How to Capture Consumer's Attention In an Ever Changing World

Summary

Podcast Summary: The GaryVee Audio Experience

Episode: How to Capture Consumer's Attention In an Ever Changing World

Host: Gary Vaynerchuk
Date: December 1, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this energetic and candid episode, Gary Vaynerchuk (GaryVee) unpacks the art and science of capturing consumer attention in a rapidly shifting landscape. Speaking to audiences ranging from business owners to parents, Gary covers pivots in marketing, the evolution of technology, the responsibilities of parents with screens and AI, the future of NFTs, and building both self-esteem and sustainable business culture. The episode is a masterclass in adapting to change, understanding attention, effective use of content, and humanizing business through technology.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Evolution of Consumer Attention & Marketing Channels

Timestamps: 01:25 – 04:31

• Gary emphasizes that marketing fundamentals remain unchanged; only the platforms shift. He urges businesses to follow attention, whether it’s newspaper ads in the 90s or TikTok videos today.
  • Quote: “Designing a postcard for direct mail in 1997 is exactly the same thing I'm doing, except I'm trying to make a video that will get organic reach on TikTok. But it's still the same game.” (03:15)
• Social media is often underestimated, especially for B2B. He calls for more brand building and frequent posting, particularly on LinkedIn.
• Success comes from reverse engineering where attention exists, and “filling those pipes” with compelling content.

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2. Content Creation: In-House vs. Agencies vs. Influencers

Timestamps: 04:05 – 10:14

• Gary advocates for businesses to excel at their own content creation, rather than putting all leverage in influencers’ hands.
  • Quote: “The second you're at the mercy of someone else, you're at the mercy of someone else.” (05:05)
• However, he believes in a “both/and” approach: leverage creators for underpriced attention but don’t fully outsource marketing.
• In-housing marketing has pros and cons: agencies see more industry trends, but in-house roles carry stronger company intent.
• Many social media efforts flounder due to lack of strategic thoughtfulness, both internally and externally.
  • Quote: “Most people are just posting shit… They don’t deem themselves an expert, but can tell in their intuition that their internal and external people aren’t there.” (09:20)

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3. Adapting to the Future: Focus on Today

Timestamps: 10:25 – 12:58

• Gary cautions against overhyping future trends (Metaverse, AI, AR) before mastering today’s platforms.
  • Quote: “You have no shot at being successful at tomorrow if you're not successful today.” (11:20)
• Many legacy sectors (retail, television, transportation) were blindsided by technology; history will repeat in other industries unless businesses respect the speed of change.

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4. Parenting, Accountability, and the “Screen Time” Debate

Timestamps: 12:58 – 15:30

• Gary puts responsibility squarely on parents regarding their children’s screen time,
  • Quote: “If you're worried about screens, don't let your kids have screens… The issue is not screens. The issue is hypocrisy.” (13:30)
• He highlights society’s tendency to blame tech, government, or others, rather than exercising control and self-accountability.

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5. The Inevitable Digital Future & Cultural Shifts

Timestamps: 15:34 – 19:08

• Screens and digital life are not going away—in fact, they’re just the beginning.
  • Quote: “If the metaverse is right… in 60 years people aren't living in a Ready Player One world, it would make no sense to me.” (15:44)
• Online communities often hold more sway than geographic or religious ties.
• Decentralization (blockchain, NFTs) is a generational shift, with most people missing the forest for the trees by focusing on get-rich-quick narratives.

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6. NFTs, VeeFriends, and Utility

Timestamps: 19:11 – 26:23

• Gary shares his journey with NFTs and the creation of VeeFriends, striving for value-driven and utility-oriented collectibles.
  • Quote: “I wanted to use the SMART contract. If I sell an NFT collectible, I want it to also have real world value.” (19:38)
• True value in NFTs will come from utility and thoughtful execution, not market hype.
• The collectibles market is vast; NFTs will be a natural evolution of how we record, own, and trade value, receipts, and experiences.

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7. Equipping Children for the AI Era

Timestamps: 26:23 – 30:46

• Gary urges parents to teach critical thinking, not memorization, as AI commoditizes information.
  • Quote: “ChatGPT sucks if you don't input thoughtful critical thinking. So we have this moment in time right now where we can literally teach children how to critically think—the singular thing that actually matters.” (27:30)
• Parents should champion learning with their kids, especially in navigating new tools like AI.

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8. Building Self-Esteem & Positive Culture

Timestamps: 30:46 – 33:24

• Focus on nurturing strengths and offering positive reinforcement rather than fixating on weaknesses.
  • Quote: “People are incredibly capable of spending most of their time and efforts nitpicking on themselves… If you're able to flip that, you're able to build self esteem.” (31:20, 32:32)
• Self-esteem in children starts with parents modeling it themselves.

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9. Humanizing Technology & Business at Scale

Timestamps: 33:24 – 35:59

• Technology can enhance genuine human connection if the effort and intent are right (e.g., Zoom, videos over text).
  • Quote: “What we've done is we've put our focus on the mediums instead of the message.” (34:12)
• Use the tools for real talks and relationship building, not just for the sake of tech.

