The #1 Thing Stopping You from Success

29:00But I was good at history. And I think that one of the things that keeps me happy, like AI. I'm not worried about AI because I know the history of electricity. Electricity was demonized and was gonna ruin the world. I literally was just talking about this yesterday. I can't believe it. I use electricity as the example. So I'm not depressed because I know it's better. Of course it's not better in every situation. It's just how we use things. It's just we spend all our time dwelling and being scared. And then people have figured out that fear is a weapon. So you have politicians, parents, bosses, is weaponizing fear.

29:36And then there's a few of us out here trying to sell hope and love, practical optimism. I'll tell you what's worse than being scared, is being entitled. Oh, and I wanna talk about that about the next generation, but before we do that, I wanna talk about the fear. What I see a lot of people doing is they're absorbing the fear of either. The reason that a lot of women don't go do the thing is they're either absorbing the fear of a mother, a father. My mom, when I started going online, she's like, this is dangerous. What are you doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why are you talking to the camera like strangers are going to.

30:06Yeah. And now she's like, you don't have your address list. Did you? And I mean, of course, there's some common sense things. Of course. She's been a mom about. But she, my mom has operated, and I love her so much, but she's operated so much. From place of fear. Of course she has. And I get to the end and think, I live now as the 102-year-old version of me. I think about her. I keep her in my mind's eye. When I get there and I'm taking my final breaths and the door of my life is closing, I don't want to have a damn regret. not to tell all the people how much I love them all of the time, not to do the thing or say the thing because Billy John two, three, six, seven, who's in his mom's basement telling me, go away grandma, nobody cares about what you're saying.

30:44I could give a shit about that. I am not gonna base my life and my decisions in this wild heart on some freak who's sitting in his basement. You have to hear this. And sometimes it's not a freak in a basement. No, but some of the things they say to me that I'm a freak in a basement. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I think you're right. I actually want people to be a little more thoughtful on this. I say freak in the basement all the time too. I'm not picking on that. It's almost never a freak in the basement. It's just an unhappy person that's trying to tear someone else down to get a little solace for a second.

31:15And often it's a guy sitting in a corporate boardroom or on a plane right now. Or a lady, like, by the way, I literally did a live today on TikTok. And somebody was like, man, you have an age well, you're like really ragging me. And I literally picked up the phone and I went to the light and I said, do I look better? And everyone's like, holy crap, because I looked way better. And I was like, I don't even care enough to get my lighting right. I know, I know. The message means more than the lighting. I remember that, I know. Now my producer's on my ass all the time about my lighting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, listen, listen.

31:46There's, you know, like, it's not a bad thing to do, but again, yeah, I mean, listen, I think that had a lot to do with what you did early on. I think you've been thinking about your 102nd birthday the same way I think about it. I don't know if you noticed when I walked in, when I hung up on the phone, I said I love you. That was to my best friend Brandon who runs the wine store. I say I love you to everyone. Like why not? Because I do, because why wouldn't I? And everyone who just responded in their heads to like what do you mean? Friends, I love everyone for real by the way because ultimately I love myself.

32:24That's it, that's it. Like no shit you don't say I love you to others. You don't love yourself. You can't extend what you don't already have or feel. Of course. Like instead of being mad at your dad who never said I love you and using that as a 48 year excuse, how about showing compassion to your dad in realizing he didn't love himself? Yes. Oh my gosh. Gary, I feel like we are, you're the male version of you and I'm the female version of you. This is literally what I tell my clients who I use the analogy of going to Home Depot, right? You keep going Home Depot every day and you're asking where's the milk?

32:56And they're like, oh, we don't sell milk here, but this store down the street does. You come back every day. Ma 'am, I'm so sorry. We've never sold milk here, but we have paintbrushes and ladders, right? You're asking for something they can't sell you. They don't have it. So it wasn't against you. They don't even have it for themselves. They've never carried it. How would you think they would offer it to you? Because people lack the humility. People lack the detachment. People don't realize they're completely self-infatuated. That's a big one. I think so. It's really, it's the bane of my existence sometimes with some of these people.

