Why Are You Not Putting in Your 30 Hours of Homework?

0:00Many of you have your faces on billboards and ads and newspapers and things of that nature. I believe in all that. I just don't believe in overpaying for yesterday and not investing in today. Whatever you did to get here was about attention. Whether it was shaking hands and having friends and working the local thing. Word of mouth is just attention. You did something for Craig, he liked it enough. And when Sally asked him, he referred. It's all just the same game. The problem is, and the thing that I have had an enormous amount of passion on, is if attention is the asset that grows everything, that creates the result, why aren't people interested in investing the 20 hours that it would take to understand the current space of attention?

0:47This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. Morning, Atlanta.

0:56It's really, really nice to be with all of you. I don't have a ton of time on stage because I got to run to the meet and greet. So I want to really get into a bunch of things that are on my mind for this sector. Try to bring as much value as I can while we're together. I really play in two very opposite places when it comes to business, life, philosophy, all of it really, which is so much of what I do and think about and what I admire and see in others is a remarkable level of consistency of what is truly tried and true. And then on the complete other extreme part, I really spend almost all my time trying to understand the one thing that connects to everybody in this room regardless of what they're trying to achieve.

1:42Whether you're in this room and under the context of this room, you're clearly trying to achieve something from a professional lens. but the reality is if you're passionate about fundraising for your kids' school or if you want to segue your career or if you've got a side hustle or if you decide to pivot or run for public office, there's just such a fascinating thing that has always been true which is attention is the asset and how you fill that attention becomes the variable of what happens. You know, I was born in the Soviet Union and came to the U.S. when I was three and grew up in the 80s during the Cold War.

2:26And I've always wondered if because of that I've always had an extra interest in the media, in propaganda, in communication. Because that was so much the warfare of the Soviet Union and the U.S. And obviously I don't have to explain to anybody in this room. I think over the last half decade, our society has started paying a lot more attention to communication. I was always fascinated by why, if there was a coup in a country, would they go to the TV station and the newspapers even before they went to the palace? And it made me always understand that this shit's important. Communication is the variable.

3:04What's really fascinating about this industry, and I have many friends in it, is when trying to grow the business, most of the DNA in this room is sales DNA. It's not brand DNA. You're not marketing, you're selling. It's why Google does so well. It's why so many people here feel comfortable allocating money to Google AdWords because it's transactional. Somebody types something in, you spend dollars on it. You go to the top, you see and feel the ROI very quickly. I understand it. I love selling stuff. It's very easy to understand. It's very easy to invest in. What's impossibly difficult to invest in is brand.

3:49It's hard. Why am I wearing these? Because of brand. Nobody knocked on my fucking door and said, do you want to buy these Nikes? Nobody, I didn't type in Nike into it. This is brand. This little swoosh is worth a trillion dollars. A trillion. And so I think about that because it's easier to understand with Nike, but it's harder for a lot of people in this room to think about it from their business lens. Though we see it, many of you know, many of you have your faces on billboards and ads and newspapers and things of that nature. I believe in all that. I just don't believe in overpaying for yesterday and not investing in today.

4:32Like whatever you did to get here was about attention. Whether it was shaking hands and having friends and working the local thing, whether word of mouth is just attention. You did something for Craig, he liked it enough and when Sally asked him, he referred. It's all just the same game. The problem is, and the thing that I have had an enormous amount of passion on is if attention is the asset that grows everything, that creates the result, why aren't people interested in investing the 20 hours that it would take to understand the current space of attention? Like, I just don't understand why you wouldn't see through the curiosity and spend five hours to understand why a TikTok video might actually lead to a customer.

5:30I don't understand why you would say no. Let me rephrase. I very much understand why you say no. You say no because you positioned it in your head as something else. You've positioned it as the thing that your kids spend all their time on. Right? But what you don't do is the homework that makes you understand that over the last 18 months, the growth of 35 to 55-year-olds on TikTok is so extraordinary, we haven't seen growth of consumption like that since 2011 Facebook. All of a sudden, if you understand that truth, it at least leads to the curiosity. How many people here are producing three pieces of TikTok video a day for their business?

6:11And if you raise your hand, I'm gonna check on stage publicly, so don't lie. How many people in this entire room make three TikTok videos a day for their company? Raise your hands. Two. I'm sorry, three, sorry Sally. Three. Three, I love it and I love the passion of that. What excites me about that is because I've been making content about TikTok for two and a half years, I already have dozens of emails from lawyers, contractors, a cement provider hit me up last week that he landed a big contract from a TikTok. Do you know how insane it sounds to even say that a cement provider landed a six-figure contract from a TikTok?

