You Could Be Happier Not Making Any Money | David Neagle Podcast

I do believe that we need to reframe success we have to make happy we have to for the [ __ ] sake of so many [ __ ] millions of people we have to make success happiness we have to have to welcome to these successful my podcasts today we are in New York at vaynermedia and we have our special guest Gary Vaynerchuk Gary thank you so much for doing this really excited to be here I I'm very excited to talk to you about this because you talk about something a self-awareness right you say the self-awareness is the key yes and my number one question for

you is how did you become self-aware like when did that happen for you when did it all click in you're like this is who I am this is what I'm here to do and then you were like nose to the grindstone with it in some way when I hear that question what feels natural to me is a evolution between 11 and 18 somewhere between four definitely fourth grade when I had the conviction and the guts to have weird little conversations with myself in bed when I would be anxious about the fact that I was making this transition to being a bad student I don't know how to say it like you know in third grade I got straight A's and would win in flashcards because I have good math skills and in fourth grade I literally started getting bad grades and a it didn't come natural to me anymore like now I think my mind was wandering in class so the ability to just listen and go off of that to be successful became a problem because now I was already starting to think about how to sell baseball cards to my friends what am I gonna do after school let me make a joke to make everybody laugh my brain started to wander and then it was also around the time when it was time to actually do stuff at home like homework and that was unacceptable cuz I had to play nerf football and try to sell and video games and so between that moment and even right up to senior year of high school navigating that and understanding like this is what I'm good at this is what I'm not good at and then really in high school intuitively subconscious naturally being able to not have to fit in and not being affected by I mean look it's really interesting I think anybody who's listening I mean maybe this is a jersey thing but like everybody made fun of everybody all the time always that was just the nature of it yeah right like you know I think a lot about what are we doing to children in our parenting now that make it so difficult you know and extreme bullying is very different than getting made fun of occasionally and so there's a lot of variables to this but you know the high school years of like not worrying about my popularity and valuing one things that I'm most proud of is getting DMS and messages from high school friends today saying man this is so cool cuz this was always actually you literally had the like things verbatim you had the guts to be friends with everybody in high school and I was very proud of that weirdest kid on the bus I would I thought fitting in was fitting in with everybody instead of fitting into like six people so I wanted to fit in with the kid that nobody was nice to I wanted to fit into the kids that were naturally kind of my core friends who were like into sports or sports cards I wanted to fit in with popular kids and that was easy tube you know I am Who I am obviously I have people skills but yeah I was aware that it was unusual how I was navigating through high school not going to parties but working being friends with the weird kids you know not over pandering to the coolest kids in our school not being good at grades like I was playing I was an enigma my whole life and I think 11 to 18 was when that manifested and that I would that's a long-winded answer to that's when I started understanding myself which is what I would argue self-awareness was it was also when I went through wait a minute I'm not the cutest kid in class best athlete because in second and fourth fifth grade I in fourth grade I thought it was the best-looking most athletic kid in my class and very honestly I think there's a chance I was but but that's because also because your mom was pumping you up like I was like you know I was yes that and I was competitive and I have great hand-eye coordination and I matured slowly so I boyish looks like yes all those things but it was a great I was not scared of all the bad stuff and I think we live in a world right now where people are scared of the bad stuff and I believe that that's what leads to delusion you don't want to face that you're not the fastest you're not the best-looking you're not the smartest you don't want to face that you don't accept that which leads to a lack of self-awareness so I'm kind of guessing that you were a sensitive kid like I hear yes you cried a lot you got your feelings by the way I'm gonna give you a huge DAP that is the first time that somebody has said that and it couldn't be more true I cried constantly from 1980 from 1982 to 1988 and I mean multiple times a week real crime well that so that brings me to another question so you talked about when you went to work with your dad yes and he kind of sensed your [ __ ] right yes you could really [ __ ] right and he and you made a comment on one of your podcast that there were many times you were in his office crying yes what was he doing you know what's funny him saying to me like you know the numbers the number or like he never really my dad doesn't talk a lot so he wasn't he was a man from the old school so it wasn't like he sat me down and said son you know this embellishing or lying is onyx it wasn't like that it would be like you know a customer would walk in and they're like I would try to sell them a bottle of wine and I was you wanna talk about not being self-aware the audacity that I had as a 14 year old who looked nine to have a grown up coming to a liquor store hand them the bottle of wine that I knew we had this sell and be like you should buy this and they would look at me and say well have you had it and I would say yes with a straight [ __ ] face and