The One Truth I'll Never Stop Trying to Reveal

0:00Looking back on life lessons, is there any part that you would change? I have historically struggled and continued to not be great at candor for my employees, which is bananas. If you were to ask me, why does Gary Vee do well? I would tell you that candor is a core rationale. I'm great at candor in this setting because I'm not talking to a person. I'm talking to the world. I so dislike negativity and darkness and hate and bad that I try to avoid at all costs firing people. We're curious about a few things. So there's a few different categories. Early life, you know, and we just kind of want to get an understanding from the type of environment you were exposed to in your childhood and the pathways that were in front of you and how you avoided certain pitfalls, figuring out what your passion was, understanding how things were important to you, how you viewed them, and how you sort of went against the grain as you were growing up and figuring out some of those main things.

1:10Then catching wind, right? What was your turning point? Like what was, you know, things that you did to get to where you are today, right? With VaynerMedia and how you approach ideas. And then looking back on life lessons, is there anything you would change, right? So we're going to kind of go through that flow. And then we have a few other questions regarding empathy, which I'm very interested in. And our team is very interested in as well on how you emulate that in your company and your daily life. I love it. I'm incredibly locked in and ready to go. Very good. Well, let's start off with your early life.

1:55What were some things in your environment that you were exposed to in your childhood? Um, uh, adversity, uh, great warmth and love, um, accountability, responsibility. You know, I'm an immigrant from Belarus, which, you know, unfortunately for their actions is now a place people know, um, and came to the U S in 78 was very poor. You know, that's really the only way to put it. We had nine family members in the studio apartment. I'm, I really need people to wrap their head around what I'm saying. So it was really hardcore stuff for a couple of years. And then, you know, I have good DNA. So my dad and mom worked their butts off and my dad got a job as a stock boy in a liquor store.

2:41And to this day, you know, it's funny, I asked my team today, my content team to dig up every piece of content that we can find where I talk about saving money. and I talk about it all the time and nobody ever talks about it to me. When I tell you, like if you asked my 5 ,000 hardest core content consumers, name things Gary talks about, I promise you it would be an hour before they talk about saving money, even though I'm about to put out a video that has me mentioning it 115 times in the last two years. So, you know, I learned that early on because I watched my family really get out of poverty to middle class in a short period of time by literally not spending a penny on anything but food and shelter.

3:38You know, I've been saying something lately, Bryn, that I think might make sense to what we talk about. And, you know, I've come to believe that if somebody is born in a home with little, but with a lot of love around it, they are the most prepared for a happy life because they're taught subconsciously at a young age that money is not the variable of happiness. So as you were asking the question, I'm like, that's where my brain went. I'm like, man, what was my surroundings? The perfect storm for what I think is a really good framework for life, which is like an all-time mom who just loved me to death, but also really extenuated and focused on the things I was good at, but held me accountable to things that I wasn't good at, but didn't make me feel like I sucked because I wasn't good at it, which is crazy because the thing I wasn't good at is the core thing, which was school.

4:36Like if you think about how we judge kids before they're 18 years old, outside of, think about this. We basically judge children in modern society for the last 75 years, predominantly on school, occasionally on sports, physical appearance. But those are like the three or four things kids hear about. Like that's just like it. And so I was very fortunate. My mom was way ahead of her time and really focused on pointing out how naturally kind I was. I remember things vividly like a kid, you know, and I always grew up in the 80s in Jersey. So we were all outside all the time. And my mom would point out when I, you know, a kid got hurt and I would stop the game and we would all, like, I was very much who I am now, a leader of the kids.

5:27And we'd have to stop the game and make sure, you know, Quan was good. You know, like, you got, you know, we got to be good about each other. And she would make a big to do about that, right? Like, she would see that from afar watching the kids play. And then for weeks, my mom would be like, the way you stopped that game and you made sure your boy Mike Quam was good. And like, then you guys put, you know, like, you know what I mean? Like she would, I opened a, I once opened a door for an 80 year old woman at a McDonald's and you would have thought I won the Nobel peace prize. And so, you know, I very much parent my kids that way.