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10. Standing Out in a Crowded Digital Marketplace

Timestamps: 35:59 – 40:01

• With digital channels commoditized, creative excellence is critical.
  • Quote: “You have to be good at it. When you're the only restaurant in town, when you have 15 restaurants, you just have to be a better restaurant.” (38:00)
• LinkedIn and YouTube Shorts are powerful, often underused platforms—context and creativity are key.
  • Quote: "The creative matters, the art matters. And most people would prefer it not because you don't know how to judge it, but it does." (39:44)

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11. Sustaining Long-Term Success in Business

Timestamps: 40:09 – 43:48

• To sustain a business, give more value than you extract—“the 51/49 rule.”
  • Quote: “If you are obsessed with making sure every one of those groups of people have more value in the relationship with you than you have with them… you will have the leverage of a sustainable business for the rest of your life.” (41:02)
• Control is essential: maintaining autonomy and alignment with core values ensures integrity and success.

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12. Leading and Retaining Gen Z

Timestamps: 43:48 – 46:08

• Gen Z's increased options, not their “entitlement,” drive their mobility and retention challenges for companies.
  • Quote: "Gen Z's retention issue is not predicated on their entitlement… It's predicated on their options." (44:12)
• Companies must adjust, offering more value and understanding their motivations for retention.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “What I spend my time on is reverse engineering where consumer attention is and trying to fill those pipes that the attention is in with content that is compelling.” (03:05)
• “Most of it's not strategic… most people do not understand the creative variables that actually drive consideration. People are just posting shit…” (09:03)
• “Parents should parent.” (13:00)
• “Be Friends is my intellectual property of characters that I hope bring a balanced point of view on humanity…” (21:41)
• “I never give up control. No board, no publicly traded company, no investor. The second you control everything and no one has say, well then you can keep everything you care about accountable.” (43:20)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:25 – Marketing fundamentals, evolution of attention
• 04:31 – In-house content vs. influencers and agencies
• 10:37 – The folly of overvaluing the future while neglecting the present
• 12:58 – Parenting and accountability with screen time
• 15:34 – Cultural impact of the Metaverse and digital communities
• 19:11 – VeeFriends, NFTs and value creation
• 26:57 – Teaching children critical thinking for the AI era
• 30:57 – Building self-esteem in oneself and children
• 33:24 – How technology can foster real human connection
• 35:59 – Differentiating in a crowded digital marketplace
• 40:39 – Keys to sustainable business value and culture
• 43:48 – Leading and retaining a Gen Z workforce

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Tone & Style

• Gary is consistently passionate, direct, and practical, frequently challenging assumptions and inviting personal and collective responsibility.
• The discussion is energetic, actionable, and peppered with memorable analogies (“restaurant in town”, “screens are going to be amateur hour”, “Ready Player One world”).
• Audience Q&A brings out deeper, more reflective moments on parenting, self-esteem, and the future of work.

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This summary distills Gary Vaynerchuk’s essential wisdom from this episode—a high-impact guide for anyone aiming to win consumer attention, parent in a digital era, or build organizations and brands that endure.

Transcript

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You think the attention is going away from the screen. You should see what's happening with the mailbox now. You have to be good at it. You know, when you're the only restaurant in town, when you have 15 restaurants, you just have to be a better restaurant. But people are still eating, so you just have more competition now. Then there's also platforms. A lot of jewelers don't realize how much they could be selling on LinkedIn because they think it's B2B. But the problem is everyone that's in there is also a C. This is the GaryVee audio experience.

[Podcast Host]

Before you go to the podcast, I've got a big announcement. I know several years ago a lot of you bought 12 books of 12 and a half to get the NFT, the book games NFT. I also know that a lot of people have dropped off on their journey with Veefriends, which is a massive mistake because what we're doing on Burn island and what we're doing on base with book games is remarkable. So you need to go to vee friends veefriends.com oldbooks go to vfriends.com oldbooks with an S. You will go to that landing page and we will help you explain if you are trying to figure out where your NFTs are, how to bring them over to the website and how to start activating them so that you can start using them for all the incredible exchanges and draws and raffles and experiences that we're doing for people that actually own the book games. So please go to veefriends.com oldbooks where you can start your journey on reactivating your book games journey.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

When I think about social media, I'm far less emotional about it, I think, than the rest of the world. I think it's a heavy term for a lot of people. People are very passionate about it, whether pro or con. To me it just really represents the current state of where consumers attention is. And so the way I navigate it was the same way I navigated building my father's liquor store when I built my father's liquor store from 3 to 60 million dollars in business I ran newspaper ads and did radio and did direct mail. And then in the late 90s, very quickly I realized the Internet was here and that became email marketing and Google AdWords. So to me, the way I think everyone in here needs to navigate social media is well, if you're a B2B company in here and you're not posting three or four times a day on LinkedIn to extract value of awareness and lead generation and consideration and brand building, then you're leaving opportunity on the table when the cost of awareness is almost zero. That's up to you. To me, I'm not overly emotional. If people are making TikToks or YouTube shorts or engaging on Twitter or posting on LinkedIn, I just think it's a wasted opportunity of growing your business. So what I spend my time on is reverse engineering where consumer attention is and trying to fill those pipes that the attention is in with content that is compelling. Designing a postcard for direct mail in 1997 is exactly the same thing I'm doing, except I'm trying to make a video that will get organic reach on TikTok. But it's still the same game, which is I want to get in front of you, whether in a small setting like this or in the landscape of the Internet. And I want to say something that's compelling enough to you that it creates a relationship which then may be monetizable, which may not be monetizable, and both are fine. But you know, I'm fascinated by the naivete and the underestimation of social media brand building and sales done by the businesses around the world. And it continues to be an opportunity because it's underestimated by the biggest brands in the world.