really like believed it is pretty ludicrous and what would happen is he would give me a look and I could sense like oh I did something wrong not right even though I accomplished the goal and very quickly it came out it started chipping away the reason I would cry is my dad is tough you know I would be a 15 year old kid I would work 11 hours like from 7:00 we'd leave the house at 7:00 a. m. the store you know got there at 8:10 my dad would do the deposit I'd have to keep myself busy the store opened at 9:00 it's now 7:00 p. m. no lunch break I've worked every minute this is a child [ __ ] hardcore real labor and then at like 650 I would go to my dad and muster up the guts to be like hey Dad are we going home soon and he would like bark at me like you know like like and like that made me cry like I don't know like it was like sad like I was like [ __ ] this is hard you know like and you know the truth is actually I'm embellishing a little bit there not that that's that would upset me what made me cry actually is my dad genuinely did not treat employees well and I'm really I'm sensitive to it as I'm saying it right now he transformed in the way that he changed my ability to lie I changed his point of view on employees he just wasn't nice you know I'd watch people really work he came from Soviet Union you know he looked at employees like not the way like genuinely the complete opposite of the way I look at employees like I look at these guys them yeah and I just know what I feel and I feel a sense of responsibility and my dad genuinely felt like I'm paying you and [ __ ] work like [ __ ] you like really and that really bothered me yeah well I mean the guy was working for his [ __ ] life I mean what a break to get out of the Soviet you need to be able to hear I did I judged him immensely at the time yeah I look there's people that have come from hard places that don't treat their employees like [ __ ] so I still judge it at some level I understand it a lot more he really feared was crippled by the notion of people stealing from him crippled that was a deal so I don't know if you know this is one of the most fascinating things to talk to Americans about I don't think Americans actually really genuinely understand socialism or communism degree because they can't I don't blink right everything was stolen the government owns everything so imagine every store and every company is owned by the government so I Gary don't own Vayner I'm some general manager of not compensated in any way based on its success so now I'm making a deal with Dustin that he can come in at night and steal the computers and sell them on the black market but kick me some cat everything was stolen the entire country ran on the black market I think about what's illegal in America drugs relax market guns at some level certain time but everything that's illegal here there's on the black market and everything is over there everything milk and tile and carpet and chairs and like it you know people waited 13 years my parents waited 13 years to get a phone like 20 years to get on the line for a refrigerator and 15 for a car and like you waited seven hours in line for bread like the when I talk about utter ridiculousness of entitlement in America and its current state $7 coffees you know complaining about Delta being late by 10 minutes yeah I not only come from a kid that grew up in America in a very immigrant household that never bought anything for anybody about anything I also come as the byproduct of parents and stories my entire childhood of ludicrous [ __ ] that not a person here can understand right not here in this room not anybody who's listening go wait seven hours in line for a piece of bread and have access to no other food go show me how much you're gonna cry about not getting as many likes on Instagram photos well I mean there's this huge breeding of entitlement that is going on in the country that is it's called prosperity it's my empires fall yeah Rome did it Genghis Khan did it we're doing it yeah we are gonna lose China already won this is just watching it play out right like this is over every little Chinese kid is way more hungrier than our little [ __ ] and guess what I say good I don't want it to be this is my team's um wearing do you think we rebounds room no you're up hasn't rebounded from it we'd beat the [ __ ] out of them sure no there's no rebounding cuz it's it's the progression of the game the young hungrier thing wins and the fatter older thing loses where the fat or older thing we think somebody owes a [ __ ] yeah for what why I love it I loved losing I love the process I love merit that's why I love losing I do believe that some kid in the suburbs I know who has a single child because of population control and has parents driving the [ __ ] out of them to make it and of course that has all its own shortcomings too we all know what our grandparents did to our parents I get it the question is which one's better we're very good at sitting in our collective ivory towers in America judging you know our parents generation and it was tough and beating a kid and hitting and all this ha ha ha guess what we're about to [ __ ] lose they don't think that they can't what's worse spanking your kid or creating such delusion that they're depressed for the rest of their [ __ ] life I don't know I'm gonna hit a kid instead and of course everything's a balance but like you know there's a balance between beating the [ __ ] out of your child for real like extreme terrible things that happen in our society and what my mom did which was smacked me in the face when I got out of hand which said [ __ ] I'm not gonna do that again I don't wanna get punched again and it was a punch it was an open-hand slap but it

