The Key to Taking Risks in Life and Business | Virtual Fireside Chat

when I started public speaking and losing out on speaking gigs left and right because I cursed I knew that I was going to double down on what got me there which was I'm not going to overvalue other people's opinions I'm going to value my opinion about myself the little voice in your head is called the insecurity devil on your shoulder is saying to you don't do this because when you fail the girl you like your brother your mom your teacher like someone's gonna think you suck and you believe them and that's the problem if people really got into a place of just doing things that they want to do and not worrying about what people thought about it everybody would take risks in their 20s the reason people are scared of the world is they actually think getting fired or having their startup fail or them not being able to be an influencer because nobody gave a [ __ ] is a bad thing when I think it's a great thing this all comes down to confidence and insecurity the reason you won't do something is you are too insecure to do it hi my name is Ruby so my question my brain is always grinding always hustling and that's just who I am that's where I built myself around but I also really care about the beginning behind the work I'm doing and I'm worried that I'm putting so much effort so in the irons and the fire that I'll get to the finish line and realize I'm out of it was meaningful but my question is how do you make sure you're putting your effort in meaningful places and when you're someone who works super hard when everything you do how do you maintain a longevity and not burn out um so you don't know if your energy is going in the right place and that's exactly how you get to a place of having no burnout it's extremely Zen when you can balance ambition with patience and gratitude for me I'm just happy I'm playing and whether it works out or not is kind of Irrelevant in some ways truly of course I'd like to be successful in everything I do but the not judging yourself against your own ambition is the superpower and it's why you never burn out if you play that game thank you and bear with us for a sec because the sound is still adjusting for a moment but I think that part of what you know Ruby and a lot of the other students here who will hopefully be meeting their opponents or organizations at some point in the future as a leader in yourself how do you convince other people of that same meaning you don't you don't commence you know commencing is a very dangerous game what's what happens is you get people on board through your actions I'm such a great communicator one would think that so much is going for me because of my communication I would actually argue that my communication style is actually a detriment to me up front because there's a borderline level of cynicism that has to come along with the Gift of Gab that people use to protect themselves and the reason I have anything meaningful is the truth of my actions eventually get those that are closest to see it on board and inspired to do and lately you know as you've pivoted five or six times yourself just in the last few years where are you finding the most meaning in your Pursuits oh disproportionately in the garyvee of it all like the garyvee content thing like looking at these young faces and knowing that some of them think I'm cool thus giving me leverage and equity for them to listen to me so that I can tell them that kindness and patience and humility and being a sweet person is actually the winning formula is massive you know when I get the feedback from people that you changed my life because I realized I didn't have to be a dick face and I'm not a dick face Gary but I thought you had to be a dick face to win the game right like to me that is profound and you know I think for the people here who like skew towards being a guidance counselor or like a camp head coach or you know this will make sense to them because I have this in me when you get your joy from other people getting Joy from your actions there's no better Joy it's just that what's I think a little bit unique about me if I'm like analyzing myself as if I'm not myself is that has come in like spiritual leaders

that's come in like parenting that's coming guidance counselors and principles and it just we haven't heard that from like gangster ass business people you know like I think that's what's probably you know as I analyze it I'm like why the [ __ ] is this happening I'm like you know that's right like I can't think of somebody who like [ __ ] is crushing out here in that way that's also spewing Grandma's [ __ ] yeah okay so my name is Levi and I wanted to ask we are at a point in our lives where we all feel the bare face similar to what you talk about a lot in regards to having the most opportunity to take on risks and try new things but sometimes you do the calculations in your head and even though the risk of failure is so low for us right now they're still fear of taking that step a voice telling you not to what are different ways that we can conquer that fear also why you curse so much I'll answer the I'll answer the easier one I think somewhere along the line I realized if I just stay being myself a lot of good things will happen in a world where nobody stays themselves and I'm a Jersey Boy from the [ __ ] streets of Edison New Jersey right like it is this is how I talk it feels this is how it is in my head no different than when you wrote that down to ask the question like that's what was in your head when I curse it's in my head and what's interesting is it used to mainly only come out more in like public speeches and things of that nature and then you know like it's just I just never think brother right I'm never thinking right and what I mean by that is I'm just being natural at all times and so I don't even know when I'm cursing genuinely really I really don't it doesn't even register there's never been a moment where like I love when people like don't like it and they're like he's forcing it I just laugh so much because I'm like if these people knew how like there if anything there are times where I think about not trying to do it but still can't control it because I'm just in my flow as far as your first question it actually ties to the second question when I started public speaking and losing out on speaking gigs left and right because I cursed I knew that I was going to double down on what got me there which was I'm not going to overvalue other people's opinions I'm going to value my opinion about myself the little voice in your head is called the insecurity devil on your shoulder is your word is saying to you don't do this because when you fail the girl you like your brother your mom your teacher like someone's gonna think you suck and you believe them and that's the problem If people really got into a place of just doing things that they want to do and not worrying about what people thought about it everybody would take risks in their 20s You by Nature being in this program already taking risks that are different than your contemporaries so you're already halfway home but this is still School even though it's different and the real world of jobs and companies and starting your stuff that's the real jungle this is just cool right now what you're doing but the real jungle is scary because there is no system it's not subjective you know teacher Adam can't just say you're good the world tells you the truth and people are scared of the world that's why we have professional students and so you know I think um the reason people are scared of the world is they actually think getting fired or having their startup fail or them not being able to be an influencer because nobody gave a [ __ ] is a bad thing when I think it's a great thing this all comes down to confidence and insecurity the reason you won't do something is you are too insecure to do it Yeah we actually talk about failure a lot and I'm curious if you have one that sticks out from your own past where you think about it now and you attribute more of your success to the back I am one of the all-time worst students of all time like actually like I was you have to understand I was in the height of college propaganda when you go to school from 1982 to 1998 you were in The Sweet Spot

