What Makes A Business Owner Successful In Career & Life? | GaryVee — In Search Of Excellence Podcast

you know I look at the lights in your studio right now you know how like in this summertime like those lights that buzz I always think about those little mosquitoes or things that go into the light they can't help it I always wonder if they like know they're about to get zapped and die and that's how I feel about entrepreneurship I think I was pure bred I think I was born into it it wasn't Envy or need I see so many people motivated by they had it hard and they saw money as the way out

and it was a chip on their shoulder I don't have a chip on my shoulder I have a curiosity in my stomach up with the Jee entrepreneurial Gene you had a lemonade stand at 6 years old you thought about franchising you did franchise you set this up on a street call tingly tingly Lane was St yeah I mean just so to make it clear for every franchising was spending the whole day convincing my other friends to stand behind the lemonade stand so I could like pick up the cash at the end of the day you

sang Christmas carols as a Jew yes so how does a do and and Robbie favorite this is this is the the favorite one silent night I got to go ahead and sing a verse no no I'm done that's all I got and and this one is is the one that I find most interesting you pick flowers in your neighbor's yard and then you went back and you sold them the same flower so how did you do that in particular and are entrepreneurs who aren't born with the gene as successful as those who are born with

the gene no they're not I mean they're just not and I'll say I'll jump to that part and I'll go back let me tell you why I believe that I believe that anybody can get better at anything but I do think Talent is a real life thing how can we not believe that back to me not wanting to go more verses I promise you if I sounded like [ __ ] artha Franklin I would have finished that song you know so you know to me this concept that entrepreneurship is not a skill is a ludicrous

one if anyone believes it which I don't think most people are confused by that and so I believe everybody in the Circle I'm looking at everybody in the room right now right I believe that eight of us all got different things and entrepreneurial Talent is one of them and by the way somebody in this circle who's less successful entrepreneur than you and I might actually have it I think having it also draws you to it back to the bug in the light but let me play Devil's Advocate but they didn't put in the hours against

that Talent like I I my brother loves golf now over the last 10 years he's so frustrated that I won't take it up because he knows that the eight or 10 times I've played with him and he knows by the other sports we play with each other I'm probably more naturally gifted at golf than he is right I have a more natural swing my hand eye corination is better than AJ's he's a he's got better skill sets and basketball and things of that nature but in purest form I think if he was sitting here he

would say cuz he says it all the time so I know he believes it Gary has more natural skill in it but I've only played 10 times he's played 10 times in the last month he's better at golf I think that people that do not have a ton of entrepreneurial natural Talent can be incredibly successful entrepreneurs because they put in the work but do I believe that if I was matched up with somebody who has less or more natural entrepreneurial talent and we all put in the same amount of work that there's a higher propensity

that I would have that success yeah I believe that I think talent's part of the entrepreneurial equation and then selling flowers that you picked back to a neighbor that's you know I love telling that story it's actually one sto it's it I only did it to one neighbor she was the best I probably understood she liked me so much that she was willing to buy her own flowers for me but yeah I mean painting rocks like when you have nothing you're trying to sell something even lemonade was a little bit of a stretch for me

early on because my mom wouldn't want to buy lemonade mix so you know rocks the the biggest ones were washing car and shoveling snow they were real gifts to me because they just required work we had a hose you know and so but the flowers one uh John next door they were very nice couple um they were right next door to us and she had flowers and yeah one day I ripped them ripped some of them out of her yard and rang her doorbell and said do you want to buy this and she did I

wish I had the video of that because I can't remember all the details I have a funny feeling she had a funny smir work on her face and and wanted to support me which means a lot to me so let's talk about um did not having money motivate you to be successful and what's your advice to kids who grow up with a lot of money who may not be as motivated cuz I've seen it both ways our uh summer intern program is 32 kids about half have money half don't have money and I've noticed throughout

my career a lot of the kids that have money they'll say oh I I don't need to work this hard or I'm unhappy in my job I'm just going to leave and I'll find something else it's a very complicated question as you know I'm sure based on your background in mind we've given this a lot of thought especially when you have children and have done well and your kids are raised in a different environment than we were and you can't fake environment right and to your point earlier it's hard to be hungry when you're constantly

fed and money gives you optionality to be able to choose I don't want to grind through this and the ability to deal with adversity and to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations is probably the most important skill set one can learn if they want to enjoy life period peace of mind and lack of anxiety and content are far more interesting than private planes and Rolexes and houses in Caba so what do I think do I think not having Money Motivated me to be successful I don't think so let me explain I one of the things that's

interesting about growing up in like Russia and then or the Soviet Union and then Queens in like the housing projects and then Dover and then Edison I didn't even I didn't even know what money was meaning when everyone around you doesn't have [ __ ] either and you're pre- internet and you're not really watching a lot of TV like you don't know so when I think about that and then I think about I definitely did not know we didn't have money when I was six when all I wanted to do was have a lemonade stand

I definitely did not know I actually thought we were good like real good I we added you know my dad really grinded and so like I don't know like we were in the mix we weren't the We There was kids that I went to school with that literally didn't have lunch money you know that wore the same clothes that smelled like I like I grew up in a lower middle class I wouldn't say ghetto or poor but like poor for sure at first so anyway punchline being I did so many money-making activities long before I

had any cont context of money or where we sat or what was out there or what was possible and then even when I learned like what a Mercedes was when I was 11 it never crossed my mind that I wanted one I still have never had a real high-end car what do you drive now nothing I have a driver so that's even like more ridiculous than a Cayenne car but like the the when I bought when I had money you know I got a Jeep Grand Cherokee and like to me that was I I never

thought of a car or a watch or clothes as a proxy of validation for me it wasn't Envy or need I see so many people motivated by they had it hard and they saw money as the way out and it was a chip on their shoulder I don't have a chip on my shoulder I have a curiosity in my stomach I am so curious to how good am I at this skill how how do I play the game viewed like chess like boxing I like the craft you need to have great customer service to build

any business so talk to us about this crazy story about this woman who wanted a case of Behringer white zidel in the two and a half hour snow this was I'm this is such an so anybody who owns a business if you're listening right now and you want to make a point a culture do something in action don't make a [ __ ] poster and put it in the hallway don't tell a story that happened in the past you and I have enough War Stories where we can tell the kids do an action so I

was building this store we're now on fire at this point this is later this is like 2002 or three we built a new store I grew up in a smaller store then we built a big store as I was growing the revenue I am the man on the floor and this is the holidays when I tell you from 18 to 34 years old my December and I mean all the first 24 days of December outside of when I was in college so but even then I came home way early because I was barely going to

class I would spend from 7:00 a.m. to 10: p.m. on the floor of my dad's liquor store that was prime time especially pre- internet you know we are in the midst of one of the busiest days in the history of the store and now we're doing internet business and we get a phone call in the order Department I'm running Upstairs Downstairs I'm keeping an eye on the internet and the store and I'm [ __ ] a maniac and we get this call from the son of this elderly woman wasn't even her that her case got

misshipped and this was like December 23rd or 2nd or 1st I don't remember but put it this way she lived in Jersey and that's one day delivery and I knew that if we put it back in the mail she wouldn't have gotten it for Christmas and he made a big to-do that she needed it for Christmas I remember this day like yesterday I knew that there would be a day that I wasn't going to be at that store I knew that I was going to have to build my own life at some point CU I