7:02Even for me, as progressive and curious and in it as I am, I understand how far-fetched that may feel, but it's a reality. And this isn't a talk to say everybody run out and go make TikToks. This is a talk of are you challenging yourself to do branding work? because it's the singular thing that grows anything. Branding is the singular thing that grows anything. It's just the way the world works. And so I think the opportunity is extraordinary. One more time by show of hands. By show of hands, how many people produce two original videos or written articles a day on LinkedIn? Raise your hand. One, two, got you, two.

7:55Again, that one I struggle with way more. But it goes back to my only interest in this talk today. Why are we, the world, this is not just this sector, this is the world, why are we not interested in putting in the 20 to 30 hours to understand something that's happening today. LinkedIn for the last four years has converted itself into being the business Facebook. This is not the LinkedIn we all grew up with. LinkedIn marketing isn't spamming people on email. It is making content to go in the feed. How many people here consume content on LinkedIn and know what I'm referring to? Raise your hands.

8:37Raise it high. Please, I want to raise higher. Come on. Look. That is the fun thing for me. Almost half this room is consuming it two people are making for it. It speaks to the thing I started this talk with. I believe this room is in the sales business. And I believe if you can make the shift to understanding that you need to be in the marketing and brand business, it's the only thing that can substantially double, triple, 10x a business. It's real. It's what happens. It happens at every business. It's happened for the last 20 years as we've lived through the internet revolution. This is important talk for a much more important reason for this specific room.

9:25The reason it's an important talk for this room is if you became an operator of contemporary marketing for your business in this room, you would start the process of changing your perspective on how you navigate your business life, which is about to become unbelievably important to everybody in this room because of the advent of the blockchain. As we are going into this next tier, I think all of us looking around this room, this is a perfect age demo for the most part of many people either never knowing anything else or the majority of the room based on what I see, many of us remembering the world before the internet and watching what it's done over the last 25 years to change our society.

10:15How many people here made it through high school without being on the internet? Raise your hands. I'll raise mine. Raise it high. That's right, kids. It sucked.

10:28So, it's a lot of hands in this room. We recall the world changed a lot. The world's changed a lot in the last 25 years. The biggest companies in the world changed, consumer behavior has changed, the way we buy things has changed, the decisions we make changed. And so for me, this talk is kind of really interesting because it reminds me of a talk, a little bit of a different timing, but I gave a talk to the limo and car industry right as Uber was happening. And the majority of my talk was about Uber in the first 15 minutes. And as you can imagine, the crowd didn't like it. And I was telling them that I was concerned because the iPhone had become the remote control of our society and now it really is.

11:18And that I thought it was dangerous. And people poo-pooed it. They said that legally it wouldn't happen or this wouldn't happen. Or why would people like the way it feels to drive? Oh, excuse after excuse after excuse. and I'm sure everybody realizes how much Uber has changed that industry. I remember talking because I had a wine store in 1995 and fell in love with the internet as this is going to be big and legitimately had two separate conversations at the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce event in Springfield, New Jersey in 1996 with two bookstore owners who completely poo-pooed Amazon. I mean Amazon probably sold more books in the last hundredth of a second than those two businesses combined did in five years.

12:08We are very, very, very good of having opinions based on our own financial self-interest. I just want you to make LinkedIn posts and TikToks because I think your business will grow better than the stuff you're doing with your time and money now. I am far more motivated that just three people from this talk. I'm at the point in my career where I'm here for a singular reason. For three of you to email me in five years and say, I don't know if you remember in 2021 in Atlanta, you gave that talk and I took it serious and I'm now this. That feels nice. I like that. That's how I roll now. And so I'm telling this room, this is really happening.

12:51Like really. And the opportunity is extraordinary. This isn't a fear combo of like, Be careful. This is an optimism combo of, do you understand how big this is? Janet asks, how do you find confidence to create content in your 40s? The fuck does the 40s have to do with anything? What do you mean confidence in your 40s to make content? People are insecure to post in 20. At 20. How many of you feel insecure, second guessing yourself, not confident in posting content? Say me, and then put a dash and say how old you are. No, Ray, everyone still thinks it's high school. Everyone still thinks it's junior high.

