You Want to Get Really Happy?

0:00This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. The reason I'm saying out loud, it's okay to change, is because I like people having the ability to continue to mix and listen, all of this is about balance. Yeah. Like, all of it's about, like life is about balance, right? Like, one of the reasons I'm talking more about how much I sleep is because I think a lot of entrepreneurs think staying up all day is how you hustle and win. and I'm like wait a minute, I might be a part of that movement. I need to create clarity. So over the last three, four years, I mean we had Arianna Huffington in the Ask Gary Vee show four or five years ago.

0:36I've been very thoughtful about clarifying, you know, because in the first book I wrote that broke me out, Crushed, I talked about 7 p.m. to 2 in the morning as the time you do side hustle while you still pay your bills because I was trying to be practical. You can't quit your job. Why don't you work after, instead of going out or playing Xbox or doing things to escape your real life, Why don't you work? And then eventually that thing could become the thing and you can leave, which was great. And I still believe in that. But then obviously people heard the 2 a.m. thing, you know, and like, and so you know how things evolve.

1:07And so balance is incredibly important. The whole, all of it. And people's own balance. For example, for me, I find balance in extremities. Like I love going hard, you know, Monday through Friday, and I love being completely checked out on the weekend. I go pretty hard as well as we all do, but I feel guilty sometimes on the weekend or at moments when I'm not doing anything. And I've got to tell myself, Chris, you're allowed to do nothing. I've never felt guilty. You don't feel guilty? I would argue, and my friend Tom Bell, you hit this for me, my ability to not judge myself is my greatest strength.

1:45And that's hard. Yeah. Not to be able to judge yourself, that's hard. You know why I don't judge myself? Because I don't judge other people. You want to get really happy? Stop judging people. Oh, that's good. You stop judging people, you stop judging yourself. And by the way, for everybody who's driving and you judge people, you don't know anything about them. You don't even know everything about your sister. How are you judging strangers? Like judgment is poison and has led to so much darkness. Especially with social media, what has happened, people blame social media. Social media hasn't done anything except expose us.

2:21There's no social media. we're social media. They're empty platforms. We fill it. When you leave that nasty comment because you're jealous that that girl's pretty and you're insecure about your looks, that's your darkness. That's not Instagram making you write it. It's not Instagram's fault. It's not the video game's fault. Bro, these platforms are empty. This notion that Facebook or Instagram or the Russians are controlling us is laughable. We need to change society. We need to put happiness on a pedestal, not money. Couple things are exciting to me about your story. Two things stand out quite a bit.

3:05Number one, anytime one compares themselves to somebody else, they always lose. When I was 27 years old, I worked in a liquor store. And my friends drove to my liquor store and would buy champagne and I would carry the box to their BMW. I remember you saying that in a video, yeah, but you had no ego about it. Right, because they're, first of all, if your friends have bachelors or are engaged or have moved into a new apartment, I think you should be happy for them. Yeah, of course. But it should stop there. To your point, and I can even tell by your energy, you are, but then what happens is, and then you look at yourself and you say, where am I?

3:46Yeah. it just doesn't mean anything. People have to realize life is so long, it's like just because we're at this point and you're not in the same place as somebody else, there's little value to that comparison. There's just little value. I think so many people get upset about comparing themselves to others without realizing what those others are going through. So it's cool that they have their bachelors, but they might be in a super abusive relationship, but you don't know. For sure. You know what I mean? You never know what's behind the screen. You really don't. And it's super important that you ground yourself in that and not compare.

4:21Number two, far more interesting to me, is I want to play this game of like why those schools are your dream. So it's not necessarily my dream. It's like when I was in school, I did really well and I was like, I know that I'm passionate about it and I'm creative and I have the talent. What would you like to happen? Networking. Like so, and that's another thing with videos I've watched of years, you're like, you don't need education. so I was going to ask you like. You need education. You don't need to pay for it in the current packages. They are. Let's play this game. So you want to go to those fashion schools which I understand those are legit spots.

4:55Let's say you go there and crush. What would happen next? I don't know. It was just a matter of who I met within those years of being there and like the fashion directors at those schools are the actual designers themselves. So like Diana von Fristenberg, Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, all of those people. so if I were able to get face to face with those people. But let's play that out. The amount of FIT students and Parsons students that have face to time with those three is zero. They'll come and give a speech. You might take a selfie, but you're not getting real face time. You're far more likely to send a top designer DMs and offer to work for free for them and they say yes and then you grab coffee and pick up Shmata and actually get close to them and actually get face time than ever going to one of those two schools.