6:02I, my son is incredibly empathetic and compassionate. And I go bananas when I see him deploy it to his friends and make him know like that's the game so and then and then on the flip side not only were we not really wealthy but my mom was cheap she's still cheap right and and so me and my sister had an aha moment five years ago we're like wait a minute we got out of being like poor pretty quick we were lower middle class for a while we're in middle class for a while we're even you know towards the end we're even like starting to go that next chapter and yet But mom never bought anything for us.

6:39And we never went on a family vacation. And we never had the swag or anything. And so we started getting, we were like razzing her a little bit. We're like, you could have given us a little something. But what that did was it taught me that I had, if I was hungry, I had to hunt for my own food. And so I was lemonade stands, washing car. I mean, more than half my days of my childhood in the summer, I either was playing sports outside or I was ringing people's doorbells trying to get a dollar some way can I wash your car can I shovel your driveway do you want to buy this stuff that I found outside like whatever it took and so I you know I'm I'm a 46 year old man that has a platform now and I look at the things that come out of my mouth and sometimes I step out of my own self and I'm like, man, this is just my childhood and how I was parented.

7:34And so it's a fun question for me to answer because it gives me a great opportunity to give roses to my parents. Yeah, that's very key. You know, just what you're exposed to, right? But piggybacking on that, I thought that was interesting. In regards to things that you saw and had to deal with, you were growing up with different people at that time, right? I got real lucky. I don't know if you know this about me, if that's why you're going there, man, oh man. I found my second grade picture. First of all, I went to Martin Luther King Elementary School, right? And even looking at this, as a matter of fact, we have some great diversity here on Zoom.

8:14That was my second grade. I'll probably post it next week just because you got me thinking about it. Man, I was so exposed so perfectly to crazy levels of diversity. just every culture black white asian indian and it just like it it you know it's so funny i i'm at this fancy conference here in sweden where we're trying to you know really do right by the world it's really hefty shit like sustainability kindness the president of ukraine just did a hologram speech to this group so it's a i'm at a foofy foofy off the record event right and somebody was talking to me about something. And like, you know, I was at this event four years ago and, you know, my popularity has grown a lot in the last four years.

9:01So it was interesting, even though it's foofy foofy, like people that like I grew up like looking up to, or like people that are really doing things in the world right now, I got a little love when I walked in. So it's been like, I've had a good chapter, right? And so I got this little group of like, legit people circling around me and I'm talking and somebody said something. And my answer was, because I love people. And I think about the DNA I was given, but to your point, I do think I got really fortunate. They talk about environment. It's not just your DNA and how you're parented, it's your environment.

9:36And boy, oh boy, for somebody who naturally likes people to be thrown into, I mean it. I hope you guys, if somebody gets curious about this, looks back at some of my old Instagram photos, you'll find it. My second grade photo, it's crazy. It's the United Nations. And I didn't know any different. That was just my life. So my third grade best friend, Brian Shen, it's Brian Shen. My fourth grade best friend, Rashawn Courtney, it's Rashawn Courtney. Like, you know, like it is. And it really became foundational for my life. And it taught me a ton of different cultures. You know, I learned a lot in that environment.

10:11Right on. No, that's great. Talk to us a little bit about finding your passion, right? When you, when you, was it at a young age when you realized, you know what, there's something here that I have that is. You know what, you have to jump in because I want to get as much out for you guys in this time together. I have never been good at anything but besides being me. I think the reason that people really fuck with me is people are animals. And all of you have senses. And even, and by the way, by show of hands, this is important. I want everybody to hear this because it's going to help you. by show of hands.

10:47I see a bunch of people not on screen. If you can appease me and go on screen for a second. Page right, I see you. I see you, Wendy. I want everybody to see this. This is very, very important. And don't appease me because I'm doing this for you, not for me. By show of hands, how many people here when they first came across my content on the internet thought I didn't like me, thought I was full of shit or snake oil salesman or something negative? Raise your hand, raise it. This is important. I appreciate it, everybody. Thank you. This is the point I'm trying to make. Thank you. Especially Quan.

11:22The reason I used him, he gave me such love when I came on in the chat. So I was immediately like, and to see him raise his hand, this is important. This is what I want you to hear. What I know about life is the truth wins in the end, always. I really believe that. Sometimes it takes decades. Sometimes it takes an hour. Humans are very good at sniffing out animals, just like a dog, right? Now, we sometimes start off with misconceptions and that's based on who you are. The reason I asked that question, and thanks Debbie, the cursing won you over, it has other people not about me. Everyone's different.