[Moderator]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host]

Hey everybody. Hope you're enjoying the podcast right now.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting.

[Podcast Host]

Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It'll make my mom super happy.

[Moderator]

And you mentioned how you create content to fill up those pipelines. Influencers took on the world five, six years ago. Right now we have a creator economy where it's fueled by TikTok, because obviously that's where creators kind of have an ecosystem. How do you feel between producing content as a business versus creators producing content and consumers getting on board that I like them both.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

My biggest strategy in life is never let somebody else have more leverage than you have. So I prefer every business here left and was better at making their own content, not relying on an influencer, comma. My second favorite thing in business is to buy underpriced attention. There is a staggering amount of influencers that are very underpriced when you do a brand deal with them because they create the content and the distribution and create the consideration and relevance. So the answer to the question is 1A and 1B. 1A. If you put me in the court first of all, my answer to everything is both and, and so it's not one or the other. I'm very much in and in both, you know, mindset. However, if somebody said, please pick one, the answer is very simple. You have to be good at it. Because the second you're at the mercy of someone else, you're at the mercy of someone else.

[Moderator]

Clear.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And I'll also say, just to add a nuance, if you yourself are good at it, you then have the ability to judge if an influencer is doing a good job at it. The biggest mistake that most people make is they're outsourcing marketing at a time where the world is commoditizing most things because of the speed of technology, except the ability to be a communicator, you know, and so a lot of our businesses in here are dramatically more commoditized than they were 30 years ago. It's just the way the world's working. Globalization, technology are just commoditizing things in a way that is very profound. And what that's going to leave with is whomever is communicating best is going to grow because the product and services are just not distinguishable enough.

[Moderator]

So are you a fan of in housing marketing? I mean, we have a couple of agencies and services in the cloud, so I just want to make sure they understand their future potential.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Look, I think, you know, I think anybody who is capable of doing anything at a better cost should do that. You know, what we've seen in housing in the last decade in agency land, from my perspective, is people have in house the wrong thing. People have decided to in house social media because they don't think it's serious. Meanwhile, it's much harder than doing print or commercials. In housing, your creative agency is a piece of cake. You hire a strategist and a head creative and you don't need to pay a creative agency of record. In housing, social is hard. Social's hard. You know, like, it's really hard for social media to be a driver of business, which is why so many people don't take it seriously. They don't realize its impact. And then number two, every time they've done it, it hasn't worked because they haven't really allocated a lot of money or energy towards it and they had no idea how to judge it. And most people aren't good at it. So, you know, I think in housing, whether that continues or not is kind of irrelevant because if you're good at what you do, there will always be a market for it. I think where agencies have to be careful in general is a lot of agencies are not providing enough ROI to the cost that brands are paying them. I really believe that. And I think that's something we all have to look ourselves in the mirror and say, is this something that they can't replace internally for less costs? And if they can, they will and they should.

[Moderator]

Is there no concern about the talent pool being a bit stale at once? You do some, some in housing versus kind of getting some more ideas.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I think it's the biggest vulnerability of being in house when, when I come up with strategies, I'm looking at 800 different businesses across many different industries and a scam. We spend $1 billion in media, you know, good luck, go spend a billion dollars in media to like get a sense. We pump out thousands of pieces of creative a day and have quantum quality back against that. That's going to make us sharper than somebody who's posting for the same company every day. Of course, on the flip side, they have better intent. An employee for a company is going to care more than an agency cares about a third party client. So there's pros and cons. Like everything in life, I think the bigger issue is both in house and outside agencies. We have not gotten to the more complicated conversation around social media marketing, which is most of it's not strategic. It's just not. Most people don't understand the creative variables. Most people do not understand the platform nuances. Most people don't understand the creative variables that actually drive consideration. People are just posting shit and that's why bosses are struggling with it. They don't fully know because they don't deem themselves an expert. But they can tell in their stomach, in their intuition that their internal and external people aren't there. Do you know what I mean? They can smell that. It's just like, why did we post that? And most time people don't have a good answer. There's not a single thing that I've ever posted in my life that there isn't a specific reason why. And I think we do not have enough thoughtfulness in marketing, period. I would say that's the biggest issue with branding and marketing overall. I don't think this is a social media phenomenon. I think billboards are a problem. I think print ads are a problem and I think commercials are the biggest problem. I think people are just making videos they want to make. And so I think there's a lot of work to do in advertising.

