Tips to Stay Motivated for Your Tuesday

0:00People are more motivated by love than they are fear, but most of the world sells fear. So stop selling fear to yourself. You're not going to work harder because you're saying you're a piece of shit. Fear and negativity is a short-term motivator. Love and compassion is a forever game. Attention is the number one asset. Look, I got incredibly fortunate. I think I have a world-class mother who, you know, I was born in the Soviet Union. It was a very challenging place to live. My mom, unlike most of the people from that part of the world, was an optimist. people really struggled in that society from 1917 to the time it fell in 1989 and I don't have to tell this audience Russia is not the easiest place to live even right now and so I'm incredibly grateful because I think a lot of us in this audience to succeed with emotional intelligence we either have to get very fortunate and get the luck of the draw of DNA and parenting or we have to put in a lot of work in meditation, therapy, and living life.

1:00And so for me, I, you know, a lot of times people say, a lot of people that live the life that I lived, which is worked a lot and worked really hard and worked smart and people will throw lucky at them, right? They got lucky. And a lot of people that in the audience and their parents and me that have put in the work, you get triggered, right? You're like, man, I worked so hard. This isn't luck. You're not working or you know you don't get it but I will say I got lucky when we talk about emotional intelligence I do I did get great DNA I have two siblings who have different DNA than I do and not that mine's better or worse than theirs it's just that I'm a default optimist and I believe that if you're a default optimist especially if you're built like me where you're also grounded in reality and it's not delusion that if you're a practical optimist you're halfway way home.

1:52And then I've also had the luxury of liking people, spending a lot of time with people, managing people since I was like 14, 15. When I was 16, I was the son of the guy who owned the liquor store. And so by de facto, I was managing people at 16. And so here I am 31 years later, I have an organization with 2000 employees. I have a very public persona. I interact with people at scale and you know life has become very obvious to me i believe that plenty of people can make money and plenty of people are not good at it but there's really no correlation when it comes to joy and happiness and being content to how much money one makes and i love entrepreneurship and i love being a businessman and i love being a competitor and i love grinding and competing and tenacity and determination.

2:45But I like being happier than all those things. And I guess from my standpoint, I was self-aware at a young age. I knew myself. I was willing to be ridiculed because I had self-confidence. And for everybody in the audience, what I mean by ridiculed is I'm 47. So when you were getting D's and F's in school in the 80s and 90s, you were going to be a garbage man. You weren't going to be anything. It's not the world we live in now where entrepreneurship is a viable, if not over rockstar capacity and occupation. When I was growing up, the word barely had any traction. And so I got used to losing early on.

3:24I was able to build very thick skin. I'm empathetic to judgment instead of crippled by it. I think it's powerful. And yeah, honestly, I've become incredibly motivated over the last decade to talk about these things. And for the people in the audience that are aware of my content, I speak a lot about emotional stuff in the framework of marketing and tactics and business. And I'm proud of it because I think it helps people and that feels good. When you think about, you know, everything that you've been able to accomplish in your life, we have a lot of entrepreneurs in the audience, a lot of people working on their own businesses and they often look to you and they look to people to think about what they want to do and kind of what that success will be like in the end.

4:11So you lose sight of the process. How important do you think the process is and do you think the current generation of entrepreneurs are a little too focused on the money that's going to come down the line? Yeah, I mean, you obviously have a good sense of like the things that are running through my mind. You know, I'm obsessed with the process. I genuinely love entrepreneurship so much that I weirdly like to lose. And I like to lose because I respect the game more than the stuff that the game can buy for me. So yeah, do I think, but you know, it's interesting when you ask, the thing that I hear there is, I think entrepreneurship became cool and I'm the beneficiary of that.

4:54But I think 20 years ago, a lot of the people in the audience would have not been entrepreneurs, but I would have been. And I don't say that as a razz or a dig to the audience. I just think that what I really want for everyone in the audience is not to be an entrepreneur. And I do have fear that some of the people in the audience are doing the entrepreneur thing because it's cool, because it looks good on paper. It's cool to say you are. And why I fear that is not because they won't be successful, though that stinks and it stinks to lose. It's that if you're not an entrepreneur, like really actually, like a purebred, losing in front of your family and relatives will probably be scary.

