The Power of Curiosity and Gratitude | How to Win in Life and Business

0:00This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. so Gary I'm just going to briefly introduce you I'm going to hand it over to Laura she's going to really introduce you give it back to you you're going to talk for just why you're really excited to be here and then the kids have questions for you cool guys this is a really big deal so Gary it just hosted about 10 ,000 people this weekend by the way I've been an entrepreneur for a very long time and all entrepreneurs need mentors and I'm lucky enough to be able to call Gary, a mentor of mine. There's very few people in the world that are as caring and compassionate as Gary, who cares so much about soft skills like you're learning with the seven mindsets and cares so much about really bringing these stories to life through his NFT collection.

0:48And you understand NFTs, which is so awesome because you're getting one. And so I'm just so excited to have him. And Laura, you can kind of talk about why you're so excited that Gary's here. All right. So welcome, Gary Vee. We're super excited to have you with us today. Kids, this is Gary Vee. Gary Vee, this is our friend. They've been learning about themselves and how they learn through their levels of engagement, through their different mindsets. And so much of it aligns with what you always talk about, with what's important in life. And that's what they're learning at a young age. And so we're really excited for them to be able to ask you some questions today.

1:26So first up. Hello, my name is. And my question and my question is, how did you become an entrepreneur? Thank you so much. First of all, class, I'm so excited to be with all of you. This is the highlight of my day. I'm so, so happy and I'm excited to answer your questions. You know, I don't think I I don't think I became an entrepreneur. I think I was born an entrepreneur for everyone who's sitting in class. By the time I was in second and third grade, I was already really excited for the summer to sell lemonade. I liked to like hang out with my friends and create like a little, yep, get on me with that for selling lemonade.

2:10I, you know, I liked creating like little stores with my friends. You know, I would go door to, you know, in the 1980s kids, kids would just go outside and we would just ring people's doorbells and try to sell them flowers. um so i i think for a lot of you you just love music you just love cooking you just love school i feel like a lot of people are born with things that they love and i loved being a business mind and a business kid and a businessman and then but here's what's important kids a lot of you love certain things skateboarding rock climbing you know um drawing coloring making music making videos, being a good friend, but the key is to practice, right?

2:58Just because you're born good at something, if you don't practice and practice and practice and practice and practice, then you may not be able to achieve the highest levels of what you're trying to achieve. And so not only was I born a businessman or an entrepreneur, but starting around your age up until right now, I've been practicing almost every day at it, which is what's made me good at it, not just liking it. Hi, my name is, my question is, where do you get your inspiration from? First of all, thank you for your question. That's a great question. Before you go away, can I ask you a question?

3:39Where do you get your inspiration from?

3:44Cool. I love it. Very nice. So for me, my inspiration comes from my parents. I was not born in America. I was born in the Soviet Union, which is now Russia and Belarus and some countries maybe you haven't heard of yet. But, you know, we came to America, we had very little, we were immigrants. And I lived in a small apartment with a lot of not only my parents, but my grandparents, my great grandparents, my uncle. and so it was very humble beginnings and so my parents loved me so much and worked so hard and they gave me the opportunity so I'm filled with gratitude for my parents and they're my inspiration.

4:28Thank you. How many people can relate to that that like your parents are your number one supporters? All right. Hi my name is and my question is how did you get through school? That's a good question. I love you for that question. I'll tell you why. Kids, some people, school comes natural, just like we talked about earlier with skateboarding or cooking or business. For me, school did not come natural. It was hard. and you know I I struggled in school a lot of different times um you were all so lucky because we live in a world now that understands the brain better the way kids learn better the way we all do it differently um and so the way I got through it was you know patience you know uh the way I got through it was looking for different things that brought me joy, you know, and so I loved math class.

5:32I loved history class. I loved gym. Recess was the best. I loved lunch. And so, you know, I found different ways to get through it through the years. But, you know, I can tell you this one thing now that I'm done with it, I would pay a lot of money to be back in school and be able to enjoy my friends and learning. And so you should all really enjoy this special 12, 15 years that you have because there's nothing like a childhood and being in school with each other. Hi, my name is and my question is, how did you feel on your first day of your business and why? That's a great question. It's really interesting that you asked me that with the question that was just asked for me.