5:41So what, like how would that happen without going to school? You would literally take your phone right now and DM, DVF and say I'm willing to work my face off for free and you do that to 400 of the top designers in the world and none of them answer and then you sit there and say Gary, he told me this was going to work, I hate him and then you do it again and you do it again and do it again and then somebody says yes. Until Virgil says yes and you're in Paris doing an off-white show. I'm sick this is real like like this is why breaking down this conversation is so important like this is what's so fun for me like the fact that you and your mind truly believe that going to those two schools is going to let you interact face to face with those three is amazing because that's where I get to say cool but not really and then there's another part of that question let's say those schools actually did give you face to face with those three the next question is and And what then?

6:37And so what are you gonna do in that hour? I mean getting an hour with Calvin Klein is ludicrous, but let's say you get it from Parsons. You know, what? Good question. And it's not a tough question. It doesn't have to be a scary one. Like I'm not asking to like, ah, I got you. It's about what? Like do you wanna be a designer? Of course I do. Well great, then I have great news for you. You're far more likely to break out as a designer just designing and putting it out on social media than you are to go to a school. If you have the talent, whether you do go to FIT or you go to Instagram, it's all gonna end up in the same place anyway.

7:16Talent wins. So if I wanted to go ahead and within the meantime, if I started putting everything out there on all of my capsule collections, sketches, everything out on Instagram, but I didn't have that following and I wanted to start my own business without an audience, how would I go about actually starting that without having like, because. Well, first of all, the way you just talked about it, that costs nothing. Yeah. The other way costs you$240 ,000 in debt. I know. Well, I also know. And so that's why I want to bring that up. To me, I'd rather you do that. Listen, your ability to put out those sketches, first of all, you put out those sketches, there is a 0.01 % chance of a miracle.

7:57Right? The other thing you can do is DM those sketches to 5 ,000 top models on Instagram. All you need is one person to think it's cool. I would rather you lay in bed for 11 hours a day and DM people all the sketches, whether they're designers, fashion magazines, fashion pages, and models. I genuinely believe what I'm about to say. I believe that's a more likelihood to what you want than going to FIT. Okay. No, I definitely think so because even after school it would just be kind of, I don't want to be in the exact same position that I'm in now. I'm like, oh, I just not necessarily wasted four years of my life, but I just put all of my eggs in that one basket and spent like three, four years of my life dwelling on getting to this school to finally get here and then be in the same position and now what?

8:45Correct. Yeah. The reason there's so much unhappiness right now in the world, especially in the American world, is there's a ton of people that have hundreds of thousands of dollars in college debt and everything they thought they were going to get from it, they didn't. Basically what happened to me. Basically what happened to millions of people. Yeah. I genuinely think that you need to sketch, capsule, and put it out for free to the world on all platforms. Like this is why I yell about TikTok. Mm-hmm. Like if you did figure skating, I assume you have athletic rhythm capabilities that most people don't.

9:22The fact that you, like when I look at you, I'm like this girl should just go on TikTok. and put this stuff out. So I have a TikTok as well and it's just a matter of like knowing what content to put out there that would grab people's attention. Work it the other way. That's what everybody does which is why people fail. My game is just put out everything and figure out what people want. Okay. After the fact. And. Everybody sits there because this is what gets into insecurity and judgment. That's why I talk about it so much. If you just put it out, you'll find out. If you sit in your head, you'll never post.

9:58Yeah, that's basically what's happening. I never post and I think that's like I resonated with one of your posts about never posting because of insecurity and just like worrying about what other people think and whatnot but it's not going to get anywhere that way. That's what everyone's doing. Yeah. I want to continue to put out information that I know is leading to more happiness. You know like hanging here with Nikita like it's just perspective. It's just you know I was born with it. I had parents around me that gave it to me and I just want to pass that on. Once you look at it a little bit different, it just changes everything.

10:35It's literally just looking at it different. It's so exciting for me that I know what you actually want is a lot easier than the way you're seeing the path. It's literally leaving the studio right now, sketching and posting it on Pinterest and literally that could be the moment. Hey everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, Please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention. And thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.