knew my dad viewed it like an immigrant which is oh this is your business but it's really not like I can't buy a home cuz I have no equity like I couldn't you know like I would inherit it when he would well I'm [ __ ] going to be 50 and 15 months and my dad's still working every day so you could imagine I was smart enough thank God at 22 to be like I got to do my own thing but I remember I needed a to do things because once I was gone I wanted

them to know how it was built I knew then so even though I'm on the floor and generating 10 to $20,000 an hour just me personally on someone like you that had high net worth that would come in and be like I need three cases of and wine for the holidays that was I was that guy I decide to make a huge to-do about this case of baringer white sidel it's snowing like the weather's bad and I decide to grab a case from the basement and I tell my inner team just like this in a

circle I'm like I'm going to go deliver this cuz we have the best customer service in the game and they are stunned I never I don't go to pee for 15 hours during the day that's how busy it is and how committed I am and now I'm going to drive to Bergen County isn't that an hour and that's without snow the [ __ ] are you doing Gary and I said this is I just remembered that this was my moment to make a point so I did it I drove I enjoyed it I listened to

sports radio on the way got back everybody was stunned everybody was sweating Brandon was like you missed Mr Thompson and Mr Smith and like all this money was lost but it became a story to this day that story is being told to employees in our store about customer service I might have lost $20,000 in sales that hour but I've helped my dad make millions since and I think more companies should understand that actions carry enormous weight and I believe that every leader that's listening right now should think about what they care about most and instilling

in their company and then should go out of their way for the most hyperbolized executions of those things so that it becomes lore I mean look at this I literally did that action and here I am 20 plus years later having the luxury to tell that story on an important platform like this think about that this is the meta of the thesis it's how you build it it's how you [ __ ] how do you think everything's built it's everything's based on stories why do you think religion exists let's start at the beginning and I

want to start with your dad we'll talk about your mom separately he moved he was born in Barris USSR he moved to the United States when you were 3 years old didn't speak English had no money talk to us about Arlene Newman and Bob seelman and the big breaks that people can have when they move to United States and how they influenc his future um I right off the bat adore you because the you know I've been very fortunate over the last decade I've been interviewed a lot a lot a lot the fact that you

get to go to Bob seelman and arleene means real homework has been done for that that means a lot to me and it's really nice to actually have a platform to give them some love because my father was very inspired in 1971 four years before I was born when Jack seelman their parents the the father of Arlene and and Bob came back to America Jack left the Soviet Union Jack left the Soviet Union in the 20s I believe when you could still kind of get out right after re the Revolution and Jack was my dad's

grandmother's brother and he was the only one that went to America and he had the brains in the family in a lot of ways he saw it he saw what was coming he came Jack as a much older man came back to Russia in 71 and my dad was really taken aback by a statement when he just looked at my dad who was 16 or so at the time 18 at the time and just said you need to get to America and it stucked for my father um there was an incident that happened in the

Soviet Union that became World focused on Walter kronite big thing and there's this deal made between Israel Spain and America with the Soviet Union to get some Jews out of the Soviet Union only couple hundred thousand were able to leave in the late 70s I was lucky enough to be a part of that the way you would do that is there was an organization called highest that deserves a lot of credit and you'd go to Austria then Italy then you would go anywhere many went to America some went to Australia some went to Germany while

we were in Italy we got a letter in the mail that Jack passed away this was the person that was going to kind of look out for us when we came to America with nothing when we get to America it would have been very easy for Jack's kids who were in their 50s at this time very well off CU Jack did very well for himself coming to America and did the American dream in the 20s 30s 40s and 50s in the construction business construction business predominantly it would have been very easy for them to look

the other way of their lost lost relatives from the Soviet Union but but arleene especially was incredibly gracious to my father um got him his first car and one of the things that Jack owned in his real estate Empire was a small liquor store in Clark so the the Federate the organization that got us to America kind of put us up as refugees in a studio apartment in Queens and my dad dad did a bunch of side jobs the first 6 months but the break of him being a stock boy in that liquor store that

Jack once so that now Bob was really running um he was the son older son so he was kind of like the main guy but Arlene was a very feisty prominent sister and so they really co-owned that Empire or whatever they inherited from Jack and they were doing their own separate things and that is where my father's American dream was hatched from two an hour being a stock boy to eventually being the manager of that store to eventually saving up money and buying a piece of that store from Bob all in five years all in

five which is remarkable if you think about it um and so yeah I mean I think you know a lot of times people are like Gary you would have never been here if it wasn't for your your dad I'm like true but my dad would have never if that's true then my dad would have never been here if it wasn't for Arlene and Bob and if that was true then Arlene and Bob would have never been in that position without Jack and if that was true and so you know I think we all as human

beings you know self-made is a very funny thing because it's unbelievably true but it's also very contextual it's like lucky lucky is very weaponized by those who do not want to do but um but in even though luck is a very much timing Serendipity is very much part of anyone's story that builds something it is clearly just one small ingredient of the outcome and so Bob and Arlene were incredibly important to my parents and helped in many different ways my name is gazi that's my actual name Arlene literally named me by telling my parents name

that him Gary and so you know I think uh I think very prominent Bob unfortunately passed away many years ago um when I was just starting my career at my dad's liquor store in my 20s and Arlene is still kicking and I hope uh her family shares this clip with her so let's talk about your mom Tamara who also came from the Soviet Union came here no M didn't speak English had a tough life in the Soviet Union very dad died at 5 years old mom died at five and then Dad went to prison for

10 years for being Jewish and went to the gulag in Siberia so talk to her about the influence that your mom had on you you know I would argue that my mom you know my parents are very influential in my life like for many but very for me and I would say my mom is probably the person that probably is the one who gives me the most fuel to tell everybody on the other side of these podcasts that you can do it please don't complain about silly things choose optimism because when I think about my

mom's life it's remarkable to think about the energy that she brings to the world much like I in a lot of ways am the emotional Rock of so many people around me my mom was that for everyone when I think about how little that rock was watered you know it just it was in her it was her DNA um she is the strongest person I know um she's just incredibly strong and she made me very strong and you know obviously just even already hearing how this interview is going to go I'm sure you've seen how

much I speak about her and how I rever her and um I admire her to the depths of my soul and she was a perfect mother she did plenty of things wrong but everything that I hold near and dear everything that I know is a core ingredient to why I'm successful it's very easy for me to point to both of my parents but my mother had the luxury because my father know something I admire about my father we had so little but my father was hellbent on allowing my mother to stay home and mother and

so through his 15 18 hours a day of work ethic and with her talents in our household um you know when I talk about anytime I'm brought up even that intro when I hear six time this or great this or the accolades run right through me and it points towards them and um that makes me happy did they ever say the four words that I think are the most important four words in English language I believe in you 100% they said those words out loud my mother who was much more of a communicator in my

life um not only did she say that it was a constant currency in my life like I would I would I would speculate if I can recall properly there was probably not a day in my life between 5 and 15 where my mother didn't give me some sort of version of that and not like checking the box like it was her natural communication and point of view on you know early on in my life I remember just how often she said I had a golden heart so anything I did that was nice for another person

or for a relative or for my sister it was always reinforced with your golden heart you're special you're a star I there was never a day where I didn't feel I was capable and let's talk about in the second grade you grew up without money and then she stayed up till midnight one night yeah I mean this is a very emotional story for me it's why it's pinned as my main Instagram post on my account so you know I moved to Edison New Jersey which is amazing because it's was an incredible place to grow up

in the 80s and um you know how old are you 55 so this is perfect we grew up in one of my best friends is from there from New Jersey or from Edison yeah Edison no way yeah Peter Warman shout out to Peter Peter um we need to hang so you know Peter will confirm this where did you grow up Detroit right and so did you play outside a lot played outside a lot so we like you know this and I'm sure you think of this as a parent I sure do as much as my

