Why Your Content is Hurting Your Team Building

25:43That's what I think. I think we need a perspective shift. Instead of comparing yourself to three random people that are the richest, most beautiful, or most famous, why don't you compare yourself to the actual truth of what's going on in the world? And I have a funny feeling. once you stop comparing yourself to those three people and you start to become grateful of where you sit in the world right this second, life gets a lot easier. And as far as failures, I'm trying to fail every day, bro. I don't even understand this fucking conversation about failing. Do you know how many fucking failures I have every week?

26:22Tons of shit goes wrong. We're fucking out here playing the game. If you're not failing, I don't even know if you're fucking doing it. This insecurity of failure, what happened? You lost money? You didn't do as good? I had multiple people back there that said, I had a bad year last year. So?

26:42So much fucking crying.

26:47I don't even know how we define failure anymore. People are defining failures on some shit 20 years of it. We didn't even think about. Don't blame that shit on social media and the algorithm. What, you saw somebody had a fancy car and a bunch of cash on a fucking bed and that fucked you up? That means you're fucked. That's you, that's not Instagram. The game is the game is the game. Yeah, this is fucking sports out here. Y 'all, you signed up for business and life. This is grown shit. If you're not winning, let me tell you exactly what's happening. It's not your mommy and daddy's fault, it's your fault.

27:30We lack accountability. We got so good at pointing fingers and throwing around judgment on everything. We're just a bunch of fucking 13 year old girls out here. And that's why, like I should be starting to lose as an old lion, but I'm not scared because everyone's soft. I can kill every kid here.

27:58Is the gratitude and aspects of the reason you still have to provide maintenance on the kind of time? Or just a few different? For me it's natural, because it's like anything, who here is, actually this is a funny one, who here is really disciplined with health and wellness, eats right and really in the gym? Just raise your hands. Raise it high. That should be proud. You know, for the ones, I don't know, actually I'll ask you, does it come natural? It didn't at first. And then it became, yeah. Like this morning I worked out, my trainer had to fly from Minnesota where he lives to be at the hotel this morning because he knew that if he wasn't there, I would have fucking skipped.

28:40That's how much I think about this. So for me, gratitude, being grateful for what I have, having no envy or jealousy of anyone else, that to me is like natural. But working out's hard. But it was natural because I thought about it every day as a kid. Because I got fucked up a little bit. Both my parents lost a parent super young. My mom's mom died when she was five. And my dad's dad died when he was 15. And I was born in the Soviet Union, so we were immigrants and I was the oldest. So my mom, starting out like when I was seven, was on some, if anything happens to me and dad, you're in charge of your siblings.

29:18I'm like, oh, fuck. You know, I have this big theory that right now we're in an era where adulting is happening too late. I had adulting happen too early. So I went into gratitude, you know, like, oh, thank God mom and dad didn't die. You know, like, real talk. So by the time I was 18, I'm like, I won. It all just became nothing. I was so grateful because I was so scared. And now you have like, there's like this group, I'd like to think this group is not being affected by this, but they definitely have friends and maybe there's some people in here like, this whole like, you're 26 and mommy and daddy are still paying for shit is a problem.

30:02Like I don't know if any of you are still in this game, but you don't want your parents to have say, I've got the perfect antidote, stop taking their money. So we have adulting happening later. We have like 27 year old dudes being coddled by their mom having their fucking location on their phone sharing with their mom. They're 27 year old grown ass men getting texts from their mom at 11 o 'clock at night being like, where are you? Where am I?

30:32You guys know this, this is real. This is what's going on in here. Shit's crazy.

30:45I don't believe it. I don't think it's a generational thing. I really don't. I really don't. I know it's... No, I think it's a fucking like... Okay, let's talk about them. There's a lot of young people in here. Like, sometimes it's funny. People think boomers shit on Gen Z. I watch Gen Z shit on Gen Z more than anything. I have so many Gen Z winners shit on, they're like, bro, I'm like you, Gary Vee, my friends, they suck, you know? And I'm like, and a lot of times it's their employees, right, like that's on you. And again, I went to that on the speech. I think they're recruiting the wrong person because of what they're putting out.

31:26And then they're wondering why they're babysitting because your fucking video that got them into your fucking feed, into your funnel was some bullshit. Change the shit that's coming out of your mouth. You won't have to babysit as much.

