Why You're Missing Out On The Best Things In Your Life

0:00Every single person here has probably missed out on the best thing that ever could have happened to them in their lives And the second you accept that truth, that the millions of decisions you've already made in your life have probably kept you away from the best thing that could have ever happened in your life. The love of your life, the idea of your life, business operative, the money made, like all of it. Then I think you can start leaning into the human experience. We don't give ourselves enough room and it goes back to patience. How do you do both? By knowing you have a lot of time to do both.

0:27And as far as FOMO, you're never going to know how it would have been anyway. Plus, the thing I always think about to make myself feel even better about the fact that I've said no to the best things that ever could have happened to me is knowing that it also would have changed the course of my life. So yes, maybe I would have said yes to going out with my friends this night and I would have saw something and it would have led to the idea of my life. But maybe then while I was executing that idea, something bad could have happened. Attention is the number one asset. First of all, it's such a pleasure.

0:53It's good to see everybody. You know, 14 years ago, my brother and I started a company. So not too around the same range as you guys. And the goal was to be able to effectively communicate everywhere in the world. At that point in my life, 13, 14 years ago, when I was 33, 34, I had a sense that I finally started to understand what I was good at. I built my family's retail business up and I realized I loved the marketing more than selling the product. And I was very good at it and I was doing things early. I was doing, I did e-commerce in 1996. You know, majority of this room wasn't born. in 1996.

1:32I was doing email marketing in 1999 when I could get 90 % of the people on the email list to open the email. I bought Google AdWords the day, the day Google AdWords started. I started a long form YouTube show in February of 2006. You know, I was an early investor in Facebook and Twitter. I was there. And so I wanted to start a communications infrastructure because I wanted it to be at my disposal. I thought of it as the most important remote control of my life. That whatever business I started, whatever things I was passionate about, if I wanted, I always kind of knew myself. So I said, you know, if I'm 84 years old and somebody I love is taken by a disease, I'm going to want to cure that disease.

2:20And yeah, I could raise money, but that's been proven to me as not the most effective way. The most effective way is to get the world to care. and I figured if I could build a communications infrastructure, whether I wanted to sell sneakers or I wanted to cure diseases and everything in between, that that would be important as my remote control. And so I started that company 14 years ago and slowly but surely, we're building enough scale that we're able to expand into other places. I've been doing personal content for a long time. I was very early Snapchat. I've always had a pretty strong presence amongst Snapchat users in Saudi because I was pretty early in making content.

3:00So I've always wanted to get here. As you know, I've been to the overall Middle East region a lot. We've tried to get here multiple times. I'm always very in and out. I leave tomorrow, like I just got here. So I'm just very excited to be here. And obviously, I don't have to tell anybody in this room, it has been remarkable to watch the expansion of opportunity and creativity and growth in this country in the last 12 to 18 months. And I can't even wrap my head around what the next decade looks like. And so, you know, the way I talk about Africa, the way I think about Korea, there's just certain parts that I am interested in investing more time into because I haven't fully gotten in there yet.

3:40Because I think you can't storytell unless you respect and listen. And so before I think about those things, I want to spend a lot of time doing those things. And so I'm excited to be here. Well, you know, it's definitely a pleasure having you here. And it's an honor, of course. I want to ask you a question if you don't. Please. You know, it seems like a lot of your success and from what you just said happened because you're an early adopter. Yeah. You made right decisions with the right company, right investments early on. AdWords, when it first came out, you took advantage of that. You made content before people started making content.

4:20You're on YouTube. You are investing in Facebook. How did you make these decisions? What helped you make these right decisions? I think two things. When I think about it, because it's the thing that people ask me the most about, and I've spent a good last 10 years trying to understand it, I think there's a lot of things that worked out for me. One, I'm incredibly curious. It wasn't something I really knew about myself, but especially when it comes to people. You know, I could have, like, you know, a very different true answer to my last question is because I genuinely like people and I'd like to meet them all.

4:57And I think the only way you can do that is if you go. And so I've always had a very strong curiosity of people. Even as a child, seven, eight, 10 years old, I was disproportionately the kid in the class that had the most friends. I wanted to be friends with everyone. I was interested in everyone. I liked everyone. And so curiosity about people has always been a thing. On top of that, I've always been a salesman. I always wanted to sell candy or lemonade or trading cards. And so if you're gonna sell, you have to pay attention. So I think the things that work for me is I'm curious about people.