[ __ ] hurt where did your mom's positivity come from her natural DNA she lost her mother at 5 her dad went to jail when she was 8 ten years she [ __ ] lived in a Soviet Union it definitely didn't come from her environment that's interesting well like we were saying before like there's a lot of people that grow up with different environments but their attitude how that plays out by the way for the record and I love co-signing my parents perfectly parented all that [ __ ] my mom crushed it all time I've mentioned it eight billion times I promise you with the natural DNA that I was given if I was born under a [ __ ] rock in like [ __ ] a shitty town and Turkey to like some [ __ ] [ __ ] I'd [ __ ] be here probably with a little bit more fucked-up [ __ ] and a little bit less love to give but I'd be here because I'm optimistic here's one of the things that I find that that's really interesting you talk about you have this natural DNA right that you like your success is wrapped up in your DNA and one of the things that I do is I help people become that want to become successful really successful so we work on their mindset we help them build out the company that they're building whatever but what's fascinating about it is you can't instill the want in a person to do it so you have people be like hey I want to do this and then they don't do anything and then you have other individuals they want it and they'll do anything that is necessary there's a division between people that want for stuff and people who want for process totally and I think one of the things I'm trying to figure out is in the framework that you set that up this is why I want to change success you're properly because of the way we all came up deeming you're creating a system I assume I'm making some assumptions here that a level of you know the framework creates success financially cuz that's the nature of business right I believe that there's a real atomic bomb that I can drop on society over the next 50 years around actually reframing success which will then lead to everybody having the chance to love a process there's a lot of people who have the natural DNA to be an all-time stay-at-home dad but because we haven't created the framework yet to making a stay-at-home dad who crushes and raise three children that go on to do in cred things as an incredible North Star yeah of being successful in the same way that we do a billionaire or an MBA you know champion or a rapper that wins a Grammy we don't we have not given macro permission yet for the people to self I mean I know employees right now that worked for me men and I know their wives that they should be doing reversal that the man should stay at home and do the nurturing and the moms the [ __ ] shark and she's not happy and he's not happy and the only reason they're doing it is we have not had a mature enough conversation around success we have created so many by the way we talked to thank God we talked so much more now about women and minorities and their thing but like and you know a guy who deep in his soul thinks he's a nurturing father and wants to stay home is frowned upon by his contemporaries friends in society you know immediately goes into old school people thinking he's a loser and he can't provide and he's walking out yet he would love that process there are absolutely people who do not love the process of building a business that makes money note I mean and and thus they will stop and start and have micro wins and macro failures and will never achieve it is if a person comes to us and they want to work with us that's one of the first questions that we ask them is do they actually love the process of what they do because if they don't they'll fail if they're just going after the car or their house or you know the jet or whatever it is it's like no you're not it won't happen and I think will fail and I think eventually there'll be more businesses built on you know bailing them out you know I have to be empathetic to what you have up front opportunity costs and other things like I think there's a way lot of good stuff on the horizon I think I believe your business you exact human beings 40 years from now as things get reframed the business was built from day one to be able to afford to kick Dustin out a weekend when you just decided no way where is you know where is I'm just and I maybe that is what you do but I wouldn't never expect the business to do that I do believe that we need to reframe success we have to make happy we have to for the [ __ ] sake of so many [ __ ] millions of people we have to make success happiness we have to have to we have to teach people how to live very happily making eighty one thousand dollars a year that is controlling their expenses that is not applying for credit cards that is not valuing the clothes they wear and the cars they drive we have to teach parents how to make their children feel comfortable that they have a worse car or you know things like we have to teach that as an advantage like kids are funny like I think you can educate kids at seven or eight of like hey we have less that is going to be your advantage I believed it and so others can too we've just become very consumeristic we've become very at the mercy of opinion judgment as a is at an all-time high people are just judging people left and right now because of the political climate and they're crashing because of it oh I don't think we've even seen the crash we are in a opioid and mental health crisis and the economy is phenomenal right does everybody understand what's about to happen next do you understand that only financial success is holding up many as a last leg and when that goes the hole I mean I genuinely believe the mental carnage that comes with the next economic downturn is going to be far more extreme than we can predict because the overlay of depression is far greater than it was in 1987 in 1998 in you know excuse me in 2008 in 2001 post 9/11 and the calm bubble and all the other times it's happened I'm very very concerned and hence my actions speak to that my content has taken a fundamental shift over the last two to three years because I want to put my head on the pillow when this all goes down to say I gave it my best at-bat and very few people on earth have spent the dollars and time to create a communication infrastructure to pump positivity with practicality at scale to the level that I have on [ __ ] earth I don't know anybody and so I need to