31:43Alright, stay on the young one. So, all these guys and girls in here, they don't come back to the things that's progress. What do you think the hardest mind shift for a great salesperson? Making a way of becoming a business owner and how would you make a shift? I think the biggest adjustment is you expect everyone to work as hard as you but you're making more money so you're holding them to the same standard as you but you're a hypocrite. How the fuck can you ask someone to work as hard as you if they're making less? It's called selfish. So the selfish switch is a big one. I think the other thing is being a good leader.

32:22Like a lot of people that are good salespeople make terrible bosses and leaders. Right? Because you need such soft skills to be a great leader, but you can't create over coddling either. So you have to have compassion and empathy and all these incredible human skills, but if you do too much, you become a babysitter and finding that balance, what I call purple. I'm sure it's not lost on you. Shit got really red and blue in America, right? In business, shit has gotten really red and blue too. The magic is purple. that transition to purple is very hard. Okay, you know, that time, serial entrepreneur, it's like thrown around a lot.

33:07Yes. And like every other person, I want to be a serial entrepreneur. I want to be a rapper.

33:15This is how I feel about it. I want to be, I literally want to be a rapper. But I have 0.0 musical ability in my fucking body. So yes, I'm aware that everybody now wants to be a serial entrepreneur. And my advice usually is, okay, well, get successful at one thing and then you build a line business before you did anything else. Could you have done the opposite? Is there a such thing as a serial entrepreneur to start with? Yeah, I mean, look, you can be a serial entrepreneur, but are you a successful serial entrepreneur is different. By the way, I, most of my real, I'm talking billionaire wealthy friends, yell at me for having too many businesses.

33:59For the Hard to Score fans in here, they know I have like nine real businesses. But I keep telling them, A, shut your fucking mouth, it's none of your business. And B, I'm not out here trying to maximize money.

34:15Can you be a serial entrepreneur? A lot of you should do more things. Because that would actually make you happy. You might make less money. you might make more money. But I think that money being the KPI, the North Star, is keeping people away from their destiny. My destiny is I'm creative and curious and I gotta do a lot of shit. I have a TV production company, I have a sports agency, I have a massive marketing firm, I'm building the next Marvel and Pokemon. I'm doing a ton of shit. Do I think if I put all that energy into VaynerX that we would be a billion right now instead of 400 million? Maybe.

34:53And when you say not to tell kids they can do whatever they want to do and be whoever they want to be, so what do you say is that? That you should explore everything but you should realize that talent and natural skills is important and what's the most important is being self-aware enough to not be delusional. Back to rappers and business people, all of you have had friends, like there's a young crew in here so you should remember this from five minutes ago, in high school and college when everyone's like, I'm gonna be a fucking basketball player one day. But they're not practicing and they're also five foot four.

35:30Like, I don't want to suppress dreams, but I think self-awareness is important. And I think that a lot of people make a huge mistake of not figuring out who they are. You know what my number one job is for my 3 ,000 employees? To put them in a position to succeed. How many people here are very organized? Raise your hands. Raise it high, own it. High, higher, stop. Very organized, great. Put your hands down. Who here is really not organized? Raise your hands. People are fucking different. How the fuck can I tell all the people that just raised their hands? You make a great project manager. These are the people in the second group or the people we fire after six months at Vayner, because they literally try to be a project manager when they can't organize their own fucking life.

36:23Self-awareness matters, you understand? So, you can't be everything is not suppressing dreams, it's being real, and you know this, a lot of kids in here don't believe their parents because they told them they could be anything, and they know that their parents are on some bullshit, and they're like, fuck that.

36:46You stop believing people that sell bullshit, no matter who they are. Right? A lot of people are figuring that out now. There's a lot of people that rose in the last 10 years publicly selling some bullshit. And now they're just trying to do all sorts of random shit to stay relevant because bullshit eventually doesn't sell.

37:11And parents sell bullshit. Hey, little Ricky, you can be in the NBA. Little Rookie's five foot fucking four.

37:23That's right, people do that shit all the time. I'm like, yes, one person in 40 years of the NBA did it.

37:32So I think, yeah, exactly. That's very common. Can we shift to sales a little bit? Yeah. If you had to delete one metric, that sales owners obsessed with. What would it be? And what should we track instead? Well, they should track conversion. I don't even know what else you guys measure.

