Entrepreneurship & Life Lessons For Parents and Kids l Q&A with Elementary School Students

little Gary struggled in school but he did not struggle when he sold lemonade or when he rang doorbells to wash cars so let me tell you kids about entrepreneurship the number one cool thing about your school and on the journey that you're on everyone says no that this idea is not going to work your parents your teachers the people that you must listen to the most but when it comes to entrepreneurship even if they don't think it's a good idea and you you must try it might not work and many of my ideas did not work many of my businesses did not work but as entrepreneurs like all of us are it's almost like our destiny to try to make the things and the ideas that we have to happen so Gary I'm just gonna briefly introduce you I'm going to hand it over to Laura she's going to really introduce you give it back to you you're going to talk first why you're really excited to be here and then the kids have questions for you cool guys this is a really big deal so Gary it just hosted about 10 000 people this weekend by the way I've been an entrepreneur for a very long time and all entrepreneurs need mentors and I'm lucky enough to be able to call Gary a mentor of mine there's very few people in the world that are as caring and compassionate as Gary who cares so much about soft skills like you're learning with the seven mindsets um and cares so much about really bringing these stories to life through his nft collection and you understand nfts which is so awesome because you're getting one uh and so I'm just so excited to have him and Laura you can kind of talk about why you're so excited that Gary's here all right so welcome garyvee we're super excited to unhappy with us today um kids this is garyvee they've been learning about uh themselves and how they learn through their levels of Engagement through their different mindsets and so much of it aligns with what you always talk about with what's important in life and that's what they're learning at a young age and so we're really excited for them to be able to ask you some questions today so um first up Hello my name is and my question is how did you become an entrepreneur thank you so much um first of all class I'm so excited to be with all of you this is the highlight of my day I'm so happy and I'm excited to answer your questions um you know I don't think I became an entrepreneur I think I was born an entrepreneur for everyone who's sitting in class by the time I was in second and third grade I was already really excited for the summer to sell lemonade I liked to like hang out with my friends and create like a little yep get on me with that for selling lemonade um I uh you know I liked creating like little stores with my friends you know I would go door to you know in the 1980s kids would just go outside and we would just bring people's doorbells and try to sell them flowers um so I think for a lot of you just love music you just love cooking you just love school I feel like a lot of people are born with things that they love and I loved being a business mind and a business kid and a businessman and then but here's what's important kids a lot of you love certain things skateboarding rock climbing you know um drawing coloring making music making videos being a good friend but the key is to practice right just because you're born good at something if you don't practice and practice and practice then you may not be able to achieve the highest levels of what you're trying to achieve and so Not only was I born a businessman or an entrepreneur but starting around your age up until right now I've been practicing almost every day at it which is what's made me good at it not just liking it um hi my name is my question is where do you get your inspiration from first of all thank you for your question that's a great question before you go away can I ask you a question where do you get your inspiration from hello very nice so for me my inspiration comes from my parents I was not born in America I was born in the Soviet Union which is now Russia and Belarus and some countries maybe you haven't heard of yet but you know we came to America and we had very little we were immigrants and I lived in a small apartment with a lot of not only my parents but my grandparents my great-grandparents my

uncle and so it was very humble beginnings and so my parents loved me so much and worked so hard and they gave me the opportunity so I'm filled with gratitude for my parents and they're my inspiration can relate to that like your parents are your number one supporters all right hi my name is and my question is how did you get through school that's a good question I am I love you for that question I'll tell you why kids some people School comes natural just like we talked about earlier with skateboarding or cooking or business for me school did not come natural it was hard and you know I struggled in school a lot of different times um you were all so lucky because we live in a world now that understands the brain better the way kids learn better the way we all do it differently um and so the way I got through it was you know patience you know uh the way I got through it was looking for different things that brought me joy you know and so I loved math class I loved history class I love Jim recess was the best I loved lunch and so you know I found different ways to get through it through the years but you know I can tell you this one thing now that I'm done with it I would pay a lot of money to be back in school and be able to enjoy my friends and learning and so you should all really enjoy this special 12 15 years that you have because there's nothing like a childhood and being in school with each other my name is and my question is how did you feel on your first day of your business and why that's a great question it's really interesting that you asked me that with the question that was just asked for me my first day in business officially was right after I was done with college and it was in my dad's wine store and don't forget kids you can't drink wine until you're 21. but it was my in my uh in fair enough um and so it was my dad's wine store and I had been working in it since I was 14 and I loved it there I loved helping my dad so the way I felt my first day was I was ecstatic I was thrilled because I couldn't wait to work for my family's business and now I was done with school and I was ready to work it was one of the best days of my life and the reason was because I was going to be doing what I was born to do which is to be a businessman hi my name's I am and my question is are you happy with your life that's a great question thank you uh I'm extremely happy with my life kids you may remember this you might not because I know how young you are but even if one of you remembers exactly what I'm about to say for the rest of your life then this is one of the best meetings I've ever had in my life because it means you're going to start believing this very early I'm extremely happy with my life because I'm thankful for everything I have and I have no Envy or jealousy or wants or needs of what other people want kids one of the biggest issues in the world is people are jealous or envious of other people they want what they have they want the kind of things they have maybe it's the book bag they have the clothes they have the money they have the house they have the toys they have and this goes on forever when you get older the reason I'm so happy with my life is because I never worry about other people I actually only root for other people I want other people to have those things I'm happy that they have those things I hope that they're happy too but by keeping my life very simple and just being grateful for what I have makes me the happiest I'm one of the happiest people on earth I really believe that and that's because I keep things simple as long as I have happiness and health of my family I don't need things I don't focus on things and so my life is incredibly happy I'm very grateful for what I have and I don't spend time worrying about what I don't have right hi um and my question is why did you make these sense great question why did I make defense here's why I could tell you a lot of good things right now but I have a feeling if respectful raccoon did it in a cartoon or a video game you might understand it

