Well, who's the president? Pops. Pops is the president. Well, it sounds like everything's going to be okay then. Yeah. Is Pops going to be pissed? Absolutely. Super mad. because pops is ready to chill and wants you to take the president role basically yeah he's he's ready to lay back and he just wants me he always tells people like i couldn't find anyone to do it so i had to make one myself which is me right and i'm super good at it but i i don't feel the passion for it but i know you were in a family business so how did you have like how did you leave what's your story i left because my father won twice i don't i built his business for him to such a high level and he was still young and he wanted to be the man because i was the man because i was really the president he was the vice president because i'd been really running the business for a decade and he wanted to be in you know he wanted to be the man again plus Plus, he knew that I would never really leave.

7:35I wrote the wine text that's about to go out that just went out 30 minutes ago. I literally wrote it in my office 45 minutes ago. So I really hooked up Pops in a huge way. Plus, I built out a corporation. So my dad was in a really good spot because I also had Brandon, who was ready to take on my responsibilities when I went to go do Vayner. Who would take on your responsibilities if you left? um they would have to find someone to be completely honest yeah who's the number three right now if you're the two number three is probably my brother who's working up he just started like a year ago though so he's got a lot to learn a lot to learn um you know one of the ways to learn is to be forced into it yeah that's true are you starting to resent your dad in any way no we no i you know i love my pops i love the opportunity he always tells me that like hey you can always do this and then you can do your music on the side i'm like pops i want to i want to sell out stadiums and it's not even about that like success is awesome i i really hope i get success but success is more just being able to follow the dreams and be doing it you know because as long as you're doing it and living happily, then you made it.

8:52You know? Are you good at it? Dude, I'll write you a V-Friends song right now for any character. You give me three days and I'm going to blow your mind. That is not a problem. Okay, well let me give you a character right now. Here we go. Three days to write a song. It's going to be card number three. Whatever card number three. Not the Gutsy Getsuko. Not the cynical cat. You are writing, not the dynamic dino, which is number four. You are writing a song about the mindful minikawa woo I need a song about the mindful minikawa in 72 hours alright give me your email you want me to send it to and it's gonna blow your mind I promise you the email is gary at vfriends.com got it no problem I will play your song you're gonna write it right yeah I'm gonna write it I'll write the beats I'll write everything for it it's gonna be a banger, I promise you.

9:47All right, then we need someone to actually record it, right, so we can play it. I will get Mike Boyd and Walsh to find an up-and-coming artist to record it, and we will play it on this show in the next 30 days. Deal. You got it. No problem. Brother, listen. Thank you so much. I think you can't live with regrets. I think you should have a real combo with your brother and dad and say, here's the following. I'm going for a sabbatical for a year to chase my dream because I don't want to be mad at you two men eventually I may not feel it now, but if I never go for this run, I'm eventually gonna be upset Pops, I'm gonna take one year one full year to chase this dream And then I will evaluate where I'm at professionally at the end of the year Bro, I am here for you in my downtime Even though I'm gonna work on music 20 hours a day in the four hours I'm gonna try to help you speed up your learnings so you can hold it down in the next year.

10:45What kind of business is it? It's financial planning. Financial planning, life insurance, tax arbitrage strategies, all that good stuff. Yeah, I think you say to pops and brother, brother, you're going to have to level up. Pops, I'm taking a year. I've given you, how many years have you worked for dad? I think about 11 years now. 11 years. Pops, I've given you 11 years. and I need this one year for me. And that's it. Okay. Okay. And the email is gary at thefriends.com, right? Yes, sir. Okay. 72 hours. It'll be in your inbox here. I promise. Can't wait. Thanks, brother. See ya. Peace. Aaron, I'm ready for next question.

11:26Doug asks, I don't really need to use AI, right? Because I own a local restaurant and it's all face-to-face, real people, real moments. So how would AI actually apply to what I do? does he want customers yes does does he have to make a menu yes you know do people place reservations on the internet for his place yes yeah he he needs ai there's not a single business on earth that won't need ai everything every ai is like internet he also thought he didn't need the internet you know that this is what people said to me erin literally actual restaurant owners told me at the springfield chamber of commerce they don't need a website they're like people come to my restaurant people have my menu at their house like i'm in the yellow pages this i've i've seen this movie before you see this gray you see this gray i've seen this movie before you Motherfuckers, AI is coming.