Mom and Dad raised me Edison New Jersey raised me I mean I've been saying it a lot lately because I just can't get out of my mind for the kids that are listening there used to be a commercial at 10 p.m. when we were growing up that would air on network television that would say it's 10 p.m. do you know where your kids are cuz our parents literally didn't know like we were out outside all the time and like you might forget to know if they even came home for dinner so I was raised by

Addison Jersey and by my friends around me and my friends loved football literally before we started this show we were talking about football because I ran into Eric Godfrey and Robbie turnick and Bobby Duffy and these kids that were playing football and I became a huge Jets fan and my friend Eric Godfrey had a number 24 green t-shirt and again this was a lower income uh town in New Jersey so it wasn't like a authentic customade jersey it was just a t-shirt with the number 24 on it didn't even have Freeman mcneel's name on the

back but it was just a t-shirt with the number 24 and another kid I don't remember his name he had an 85 and that was Wesley Walker and so now we're playing football all the time and I wanted I wanted a judge t-shirt too a jersey we couldn't afford that and my mom made it very clear she's like we're not buying one $30 at the time right and probably 10 with inflation you know you could probably get one at Kmart for 10 bucks or Bradley's um but we just did not like the only clothes we

had as kids was the liquor t-shirts my dad would get us promotions from the store like literally the major I I did not buy a t-shirt until I was in college because every t-shirt we had was a liquor promo t-shirt there were eight of you in the studio apartment yes my core family was two it was those th those cousins my grandma they lived elsewhere we eventually moved at us it was just me my mom my brother my my sister and my brother came later in ' 87 but like the bottom line was the only

money the only thing that money was used for until I was 12 was food and shelter the occasional toy was a monster thing if me and my sister were to get a toy a toy I remember my brother was going to be born in January of ' 87 I wish like I'm laughing right now cuz I know my sister's about to hear this line and she's just laughing Hanukkah 886 was monstrous my mom was overcompensating for the fact that we were about to have another child and I got three wrestling figures and the wrestling ring

and I thought it was like you would have thought I got a Rolls-Royce and caviar for life like it was just absurd so back then money was just for food and Shel Al and savings it was all about saving money which is talk about something that no one talks about anymore saving money was the currency back then as you know probably as a child it was in The Ether now it's not anyway there was no thought of getting a jersey and I was disappointed as any seven-year-old would be and my mom would stay up to

midnight for a week or two or I don't know how long it took her but she knitted me a Jets Jersey and put my favorite number at that time was five still is and I still have that Jersey it's got a number five it's got my name Gary on the back um and it is my prize possession and the reason when I take photos now I put up the number five is it's just a little head nod to my mom who is my hero I think a lot of us have experiences as a kid that

help shape our future we all do I was bullied I stutter talk to us about do and some kid being a Pepsi cup and then making you drink pea I've never heard such I can't believe you brought this up I I know I've only brought that up in one or two interviews which again I'm giving heavy accolades to anybody involved in the research team for this interview or you yourself very impressive but what's even crazier about this is I literally thought about this either today or yesterday or the day before in the last 72 hours

I thought about this I don't even know why I do know why because it probably meant that I knew this question was coming that's a whole another story for another day but it's really fascinating you just brought that up uh I remember it very well I was in Dover I canot even recall what the kids look like but I remember one was tall I actually think I'm starting to remember I think one of the kids' name was Elliot he was the alpha kid there was four or five kids I was [ __ ] five maybe

six and again my mother grew up in the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union everyone's scared of the government so there was no kidnapping there was no crime people were just scared what did that mean means kids were outside playing by themselves as early as 4 by themselves I remember my mom telling me to take care of my sister when we moved to Edison we played outside we moved in September August of 82 my sister was born in July my sister was three and played outside with me without my mom anywhere near like that's just

how it was so anyway obviously if that's how it was that's how it was for me we moved to do I'm five I'm outside just [ __ ] outside side you just literally again you may know this you're just trying to find kids that are doing [ __ ] I found these kids they were not good kids and uh and yeah I remember it vividly like I remember it's hazy but it's Vivid you know kid runs off to the side peas in the Pepsi can I'm I'm very sharp I have common sense I'm not very

like I'm very I have a lot of common sense and I'm sharp that's a core strength of mine I have good instinct I know when dangers is around like I I come from like Street not like the streets but like I'm a I'm a I'm a jersey kid like I'm not getting tricked like my wallet's not getting stolen like [ __ ] like that so I knew something was like I knew what was that's what that's what I most remember about it I knew that it wasn't Pepsi but they were able to force me to

take a sip you know like and it's not fun to drink another kei's pee you know and did you go home and tell your mom and yeah I'm sure but like you know like the truth is like I don't you know I remember like not drinking it like you know put in the lips you spit it out I remember I I I you know it's so crazy and this was foundational for me bullying has never penetrated me meaning even then it's funny where my brain's going it wasn't fun right it wasn't like I enjoyed it

but I don't think of it as like this IC ionic event I think of it as a good story that paints a picture of like not everything is Rosie but I can give you a lot of those events like when I think uh I had twins move in big guys they were F Andrew and Gregory they were in fifth grade when I was in second grade in Edison they were tough kids they were the biggest kids in fifth grade I was the smallest kid in second grade and we played football every day and did make

pretend WWF wrestling I was getting my ass kicked every day and they were like bullying definitely by bully standards I view them fondly as my friends I just think there was a lot of adversity I'm I'm sure I mean I cried all the time until I was 12 yeah I'm very emotional yeah like even you getting emotional is like starting to trigger me like I'm like I can cry um I cried every day I mean almost you my mom said don't worry you'll be more successful than all these kids one day and and it did

I had a chip on my shoulder big time yeah and I you know to me I'm competitive like I want to win and maybe the chip is so deep that it doesn't even look for me it's just so healthy I'm just always so happy like I I want to win but I don't want you to lose does that make sense like I don't when I compete I don't think I'm taking something from someone I love capitalism in its most purest form because it's just who's better and then like let's all go home it's not a

win or take all it's very abundant anyway back to the Pepsi story yeah but like my mom again I mean you have parents in 2025 going to like yell at teachers for a c that that wouldn't even registered on my mom's radar yeah if I came home and said Mom these boys made you know made me drink PE should have been like okay or my dad like this is where my dad would show up once in a while I remember one time we were playing baseball when I was more like 11 in Edison and the

guy in the corner like yelled at me and my friends and like it was really not like nice it was definitely like overly aggressive and like I told my mom my mom like told my dad and my dad like rang the doorbell and said don't do that to my son again like was like oh my God my dad like showed up out of nowhere to like be a hero I like that like um but yeah my parents didn't like it was the [ __ ] 80s you didn't get involved in like too much [ __