5:31because really one of the telltale signs of a true entrepreneur is their incredible capacity to fail, at least in the micro. And so, you know, I think I do, you know, look, I mean, one of the biggest reasons I never show, you know, I fly private sometimes. My time's valuable. But the reason I like desperately never want to show that is because I don't understand the glamorization of jewelry or cars or flights, because I don't think that is the healthy part of the game. I actually think when entrepreneurs post that stuff, I don't think that's aspirational. I really don't. I actually think if you look carefully, it's making a lot of people in this audience and in the world feel bad about themselves, right?

6:20They see all these people, they FOMO. It triggers their insecurity. And so I do worry about, as such a capitalist, I do worry about the over capitalization of the content, but that's always been the case long before social media. People bought Mercedes and Chanel bags and moved to 90210 just for the validation. There are people in the world, you know this, who send their kids to certain schools for their own self-worth. And I worry about that. I don't like that. I think you should be doing things for yourself and your family out of the process, not the stuff. because I think you'll be happier mentally and you won't burn out.

7:00And I think that's important. I think a big theme of what you were just describing is when we live our lives trying to prove something to others or show that we're feeling a certain way or we're living this life so that other people think we're successful and we did it. And I think a lot of people in this room would be afraid of posting that video that their friends might make fun of or their aunt might think is silly and they should get a quote real job. So how have you kind of blocked out the noise of other people's opinions when you fail or you lose because I think a lot of people, myself included, need that advice.

7:35I got fortunate. I lived in a cocoon of an immigrant family where having a roof over your head and having clothes and food was a huge win. Both of my parents did not care about other people's opinions. They didn't flash. They didn't need to go buy something expensive. So that became a framework. I also got very lucky that I was so loved and my house was so happy because of my mom when we were super poor when we came to America. So I learned at a very young age that money and stuff did not bring happiness. So I never, I was built for it. I was trained for it and then I practiced it. You know, I think in high school instead of going to the cool party on a Friday night I decided to do a baseball card show and sell cards because I was an entrepreneur.

8:23I love the process more than playing spin the bottle, though that was cool and I wanted to do that at 15. I really just wanted to be an entrepreneur and so I've always had a cocoon and it just has continued to accelerate and this is why I talk a lot about this. It's crazy when you realize the prettiest girls in your high school, the richest guys in the world right now, how insecure they are, right? How much everything they do is to impress others that they don't even know. And I get it. Like, your dad never loved you the way you wanted and you want to stick it to them or the girl broke your heart and you want to make a ton of money to prove to her.

9:05You know, like, I get it. And you know, I get it and you'll laugh, given our connection. I actually understand the rest of the world predominantly through the lens of being a football fan. And I mean this. The only place I envy, like, I genuinely hate New England Patriot fans. And I mean that. And I know I heard the laughs and I appreciate it, but I'm gonna be incredibly transparent and give you an insight. So much of what makes me understand the balanced world is my complete irrationalness of being a New York Jets fan and knowing what envy and jealousy and I'm hurt so I want you hurt. I'm completely inappropriate at football games.

9:47You should have seen me yelling at Taylor Swift from the seats last week. Gary, we'll have to talk about that as a Swifty. I mean, I get it. It's incredibly challenging to be jealous and hurt and not feel in control. All things I feel is a jet band. None of the things I feel in life. So I love everyone from a race and gender and religion and income level and part of the world standpoint in real life because I'm fulfilled, I'm happy, I'm at peace. It's simple. Do you know how excited I get when people outperform me in my own industries. Of course I'm competitive and I'd like to win, but I don't hate.

10:26I don't tear down others. But in football I do. In football, and because I feel that to the core of my soul, it makes me realize, oh my God, I do this in this silly arena known as the NFL. This is how the world is living their lives. There are people who actually hate other people because they see politics differently. That blows my mind. Or for the people in the room, they hate people that are successful in a business that they're in because they're better than them at it. I don't want that for anybody here because I only have to be angry for four hours every Sunday for four months a year. Everybody else here is doing that 365 days a year for their life and I don't like that.