do that because I believe I see what's about to happen and I can't look the other way and look myself in the mirror when it actually goes down when I know I have it in me to be the kind of communicator that can make a positive impact right and if for by the way I actually said this yesterday filter Anto over dinner my friend and business associate I said huh I'd never thought about it and this is probably why I just said what I just said because how the subconscious works I have a funny feeling that garyvee consumers people that consume my content are gonna be major winners during the next downturn because they're going to believe like I do yeah that this adversity is good they're going to enjoy going back to Rocky and moving in with their parents and all this they're going to put the process of the rebuilding on a pedestal while the far majority that haven't consumed this perspective are gonna think it's the worst thing that ever happened well it's cuz it's built on a false narrative I agree they blew something that's absolutely not true that's never gonna go away I agree okay we have a question so we're giving away a case of empathy wine to one of our listeners her name is chef Lizette and this was it this is a part of chef Lizette yes okay interacted with every single piece of content of mine over the last eight years okay so well maybe you've heard this before so she said you stated so smartly on a sports podcast with Adam shine okay that you believe the metrics for vetting incoming football players should be based more on emotional intelligence versus benchpress or performance stats what should the metrics or standards be for putting social media influencers on a pedestal what was the transition she just made what should the metrics be or standards for putting social media influencers on a pedestal well definitely should not be following count and that is what we currently score on right you know I think we're chef Lizette is going properly is I believe in the gray not in the black and white and the point I was making on shinies podcast was now that I've been in the football business for three years I'm like whoa right there you know maybe because football is my one weird place I never deployed my thought on the world on football but now I have which is oh right football is just like everything I believe in I don't care that you went to Harvard and you're good at sales if you're a piece of [ __ ] you're not gonna be good in my company cuz you're gonna destroy everything around you that's football I don't give a [ __ ] if you run a three nine forty if you're beating women if you [ __ ] hang out with [ __ ] pieces of [ __ ] if you're a insecure dick in the locker room and nobody likes you I don't care how many [ __ ] touchdowns you're gonna score inevitably that is going to be a problem so um comma that's what we need to do with social media influencers or anybody else I believe over time we will get far more thoughtful around emotional intelligence and I do believe that look I think I'm a living proof of it my level of Fame whatever it is growing rapidly and it's not because I'm so attractive or so funny or so incredible in my athletics I am bringing value to human beings which results in admiration there are really fancy people that I have dinners with handlers at events that handle way more famous people than me and they are constantly taken aback by the interactions I have with people who stopped me in the halls at the airport in life and to the point where some were inevitably by the third interaction if I take three selfies or have two conversations they will literally and again these are people who are surrounded by the most famous people in the world they will look at me and say what's going on and I do not believe they're saying I didn't realize how many people knew you I think what they're saying is why does this feel different and I believe that admiration feels different than liking somebody for something vain yeah and I believe that will be scored long term impact and how you make people feel and like you know the quality of what you're putting out into the world will continue to rise I think subconsciously people know the truth like you it resonates with a person when they hear it and you're everywhere with that truth that you so passionately believe in and it just resonates with us all that's right and that's why the other thing that people ask me about when I'm in again I'm traveling enough and doing enough events that people inevitably will be with me for the day the partners of the event or what have you and they're completely flabbergasted by the demo range you know a lot of people think my audience is like young dudes and then we'll be walking in the airport or at the event and a 73 year old african-american female will roll up in a 55 year old white guy or like you know Latino you know nine-year-old from ticked up like it's the truth is universal okay so it is that brings me to my next question it comes from Liv my sales managers daughter watches you out tick-tock and she heard that I was interviewing you and she said to me the other night in a party she said she she's ten she said would you ask Gary a question for me and I said sure what is it so she had two questions one why do you make videos and two what is your

