The Future of Attention: Live Shopping, AI & The New Rules of Business | The Burnouts

31:36Academia, corporate, you know, government, parenting. Most things don't have merit. like if you fuck like like you know like it's just like it's just fucking hard out here way more than people realize it's so interesting to me also because you're one of the only male media personalities that i follow who has always talked about you need to be kind like you need to be a good person and it's really scary because i would say most of the young boys our age follow really inflammatory men like to be honest elon musk on twitter and they think that that's the type of personality they need to aspire to be to be super successful in the world yeah like what would you say to people like that look i think it's i think there's chapters in people's lives like i've literally just got a dm from someone on this topic which was like literally i read the whole thing gary i fucked with you heavy from 2006 to 9 then i was like like then i was like fuck this dude like because he liked the wine stuff then he was like then you went into business and I was like, it's too fucking like, he thought I was like too like over, because I'm hyped.

32:41I'm like, you gotta fucking get, you know? He's like, I thought you were like too, this kid's a left kid, not a right kid. I'm going in a different direction with you. Basically, I read this whole four paragraph thing just because I randomly read DMs like that. I'm in it with my community. What I took away from it was, I watched this kid go from very socially liberal to very conservative to now purple to back to liberal. Like literally, he gave me his timeline of his relationship with me. And I think to answer your question, it ebbs and flows. A lot of this hardcore right stuff came because there was such hardcore left stuff.

33:16It's overreactions. I actually am incredibly purple by nature. Like in a world of red and blue, I just could never comprehend doing what so many people are doing in life right now, which is they've come so hard on identity politics that they change their mind of what's in their soul to fit fully blue or fully red. I would tell you, and everybody who's listening, I have good news. This is going to ebb and flow. And what would I tell everyone? To be empathetic of why. I am empathetic of why from every angle. Now, I just want to make myself clear. There is never an appropriate time for anyone to do the wrong things.

33:56But to remind people, because I've really watched society for 20 years heavy, it's what I do for a living. It's really social listening is what I would say I actually do. Human anthropology, I do it for the sake of understanding what to do in business and what I want to talk about, you know, and how to land a kind message all the time. You know, like, you know, so I use it for those reasons, but I would say to everybody, I have good news. These things ebb and flow. And what's the wrong thing comes in different chapters. There was a lot of people's lives ruined in 2017 and 18 who did not deserve it.

34:28They were fully canceled for dumb shit. I mean, Virgil Abloh, rest in peace got canceled on twitter for giving too little of a donation to some charity meanwhile quietly he was giving tons of like like we we got so we got a little crazy in 17 and 18 we're just gonna cancel everyone right now we're a little crazy of being a little too like fuck everyone like and you know you know and so i think it goes it goes in ebbs and flows what i would tell young people especially who are listening like look of course you're allowed to be concerned but i ask you from the depths of my heart, please don't be scared.

35:01Let me explain why. Let's just use America. Let's just say you're really bent out of shape. We can all agree that over the last 20 years, it's been tumultuous, right? Every time there's a new president or a new governor or a new mayor, I'm moving, I'm moving. I've watched every Republican and Democrat friend of my life saying they're moving, right? I would say something pretty powerful that, and it's similar to that little kid growing up in the suburbs of Chile or outskirts Chile. If you genuinely, as a human being wake up tomorrow and be like this sucks manhattan obviously we have a big mayor race america right i just want you to know you're capable of leaving and i'm not saying like get the fuck out like those people i'm just saying you as a human like if everybody understood how remarkably in charge of their life there is if they just understood and it goes very deep let me bounce around a little bit a lot of kids just knowing the audience here a lot of you young ladies young men that watch this, a lot of you are making decisions in your life right now to appease your parents.

36:01And I implore you to understand the ramifications of that. And I actually think it comes from a great place. A lot of you listening are very lucky. You have great parents and you love them very much. And you want to become a doctor or engineer or go to Harvard or Stanford or go into banking because you're so grateful for all the things they gave you. But in your soul, you're creative and you want to do something else here's what's going to happen if you decide to do what you want mom or dad to do or both of them it'll be okay-ish but at some point you're going to be 33 and you're going to start resenting them for it and it's better to have the tough conversation now and address that convo and yes they'll be disappointed for a year or two but if you actually follow your like ultimately every parent just wants their kid to actually be happy they just think they know what's going to make their kid happy at a certain point but i've just watched over the last 20 years so many people at 35 then be like and then they become and then they blame they're like mom it's your fault you pushed me into being a lawyer we have to be accountable even at 22 and so i guess what i'm saying is you're in control and the more you know you're in control the more you're actually going to be happy and i just i wish everyone who was listening knew how in control all the way they are all the way including rules that mayors governors presidents make like the world it is is is a profoundly interesting place right now and with technology and with zooms and vr coming and all the things that are coming the optionality for the 18 to 30 year old set is profound and i wish they could just instead of looking here and being like this is fucked up could you just turn your head and say this is remarkable and if you spend a little more time on remarkable it will make it a little more balanced.

37:50And I know you talk about like really focusing on the places where there's, you know, you can get, you talked about Google ads really early on. Yes. You would buy like keywords like for literally five cents. And then you like took the wine business from literally being like what? Three to four million in revenue to 60 million in revenue like over the course of a year or two years? It was a five year period but we had no money. No capital raised, no credit line. And so my, back to business instead of all this big talk. My premise, my latest book, Day Trading Attention, my premise is everyone who's listening, even with little bits of money, and right now with organic social, with literally no money, if you know where the attention is and you get good at it, you win.