of 16 years where I had teacher after teacher in middle school and high school tell me that I was going to be a garbage man because that was the bad thing and so my failure was macro every grown-up in my life besides my parents told me I was going to fail my teachers and all my friends parents I think I'm overly successful because it wasn't a failure it was a failure of a generation of growing up the entire world the thing that everybody in this room is scared of was [ __ ] on me every minute on the hour because your entire self-worth was about your grades they did not grow up with that it was a big part of it but they could have made up that they were an entrepreneur and people would have believed them right I you they could have made up to their parents and teacher and said I'm gonna make a million dollars on YouTube and even though they didn't believe it there was a one percent that they had to believe it because it's now true when I was growing up you were just [ __ ] out loud sure you know great so I is I'm Aaron and I just want to and just and I noticed that you know you talk a lot about the importance of financial independence of dealing with family members who might not approve of what we're trying to do for today now outside of that what are some ways that you know you learn can work with your family language to help them get on board with what you're trying to do if it doesn't fit within their society their society's traditional standard per se why do you want to do that foreign that's the answer that's what I was hoping you would say um if your parents are paying for your existence they have say right if your parents are paying for you to live they have say in what you do right and so the question becomes a couple things one of the Frameworks that most scares me is kids taking their parents money when they're grown up to do what they want to do not what their parents want to do so I think one of the things to think about is how do you live more humbly so you don't take a dollar from them so that you don't need to sell them on your mission so that when you accomplish your mission they'll be proud of you is that in the cards brother is that something you can do yeah that because there's a bigger reason I want you to do that you're whether you consciously know this yet or it's sitting in your subconscious you taking their money right financially makes you feel like you can't there's something incredibly intoxicating on standing on your own two feet and so all that requires is for you to less Uber less Equinox less Starbucks or if you do none of those things three roommates instead of one yeah amount of ubereats they could be saved on this campus yeah like like people don't realize we're in such a first world country that the things that they think are standard are insane luxuries a man or woman drives to a place to pick up the food that was made for you and drops it off for you didn't even make we got entitled where we stopped making our own food now we don't even go pick it up so like I think a lot about that so it's a great question and super important of course if your parents are paying they're going to have leverage let's eliminate their leverage it gives you

