The Future of Attention, AI and Brand | Mega Campus Keynote

0:00Podcast nation, before I get you into today's podcast, big announcement. as you probably heard at this point because I had John from Stan on the show. I'm an investor advisor to an incredible startup called Stan, Stan.Store. I'm sending you right now to garyvee.com, garyvee.com slash Stan. Go check this out. We've done a Gary V. Stan Store challenge which actually has a weekly call with me. This is built for everyone who's been affected, honestly, by my overall content. The tech stack, all these features and the minimal costs per month that Stand Store has built is really the tool that was needed for this world that I envisioned when I wrote Crush It, when I wrote Crushing It, and this overall thing I'm thinking a lot about lately, which is the individual empire, right?

0:48This creator entrepreneur slash entrepreneur creator economy that I think is gonna eat up the oxygen, very honestly, the thing that so many of you want in your life and the reason so many of you are not there yet is you've got the strategy for me. you've got the ambition within yourself but you don't have the tools for you to fully maximize it and I believe you can find that at Stan store Stan dot store but specifically I want you to sign up for it through my challenge because I want to get access with you and plus there's a bunch of cool things so if you want to go see those cool things go to GaryVee.com slash Stan S-T-A-N now to the podcast this is the Gary Vee audio experience The number one resource in the world is attention.

1:40Unfortunately, I'm charging my phone in the back because I'd love to pull it out right now, but attention sits on the phone. You may not like it. You might have a point of view on it. You might think social media is bad, good, I don't care. What I care about is that if you have any hopes and dreams, if you want to achieve, you must learn what is happening on the phone. Social media is disproportionately the most important platform for everybody in this arena. Here's why. It, stay with me now, it is free.

2:32The platform is free. Of course you can run ads on it. I have a company with 3 ,000 employees globally that spends billions of dollars spending money on it. However, we only spend those dollars when a client will listen to us after we post something for free that does well. My friends, for the last 15 years, for the last more than 15 years, I've built my entire financial foundation on social media. It is disproportionately one of the biggest economies in the world. What is happening on it right now over the last two, three years is profoundly important for all of you to hear and hear. By show of hands, how many people are in the B2B business, not the B2C business?

3:20Raise your hands. I just want to get, raise it, actually stand up. Do me a favor. I need to get a sense. Stand up if you're in B2B. Thank you for the lights. Keep that on for a second. Actually, if I can have the lights, I'll take it because I want to see the pretty faces. For every person that is standing, keep standing, please, if you don't mind. It's good for your blood. For every person that is standing in this room right now that is in B2B, marketing is always a very complicated thing in B2B because the reality of B2B is it's more of a sales organization than a marketing one. You all know that.

3:54I already see you shaking your heads. As we stand here today in December of 2024, by far, as I look around this stadium and see all the different people, without knowing what B2B sector you are in, I know for fact, more than the sun will come up tomorrow, that the biggest opportunity for you to actually double your business is your commitment and your organization's commitment to producing content at scale on LinkedIn. You can sit down, but please keep the lights on because I want to see the faces of the people that just stood up. The biggest thing that will grow your business in 2025 is directly correlated on how much money, time, and energy you decide to put into making pictures and videos to post on LinkedIn for free.

4:54The amount of attention in the B2B sector, and I'm fortunate enough to be an investor in 50 or so B2B companies in stages C to Series D. I also am very fortunate that I work with some of the biggest B2B companies in the world with my marketing firm, Visas and Chase and brands like that. the amount of attention that sits on LinkedIn globally, globally, here, US, Europe, APAC, Asia, Africa, the amount of attention that sits on LinkedIn is staggering. The amount of people that just stood up that are actually posting one to three posts a day on LinkedIn is almost zero. The supply and demand of attention on LinkedIn is the opportunity.

5:54LinkedIn today is in the same place that Facebook was in 2012 before people understood what was happening there. Here's the biggest point that I need everybody to understand. the algorithm has changed everything in social media. For 20 years I've been building on social media but I've treated it and everybody had to treat it like email marketing. You would try to get as many people to follow you as possible like I did. It took me 20 years to get 50 plus million people to follow me and then every time I would post people would see it. That was remarkable for 15 years. Three years ago, everything changed.