38:29So even further back, I know there's a bunch of youngsters here. Let me take you to the OG. When I launched a website for my dad's liquor store in 1997, people were like, that would be like me saying, hey, let's all go to Mars and set up a flower shop. Like that's how everybody around my dad was like, what the fuck are you doing? Like it was so crazy. That was the first underpriced move I did. The next one was actually email. You know, the stories about Google and social media building my dad's business are a little bit like off in that I would argue if you actually put me in the corner and said truly the one thing you did to build that business for your dad, I would say email.

39:11Nobody knew what it was. I was competing with wine stores selling catalogs. so while everybody was spending lots of money making catalogs to sell high-end wine to people in Manhattan I was emailing them down at Wall Street and selling it four weeks before they got the catalog and what would you say is places that we should focus right now live social shopping live social shopping okay live social shopping besides that because every girl who looks like us is on TikTok Instagram should we be on Snapchat YouTube where else should we be Snapchat are you asking should we be there marketing to build up our podcast and our app.

39:47Yeah. Yes. Substack, Snapchat, YouTube Shorts. I got a big one for you. Facebook. Facebook Blue. We were just hearing that from the diary of a CEO team that they're all over Facebook. Facebook Blue is a fucking monster. And you know what's happened? And this may make sense for the youngsters in this room right now. Because of Marketplace for like random stuff for their apartment and because of groups, there's a stunning amount of 22. You know, it's one of these funny things. there's a lot it's almost like online dating 20 years ago there's a lot more 22 to 32 year old usage of Facebook Blue than people realize but it's almost like every 24 year old doesn't even want to say it out loud I love Facebook Marketplace you love it you love it no I'm sorry right but look at this you just said it you just literally said it you just said why do you love Facebook Blue because that's just where my entire community is like my entire professional network is still on Facebook yeah how old are you I'm 25.

40:45Yeah, I mean. Do we have Facebook for Fia? We do. We have a set up for ads. But let's get into the punchline, right? We should start posting on more. But let's get to the punchline so everybody learns for all the entrepreneurs that are listening. Here's the thing, and this is why I wrote the book. And by the way, I actually made a free deck. GaryVee.com slash attention for everybody who doesn't have 20 bucks to buy the book. Literally, I pirated my own self. Literally. We're gonna buy some books. We should do a giveaway for the audience. Literally. for people to listen to the episode. But honestly, like you don't even have to do that.

41:16It's literally, I summed it up in a 44 page deck. Pretty good. GaryVee.com slash attention. Here's the thing. Why most people are not great at social and what has been the foundation of my 20 year career of staying relevant is you can't post the same picture and video on Facebook and Instagram the exact same way and think the same thing's gonna happen. We disrespect the audience too much. I'll give you an example. You two ladies. When you open Instagram and when you open LinkedIn, you're still you, right? You're the human, but your entire mindset of why you're in there is completely different.

41:53The way you're gonna act in this podcast is gonna be different than when you guys act in a business meeting, which is gonna be very different than when you're acting with your family, which would be very different if you guys took a girl's trip for a weekend to a spa or Vegas or Ibiza. Wait, why have we done none of those things, Sophia? Because you're building. Yeah. Because you're building. where are we going on that no don't do that just keep building i like what you guys are doing keep building exactly which oh by the way you'll still be fucking children and it's going to be enjoyable so anyway what most marketers do wrong is they don't realize the first the consumers are slightly different obviously you're going to get a lot more 63 year olds on facebook blue than you will get on tiktok though plenty of 60 year olds are on tiktok but more importantly the psychology is different and so the clip you use even if you decide to use the same exact clip the copy that supports the clip needs to be different the first three second preview might be slightly different what are the things that should be different?

42:52well you gotta think about like notice how he said my communities on Facebook TikTok and Instagram have become more and more an interest layer more than a community layer right? like right? that made sense to all of you whereas Facebook has more of a community so I'll give you an example If I'm trying to sell those shoes on Facebook versus Instagram, by the way, they're nice shoes. I would look at those shoes, if I did an Instagram, more from the lens of like a magazine runway, more like a culture thing. Whereas that shoe on Facebook, I would talk more about like, this is the shoe you should buy your girlfriend right now.

43:30Like to a girl, meaning not like this. Do you have a four? You know, is somebody having their 30th birthday in your network? this is the it shoe as the gift because I know the community mindset there is even deeper than it is on Instagram. The psychology. Whereas on LinkedIn, if I was trying to sell that shoe, I'd be like tired of having something that doesn't feel comfortable because you want to look great as you're running through the airport to your next meeting. You see where I'm going? I need to understand the psychology of the person I'm trying to target on each platform, thus rendering my creative and my copy slightly different, even though the agenda in all three is to get them to buy that shoe, just like your agenda is to get all of them to download the app and use it.