] now everything's so [ __ ] sensitive back then it was just like you know like she would comfort me and then she would tell me to wipe it off and it was easy for me to wipe it off so at some point you got into baseball cards we'll talk a little detail about that talk to us about when you were at John Adams Middle School and the first card show you had on Oak Tree Lane at the Jewish Community Center yeah the sixth grade baseball card collecting Club was transformational up until that point there

was a kid by the name of Eric Conrad that used to come I didn't know about divorced parents back then and I I didn't even register me but I was always like curious I'm like why is this guy only here in the summer you know like cuz I was in second grade I was young but he was the first one that introduced me to baseball cards he wasn't even actually a baseball card collector he liked building card houses you know like taking playing cards and building yeah we did those yeah you did those so I

would go over his house in the summer we met him he stayed inside more than we did he was like less active outside but he would stay inside and he would make card houses I thought that was cool and so I'd come over once a week or once every two weeks and build a card house with him I was into sports I loved the Yankees at that point and I'll I mean I remember it like yesterday we're in his basement he brings out his cards but this time there's baseball cards too to make the card

houses and I was like what is this and I was like game changing so cool and then I remember he said we could get them at crowers kers was like a 7-Eleven in New Jersey I promise your friend knows what it is it was also on Oak Tree Road we walked or or took our bikes to kers and there they were baseball cards and I started buying them and I just that was fine and then again another great New Jersey Edison story there was a flea market on us one Route One the US One flea

market and me my parent my mom and my uncle and Aunt went there to like pick up some grocery free or something just check it out and there was a guy who had a baseball card Booth caught my attention and he had a price guide and I begged my uncle Misha to buy it for me or my mom one of them did and now I came home and had a price guide this before Becket which is the big price guide and it was CDM I think or something like that anyway that was the first time

I knew they were worth money and I would ran up to my room and looked up every baseball card I had and like some of them worth like 30 and by the way a card that I had being worth 35 cents was like striking [ __ ] gold in Texas I thought that was insane and that started me getting really interested in fifth grade and then sixth grade came and the Title Wave came there was a baseball card collecting Club this was now 1986 when the whole card thing really started happening the first time in

America and that was the first big card boom and uh I was in it I was in it affected by it and then I did a card show at The JCC on Oak Tree Road and I had the bug I had the bug and then the big one the big first that was like a half-ass card show like my friend really had the table I kind of stopped by my first card show was at really me driving it was at the Philipsburg Mall once I moved in eth grade um that was sixth grade where I

tasted it but by eighth grade when I moved to Edison excuse me to hunon County I did my own card show and crushed I remember being petrified cuz the tables like 150 bucks or something like that 280 thank you and and it it was a lot of money it was it and my dad said it'll be a good experience everybody in the family thought I was going to lose um and we made I mean I had a great first day and made all my money back the first day and I would argue from that moment

on I've never looked back I would say Philipsburg Mall 1989 card show when I made that money that weekend when I was good when I could tell that I was better than the grown men around me at selling cards that was it I've never really looked back there's another show at Philipsburg mall that you were prepping for at 6:00 a.m. and you're all ready to go and your dad said you're not going so what happened that day and how did that moment change your life that one's boy that hurt that by the way that just

hurt again yeah I was super getting ready bought a table and my dad like you're out and I'm like what do you mean and he goes you have to work now so I was getting really bad grades at that point in my life like D's and Fs not even C's and my parents were pretty real about it my mom grounded me all the time for progress reports and report cards and my parents were like look if you're not going to be a scholar you're going to be a worker and so you have to start working

in the store and I did and you know I went from making thousands of dollars a weekend at baseball cage stores to making two bucks an hour cuz that's when my dad got paid I remember vividly that minimum wage was 505 in New Jersey at this point and I was getting two bucks an hour and it was devastating I was I hated it at first and um I had a bag ice in my dad's basement you know a year later I was stocking shelves and the first year was very challenging for me it was always

a chore I never wanted to do it my mom was a ray of sun shine my dad was very quiet introverted very negative so it was a new environment of adversity for me too and it really sucked until I realized that people collected wine and I was able to make that connection and that transformed it when I was 15 a year in I realized that it changed kind of the way I would talk to my dad about it and really got it going when you were 14 your dad had a serious conversation with you on

the way there he thought you were full of [ __ ] and you had a very come to Jesus would be the wrong word cuz we're Jewish but and yeah and you know what's funny it was it I speak of it as my dad really put me on the straight and arrow because I had salesmanship gift the gab like whatever it was to make a sale when I was 12 it was less than he thought it was full of [ __ ] it was that he didn't like that I embellished the amount of cases we

sold one day so pretty early on when I about a year in the first year was terrible basement the whole time bagging ice maybe making a occasional appearance upstairs just to pack something out but the second year I got to be upstairs and that really was good cuz then I was in the action I was in the traffic customers would walk in I was in the game what I liked it's why I liked flea markets it's why I liked baseball card stores so pretty quickly I would say within two or three weekends my dad was

this is when my D my my I wish I really talk to my mom and dad about this I'm going to speak to them about this my mom definitely gassed me up to my dad when I was coming in she's like he's got it he didn't know and he's skeptical he's like we'll see very quickly once I was upstairs at 15 I think my dad realized he's got it and so he started to really that's when it got fun he's like hey we got a lot of cases of this wine sell it I'm [ __

] 15 I look 11 and I'm slinging wine effectively and so it was really neat and I just remember this one weekend I don't remember if it was Iron Horse Chardonnay or Kenwood chardonay some of the most prominent parducci PTI R Us one of the things I remember early on in my career that he wanted to sell and he's like how' we do you know on the way home and I was like crushed I sold like 25 cases or whatever and the real number was like 17 and the next day my dad came home cuz

he didn't have the datea in front of him and he really made a to-do of like if you [ __ ] sell 17 cases you say 77 not 25 and that was kind of like the way he was addressing like word is bond like straight like my dad's to this day if you embellish to my dad you've done a catastrophic lie he's very rigid when it comes to lying uh embellishing and so um I think that was very healthy for me because i' had such natural gab at that point and if I had a different

like I see it in people I see people who natural salesmanship grow up in a family full of husters and they end up selling H you know you know this what I'm about to say selling [ __ ] and selling real [ __ ] is the same [ __ ] some kids just go down the wrong path and I don't think I was going to go down the wrong path um I wasn't going to be that but I'm very grateful that he tweaked and tightened me because I think it's made me more respectful you mentioned

school and you were a dnf student you weren't really studying that hard you made a point to be a wine expert a 16 reading wine spectator and science class every parent also thought you were going to be a loser yeah and how did that feel and did that motivate you yeah that motivated me you know back to chips on shoulders again and I you know it's it's fun to dissect it in this kind of environment I think there's healthy chips on shoulders and not healthy you know I always say there's two ways to build the

biggest building in town just build the biggest building or spend your time tearing everyone's buildings down I I'm definitely Mo you know you know it's funny even as I'm trying to go in this direction in the conversation I don't think it's fully true meaning I don't remember saying to myself that Steve Nash's mom lovely lady like I could see she was disappointed when she would ask me about how I was doing in school but it didn't leave me saying like I'm gonna [ __ ] show you know what I mean like I never nobody was

atrocious to me teachers I remember Mrs stats my sophomore J and Senior year math teacher really be disappointed in her reaction and maybe a little Razzy when I was a senior but yeah I mean you know this were you a good student that was my ticket out so I graduated top I'm per of my class at Michigan you know this we we all knew that that we didn't even know that entrepreneurship was a ticket out when you and I were growing up it wasn't in The Ether not for me at least it was year at