[Podcast Host]

Hey everybody, hope you're enjoying the podcast right now.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'M interrupting.

[Podcast Host]

Let's keep going going on this show, but follow the podcast.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It'll make my mom super happy.

[Moderator]

So we spoke a lot about the current and a bit about the past. What are the three things that probably none of us in the room have looked into as headlights in the space that you think that we should pay attention to?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

This is tough because I'm a big fan. I'm not. You know, it's funny. I'm a humongous fan of today. I really dislike it yesterday. I think almost everyone puts yesterday on a pedestal. I think there's a small percentage of putting tomorrow on a pedestal, which I also dislike. You know, a lot of times people think I'm ahead. I'm not really ahead. It's just that I spend so much time talking about today in a world that's almost completely built on yesterday. And so I struggle. You know, the metaverse, last year, everyone's like, metaverse, metaverse. I'm like, there's like seven people in the metaverse out of 8 billion. Like, you know, that's not interesting. So tomorrow. What I would say about tomorrow is you have no shot at being successful at tomorrow if you're not successful today. So it's gonna be very hard for me to get you excited about AR filters and the metaverse when it's time and AI oriented, creative. If you haven't made a commitment to social media marketing properly in 2023, making the jump from television commercials or conference booths or whatever you're doing to jumping to the world that's in front of us is very challenging. It's like running a marathon without ever training for it. And so I think a lot of businesses on the precipitous of being disturbed and disrupted and have no clue about it. Very similar to the way that network television completely underestimated streaming, much like the entire transportation industry grossly underestimated Uber. Yeah, just. I just. The retail sector really underestimated the Internet in the early 2000s. I think most businesses are dramatically more compromised than they think. I don't care what exclusive deals you have, what partnerships you have, how long you've been employed. Business technology is coming at such an aggressive rate. I just. I'm surprised people aren't taking it more seriously.

[Moderator]

So that's the first chapter of marketing, which is about today. So that's a good summary on that front. Tell us about your point of view when it comes down to kids and screens, because three years ago, when we. When we met with half of the folks in the room, kids and screen was a big topic. And I think most of us are parents here, at least pet parents. Maybe no screens there, but what are your thoughts about kids and screens?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Three years later, My point of view on this has not changed. I believe that parents should parent. And I'll tell you for the people that weren't there or remember the conversation and I didn't, you know, like, I just don't understand why parents continue to blame techno technology instead of themselves. If you're worried about screens, don't let your kids have screens. You know, this concept that parents are just reinforcing a major issue in our society, which is a complete and utter lack of accountability. If you don't like TikTok, take it off your kids, you know, iPad. If you don't want them to be on screens, take it away. The issue is not screens. The issue is hypocrisy. You can't talk about screens all day and say how shitty they are, and then when you have your friend over and the kids are making noise, you throw the iPad at them. So I think, you know, I think what's happening in the world is we are getting better and better and better and better at playing pointing fingers. It's the government's fault, it's this religion's fault, it's this tech company's fault, it's this app's fault, it's this influencer's fault. We've gotten so good at blaming absolutely everything but ourselves that we're starting to hit a tipping point. Because one of the things is, the reason people are so unhappy is because they're judging everyone. We're all judging each other, which is actually just a tell. That means you're judging yourself. We're just in this perpetual thing. And so, you know, I think screens are incredibly positive and incredibly negative, the same way I feel about everything. I think religion is that way, I think government is that way. I think society is that way. It's a boring thing to watch people blame screens. I think we have to start the beginning of a new chapter in modern society. I think it's time to start blaming ourselves. And the second you blame yourself, well, then you can start controlling the outcome you want. But blaming screens but then not enforcing it in your own home, where you have 100% control because you're worried about your child being mad at you for a little while. Seems soft. There we have it.

[Moderator]

All right, you mentioned a bit about the metaverse.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Not to mention, I apologize. One last thing. What world do you think your children are going to be living in screens are going to be amateur hour.

[Moderator]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

If the metaverse is right, which I think it's very hard to see a world of, why it would not be right, because I would argue we live in the metaverse now. How many hours are you spending looking at a screen? So, you know, like, where do you think this is going? I would be flabbergasted if, in 60 years, people aren't living in a ready player one world. It would make no sense to me other than vacationing out of it. But, like, technology only goes in one direction. We're not gonna ride horses down the highway. It's not happening. You know, nobody's giving up their phone in this room. You might do it for a week to make a political statement, but you're not giving it up. So that's how I see it.