5:35I'm very willing to waste time. This is a big one. I think one of the reasons I'm good at what I do is I'm willing to waste time. So I'm curious, I see something. What I saw six years ago, musically. So I see musically. And I see, wow, it's a very young social network and it's mainly 13 year old girls right now and they're dancing. But what I saw, because I spent 20 hours on it at a time when people as busy as me wouldn't spend two minutes on it because they would dismiss it, was, huh, I think the music and the app is making it easier for these young girls to make content. As you know, as all of you know, anything that makes it easier for people to make content is always powerful.

6:22It's like training wheels when you learn to ride a bike. So I was able to, through my curiosity, which is why I even saw Musical.ly, but then my humility of my own time. I think too many people value their time too much when it's not that valuable. People get fancy. They're like, I'm too busy. I'm like, no, you're not. You're too lazy. You're too lack of curiosity. You're too audacious. You're too complacent. You're too passive. None of those things apply to me when it comes to business. And so I think I use those things. And then the other thing is I am not, this will be interesting in a room full of smart creatives.

7:07The only thing I have conviction about is that y 'all are right and I'm not. The only thing I have conviction of is that the audience and humans are more right than me. I think one of the challenges with very creative people or very ambitious people is you have strong opinions, which are quite powerful, right? The ability to say no or to have conviction is incredibly powerful. I do think a lot of people miss out on opportunity because they don't have the humility to understand the audience is more right than them. And so it's a very fine balance of having conviction of what you see, especially creatively, but also respecting.

7:49And for you, and for a lot of you, when you're native YouTube, when you're native social, it's a lot more interesting because you can't hide the results speak. You know, when you do a commercial in television, the things we both agree on are dead. Well, you can hide behind the press saying it was a good commercial or you getting an award. But actual consumption in social and digital, numbers don't lie. And so I think that my level of humility, to me, I think regardless of how successful I've been for the last 30 years of my career, tomorrow can become the day that it starts declining if I don't stay humble and curious.

8:33And I focus on that. I'm also not romantic about how I make, I'm not attached to how I'm making my money now. So if Netflix and YouTube and TikTok are important to me today, I'm always ready for them not to be important tomorrow, even if it means that I might have to take a step back financially in the short term. I think the biggest thing that hurts people is they get stuck on how they make their money and then they're not willing to deviate and follow the consumer. They're following their comfort and their wallet. I was going to say, one of the things that you have been very effective at is you really focused, G, on pop culture.

9:13Yes. Like how to be relevant in culture and pop culture. Delphaz also is... I saw. Very strong at that. They started their company C3, Creative Culture Catalyst, because they believe that if they're not being a catalyst for culture and relevant to pop culture, so you both have that in common. Why is pop culture so important to your DNA? I think it's potentially the most significant currency that lives in the world. You know, I almost said it was, and then, you know, you know me well enough. I'm a pretty big fan of love, so I think I'll put love ahead of it. But, geez, the fact that pop culture is very close to love when I think about the currency of the world, you know, I think it's incredibly naive to not make a huge commitment to popular culture.

10:07To me, it's really funny. It's almost like saying, why is water and oxygen important? That's like, when you ask the question, I'm almost struggling to articulate. I'm shocked that 99 % of the world continues to not see this. Like, why is he wearing Vans? Why is he wearing Air Force Ones? Why, why, why? Everything is so important. And it's so obvious. I think even when you go out to dinner, the friend that knows the emerging artists and music or is most on top of why people are wearing a certain fashion, I think about everything. Even when I sit in an audience like this, I'm analyzing the denim jacket or what the hairstyles are.

10:51Everything matters to me. Everything. Because we all make decisions. we don't think about it but everyone here literally is subconsciously making decisions on what they're wearing headphones around the neck this is all profound to me it's profound to me it's how the world works and so i spend an uncanny amount of time trying to stay on top of which artists and and here's why what's really cool about pop culture is it's like cooking pop culture is like cooking you know why cooking is fascinating we can all have the same ingredients here right but the way we all cook it would be different and some would be delicious and some would not i think the most interesting thing about pop culture is vans vans originally were really made for california surf and skateboard kids but then with the way the way pop culture works all All of a sudden, black kids in the ghetto started wearing it as a cool thing.

11:52And I remember watching that. And look what's even happening right now. Like I'm literally getting goosebumps. Look at this, as I'm talking, here's why. The manipulation, like ingredients, like cells coming together, of pop culture is the most interesting thing in the world. Something starts as something. It's why I love people in the world. It's why I love what the world's doing now. All of our grandparents lived in a world where the way media was, they told us how to feel about each other. The world used to tell us how to think about each other. Now, because of the way content works, we can discover each other for what it is.