Michigan we'll talk about Jeff bow and the related companies in a minute love that so you so maybe that you know again because you went to a strong University and you got exposed to more stuff I can tell you for me it was we were all propaganda and brainwashed in junior high and high school that your college where you go to college is the unilateral black and white Undisputed proxy and indicator to being successful if you went to Harvard you were going to be successful and if you went to Community College you were a [

__ ] loser and that's how the world was that I was living in and so it was a huge currency and I I was adamantly debating it in my own head I was completely convinced that I was going to be phisically successful and emotionally successful and I do believe that that's because of what my mom was saying internally at home and what was happening to me in the market the Merit of the market was speaking to me I was making more money at card shows than grown men that were doing it full-time for their profession

and that gave me huge confidence so yeah going to Mount Ida College which I'm sure everybody who's watching this podcast knows his favorite college and your freshman year you were playing Madden and then what happened then uh Pete from Maine said you got to come and see this and I go into a dorm room and there's a computer and I hear for the first time I'm like this is that internet thing informational Super Highway worldwide web this you guys are going to be blown away by this literally it was so crazy we would sit there

and watch people surf the web like watch them like I stood there for two [ __ ] hours before I got to get on the keyboard watching Pete from Maine and others get on the computer and do different things and even then what was super interesting was everyone was scared to leave AOL you just stayed in a like there was this browser I remember it would just be like the worldwide web we're like we're not going to click that that's like that's too crazy you may get caught up and uh yeah I finally got on

it late cuz it was like you know college life right if I recall like I didn't even get into that dorm room until like 10 p.m. I got finally on the computer at like 12: 1:00 in the morning and I typed in you know I typed the two things that I knew baseball cards and wine and I I mean out of a [ __ ] movie it was right then like literally if if I was ever lucky enough to have a movie made of me the scene would be accurate it was that dramatic I literally

remember seeing the reflection of my own face in the monitor saying this is it I just knew and what you knew quick what I knew quickly after that was that Amazon and eBay were the game pretty fast you know like like pretty fast cuz it might have been second semester of freshman year it might have been 95 already all I or maybe I'm blurring it and maybe it was a year later within the first year of my journey I just knew that this was going to be it and I wanted to be as great at

it as possible and I just studied it and would go to Comp USA remember that retailer and buy a magazine and read about it so what I was doing with wine I started doing with the internet and I remember um just really being fascinated by it and the only Obsession I had was I'm going to take my dad's liquor store online cuz at that point I was already po committed that I was going to go to the family business and I was very Focus foced and this only deeply immigrant kids I think will understand me

right now this is hard I think for an American kid to understand based on American culture it's not good or bad but I was obsessed that would be the word I would use I think there's a lot of American kids who are excited to help their family business as long as it helps them I think immigrant kids will understand this I was obsessed with building up the family business for my parents and even today even as I say that I'm like almost like was I brainwashed is am I that Noble did my parents do such

a good job and I had such a good understanding that I would still get mine later I don't know but I think it was very unusual I remember people thinking it was unusual I don't know if I was addicted to the nobleness of it but I at that point in my life before I saw the internet like junior year of high school two years earlier three years earlier I was like I'm going to go and [ __ ] Crush for my parents because I can um and so all I was obsessed with is this is

how I'm going to crush for my because originally I thought I was going to open a 100 stores I always thought I was going to build build the Toys R R Us of wine library of wine my framework was comp you know Comp USA and Staples and McDonald's and Toys R Us and Walmart there was no Amazon and eBay to look to but that was the night I decided I was going to build it through that and I did that you took a company from3 million to $60 million and a short amount of time you

saw things that people didn't see at the time you bought keywords AdWords wine was 5 cents and then after 9 months went to 10 cents so what did you see that nobody else saw as really a first mover Advantage but I think is so important sometimes in building businesses it's what I see right now with live shopping on social I'm going to assume that I'm going to just look around the room that people here know that Tik Tok shop exists that people sell things on Tik Tok huge I'm going to assume that people here know

that or this might be smaller but you might know what what not is live shopping I'm going to assume that people in this circle know that China's been selling stuff on live social for the last seven years at scale I'm going to assume that people are listening and watching might have saw the viral video of that woman with the handbags who does $8 million just by doing this I know that all to be true I also know that almost every single person in this circle right now is underestimating it I know that 99.9% of the

people who are watching this right now don't understand it the way I do I understand it for what it is which is it's going to be massive massive that if you ask me right now out of all the optionality in the world of how to make money in the next five years in America that live shopping is at the tippy top of my list that's what I saw with websites email and Google AdWords I don't think I was the only person that saw it I just think what I'm very good at is I view these

trends like poker and I view live shopping on whatnot and Fanatics live and Tik Tock shop and meow will have to do it because it's going to get too big I view it like having the nuts in poker I feel like I've got the best like I know it's the best hand and so if you know you have the best hand educate me your poker players you go all in cuz you've won sure they may fold but you go all in I know that that's what I do for a living what I'm good at is

knowing what humans are going to do and I know when it's the biggest hand the best hand and so the reason I was able to build my Daddy's Liquor Store was having a website was better than having a catalog right I wanted to compete with Sher Leman zakies morel's Sam's Wine club in Chicago K&L in California I wanted to have the specs in Texas I wanted to have the best wine store in the country what were those stores doing when I was in high school College they were buying full page ads in the Wall Street

Journal and the New York Times Wednesday dining in section and they were sending catalogs in the mail I outflanked them by having a website and having aail an email newsletter so my email newsletter in 1998 when 94 Dominus came out and Insignia I would email everybody and they would buy for me they would get the catalog from Sher Leman four weeks later cuz catalogs are slow email is fast catalogs are expensive to make and ship email was free so even though I had no money I outsmarted them by knowing where the attention was because Wall

Street had moved to email but not everybody caught up I believe social media is now in my brain 20% of all social media content is live shopping it's not yet but it will be and so I'm going to move fast during this era on it that's what I did with email with having a website at all and then finally the big final atomic bomb outflanking everybody on Google AdWords let's move to uh December 2008 and you have a meeting at ESPN your brother AJ is graduating bu and you walk out of there with a couple

of things what what did you walk out with and then what happened next well I first walked out with $5,000 and I couldn't comprehend how I you got to remember at this point I'm still making less than $100,000 a year even though I'm 33 years old and built this huge business immigrant life again if you don't live in an immigrant business you don't understand but like I built this huge business created hundreds of millions of dollars in Revenue over that course of period of time and I'm still making very little My dad's making super little

too but he owns the business so I'm starting to think about my next chapter my brother's about to graduate and we're bouncing a lot of ideas daily fantasy sports which probably would have done well uh something that looked like group on and living social that probably would have done well something that looked like BuzzFeed that probably would have done well but those would have all taken time to build and I really didn't have any money and AJ surely didn't and because I just invested in Facebook and Twitter so all my liquid was gone and so