[Moderator]

And does that feed into. I know you're big on culture, specifically on business culture, but also social culture in terms of your ecosystem. Talk to us about. If you don't mind, talk to us about that and how you think the culture impact will have on businesses in the room, knowing that ultimately it's all about the screen.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah. I mean, look, I think. You know, it's funny. I was a very poor student, which was very weird for immigrants in the U.S. at the time I was growing up, but there was always one class I was really good at, which was history. I never really understood until I got older. I was like, oh, I'm using it as pattern recognition. You know, I don't think people realize how far the world comes in short periods of time. Maybe long for us, because we get to hang out for 80 to 100 years, but the iPhone's 15 years old. Like 16 years ago, we all walked around Earth and did not have the Internet in our hand. It's like two seconds ago. Right? The Internet. I went through my entire childhood, all of it into high school, never was on the Internet, not once. You know, so, you know, I think, how is it going to affect it? It's going to affect it massively. I don't think people understand how profound the changes in our world are. You've got people who are more attached to communities on the Internet than they are attached to religions or countries. This is a profound shift in. And by the way, that's good. Like, that's what always happens. The world always evolves. Like, I mean, we're in a country that's like four seconds old. We're, like, literally in a country that is. I'm older than, like, you know, I just, you know, I think people are really fascinating to me. They think that the world will never change in the moment they're in. They take no history into account. Like, think about 40 years ago. Nothing on earth feels like it's similar to what was going on because of the landscape of the Internet. Well, think about what 40 years from now is going to look like now that the Internet and blockchain exists. These are humongous. We have decentralized servers, servers at scale that can run the world the way the Internet does, that nobody owns. Do you know how profound that is? But people would rather get caught up in the value of a single NFT and make a decision about the entire Web3 movement based on greed.

[Moderator]

You know, so speaking of NFTs.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Moderator]

VFriends. Yes, speak to us, if you don't mind about that.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You know, two years ago I saw, 18 months ago, whatever it is now, like, I saw the NFT thing coming. It was like, okay, this is going to happen. People are doing it now. And I did the same thing I did with the Internet in 97 when I launched my dad's liquor store online. I did the same thing I did in 2005. Six, when I saw Web 2.0 coming, I realized I had to be involved. I had to do something for me to understand it, because I'm not capable of learning by listening. You know, I got, I can't, I'm not going to study it, I have to live it. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to do an NFT project. And then what happened was what? And so where I defaulted into there was similar to what I've done for the last 15 years, which is, how do I provide value? If I provide the most value, well, then everything I want will happen. And so the first thing I thought was, well, I don't want it to just be an nft. I want to use the SMART contract. So if I sell an NFT collectible, I want it to also have real world value. So with Be Friends, what I did was if you bought the NFT, you got a ticket to three years of a conference called VCon. And it's become a big deal. It's like a big conference. And it's very valuable to the people that get the tickets for it. So that was good on the intellectual property. I wanted to create something that meant something to me. So I created a uniform Be friends of almost 300 different characters. And to make it make sense to people, I would say it's a Mix between Sesame street and Pokemon. Right. It's these characters, Patient Panda, Accountable Aunt, the things that I care about, what I just talked to you about with screens and parents. I signed a kid's book deal with HarperCollins and I'm going to tell the story story about Accountable Aunt, which is this aunt that understands that the things that aren't working for him are his fault, which I think would be very good to teach seven year olds. And so with Vee Friends, I'm excited. Over the next 30 to 40 to 50 years, I'd like to give it a real try and see if I can create an intellectual property that hopefully before I die is in the same sentences of things like Marvel or Lucas or Disney. And obviously I'm not naive and I'm not unaware that those are some of the biggest IPs that have ever been created. But for me, I'm going to try to do that for the next 50 years and see where my talents take me. So be Friends is my intellectual property of characters that I hope bring a balanced point of view on humanity, which is things like it's important to rest and not have anxiety. But it's also important to understand that if you're going to achieve something meaningful, hard work is part of the equation.

[Podcast Host]

Right now.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

The world doesn't understand how to have both of those things be true. I think it's very easy for those things to be true. And so I'm going to use my universe, hopefully to bring the world back to the middle as it keeps wanting to pull away on opposite directions.

[Moderator]