38:01This is sports. Yeah, this is why I love sales. You know what's amazing about sales? As long as you're telling the truth, you can't lie.

38:11meaning no one here can be like, you like that one? That's good, right? But here's where I'm going with that. How much money, how much shit did you sell last year? Like, you can't be like, yo, I'm fucking unbelievable at sales. I'm like, oh shit, how much did you sell last year? $28. That's why I love sales. The only metric I pay attention to in sales is conversion. I'm aware that there's open and conversion. I understand all the other math people want to fuck around with. I like sales because I don't want to judge you of how you do it. As long as it's ethical, show me the number. If you want to go golfing every fucking day and eat fucking caviar and your T &E is through travel at expense and your, like, it's just, it's sales.

39:00That's the best part of it. It's like sports. Do you know why we love sports? The whole world is full of shit but you can't fake sports. And even that is starting to get weird with betting. But you know what I'm saying. It's merit. It's why I love UFC. It's the ultimate. Mono a mono. Somebody won. You can't get your ass kicked and choke the fuck out and tap out and the post-game interview be like, I won.

39:27But people put on fucking Instagram, entrepreneur, and they've made zero dollars and zero cents. So, you know, I don't know what metrics you are teaching or they are coming up with or whatever the fuck you're thinking about. To me, I don't care how you get there. As long as it's ethical, show me the number, that's the year. You wanna sleep? Like, I'm not one of these people like, you better work 100, like, if I, my sales team, you can work one minute a day if you want. If you beat everyone else, you're better. You guys like that part of sales, right? I assume, right? It's just merit.

40:09Talk about authenticity a lot. I think some people are, I think it's people trying to find their voice. I've watched this video of like, Any Better back in like the early grunge days. There's like a moment where you just like scream to like create a person. Yeah. And like that's the moment. That was the moment. Yeah. I think a lot of people in here imitate what they're saying for. And it's very much that type of business, right? they're like the new person on their first day, they're learning what the person learned three weeks ago, the person one year is teaching the person. And to some degree, we want that because that's what builds the system and scalability.

40:38What advice would you give for people that feel like I have all this passion inside, I just don't know how to fucking express it, I'm not getting people, they're not listening to the feeling that when Gary says it or perhaps it's it, I'm going to say it or something. It's a great question. When I hear that question, y 'all, the biggest thing I think about is regret. I'm scared as shit about regret. Like I'm not scared of much. Literally the only things I'm scared of in life are the health of my family, as you heard earlier, and regret. I think the thing I tell everybody to this question is you'd rather die on your own sword than someone else's.

41:17You know what I mean? You don't want to be 64, 79, 86, 93 and be like, damn, I just, I imitated or I wasn't fully me. If only, you know, to me the reason my whole thing worked was I literally was told everything I was doing when I came out the gate was wrong. I didn't wear a suit. I didn't have a watch. Cursing was super looked down on when I first hit the game. And I was like, I'd rather have nothing than do this bullshit. Do you know how many people are wearing a suit right now that don't want to?

41:58I don't want to live that life. And I also think the game's different. Like, I'm looking at everyone, and some people look nice, but I'm still like, you suck. But a lot of other people see it the reverse. They look at me and they think, I suck. I'm not right, they're not right, you're not right. It's just life. But I have a funny feeling, if some of the people in here who think it's right to wear a suit, but in their soul they don't want to, ironically would make more money if they wore their hoodie. And that shit interests the fuck out of me.

42:36I'm definitely not impressed with anybody's watches at this fucking place. I don't even know what they are. Not that long ago I saw an old video of yours on your feet, on the early YouTube days, and you got a button up shirt.

42:59And the point of the video is that you had like 20 followers, two likes. And you're pouring your heart out. You're like doing a sermon about the wine, right? I started Googling, like you sold, I was like, I'll get that wine. When you're pouring your heart out to the best, To know it, how do you keep going? And then you know it was gonna hit. I mean, you've been doing it for years before it really popped up. Who saw Rocky IV? The one in Russia. Raise your hands. Raise it. I just want to see it. Alright. So, Rocky IV, y 'all. This is the Drago. You're like, if he dies, he dies. Like, that one. I know a lot of you didn't see it.