33:28Right, like, what do you mean your dad, what about your dad? What did you do for your dad? How about that? That's a good one. That's one that I haven't even really pushed enough on. Where are we at here, everyone? This is like a co-creative relationship. Yeah, like, this whole concept of the entitlement of childhood is fascinating. Alright, let's go with it, because I... Someone birthed, hold on, now I'm getting hyped. Yeah, yeah. Someone fucking birthed you. Yeah. And then you're like, do more. They did enough. Yeah, they gave you life. 400 trillion. Do you know this? It's 400 trillion. Current science has it at 400 trillion to one.

34:03The likelihood of becoming a human. Yeah. So let me get this straight. So someone that contributed, we're using dad here. The person that contributed the sperm that you became. To create a 400 trillion to one lotto ticket. You want something else? Right. Isn't that enough? That's the, yeah. We need to change, right? How about, by the way, I think this comes natural to me because I talked about it early in the podcast. I thought about what I'm going to do for them. At 14, 15, I'm like, I'm better. Instead of what normal kids do, and I say normal, oh, I'm going to go out and do my own thing, right?

34:42And by the way, my dad didn't make it fun either. I love my dad, but like, my dad's not my mom. Not only did I build it, I, by the way, you know why I'm good at therapy? I was my dad's therapist from 15 to fucking 40 to today, to yesterday. I moonlighted, people give me a lot of credit for the business I built for my dad. I'm like, if I didn't have to spend three hours a day being his therapist while I was building the business, I would have built a hundred million dollar business for him. I believe it. I have a lot of practice in therapy. It's called having my dad. I love this. I want to talk about - But by the way, I'm sorry, I apologize.

35:17Because I've never said this actually. Something just popped in my head. I don't think I've ever, I don't recall ever saying. I think watching my dad's transformation over those 25 years is actually why I have so much fuel to do what I do publicly. I mean, I am so happy. One of the great things that happened in my life is watching my father evolve. My father told me that the employees were our enemy the day I started for him. He told me to keep an eye on them because they're going to try to steal. They're the enemy. and I taught my dad that they're the family. Wow. How beautiful is that? And so beautiful that he was able to receive that leadership.

36:02Well, 25 years later, with all due respect, 700 trillion hours of fighting. Yeah, yeah. You know, but, ish. Ish. Because you know this, it's just a band-aid-ish. Yes. Everybody has a ceiling. Yes. Let me talk about a vulnerable, instead of being like, I'm so great. Yeah, yeah. Let me give you my vulnerability. I, this is gonna blow you away because as a public figure, it's my strength, but in private, it was my weakness. Okay. I will only ever in my lifetime get to so great at candor. Why is that? Because it really doesn't come natural to me. My mother struggles with it and that was my North Star.

36:46I got her DNA. I got parented by her. I acted on it for the majority of my life. And for most of my life, I thought it was my strength until I realized it was my kryptonite. Wow. Every bad thing that has ever happened in my life in my life is 100 % attributable to my inability to be candorous with the people I like the most. Wow. Wow. Is it still plaguing you? I would say that the fact that I can say this out loud and the fact of who I am I would say not plaguing me. Now it's annoying me. Oh, okay. Do you think it's something you're going to be able to work through? Of course. I mean, I've gone from in a world where I was really gifted with the DNA, the circumstance and the mother, the architect that allowed me to be an 8, 9, 10 out of most emotional things.

37:44Yeah. I was a fucking 2 in candor. Maybe a 0. And then And I started, for example, there was a Facebook group that was started of former employees at Vayner where 12 of them were just ragging on me. And people I gave a lot of heart to. But they weren't wrong. They were upset on how they got fired. You just told them you sucked? No, I wish I did. I told them on Friday that they are the best and on Monday I told them they were fired. Got it? I wasn't able to give them the critical feedback. And the way I thought I was rewarding them was letting them be able to work there for another two or three years.