11:13So I think there is a lot there. And I feel like where I'd love to take it is when we think about those people who it's not just, you know, their favorite NFL team. It's year round. It's the envy. It's the I'm not good enough. The victim mentality. Something you talk a lot about is gratitude, how you're so rooted in gratitude, so grateful. And that gives you that default optimistic lens. But I think all of us here, we know, right? Three things you're grateful for in the morning. This is what gratitude is. We try, but then after three days, we stop doing it. Right. So how do you really live and breathe gratitude every day and how can we do the same?

11:55Do you know that I never write down three things I'm grateful for? I don't meditate on it. I do nothing like that. I just do it every second of my life. Do you know that multiple times a day I will think about things that are challenging that I hope don't happen, like getting a phone call, that someone I love had a stroke, that someone I love is diagnosed with a disease, that someone I love suddenly died in a car accident because these are real things that happen to real people. I also struggle with complete delusion. Do you understand that everyone in this audience lives a remarkable life in comparison to the eight billion people on earth?

12:34Do you know that 735 million people on earth, almost 10%, do not have access to clean water? Clean water. Like, I don't know, there's some water. Like, the jacket you're wearing, the hat, it's a$40 hat. Well, it's from Express. It's not a good time. No, but you know what's so amazing about that, right? Like, think about this. Like, the fact that you on a Friday evening afternoon are able to watch this or be in the audience, like, I don't think people understand. And I don't expect people to understand. I know I got lucky in being born in one of the most horrible places in the world. I know I got lucky by living with eight family members in a studio apartment for multiple years.

13:17I know I got lucky that my parents basically didn't buy me toys because that's not what we spent our money on. I know that I'm hungry because I wasn't fed. I know that I'm not entitled, I know. But for everyone who's listening, you have to go through the work. On the flip side, I grew up not eating healthy, not being told that that's important, not working out. And at 38 years old, I changed that. And for the last 10 years, I've put in the work for something that didn't come natural. I also grew up with a mom that's the sweetest, but she lacked candor, which meant I lacked candor. And candor has been disproportionately my kryptonite in my professional and personal career.

13:56And that I can go backwards and tell you everything that has not worked for me in the last 25 years. And I can tell you immediately that the seed of that not working out was my inability to deliver candor to somebody, which led to resentment on my end or me being sloppy and them not respecting me for my lack of candor. And I know I've worked on that the last four or five years after a lot of pain professionally and personally. So I would argue, though I can understand that people in the audience can't do gratitude the way I can, that I've worked very hard. I know that people have put in the work to work on their alcoholism.

14:34They've put in the work to work on their depression. and I just challenge everybody here to not just say, well, it doesn't come natural to me. Like, work on gratitude and the way you work on gratitude is if writing it down three times in the morning works, well, then actually do it every day, not for two weeks, January 1st to the 13th and then give up. Like, work is work and if you're unhappy and you've got some money, go to therapy and if you don't have money, go start listening to more positivity. Go take a walk. Work on your head. You are accountable. You are capable. Don't blame the president.

15:10Don't blame your grandma. Don't blame your mom. Don't blame the mayor. Blame yourself. And don't blame yourself like I suck. And beat yourself up. Have compassion to you that this is my circumstance, but I can fix it. And all of this stuff, bringing it down to the ground instead of the clouds that I'm in right now, all of this stuff has a direct correlation of you being a good founder and CEO. Because it's hard. And the real issue is who you are when it's hard is the whole game. Because your team doesn't need a leader that is nice when it's good, but then when you lose a big account or something goes bad, you're yelling and screaming and scaring everyone.

15:53A real leader is best when it's worse.

16:01I love that. Recognizing privilege, having perspective. yeah but not also important I heard some claps it's amazing that's why Gary's the best he's straight to the point but listen I want to also show compassion I hate that we've weaponized words privilege I promise you everyone in America is privileged at some level like you can look at privilege from a lot of angles do you know that I believe that if you were born into extreme wealth you're less privileged I've heard you say this will you expand on it to the audience. I think it's super fascinating. Yes, I think people have weaponized privilege and I don't want people to feel bad that are sitting in the audience who happen to be fortunate enough that their parents or grandparents have done well.