44:13What's your biggest growth channel for your podcast right now? And do you specifically, when you do advertisements, are you doing them in specific countries or are you just doing them reviews? Like, what does that look like? So for my personal brand right now, I'm not really doing, I'm in a very interesting part. Like, in fact, even doing this podcast, for the last 18 months, I've been incredibly uncomfortably head down, building vFriends and building VaynerMedia, VaynerX. I'm kind of just, this fall is my coming out party. I'm doing more podcasts and I'm gonna start focusing more on my shit. That being said, VaynerX spends$3 billion in media and social and I look at all my data on my stuff all the time.

44:52I will tell you that for me personally, I have substantial growth in the Middle East and I will keep double downing on that from a business lens. I've got a lot going on in Nigeria. We were joking earlier about India continues to grow. I'm skewing more female every day, which is interesting. And like I look at that stuff. I think it has a little bit to do with like how I, what I talk about. I mean, look, I like, you know, I am definitely uncomfortably A, purple, and then B, very big on emotional intelligence and feelings. So I know like that makes sense to me. And then what's interesting about me is I like talking about a lot of different things.

45:32for the people that are listening, like I talk about all sorts of things. Wine, I talk about garage selling and flipping. I talk about blockchain. I talk about AI. I talk about business. I talk about entrepreneurship. I talk about humanity and social issues. So like, you know, it ebbs and flows, but the opportunities are on every single, the punchline is everyone's looking for like, where's the arbitrage? The arbitrage is on every platform if you know how to speak its language. Every person can explode right now in the world on YouTube, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, TikTok, all of them.

46:08Snapchat Spotlight is like a TikTok or Instagram, but nobody really uses it for that. Yet there's a stunning amount of consumption, but far less creators posting on it. So it becomes supply and demand. Substack, you know, that whole world, IRL streaming, Twitch and Kik. Like that is, I mean, most of the famous people to 15 to 25 year olds are popping up in IRL now. Right? The iShowSpeed, the Kaisenets, the In World, like all that. Like, IRL is massive. And it can be debated that when you do this podcast that you have an IRL of it, which shows all of it. And some people are like, wait, but then are they gonna listen?

46:49I'm like, who cares? They're listening twice or you're still getting the audience. And some people would prefer to watch this with all the, oh, he tipped over the water before we even got on. And some people would rather watch the post-produced higher quality like I want to give the audience unlimited optionality to what flavor they like best yeah I want to touch on something that you said about so your audience has started to skew more female there could be multiple reasons why but specifically I'm curious do you have different advice for men versus women on the type of content they should be posting on social media to go viral do you think it's different I am definitely a human being that believes like yes girl and boys are different, but not like so radically different, right?

47:32As far as, so that's an overall thing. As a secondary thing, not really. Meaning, here are the things that I, look, girls and boys are different. There's different things to think about, but the reality is, is that an audience is attracted to value. Value is the game. And like we talked a little bit earlier about like people that want on pictures versus video. It's not super complicated what's value. There's knowledge. Like, I know that I am not wildly followed because I am the most handsome man on earth. I'm also aware that for Justin Bieber and Justin Timberlake and Leonardo DiCaprio, many of the following that they got was for their looks, right?

48:17I do not have a very large following because I am the greatest athletic freak. I'm aware that for LeBron James and Serena Williams, for other people, people admired and enjoyed their incredible athletic prowess. I think that there is a lot of different value one can bring. Whether you're a boy or girl, what I'm hoping everybody understands is the number one way you will win is if you provide value, right? Now, we may judge people's value. There's people right now on Instagram who have a million followers and all they do is show their six-pack abs and their muscles, right? And of that million, 250 ,000 are women who are just wildly attracted to their physiques and 750 ,000 are men who are trying to follow those people to have the same thing.

49:04You're allowed to be like, that's not good. I think it's fine. Like there's a lot of things that bring value. So some people are gonna, like it depends. To me, the advice is always grounded in the value, right? What values are you bringing? For me, I have very substantially strong 20 year credibility of bringing business advice specifically for what's happening that most people can't see which is becoming more and more valuable i am also valuable because i am a very positive person but i'm grounded in practicality so it's all love and it's good and you can but it's not like coddling it's like this is real shit and you have to be accountable and so for people who are ready for that and like that they will like me um so you know i think it I think my advice is not different.

49:48I'm saying it's about self-awareness. Yeah, part of the reason I ask is we had a debate in our office the other day. I don't know if you've seen like a startup Cluelay. Yep. Okay, so there's the Cluelay approach to marketing. And then there's several other companies that market in a similar way. And of course, they've been tremendously successful at getting a lot of attention. But a lot of that attention has been male attention. So one of our friends runs a very similar Instagram account. He told us 90 % of his audience is men. Yep. And so we were thinking about, okay, if we want to appeal to women, should there be differences in the way that we do?

50:18Of course. Of course. But again, that's only one generalization, right? Like we have to click down next. Then there's women of income level, gender, race, age. Like, you know, of course, you know, and then it goes down to literally individual marketing. I'm a 49-year-old white male, high income, but literally most of the people that target me, I don't want to watch. I do not want a high end sports car. I don't care about sailing. I don't give a fuck about golf. I don't smoke cigars. Like all the shit that targets me is so off, but I understand why they're targeting me, right? So, and by the way, I'm sure it does quite well with many 49 year old New York City high net, you know?