13:35Look, I started seeing this morning, yep, there it is. This morning, I noticed like a little, I mean, I'm 50 now and still have this weird little red zit on my nose this morning. What do you think, like I'm supposed to cry about that? You think I give a crap if somebody in the chat right now is like, oh, you've got a little pimple on your nose. Like, what am I, supposed to be crippled? Meanwhile, there's unlimited people. There's unlimited people here who literally are stuck and worried about posting because they're worried about it not getting a lot of views. Or somebody in the neighborhood making fun of them.

14:11Like, friends, anybody who makes fun of you for trying is hurting and is trying to drag you down. Let me, actually, let's go. I'm feeling good. Anybody on earth that makes fun of you for trying is in a crap place themselves and are trying to drag you into their crap. Do you wanna roll in crap with a crappy loser? Now, not a permanent loser, someone who is currently crappy losing. Do you wanna roll with them? Or do you wanna ignore that and attack? Do you wanna hang out with happy people? Or do you wanna hang out with sad people? A lot of you were forced to hang out with sad people this weekend because they're family and it didn't make you feel good.

14:57Who hung out with a family member this weekend for the holidays who's a Debbie Downer?

15:06Like they walked in and this hurts and everyone's dead and politics and the world's just crap. You know, Uncle Johnny was like, it sucks now. When I was growing up, it was awesome. It sucks now. Who the hell sat through negativity this weekend? Bunch of...

15:28It's bad. It sucks. It's not bad. It doesn't suck. They suck. My friends, nothing sucks and nothing is awesome. It's all you. Nothing sucks and nothing is awesome. It just is life. And how you show up is you. Period. Mic drop. Shut your mouth and stop complaining. And pick, ayo! Accountability and optimism. Let's keep this moving, everyone. Love having you all here. Axel is asking, I'm young, I work in construction. It gives me good money, but I hate it. To get out, I've developed a gambling problem, so now the money I make goes to the casino. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The last 10 years.

16:16Brother, I'm so proud of you for saying this out loud. Axel, I'm so proud of you, bro. Axel, I'm crazy proud of you. You've already gone to the first part. You publicly said you have a gambling problem. You need to go to Gamblers Anonymous. You need to get help. Gambling is the worst. The worst. When you have a gambling problem. Casual gambling, just like casual wine drinking, like casual anything, is amazing. But when you go into problem land, everything's a problem. People are like, oh, gambling's the worst. That's why I defined it here. Well, food is the worst if you eat way too much of it and you don't have a good relationship with it.

16:51Right, if you're eating food and you're throwing up in the bathroom because you want to stay a certain shape or size, guess what, that's bad. Sugar. Sugar had me on lock, Raghav, for a while. Had to break it, it was hard. You know, so Axel, you're halfway home. The fact that you could admit it. There's a lot of people watching right now that have a problem that can't admit it. The fact that you've already admitted, I'm so proud of you. Let's clap it up for Axel. Axel, you're this close. Axel, you're this close. Go get more help and understand that, see what happened, Raghav, there was hates job, finds another outlet, big trouble.

17:33You see what's happening? This is why I wanna get everybody out of hate job. Notice that he said, hate job, good money. Love job, not good money, live within your means, amazing life. Hate job, good money, gambling. You understand? Hate job, good money, alcohol. Hate job, good money, drugs. Got it? Got it? Hate job, good money, can't sleep, pressure on my chest. Love job, average, below average money, live within the means of that money and don't care what everybody says about your house, your car, your clothes, happy life.

18:23What made you unhappy in middle school and high school is making you unhappy as an adult and you can't see it. You value the opinions of people you don't even like.

18:39you value the opinions of people you don't even like what

18:48it's whisper time we're in here now we're going we're doing it right now we're going whisper friends we're going whisper look at my eye i need you to look at my eye we're going so real right now you Maury says why are we whispering Maury we're whispering for effect we're whispering for effect I need you to all look in my eye you are valuing the opinion of people you don't even like and you don't even want to be be like, you're stuck in seventh grade. You're stuck in seventh grade. You're stuck in seventh grade. And that's it motherfuckers. That's where we're at. And I'm here to pull you out. And really I'm not.