I didn't know how deep the vfriends thing went, so that's pretty interesting to know and I'm sure the audience as well. So if an NFT doesn't have a tangible utility, do you think that's not going to fly or that's not going to have a. I think.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I think 1% will fly. An Andy Warhol painting has no tangible value. It's a thing. But why is it $400,000 versus this per dollar? Collecting is real. Yeah. You know, a sneaker 40 years ago was not worth anything. Today, a first Michael Jordan in good shape. Sneaker is worth a lot of money. Sports cards and football stickers. You know, Mo Salah's rookie card is worth money because people want it. People collect. And that's a very big economy. It's a trillion dollar economy. It's a trillion dollar economy. People collect things. So I think a very small percentage, 1% of all the NFTs that have been made in the last seven years could go on to be incredible collectibles. But you know, that's the way most things are in collectibles. 1% of comic books that have been made for the last 70 years are very, very valuable. Most are not 1% of trading cards, 1% of art. And that makes sense. I think that will be big and that will be a trillion dollar business. Today our kids buy things on Fortnite and 2K and Madden and Roblox and Mike. Right. Bless you. They buy digital collectibles to express themselves. The same reason somebody buys a Rolex and a fancy car. There's the car and there's the watch. But then there's the expression that comes along with owning it. Digital will scale that. So I think that will be a big thing, collectibles. I think the next big thing is going to be tangible utility. Many years ago when you first saw QR code, you were like, okay, that's a squiggly thing. Today when you get on the airplane, you have a QR code. It is a utility. We don't use a piece of paper like a lot of us grew up. It is a QR code. One day we will have NFT readers and NFTs will replace it. Because NFTs are a tangible item that can also be transferred. It might be a collectible. You know, to celebrate a 50th year of being in existence, you may issue on Emirates a collectible flight card for a full year. And then maybe that artist in 20 years becomes famous and then that tangible thing that sits in your Apple wallet now all of a sudden it becomes a collectible. So like, there'll be reasons because then that company could also get the royalties on the sale. So there's a lot of logic to why it will be something. Receipts from luxury goods. If I go to the mall and buy a $20,000 handbag and they give me a paper receipt that goes in the garbage, that doesn't mean anything. If they gave me an NFT receipt seat that was done by a meaningful artist, maybe that means something. It's going to create things that we can't think of right now. I just gave you a couple my. I went to the World cup in Qatar, right? Like. But that little paper thing that got me in, that's somewhere in my shelf now. I already lost it. Where is it? Right. Whereas if my ticket was an nft, somebody could bid on it right now as a collectible. So I think we'll see use cases in the next decade. And I Think we'll see more and more. Plus, it's a smart contract just, just to really put in everyone's mind. Title, insurance, deeds. There's a lot of things that NFTs today we think of NFTs as one thing. But again for the OGs in here, in 1997 we thought of websites, meaning one thing. It was like a one piece page flyer. Right. They evolved. NFTs right now are like silly collectibles to most people. I understand. But I think over the next 20 years they'll evolve into something that all of us will interact with day to day.

[Audience Member 1]

First, I'm a huge fan. I first want to sign up today.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Thank you.

[Audience Member 1]

Last year was the one called thank you. Thank you for giving us your time. Just a quick question about our kids because like 90% of what the kids are learning at school is going to be done by AI, much in a much easier way.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You're very nice.

[Audience Member 2]

Okay, 99%.

[Audience Member 1]

So my question is how can we direct them into things that you think AI is not? Because for me, the future is going to be AI and human doing things together. So what part on the human side can we push our kids?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Thank you. So I think the first thing we, we have My point, one man's point of view and I love talking in general. Never one on one. Giving someone advice on how to parent their child is the worst one on one macro. There's clearly themes. Couple things. Right now, schools across the world are banning ChatGPT. What can we do? We can push against the schools and have a meaningful conversation. Here's what I mean by that. School are banning ChatGPT because they don't understand it. Right? They're banning it because they think it's cheating or it's undermining what they're selling. They're selling memorization of commodity of information. Schools are selling for our children to memorize information that is commodity because it's at the fingertips of our phones. Meanwhile, ChatGPT and AI is about to teach the world the value of critical thinking. ChatGPT sucks if you don't input thoughtful critical thinking. So we have this moment in time right now where we can literally teach children how to critically think the singular thing that that actually matters when we get older. Yet we're just watching. And as a matter of fact, most parents are cheering the banning of ChatGPT because they fear new things, they're lazy to look into it, or they're just not thoughtful enough to realize what the fuck is going on. So I think a couple things One, it's gonna be hard for maybe us to, you know, for you to find all the parents in the school to convince the school, not that that's gonna be hard, but what you do at home is not hard. And it's no different than screens. If a child feels, from a parent when the school is saying no to something, that they come home and you're saying yes to it and you're teaching them while you're learning yourself by the way of how to use these tools, it's invigorating because most kids, you know, it's really funny. I believe schools, if you really look at it, most kids start off not fully wanting to conform, and then they're just beating down into it, and then they become anxious because they want to conform to doing well on something every 90 days. And the whole thing is just whack. So I think the biggest thing you can do is try to teach them how to critically think. And I think AI is the first scalable tool. I mean, you could have done it with search, but we almost became too commoditized and we don't think of it that way. But there's a lot of actual critical thinking in search. Like, the better you are at it, the better your results will be. However, AI makes Google feel like the encyclopedia. When this is all said and done, we'll all be telling our grandchildren, no. Google was amazing. So we did everything. And they're gonna laugh the same way that we all laugh at the yellow Pages today. So I think, you know, I think the thing that I would say is doing things with your children, whether it's hiking, playing video games, like anything you can do with your child forms a real relationship. It's just very powerful potentially for many of you, going on your own journey with your child. Normally we've already done the things we do with our children, but if you're able to go with your child on this journey together on how to become a critical thinker as an inputter to artificial intelligence, it may be one of the most fruitful journeys you can go on.

[Audience Member 3]

You talk a lot about self esteem.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Audience Member 3]

So could you please talk to us.

[Moderator]

A little bit more?