51:02And so what I would say to you is, yes, you start with boy girl. And in some level, that's one place to start. There's country, America versus India. or there's age, Gen Z versus boomer. There's these macro things and then you keep going lower and this is where AI is gonna play a big factor. How many pieces of content do you guys put out on social in a week for this podcast? Like 10 a day on TikTok, one a day on YouTube shorts. 100, great. When I was saying make 100 pieces of content a week five years ago, I literally got ridiculed by everyone. I'm saying that this podcast in five years is gonna put out 10 ,000 pieces of content a week?

51:44Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. Why not? If it's easy and not expensive, I would put a million pieces of content. There you go. And what will that do? That will give you the optionality to actually make your podcast and your app relevant to a 67-year-old Hispanic female that lives in the Pacific Northwest. Right? Because in that, you may be able to show her in the content, you may be able to reference coffee and rain culture you know you know you know by the way there was a reason i said that you know i thought i could hit that with you and so you know i think that i think that yes i think that if you're trying to get an audience you have to win on relevance and what is relevant to that audience but i remind people that generalizations are fine and real why demos TV used to market 18 to 35 you guys are of the age where I think you know that you're not the same person you were when you were 18 and I have a news alert you're gonna be different at 35 I hope so and so yeah I think yes I think this is where we're all headed I hope Sophia looks at me at 35 and goes wow Phoebe was a horrible co-founder at 22 and she's amazing now I hope that every five years there's something like that wow that five years ago Phoebe she was tough I think the way you do that and this is now I'm saying this mainly because I'm going to assume there's some co-founders listening.

53:07The only way that will happen is if you two continue to over-communicate even when it is hard and you don't want to disappoint the other person. You know, it's difficult because we try and set like every month transparently like just a three-hour block for like reflection and we'll go for like a walk, right? It's awesome. Okay, what went well last month? What didn't go well? How are we doing on communication? Hey, how can I improve? What are our goals for this next month? But things get so busy. Fucking busy. Yeah, 100%. I don't have time for a three hour block with you. Let's cancel it and let's do something else.

53:38Correct. Can I give you one from someone who also with his 11 year younger brother, co-founded Vayner and we went through the same thing. Be a counter puncher instead of an attacker. You're attacking three hour block. Instead, knowing that it's important that you guys go there with each other, have it on your mind at all times and when the opportunity presents itself, address it. Got it? So like, because it's always on both of your minds after this podcast that we're now gonna be counterpunchers, let's say you like this idea. Then that would mean that one of you may know something, you may overhear in the office that her meeting got canceled and you may realize, eh, you know, I'm just doing mundane email and I have a flight tomorrow where I can catch up on email.

54:25And you can text her and be like, hey, let's go take a walk. And it's nice outside, let's go take the walk now. God, you see where I'm going? Do not let your calendar or your ideology control you, let the reality control you. It's more that the calendar just serves as a reminder. I get it. But then it's like, we don't, it's hard to find that time. I'm gonna say it again. There's never a moment where I'm doing one daily. But I love what you're saying though. But there has to, I'm sorry, go ahead. I hate the idea now of regularly scheduled meetings because I'll realize the day before, I'm like, man, I wish I could just talk about this right now or like do this thing right now because I think that actually the regular reminder is important because like just looking at the week and being like, oh, this week we're supposed to be reflecting on our progress, makes me in that moment think, and then if there's something that spurs we should talk about this, then I naturally am like, let's just talk about it now.

55:11If you're having lunch, let's do it over our lunch, but you don't need to wait until the regularly scheduled meeting. If there's something top of mind, I think you should just address it. Look, I think this is back to the purple of it all. Scheduling's awesome, being human and serendipitous is awesome, and find that balance. Okay, I wanna run our Birkin marketing. idea by him. We can cut this. So one idea we had is we wanted to put a Birkin in like a glass thing and run it through Times Square with a QR code on the front of it and then if you download and you go through the whole onboarding process you can basically like opt in to the giveaway.

55:46I think the thing you have to think about immediately is what kind of user you're going to get from that. Like it'll feel good on the numbers but it's classic. The thing I learned about email in 1997. how many people were on the email was important but what was way more important was how many opened it. So what would you if you Go ahead. Do you think there was a better space to do it? Sorry I'm asking No no this is fun by the way this is what I live for so let's fire away. Heck I think you should have it on the podcast. There's that. By the way you took it to that place that would definitely like if I was your partner and we're thinking yes that that that that yours is layer one that's layer two both are valid and yours this is why these kind of meetings are fun we can get there is a place to get with this thing that you're talking about there is a place to get to and yes I would do it in Soho when we figure out what that thing is you know what I mean so yeah I think the thing the thing that people get caught up in is growth hacking for the sake of growth hacking like listen again kind of talking about what I've observed for what has worked for me and I also talk a lot about a lot of things and I never use myself as the only proxy the other thing that I've seen from the people who've been able to be consistently successful or relevant or executing is off of one basis if you are obsessed with the marathon versus the sprint you have a shot because it is a actual marathon so if you are able let me give you a perfect cliche thing that you might be dealing with if the reason this concept is popping up is because you're like wait a minute like we're it could be one of two things we're rolling and let's put fuel on the fire or wait a minute we we had this great like last two months but like we can feel that it's slowing down a little bit we need something to like get it because you're addicted to the growth you had prior eight weeks or 15 weeks both of those need to be like really thought and understood like for example my personal brand i I just sat here and told you that for the last 18 months, it's been, you know, and that was okay.