11:59But in the end, people get to the same place if you're that person. And so one of the reasons I've never struggled with being misjudged is I know who I am. And in the end, I know all of you will figure that out. and so you know i think that i i just knew who i was bo i knew who i was and you got to remember this i'm trying to look maybe in the screen i see a couple people that might be closer to my age but there's a young crew but for anybody over 45 on this call they know what i'm about to say is very true there wasn't even a conversation when we were kids about entrepreneurship we didn't even know the word existed.

12:42It was college, the end. So I was told I was a loser my whole life because I was a really bad student. But it was because I was so passionate about my entrepreneurship that I couldn't breathe. I couldn't even, I'm no dummy. I'm a pretty bright kid. But I couldn't even conform to get C's. My mom used to beg me. She's like, you're so smart. Just get a C. I'm like, I can't. I'm not going to listen to a thing in class. I'm not going to do homework. I'm not going to take the test. I need every ounce of energy. I didn't say this. I said it to myself. And I didn't even really say it to myself. It took me years after I was a little bit older to realize this is what was happening.

13:24I just needed to work on my craft. You know, when Malcolm Gladwell came out with that 10 ,000 hours thing concept, I was laughing. I was like, man, I was at 10 ,000 hours by the time I was 16, which is why a lot of the things that happened in my career make sense. By the time I took over my daddy's liquor store at 22, I was a veteran in business. Of course it went from three to 65 million in a heartbeat. It sounds crazy when it's a 23, 24 year old kid, right? And not valuation like the new world, no revenue, like I built it. But by the time I was there, I was refined. I was a real operator. And so I knew it early, but let me tell you what I've extracted out of that that will make sense for everybody that might bring value to everybody.

14:06I actually believe everybody on this call right now knows what their passion is. I believe they talk themselves out of it because they think it's silly or it won't make money. This is a very big thought I've been working on in my lab. This is one of the first times I've been putting it out there. I've said it here and there a little bit, but this is the first time I'm really put it is deep, Anthony. I think all of you know. It is deep, Anthony. I think all of you know. Yes, Catherine, this is good. This is good stuff. I think you know you love music, cooking, skiing, the transformers, hip hop, sneakers, sailing, golf.

14:43I think you know that. I know you know that. I just don't think you think you can make a profession out of it. Or what you really love is some silly shit. Like if you really went into like some full eye detector stuff, somebody's answer might be the Power Rangers. And that might just seem too silly. Yet I believe if the Power Rangers, the cartoon, the thing from back in the day, if you went ham and made content, YouTube videos, a podcast, NFTs, social media content, I know for a fact you could make$100 ,000 a year through brand deals, selling hoodies, speaking, but people are scared of other people's judgment.

15:31When I was 20 and 17 and 15, most of my friends' number one passion was video games. Nobody, not even myself, thought video games was a profession back then. If one of my friends had the conviction to heed the call that I'm saying out loud today, they would be a pioneer in the video game industry. making six figures, doing the thing they love more instead of being a retail executive or a lawyer. I'm very passionate about this. I believe people know their passion. I think people are scared to live within humble means. This is a big one, Brandon. I think people are scared to live a life that means that they make 63 ,000 a year because we've lost our way of living within our means.

16:18We need to redefine success in our society. We need to redefine success I know unlimited, unlimited, miserable millionaires. Unlimited. I can name 500 if you gave me an hour. And I know friends that make less than 80 ,000 a year that are genuinely deeply happy. And we must educate the world about this truth. We just must. We must change the conversation of what success looks like. So I knew my passion early And I had some weird ass luck of the draw of environment parenting DNA that let me lean into it when it wasn't easy. But as grownups on this call, some of you need to take the risk to start building content around the thing you love the most.

17:08And that content may lead to your ability to monetize it, which will then change the course of your life because you will enjoy what you do. That's phenomenal. I think jumping in and just going after it is key. And it brought up sort of a thought what I have when it comes to how a lot of business should be done, which is just go after it, just try something. And I feel like that's something you've done continually throughout your career path, right, if you think about it, right? You try it and you're not afraid for it not to work, right? And then you try something else and you're not afraid for that not to work.