Clarity to your focus and then when you succeed it tastes 10 times better since you guys effect how you doing um let's see so I did have another question however you did bring up and mention uh float um I kind of want to go based off that so we discussed flow within a few of our classes and my kind of main question is how would you find a flow if you haven't been able to kind of discover that yet and then a follow-up question how do you keep the flow going um specifically for long periods of time without getting distracted by being honest with yourself you got to really go into a place where you start really like pushing yourself emotionally to understand where you're tricking yourself where are you tricking yourself the amount of times I see kids like yourselves roll up on me and say Gary I'm gonna buy the Chicago Bulls you're gonna buy the Jets I'm gonna buy the Bulls and I could taste it in their sentence that they know they can't the place where it really works is when you stop peacocking and posturing to yourself as a measure to make yourself feel better and bigger and actually you're just comfortable with what you are you get really into your state this is what's so great about my life you're a failure you're going to be a garbage man and I was just like I just like selling stuff you know and I don't care that everybody thinks that I'm not a lawyer or a doctor or an executive like I'm happy and if that makes you know I was a pig and [ __ ] at 27 making 70 000 a year pumped working every day at a liquor store helping my family like flows easy Once you stop lying to yourself and what and once you stop trying to impress others with the [ __ ] that comes out of your mouth right and then back to your point I've seen a lot of people that use flow to get there but then they're in new places and then they stop they were confident enough to get it here but now that they're in like this upper middle class of society that's when they stop start posturing because they're like they thought they were good but this person they just met has a yacht and they're like yo they feel lesser than and they can't keep their flow because they stop doing the thing that got them there was not giving a [ __ ] but now that they got this new place like something changed because like because they didn't even realize [ __ ] got that crazy up here and they actually do feel insecure uh Nate uh hey Gary I'm Nate um I'm really curious about the value of new experiences and trying new things I want something new that you could try in your career that you hadn't done before and ended up having an impact on your trajectory that you are expecting uh I started to deploy Candor one-on-one not just in settings like this Candor was very hard for me team I really struggled with confrontation and being the deliverer of bad news and so it completely changed it trajectory of my career I started realizing everything that wasn't working for me professionally and personally was based on my ability to be candorous and so about three four years ago I started getting better at it I still struggle with it I'm still maybe a D plus C minus C I'm on the way but I was in F land and from F to C is like [ __ ] been remarkable and the impact is I'm well on my way for the personal and professional you know accomplishments that I want for myself and so I've gone in the macro what it's meant is I've gone from a to a plus because that's where I was getting [ __ ] up everything was so good anyway kind of sorta that it was like hidden that this was like when you're living in a life and I am uh it was hard to see that there was something to get to a plus and I had to go through some painful things professionally and personally to get there so for eign siblings relationship parents friends and then you know like life like I'm very I don't need much so it was very easy for me to eat a ton of [ __ ] and build subconscious resentment but I was so happy overall I never needed to kind of call that card

but then in certain scenarios it became not sustainable it really hurt me with in professionally and firing people got very dirty because I wasn't giving enough feedback and then they'd be surprised and I was like resentful at them because they sucked the whole time I was like how do you not know this and like it became dirty but that was on me I had to be accountable well Shameless plug maybe it's going to be working Advantage Sports one day so he'll reach out later yeah I love it you know we represent do you know Nate do you know that we represent O'Neill Cruz I do not know that no that's there you go all right hello Gary Uncle Johnny um so we're to all of us we're the stars of our own movie and a lot of Our Generation especially have grown up with dreams of becoming Super Famous and super well-loved and super well known and you're one of the people that that's actually happened to and it's like a result of your entrepreneurship and so now that you've reached this place that people dream about what sort of value and meaning do you feel that celebrity brings to your life versus if you have remained a successful an unknown entrepreneur um it's brought only the opportunity to positively impact more people everything else is a drag like yeah like that's not fair I love people so much at like such a weird level the fact that like it's kind of weird like I'm thinking through at the airport pre-garyvee I would just like roll up on people and just start talking to them I'm weird like that in the best way like I wouldn't weird people out I would find you know I'm good I have good intuition I could see where I could get into a combo postgaryvee it all comes to me so that's good in a way right but like I don't like when people treat me different because they know that there's something going on with me because I'm uncomfortable with it and I don't need it like I don't need a free appetizer to cut a line you know like so you know the good thing is I can make people happy a great I'll give you a cliche thing that people usually say the other way I go the other way the one of the best things is I take a million selfies why because I know when that person leaves they're pumped and I can talk I can feel what I would feel like 20 years ago if I had the opportunity to do that with Macho Man Randy Savage right like so I understand what that is um but you have to understand this will make sense to you I was 30 years old before I made a video think about that I was 30 before I made my first piece of content so it wasn't like something I wanted or aspired to I didn't move to LA like it's not the fame is um fine it's good for business development I like that leads to opportunities but by far the best part is some of you will actually listen to some of the things I'm saying and that will be good for you and that feels good for me my name is um and I need to ask a lot of questions every single day um but what's something that you don't normally share with people something that might be unusual to your current audience that's a good question I think um you know most of the stuff I don't share is like personal family stuff you know I think um and I like to keep that private because it's other people's business it's not mine to share when it's you know as far as everything else like I'm really open book life like I really try to share with y'all I think the part that probably would confuse most of you is like truly how Zen I really am like it is really that chill I'm high energy and I'm go go but like I'm really trying to figure out how to get people less anxious you know and so I don't think people would know how they I don't think they could believe how busy I actually am I think that stands out like I don't think people really realize that I have 43 meetings a day like I don't think they realize how hectic it is and easy it is if you go to the place we've been talking about emotionally