57:54Like, I don't need to be the hottest top of mind person of the moment in my genre. It's okay when other people are having that moment because I'm over here, but I'm also like, Hey, wait a minute. I like what the Gary Vee does brand does for me for business as a top of the funnel thing. So, Hey, I'm going to now after 18 months, I'm going to go back. This was something I said no to consistently for 18 months. Correct. podcasting that were emerging or the top podcasts in the world the answer was no because this hour you know this mike you watch me in my office 9 to 9 p.m all 12 months last year period and so but now because i'm like okay i got off what i needed there i feel good about the pieces and the people i've put in place i'm like ready so here i am same advice i want to give for you guys which is like make sure you know why you're doing it and then make sure you know who you're getting out of it the reason I love content and social content is the clip like and this is actually a very big one for you guys don't get addicted this is actually very good advice that I wish I'm going to start giving more of this advice don't make the clip just for the maximizing of views some of my favorite pieces of content for me are the least performing views plot content I put out because I had a purpose of what I wanted out of it so let me give you an example this may not be on your radar but i am building a pokemon sesame street disney marvel like brand called v friends 280 characters patient panda you know like i'm really excited about intuitive iguana it's like a real world yes i have to i i got you so i'm really excited about it when i put out a piece of content where i'm asking people to buy stickers or trading cards or stuffed animals because i'm like i feel comfortable back to a book i wrote called jab jab jab right hook if you're giving and giving and giving and giving to your audience.

59:46Like I think an appropriate podcast for you would be the entire podcast is four minutes and you're just telling your audience, a lot of you have not downloaded the app. We love you. And like it would mean the world to the two of us if you all would download the app and really play with it and give us your feedback. That's a productive podcast. Like a stable, not a pre-roll, not a mid-roll, not, oh Gary, thank you for doing that for us right now. And I mean it, everybody, please download the app. No, I mean an actual, how long are your podcasts usually when you put them out? Three minutes. Great.

1:00:18When I wake up and I'm addicted to your podcast and I see there's a three minute podcast, I'm like, that's interesting. And it's like just titled The Ask. And you're just being very honest with them. Here's what I will tell you happened. What would happen if you do this and listen to me? It would not get the most listens of all time, but fucking Christ, would it get a lot of downloads? And that's okay. So sometimes I'm getting 800 ,000, a million views consistently on my content. and then I'll post something that gets 110 ,000, but 400 of those people bought a T-shirt or started watching the cartoons with their kids or bought a stuffed animal.

1:00:54You see where I'm going? You've got to mix it up. The only KPI can't just be brand and awareness. Sometimes it's okay for it to be a business ask, and the more you give them, the more likely when you go in for a business ask, it will do well. that's so funny you said that we had the exact same conversation yesterday with our friend who came in and like staged an intervention with us who said you guys have been so focused on brand building on your instagram like you're giving people all this content about fashion your own personal stories whatever why are you not directly telling them here's what the app does can you download it and we were like oh we don't want to seem too like ascii we don't want to be too sales okay, like we're building a community.

1:01:39And he was like, well, if you're really building a community that supports you, they should be okay with also understanding like you want them to download the app. And I was like, you're so right. We need to go make a video right now being like, this is why we built this. This is what it does. Please download it instead of being like, here are the best trends of the month. Yeah, and by the way, if you do that 95 % to 5%, to your friend's point, I don't know what point he or she was making, but if you're 100 % and zero, and now you've been doing it long enough. Like if you were on day three of the podcast and content, I'd be like, don't do that at all.

1:02:14Like do a year's worth of brand building and community value. But think about, actually here's a good way for everyone at home if you're debating this. Think about the person you love the most in your family because they're the biggest giver without expectation. Like it's not manipulation. They're just, they're the giver in your family. Think about the times if this has ever happened because some people give too much. Like that they've asked for something. you're like thrilled to do it for them yes right if you're thinking right now about and by the way you can extend this to your friends right let's say your person has five friends if the friend of that bunch that's never asking never bothering never selfish if every five years they're like hey can you like watch my house you're like i'll walk there and watch your house it's called relationships you have a relationship with this audience you guys have consistently and by the way i would do brand over everything every day of the week but you've got to sprinkle the occasional ask especially when you have what you have in place which is you have a very good app in place it's it's clearly bringing value to people you're proud of it i assume right sometimes people ask me because during certain drops after not asking for anything i may do a four or five posts about like hey buy the trading cards or buy whatever you know and then like by the fourth one people like gary you fucking changed you sold out like i thought you were about giving i'm like bro look at the breath of it i think you know what i mean but but what i'm saying is that's okay and i say to them i'm like hey i understand that and you're allowed to feel that way and listen if you don't want to watch my content anymore because i asked after 4 000 pieces of content for you i've asked for three for me you're allowed but but but people this was one exchange i had recently he's like yeah but you feel so selly and i'm like you know after not feeling selly i'm like but i feel proud to sell this i believe that if more children collect v friends we will have a more purple society i want to teach seven-year-olds to fall in love with accountable aunt because i think too many parents are not teaching accountability and if little johnny in new york city falls in love with accountable aunt and has accountable aunt pajamas when he's 19 he may be like accountability is cool and once he understands what accountability means i believe accountability literally leads to happiness i believe that i really believe that in the soul of my life and so which is different than beating yourself up right accountability doesn't mean shitting on yourself my biggest issue in the world actually more than loving accountability i'm so sad that so many of you are so hard on yourself.