38:25So I thought I was giving them like, you know, I would blame them back then in my 20s and 30s. I'm like, how do you not, Johnny, how do you not see it? You stink, I'm a fucking, I'm the best. I'm like still paying you and you stink. But I didn't say that to Johnny, I said to myself. And then finally I would tip over. And Friday I'm like, Johnny, good job on that thing. I'll see you, you know, Monday. No, no, no, no, Friday I'd be like, Johnny have the best weekend good job on this and Monday be like hey Johnny you got two minutes I'm like hey so you probably know Johnny like we gotta let you go and Johnny's like what the fuck are you talking about I had to eat that I have to own that publicly and that sucks because you know what really sucks saying you're sorry to Johnny sucks because Johnny sucked I did pay him for three years and he did nothing you know right but I also did the wrong thing because I lacked the critical feedback and I rebranded it.

39:21I branded it kind candor to myself. And I scale it in my companies. We're about kind candor. We're gonna tell you, but we're gonna do it in a very humane, very 360, very thoughtful way. And the intent is that this candor allows us to fix it. So you can stay. Not set it up to fire you. Right, but if in fact it is not remedied, then yes, exactly. So that's it. That's that little rant on my little, enough of razzing my dad for his shortcomings. My shortcoming is, which really blew people away when I started talking about it because Gary Vee is a candor king. Because right now I'm talking to the world.

40:03It's very different. Than talking to people that, the way I feel about training compared to six months, I feel close. Yes. It gets harder. Yes. And then forget about training. Sid, 10 years, or Kaylin or Marcus, they're fucking family to me. And that's when it gets hard. It does. It really, really does. I agree with you. So that's something I continue to put out publicly to suffocate myself to get better at it. But it will be a forever work in progress. Hence, yes, my father is much better at seeing an employee as family than the enemy. Enemy, yeah. But deep down, my dad's probably walking through liquor store right now, saw some employee get on a quick phone call and want to fire the shit out of them.

40:51He's still got it in him. It's work. I think you're doing me wrong. You don't really care about this business. Which I keep reminding him of, dad, nobody should care about your business. You want them to care as much as you, give them half the business. There you go. It's so true. It's so true. Let me ask you this. So to the the listeners or to the youth who are in there, I'm either fresh out of high school, fresh out of college, and every friend I know is becoming an overnight millionaire. Everybody is successful. They did two TikTok videos. They went viral. So there's this sense, I gather, that they believe everyone's an overnight success and that it's easy to come by.

41:29Fame and fortune are easy to come by. What do you say to those, there's like this sense of it's easy and if I try three videos and they don't go viral, I quit. First, that they're fucking delusional. we have become infatuated at looking at 150 people and forgetting that, for example, there are 8.3 billion people on earth. My husband says this all the time. He's like, the fact you even know their name tells me that's how few there are, considering the large population of the world. Your husband's very right on this. Why do you keep focusing on, it is hard work. If your beauty standards are someone who's spent$3.7 million on plastic surgery, the fuck are you talking about?

42:10It's so true. If you're financial, Gary, but what about Elon and Zucks? I'm like, what about 830 million people on earth do not have access to clean water? That's right. How about 800, let me say it slow, if I may. Yes. As a proud board member of Charity Water.

42:28830 million, almost 3x the US population, does not have the ability to get to clean water within four hours. within four hours 830 million people cannot get to this. What are you crying about? Oh no shit. So look I think the kids are using that as an excuse to say to their parents so that their parents give them money to do dumb shit. That's what I actually think is happening. I think they're wah wah wah to their parents because we are living in a generation where parents demonized losing too much. So one of the reasons we talked about my POV on college 15 years ago, the nuance within there, and I'll say it again for some mom or dad that's listening, I do believe it is crazy for a child in 2025, 2026 to go to college if they are highly creative or entrepreneurial, not if they're trying to get a legal career, not if they're, right, and they are collecting massive debt.