6:45Now, by show of hands, how many people here have never posted on LinkedIn? Raise your hands. Raise your hands. Jesus.

6:56This is gonna be very motivating to all of you. I have spent, what are we in, 2024? Seven years of a lot of time and energy. I have a 30 person team that makes content with me for my brand and I have amassed five to six million followers on LinkedIn which puts me in the top 25 people followed on LinkedIn and all the people one more time raise your hand if you've never posted on LinkedIn.

7:30The fact that everybody that just raised their hands could post a video or a written article or a picture tomorrow with no followers and if it is remarkable content, that piece of content could reach more people than I could is why the last two years of social media have been transformational. I need everybody to understand what I just said. For 15 years, it was a certain game. It was like email marketing. How many people here have done email marketing? Raise your hands. So you'll understand this. Build a list. And I've been doing email since 1996, before some of you were even born. And in 1996 and 1997 and 1998, for my dad's liquor store, I used to get 90 % open rates on email.

8:27For the people here that do email marketing, you know that's a staggering number. but that's because back then, marketers hadn't ruined email. Now, 30%, 35%, 28%, good. That's how social media was for 15 years. Three years ago, everything changed because of TikTok. As a matter of fact, I would argue that social media is now no longer with us. Now it is interest media. The content that you're interested in comes to you in the algorithm, not you following things that you're interested in or people. This is an incredibly detailed thing that I'm focused on for all of you in this attendance because it is the single variable that can change the outcome of whatever your ambition is here.

9:17We now live in a world where an individual piece of content, one piece of content, can absolutely change the outcome of what you're trying to achieve. There are so many people here who have big goals and dreams and wants and are missing the biggest opportunity that sits in their pocket. I ask you, I beg you, I beg all of you to take social media content very seriously in 2025. because in the next 10 years, when we go to glasses instead of phones, this world will go away and many of you will regret not taking advantage of the single biggest platform that has attention that is actually free. You want to get attention on the highway?

10:12You pay for billboards. You pay for direct mail. You pay for television. You pay for print ads. You pay for Google AdWords. this platform is free. And the amount of reach that is now achieved with good content is staggering. And it is very, very impactful on all of your hopes and dreams. Please stop treating social media as this nice little thing. It is now the primary platform of attention. And all of you, if you're at this conference, I'm gonna assume you're ambitious. If you're at this conference, I'm gonna assume you want something good to happen. If you care about those things, you must finally take these platforms seriously.

10:58Please.

11:08You know, it's funny, I don't know why, but I kept looking at the word Dubai today, just looking at it. And I broke it down in my mind. I'm gonna break it down for you right now. I'm gonna start with the letter D. When I see that letter, it goes into a very specific place for me and that place is the word determination. I'm always fascinated by why someone gives up. I'm just always fascinated why someone would give up. I think it's based on insecurity. I think too many people in this room give a shit about strangers' opinions, which is a huge mistake. I ask all of you, as you head into 2025, to realize a couple of things that are grounded in determination.

12:02I ask myself, why am I determined? Number one, I don't feel like there's an alternative. What am I gonna do? Not be ambitious? Sit around and cry? the biggest disease in our society today is entitlement. People in this arena and in this country and in this world think that someone else is gonna do it for them. I can promise you in America, it has become a major problem. These people are confused and think politicians are gonna fix shit for them. The reality is that there's been a lot of prosperity financially over the last 20 years. And collectively, the universe has gotten soft. That is, for this room, our biggest opportunity.

12:54There are just so many people that want it without putting in the work. It's true. This is why I love the Soviet energy in this room. Russians know how to fucking work. It's true.

13:17It's true. My Russian mother looked at me at, hey, I know you're on fucking delay. My Russian mother looked at me when I was 12 and she said, all right, that's it. I'm not buying you shit for the rest of your fucking life. That gets you to work real fast. My friends, determination matters. Determination really matters and I ask you as we head into 2025 to focus on it. You, I got a good one for you. This one's gonna be very fun to say in this crowd. When I see the letter U, the first thing that comes to my mind is underrated. I am very fascinated by how many of you do not understand that it is better to be underrated than overrated.