43:44There's a scene in that movie that is never talked about. It's very subtle. Which is wild, because that whole movie's broken down a million pieces, but it's subtle. I've Googled this and AI'd it a lot. It's rarely talked about. It's after Rocky wins in Russia and Drago takes the mic and goes, fuck, because it was USSR versus USA. And Drago in Russian says, I was in the ring for me, not all of you. Yassi, I was in here for me, not for you. That's the answer to your question, my brother. Why was I doing it? How did I, I didn't even think if it was gonna hit. I made that video for me. Meaning I wanted to make that video because I wanted people to start liking wine.

44:33Because everybody before me that was talking about wine was a straight dick face. You guys, who here has friends that are really into wine? Raise your hand, anyone? You know when they talk about that shit, you're like shut the fuck up. So I was a street kid, but I knew all this shit about wine and I was like, and none of my friends, this is before LeBron and D-Wade and all the fucking rappers gave a fuck. Nobody, I was 25, 29, I was so about wine. Nobody thought wine was cool. And I was like, no one thinks wine's cool because everyone that knows wine's a fucking jerk. You know, they're like, oh, that's a bad year.

45:13Everyone's all, everyone here's like scared to order wine because you're going to order the wrong one. It was so intimidating. I was like, fuck this shit. This new platform came out. It was a couple weeks old. I was like, this YouTube thing might be big. And I just sat down and I went to work, but I was doing it for me, but not for me, for my paper, for my heart. The reason I can beat everyone here, and I don't know if I can beat you or not, but the reason I believe I can beat most people is most people, especially in this fucking business, in sales are doing it for this. And I'm doing it for this.

45:51And most people are trying to use this and I use this. Intuition over everything. Heart over everything. And so, I didn't give a fuck if any of you watched but I knew why I wanted to do it because I loved wine, I loved wine collecting, I loved my dad, I wanted to build something and I knew why I was doing it. The end. And that's my purpose. My purpose is to scratch my curiosity. My purpose is to be 99 laying there and being like, yo, I fucking did it. But did it for me is not I made money and got famous. Did it for me was I was a good dude, I did right by my family, and I played every fucking game I wanted to play.

46:39And where do you think that comes from? Where does that come from? This is why, you know, for me? It comes from the fact that my mom is the greatest fucking mother of all time. Period.

46:55It comes from the fact that I was born in the Soviet Union and we came to America and we moved to Queens and I lived in a studio apartment in Queens with seven family members and we had nothing. It came from the fact that we had nothing and on top of that my mom was frugal as shit So by the time I was nine years old, if I wanted shit, I had to go shovel snow, sell lemonade, fucking get my own shit. I don't know what it's like to be like, I want this without knowing I have to get this. Do you know how hard it is to be hungry when you've been fed your whole life?

47:32How did this happen? I grew up in Jersey in the 80s and went to Martin Luther King Elementary School. I got to fights all the time. My four best friends made fun of me on politically incorrect shit 24 hours a day. We were street kids. Now kids are tough on Twitter because no one's getting punched in the face anymore.

48:00On some real shit. Like I don't, you know, this is very politically incorrect. I believe this to my death. I don't believe you're even a man until you get punched in the mouth.

48:15So, I got very, very lucky. Which is why I sit up here and I don't think I'm cool. I think what happened to me was cool. All flowers to mommy and daddy. All flowers to USA. All flowers to Jersey. All flowers to MLK Elementary. I'm just a byproduct. I'm just a byproduct. I have no ego, no, I don't need, I don't think I mean shit. What do you think about that? I sit here and I know if I die tomorrow, I'll have a nice 24 hours on social and you'll all share my favorite, your favorite quote. You know, maybe a clip, be like, damn, I just saw him yesterday in Texas, this is crazy. But then it's gonna be next Monday and you're gonna live your life.

48:59My friends, you wanna really be happy in life? get humble.

49:08Everyone out here trying to prove their someone to everybody but themselves. Ooh, that was a good one. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, if I had musical ability, my bars are fucking proper. But I just don't have any, that's why AI music, I like, my rapper friends are about to be real mad at me. I really think I'm gonna have the number one album in the game in five years because I'm just gonna put in all my bars and be like, now make this some shit like Metro Boomin' Met Baby. Like, boom, and I'm gonna be fucking, I'm gonna be touring and shit. Yeah, so that's it, y 'all. Like, honestly, and you're young in the game and you know, I wish you guys really knew me like my people know me.