43:42If you're creative and entrepreneurial and mommy and daddy are gonna pay for your college, go have a four-year vacation. I did. I didn't do shit. I played Madden, Spades, CeeLo, hooked up, like go. But if you're collecting debt, you're out of your goddamn mind. Same to this one. if you're a parent that tells your kid if you have a six year old right now and your six year old just played a game of basketball and he or she came off the court and they're crying and you said honey stop crying it's just a game you're a fucking asshole and let me tell you why you're a fucking asshole you got lucky that you have a child who was gifted with the DNA to care and you are starting the process of teaching them indifference and if you know what indifference leads to you're going to get very serious with me here friends six place trophies has destroyed our society I've heard you say this before I'm obsessed with this I'm so happy that you say this listen to me everybody it drives me nuts winning and losing is real it's called life it is but here's the secret losing is good yes if you have a kid that falls in love with losing very good things will happen I fell in love with losing which is why I'm not scared of anything.

45:06That's right. So we demonized losing. We told our kids it doesn't matter. We told our kids you're going to get a trophy too. We told them it doesn't matter. It made them scared of losing. So what the fuck do you think happens when they become 22 and go out to the real actual world? No shit they're saying to you. Hey mom, you don't get it. Everyone's getting famous on TikTok secretly saying mom, give me a thousand bucks. Yes, yes, exactly. And I'm so terrified to go out and try something and look foolish. Like, look foolish for who? I don't even understand what we're talking about. And now let's get deep.

45:37Mom and dad give them a thousand bucks because mom and dad are also scared of the judgment of their friends to see if Johnny sucks or not. That's right. And it's so important. I've never become overly attached to my kids' outcomes. Who they become in the world is who they become. They're their own unique individual. Oh, you're so brilliant. Good news. I don't need them to be successful for my ego so I can show them all. You also understand that you don't have full control. This ego of parents as if, I do not judge people based on their kids. Ever. There's something called DNA. That's right. I mean we had a tragic event happen in pop culture just now.

46:11Oh, you should say that when you said it. Right? Is that how we judge those parents? I sure don't. Right. There's so many variables. That's right. I can tell you right now my parents have three children. They're all different. I have two children. They're gonna be different. I have five nieces and nephews. They're all gonna be different. Everyone's different. Yeah. And there's so much nuance that's out of our control and what our children choose. DNA is real. You have a distant cousin that was a loser and the DNA got in there. It's not you. In fact, the grandparents are a big factor. If you really look at it, it's a lot easier to understand someone on their four grandparents than their two parents a lot of times.

46:45You can really see it clearer. I've got a little more data there. Now I can see it. Because you look at the parents, you're like, where the fuck did that come from? Ah, granddad was a fucking lunatic. You know? Was a silly character. You look at parents, you're like, where did that sense of humor come from? grandma was a fucking gag so like I don't understand how we're confused by this and I don't know like man we are just way too detached to the outside and we gotta get really insular real fast this is about you with you about you and you always always as we round this out Gary and the fact that this is called things your mother never told you and you speak so highly and so regularly about your mom I would love to, I would just love to know, what was it about your mom that makes her so, for mothers, because there's a lot of mothers who are listening to this, what do you think the impact that was so special that she had on your life, what was that?

47:44I'm gonna really fight it here, man. God.

47:53I'm a really good communicator. I was really gifted. you know I will be forever known because of my gift of gab wordsman smith my sheer ability to speak from my heart I will never in my life be able to give you the answer to this question it's so much bigger than the capacity of my communication

48:19first of all let me start with something that I think everyone should hear it had very little to do with what she said it had everything to do with what she did I watched my mom my dad worked his fucking face off we are immigrant immigrants I didn't fucking see my father until I was 14 and started working there because he worked so much that he would wake up before I woke up and he would come home after I went to sleep my father and I slept in the same roof every fucking day of my childhood except for six days when my mom and sister and I went to the Holiday Inn in Orlando and ran out of money, by the way, three days into the trip on our only vacation that I took as a child.

49:04People really do not know where I come from. I watched her raise three children with a husband that was never around with not a single babysitter in my life without a single human that cleaned that house outside of her with three children that didn't do shit and she did it all. I've never done laundry in my life. I had to find girlfriends in college to help.

