The GaryVee Audio Experience

Episode: 5 Pieces of Advice That Will Help You Succeed

Date: November 24, 2025
Host: Gary Vaynerchuk

Episode Overview

In this energetic solo episode, Gary Vaynerchuk delivers a manifesto on practical happiness and actionable business advice, particularly aimed at those eager to break free from complacency and entitlement. Speaking to a packed event, Gary emphasizes gratitude, self-awareness, the absence of entitlement, and leveraging today’s unprecedented opportunities brought about by the internet. With candid, no-nonsense language, he offers five core pieces of advice to catalyze both personal fulfillment and business success.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Gratitude for Existence and Perspective Shift

• Odds of existing: Gary stresses the improbability of being alive—“the odds of being a human being are 400 trillion to one”—and how realizing this should reframe your relationship with both challenges and opportunities ([00:38]).
• No one owes you anything: Raised by immigrant parents who started with nothing, Gary attributes much of his positivity and drive to a “lack of entitlement.” Full accountability is essential: “Every one of those problems are my fault, because… I'm the fuck face that hired Susan” ([03:48]).

“The second that you stop dwelling, stop worrying about shit you cannot control, start realizing that everything fucked up is your fault—you actually get ridiculously happy, not upset.” — Gary Vee ([04:41])

2. Radical Accountability & The Perils of Entitlement

• No excuses: He credits his mother’s no-excuse attitude for his work ethic and perspective.
• Problems are yours to own: Gary reminds listeners that “every single problem in that company... every one of those problems are my fault” ([03:43]).

3. Leveraging Today’s Digital Opportunities

• The internet is the great equalizer: In a world where “this computer that I'm holding in my hand is literally more powerful than the computer that President Reagan had,” Gary notes the leveling effect—the internet doesn’t care about your background ([05:13]).
• Execution trumps ideas: The digital platforms are “unemotional… every person in this room can go on and start building something for themselves. And the cost is zero” ([05:43]).
• Underpriced attention: Instagram Story ads and LinkedIn organic reach are called out as today’s greatest opportunities—but most people lack the “obnoxious amount of work” required to benefit ([09:21]-[12:45]).
• Learning is free: He dismisses those who wait for others to teach them what they can Google: “The details are called google.com. Go to fucking google.com, type in how do I run an Instagram ad? Enter…” ([31:11]).

“Information is a commodity. Information is zero. It doesn’t cost anything. Don’t buy information. The Internet, it’s free.” — Gary Vee ([31:34])

4. The “Too Much Dumb Shit” Epidemic & Financial Patience

• Frugality as a superpower: Gary spotlights the success patterns of immigrants who “come to America and they buy nothing stupid for 15 fucking years” ([16:08]).
• Stop buying to impress: The “level of insecurity… so that people end up buying cars and houses and clothes they can’t afford to impress people they don’t even like is the great epidemic in our society” ([16:26]).
• Patience pays: He recounts living humbly through his twenties, emphasizing, “When you don’t buy dumb, that money stays in the fucking bank and you can do something with your fucking life instead of having a new pair of fucking off-whites” ([18:26]).

5. Self-Esteem Without Entitlement / The Value of Micro-Losing

• Praise what matters: Positive reinforcement for effort and kindness (from his mother) shaped Gary’s confidence. “She positively and optimistically gave me a framework of the world. But she didn’t create entitlement because when I lost, I lost. And when I won, I won.” ([22:18])
• Embrace losing: Rather than sheltering kids (or yourself) from defeat, “Micro losing is the greatest shit” ([21:18]).

