Why Humility is the #1 Skill a CEO Can Have

0:00There's a thing I want to paint to you. It's my favorite one. I would watch a kid, two kids, and they would build an immaculate sandcastle all day. And then about 5.30, 5.45, the parents would call and be like, Johnny, let's go, like dinner. Like we're gonna go eat dinner. Spent eight hours building this immaculate thing. He would just look at it and be like, and run and smile. And I'm like, that's me. I just wanna see how big I can build it. And then I actually don't give a fuck about it. Just curious how good I am at the game. I'm wildly curious how big I can make it. Nothing else. None of it defines me.

0:29because I have my definition somewhere else. My definition is if people think I'm a good guy. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. So my question for you is I'm also a teacher and a parent and I just gave my 30-day notice for my teaching job. Wow. I love what I do. Is that because of this all? Essentially, yes. Yeah, it makes sense. Yes. But what worries me is about I think that I'm so good at what I do because I'm in the dirt and I love coaching people and I love getting my hands in there. And I do one-to-one consulting as well and I coach people with kid videos but I'm worried about getting that hands-on experience still to keep myself fresh and also potentially use as content but then it's other people's children and so how that would work.

1:14Well, I mean, you can go generic. I talk about a lot of business meetings where I try to mask who I actually talk to. Right? So you can go with thematics. You don't need to be like, little Ricky Magoo on 42nd Maple Street, son of John, right? You could be like, there was this little boy. You could even say there was a child. I do that now, but I mean like working with a parent physically, like that aspect is what I'm worried about not having. Well, so do physical stuff. You could create, for example, if you're saying you feel different physically than you do virtually in what you're doing, you could create a non-profit component where people apply to work with you physically once a quarter for or two people or 10 people just so you can taste it.

1:58It could be content for you and it's a good give back. Or it could be a business. Right, yeah. Listen, people will fly in for you. This goes back to your worth. Like, you know, like, a lot of us didn't think somebody would pay$1 ,000 to talk to us for an hour. The next step is, wait, somebody, right, somebody would fly in and spend three days with me. So like you can replicate that in a different way. It's kind of like everyone's argument with me in college. I'm always bashing on college, especially if you're collecting debt and you're creative or entrepreneurial. And people are like, yeah, parents are really, really shook when I take it.

2:40They're like, yeah, Gary, but what about the experience of like being around people and leaving home? I'm like, go to Europe. You don't need to, like you can replicate growing up at 18 to 22, not by getting into$100 ,000 in debt. Right. You can just go get a job in Kansas City. You can go to Norway. Like you can grow up. You don't have to be a teacher to be in the trenches. Right. You can replicate it in a different way. You understand? Yes. You can do boot camps. You can do a summer camp business. I don't fucking know. You can do anything. Like an in-person summer camp. 100%, you might love that.

3:14Yes. You like that one, right? I do a lot, yes. Isn't that good? Yes, I do. I like it. You like that? Give me some, that was a good one. Yeah. I appreciate it, thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, I mean, that's why I used that college analogy. You're golden. I get why you value, by the way, I value it. It's why my agency crushes because of Gary Vee. I'm the most practitioner of the craft. But you can replicate it. Okay, thank you, Gary. I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast.

3:47It'll make my mom super happy. Yeah, for me, I had deleted Instagram for four years. Completely, no social media at all. and then I decided I will start posting two times a day for two years straight. Why? Because I thought, I just knew I had to do it. I don't know why. You just sensed it? I just sensed it. It was hovering in your head for a long time or somebody said something somewhere and you just went? I just went because I heard it like everywhere and I was just like feeling like I cannot relate anymore. Like I was missing out literally. Yeah, by the way, that's my big argument to like where the world, like everybody trying to protect their kids from technology.

4:22I'm like by the time these five-year-olds are 18, we're gonna be in VR and AR glasses. Like technology's coming in deeper, not like, but nonetheless, go ahead. Yeah, and I had an agency in Switzerland doing website designs, branding, so I kind of had to. I got it, got it. You're from a business standpoint, now I understand. Yes, and just my husband and I, we had it together and he was absolutely against social media just for himself. So I had to do it. And I did it and I saw that there was a big opportunity for mobile editing. mobile editing yeah because um people just love the way that i edit up my videos yes um and i sense that it was was a market for it yes um and people were actually commenting under every single video not about the content of the video but they added it they added that's okay there's a market for it um then i started a page called mobile editing club where i wanted to teach that yep and then the whole ai wave came yes like okay wait a second let me just try that yes i did try it and it just blew up.