49:41She had a mother-in-law, my father's mother, who would come to our house my entire childhood on May 3rd, her birthday, and leave on September 10th, my dad's birthday, and spend every minute in that home shitting on my mom, bringing negativity, shitting on my dad, shitting on her. And you know what's so funny? I don't even have a problem with my grandmother because I knew my great-grandmother, and that's what she did. Yeah, and you saw she inherited that. she was the emotional foundation of every single human being in her life. My mother lost her mother at five. She grew up in the Soviet Union.

50:27Her bathroom was outside. Her father then went to jail when she was nine for 10 years because he was Jewish in the Soviet Union. Oh my gosh. all with a smile and positivity every single day of her whole life she told me that I was the greatest and fucking grounded the living shit out of me at every turn when I wasn't my greatest pure accountability yet zero dent in my self worth pure do you understand you are a mother to walk a tightrope to create a child who has 100 % self love and confidence while equally being 100 % accountable and self aware that is a fucking tightrope I speak from experience because you know this because if you want to make your kid you know you grew up in the parenting generation I'm in the parent generation where you like you instill confidence, you can be anything.

51:42No you can't. Parents, no one can be everything. If you tell your kid you can be everything let me tell you how it plays out. This might help everybody to know where I stand. The reason I have my opinions is because they're not my opinions. I am in the receiving end for now over 15 years over 10 years. I'm now on the receiving end for over 10 years of over 50 ,000 direct messages a week. Predominantly from 15 to 35 year olds. Let me give you the news alert of the outcome of telling your kids over and over that they can be anything. They think you're full of shit. Your kids think you're full of shit when you tell them they can be anything.

52:28When you look the other way when they suck when you go yell at a teacher to give them an A. How about this one? When they're 25 and you pay for their shit, they think that you think they're a loser even though they're asking for it at every turn. This is real shit we got to talk about. That's right. This is real shit. Yes. People love to blame social media for all the problems. This is not social media. this is misguided empire first world problems of modern parenting that over corrected to the parenting we were parented with daddy gave me no love so I'm gonna give disproportionate love when the answer was the middle you want the middle but you went over here and that's why we have kids that are zoo animals we create monsters and by the way I have no judgment on the kids.

53:28I'm empathetic. Now, at some point when the kid is now 30 and I'm like, yo, when are we doing this? Is it 30? Is it 37? Is it 42? Is it 18? When are you allowed to become a grown up is my big debate to everyone. I love this. By the way, my grandmother was shitting on my great grandmother in her 60s. I'm like, grandma, when are you gonna be grown? When are you gonna stop dwelling? My dad lost his dad at 15. my grandmother said she was a widow eight times a day every day of her life. As if she was the only widow on earth. And I deeply love my grandmother. I love my grandmother Esther. My sister's so pissed at me right now listening to this.

54:09Because she loves Grandma Esther more than I love Grandma Esther. Because she sees herself in Grandma Esther. Oh yes.

54:19These are real things. These are real things. And this is the, for everybody who's listening, these are the conversations. Because all of us are looking at the thing and not the root cause. I agree with you over and over again. And they say there's no real business problems in business. There's only people problems. There's only people problems. And this is real stuff. And you know what's crazy? Here's why I'm so motivated. If one person got pushed into the corner by the last 15 minutes of my rant, and was like. It's so worth it. No, no, no. if one person's like, ugh, fuck him, he's right. If this is the moment they're like, fuck it, I'm going thumbs in instead of fingers out.

54:56Yeah. Well, this was a good use of my time. That's right. That's what I mean. It was so worth it. It was so worth the time spent if somebody decides I'm going in on it. I mean, I'm sure this is what was intoxicated. I know for a fact that if I didn't have an entrepreneurial DNA bone in my body, that I would have been a guidance counselor, a therapist. Like, this is so rewarding when you were, this is why my mom does it too like why she was the person in her world the rewards of helping someone get happier is the most intoxicating reward there's no zeros in your bank account that is better than I agree I mean I have people come up to me whispering in my ear at events that I took them from the brinks of suicide what check do you think exists that's going to make me feel better that's right for what?