12:29I love that. That's the world, that's chemicals, that's the fusion I'm talking about. There's nothing more interesting into why something becomes popular. And you know this, things that become popular today, 20 years ago were inconceivable. and in 20 years, things that we find popular today or how we, everybody will look at photos of the way they look right now in 20 years and laugh at what they were wearing, hairstyles. It's just amazing to me and so I keep a real attention on that because I like how things come together and create something new. So speaking of things that, you know, becoming popular and how things become popular and you spoke on content and listening to the audience, and that's one of the most important things in creating content.

13:16What's your take on creating something new? Creating new trends? You know, giving thought in something they didn't know they needed? Well, I think that that is a forever game that humans are incredibly capable of. This is why we're such a superior species to a worm or a bird. We have that incredible creative power. I believe it is a huge, to me, and I love the way you're asking that question. When I'm paying attention to things, I don't think that that curtails my ability to do something new. I think it empowers it. Because the reality is something new has always been motivated by something in the past.

13:57But we are individual humans with our individual experiences and laying at night and in the shower thinking. It's amazing how that works. So I think it's the most true thing. But I love when people are like, this person's you know somebody like this person a movie maker an artist an athlete they're like this is an original and i think about it ah let me give you a very interesting way to answer this question how do i think about it there's a documentary i think all of you should watch about little richard little richard is a very famous musician if you go into it you'll basically leave watching the documentary thinking and being completely affected by and this has been long believed by many people who are passionate about music, that Little Richard is truly the father of rock and roll.

14:48Okay? This black man from Georgia, truly, and you'll watch it, that the Rolling Stones and Elvis, there's unlimited content showing them, saying, I was inspired by Little Richard. However, so this whole movie is a documentary about Little Richard. It's filled with unlimited content from David Bowie to Mick Jagger, to Elvis Presley, saying to the Beatles, Little Richard, right? It's clearly a pro, Little Richard is the king of rock and roll. And how does the movie start? In the first 13, 15 minutes of the film, 20 minutes of the film talking about his childhood, it literally shows you the 11 people that impacted him to become him.

15:31It was very small, it's back to the thing I talked about. They were very small ingredients and he had his own DNA, his own life, the timing, right? Timing is everything. I have a funny feeling your wrestling film acts very differently 20 years earlier because the country was in just a different world. The world's different. The distribution's different. You don't even get it made. A year earlier. Right, right. So I think what's really powerful of how I think about that is that's how the world will always work. And so even though I'm listening to the comments, I get a lot of credit for doing a lot of original things.

16:07When I broke out in my industry, I was so in wine in America. I was so like, he's so different. I would watch it back to wrestling. I was like, wait a minute, I'm different. And I also love standup comedy. Actually two things we just talked about. I was so affected by Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy and by Randy, the Macho Man Savage, the wrestler, that my communication style, you know, I didn't realize it, But then like 10 years later, I'm like, wait a minute. This, I, you know, and so it's clearly not me doing them. It's their little seeds are in me. And then there's 90 % me. And that's how I think original thoughts get done.

16:48I think I'm just building on the question too. Like they put out content, movies, TV shows, that type of thing. And people are used to a certain thing from their friends. So they don't want to just do what the consumers want. They want to create for, you know, they're not creating for the market. They're creating for themselves. I think that's right. I think that's right, comma, back to popular culture or listening. If you're doing an hour 30 film and you've decided you're gonna do it about this subject matter that none of the comments have told you that you want it. However, in the writing or in the improv of the acting or in the directing or producing of the film, if you're making three to four references from things that you know are happening in popular culture, it's going to land.

17:31That's exactly what we did. And so I think of that as like, Right? There you go. So I think of that as taking advantage of what you do, what they do for a living and doing so much content and understanding pop culture. But when they go to a bigger production like they've done, it's using those elements as spices and side dishes, not the main meal. Because the main dish is what they wanted to make. I would like everyone in the audience to get a chance to ask Gary something. I mean, if you have other questions, feel free. We can do it together. Anyone want to ask Gary something? how to fight the feeling of impatience when you have too many plans thank you for asking me that it's you're right it's my number one it's my number one it's my number one it's my number one because it goes back to listening 30 of my hundreds of thousands of direct messages that i get a year uh if not millions at this point are based on this you know look i think there's a couple things even the way you set up the story to your point one of the things that i know is that the generation of parents that parented you and definitely their parents and on and on that there is an overvaluing of status and profession as something that those parents brag to their friends and their parents about so you have an entire generation of asian and brown kids and Eastern European kids who are pushed very heavily into engineering, into medicine, into law, into the cliche things.