19:41I can't pull you out. You can pull yourself out. I'm just trying to be like a little, how many people here have gotten positive value from my content in your life? Say in my life in the chat. Jason Craig says, it's usually deeper than that. Not really, Jace. It's the opinions of people that you don't like. It's things that happen with your parents. A lot of you are trying to change your parents when you can't change someone else. You know? A lot of you are trying to change your parents because you don't even see it yet, but you're replicating their behavior that you don't admire. Very common. It's really not that deep.

20:21People want it to be deep. We've decided we want to make it deep. It's actually wildly simple. Life is about self-esteem, accountability, perspective, gratitude. Like, life's simple. We've made it hard. Baltimore man, great to see you. Duck hat. Someone said I should be a pastor and then I got a duck hat. That's how we do it here. All sorts of stuff are going on. Yeah, everyone wants to see the behind the scenes shoot. There's Corso helping. Here's the big screen where I see all of you. Right? There's my team reading the questions. Right? There's Train filming me and that's it. We keep it simple.

20:57It's real simple. You don't need much. Oh, who won? Ja won? Let's clap it up for Ja, everyone. Big win for Ja. The dialed in dog auto. Love that for Ja. Bottom left corner of your phone, there's a shopping bag. There's a shopping bag, all right? In there is my latest book, Day Trading Attention. This will help a lot of you get better at marketing. Check that out. Highly recommend picking that up. Good read during the holidays. Alright, let's keep it going. Let's answer people's questions. You give so much time and energy to everyone. What do you do when you feel taken advantage of? And secondly, what is something that makes you feel the most valued and appreciated?

21:37I feel valued and appreciated just by nice engagements. You know, just like kind words, warmth. You can't be taken advantage of when you're giving.

21:51What? It's whisper time. If you're actually giving, if you're actually giving, you can't be taken advantage of. If you're actually giving. Uh-oh, now we're getting into something deep. The reason I've never felt taken advantage of Raghav is because I'm actually giving. And when you're giving, you expect nothing in return. Mm-mm, mm-mm. Mm-mm, right? You know? Mm-mm. If you're actually giving,

22:33if you're actually giving, you can't be taken advantage of. Giving is giving without expectation. Michael Gonzalez, right? So that's it. It's as simple as that. like you're never taken advantage of if you're giving. When you're giving, you're giving. Thank you so much, Stitcher, for picking that up. Next question. We got from hearing, if you lost your voice, your platforms, your identity, and had to rebuild silently without content, without exposure, then how would you create impact in a world that only listens to the loud?

23:15The world listens to the quiet all the time. when you impact one person i would go volunteer at a shelter you're creating impact for 20 30 people like impact is not predicated on reaching millions in fact impact is predicated on reaching one person there are people that have tons of followers that have impacted them very little and there are people who have 500 followers who've impacted all 500 people immensely and like that's just a very cynical negative point of view and confusion in that question and I say that with love like if you're looking for impact you don't need to do it out loud and in public you can do it for one person impacting one person is meaningful keep going Mike asks what are your thoughts on AI in the interview process?

24:15Do you need the human component to evaluate prospective candidates? Yeah, I think I'm a big believer in and. I think AI and human is gonna be a big factor and that's where I'm at. Let's keep it going. Curly's asking, I'm 59 and I've just lost my job. I hear everything you say. I know it's possible, but at this age, it's really unimaginable. Is there anything out there that might be suitable for this cohort to create income online? You know, again, I think there's so much available to a 59 year old. You know, I just don't, I don't know why people, you know, I don't know why people just believe it's over.

24:51Right? I don't know. I just, I don't see it. I don't see, Raghav, I don't know why 59 has anything to do with it. Like, yes, do I believe there's many places that will not hire that person because they're like, oh, you're old. Someone just said, you don't look well. to me right now. That's because, you know, as you get older, you know, Raghav, I'm not doing that plastic surgery life. I'm not doing the Botox filler thing. It's just not about that. So when they see this, like, oh, you know, the gray, like, no, no, I just, you know, like, you know, I don't know. Like, I'm Eastern European. Go look at my content.

25:30The raccoon eyes were there at 33. I've been old. Like, you know, like, it is. Crew mom started my TikTok shop at 56 and make more money now than my nine to five. Like live shopping right here, here, right? TikTok live, affiliate on TikTok. Just like applying to 100 jobs. I don't know why people continue to worry. You know, like yes, there are disadvantages to anything. Thank you, Real Jane. You know, I don't know. Like I don't know what, I don't know what to tell people. Like there's unlimited people getting jobs at 59 today. Thousands of people who are 59 years old got hired today. What do you want from me?