Podcast Summary: How to Stay Patient While Building Your Career
The GaryVee Audio Experience – Tea with GaryVee Ep #84
Host: Gary Vaynerchuk
Date: September 12, 2025
Episode Overview
In this energetic episode of "Tea with GaryVee," Gary Vaynerchuk dives into the theme of patience and perseverance in career building. Featuring live questions from listeners at various life stages and industries (from musicians and entrepreneurs to family-focused cookie bakers), Gary offers his trademark tough love, practical advice, and motivational wisdom. The episode is rich with actionable insights into starting from scratch, financial discipline, content creation, and the emotional realities of business leadership.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Embracing the Journey: Comparing Yourself to Others
- Featured Speaker: Young Wolf (Chicago musician, recently signed)
- Timestamp: [00:28–04:00]
- Challenge: Feeling “behind” in his early 30s, lacking a big fanbase and financial stability despite a new record deal.
- Gary’s Advice:
- “It’s okay to be ambitious... It is not allowed to have consistent dwelling and consistent beating yourself up for dumb shit, Wolf.” [00:56]
- Gary recounts his own story at 34, having little personal financial reward after 12 years of hard work building his father's business.
- Action Step: Celebrate what you have achieved instead of lamenting what you haven’t; double down on personal engagement—reply to every DM and comment, start now, no matter your age.
2. Pursuing Passion Later in Life
- Featured Speaker: Aaron (Northern Ireland, cookie side-hustle with his kids)
- Timestamp: [04:00–06:44]
- Challenge: Uncertainty about turning a passion project into a bigger venture at age 39.
- Gary’s Take:
- “You, Aaron, you do know that you’ve hit the holy grail to have something that consumes you... God willing, you’re going to live for another 60 years.” [05:17]
- Action Step: Invest in content and selling—leverage every minute now to grow, knowing it’s possible to transition to full-time if you stay disciplined.
3. Scaling a Business with Limited Resources
- Speaker: Anonymous pest control business owner
- Timestamp: [06:54–10:36]
- Challenge: Making $120k gross/year, wanting to hire and scale but lacks capital.
- Gary’s Financial Discipline Rant:
- “If you want to scale a business, you have to give the money to the business, not to yourself.” [07:10]
- Calls out unnecessary spending: “Almost everybody I know on earth spends too much money on dumb shit, even if they think they’re financially disciplined.” [07:50]
- Action Step: Live well below your means; reinvest into the business.
4. Marketing in 2025: The Relentless Case for Organic Content
- Speaker: Mario (Belgium, pizza catering)
- Timestamp: [10:36–13:07]
- Challenge: Hesitation on whether social content works for catering in Belgium.
- Gary’s “Tough Love”:
- “Mario, you spit in my face... it’s fucking organic social media. Make fucking pizza videos on Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, Instagram, and you’ll sell fucking pizza.” [11:43]
- Memorable Moment: Gary playfully tells Mario he can either become “Super Mario or shitty Mario” based on his willingness to execute. [12:43]
- Action Step: Consistently create and post content, no market is exempt.
5. Navigating Side Hustles When You Have a Day Job
- Speaker: Crystal (question read by Aaron)
- Timestamp: [13:07–14:18]
- Challenge: Posting about a side hustle on LinkedIn while being watched by corporate management.
- Gary’s Strategies:
- Create under a pseudonym, use AI if needed for anonymity.
- Be transparent with management/HR about your side hustle.
- Set up the side hustle under a family member’s name.
- Quote: “You could go all in and just deal with the ramifications, right?” [13:24]
6. Turning Attention Into Actual Sales
- Speaker: Brendan (retail/e-comm manager)
- Timestamp: [14:18–15:43]
- Challenge: Viral videos with a celebrity aren’t boosting sales.
- Gary’s Solution:
- “By throwing some right hooks... do some ads, have the personality make an ad and be like, if I’ve done anything for you that has brought value, please buy my thing.” [14:34]
- Warns against selling to people who can’t afford it: "Do not ever buy anything from me ever, if money is tight." [15:24]
7. Addressing Toxic Workplaces & 'Softness' in Culture
- Timestamp: [16:43]
- “How do I deal with toxicity at the workplace? The answer is quit. Or look yourself in the mirror and find out if you think something’s toxic that’s just inconvenient and you’re a soft puss... gotta make sure you’re not a soft puss.”
8. The Emotional Realities of Firing People
- Speaker: Nick (Long Island, business owner; conversation about empathy and leadership)
- Timestamp: [17:19–23:45]
- Challenge: Struggling with empathy, firing employees, and feeling responsible for their struggles.
- Gary’s Reflections:
- “Firing people has been the bane of my existence. I hate it to this day.” [18:46]
- Solution: Look at the bigger picture—keeping underperformers hurts the company and the high-performing employees. There’s ego in thinking you’re always someone’s best fit.
- “I realized that people that were remarkable... I wasn’t able to give as much compensation to. Cause the fucking leeches and the bottom feeders were eating up the dollars...” [22:01]
- Fire earlier with severance rather than delaying at everyone’s expense.
9. Trusting Your Gut Over Your Brain
- Timestamp: [23:01–23:45]
- “I will die on this. I believe within the next hundred years we will realize that our gut is the primary problem and our brain is secondary...” [23:09]
- Listeners affirm Gary’s intuition mantra as something that “sticks with you weekly.” [23:36]
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
- “Start now at 34. Start now at 44. Start now at 55. Start now at 66. Start now at 77. That’s the fucking game.” – GaryVee to Young Wolf [03:35]
- “You are right there, brother. You’re on the cusp. You got it... You’re so young. I’m so pumped that you’re on the cusp at 39.” – GaryVee to Aaron [05:17]
- “Almost everybody I know on earth spends too much money on dumb shit, even if they think they’re financially disciplined.” [07:50]
- “Mario, you spit in my face. Make fucking pizza videos... and you’ll sell fucking pizza.” [11:43]
- “Once you realize when you’re putting 80 hours into the cookie thing, you’ll be able to make as much. You’re gonna make that jump.” [06:23]
- “I hate firing people to this day... but if I don’t do it, everybody else gets fired too, in the form of us going out of business.” [18:45]
- “There’s a little ego in it where you think they’re better off with you... I’ve seen many people find better environments than mine.” [20:20]
- On intuition: “Nine times out of ten, it’s the right thing to do.” [23:36]
Important Timestamps
- [00:28] — Advice for artists feeling behind (Young Wolf)
- [04:00] — Turning kid-time cookie making into a business (Aaron)
- [06:54] — Scaling a solopreneur service business with discipline
- [10:36] — Pizza catering in Belgium: Content is universal
- [13:07] — Managing your side hustle under corporate surveillance
- [14:18] — Converting social views into sales
- [16:43] — Navigating toxic environments
- [17:19] — Empathy in leadership and firing (Nick’s story)
- [23:09] — The future of intuition in decision-making
Summary Takeaways
- Progress is relative: Focus on what you’ve accomplished, not just what’s missing.
- Be patient and play long-term: Starting or pivoting at any age is valid.
- Double down on content: There’s no substitute for showing up online with organic content, regardless of industry or region.
- Financial discipline fuels growth: Redirect “luxury” spending to business development.
- Leadership requires tough but fair decisions: Caring for employees means making difficult choices for the greater good.
- Trust your gut: Intuition, not just intellect, is crucial for authentic decision-making and leadership.
The episode offers classic, high-energy GaryVee wisdom—equal parts pep talk, tactical advice, and permission to get real about the highs and lows of chasing dreams.