17:45And then something else hits and it's amazing. So how do you approach that? Even let's take the liquor store, right? What were things that attributed to that level of success of sort of, I'm just going to see if this works and put this in place? Because the alternative of it being wrong never scared me because I don't value somebody's opinion who's watching me in the stands while I'm on the field.

18:14let's let me say that nice and slow for everybody the thought that your partner your brother your spouse your aunt your mother your best friend has judgment of what you're doing on the field of play

18:35is asinine they are a spectator eating popcorn watching you work I've that's it I don't know what else to tell you like if it if it failed if it failed it failed within my own mind I was disappointed I was I was rarely confused I'm you know when my stuff fails I'm like ah it was this you know so I'm I'm pretty good like that that's about accountability people always trying to blame somebody else I'm focused on blaming myself all the time. And you learn, you learn, you know, again, back to all those reps. This was the childhood, you know, I did a godly amounts of things wrong as a child, baseball card shows, the liquor store, but by the time I even got into my 20s, then through my 20s and 30s, tons of things wrong.

19:23I'm just refined right now. I'm 46 going on 96, you know, and so there's a lot of experience in there. And most importantly, I still make mistakes every day. I still make mistakes every day. I just don't dwell on them. I just don't, I can't wrap my head around the logic of why. Like I watch people very carefully. People are fundamentally insecure and overvalue other people's opinions. And it leads to incredibly vulnerable behavior. And I just want people to put themselves on the highest pedestal. And it doesn't mean you have an ego. It means you just chosen to love yourself. Like, everybody sucks at stuff too.

20:12That's very true. I think that's just a great way to look at things. You kind of touched on passion a little earlier. And you mentioned a lot of different subjects, Power Rangers and whatnot, right? Baseball cars when you were younger, you know, building your dad's liquor store. What is the actual passion of yours at that age? Was it growing? It was helping my parents. I was obsessed with my parents. I'm still obsessed with my parents. I was obsessed that they did it for me. They left this bad place. they had nothing they just grinded we went on i went on one i went on two two family vacations in my entire childhood like you know they sacrificed and i i knew i was talented i knew i knew it you know like i don't know what to tell you like it's why i associate with entertainers and athletes so much they're the ones who knew at seven or ten or let me just break it to you, Beyonce knew.

21:16She knew. She knew at 11, she was going to be a superstar. LeBron knew. And I knew. I knew that I was going to be an all-time great businessman. I just did. I knew it. I don't even know how to explain it to you. I just knew. And it was important to me to do right by my parents. You know, when I tell the kids to be patient, you have time to get yours. I worked every day from 22 to 34 from my father never made more than a hundred thousand dollars a year and that was the last year i worked for him every other year i was in the 40s and 50k a year until i opened up my mouth out of disgust because i took his business from a 3.8 million dollar business to a 65 million dollar business i i gave up my entire 20s and early 30s for my parents i love when people try to razz on me don't listen to gary's parents i'm like you have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

22:12I made my parents rich. I'm proud of that, you know, towards, and I want to be transparent here because I know that actually there's some people that maybe are debating family, like towards my early thirties into, into like, before I left and AJ grew up, like I started having resentment towards my dad. I built a whole damn business. I was like, dad, what the fuck? Like, give me a piece of this business. He's like, you'll get it when I die. I'm like, you're going to die at 90. I'm going to be 70. You know? And so, and so, but you know, that resentment changed as I got worldly, as I got older, as I saw the world, I'm like, wait, he was just in the old school immigrant mindset, right?

22:48You know, family business, I run it, I die, you take it. And so, you know, that's why I'm glad I was able to work through that with myself, really. But, but yeah, it was just what drove me back then was giving back to my parents. Absolutely. And I loved being able to be the guy. You know, one of the other reasons my dad and I had friction towards the end was I became the guy. Every liquor company, every winery, everybody in industry was like, Gary, Gary, Gary. And my dad started to feel like a schlemiel. There was this great thing he used to say to me of why he would be upset. He would say it in Russian and it would translate to, I'm just a senator with an empty briefcase.