16:44Like, I don't view that as privilege. I believe that if you are second or third generation wealthy and you're a purebred entrepreneur, you're in a very curious spot because no one's ever going to give you credit because everyone's always going to say mommy and daddy put you on. That stinks. I think we need to stop weaponizing things. Stop judging everybody. Like, everybody's got something. I promise you, everybody's got something. Instead of judgment and envy and jealousy, why don't we all lean into compassion, sympathy, and empathy and understand that everybody's got something. The amount of people that come up to me and just assume my life is good because I have a blue check mark and some followers and a couple of dollars, get the fuck out of here.

17:28So, I love that you're bringing up self-compassion. Sometimes with entrepreneurship, there can be this mentality. I'm going to push myself. I'm going to tell myself I suck to motivate myself to achieve. What's the balance? How do you be nice to yourself but also be the best at your craft? Love yourself is a default that everybody should work on every minute. It should be non-negotiable. And then as far as motivating yourself, look, this goes back to what I touched on earlier. people are more motivated by love than they are fear but most of the world sells fear. So stop selling fear to yourself.

18:06You're not gonna work harder because you're saying you're a piece of shit. If you're sitting there and you're like, I suck, you're not gonna, I promise you, fear and negativity is a short term motivator. Love and compassion is a forever game and you can either believe me or not but I promise you that, you know what I love? You know what I love? Somebody said something to me the other day and said, they said, Gary, that's toxic positivity. And I sat there and I laughed. I said, man, the world is so infatuated in pushing negativity, they've created this term just to demonize positive people. And I laughed and we had this discussion.

18:52It was a very civil, you know, So I actually genuinely enjoy people that don't agree with me, meaning, because I don't default into thinking I'm right. You want to be really happy? Fall in love with the humble side of your life, no matter how much success you have. It keeps you in check. And I enjoy the humble part of my style just as much as I enjoy my competitive conviction side. So we had this nice discussion and it was really a mental chess game, very bright person. We were going back and forth. And finally I said to this individual, I said, you know what's funny? I said we can have this incredibly interesting conversation for the next 50 years of our life I said but there's one problem and the person said what's that I said I've already won and of course you know that was like the point of like this mental chess we were playing and the person said what do you mean with a smirk trying to see what point I was trying to make I said well life is how you see it you've already decided to be a cynic and I've already decided to be an optimist you've already lost.

19:56Absolutely love it. Gary, just facts. Facts, facts, facts. No, but to the point, right? For the audience, to go a little further because I know I left it on a little bit of simplicity. If you decide that the world sucks, the world sucks. If you decide that you suck, you suck. In the same way that if you decide the world is good, it's good. I wish all of you could see my Instagram feed and TikTok feed. It's like kittens kissing each other. It's like sunshine touching your grandma's soul. It's like, it's fucking positive. And everyone's like, the algorithm is exposing you. I wish I could take everybody's Instagram explore page and open it right now.

20:40I could tell you everything about you.

20:46lastly Gary you mentioned your love with the Jets would you share the reason that you fell in love with the Jets in the beginning oh you're trying to go there for me it's a very special story I was an immigrant like I said I moved to Edison New Jersey I was six going on seven I was outside you know what's the makeup of the crowd what's the age group what's the range we've got a great mix we've got we've got college students, we've got young adults, old adults. Good. We're rocking in here. All right. So can the 40 and older make some noise?

21:23All right. So for all these OGs, you guys know this. For the kids in there, first of all, I love you. I'm a big proponent of the kids. I hate all this Gen Z bashing. I want to bash the boomers. But for the 40 year olds that just made noise, the kids in here won't understand. In the 80s, we went outside and played. And so, in 1982, right before I started first grade, I went outside to play. And this is how we played kids in the room. You'd actually go outside and you had no idea what was gonna happen. So I went outside and I looked for kids. Like, literally looked for kids. And I saw some kids playing football with a Nerf football and I walked over.

