Three Traits That Define Success and Resilience | National Archives Keynote

0:00This is the GaryVee Audio Experience. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Gary Vee Audio Experience. I am Mike from Team Gary Vee, and on today's episode of the podcast, we are sharing Gary's recent keynote that he gave at the National Archives. In this one, Gary dives a little bit into his family's background. Gary also talks a lot about resilience, compassion, and ambition. I hope you all enjoy. Good morning. First and foremost to 23 of you, I'm shocked how emotional I am right now and how I was watching you. 46 years ago, my family came to this incredible country from the former Soviet Union.

0:40My parents sat on our green card for quite a long time. And so I actually vividly remember 25 years ago this day for me. and I just want to be one of the first people to congratulate you to joining this incredible family. Let's hear it for them one more time.

1:09I've had the great privilege of speaking on many stages, many podiums in my life, as you heard earlier, and that was so wonderful and it's such an honor to be here. Thank you, and Judge Moss, thank you so much for being a part of this. As I built my journey in this incredible country, I've had the luxury of having the gift of gab, and so I've done plenty of speaking, but I say this from the bottom of my heart. This may truly be one of the most monumental moments of my speaking career. To welcome people into this incredible country is a tremendous honor. I thought a lot about what I wanted to say, and I knew I had very little time, but what I really wanted to focus on was breaking down three incredible letters, USA.

1:58And what those letters and what words I thought of when I thought about those letters represented for the journey that all of you are gonna go on, for the journey that the incredible middle schoolers are gonna go on. Actually, let's clap it up for the middle schoolers one more time.

2:20I decided to frame it up in that, and the first word I thought of when I thought about the letter U was unwavering. I think one of the incredible things about us still being here and the incredible journey this country's been on, it is a sheer miracle, if you understand your history, that this country exists and the profound impact this country has on the world. I snicker as someone that was born in the depths of communism when I listen to my fellow Americans speak about some of our shortcomings. There is no nation, there is no family, there is no business, there is no person that does not have some shortcomings.

3:03But when we over focus on shortcomings instead of understanding deep strengths, we get confused. and I would argue that it is unfortunate that there is confusion in the air as we stand here today. My friends, let there be no confusion. For the people that were lucky enough to be born in this great nation, I know that the 23 here, though they have tremendous love and tremendous feelings towards where they come from, and many probably still have family and great warmth towards it, they are not confused at all about the incredible strengths that this nation has. Otherwise, they wouldn't be sitting here today.

3:48I think it is incredibly important to understand the unwavering truth of the American world and more importantly, the American dream and most of all, the American impact. I'm not going to sit here and assume that everybody here is a geopolitical nerd and understands what's going on in every facet of the world. But I will say this for the kids and for everybody else in this room, please, if you leave this little talk I have with anything, never, and I mean ever, be confused on how important this nation sits in the world and how much good this nation brings to the world. Next, S. There's a lot of words I thought about for S.

4:35but I'm going to go with sympathy. I think one of the great traits of this country and one of the great traits that many of us can lead into as we continue to go through our lives is being sympathetic to others. I think the glue that holds us together when we are at our best, when we are able to contain so many different people, like the judge said, from different backgrounds and income levels and interests and ideologies, Our empathy, our compassion, and our sympathy for each other must be stronger than ever and is an incredibly beautiful trait. Leaning in to your emotional softness, to your sympathy, is the great strength of navigating life and I think is foundational in the history.

5:25Our true empathy, compassion, and sympathy for the rest of the world, not just within ourselves, is our greatest strength and it's absolutely what I think about when I think about the United States of America. And finally, A, this one was very easy for me, ambition. To me, the American dream, the journey my family came from, my father came to this country not speaking a word of English, worked making$2 an hour, stocking shelves in a liquor store, but his decision to come to this country changed the course of my life and our family's life forever. I could never repay or thank him enough for that very brave decision.

6:13His ambition created a foundation. My ambition created the next chapter and the ambition of the people that follow me will continue to build and hopefully replicate some of the incredible families that have lived in this incredible nation. The sheer ambition that all of you have and your future families have, and the fact, and this is so darn important, the fact that there is room for your ambition in this great country should never be forgotten. Today, I stand with this incredible honor to give this speech in these hallowed halls because of my talents, entrepreneurship, and my ambition. both of my grandfathers in the country that they were born for their ambition for being entrepreneurial spent years in jail in the USSR.

7:08That is the difference of our country. And today you start day one of being part of that and today the rest of us continue to have the luxury to be inside of that and that should never ever be underestimated. I thank you. I wish you nothing but happiness and health. And welcome to the United States of America.