5:18I had like 12 or 15 ,000 comments underneath it and I was like, okay, I think there's opportunity there. Yes. And all of them wanted to like know how I did it. Yep. So we launched a$99 guide and in the stand challenge we made 145K. So we were top of the year. So that was really cool. And now we've even crossed six figures a month. Wow. A month. A month, yeah. And now we're at a point. John got excited. And you were first too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

5:53Go ahead. But at the same time, we got more than 1 ,000 project inquiries that we could not handle because at the moment it was just like my husband and I. And we were like now at the point where we have project requests from like big brands that could bring a lot of credibility. at the same time we have the opportunity to launch more projects sorry more yeah more products I would I understand by the way as you can imagine I've lived a chapter of that I think you just have to I obviously decided I'm going to monetize the boulders at VaynerX versus the pebbles of my community I don't think there's a right or wrong I think everyone just has to play their game you know I have monetized the pebbles through books or collectibles or wine.

6:43So I got to a place where I did both. You will, if this keeps going and you keep doing a good job, you will do both. My intuition is, you may know this because you had an agency, I want you to build more leverage with the pebbles for a little bit longer. The boulders are always there. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's like time sensitive at the moment. Correct. Everybody wants to learn it. You can always go to the boulders. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. So in this exact moment with very little details, but enough to make me, usually you can hear, I'm like optionality, you can go hard.

7:18I like optionality. I don't think, back to parenting, right? I don't think they're, you know? But I will say in this one, I think tripling down on the little pebbles, because your profile will get bigger. Yeah. Right? We're just an instant run right now. Correct. There's all the others. And you'll just, my intuition is that the pebbles are the right way to go. But if you're in the mood to take one big client, because you and your husband want to. Again, it's not a binary black and white, but my intuition is more pebbles. Okay, and then there's like life events. People want to have life events.

7:49Makes sense. So it's kind of like, Yeah, look, I mean, look, I would argue my biggest challenge professionally is that I'm crippled by opportunity. And I'm crippled by real opportunity. You know, I would say that you make choices. You know, and then you live with them. As long as you're good at making choices that in hindsight were mistakes, as long as you can be that strong, then you're golden. Yeah. Okay. All right? Amazing. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Of course. Thank you. Congrats. The TikTok live question. So like I haven't gone live in 100 years and then I was doing a final push. And I'm glad you said that.

8:30Like some of you have probably tried live. Like live wasn't good for a long time. Yeah. Instagram live, you go on, they ping your followers and then and your number, whatever your number is, 100, and then a second later it's 12. I'm 1 ,000 and then it's like 150. TikTok's the reverse. It just keeps giving you people that don't know you. It just keeps, what else do we want? Is it quality? Ish. Is the algorithm - Ish, ish. You heard her. People's sale to me is a micro commitment, so why not put them into a group where they - Ish. No, I'm sold on that. I'm just saying, is their algorithm like YouTube's is so good at fighting the right person?

9:05Ish. Ish. But it's a real fire, but it's good. People are interested, they'll just swipe by for like a millisecond and then they stop. They're like, oh, you said the right word at the right second that they stop. Yeah, it's a whole science. It's QVC. The reason they used to pull people after one show is like, you didn't sell enough. But here you don't get kicked off. You just keep refining. Come. So my question is pretty much pertaining to in a space where people are just obsessed with education. I coach UGC creators to build personal brands to attract brand deals. And there's a lot of information out there.

9:35and everyone's obsessed with education. If any of them want jobs, you should, like I'm being dead serious, you should talk to Sid. Like we are just constantly hiring people here often with just enough UGC experience that we can teach them. I literally have a community of over 200 people and a mentorship for the 150 and they would love that. Connect. Like this for all of you to know. Let's do it. We're just hiring constantly. A lot of people like know pretty quickly they're like, okay, I can really do this by myself or this is awesome, I'm good but I need to go work somewhere for a couple years to get better.