1:04:52I wish... Social media is a highlight reel. You see, even my social media is a complete highlight reel. I don't post when the business isn't doing well. I don't post when we have you know, we post now our feedback dinners where we invite 40 women to the office to give feedback. I get it. But oh man, after that first feedback dinner, we were not posting that because the entire thing crashed and we had 40 women there. I get it. And it was so bad that they like left. I get it. I had to ask people to leave because it was so bad and me and Sophia literally locked ourselves in a bathroom. It was awful.

1:05:17We need to redo everything. Yes. But I don't post that. Yes, but I would say that's fine comma taking it at a different angle if social media is bringing you down right the first point you made well this is why do you think I want to make accountable ants so popular delete it like this is real talk right now this is actually very exciting and by the way when I do podcasts like this like right now I'm zeroing in I'm like hoping one girl's like on the treadmill listening and like I get so obsessed when I'm on a podcast that I'm doing it for one person if I can get one person to do what I'm about to say it will change the course of their actual life I believe that which is the following.

1:05:51When you get out of saying it's social media's fault, it's Instagram's fault, right? And you say, hey, if I can feel myself getting down because all I'm seeing is highlights on Instagram and that makes me feel insecure, oh my God, I can actually delete it. Here's my excuse. Please. We do need it for business. If I wasn't working on a company where attention matters in our community so much and I need to be actually in my DM and talking to girls who have bugs or like, the load time's too long. That's like important for me. I agree. By the way, you're talking to the human on earth, the human, who is most used social in the last 20 years for business and who does not use it for personal at all.

1:06:34I do not consume... How do you like... Do you don't consume any media at all? I consume media at scale every day, not as a normal human. When I see someone doing something, I'm not like, oh, I'm FOMOing and I suck, I'm like, why are they doing that? Why could I do it from a business lens? Research. Research. I don't see, like, I don't use it like a normal, in fact, if I was not in the business of business or marketing, I would be one of the humans that wouldn't have it. Not because I think, not, not that, by the way, I want to say something else because I'm countering the counter here. Not that I think it's bad.

1:07:12I'm just a person that isn't that inherently interested or I'm not nosy. I'm not a yenta. I never took pictures my whole, I don't like pictures. Like, I just, it just, I like texting with my friends and my group chat or like FaceTime. Like, I just wouldn't use it that much. I'm dating a guy who literally doesn't have Instagram. Like, he deletes it. Of course. It's amazing. It's the best thing ever. Yes. And this is completely new for me. I've never been with someone like this. And I'm like, okay, well, sit on down, bud. Let me show you the new video that we just dropped on the feed account. I put my left titty in a producer.

1:07:44So you're gonna stay here and you're gonna watch it. And he's like, okay. but I honestly having him not be on social media is so great. Yeah, I mean, A, he sounds handsome. B, this is what's gonna happen. People are gonna ebb and flow. Like, there was a whole societal push and I was there at that time where everybody was getting on it. Now people are understanding what's good and not good for them. Like, by the way, that's why I said earlier before you jumped in, like, I wouldn't be on it but I think it's the best if you know how to control it. This goes back. Is alcohol good or bad? Right? Is a very fun thing to think about.

1:08:20Don't forget this country, America, had prohibition. We banned alcohol because we blamed the alcohol. And the question becomes, for some people, it's very bad. They become addicted to it and it creates tough situations. For other people, right, it is having one cocktail is an incredibly nice part of their life. And they decide it's good. I mean, forget about health benefits. Like there's always like sugar. Should we ban sugar in America? What are your thoughts on weed? Me personally, I think it's a natural plant. And the more homework I did on it back in the day 20 years ago, like what it was like before and like how people used it as medicine and compared to pharmaceuticals.

1:08:59Again, my belief is in the human race. So most of the things I'm going to tell you, I believe in education and accountability. Not just, education is cliche, right? We're like, we got to educate about everything. I think the thing we've lost in the last 50 years is accountability. Because I find honestly, like for me personally, like I prefer taking a gummy and going to dinner than like having a cocktail or having two cocktails. Well, that's awesome. And they're now saying the health benefits of it are better too. That's awesome. You're also talking to somebody who literally has never done any single drug.

1:09:31I've never smoked a cigarette. But that's because my mom got super Nancy Reagan'd out. Say no to drugs. And I grew up, don't forget my mom grew up in the Soviet Union where everyone was an alcoholic. So in my family, for my life, it was so demonized, drugs and alcohol. You drink. I do drink because I grew up in the wine business and fell in love with that. Had my dad not had a liquor store and sold food, I believe I'd be telling you right now that I don't do drugs or alcohol. I didn't drink a beer in high school or college. It was only when I got into the wine business and fell in love with the concept of collecting wine, which led me to tasting wine, which led me to actually being very knowledgeable about wine.