14:16Many of you want to start a business so that you can get money to buy fancy shit to look successful in front of others. You need the material items for your self-esteem. You need the car, and you need the watch, and you need the bag and you need the stuff. I ask you to think very carefully why underrated is better than overrated. I believe too many of you want to look the part versus being the part. I believe that for many of you, it's more interesting to look successful than actually be successful. Thank you.

15:05As a nice Russian boy, I know that is a disease in Russian culture. Yeah. And so I ask all of you as you head into 2025, don't worry about impressing others. Don't worry about what people think about you. I promise you, when you're 90 years old and you're at the end of your life, you're not gonna give a shit what the stranger or the neighbor thought about you.

15:37underrated is better than overrated. B,

15:48big. I ask all of you, why not dream big? Back, yeah, back to the way I started this talk, life is about perspective. I've been very fascinated over the last 20 years of how many people refuse or don't even know how to dream big if you don't dream big you have no chance of getting anywhere the bigger you dream the more likely you will go now don't confuse dreaming big with delusion if you're delusional if you're not putting in the work it's not gonna happen you can't sit on your couch and dream big You've got to back up your big dreams. But I do believe that way too many people shortchange themselves.

16:39I believe, deeply I believe what I'm about to say. I believe almost everyone in this room is actually capable of much more than they think. That many of us unfortunately, unfortunately have been surrounded by parents or our society that mitigated our dreams. I actually believe one of the most practical things in the world is to dream big. You have to be careful because sometimes when people hear that, they just make up ridiculous ideas. I'm gonna be the next Elon Musk. Okay, John, you've gotta be realistic, but if I accomplished anything in this talk today, if I got one person in this stadium to dream a little bit bigger than they used to dream, I believe it is a substantial accomplishment because I think it has a tremendous impact on their life and I ask all of you to just dream a little bit bigger as you go into 2025.

17:57A was very easy for me when I saw it. I think about authenticity a lot. I think authenticity is a very important word. And it's also a word that comes very hard to people. Very similar to what I talked about earlier of people needing things for their insecurity. I'm fascinated by how much people struggle to be their full selves. I think about this a lot actually. I wish, I wish everybody here was comfortable enough to always be themselves in every situation. Even at a conference like this when you're meeting people or introducing yourself people feel like they have to voice or they have to act different, bigger than.

18:49It's a very interesting framework. There's something that is incredibly profound when you decide to become authentic. It's liberating, but more importantly, and this is very important if you care about business and life, when you are authentic, you become fast. See, my friends, life is like sports. If you know anything about sports, whatever the sport, if somebody comes along and they're much faster than everybody else, they become incredibly dangerous. Speed. When you are fully authentic and you are not worried about being liked, if you're not worried about being judged, if your authentic self allows the people that should be around you be around you versus the people you think you want around you, you become fast.

19:50You become light. It becomes easy.

19:58I'm glad you get that. The other thing about authenticity that's important is if you heard me earlier in this speech and you decide that it is time to make content, you being authentic in your content will disproportionately grow your audience. So many people are struggling to grow on social media because the audience can smell them. They know it's not fully them. They can tell that they're being sold to or they can't taste the real person. It just feels like everybody else. The more authentic you are, the more upside you will have. I implore all of you to go into your authenticity. Understood?

20:54I want to spend a lot of time on the word that comes to mind when I see the word I, the letter, excuse me. This is going to be a fun one for me. I've started talking about this a little bit more and I have a feeling this is going to be the part of the speech that really helps a lot of you going forward. the word that I'm obsessed with when I see the letter I is intuitive intuition I've been thinking a lot about this I don't know if any of you think about this I always think what do all of us not know that in 75 years humans are going to laugh at us for not knowing today we know so many things that 100 years ago humans knew nothing about what is it today as we sit here that in 75 to 100 years, humans will make fun of us for not knowing?

21:49You know, like, I don't know, that ear pods are drilling cancer into our brain and we should have never had cell phones on our head. Maybe, I hope not. What is it in 100 years that people make fun of us or wonder why we didn't know? and if you asked me, my number one thing is that I believe over the last 100 years in society, we have become too focused on the brain. I believe that in the last 100 years, we have been too focused on the brain and have completely forgotten about the gut.