49:53I'm not saying this because I made it. I made it because this was my whole life. I know a lot of you are like, yeah, easy for him now. I'm trying to get my first bag. This is exactly who I was when I had no bags. I made it because this was my mindset and I'm trying to give you a little something. Because everybody else is selling you other shit. I'm literally starting a fashion brand. It's called Nice Guys Finish First. Because people have it mixed up. People think you have to be a dick, sharp elbows, right? Nobody here is competing with anybody else. the world is abundant. Nobody is taking your paper.

50:34You're taking your paper by worrying about everybody else.

50:40I'm gonna say give it up to Gary.

50:47We got a few more minutes. Like what else? A lot of these guys post zero content about the business. They're like an occasional Instagram story. All the adverts are through you. So people are gonna take a message and they're gonna go from zero to a thousand on Monday. Yep. What's some advice for someone who's never tried to put out their story? LinkedIn's crazy, y 'all. I know Instagram and TikTok, LinkedIn is crazy. I cannot push you harder to do good, listen to my talk today. Put out the good stuff on LinkedIn and watch it flourish. But it's gonna take time. Like, I just don't understand why people give up on social media posting after a month.

51:28nothing good is easy. Nothing good is easy. So, you know, my advice is consistency. You know, we talked about it in the back room, I talked about it here, and you guys know this. I believe this whole industry, from y 'all, from you, top dogs down, I think we need to be a little smarter of what comes out of our mouth to recruit. You know, it will change the calculus. You know, so that's what I would wish they would do as they're building out their team, you know?

52:03Tools? Recruiter tools? Anything different, anything new, anything you see coming through? Let me tell you about information versus strategy and mindset. Tools. Give me one second, sir. Here we go. Little chat, GPT. Yo, Chaddy. I call Chad, GPT, Chaddy. Yo, Chaddy. So I'm at this like ISO fucking summit right now with the dudes and they're asking me what tools I should use to recruit a sales team or things of that nature. Can you give me like the five best tools if I'm trying to build a sales team right now in 2026 to be an independent sales operator? Thank you. Bro, everything changed. Got it?

52:55Information is worthless.

53:00Do you know how fucking nuts that is? Tools, Apollo.io, HubSpot, Hyperbound, Calendly, Zapriagents, and I can keep going and refine it whether you all thought that was good or bad results, you know this, it's garbage out, garbage in, good prompts. You guys know your business better than I do. If you ask that question better with some nuances, I'm using X, what's better than Y? You understand? Like information is fucking useless, bro. This is why school's fucking stupid.

53:41Seriously though. It's that and stopping people on the street and talking all the way to cross the board and anyone who's that game. Yes, but you know this. It takes time to get good at that. And this is why I'm so tired of everyone saying anyone can do it. There's people out there that are scared to fucking ask a girl out. They're not selling shit.

54:03Facts. Facts. You know, so, you know, I think it's about being smart about who you want to come into your world. Right? And it's about more effort. It's lazy to be like you can make 300K, apply now. Okay. You understand? Go deep and then when they come in, go deep and when they join the team, go deeper. Like build real shit. Cause I promise you, you think you're impressing people but you're impressing people below you. Got it? I'm really glad that you're impressive to your fucking seven bozo friends.

54:44You understand? This is mindset. Who are you? Where are you going? Where do you really want to go? How long would you like it to last? How do you want to be remembered by yourself about you? You know, this is real shit to me. That's why I come to this. Because I'm hoping to get one or two kids out of the fucking matrix of bullshit and get them into this because it will work. it always works. You know why this works? What I'm talking about? Even if you don't make as much money, you beat everybody else who made more money. You know this. We're getting older, right? Definitely. Yeah, you look fucking, I'm just kidding.

55:25I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. You know what I mean though, right? Think about, like, we're no longer nine. We're not. We're not 19, right? We're not 19, right? We're not getting carded anymore. Like, as you get older, shit gets very clear. Why not tell them the truth now? And by the way, I'm all these things and I make more money than everyone here.

56:00So, you know? Nice guys finish first. And the whole world's got you believing the reverse. we were honored to have you today thank you thank you everybody if you enjoyed this podcast please go back and look at the prior episodes they're loaded i appreciate your attention and uh thanks for being part of this journey see you later