6:18My first day in business officially was right after I was done with college. And it was in my dad's wine store. And don't forget kids, you can't drink wine until you're 21. But it was in my, fair enough. And so it was my dad's wine store and I had been working in it since I was 14. And I loved it there. I loved helping my dad. So the way I felt my first day was I was ecstatic. I was thrilled because I couldn't wait to work for my family's business. And now I was done with school and I was ready to work. It was one of the best days of my life. And the reason was because I was going to be doing what I was born to do, which is to be a businessman.

7:01Hi, my name is, hi, I'm, and my question is, are you happy with your life? That's a great question. Thank you. I'm extremely happy with my life. Kids, you may remember this, you might not, because I know how young you are. But even if one of you remembers exactly what I'm about to say for the rest of your life, then this is one of the best meetings I've ever had in my life. Because it means you're going to start believing this very early. I'm extremely happy with my life, because I'm thankful for everything I have. And I have no envy or jealousy or wants or needs of what other people want. kids, one of the biggest issues in the world is people are jealous or envious of other people.

7:47They want what they have. They want the kind of things they have. Maybe it's the book bag they have, the clothes they have, the money they have, the house they have, the toys they have. And this goes on forever when you get older. The reason I'm so happy with my life is because I never worry about other people. I actually only root for other people. I want other people to have those things. I'm happy that they have those things. I hope that they're happy too. But by keeping my life very simple and just being grateful for what I have, being grateful for what I have makes me the happiest. I'm one of the happiest people on earth.

8:22I really believe that. And that's because I keep things simple. As long as I have happiness and health of my family, I don't need things. I don't need things. I don't focus on things. And so my life is incredibly happy. I'm very grateful for what I have and I don't spend time worrying about what I don't have. Sounds like he has an attitude of gratitude maybe, right? That we're learning about. So let's talk about an attitude of gratitude.

8:50All right, thank you. Hi, and my question is why did you make me fits? Great question. Why did I make me fits? Here's what. I could tell you a lot of good things right now, but I have a feeling if Respectful Raccoon did it in a cartoon or a video game, you might understand it even more. I could tell you about a lot of ways of how to become likable and why you should always love your fellow student and neighbor and teacher, but I think likable leopard has a better chance of getting you to pay attention to that than I saying it to you. I created V friends because I really believe in kindness and love and good and having compassion and being an empathetic person and having an attitude of gratitude.

9:46But I know that I'm a only one human being. And if I wanna get people to hear the message, I have to do a lot of different things. If I wanna explain to you that resilience and willpower and working hard matters, I have a feeling that the willful wizard is cooler to you than I am. And so I want to make sure that I leave the biggest impact of happiness and love on the world. And I need my deep friends to help me do that. Does that make sense?

10:20all right thank you all right uh hi my name is and my question is have you spoken in any schools before that's a great question i love your shirt

10:39um yes i have it's one of my favorite things to do um speaking to children's a lot of fun because a lot of you are still making your decisions and learning about yourself. And for me, that's a great time to talk to kids because then you can really impact them. I remember school assemblies today and I'm 47 years old and I remember school assemblies in first grade, third grade, fifth grade that had an impact on me. And so I'm very, very honored. I'm so grateful that you allowed me to be with the class is today. And so I have, and I will continue. And one of the reasons I created VFriends is I think one of the biggest things you could ever do is to impact kids.

11:24And I'm focused on that. Hi, I'm, and my question is, how do you draw the characters? Hmm, that's a good one. Thank you for the question. So starting around your age, everyone, I started to doodle sometimes in class and sometimes my teachers were not happy I was doing that. So make sure you pay attention to your teachers. But sometimes I would doodle on the bus and after school and I would always doodle, Aviyah, like I really like doodling. How many people here like to draw?