even more I could tell you about a lot of ways of how to become likable and why you should always love your fellow student and neighbor and teacher but I think likable leopard has a better chance of getting you to pay attention to that than I sang it to you I created V friends because I really believe in kindness and love and good and having compassion and being an empathetic person and having an attitude of gratitude but I know that I'm only one human being and if I want to get people to hear the message I have to do a lot of different things if I want to explain to you that resilience and willpower and working hard matters I have a feeling that the willful wizard is cooler to you than I am and so I want to make sure that I leave the biggest impact of happiness and love on the world and I need my V friends to help me do that does that make sense all right thank you all right uh hi my name is and my question is have you spoken in any schools before that's a great question I love your shirt um yes I have it's one of my favorite things to do um speaking to Children's a lot of fun because a lot of you are still making your decisions and learning about yourself and for me that's a great time to talk to kids because then you can really impact them I remember School assemblies today and I'm 47 years old and I remember School assemblies in first grade third grade fifth grade that had an impact on me and so I'm very honored I'm so grateful that you allowed me to be with the class is today and so I have and I will continue and one of the reasons I created V friends is I think one of the biggest things you could ever do is to impact kids and I'm focused on that hi I'm in my question is how do you draw the characters that's a good one thank you for the question so starting around your age everyone I started to doodle sometimes in class and sometimes my teachers were not happy I was doing that so make sure you pay attention to your teachers but sometimes I would doodle on the bus and after school and I would always doodle like I really like doodling how many people here like to draw so this is interesting kids you'll find this interesting almost the entire class raised their hand almost so many hands just went up but by the time you're in seventh grade ninth grade 11th grade a lot of you will no longer raise your hand and say that you like to draw a lot of you will stop drawing I never stop doodling and so when it came time to do V friends instead of hiring somebody else to do it I did it and it was one of the most joyous and fulfilling things I ever did so if I tell any of you all of you never stop drawing it's very creative and it will bring a lot of joy in your life we have two questions and his question is um how did you go from drawing characters to having them be animated that's a great question so once I drew them now I had them established so then I worked with a company that created the second version of them like the way you see them now versus my drawing and I've met with a lot of different companies and I picked the ones that I thought were the nicest and the people that could do a good job so sometimes kids when you get older and you're in the Work World you'll end up having Partnerships and make sure that you remember this it's not just someone who's good at it it's someone who you also want to work with because you'll have a nice relationship um the last question we have is we his question is how do you solve problems my favorite way to solve problems is to try to understand what the other party or person is thinking about so how many hey kids real quick by show of hands or the move how many of you have had disagreements with fellow classmates in your life thank you so what we saw right there is disagreements are a part of life right even though you might be friendly with