19:05And so this is pounded into people's heads. What I believe that does is creates an incredible vulnerability for those kids to resent their parents, to not be happy. And that's why I produce so much content about that. What it also does is when you were a student, you were on a track, you're a robot. You go up every year. You get grades, you go up. You go to bigger school, higher school, university. It's a fake game. Life is a real game. Life is a real game. So people are impatient because the first 18, 22 years of their life, every year they move up a level. It's like playing a video game. Then you get to real life.

19:48And real life is not linear like that. and those kids, even though they might have resentment or anger or have reconciled with their parents about, don't worry about other people's opinions. You just want me to be a doctor because your sister, your best friend, meanwhile, they themselves are worried about other people's opinions. There is no reason to be impatient if you are learning every day and feel like you're on the right track. The only thing that can dictate that is outside forces, right? Because the reality is if you're happy and you feel like you're learning every day and you're on the right track, the only other parts of the world are outside opinions and the things that you physically want.

20:30Do you want a Lamborghini? Do you want a nice apartment? Do you want a watch? My argument is the faster you can get away from wanting physical items and wanting validation from other human beings that are not living your life, the quicker you lack the ability to be impatient. You have to ask yourself, and I believe the reason people want things 95 % of the time is for outside validation. I'm not so sure that people want a Porsche for the Porsche or for what people think about them when they have a Porsche and so I'm very passionate about outside voices I think if you when I hear your story of like you wanted to do this then you were pushed this way now you found yourself back and you're this young and I know that people that are 27 don't think they're young because 27 you're starting to smell 30 and when you're 20, 30 feels super old my cousin my cousin worked for my father when i finished university i was 22 he was 30 and that i remember the first day i walked into the store and i've been working with him for a long time but i remember when i was 22 and he was 30 i thought he was a thousand 30 when you're 22 how old are you my friend how old 25 when you're 25 when you're 23 when you're 22 30 feels like it It feels like a big number.

21:56But when you're 47, you know how laughable that is. Because at 47, I feel 25. I remember 25 like yesterday, it was the year 2000. I had to go to the store and make sure Y2K didn't break the computers. I remember the day I was his age, and when I tell you inside my stomach, inside my soul, inside my ambition, inside my dreams and hopes and wants, I feel exactly like he does. So you can imagine how not worried I am at 27, but you have to start genuinely looking yourself in the mirror and asking how much of your impatience is predicated on outside opinions. And I would argue almost all of it. When I see others succeeding, I ask myself, why am I not at that place yet?

22:41You have the wrong definition of success. Let me explain what I mean by that. I think you're right. But I would also ask you, if you're in the process of accomplishing that, you're actually in the best place. The process of accomplishing it is often better than accomplishing it. I would argue for people that have pulled off making films, that if we really ask them, the day of the seed of the idea is even more exciting than the day it airs. When you're a maker, the process is more enjoyable making it. As a matter of fact, almost all of my most challenging days is when something I was excited about has been finished many think it's the day it's when you sell it it's when it happens it's when you're awarded it's not the fun part I understand you want to make a movie it makes sense I'm just asking you you don't know anything about that person's journey you're making assumptions and more importantly you need to figure out here's a good one this is a very unique take on what you're saying i'm curious if this is going to bring you value i'm going to go in a very interesting place dustin you've never heard this from me it's something i've been thinking a lot about i've always been fascinated by perfectionism you know people are like i'm a perfect gary you don't get it i'm a perfectionist and i always knew that wasn't true i always knew that it was insecurity that they were scared to put it out that's why they were using but but be but saying you're insecure is not as cool as saying you're a perfectionist but it was the same game i've always been fascinated by people who position themselves as being tough on themselves especially when they are quick to bring out that everybody around them always says that they're too tough on themselves because it means that they've been effectively storytelling to the people around them that they're too hard on themselves which is actually a very on paper admirable kind of positioning.