10:03Like we're that place. Yes. Anyway. My community is called Six Figures After Five and I built it because I built my business in the end of five. But then I eventually changed the meaning when I quit my job which was only six months ago. Or seven, eight months ago now. And I changed the meaning to pretty much anyone, a parent, a student or whatever. Even a five year old. There you go, even a five year old. I'm good at commercials. From that logic, I want to know, I try to give different value. and this competition just forced me to just be myself. I'm like, if I'm aggressive, too aggressive for you, then I'm not your person, but if I'm aggressive, then I'm not.

10:40How many people here, when they first came across me, I'd like to think you like me now, but first came across me, did not love it. Oh, I was obsessed with you. Yeah, there you go. If you say the delivery. Yeah, by the way, you'll appreciate this. Whether it's the delivery, whether it's a word, whether it was the cursing, whether I was a white dude, like everything's allowed. It's a very binary question. Some of my best friends are white. I got it. But you know what I mean, right? That's very important. That's very important because whether, you know, I know for sure my personality is my whole life.

11:13I've moved multiple times. It is full obsession or full fuck you. But I am who I am. The fuck you, especially like when I moved to schools or if you knew me, like give me three hours. The fuck you goes, wait a minute. You know, like because I am who I am. Online, I don't get that luxury. so that fuck you can stay for a while until I pop up in the algorithm with the right piece of content or when someone that you trust really knows and you're like, are you crazy? Do you know this? And then it's like, oh, wait a minute. So you need to be you all the way. Oh, so yeah, I am now. I know. More or less.

11:45More. But that. So even more. No, no, that. Yes. Whatever is, honestly, I mean it. Whatever is still left, know that that's the thing that has the most upside. By the way, I apologize because I'm just helping everyone. Go look at the first 80 episodes of Wine Library TV. I was so scared that all the people that were buying hundreds of thousands of dollars of wine from me at the time would watch one of these videos and see that I was silly. So the first 80 of Wine, literally you gotta go look at this on YouTube. The first 80 episodes of Wine Library TV, I'm chill. I'm like very straight. And then like out of nowhere, like episode 84, it's who you know.

12:25And literally the second I did that first episode of Who You Know was the rest of my life. And by the way, what you saw from 180 was me. Just, I was, you know, just had my foot, you know? And like, you clearly put more on, and I'm just saying, whatever's left. And that's what I do on the lives, honestly, more or less. And sounds like the lives are going well for you. So weird. So that's my other question, or my question, but literally in a space where there's so much education available how and people are talking about the same topics over and over again. They want to hear it from you. Well, they're collecting education.

13:04How do you get them to actually. By yelling at them more. So, okay, so I just have to keep doing what I'm doing. Correct. Yes, because I didn't know it was going to be the sixth one for her when I went. Yeah. Love, Raz, joke, passive aggressive, direct to their face like you fucking suck. Like give up on them, make them come back. When you're obsessed like I am, to get people there, you're not in control. You're only in control of your effort and your ability to have different moves. Yeah. So I'll just keep it pushing then. I've been pushing for 20 years. No, that makes complete sense. My key for you is all the way.

13:44Because I think there's a little bit left and I think it's the real thing. Give that some thought. I will, I have one little tidbit. So right now, I push a lot of testimonial type of content because my students are like talking and whatnot. Yeah, of course. Do you think that that's still a smart move? Will people get exhausted? People will get exhausted and I think people over time, if you go just, if you're too much of that content, it's just... Oh, it's not. It's just like once in a while. Oh, then you're golden. I would say it's like food. Everything's good a little bit. You know? If you were 90, 80, 70 % testimonial, it would feel too salesy, but a little sprinkle of the testimonial, it's pretty good.

14:29Really good value. Can you put like a little bit like testimonial? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say that's why I wrote Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook started writing for all of you in the world that were just selling in every post. I was like, no, no, you have to give, give value. You know who ended up helping the most? The people that were scared to throw the right hook. The people that thought selling was yucky. That's who it ended up helping the most. So yes, you should. Hi. Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Sophie. Hi. How are you? Thank you. How are you? Good, good. So my kind of stand journey is pretty, well, I say new, it's been like a year and a half, two years now.