6. Redefining Success: Smiles Over Salaries

• Chasing happiness, not numbers: Gary urges listeners to measure success by personal fulfillment: “Success, my friends, needs to stop being talked about how much money you have. It needs to be talked about how many fucking smiles you put on your face.” ([32:04])
• Work is not passive: There’s no magic bullet for “passive income” — “The amount of money you make is wildly correlated to the amount of anxiety and stress you're able to carry. People want it easy out here; there is no easy if you want to live a 1% life.” ([25:38])

7. The Importance of Intentions and Consumer-Centricity

• Serve first: Most people “fail because of their intentions” — thinking only of themselves, instead of obsessing over value for others. “The only way to succeed in the world we live in is to actually be consumer centric” ([29:11]).
• Amazon as an example: “There’s a very specific reason that Amazon is winning—it’s because everything that happens at that company is trying to figure out how it’s good for you.” ([29:19])

8. Final Motivation: Pursue the Game You Love

• Start small, start weird, start now: “Go flip Thomas the Trains on eBay. Start a blog about fucking Smurfs…Start a podcast about reviewing Whiskeys or the ‘85 Bears, my man!” ([32:44])
• Choose happiness and humility: Would you rather make $212,000 and be unhappy or $97,000 doing what you love and live a little more humbly? “That’s the game. Please wake up.” ([33:11])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Privilege and Opportunity:
  “There is literally nothing that you will ever accomplish, ever, that is more ridiculous than the fact that you were even given a life in the first place.” ([01:09])

• On Execution and Work Ethic:
  “Anybody you've ever met that made it worked their fucking face off. You know people that are rich that didn’t—they inherited it. But they didn’t make it.” ([11:34])

• On Buying to Impress:
  “Who the fuck you flossing for, Chicago? You think somebody's gonna like you better cause you got a new Audi, you dick. Jesus.” ([18:58])

• On Losing:
  “Let kids lose. Let's actually talk about losing. Micro losing is the greatest shit. I stand here in front of you today because the first 18 years of my life, the world told me I sucked and I lost at everything.” ([21:23])

• On Doing What You Love:
  “Please try to build a business around the thing that you would do if you weren’t getting paid for it. Because it’s the only thing that you’re gonna work hard enough at cause you actually like it.” ([32:41])

• On Internet Opportunity:
  “We live in remarkable times. The Internet is the single greatest and most complex and ridiculous invention in the history of the human being. We, luckily, for some unknown reason, happen to be living during the era of it finally hitting its scale.” ([31:56])

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening perspective—gratitude, macro/micro view: [00:00–03:00]
• Entitlement & accountability: [03:00–05:00]
• Digital opportunity = free; execution matters: [05:06–10:14]
• Undervalued platforms (LinkedIn, Instagram): [10:22–12:37]
• Work ethic — “obnoxious amount of work”: [12:45–15:00]
• Frugality and “buying dumb shit”: [16:08–20:00]
• Losing, self-esteem, & real parenting: [21:18–23:10]
• Defining true success (happiness, not money): [32:00–33:11]
• Pursuing passion over profit: [32:41–33:11]

Conclusion

GaryVee’s fiery keynote boils down to five intertwined pillars for success and happiness:

1. Recognize how lucky you are to be alive—shift your perspective.
2. Take radical accountability—own everything in your life and business.
3. Use today’s unprecedented digital opportunities—information and distribution are free, if you’re willing to work.
4. Be frugal, real, and authentic—stop buying to impress, and live humbly.
5. Prioritize happiness—build your life and business around what brings you joy, measure success in fulfillment, not financial flexes.

Final Call:
“Would you really rather make $212,000 a year and be unhappy or make $97,000 and do the thing that you love the most and the only thing you have to do is live a little more humbly… Please wake up. I love you, Chicago.” ([33:11])

For Further Action

• Recommended: Google “how to run an Instagram ad,” check out Shopify, and start creating content around your passions.
• Gary’s Challenge: Visit garyvee.com/stan for his new Stan Store initiative (promo, not summarized here for brevity).

Tone: Empathetic, blunt, motivational, and peppered with Gary’s signature profanity and directness.
Ideal for: Anyone feeling stuck, overwhelmed by modern distractions, or unsure how to win in the digital world—especially hungry creators and entrepreneurs.