[Audience Member 3]

How to build ours and our children, besides just putting our vulnerabilities out there. I know you talked about that. What's your next thoughts on that?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

There's so much to this. But I, but I couple thoughts that come to mind. One, we've got to spend a lot more energy on what we're good at versus spending our energy on what we're not. People are incredibly capable of spending most of their time and efforts nitpicking on themselves. That's a very different thing than trying to advance yourself. You know, people get confused. They think they're trying to advance themselves. What they don't realize is they're being unkind to themselves. So I think that's one first thing to think about. Number two, positive reinforcement works. I think the number one way to build self esteem is to reinforce the behaviors that your child or yourself are doing. Well, instead of saying, I suck at sales, instead of being here tonight and sitting, and you're literally sitting right now and you know that you're introverted and you're saying even as you're listening to me right now, God damn it, this is going to be over and I'm not going to say hello to anybody and I'm going to leave and I'm not going to network. I'm not good at it. Instead of saying, saying that, you could say, I'm so proud of myself for taking time out to come to this, to try to build my advancement. I really believe in this, my friend. I really think that it's twofold. One, the acknowledgement of what's good versus what's bad. And number two, when you're trying to build it, the complete and utter celebration at all costs, every time your child does something you're proud of, we're incredibly. Again, think about this. Back to school, back to coaching, back to parenting. We'll go. Just think about your own self. If you're going through this, you're more likely to talk when you're telling your child something they're not doing well than celebrating something they are doing well. It's just the way the world's currency works. If you're able to flip that, you're able to build self esteem. Yeah, I mean, it starts with you. It's pretty much impossible for a parent to instill self esteem into their child if they have none themselves.

[Audience Member 2]

So with all the technology that is going on, how do you humanize things? How do we humanize the culture and the people and the relationships? What's your take on that?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You know, for me, it's been the reverse. I've been able to humanize my company at scale because of technology. So to me, humanization is done through intent and effort and execution. Meaning I have 1600 people that work for me. 400 of them live in APAC. I live in Manhattan. In 1989, I'd say them once or twice a year. Maybe. Maybe today with Zoom and Google Hangout. I just have to stay up to 9pm and get on with them when they're in the office at 9am and I have real conversations. To me, technology has empowered us to be more human. We just sometimes define the medium as the human part, not the actual effort. For some reason, the world thinks when you write someone a letter that that's good. And when you write someone a text, it's not a letter. We've decided is so profound. You just put in so much effort, it means so much a text bad. What we've done is we've put our focus on the mediums instead of the message. Right. So. So for me, technology has advanced my ability to scale the humanity. I'm interacting with my employees at a scale I could have never done 30 years ago. Some of it's email, some of it's text, a lot of it is video because nothing is lost. I don't like communicating with my company in written word because I find that if you communicate in written word, people interpret the tone based on where they are in their body. Whereas if I'm speaking like this, you could read the transcripts of what I said right now and it's gonna feel very different than what we're feeling in here. So I think the more zooms, the more FaceTimes. It's been, it's been the backbone of my scaled humanization. But I'm empathetic to why people think like, look, sitting across from each other at dinner and having a 20 minute conversation is more of a connection than 20 minutes on Zoom. The problem is there's no scale to that. I could do that zoom all day long in perpetuity. Especially if your company isn't all in the same location, which is now everyone's norm. Use it. The intent of what you're trying to accomplish is far more powerful than the distribution, whether you're having dinner or whether you're texting someone.

[Audience Member 4]

Hi, Gary.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Hi. I'm in.

[Audience Member 4]

Talked about earlier and the jewelry business and you know, me being a hardcore marketeer. 100 on print media. My daughter joined and became the first company or become 100% digital four years ago. So all that, you know, and fast forward today. When we started, you know, we did everything under the sun. We were like one of 15 or 20 doing that. So that got us a lot of advantage until today. You know, we are ahead of the curve in market, you name it, geotagging, nationality, everything, you know, we try to do. But I feel more like going forward, I'm that one out of 252 now in that space. Because our friends at Facebook, Meta, TikTok all, they're so much commoditizing this space with revenue or whatever is generating for them that consumers who are in this room, they're actually so much bothered that that content is not really relevant for our day. They like me, they like my jewelry and all that, but they, come on, they're like 200 people doing the same and not the same, but they just swipe it right. So what is the way we should look at differentiating that or we became too much digital. Should we go back a little back on print and do something more tactical? Because I feel that going 100% in was great for that time. But today I'm feeling for my three, four months, you know, the challenge, I.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Think what you felt was the land grab of winning on distribution. Now what has to happen is you have to win on the execution of creative. The art now matters more than just the medium. I think if you went back to print, you would be stunned on how much worse it got. But that doesn't make you stop from doing it. I did direct mail for my dad's wine store three months ago. Okay. Because I'm always just going to curious on the things that you're talking about. You know, the problem with curiosity is I probably wouldn't have done that print for my dad if I didn't need it for my talks like this.