Consulting getting paid for Action was a better cash flow option and it's amazing and I get this random email because at this point i' had masked a lot of followers on Twitter but it's still early it's still the first couple years of Twitter and ESPN asks if I could come in and consult on how to grow their um social their Twitter specifically what year was this this is 2008 Steve Borstein was CEO or he had left it wasn't at that level it was way lower down it was three to four levels below that maybe five

if I'm thinking properly of their org at the time it it was marketing but it wasn't even like it was definitely not the CMO let alone the CEO and I don't even think it was the number two in marketing it was a lower level but the guy had the ability to write a $5,000 check which is nothing for a corporation so it was lower level anyway I go in I sit in a room like this I consult for a couple hours I enjoy it to no end and I leave and the literally it's like old

school like you got to check back then or and I call my brother as soon as I'm in Midtown cuz it was in Midtown or something like that I call my brother I said I got it we're going to start a consultancy I didn't even call it an agency yet wasn't really even an agency but but I couldn't believe that it was 2008 going into 09 and I couldn't believe the biggest companies in the world didn't understand social media because I'd been po committed since i0 six and that's probably one of the first times I've

learned about timing I'm just talking about it right now with live shopping I'll say it again I don't think I'm a Andre Horwitz invested in whatnot a long time ago I'm not a genius I just feel like in this nanc that everybody's underestimating how big it's going to be and I didn't understand that I didn't understand that it would take that long for people to get it and as it got bigger it got slower right I didn't know that entrepreneur land information and action goes faster than it does in corporate land and so I was

like wait there's an opportunity they still don't get it and so that's why I decided to start Vayner media which has also blown up yeah I mean Vayner media started in the conference room of Buddy media with your friend Mike Lazaro yes and you got got equity for building a website I got equity for giving a quote not even building that website which they let her and they sold the company sales for for a billion dollars yep that was a good outcome for a quote for me I did extremely well I literally made Seven figures

to give a quote because at that point I'd written a book called crush it that was the first time I'd hit the scene outside of the wine world and um very quickly after there I was starting to be viewed as angel investor with the super Angels Tim Ferris and Dave Mor and Chris sck and Kevin Rose and Travis calc and I was definitely in the game calcis I was in the game in that era 2006 to 2012 was a very good ERA for my personal brand with books and speeches and investing um and Vayner media

is something I'm very proud of we literally started in a conference room and it's a $350 million a year Revenue business now with you know 2,000 plus employees and we're definitely the most Progressive contemporary agency in the world and it's also been the foundation my other behaviors I started resi inside of there with Ben lenthal 2014 I started empathy wines which I sold to consolation with Nate and John two former interns in that company 2019 and then vriends which I believe and it's fun to put this on video to look back on in 20 or

30 years from now but I'm in the midst right now of building an intellectual property I'm very affected and inspired by Pokemon being worth $100 billion I do not think people realize how big that company is I also am very inspired by Jim Henson a real creative Force who really wanted to leave a deposit of good on the world Fraggle Rock Sesame Street muppets and so um yeah I'm uh I'm Tri I'm building be friends and a lot of the talent that works inside of V friends came from Vayner so Vayner has been an incredible

company but it's also been an incredible incubator of talent um and osmosis of like how I want to do things and and I'm very excited about it so I'll tell you back in my life in 1999 I'm on my honeymoon with my first wife in Hawaii at haa life I don't know if you've been there or not um oh actually I have I spoke to Brand Jordan there and this guy next to me is reading a magazine that no longer exists the industry standard and I said hey are you in the business he said yeah

I said what's your name I said my name's Ron Conway and so talk to us about Ron and the influence he had in your life and then and then let's go back Google was started in 2005 and it sold one year nine months and 28 Days Later for $1.45 billion and you read something about that and then as part of the story tells about how making bad decisions on emotions is a terrible strategy and you can talk about playing cook from Twitter and how you got that deal and then talk about Facebook Mark Zuckerberg your

dinner and then his parents so that whole Silicon Valley era for me started with so now I'm right about email I'm right about the website I'm right about Google AdWords and 05 and here comes YouTube and I and I and I see see that and I'm like [ __ ] I'm going to build my dad's store with this so I've used the tool of web I've used the tool of search and email and here comes video online and I start using the tool I start wine L TV on February 21st 2006 less than a year

after YouTube comes out and I want to take a moment right now and give a huge shout out to Eric castner Eric castner was my lead developer one of the most Progressive things I've done in my life was the day I started working in my dad's store full-time May of 98 I told him from the day I started I will take nothing in my salary but we need to hire a computer guy that's what I call developers back then we need to hire a computer guy and by 2000 or 2001 I was able to finally

get to a place where I was able to hire Eric castner and then later John cemanis who's still our CTO and we had we're a [ __ ] liquor store in New Jersey and I have literal developers full-time on my staff it was so Progressive it'd be like if I hired astronauts right now like it just made no sense um anyway I want to give a shout out to Eric casner because without Eric Kastner a lot of this does not happen he was the one that sat closer than you and I are sitting right now

at my desk and was like read Tech crunch read meta filter read read white web read you know dig he was the one that showed me Web 2.0 and during that Journey he showed me YouTube because I asked him two years earlier if I could do videos on the site and he said no too expensive to host now we found this they were hosting it so now I'm doing YouTube I explode this is where my career really takes a turn the wine show explodes and then I'm now really starting to get into this Tech stuff

and how do I use it to build the wine store but it's still wine store wine store wine store and then Google buys YouTube and one point you you remember this that number I don't think the kids can now everything's inflation you remember that number 1.45 billion do you remember how everyone reacted it was insane I'm saying it right now because I want you guys to hear and be effective by it it'd be as if you woke up tomorrow and and Tik Tok was forced to sell and sold for a trillion it's like you couldn't

we didn't see numbers like that yeah everything was big numbers were hundreds of millions I mean flickers sold for 40 million to Yahoo and that seemed like a drillion flicker was the precursor to Instagram anyway I'm just like holy [ __ ] and now I'm a little bit older and I'm reading more Business magazines not just wine and I read a Wall Street Journal article about the sale CU I was fast I felt different this time I was like [ __ ] man I feel like I know I feel like my talents are not being

maximized I'm using these things to build my dad's business there's got to be a way I just felt different I was just reading everything about it and one article specifically it references Ron Conway and it says angel investor i' never heard the term in my life angel investor Ron Conway made a gillion dollars I don't remember how much he put in or what he got but it was staggering it was like for his $100,000 investment made $4 million or I don't it might even been it was just staggering I don't remember the details I just

remember immediately going from print because it was I think the journal to computer and Googling not Ron cway Googling the term angel investor Googling it ironically very very appropo and I'm like huh and I literally again said to myself I'm going to be an angel investor I'm going to build up some saving I had some savings at that point and uh the first one of the First videos I ever made that wasn't a wine video was called Facebook should be worried about Twitter because Twitter just come out I was again fascinated by it and I

promised myself after the wron Conway article that the next time I felt it that I would invest and the next time I felt it was Twitter and that video went viral Delaine cook was the first CTO of Twitter first developer developer thank you and I met him at South by because now I'm going to these conferences and he Twitter I don't know if were you in the mix you remember this I I I was in the mix but not do you do you remember that Twitter would go down all the time it was yeah it

was down all the time it was the hottest app in Silicon Valley but it was down down did not work all the time they did Ruby on Rails early on it was complicated he was getting so much heat I met him for a taco at at South by and he told me he was quitting and selling every share and did I want any first and I'm really proud of this back to being a good person first I tried to talk him out of it I said I think you're making a huge mistake second I could

see he was making an emotional decision and he he just went the whole way and couple weeks later on email like do you want to buy it I'm done I'm like Blane he's like I'm done and so me Fred Wilson and Kevin Rose if I recall properly bought up all his shares that was my first investment and then and and he he left 700 million to $2 billion on the table that's right just staggering and then and then several months later because I become friendly with my video went viral Facebook Dave Moren asked me to