22:35I don't know if a lot of you have been following over the last 15 years in medicine. Maybe you or somebody in your family has been affected. But over the last decade, thank God, doctors are paying more attention to gut health. There's a lot of people who are finally, thank God, off of horrible medicine because people are really focusing on the gut health. That's beautiful. That excites me. I want everybody in this audience to see the gut from a different angle. I believe that too many people in this room make too many of their decisions based on the rational framework of the brain. I believe that in 75 years, we will be laughed at for focusing too much on the brain and nothing on the gut.

23:27I believe that many of you have walked away from the best decision of your life because you did not trust your gut.

23:44I believe that intuition is incredibly underrated in our society. I believe that if you made more decisions based on what you feel that many more things would work for you. More relationships, more business decisions, more investments. Your gut and intuition is your disproportionate advantage. It is not replicatable. It is not commoditized. It is your core advantage in life.

24:29I hope me talking about it, and the reason I ask for the lights is I'm watching you. I see some of you. I see that some of you are getting it. I hope this encourages you to go down the path. I would argue I'm getting to such a crazy place that I'm struggling. I believe in balance. Gut is fine, but I like to look at rational stuff too. But I would be lying to you after 20 years of a lot of success and a lot of failures, it's very obvious to me how this game is being played. I'm struggling. I'm trying, but I keep trying to bring the rational stuff, but I promise you, you know, it's funny. When I come and fly across the world to do a talk like this, I wish I knew all of you very well.

25:18What you would know about me if you understood of what I'm doing here is when I fly here, I say to myself, I saw Casey today, I saw Randy today, I know they both spoke yesterday, I'm very friendly with them, obviously some great speakers, I sit to myself and say, what is the one thing I can say? How many people can I get to think about something different? Why am I here? What value can I bring to you? I wish you understood how fiercely that burns inside of me. when we talk about this last part, intuition, I can feel a lot of you right now where you know whether it's the relationship you're in, whether it's the job you have, whether it's a business decision or investment, I know you know it's not right.

26:16I know. I know. and I wonder, what the fuck can I say to give you the courage to get out, to jump? So many of us just sit in our shit. We sit in it. We sit in our shit. Govno. Govno. We sit in it. We sit in it. and I ask you, I ask you, if I'm poking at you from stage right now, to please have the courage to get out of it. If you follow your intuition, your life will be better. It'll be better.

27:12Thank you, that means a lot to me. My friends, the current math, the mathematics about being a human being, the current mathematics of actually becoming a person, sitting here, us, is 400 trillion to one. The mathematics of you sitting here and being a fucking human being is 400 trillion to one. Now let me ask you, if you've won the ultimate lottery of the universe, because I just want you to know every single person here won the ultimate lottery of the universe. literally your mom could have gotten up for another glass of wine and you would not be sitting here. Literally. So I'm gonna ask you, if you literally won the single biggest lottery in the universe, are you just gonna fucking sit and waste your fucking life away?

28:43My friends, most of the people here will not achieve their destiny because they were scared. Do you wanna know what the number one weapon in the world is? Fear. Fear is the number one weapon in the world. And the only thing that can combat it is hope and love. You must, first and foremost, if you're sitting here and you think you're coming to this conference to hear some sort of thing that's gonna help your business or your life, you must hear this loud and clear. Nothing, nothing, all the remarkable speakers in these two days, nothing they say will help you. If you don't love yourself.

29:39Nothing. If you are unfortunate and your mother and father or someone else has instilled in you that you are not great, you must not cry about it. You must start to fix it. You must start to fix it.

30:02It is 2024. There has never been more opportunity in the world than today, ever. This internet thing, this blockchain thing, this is supreme opportunity. Our great-grandparents had nothing of opportunity compared to us. It doesn't matter where you are. it doesn't matter where you were born to who, the opportunity, the American dream is nothing compared to the opportunity of modern technology. Every single person here legitimately has a chance to achieve whatever they want. But you and how you see it and most of all, your relationship with yourself is your jail or your freedom.