[Moderator]

So don't tell you that.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah, I've done enough for him. He'll be okay. But the truth is, that is the truth. I do that because I want to be able to answer these questions. But the reality is you think the attention's going away from the screen. You should see what's happening with the mailbox, you know? So I think what you need to figure out is the thing that I most pay attention now, which was the beginning of the talk, which is now you have to be good at it. You know, when you're the only restaurant in town, when you have 15 restaurants, you just have to be a better restaurant. But people are still eating, so you just have more competition now. Then there's also platforms. You know, a lot of jewelers don't realize how much they could be selling on LinkedIn because they think it's B2B. But the problem is everyone that's in there is also a C. So I think LinkedIn is a huge opportunity. Are you doing YouTube shorts? No. That is a massive opportunity. I think YouTube shorts is one of my favorite platforms. It acts like TikTok and Instagram, but because it's YouTube, people still search YouTube. So if you title your videos very smartly, you could get the organic reach from doing a good social media post. But unlike most of the other platforms where you have a 24 hour window and it's on to the next thing, if you do YouTube shorts very well and you title it properly for search more than for virality, it can live forever. So it's this goes to like I'll use college terms. We're now in 301 and most people are still doing 101. LinkedIn's very. But remember, you have to make it contextual. All of a sudden maybe you're marketing a watch. You're also talking about the value of time because everyone's mindset when they're on LinkedIn is business. You see where I'm going, the creative matters, the art matters. And most people would prefer it not because you don't know how to judge it, but it does. Thanks.

[Audience Member 5]

Hi Gary, thanks for being here.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Of course.

[Audience Member 5]

I first came to make my son.

[Moderator]

Jealous, so he's really jealous.

[Audience Member 5]

And then I had no question to ask you, so I asked ChatGPT amazing what would be a great question to ask at a conference of successful businessmen. The question was, what do you believe is the most important factor in sustaining long term success in business? How do you ensure that you and your team stay motivated and focused on achieving your goals over time?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

By the way, that's where this is going. You know what's really interesting is 8 years ago I started documenting my life and a lot of people made fun of me for it because, you know, who do you think you are? What are you on a reality show? It was very awkward. I literally 8 years ago started having a man follow me around 24 7. And I remember early on when I would explain it to my friends, I said, there's two reasons I'm doing this. One, my grandkids are going to be able to watch this one day and that's cool. I lost both of my grandfathers before I got to know them. I wish my grandfathers did this. It would be so neat. You know, why do we take pictures? You know, like, so that I was excited about. But I also knew back then that the intellectual property of all the content and the promise of machine learning and all this other stuff. So when you said you should have chat GPT answer that question. What's scarier is, is I've documented so much of my life and so much data has been collected that once I process it all the way through, it will answer that question for him as if I answered it. It's really, really profound what's going on. And when people hear that, they're like, it's all weird. And I'm like, well, the cell phone's weird to our great great grandparents. A refrigerator is weird, weird to our great great great grandparents. So like the world will always continue to evolve. To answer today's question for me, the number one thing to create a sustainable business is to give 51% of the value to everyone you touch in perpetuity. Your customers, your employees, your partners. If you are thoughtful enough to provide more value to every single entity in the ecosystem of your business. Three, three ingredients. Your vendors, your employees, your customers. If you are obsessed with making sure every one of those groups of people have more value in the relationship with you than you have with them. 5149, I'm not a non profit but 5149, if you're able to achieve that, you will have the leverage of a sustainable business for the rest of your life. The biggest problem for almost every business is they try not to do that at all costs with any of the three and especially the big one is with their employees. The second you decide that you work for your employees for real, not like a T shirt, not like a slogan. The second you wake up and in your soul you say, I work for these people, not they work for me. A second, I'll show you a business that's about to grow and it comes very foreign to people. But I pay that person to work. You know, it's a very, very foreign point of view. But if you can get there, I think you can build a sustainable business. And number two, how do I assure it? I never give up control. No board, no publicly traded company, no investor. The second you control everything and no one has say, well then you can keep everything you care about accountable.

[Moderator]

Last question.

[Audience Member 2]

Yes. I'm Jenny and I've worked for Bloomberg for 18 years. I have two questions for you. Gen Z.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes. Okay.

[Audience Member 2]

The hardest people to please motivate and I feel the emotional intelligence is in their passes.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Right?

[Audience Member 2]

So I want to understand what, what is your take on their motivation and also how to retain is the hardest thing we could do.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Couple things. Gen Z. Gen Z's retention issue is not predicated on their entitlement or their emotional intelligence or their lack of or their lack of motivation. It's predicated on their options. This is something everybody in here needs to really wrap their head around some. Someone who's 22 years old, unlike all of us when we were 22, knows the following. I could work for Gary or Nadeem or you and make 51,000 a year doing something that I don't fully love. Or I could make TikToks all day long and make 51,000 a year on ads and brand deals. We have to adjust to the amount of options they have to make money. It's not super complicated, and many of us would have done the same if we were 16 today and realized it. We're struggling as companies for retention because they have too many options, and that's not their fault. That means we have to step up and find new reasons and we have to deliver more value. And that's because there's fragmentation in the economy, because people have options. They're just. They genuinely. And I mean, this. This is at scale. They know. They know. You know, like, people want to paint this picture of them, that they're lazy. Yes. A lot of them have parents that will pay for them, which is not something a lot of us grew up with. But it's very small compared to the ones that just know the. That they can do it if they could just do it. And they're smart enough to know that they should at least try. In their 20s, they'll be better employees for you. After they're 30 and they realize they weren't capable, it's just a different game. Garrett, thank you very much, everybody.

[Podcast Host]

If you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

They're loaded. I appreciate your attention, and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.