24:36I would ask yourself when you go to sleep tonight and you think about this are you interested in positioning yourself to the people around you as someone who is hard on themselves or are you hard on yourself? Do you understand? It's interesting work. You have to look inside because I think it's a smart way to position yourself as a protection mechanism to give you time on your journey so you're not judged while you're on your journey. I thought you would. I like it too. It's something I've been thinking about. Anyone else have a question for Gary? Please. Please. Sometimes people get intimidated by my facial expressions.

25:19Do you have any advice on how to approach that? Yeah, so let me think a couple things. One, on the second one, it's, you know, I love that you are aware of that. all you need to do is act on that empathy and insight meaning if you are quick to physically react if somebody's throwing an idea and you're like or like whatever it may be if you feel like that's detrimental to you and i'm sure you're you're a human being you also want to be empathetic to how it makes the other person feel you just need to be on the offense to communicate the context. Meaning, one thing I do a lot, I'm also very intuitive, very quick.

26:05If I feel like I react to something and I can tell that it does not land, I will immediately recontextualize it in the moment. I think you need to use your words. I think you need to use your words. Your words will offset your face. But you have to be active on it. You have to acknowledge, if you're recognizing that, you need to be aggressive about that. Especially when you know you're thinking the opposite. The first thing I would tell you to do is when you're feeling the opposite, when you're positive about something, you're excited about that, you can never leave an interaction without over communicating your enthusiasm because that will then offset that scenario.

26:46Look, the first one to your point. How to lead conversation with strict parents who don't support what I'm doing. The only thing that ever works is understanding, to your point, the move out, that's a band-aid. Get into a fight with them, that's a band-aid. Set them straight, that's a band-aid. The only thing I've ever seen really work in this game is understanding the alternative will create a worse relationship with you and your parents. Meaning, the biggest challenge kids have that love their parents or are frustrated with their parents of not accepting their journey is understanding that if they, the child, compromises and appeases the parent, that within a decade, you will have such high levels of resentment towards your parents that your relationship for the rest of your lives will be negative.

27:37And so what you're deciding, because you love your parents, is that you're willing to bare your teeth and grind it out and be inconvenienced and struggle with it in the short term for the greater good. Because in this scenario, 50 % of the time, it works out. And parents always then rewrite history and are very proud and you know how it is. And even if it doesn't work out, even if the child that's on a journey does not succeed, they have put themselves in a position to not blame their parents because they gave it their full effort and they'll never have that resentment or regret. So I think the answer to your question is in your scenario where you feel like you don't have a lot of options and you're not going to change their mind with words, the only way you're going to do it is by changing their mind with actions.

28:23It's just going to take you 10 years. This goes into patience. It's just going to take you 10 years and you have to, in your mind, go very high level and say, I'm willing for it to not be ideal for the next three, five, 10 years because if I quit this and do what I want them to do, well, there's no outcome that it's going to be healthy. Eric, and that was telling me the story today about him and him and I started creating content and they were like sitting in the rooms and filming and editing and doing these comedy shows and their parents were like, what are you guys doing? Of course. They didn't really respect it until the content went viral on WhatsApp and then the parents, somebody shared it with the parents and then he's like, oh, that's my son who made that.

29:06Of course. Like I said, I saw Zach laughed. Parents are incredible in rewriting history. Oh, I've always believed you can do it. You know, it's look, Look, parents love their, as a parent, you love your children so much that it makes you delusional. You love them so much. You love them so much that you're not rational. And parents do overvalue other parents' opinions too much. That's why I hope this generation, all of you, the biggest thing that frustrates me is kids live it. Like almost all your parents have the same frustrations with their parents, but then they're doing it to you. So don't do it to your parents.

29:46That's right. My hope is that this generation becomes the generation that isn't a hypocrite. Breaks the cycle. Breaks the cycle. Any other questions? How can I figure out if I have the idea for the next mega hit? Yeah, there's only two ways to do it. One, the way they've always done it, which is blind conviction, you don't know, and you just have this burning desire to tell the story and you just gotta go. The new way that we're all very fortunate to do is there is subtle ways to play with it in social where you don't give it away, but you're able to thematically get a feel if there's something that's resonating.

30:26And I think in reality, everything in the future, given the structure we have, is gonna look like a little bit of both, right? Like there's a reason, many people will do a little bit of both. You know, my team, when I think about my content, Dustin's sitting here, he knows how true this is. we have a very good understanding of best practices. The first three seconds, the thumbnail, what time to, like, we're very much in the science of the art and we're in the art of the art. Yet, there are many things that I said here today, definitely what I said to you because I've never said it before, that when the team will take the raw footage right now and they'll clip it into best practices.