55:43to buy another vase? I know for what? another car like how many questions? We've become so materialistic. We've become so, oh. And it's so empty in the end. It's so empty. Gary, having you here has been so enjoyable. Don't leave yet. I have a question. Oh, I'm not going in there. Yes, because I have another minute or two. Okay, good. Real quick, because I'm so curious, because I've been so excited. This has been so fun. What didn't we touch on that you did want to touch on before we got here? Because we went into a bunch. I know how I can get. Well, I have to look down. Yeah, look, look. What didn't we touch on?

56:12What didn't we touch on was, well, I think that you've touched on this because of your personality, so I didn't even get to it. But let me ask you this. One thing that I have here is when it comes down to it. I'm sorry, before you do that, I just remembered one thing. Sorry, everybody. This is how my brain works. I love it. No, we're good. My mother didn't tell me how to live. She showed me how to live. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. The role model who doesn't have to say it in the words. It's just by the way they live. Always. She also, I'll give you mom's one tactic. she hyper glorified things I did that were kind.

56:50Opening a door for an old lady at eight, I talk about a lot. The way I manned up for my sister. Like she would go crazy. And like, you know. On the character quality pieces. Uh huh. And you know this, we're all, I can see everybody behind the cameras. We react to what our parents are cheering for. Yes. Too many parents cheer for straight A's in school, bad. That's right. my mom cheered for when I was kind to an elderly woman. Good. Quality of the character is what I've cheered for. Grades, that doesn't speak too much for me. Alright, so what you were about to say? So if you were to pick, and I know you're going to say well, it depends sometimes.

57:27I think I know what your answer is to this, but I'm curious. Let's see. If it was only one or the other, would you say it is strategy or identity? That. The person, the entrepreneur, the person, like me, you, what do you think really makes the person really successful, strategy or their identity? I would say, definitely not strategy. Let me, you know, I'm thinking through identity. But I don't think it's that either. I'll say more. I, in my observation of success, and maybe this is how you define identity, I would say that I have the most direct correlation to financial but more importantly emotional success towards self-awareness and self-acceptance.

58:19And that might be identity. It's definitely not strategy. Strategy is school. Like, oh, I'm gonna do this. That's nice. Because by the way, do you know why most people, oh, this is good. I'm glad we got this. Do you know why most people listening have not been able to execute on their strategy? Because they're not good. they're not good. Always about in here. Because you don't have enough energy to get through your strategy if you're not good. That's right. You'll die along the road. That's right. So I don't know if identity is the way I'm talking about self-awareness and self, you know, acceptance.

58:54No, it is. It is. That's what I was thinking. Then I would say, then it's definitely, in the way you're framing it, then I would say it's identity. How do you put yourself in a position to have the least friction day to day to be in your most true self to be able to be adaptable and emotionally strong enough to deal with the unlimited shit one must deal with to actually get to the top. Well, this is it. And the higher you go, the more shit you deal with. I think... Oh my God. I know it's not politically correct to quote Diddy, but like in the words of Diddy and Biggie, more money, more problems.

59:29Like the way you go... I mean, I... Do you know what I write out for occupation? Literally. When I have to fill out a form, occupation? Do you know what I write? No, what? Firefighter. Fire, oh my God. Just putting out fires all day long. My whole life is shit on shit on shit on shit on shit on shit with the occasional smile. This is refreshing to hear as an entrepreneur. Good. The bigger things get, the more fires I feel like I'm putting out. And there are moments where I question, are we doing something wrong that I'm putting out more fires or is this a result of the growth we're having? By the way, you know who most understands this?

1:00:02Who? All the moms that are listening. The fuck is being a mom? Honestly. shit on shit on shit on shit on shit with the occasional smile it's so true but that smile's worth everything it is it is Gary thank you so much this moment was worth everything thank you so much for being here everybody if you enjoyed this podcast please go back and look at the prior episodes they're loaded I appreciate your attention and uh thanks for being part of this journey see you later