1:10:06It's really fun. Yes, 100%. You got it, you got it. And we need the Gary Vee, You got it. I need every issue. so let's keep it to 10. You got it. Just run us down on the wine site. I will do it. And so what's, by the way, what's super fun is I did a thousand episodes of Wine Library TV. So for everybody at home, because for context, I started a wine show on YouTube in 2006 where most of you guys were in diapers. And so I did a thousand episodes. Call up, Gary. I'm aware. I'm putting all 1 ,000 into an LLM. There's going to be a Gary Vee AI app giving you wine recommendations on the spot when you take a photo of the wine list going out with my actual recommendation.

1:10:45Oh, that's great. What I'm curious about though is you did, well, A, that's extremely cool, but B, I thought it was so interesting that you did, what, for like a year and a half, all of these weekly episodes and you were getting like 30, 50 views and you kept going. Like how did you develop that muscle of consistency without seeing the progress? I'm not doing anything in my life for outside validation. Hmm. Nothing. you would be the more we get to know each other the more you will be flabbergasted on my complete and utter detachment from Gary Vee and my business success everything in my life is good because I don't want to do anything for anybody besides myself and my family do you think that there's a level of wealth that you get to where like okay I've made it this is enough for me yes 100 ,000 a year the only time I ever felt like something was enough for me was when I made 100 ,000 a year when I was like 33 that was the only point and because that was as a kid you grew up that was the number now these poor kids are like we got to make 10 million a year i'm like jesus christ like like um i got very look listen i want to be very transparent here as we wrap up i got very fortunate in dna circumstances of growing up with nothing i grew up with nothing i was when we moved to america we lived in a studio apartment the size of literally not this not this this and so i was born hungry i wasn't fed so it may end my home was so loving that it taught me that money had no variable on happiness so you know i just got very fortunate of the roll of the dice of dna circumstances motherhood jersey boy you know very lower middle class like everything shaped up for me to be who i am which is why i'm so passionate to talk about these things with the hope that i can change some people's perspective you know it wasn't that you're not if i wish you knew me at 19 you're not getting what i'm saying to you at 49 because i made it making it and you know this because of the way you grew up money and fame do not change you they expose you right like i promise you kids this is as good of a thing i've said on this podcast i'm not chill now because i've in In fact, actually, I don't know how politically correct this is these days, but the more money, more problems, I would argue that I was even more happy and more chill at 23 making 34 ,000 a year.

1:13:16What I got really lucky at and what I wish on all of you out there right now besides health is liking what you're doing at all times. You know, we met Tyler who said that - Schmidt? Yes, who said that he works with you you said that you are always working and the first time he ever saw you take a break was when you were on your honeymoon. So I wanted to ask you about work-life balance. What's your advice to people on that? That it's a personal thing. I don't think me working all the time is right. It's right for me because I would rather be working at 7 p.m. than golfing, than skiing, than watching a movie.

1:13:52I like it so much it is my actual hobby. So don't let someone else's opinion on work-life balance and like what is work-life balance? Is nine to five Monday through Friday right? Is it nine to six? Is it eight weeks vacation? Is it one? Like every one of us in this room are gonna have a different view plus it changes as you go through your life. Today your work you guys are in it right now. Yeah. But we love it. Of course that's what I'm saying. You're in it. But then you're gonna meet the handsome guy who's not on Instagram. It might lead to something. Your life's gonna evolve. Right? Things are gonna happen.

1:14:23You're gonna have things happen in your life. Your world will change. Right? and with that things will change. You're allowed to change your mind. I actually fantasize a lot about wake because I do everything based on how I feel. I kind of weirdly fantasize a lot about waking up and having like a weird, like just like waking up and being like, you know, like I'm out, fully out because I almost like, I don't think that's gonna happen knowing my DNA but I secretly want it for conversation because I'd love to tell the world of like why I did that because I don't think they understand. it goes back to like are you like this now because no i'm like this because like i made money because of how i was got it because i didn't care about it it made me better at it right like let's talk about guys just for a second guys that are not scared of rejection of coming up to a girl do better right right like like when you're not scared this goes back to the overarching theme of a lot we've talked about from the beginning of where the world's going and technology to posting to not getting views.

1:15:29Basically, if you take this ingestion of all this audio and put it into AI and say, what's the macro theme of this podcast? It's eliminating fear. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I mean, I also think something that I was curious about for you is you obviously have invested a lot of time and energy into building your personal brand. Yes. And you also have this enormous business. is how do you divide those two priorities? By ebony and flowing. Okay. I literally, we broke it down here. Sometimes it's 18 months of the companies and sometimes it's, in 2017, it was Gary Vee heavy and sometimes it's balanced in by 50-50, 80-20, 90-10 by not overjudging myself if I have the right ratio.

1:16:17Unlike you two ladies, I was a terrible student and so for me, I don't have student tendencies. I don't think there's A, work. I think there's listening to yourself and self-awareness and ebbing and flowing. And here's the big one, back to the whole theme. All the mistakes, I don't dwell on them. They don't hurt me. In fact, I'm a little weird. I kind of like losing. I like, and not like the cliche, like, oh, I learned, it's not losing. No, no, I like the humility that comes along with it. I like the punch in the face. I like the, hey, Gary, you think you're a fucking big shot? Like, fuck you, here's the game.