somebody in here you might not see eye to eye on everything and that's okay well you have to remember is you can't just focus on how you feel about it you have to remember there's another person too and you might want to start thinking about why are they thinking that why do they see it differently when I was a kid and somebody would pick on me or not be nice for some reason whether it was good Parenting by my mom or because it was my the way I was born or probably a combination of both I would always think they weren't being mean to me they were in a bad place and they were unhappy and something must have been going on in their life and so they're hurt and so maybe that's showing up with them not being nice the way I solve problems is through compassion and through empathy and trying to understand what the other person's problem is and how we solve it and sometimes that's complicated like a disagreement or argument and other times it's just partnering up to make something happen and you're trying to understand what they're trying to achieve so the way I get through these things is by being curious and asking questions and always having good intent for the other person or party Laura can I ask some questions to Gary absolutely we have some time great so Gary one of the skill sets that this CBA is learning now this is a school all around entrepreneurship which again is why you are the most perfect person slash your little animals for them and they actually watch v-friends leading up to this they watch the videos in class which is so awesome hey kids do you like did you guys like the be friends videos Raise Your Hands all right thank you for the ones and the ones that did not raise their hands I'm coming to town to talk to you about it one guy's laughing he can he's gonna be good feedback for you so one of the skill sets out of the seven skill sets that they're that you know these wonderful students are learning is around learning from failure and I think that's unbelievable for kids in a school to really understand that they can learn from failure so do you have a story of how you've learned from failure and what advice do you have around when something seems like a failure what can we do about it kids everybody in the world has failed there's not a single person that hasn't failed a lot of times teachers raise your hands if you failed hundreds of times in your life your teachers who are incredible are human beings who failed in small ways hundreds of times that's what happens in life the quicker you get comfortable with losing the quicker you're gonna have a happy life you don't want to lose it's not necessarily what you're trying to do but not all losses are really losses they're just step backs they're just little moments in time and they're always an opportunity to learn and understand and so I highly recommend you understand that losing is a part of life one of the biggest mistakes that grown-ups sometimes make is trying to protect kids from losing is a part of life and the quicker you get comfortable with it the quicker you're going to have a happier life I don't like losing but I know it's a part and when I lose I try to reflect on what I could have done better and then I try to bring that energy to the next time so that's what you have to really realize it's just a part of life just like the sun coming up and going down and the moon you will lose you will get bad grades you will lose a sporting game like you'll have a bad day you'll lose a friend along the way things will happen and that's okay because you're strong enough to make it better so I really like that point one of the things that we do every month is we give a staff member the epic failure award uh next year what I'm hoping is as our kids get older and they start taking more risks with their learning that we can start giving an epic failure or more intimate kids to celebrate trying something and coming back for making money I think that is I think the kids are incredibly lucky that you're doing that going back to how lucky the kids are uh I'm going to kind of combine three skill sets out of the seven Gary because I know you and I feel like a lot there's actually probably a character named after one of these skill sets so in terms of your life you know the skill sets around recognizing opportunity taking risks and staying curious I'm pretty sure curious is one of your V friends and you really talk about curiosity and how it's played a humongous role in your life and so I'm curious around how has curiosity brought you to where you are and how is

curiosity helped you actually find Opportunities and take risks so how is that a part of who you are and yeah which be friends is it so it is curious crane which I don't think is in my office um it's when I do this I'm hoping that one of you hears me two of you hear me on certain different things that are valuable to you this word curiosity is one that I would love for you to attach on to the Curious crane which is a bird in my world is a very important character Amanda's right Curiosity has been essential in my happiness why does it work like that why why why you know trying different things some of you if you were asked do you play soccer actually watch this how many of you here like soccer raise your hand s how many people here have never played soccer or played very little soccer raise your hands so for the people that just raised their hands maybe you do love soccer but you haven't played yet and instead of being scared or timid or just not even considering it doing that for everything the piano the violin basketball cooking drawing painting singing karate you know all these things in the world that you could be doing if you stay curious and say maybe instead of no so many of you say no to things already how many of you have been asked to do something with a friend but because you were scared or you didn't like it you said no raise your hand I'm really proud of you for raising your hand and being honest what I'm asking the class to do is the next time a friend asks you to do something that you're scared of or you don't think you like instead of saying no say maybe and maybe ask them another question about it and then half the time say yes and try it there are some things that are my favorite thing to do in the world that I don't even know because I never did it might be surfing it might be pastry shipping but I never tried it and I want to do that more in my 40s it's a heck of a lot better to do it when you're in your age group so please say maybe and that's how curiosity works are you guys on board with that you understand yeah yeah okay uh I would say this is the last question so you didn't you were not lucky enough for CBA to exist when you were a little kid uh so you struggled a lot with feeling seen and really being understood within school so if you were in this audience today you're a little Gary in the audience right next to um you know with that really awesome shirt what do you want to tell yourself you know again just that you feel like no one maybe gets you or no one sees you what do you want to tell that little Gary in the audience little Gary struggled in school but he did not struggle when he sold lemonade or when he rang doorbells to wash cars so let me tell you kids about entrepreneurship the number one cool thing about your school and on the journey that you're on is even if everyone says no that this idea is not going to work your parents your teachers the people that you must listen to the most but when it comes to entrepreneurship even if they don't think it's a good idea and you you must try it might not work and many of my ideas did not work many of my businesses did not work but as entrepreneurs like all of us are it's almost like our destiny to try to make the things and the ideas that we have to happen so I tell you in this class even though I wasn't lucky enough to have a class like this or a school like this even in this environment that you're in there will always be people that don't think your idea is right and they might be right but you must try and see your ideas come into the world because you'll never live with yourself if you don't try especially as you get older class one day you'll be in the business world as entrepreneurs and I'm still going to be doing this and I cannot wait to work with some of you in the future and I can't wait for you to tell me that you were in this class and so I love you and I can't wait to see you thank you