12:27It's here. It's not even coming. Use it. You don't have to do anything. Like, I mean, he's not using AI right now, but you're leaving opportunity and profit and growth on the table if you don't use AI. Erin. Okay, Jeff says it's my 40th birthday today. Happy birthday, Jeff. Let's clap it up for that. Go, Jeff. Ready? One, two, three. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Jeff. Happy birthday to you. Good shit, team. All right, go ahead. I feel behind and like I'm in a midlife crisis. Fuck you, Jeff. You're 40. Go ahead. Just started this content to build a coffee shop in honor of my brother.

13:22With my skill sets, I've built other people's dreams and put mine in the back. What's the way to cut all clients and focus on mine now? By cutting all clients. I mean, this show. I love this show and I hate this show. Read that back one more time nice and slow. Okay. I feel behind and like I'm in a midlife crisis. Just started this content to build a coffee shop in honor of my brother. With my skill sets, I've built other people's dreams and put mine in the back. What's the way to cut all clients and focus on mine now? I guess he's talking about like still needing the income from the clients before we can go all in.

14:05But the way you do that in anything in life is you start making more income on your thing. So it's just a slow burn. It's like you just got to give the coffee shop more effort so that money comes in from the coffee shop, which allows you to take one less client, one less client, one less client, the end. It's not complicated. It really isn't. I don't, people are looking for, what, Aaron, do you know what people are doing on this show and with me for the last decade and what's happening overall in real life? People are asking me for permission. They're not asking me questions. They're asking for permission.

14:38They're looking for my validation. They're looking for a push. like that's all that's happening here and what i'm trying to say is like listen to me and my content i'm telling all of you that fear is fake you're scared to fail in front of people that is your problem this is you can wrap up my entire being on the internet to say choose self-esteem versus insecurity therapy exercise motivational content the people you hang out with whatever it takes for you to become more confident and confidence comes from your capacity to not care about other humans judgment and i remind you that every other human is flawed and has shortcomings too and so you're allowed to fail and if they make fun of you that means they suck.

15:37I don't know what else to tell you. You know? So that's it. Like, that's it. All right, next question. Oh, what's up, Gary? Yo! What up? Oh, what's up? What's your names? Sarah and Evan. Evan with a B. Nice. Evan, Sarah, pleasure. Yeah. What can I answer for you? First of all, thank you for all you do. Thank you for encouraging the world to get on whatnot. It's changed our life. I'm sure you hear that time and time again. But long story short, we are a gourmet deep dish and stuffed cookie company. We've been in business a year. We've been mainly direct to consumer. Whatnot has kept us afloat and beyond.

16:20We just moved into a big facility, so we're ready to increase demand. Our North Star is corporate gifting. And with that, we want to leverage LinkedIn to... Talk to me about Whatnot real quick. You got on Whatnot, why? dude because you were like if you don't do it you're missing out like yeah you were drilling us for sure and so and what is and what has happened on whatnot like how much revenue are you doing give me some for instance 10k a month um after about two months of being on so we've been on about six months um and we you know our our main mainly our sales were coming from farmers markets but in november i was like yo we gotta we gotta take the leap of faith we gotta quit do this thing full time and then whatnot our followers everything skyrocketed repeat customers raving reviews um we legally cook out of a commercial kitchen you know we bake so we're we're licensed and insured we can ship nationwide so that was our leverage point that we're completely legit um as far as like shipping food and things so um it yeah it it wants more we want to be on more we just got to the point where we were too busy so we could only do what we could we made quick moves moved into a big facility.

17:30We're hiring a team, like I said. And now we can handle the demand and we want more. So we're going, okay, corporate gifting is definitely the North Star for us. How long were you live on whatnot? We were going live every single night, 7 p.m. Mountain Time. But then once market season hit here in Colorado, it just kind of got too hard to keep that up. But now they're hiring. You can hire interns to go live for you. Absolutely. Yeah, maybe. We should probably. Not maybe, Eben. absolutely yeah i love it that's that's absolutely on the radar yeah for sure hold on hold on before you get into ideology i want to talk about practicality okay whatnot is working for you but you're stretched thin so you're the we're not doing as much whatnot as we were and you were doing 10 000 a month by being on whatnot for how many hours let's break it down you were doing seven to what mountain time uh maybe 30 to nine yeah like hour and a half shows usually right and how many like real talk here because i want to really help you hour and a half shows how many days a week were you really doing it literally every day yeah amazing so so you're talking about about 10 hours a week so you're probably doing about 40 hours a month let's call it it sounds like to get to 10k yeah you do understand that you can hire what state are you in colorado what's minimum wage in colorado in our seven bucks seven bucks what is it it's about 15 in our county yeah great you do understand the math of this 40 hours a week $10 ,000 in sales.