1:16:53You were wrong. And I'm like, yeah, I was wrong. You know, like, I kind of am, I'm in a good place with that shit. But do you think that, like, would your advice be to entrepreneurs to simultaneously build a personal brand and to work on the business? Or, like, how do you measure ROI of me having my personal brand is beneficial for the business or it's a distraction? You're too smart for that. The cat's out of the bag. When I was saying this stuff, the answer is you do both. I actually don't see creator and entrepreneur as separate things anymore. I think it's all blending. And I'm saying you're too smart because this was my thesis.

1:17:2515 years ago and I got made fun of it. You guys are living on, how do you measure the ROI? Did you see the cosmetics company that just sold for a billion dollars? Yeah, 100%. Come on, what are we talking, right? Is Emma Chamberlain's coffee doing? I mean, honestly, I feel it's disrespectful to your audience to even debate this. If this was a 90-year-old audience or a 70-year-old audience, I would talk about this for 20 minutes. Anybody who's under the age of 30 that does not understand that personal brand equity layered into a business has ROI in it is literally tone deaf. I want to steal something from you that you said to me.

1:18:00I 100 % agree. And I'm so glad. I was like, I want to clear you saying that so we can have the audience understand. You got it. Because it's really not a distraction. People want to buy from people. I want to copy a quote that you said to me when we got drinks. I just want to say this because I thought this is the thing that keeps living in my mind. As you said, as tech continues to advance, the only thing that's going to matter is the personal brand. Brand. Brand. Because is the brand. Brand. Because the tech is going to become stable. Commodities. Right now, it took us a year to build what FIA is today.

1:18:28There's still a lot of work to build, to be honest. Of course, you're a year in. But the only thing that matters is the distribution power. The fact that people want to install it because it says something about who they are. For that girl who's living in Brooklyn, who likes to thrift. For the girl on the Upper East Side who's really into her clothes and her shoes and her jewelry. If you feel like you're a stylish woman, you want to install her app because it says something intrinsically about who you are as a person. That's the only thing that matters to start. Yes. And then the second part that matters, as you know, is, is it better than the other options?

1:18:57Exactly. Right. Tech is going to become stable. I believe that is true, especially in a mature AI world. That's right. Data is going to be important. But yeah, the tech is going to be important. I actually would argue data is commoditized too. I really believe that. Like, I can get to your customer without your data. I agree with that. But let's say you're like a healthcare, like you're a diagnostics tool for breast cancer. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's fair. I mean, look, any absolute statement like I just made always is going to have some counter. In the scheme of things, data is stunningly come up.

1:19:28First party data did not end up being the moat that everybody predicted it would be because there's too many companies that have too much scaled first party data. And more importantly, what happens when you have first party data? You then still have to communicate to the consumer. so if you're overlaying your 1P data but you're running the ads on Facebook and Facebook has unlimited data for me to get that same Upper East Side girl and Thrift girl in Brooklyn what the fuck was the punchline got it the same thing's gonna happen with tech well I did want to ask because I know you said your little like AI summary like whatever I think I would love to like ask a question that you think could wrap this on like what is the main takeaway that you would want the audience to get from this podcast that every single person that's listening right now is literally living in the greatest era of humanity and the opportunity is uncomfortable and you should be concerned and thoughtful but please do not let it cripple you from the truth that the opportunity is the situation of social at scale with AI emerging and about to hit scale at the same time is literally and actually the greatest thing that has ever happened to a 15 to 35 year old living at that time with this stuff in place what should they do?

1:20:42they should A first which is the point I'm making believe what I'm saying like first they have to ask themselves do they think I'm full of shit or do they actually see what I see and then B they should lean into self-awareness and passion you know one thing I like about what you guys are doing hence what has like brought me to this seat today is that I think you like what you're making you're not just chasing where you think the money is and I think you can build much better things for yourself whether you're being an entrepreneur or whether you're picking a job or whether you're deciding to be a stay-at-home dad like i don't know like everything's allowed but this is the time of optionality like you should first start you know you guys are lucky the generation above you and even you guys actually but we're starting to chip away at the fact that at 22 you have to have your whole life figured out and like you have to be a grown-up on the day after your college graduation 22 to 30 is when you should do the highest risk shit in your life.

1:21:40Because you can live on nothing, because you can live with seven fucking 22 year olds if you want, right? You have no responsibilities. You're not worried about paying your mortgage for your children to go to, this is, so my advice in the wrap up is, this is a huge time of opportunity. Start with things that actually get you going. Your passions and understand why social plus AI can create everything you want. well I learned a lot we're going to make a lot of changes with a lot of things that we're doing can we put up for a minute and just like go through our marketing stuff and get you to roast it and tell us what to do yeah and and back to the point of this like not even roast it like to your you know it's funny like we've gotten to you know like like cause it's not roasting cause notice how we even talked about the burka thing I didn't roast it I dissected it of like why and what like it's like I'm I'm making a point here it's my purple point i want to get out of you know red and blue land like like i and words matter you know like i would never roast it i'm aware that i've been doing marketing for 35 years and have like i should we want your expertise correct you know what i mean and i and i also want to understand your psychology notice how when we did the burka thing i'm like why and like hey did you contemplate and hey that was later like and that's the level in general to be honest that's another thing that we just need a lot more in society less quick and more thoughtful you know like i didn't go like oh no way like it's more like hey why this that and so yes it would be my pleasure ask good questions well gary v thank you so much for coming on the burnouts today thank you ladies 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 garyvee 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 stan 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?

1:24:04This 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.