22:04I just started really speaking English even, right? And these kids took me in as a crew. They're like, what's your name? and they were very warm to me, which really meant a lot to me, as you can imagine, just moving to a new town. And they're like, who do you like in football? I was like, eh? They're like, well, we're Jet fans, you're a Jet fan. Which, to be honest, the more I think about this story, if those fuckers would just said Giants, I'd have four Super Bowls, I'd be so happy. But anyway, Eric Godfrey, Robbie Turnick, that crew, they're like, you're a Jets fan. That was 1982. The Jets had one of their best seasons ever.

22:40they got to the game before the Super Bowl. I thought I hit, I'm like, oh, this is good. And little did I know. But nonetheless, they all had Jets jerseys. And I wanted one and I asked my mom for one and she's like, no way, Jose. Like, that's not what we do in immigrant life. We don't buy$20 shirts. Like, your whole wardrobe's like$6 from Kmart. And so I was sad and wanted one. And at night, my mom spent the next three weeks knitting me a Jets jersey, which is my prized possession. I still have it. And it has the number five. How many people here consume my content? Can you make some noise?

23:22So some of you are probably aware, you see me do this all the time when I take a photo. And I do that as a head nod to my mom, who's my hero, and who's the foundation of everything that I have that is good. And it's because she knitted me a jersey and put the number five on it because that was my favorite number. And that jersey is the most near and dear thing to my heart. And somewhere around five or six or seven years later, when I was 10, 11, 12, I decided that I wanted to buy the New York Jets when I got older. And somewhere about five to six or seven years later, I realized how important that jersey was to me.

23:55And I have this great dream to buy the New York Jets and one day build a stadium and put that jersey in the front so that every single fan has to walk by it. and I wanted the plaque to say from not being able to buy a jersey to owning the whole damn team as a head nod to my mom who is the greatest person that walks earth today.

24:24And I think the world works on stories, right? I'm very passionate about the reason the reason it even is a Gary Vee is I want to be looked up to. Not because I'm trying to close a gap, but because my mom created me to not have gaps and I want to close other people's gaps. And so I think stories matter and I think a lot of us in the crowd that are fortunate and we feel good, I think the people that are unhappy are very loud in the world. And I feel like a lot of us that are happy, like myself, we're not doing a good enough job of being louder and I think positivity needs to be louder and I challenge the people in the audience who are in a good place to share more positivity on social.

25:10I feel like happy people like me tend to be quiet and be with ourselves and keep it in our cocoons and I think positivity needs to be more sharing. I think we need to be louder. We all agree and thank you, Gary. One of the most special stories, I know I've never forgotten it since I heard it about your mom And actually, I want to invite Dave Velasco back on stage. We have a guest. Oh, he's here. Magic. Hey, Gary. How you doing, man? Dave, how are you, brother? It's good to see you. For anyone that knows, Gary came into my class unannounced in 2015 and gave the best 45-minute talk I have ever heard on entrepreneurship and mindset.

25:53It was a master class. He challenged students in the audience. He's like, who's really an entrepreneur? Who's, like, really ready to go? and like six or seven people raised their hand and he goes, I think you should walk out right now. I think you should drop out of college and walk out. And I was just cheering. I wanted someone so badly to just get up and leave. It's like Gary Vee told me. But since then, Gary, you've shown up for us and when I invited you, there was no hesitation and he wrote back, we show up for our people. And that is something that I will never forget. We had, so I can't thank you enough for that.

26:29Thank you, brother. You're a mensch. before you a couple hours ago we had Pete Carroll here and the story that you tell about your mother that you just shared is one of the most inspiring things I've ever heard and so we were talking about it with coach and he said you know Gary needs a West Coast team he also said Pete was fired from the New York Jets at one point by the way I got a story that you can share with Pete when Pete was the defensive coordinator for the New York Jets the Jets played the Bills on a Monday night game in 1993 and it was ABC would air that game. I was such a big Pete Carroll fan.