speak of Facebook zux was there we had dinner that night we hit it off we started to get to know each other and sister Randy called me one night when I was in Miami at a speak engagement said my our parents Mark wanted me to call our parents are looking to sell some shares they're going to buy a nice home near us in California cuz they were still in Connecticut would you like to buy some Facebook equity and I said absolutely game CH I literally took 80% of my savings and invested in Facebook congrats thank

you I've never sold a share promised myself that night that if as long as Mark was the CEO I'd never sell all right so let let's go a little quickly on some of these um you've invested in over 100 companies what do you look for when making an angel investment early on I went for the horse then I went for the jockey now it requires both the horse was the idea biggest mistake I made as an investor early on as a kid a kid in my 30s was I if I like the idea I could

see how I could run it to success I didn't realize I was a good operator yet then I learned that that wasn't always working then it was about the kid but even with the best operators if you're operating a bad idea that also won't work so now what I look for in Angel Investing is the jockey and the horse the operator and the idea and so what's the best way to pitch you I read what you're going to say and what I would give as my answer is very different what you're going to give as

your answer what's your answer my answer would be to come in prepared and if you have to get in the door and you don't know me you can create a ridiculous PowerPoint presentation that blows you off of your chair and I'm good on the preparation we'll talk about that in a few minutes but I prepared materials for people that they have to respond right because you know when you open this document holy [ __ ] did this take 40 hours to prepare or more this thing's like a Rolls-Royce it it's a Ferrari on steroids and

if someone's putting that much work into it it shows the amount of thought progress um it it's brilliant I've received a few of those sometimes a lot of my deals most of them 99% of them come from people I know yeah right and so it's a self selecting process but every now and then I get something ridiculous in the mail we've never invested in a cold deal like that but we've come very very close interesting yeah mine's the opposite and this goes back to self-awareness this goes back to like you got to know yourself like

I always say everything works everything works like there's a version of success and happiness that comes in so many different sizes and shapes that it can work for me I don't even consume decks my team knows this like to really prep prepare for me I need to have the dialogue I need to have the feel like for me at this point to your point so much comes from Word of Mouth different angles but what really gets me is if somebody says something that I believe in that I can follow up with a couple of questions

and they can answer it for example what cliche happens to me is I make a big stink on something like this about live shopping now I'm going to get pitched this is real like that's what I was thinking when you were saying I'm I'm going to get bombarded yeah I won't look at most of those emails I won't go for the Rolls-Royce deck I will go for the person that finds me somewhere and or I get a meeting through a person because I want to if somebody co-signs someone I'll take that meeting but it's not

what they say to me it's my follow-up question I really tend to invest in things I know more and more by the way as I get older and so I know what I'm talking about with live shopping so to me I enjoy the back and forth because the other thing I think I do well is push I push well in dialogue to like real places and most people can't answer those real places you know this a lot of Founders are very good at the surface level conversation but when you poke and prod they fold like

cheap chairs what the craziest thing is you ask someone about they talk about run rate run rate doesn't apply to the cash in the bank so I always asked what are the Gap revenues you know how many CEOs know what their Gap revenues are the last three years less than 1% and for me the meeting's over right I mean if you don't know your finances well and so for me you're referring to things that are a little bit further along I do so much early stage yeah that to me it's almost the reverse of I

love you for that that like that just I people knew how nerdy I am with business that just got me so fired up but that's obviously a little bit of a later Stage Company in that scenario for me because I'm so intuitive of consumer Behavior I get excited about them having to answer pre-revenue since I do such early stage real questions about consumer behavior and I'm so in the traffic one of the reasons the Gary B brand still lives and I run the agency is I never want to be away from the dirt yeah let's

talk about your views on Mark marketing and day trading attention and we'll go back to jab jab jab your favorite number five so talk talk about that book in particular and what you want to call it and I I know you want to call it something else so what we did is we we actually made you a new book I'm here here's your new book it's actually jab jab jab jab jab so congratulations on your new book I'll show us everybody that's awesome it was supposed to be left hook by the way jab jab jab

jab left I was I was so this book I wrote Because I realized no one understood what was going on with content on the Internet by the time I wrote this 10 years ago 2014 there wasn't a lot of science around the art of a post I believe as we sit here today my friend that the best social media organic post just post on your account is a more important form of advertising than any television commercial on television today outside of Super Bowl the individual post you said the Super Bowl which cost $233,000 per second

is the greatest marketing spend on it is TV no no in America in America here's why my newest book day trading attention I I do believe that I sit at the top of the organization that is the best marketing firm in not wasting a penny on advertising and getting the most for a penny and that requires a lot I Gary and Vayner at the holding company cannot get 130 million Americans cannot get 130 million Americans to consume a video for 30 seconds for $8 million but the Super Bowl can no meta no Google no all

the other things influencers Tik Tok there's no combination that can get there like the Super Bowl can the problem is if your video is bad you just wasted all the money the creative is always going to be the variable of success but buying the atten yes and buying the attention the Super Bowl is the best let's talk about ingredients of success what's more important work ethic Talent OR passion yes look you know this I mean look the reason I like work ethic is it feels very controllable it's like working out like you can get there

working out came really not natural for me I didn't do it at all until I was 38 like at all I didn't have a muscle in my [ __ ] body so if I who despises it to this day can get to a level of discipline that gets me there I believe people can do the same professionally I also believe that it's a lot easier to do that level of work ethic when you're actually passionate about it so it's a very the reason I answered the way I did yes all three different for every one

of us in here but of the three work ethic is controllable and it's something that I get scared that people try to downplay look as someone who's unfortunately been tagged with hustle culture and things of that nature I have been consistent had Ariana Huffington on the askary V show a decade ago I believe in sleep I just think work ethic matters not to burning yourself out and being sick that's stupid um I am worried that people are using health and wellness and mental health and all these great things that are important as weapons to create

entitlement or to create laziness or to justify non-action and I think that's a mistake I believe that work ethic is the most important ingredient in success of our success because as you said you can control it I have something called Pho first in last out and I do a lot of coaching as I know you do as well I tell every young professional even mid professionals who come to me hey I'm not liking my job whatever if you're the first one and the last one now great things are going to happen to you no matter

what I think that's exactly right because even if you're in an environment that doesn't reward that you're going to learn that it doesn't instead of leaning on excuses which will Empower you to make the tough decision of leaving I fully agree with you on that let's talk about my favorite topic which is preparation I'm writing a book called Extreme preparation I always want to be the most prepared person in the room how important has preparation been in your success and are there any examples you can give about your extreme preparation leading to something successful in

your career it's my entire life so my favorite thing and Sid just stepped out but Dustin's here so I'm going to look at him Dustin actually probably knows this better than Sid the thing that baffles all my top Executives when they started my company is I I go into meetings cold and dominate them they think I do no prep they make me huge decks and because of the way we do our decks they can see I didn't open it I walk into the meeting brand new client and they are baffled it's one of the best

compliments I get it it's it's so flattering they are stun it is by far the number one chatter conversation of VPS and above when they first joined the company asking all the other ogs how the [ __ ] did that just happen it's because I only Am Prepared it's the only thing I do the reason I can walk into Nike or SmartWater or a t-shirt brand or Le or Lexus or any brand and crush a meeting is cuz most businesses are not that complicated I can promise you that what Smart Water wants is to sell

more smart water and if they're meeting with me I'm not talking about supply chain we're not talking about other things we're talking about demand creation so I think preparation is the only thing the reason I do such narrow things is there the things that I'm preparing on at all times the reason I have be friends and Wine Library and winx.com and Gary V is I have to actively work on the craft of marketing and demand creation to feel like I have any ability to talk to anyone about it I'm a full practitioner of the moment