favorite food right this growth in the under 12 demos gave me a lot of fun you get a lot of favorite food is definitely English peas so not snap peas not you know not green beans there's something called English peas yep they were my complete obsession I love them when they're in season I'm like the happiest boy why do I make videos I have an inherent want to share goodness that I feel uncomfortably grateful and almost borderline guilty in having in my body it feel I used to hear things like I have to or if you know my body's making me you know when I was here you know and I would always like laugh and think that was such horseshit like an you know like from a musician or you know an actor or actress and I understand now I had no interest in anything remotely close to notoriety or fame I was 34 years old before I'm 30 if she's me I was 31 years old before I made a wine video and I was 34 years old before I made a business video I didn't move to LA and wait tables to be on television I worked in a liquor store in New Jersey and as the video this is where I do my now like this is not super complicated the world changed and gave me opportunity to communicate and I and live I needed to do it I had to do it felt right what I was doing for my inner circle and for my acquaintances I now had an opportunity to do at scale and the admiration is intoxicating the attention is cool I'm okay with it but I'm not in LA I didn't if I was in need of the attention I would have gone for fame as a child right I the admiration is intoxicating I genuinely enjoy being admired and I don't even know if that's like good or like kind of like super not like weirdly selfish and kind of like you know narcissist I don't I don't think so but I'm okay punch line is I'm okay say I've never really heard anybody say it so I almost don't know where it sits when people hear me say I'm addicted to admiration I see this good it means I'm being held accountable to doing good things because I can't be admired for making the most money as long as you don't get high on it right as long as I've gotten more sober on it I as I continue to gain momentum I find myself going the other way I find myself trying to scrutinize myself more share more of my shortcomings or inabilities I find myself over reacting to making sure I say hello to everybody or be thoughtful of and every and utterly every interaction I find myself speaking to myself more saying [ __ ] are you like do you understand that you can die in an hour and nobody's gonna give a [ __ ] in a week outside of like seven to twelve of your family members and then your inner circle a little bit maybe you get a month out of them but what like I the amount of times I say to myself who the [ __ ] are you do you understand that if you died right now nobody's gonna give a [ __ ] is very high and I love that I don't see that so yeah I don't think that's dark I think that is uh that's in an that's a counterbalance conversation with myself that is reacting to there's a lot going on with me right now that and I'm aware of it but I don't think that makes me special I really don't I think it makes my parents special circumstance special I feel like I'm just the a FedEx box I'm like just the thing that's just delivering it like I'm just the container really I mean it vaynermedia success I feel good about I'm the architect but I feel like I'm the product I'm the Pinocchio I was made yeah and so it's hard for me when you're like you're great I'm like [ __ ] man I wish I made me instead of being me yeah you know like that's why actually this is funny that's why me garish Vaynerchuk the human strategist is much more proud about what's happening with me than the person that gets the attack like the person me behind me as I think about how and what I do like because I set a strategy that I'm actually really proud of not that people are like you're so awesome right so if you're coming from that place I asked everybody to leave our audience with one successful mind tip given that you feel like you're just a channel for that your parents made you what would you recommend everybody that's listening is something that they could do from a thinking perspective to go optimism practical optimism it's pulling from the opposite directions this is my left and right in America or getting torn apart they're both right in different ways there is absolutely no room for being cruel or mean or suppressive to another human being period there's also a very dangerous slope when you eliminate merit and accountability it leads to entitlement and delusion which leads to depression so [ __ ] your 8th place trophies Brooklyn right but [ __ ] you if your [ __ ] you think you're better than somebody because you they don't look like you yeah like you're not from here [ __ ] you know cruelty and no delusional practical optimism you don't work it's highly likely the thing you don't want the thing you want to happen will not happen like so but be optimistic like you know optimism really matters like the Internet is the playground not the government not America not your parents not schools not your job we all have unlimited we have levels of freedom that have never been seen before sure I mean you can create an avatar character if you think you're so suppressed create a cartoon make an old white man if he's got it so good by the way that's a little another thing that people need to understand the level of depression and white males is just as high as everybody else right like this privileges mindset not what you look like the mindset game we and we'll never we can see what we all look like and so we can make judgment and that's fine I'm not gonna be able to change that but if you want to have a more thoughtful conversation what's going on in people's chemicals in their brain is far more privileged than anything else let er people make with thirty two thousand dollars a year are a super minority of minorities within this country and are [ __ ] skipping and whistling to happiness everyday and there's [ __ ] a 41 year old white dude with a [ __ ] benzo and a Ferrari and a Lamborghini and a private plane and making 33 million a year who's [ __ ] doing drugs at night just to cope with the deep inherent pain in his heart that's the truth that's true and so you know we got a lot of work to do but I always think that times like this lead to the bounce back I think we're on the verge of a tremendous era in our society that is going to be the reaction to a lot of what's going on right now all the tension in the air and I'm looking forward to that in my mid fifties through 60s to watch our society prosper in its real efforts to do more of the right collective thing and I think that will only happen once we have empathy and compassion to listen instead of just yelling at each other and judging and what sucks awesome Gary thanks much for doing this really appreciate it thank you