12:07So this is interesting kids, you'll find this interesting. Almost the entire class raised their hand. so many hands just went up but by the time you're in seventh grade ninth grade 11th grade a lot a lot of you will no longer raise your hand and say that you'd like to draw a lot of you will stop drawing I never stopped drawing I never stopped doodling and so when it came time to do vfriends instead of hiring somebody else to do it I did it and it was one of the most joyous and fulfilling things I ever did. So if I could tell any of you, all of you, never stop drawing. It's very creative and it will bring a lot of joy in your life.

12:49We have two questions from kiddos that are absent today. So I'll just ask them on their behalf. This one is from and his question is how did you go from drawing characters to having them be animated? That's a great question. So once I drew them. Now I had them established. So then I worked with a company that created the second version of them, like the way you see them now versus my drawing. And I've met with a lot of different companies. And I picked the ones that I thought were the nicest, and the people that could do a good job. So sometimes kids, when you get older, and you're in the work world, you'll end up having partnerships.

13:28And make sure that you remember this. It's not just someone who's good at it. it's someone who you also want to work with because you'll have a nice relationship and um the last question we have is this question is how do you solve problems my favorite way to solve problems is to try to understand what the other party or person is thinking about so how many hey kids real quick by show of hands or the move how many of you have had disagreements with fellow classmates in your life.

14:09So what we saw right there is disagreements are a part of life, right? Even though you might be friendly with somebody in here, you might not see eye to eye on everything. And that's okay. What you have to remember is you can't just focus on how you feel about it. you have to remember there's another person too. And you might want to start thinking about why are they thinking that? Why do they see it differently? When I was a kid and somebody would pick on me or not be nice, for some reason, whether it was good parenting by my mom or because it was my, the way I was born or probably a combination of both, I would always think they weren't being mean to me.

14:51They were in a bad place and they were unhappy and something must have been going on in their life. And so they're hurt. And so maybe that's showing up with them not being nice. The way I solve problems is through compassion and through empathy and trying to understand what the other person's problem is and how we solve it. And sometimes that's complicated, like a disagreement or argument. And other times it's just partnering up to make something happen. And you're trying to understand what they're trying to achieve. So the way I get through these things is by being curious and asking questions and always having good intent for the other person or party.

15:31Laura, can I ask some questions to Gary? Absolutely. Have some time? Great. So Gary, one of the skill sets that this CBA is learning now, this is a school all around entrepreneurship, which again, is why you are the most perfect person slash your little animals for them. And they actually watched V friends leading up to this. They watched the videos in class, which is so awesome. Hey kids, did you like, did you guys like the Be Friends videos? Raise your hands. All right. Thank you for the ones who raised their hands and the ones that did not raise their hands. I'm coming to town to talk to you about it.

16:08One guy's laughing. He's going to be good feedback for you. So one of the skill sets out of the seven skill sets that they're, that, you know, these wonderful students are learning is around learning from failure. And I think that's unbelievable for kids in a school to really understand that they can learn from failure. So do you have a story of how you've learned from failure? And what advice do you have around when something seems like a failure? What can we do about it? kids, everybody in the world has failed. There's not a single person that hasn't failed a lot of times. Teachers, raise your hands if you failed hundreds of times in your life.

16:54Your teachers who are incredible are human beings who failed in small ways hundreds of times. That's what happens in life. The quicker you get comfortable with losing, the quicker you're gonna have a happy life. You don't wanna lose. It's not necessarily what you're trying to do, but not all losses are really losses. They're just step backs. They're just little moments in time and they're always an opportunity to learn and understand. And so I highly recommend you understand that losing is a part of life. One of the biggest mistakes that grownups sometimes make is trying to protect kids from losing.

17:37Losing is a part of life. And the quicker you get comfortable with it, the quicker you're gonna have a happier life. I don't like losing, but I know it's a part. And when I lose, I try to reflect on what I could have done better. And then I try to bring that energy to the next time. So that's what you have to really realize. It's just a part of life. Just like the sun coming up and going down and the moon coming up and going down, you will lose, you will get bad grades. You will lose a sporting game. Like you'll have a bad day. you'll lose a friend along the way, things will happen. And that's okay, because you're strong enough to make it better.