I can speak about live social shopping right now with the expertise I am because I sold $130,000 worth of clothes on a live stream a week ago so I think you're on to something very powerful I would argue that the bad version of it is school and the good version of it is sports I'm always prepared cuz I never talk about anything I or act on anything or involved in anything that I don't actually do I think some people study but they're not about it and that's where the vulnerability even with prep work comes in

because when people start poking and prodding you start going to 301 instead of 101 level preparation so I think the ultimate preparation is to actually be a practitioner of that's why I love entrepreneur that are investors they lipped it how important is setting goals in our success and do you believe in writing them down 1 3 5 year seven plan seven-year plan I think about this one a lot so again I play it a little looser as you can tell than black and white obviously I've had a goal since fourth grade of buying the New

York Jets I'm sure it's had an impact on My Success right they're worth $7.3 billion today and it's moving fast with private Equity coming in right you going to buy one day I think so my intuition now is that as I get older I'll start to put myself in a position for extreme wealth creation if I want to but I'll be honest with you just to be very clear the chase of it is the great enjoyment it's a lot of fun to chase that that [ __ ] football team that's pissing me off right now

anyway um you know I think people do it different ways I've learned that I'm not a reader and writer I'm an audio and V visual guy and so I talk to myself a lot about things I want to accomplish in personal life professional life yeah I think knowing where you're going is a good idea um but I would argue that the ability to adjust and not be rigid to them is equally if not slightly more important if you're going to do this thing in 5 years but clearly Something's Happened putting your goal on a pedestal

when it does not contextualize the truth of your life at the moment you're in right now is a vulnerability I think people look at you they look at me they look at all these other tech people who have done very very well and they say oh my God that person is Rich they have nice things etc etc and I think everyone wants to be a billionaire not everyone but a lot of people and I think that's a motivation so what's your advice and look straight in the C I mean I I talk about this till

I'm blew in the face people who are motivated by money are generally not as successful and they're generally not always happy either either you know listen I've read you I I think you know this I talk about this at nausea yeah I'm going to say this to the camera I'm extremely deeply empathetic that the response to this for most people is cool rich guy but I'd like to find out like [ __ ] you easy for you to say I'd like to find out we have the luxury of spending time with people that have it

and we know how dark some of their lives are there is just no correlation in any kind of Common Sense way of money and happiness it just doesn't it's black and [ __ ] white so what I would say is God willing if that's what you want you were able to earn not be handed your way to a place where you have it and I'm going to tell you right now when you get there you will see how right we are period your dad at one point said you're going to be the next Oprah and

a vcon he wears a hat that said I'm Gary Vee's Dad yes and he's so proud of you how does it make you feel unbelievable other than I wish he wasn't so one-dimensional and spread some of that love to my siblings sometimes um it's unbelievable and my dad does it very publicly and my mom does it very quietly and they both mean the same making my parents proud is probably my strength and my weakness it's a big currency for me um I really like making them proud it feels really good we're at the end of

the show and I always end it with a game called film BL to Excellence are you ready to play ready to play the biggest lesson I've learned in my life is losing is the thing you should always strive for cuz it makes winning a lot easier my number one professional goal is to buy the New York Jets my number one personal goal is to have everybody that I love show up to my funeral with a very good feeling in their stomach about who I was my biggest regret is my biggest regret is already realizing that

as much as I keep an eye on it I want to spend even more time with the people I love the one piece of advice that I give to my kids is be a good human being on their terms not how you want to Define it the craziest thing that's happened in my life is [ __ ] all of it brother you know I am not detached from how miraculous my life has been and silly things like judging the Miss America contests when that was something I watched with my mom um to important stuff like

getting an email weekly from someone who says that a piece of my content took them out of not only a dark place but sometimes the darkest scariest moment of their life was super humbling you read your own email yeah the funniest thing that's happened in my career is the funniest thing that's ever happened in my career I mean probably my first appearance on Conan O'Brien I could not explain to you how going from operating a liquor store to literally being on the hottest late night show in television in 2007 when that was a whole different

game than it is today it was and it was funny if you actually watch the clip it is actually funny so I think that's the funniest thing that's happened the best piece of advice I've ever received is you know I know you've seen that cuz you've done your research [ __ ] man I'm really glad my dad tightened me again I wasn't going to go sell like junk bonds but I just know that I couldn't be sitting here at the level that I'm at if I didn't fear like if I didn't put my reputation on

a pedestal 10 years from now I'm going to be doing exactly what I'm doing now waking up and working on what I want to 20 years same are you ever going to retire no and I and I mean this not only am I never going to retire my great preference at this point God willing is that I'm always operating retirement comes as you know in all shapes and sizes people go to Consulting people go to full-time investing I Define it as operating I prefer to be operating something for the rest of my life if you

could pick one trait that's led to your success that trait would be it's hard cuz I love traits the I was about to answer humility which is not very seen in Gary be's content you got to really know me then I was about to say patience because it has been huge but I'm I'm going to go with tenacity today I'm [ __ ] tenacious and it matters the one trait that is most important to somebody else's success who you don't know is so the one trait that I deem is most successful to someone else's s

like universally a trait that is a good indicator to success yes tenacity hard work if you could be one person in the world who would it be if I could be someone if you could meet one person in the world today who's alive who would it be who's alive we got you this is important cuz I've never cuz the Macho Man Randy Savage is dead if can meet one this is F this is a very interesting indicator of me I am so insular I'm very curious it could really be a lot of people if I

could meet one person in the world that is alive who would it be you know who I'd like to talk to right now Vince McMahon you SE forget about forget I'm sure the do I'm only two episodes in let me tell you why Vince there's so much there and I I'm sure that surprised a lot of people and I'm very empathetic that there's plenty of there but the angle in which I would want to talk to him and what I would want to talk to him about is strictly around character development I believe that everything

I've accomplished in my career will be dwarfed on my execution of be friends I believe that in 30 years when I sit here and do an interview with somebody's awesome as you what they're going to want to talk about as V friends nothing of what we talked about sure they'll touch on it I believe that Walt Disney and Vince McMahon and Jim Henson are the prominent figures of modern character development Jim Henson and Walt Disney did it with fictional characters Vince did it with real human beings which I think is very fascinating the other two

are dead so character development how to get people da by the way you know who my fourth one on that list is David Stern David Stern understood that Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson needed to be superheroes not human beings that's what sports is Steph Curry is a superhero for little short kids not a basketball player and that's what I'm going to do with with my V friends and that's why I Vince in this moment if you could go back and give your 21y old self one piece of advice it would be don't

do a single thing different cuz at 48 and A2 almost 49 you're a very happy person the one question you wish I had asked you but didn't is you know it's so funny I don't think in that term because when I'm sitting in this seat I think I'm here to bring value for the audience thus I have no feelings towards questions you know your audience better than I do you're awesome I want to do a shout out to Mike herlan yes who we wouldn't be here but for him today I just met him he's a

new parent at our kids school he just moved to LA as you know yes he had been here five weeks he shows up at back to school night and randomly we start talking to him as we're walking out and we start talking he works at Fanatics I know someone there and here we are here we are I really appreciate thank you for having me thank you thank you [Music]