19:16There are tons of grandmas, stay at home moms, high school, college kids, like you need to, you need to have to hire some people and do a hundred hours a week of whatnot. You know that, right? Yeah. Can I say our, our, our challenge, our one caveat too, is the permissions and admin like trusting the people with like bank account routing and just trusting the right people that they won't they have full access there's no way to limit permissions on the back end what are you talking about so like if we let like some stay-at-home mom like run the whatnot show she could also like see our bank account like in cash out or change your bank account like that's our fear is that there's so much no she can't she doesn't control the account well like how would she sell under crumb city she'd walk into your office right there okay okay we're not remote local okay got it gotcha brain blast yeah yeah this is good okay there we go worry about corporate why not quadruple down on the thing that is working I love it.

20:28I like that. Yeah, that's it. Wow. Okay. Quadruple. Yeah. I don't want to talk to you again ever until you're doing a million a month on whatnot. And then we can have a conversation. Your entire business is whatnot, not fucking corporate gifts on LinkedIn, not your fucking farmer's market. Your fucking business is whatnot. Okay. Sick. No, that's super good to know. Like, I love that. nothing else matters okay sick i love it you're amazing love you guys thank you all right let's go all right erin i'm ready okay um jess asks what do i do i'm in a partnership my partner wants to leave but doesn't and is thinking the ship my partner wants to leave but doesn't you force them out you know that whole thing when partners are half pregnant and they're fucking teetering the whole like by the way this is relationship advice as well anybody who's threatening to like leave and then not leave and then leave and then not leave like you fire them like for real like if you were in a business or personal relationship where the other person has multiple times threatened to leave and then change their mind i want you to help them and you leave them the end the end with this shit i hate that manipulation don't be scared you'll be fine you'll find somebody better i promise there's nothing here's what i know there's nothing good about someone who's doing that crazy shit to you so the alternative is already better all right next question eric how to start over i have over 30 years of working on the fitness field and created a mind and body program that worked for a while but now I don't know where to start I think we need to go to video these questions are too vague like I don't know like where do you start like making content on the internet um learning AI tools there's like so many things but a little too vague all right let's go to video hello Christian my name is Christian thank you for everything you do thank you for the lives you save thank you for the people you motivate uh just first and foremost just thank you for that uh Basically, long story short, I was formerly 485 pounds, no surgery, no nothing, did 14 diets, took me two years to lose it.

22:56I was formerly a high school dropout, was unmotivated, stemmed from a very low income household, not meant to succeed whatsoever. Currently getting my master's in higher education, which is ironic seeing how I dropped out of high school. uh and then i want to go for a phd in education and i want to brand this in some sort of manner because i want to my career wise my goal would be a college president's but on the way there i don't know if that's the ideal thing because originally i was thinking i want to help people in education but i brought it down to i just want to help people who have lost hope in general find hope and and prove to them that it's possible like i even have this like you can't really see it but i could see that was me you know like that was that's like i still got the glasses because it reminds me like my laptop background is really like you know never like it reminds me and i and i show this to people not to like boast about the accomplishment because i want to prove to them that it's possible and that you know by the way by the way like you're allowed to be proud of your accomplishment you know at you know communicating something that you worked hard to achieve is not boasting.

24:11It's you're communicating. And to your point, it will motivate many, but do not deploy insecurity or humility on something that is a tremendous accomplishment. You should be incredibly proud. It sounds like not only did you accomplish it, it sounds like you accomplished it, quote unquote, the right way. You know, non-surgery, non-short-term drugs that are not sustainable. So you clearly got your mind right. You changed your perspective and you went out and fucking executed for a year plus. And I do not know why you're not making daily content about your life and your point of views. I don't know.

24:48Everyone tells me I should. And it's like friends, family, you know. Let's talk about, oh, absolutely, San. I'm not demonizing those drugs. I think people that are diabetic should be using it. Please do not twist my words around. and that's not where I was going with it. I think you heard where I was going with it, so I appreciate it, but then I was not referring to people that actually need it, who have medical condition, but thank you. Brother, why are you not listening to those people? I believe it's that doubt of, because I currently work 65 hours a week, that's why I work two jobs. I truthfully believe that.