15:06But I have something called endometriosis. It's a condition that, yeah, 10 % of women have it. It's crazy. And I was like bed bound 50 % of the month. It was awful. Wow. And so I had like all of these great jobs with Procter & Gamble and Amazon. So I was super capable. but like the pain was just horrendous and I was like other people do social media why can't I give it a go because I had a hobby blog educating people on my kind of journey but not giving anything else right so decided to train to be a women's health practitioner learned about this crazy protocol and just started vlogging it so to your point earlier about like documentation I didn't have a business I was just vlogging like day one day two day three and it blew up and then in all my comments they were like please can you make a guide so I made a guide was like in the gym on a stay master being like how do I sell digital products because I don't understand technology at all yeah and then Coco Mocha a TikTOPian youtuber made a video about Stan it was like people sell them on there so I did it and I went from making like a thousand pounds a month to the point where I was like gonna have to go back to my old job and we made a hundred thousand in our first month just from auto DMs on like one guide that was like 25 pounds which is insane so John reached out on Instagram and has like since changed my life because anytime I need help, I'm like, John, SOS.

16:20And again, like you were saying with Gary, like text me back every single time. And then because of all of those sales, I was able to publish this book. Amazing. Which I would love to give to you. Thank you. So it's called the Anti-Inflammatory 30 Day Reset. Because of the auto DMs on Stan, it's the number one Sunday Times bestseller, which is like insane. And it's just because of the auto DMs as well. And I know that you said your wife is like really into it. Yes, loves. She will love that. Yes. But my whole thing now is like, I'm so lucky and grateful that I've found the answers for myself. And I want to help other people find those too.

16:50I've started a women's health brand called Found. And the whole point of it is to be the home of women's health. So if you ever have any questions about periods, menopause, you come to Found. Yep. So we have. Like the not was for weddings. Yes. Got it. Exactly. Okay. Understood. Keep going. At the moment we have guides. We've just launched a membership and we're going to launch a course, which is like a course version of the book. If you were in my shoes, what would the next 12 months be? Aside from content, because I know that content is absolute king, but aside from content. Surrounding yourself with talented people and paying them to do things that you don't like to do.

17:30What would be your key hires? What don't you like to do? Yeah, all of the operations. I remember we were talking about this when you were in London. I love the creative. I love the talking. You need a COO. You need an operating head. Yeah, and you think that would be sufficient over getting like a co-founder? Yes. Because that's something I've been thinking about. You can get a co-founder second. Okay. No, you know, you don't marry the first person that you think you want to date. You date them. You could get a head of operations and you may be like, oh my God, Johnny. Oh my God, Sally. You've been so profound to me.

18:08I want to give you equity. Sally and Johnny are like, what the fuck? You're the best. because they just signed up for a job. No, I would not do a co-founder. Okay, so CEO first. Okay, interesting. If you're pop committed to the content and you're pop committed to the content everywhere, everywhere, then the next thing in parallel is the hiring because you're starting to hit scale of people that you really want to be in the trenches with doing jobs that you don't want to do. Okay, and then my second question, my last one, We talked about how if you're a woman trying to help women, this is the best time.

18:46My ultimate goal is that we have clinics that people can come to and retreats to have transformational experiences. Well, the good news is you know this is coming. Yeah. Right? The education's getting up. I know it because Mona's so deep in all the different things. So that's good. It's going to happen. You just want to be a part of it. Yeah, exactly. When it comes to some of that, there's significant investment that you need into it. I want you to keep growing your top line revenue in your business so that you have more leverage when you decide to raise capital. Got it? What's that? I said 100%.

19:23Everybody wants to raise capital early because they don't have the capital. We now live in a world, especially with something like Stan, where you can make money. The more money you can make, the more leverage you have for when you raise capital. The end. So I started real estate agent. My college professor was like, you're going to be an amazing real estate agent. I went into that and I did great. I had two babies under two and I'm like there's no way I'm going out and cold calling and knocking on doors I'm gonna do one-to-many approach. I got started in Idaho where no one was making content And so they looked at me and was like, what are you doing?

19:55Sure, of course Like you're selling houses on Instagram and you don't have to leave and you're the top producer in our market and I'm like Yeah, I am. Tell me what you're doing. I need to know and so I started One-to-one launch my course on Stan. This is like two now three years ago and it blows up And I'm like making the six figures every month. And it's just crazy. I'm like, I can't even keep up with what's happening. How much was it? All high ticket. How much? So that course started out at like$2 ,500. And then I've just raised my prices since. Again, I just want to, there's certain people here that need to hear what I'm about to say.