18:15So I really like that point. One of the things that we do every month is we give a staff member the Epic Failure Award. Next year, what I'm hoping is as our kids get older, and they start taking more risks with their learning, that we can start giving an Epic Failure Award to the kids to celebrate trying something and coming back from it and learning I think that is, I think the kids are incredibly lucky that you're doing that. Going back to how lucky the kids are, I'm going to kind of combine three skill sets out of the seven, Gary, because I know you and I feel like a lot of there's actually probably a character named after one of these skill sets.

18:52So in terms of your life, you know, the skill sets around recognizing opportunity, taking risks and staying curious. I'm pretty sure curious is one of your VFriends. And you really talk about curiosity and how it's played a humongous role in your life. And so I'm curious around how has curiosity brought you to where you are and how has curiosity helped you actually find opportunities and take risks? So how is that a part of who you are? And yeah, which VFriends is it? So it is Curious Crane, which I don't think is in my office. Um, it's when I do this, I'm hoping that one of you hears me, two of you hear me on certain different things that are valuable to you.

19:39This word curiosity is one that I would love for you to attach onto the curious crane, which is a bird in my world is a very important character. Amanda's right. Curiosity has been essential in my happiness. Why does it work like that? Why, why, why, you know, trying different things. Some of you, if you were asked, do you play soccer? Actually, watch this. How many of you here like soccer? Raise your hand.

20:12How many people here have never played soccer or played very little soccer? Raise your hands. So for the people that just raised their hands, maybe you do love soccer, but you haven't played yet. And instead of being scared or timid or just not even considering it, doing that for everything, the piano, the violin, basketball, cooking, drawing, painting, singing, karate, you know, all these things in the world that you could be doing if you stay curious and say maybe instead of no. So many of you say no to things already. How many of you have been asked to do something with a friend, but because you were scared or you didn't like it, you said no.

20:57Raise your hand.

21:01I'm really proud of you for raising your hand and being honest. What I'm asking the class to do is the next time a friend asks you to do something that you're scared of or you don't think you like, instead of saying no, say maybe and maybe ask them another question about it. and then half the time say yes and try it. There are some things that are my favorite thing to do in the world that I don't even know because I never did it. It might be surfing, it might be pastry chefing, but I never tried it and I wanna do that more in my 40s. It's a heck of a lot better to do it when you're in your age group.

21:42So please say maybe and that's how curiosity works. Are you guys on board with that? You understand? Yeah. Okay. I would say this is the last question. So you didn't, you were not lucky enough for CBA to exist when you were a little kid. So you struggled a lot with feeling seen and really being understood within school. So if you were in this audience today, you're a little Gary in the audience, right next to, you know, that really awesome shirt. What do you want to tell yourself you know again just that you feel like no one maybe gets you or no one sees you what do you want to tell that little Gary in the audience little Gary struggled in school but he did not struggle when he sold lemonade or when he rang doorbells to wash cars so let me tell you kids about entrepreneurship the number one cool thing about your school and the number one cool thing on the journey that you're on, is even if everyone says no, that this idea is not gonna work.

22:50Your parents, your teachers, the people that you must listen to the most, but when it comes to entrepreneurship, even if they don't think it's a good idea and you think it's a good idea, you must try it. It might not work. And many of my ideas did not work. Many of my businesses did not work. but as entrepreneurs like all of us are it's almost like our destiny to try to make the things and the ideas that we have to happen so I tell you in this class even though I wasn't lucky enough to have a class like this or a school like this even in this environment that you're in there will always be people that don't think your idea is right and they might be right but you must try and see your ideas come into the world because you'll never live with yourself if you don't try, especially as you get older.

23:45Class, one day you'll be in the business world as entrepreneurs and I'm still gonna be doing this. And I cannot wait to work with some of you in the future and I can't wait for you to tell me that you were in this class. And so I love you and I can't wait to see you. Okay, don't you want to?