25:28That's the biggest fucking excuse I've ever heard in my life. I don't give a fuck if you have 19 jobs. It'll take you one second to fucking put a camera in front of your face and talk The fuck are you talking about you have two jobs? A day the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, it's I guess it's the self-doubt. It's that that soft out there's so many people doing it already You know it's gonna like so what does that have to do with anything every day every day somebody breaks out? And by the way, you're being very selfish. What do you mean? what do you mean everyone's already doing it aren't you you just told me you're trying to help people so wouldn't one fucking view and one follower and you helping one human on earth that is 513 pounds and has nobody around them and grew up in an environment where nobody could help them and you have the absolute story that can help her or him the fuck are you talking about you're being selfish you're not trying to help people you're worried about trying to get a bunch of followers and becoming famous.

26:30If you were worried about helping people, you would not have any of the doubts you're talking about. You're right. I know I'm right, right? Like if you're trying to really help people, people ask me all the time, like why do you still, do you don't understand how many of my well-off, successful, rich, accomplished friends that know all the baggage that comes along with me being so out there and putting out this content and doing this show right now? It's fucking, bro, do you understand that's 1 p.m. on the Friday of Memorial Day? Do you understand what people on my financial level and life are doing normally right now?

27:06They're fucking drinking rosé at the pool in the Hamptons. I'm fucking sitting and talking to you about fucking this content. All right. Do you know why I continue to do it? Because I want to help. So if you're not full of shit and you want to help, I don't want to hear your excuses. Make the fucking content daily.

27:30Yeah. Because everybody in the chat right now is full of shit, my guy. Everyone's like, oh, I want to help. I want to help. And then they give me their excuses why they're not doing it. Everyone's already doing it. How do I really get there? It's too hard. And then they just, all they do is talk about shit that's for them.

27:48Right. I love it. How would you recommend getting started? How would you just bring it? I'll explain. You're going to hang up right now. You're going to turn the camera around. You're going to hit record. and you're going to be like, Gary, you just yelled at me and here's my first video. And the first video is you're going to tell people the story. You're going to say, I was 435 pounds. I lost in 14 months. The biggest thing I learned from that was this. I'll see you tomorrow and I'll give you more. It's here next time. Okay, I love it. You know what? I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I believe you're going to do it because you did a much harder thing than what I just told you to do.

28:22Okay. Do you have an Instagram account? I do. I do. What is it? It's Christian underscore linking Spell it C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N Undiscord L-I-N-K-Y L-I-N-K-Y Yeah I posted one reel I do, it's the same I posted one reel and I just never did it again I did it after I graduated college To commemorate Because I dropped out of high school And I was a really bad student And I just never believed it I would like, you know, it's even, I don't want to cry. It's even being here, man. Like, like I live in San Diego and like I live in downtown and it's like, I, I grew up in a place with rats and roaches and it's like, I don't, I can't believe it.

29:11You know, like I can't, I can't. Bro, I can believe it brother. I, I lived in a studio apartment with roaches too. You do know that adversity is the foundation of success. it's more likely that someone like you and me is successful than the reverse. Yeah. I tell this people, every Monday I have this little thing in my head right here. It's like, right, sticky notes, right? Every Monday. And I remind myself and I try and I, I want to do what you do. Bro, you are so authentic. You're such a good communicator. Like, you're going to win this. You're going to actually pull this off. I want you to go to GaryVee.com slash attention.

29:55I want you to write this down. GaryVee.com slash attention. It's a 44-page deck that sums up the best practices on how to get views on social media right now. You got it? GaryVee.com slash attention. You see it there? It's pinned in the chat. Yeah. I want you to read that and I want you to watch the, I want you to read that. I want you to execute it and I want you to make videos every single day. Okay. I'll do it. Love you. Thank you. I love you too. God bless. Thank you for saving lives. Let's do a Be Friends pop-up vibe. Dustin, come over here for a second. Before I switch to the Be Friends show, I want to give a huge shout out.

30:34Let's clap it up for Dustin. Go ahead, go ahead.

30:41Today's Dustin's last day. He's moving out of state. He's a big boy now. We're going to miss Dustin. I know all of you are super sad. I can see all the chat being sad. He's following the long lines of the Caleb's and the Babins and the D-Rocks and the rest of the crew. We're really proud of him. I'm super sad that he's leaving. He broke my heart. It's unfair. I'll never forgive him. I'm kidding. I love you, brother, so much. Thank you for everything. Thank you. Let's clap it up for Dr.

31:19I'm sure we'll be seeing him. He'll be out there and he'll troll. We'll have him on the show in six months. He'll be like, what do I do? I moved to Arizona and I lost my way.