20:29In real estate, there's a saying. It takes as much effort to sell a$25 million home as it does a million dollar home. Exactly. You heard me multiple times on the weeks of like, higher, higher. You may be thinking, well, mine's not selling that well at lower, but I'm saying, if you've been listening, recontextualize it to the four-week challenge for Valentine's. Keep tuning. Keep tuning. You understand? There's a lot more in this room. You might feel good. I feel like anxiety because I'm like, there's a lot more in a lot of you. Tuning. Recontextualize. Make it, whether it's a digital product or an access to you or a group or a sauce dinner.

21:07like keep tuning but most of all understand if you keep tuning it allows you to do that. Right? LVMH is you know Louis Vuitton bags is better than Kate Spade's bags as a business. Right? The average price but it's a bag. Go ahead. So true. Yeah like for the stand challenge I probably sold a third of what a lot of y 'all sold but my price point was just a lot higher. So anyway all that to be said I take off end up not completely leaving real estate but obviously this becomes is my full-time thing everyone and their mom wants to know how do you stand and how to use it and so now my dms of how do you sell on real estate on instagram are becoming jenna let me pay you to teach me what you're doing i want to do it makes sense and so i transition into that i'm also big on my family big on faith love traveling and like documenting and all these things so i struggle with his conversation of like build the personal brand also having the business in my content because i'm to talk about like we do flips and we do so many fun things with like our life and our kids and homeschooling and all this stuff and then it's like and also I have this business to run that requires like a lot of my time and content on that same page.

22:18Anyway all this to be said. You do mix. I do mix it in very much so and I know that's why a lot of people find me because they relate to me on something else but the part that I'm struggling with the most is one year ago today at the top of my career making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month I step away. I shut the whole thing down overnight. Why? Burnout. You just cracked. Complete burnout. Makes sense. And it was. Why did that happen? Because I didn't hire leverage. Yes. Because I did it myself. Isn't that awesome? The fact that you can answer the question? Is that bad or good? No, it's so good.

22:51It's so good. It's so good. It's so good. It's like, it's, I'm telling you, a lot of people, like one of the, actually, I don't give my dad enough flowers for this. My dad, there was always things in my me and my siblings of like dad loves the liquor store more than us dad loved the liquor store more than he loved himself I grew up watching someone putting everything back into the business so it just became my culture I mean I ran this company Vayner got it this is where it's cause a lot of us that come into it are like ooh now I got the money now let's go buy a new bouncy for the kids and a new car and employees Yes.

23:35We did that, but we invested it in real estate opportunities. Makes sense. But not the business. Correct. And so I burned out on that. Makes so much sense. But now I have something to show for the money because we invested all of it. That's good. And so that's great. But now it's like, yeah, now I'm restarting. And I, well, I relaunched everything in the spring of this last year. And so slow. I'm like, I can speak to any person who's relaunching and selling and not getting anything. And I'm like, you just, it just takes time. Now I have a flourishing business again. We've been hitting a couple of six figure months again.

24:09And I'm like, so. You're on the cusp of being back. Yeah, cusp of being back. But like something feels off. Yes. You're, you're doing the same pattern. I know. And I did, I did bring someone in. I did finally bring someone in. But it might not be right. I know. I know. I know. No, I know that's the answer. Of course it's the answer. You hit it though. That'd be like me saying to everyone, you have to make a pasta dish. You're like, okay, I gotta make a pasta dish. But if it doesn't taste good, like we defeated the, you have to make a delicious pasta dish. You have to hire the right employees. Yeah.

24:44And you have to learn how to become a better boss. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And who you, how you're raised plays such a big role in this. You don't say. My parents were tightwads and like, you pull the money in. Of course. Right. Notice how I even preempted that by saying my dad loved the store more than him and gave the money all to the store. We always are like, man, you know, like we know what the financial, like I know the financial journey I went through, but I was like, man, it felt like we were way more poor than we should have been. And I was like, oh, right. My dad actually didn't take any money.

25:21It was all going back to business. And right, my mom is very cheap. and never bought us anything. Like that's it. You know, like that was our life. You know? Is there, this is maybe a more practical question, but is there like a percentage that you look at? Like, oh, if your business is making 500 ,000 or a million, like you should spend this much on, what is it? As much as humanly possible. Okay. Based on who I am, I'm trying to build an empire. Okay. You may not want to build an empire. Thus meaning you can take more for you to buy an umbrella or a Big Mac or another car. but the answer is the answer I gave you.