23:32And what that translated to in Russia, everything was black market and all, you know, and what was in the briefcase was cash. and you would trade it for, you know, life, right? And no, by the way, no different in America, they just do it different. And so, you know, it was tough for my dad. He said, you know, I'm a senator. Yeah, I'm the owner of the store, but nobody fucking talks to me because I have no money in the fucking briefcase. And so he felt less like a man. I felt like I wasn't getting compensated my impact towards the end. And it was really healthy for me. Thank God I had an 11 year younger brother who I wanted to do a business with in my lifetime.

24:07and it kind of worked out. Absolutely. Well, let's shift our conversation to that a little bit. With VaynerMedia specifically, at the time you were doing the Wine Library, primarily, I think that if I'm not mistaken, that was also for your father, essentially, to build sort of a brand around getting people to get to them. Yeah, thank you for knowing that. I knew that when I was going to leave my dad's store, which I always knew would happen, that he would fuck it up.

24:41right on you know and and i say that with love for him because he's really transforming lately i'm still he went to vcon and had like a real moment like he's just my dad has always thought his employees were his enemy because he grew up in in russia where everyone stole from the business my dad is so scared of stealing like when one when like you know they're stealing in a retail store when one employee steals or an customer steals it breaks his soul it's like the thing he fears the most under. And so, you know, I wanted to build a brand because I knew that they weren't going to operate it as well as I did.

25:15And that's why I built the Wine Library brand instead of Shoppers Discount Liquors, because I knew I could build something that when I left and it worked, you know, the decline after I left was slower than it would have been had I not built a brand. Wow. Yeah. And so with that, I mean, essentially, when you went to VaynerMedia from that you had created a brand but now it it probably felt like you had to just start over i did like what transpired there essentially right with with you well i like starting over i'll be honest with you even as you just said that one of the things that sucks of becoming gary v is that i can't truly ever start over again meaning like you know like it's gonna be like i even like i'm pumped the nft thing is fucked up right now because everyone's shitting on it And that's like good for me.

26:05I'm like, yeah. Like, you know, like I like being underestimated. I like when it's stacked against me. If I was an athlete, I would have been the kind of athlete that loved to be on the road when everyone's booing you. I love that, you know? And so I definitely loved it. I don't know what else to tell you. Like the economy had collapsed similar to what might happen right now, you know? It was 2009. nobody believed in social media and fortune five it was like all stacked against me communist crap i had no money we started vayner media in somebody else's conference room because i had no money for rent um uh nobody in the fortune 500 pepsi nhl campbells our early clients even knew what social media was my brother aj's laptop registered the nhl on facebook and twitter campbell soup on facebook and twitter pepsi on facebook and twitter like it was real pioneer shit.

27:01You know, it was really fun. I loved it. I love it still today. We're now almost 1500 employees globally in 300 Asia, 300 in Europe, 200 in Mexico city. We've got a huge company and I love that, you know, everybody yells at me for doing it. Everybody around me is mad that I'm the CEO of Intermedia because I'm a COO type CEO. I'm in like, I'm in like staffing meetings and all my friends and fancy people are like, what are you doing? You know, but this goes back to the, you know, I always live the advice I give. I would make a lot, lot, lot, lot more money if I hired a CEO for VaynerMedia. I just like doing it.

27:47Can we talk a little bit about that as well? I mean, one of the newest hires that we've noticed was you now have a chief heart officer, which I think is a great idea. You know, we all do. We think it's phenomenal that that's a focus. But can you tell us a little bit about what that role means? I wanted HR. I want, first of all, I, one of the devastating moments of my life was when I started to understand corporate America and realized that people were fearful of HR. I thought HR was the nice place. And so that was a big wake up call for me in the call of 2012, 13, 14. I'm like, wait a minute. Cause I'm in, I'm always in my own bubble.

28:34I'm in my own, like, I never know what my competitors are doing. I never know what the industry is doing. I'm always in my own cocoon. and so we started getting bigger and aj who's like you know 11 years younger but like very studious and like knows like like more like normal is like hey we need somebody in hr i'm like all right awesome because i was doing it right because i love it i still do it um but and then like we had like 80 employees at the time and they were like no no no and i was like why and like and i And I started learning and I was like, oh my God. Like the thing that I always thought from afar was like the guidance counselor that had your back is the person that fires you.