How to Stop Caring and Start Posting

Summary

Podcast Summary: The GaryVee Audio Experience

Episode: How to Stop Caring and Start Posting

Host: Gary Vaynerchuk
Date: June 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this dynamic episode, Gary Vaynerchuk, entrepreneur, CEO, and self-described content obsessive, delivers an energetic keynote focused on the unprecedented opportunities available to creators, entrepreneurs, and everyday people in today’s digital landscape. He breaks down the necessity of content creation, exposes the real blockers (fear of judgment and insecurity), and fields passionate questions from a live audience about personal branding, business growth, and overcoming social media anxiety.

Gary’s trademark blend of actionable advice, real talk, humor, and empathy powers a discussion aimed squarely at pushing listeners past their fears and into action—emphasizing that “if you are not communicating, you don’t exist.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Unmatched Opportunity of Digital Platforms ([00:02]–[06:18])

• Distribution is Free:
  Gary stresses that the barriers to entry for reaching audiences have never been lower, thanks to platforms like LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, and Shopify.

  • “Distribution is free. It used to cost a fortune. Now what you put inside of it is the variable of your success, not your financial capabilities...” ([06:18])

• Brand vs. Transactional Thinking:
  Success comes from building a brand/reputation for the long term, not just chasing quick transactions.

  • “The ones who win play long-term brand. The ones who underachieve go for short-term money.” ([00:02])

• Underpriced Attention:
  Digital ad costs, especially on platforms like Facebook and YouTube, are “underpriced”. Now is the time to leverage them before competition increases.

2. Democratization of Business Building ([06:18]–[12:00])

• Tech Has Flattened the Playing Field:
  Stories like Spotify and countless “micro” entrepreneurs reveal you no longer need big money or connections to win.

• Stop Idolizing Unicorns:
  There is more value in building a practical, profitable business you love than trying to be the next billion-dollar legend.

• Tangible Examples:

  • Start a global radio show with just your phone.
  • Build a retail business with Shopify, no storefront needed.
  • “You could start a retail company today for almost nothing.” ([04:10])

3. The Real Blocker—Judgment, Insecurity, and Fear ([12:00]–[19:30])

• Most Don’t Post Because of Judgment, Not Tech:
  The #1 reason people don’t post or create is the fear of what others will think.

  • “The reason you’re not posting is insecurity...not that you don’t understand the tech.” ([13:30])

• It’s Not Just Video:
  Every personality type is covered—writers, photographers, audio creators, designers. There’s a platform for you.

  • “Not everyone is great on camera, but you might be a great writer or photographer. Lean into your strength.” ([14:45])

• If You’re Not Communicating, You Don’t Exist:
  Gary repeatedly pounds the message that communicating—about what you love—is non-negotiable for modern relevance.

• Extreme Niche Is the Opportunity:
  Gary shares how someone could turn an obsession (like the TV show Friends, pickles, Star Trek, etc.) into a unique content-based career, debunking the myth that only huge ideas succeed. ([16:50])

4. The Content Strategy: Quantity, Not Perfection ([19:30]–[22:25])

• Content Volume Over Quality Paralysis:
  Most businesses and creators are dramatically under-producing content; often less than 25 posts a year when 25 a week (or more) is achievable and recommended.

  • "If you or your company aren’t putting out 7 to 25 pieces of content a day, you’re making a fundamental mistake.” ([20:28])

• Why Gary Shares Freely:
  Ironically, if more people followed his advice, it would get harder for him to win—but he’s committed to putting this message out for the greater good.

  • “A lot of my smartest friends say, ‘Why do you do this? You’re creating more competition.’ They’re right.” ([22:25])

5. Q&A Highlights: Real-World Scenarios & Tactical Advice ([24:21]–[71:29])

Personal vs. Company Brand ([24:21])

• “People like to follow people over businesses, but it’s about value exchange...You do both. The only mistake is not being yourself.” ([24:32])

Monetizing and Growing a Podcast ([26:02])

• “Keep flexibility. Don’t lock in too early. The audience won’t be mad at you for monetizing, they’ll be mad at you for selling out. There’s a difference.” ([27:07])

Scaling Business & Company Culture ([29:04])

• “At scale, culture is everything. My formula: Employees first, customers second, me third. That’s how you win.” ([30:05])

Finding Passion When You’re Young ([31:29])

• “At 19 or 22, you’re not supposed to know what you want. Sample, taste, try...cold DM 850 people in your passion area and see what happens.” ([31:55])

Avoiding “Hitting the Mendoza Line” ([35:31])

• Don’t always try to scale just for growth. Sometimes, the happiest businesses are “smaller”: “Many go from loving life at $1M to hating it at $3M. You can control the size of your business.” ([35:54])

Dealing with Industry Regulation and “Old School” Colleagues ([39:43])

• “Don’t look for permission. Execute, don’t talk to the old dudes.” ([40:18])
• “People use regulation as an excuse not to do.” ([40:15])

Social Media Posting Frequency and Targeting ([45:36])

• “Once a week isn’t enough. Do nine a day.”
• On B2B LinkedIn ads: “Google how to target on LinkedIn. It’s not tactics, it’s knowing you can.” ([45:40])

Navigating Career Constraints & Side Hustles ([63:51])

• Discusses dealing with corporate culture that frowns on side hustles or personal posting: “If you can, get another job. Happiness over everything.” ([65:08])

Battling Social Media Overwhelm ([66:24])

• On “social media fasting” and boundaries, Gary sets an example as “the most public, private person of all time”—only sharing what he chooses, nothing about his personal life or family unless he wants to.

Managing Haters and Approval (“Fronting”) ([68:40])

• “The reason people struggle is you love Instagram when they say you look real pretty, but you hate it when they say you’re ugly. Limiting your time on TikTok won’t fix that.”
• “If you can’t hear the cheering, you can’t hear the booing.” ([68:40])

Tactical Growth for Food Truck/Local Businesses ([70:15])

• “Don’t guess. Search Twitter and Instagram in your target area to see what students want before you set your menu.”
• Don’t tie yourself to three- or five-year plans—stay open to evolving opportunities.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the opportunity:
  “I can show every one of you what to do ... If every person here went home and made five to seven pictures and videos a day on both TikTok and LinkedIn, within a year, something good would happen for the far majority of you. 99% of you won’t post on either, once, after this talk. The question to me became why.” (Gary, [12:30])

• On insecurity:
  “The reason you’re not posting or doing is because there’s insecurity about what you’re gonna say.” (Gary, [13:30])

• On happiness and career:
  “If you are not disproportionately happy sitting in this room professionally ... you have to take a step back and understand this perspective.” (Gary, [06:50])

• On brand-building:
  “I spend 100,000% of my time on brand. I want people to know my name. ... It’s all brand.” (Gary, [16:13])

• On content types:
  “Not everybody is good on camera. ... But you may be a great writer, or take great photos, or be an amazing designer. Whatever it is, lean into your natural communication style.” (Gary, [14:45])

• On regret:
  “You know what is more likely? You’re gonna email me in six years and say, I wish I did.” (Gary, [21:00])

• On feedback:
  “If you can’t hear the cheering, you can’t hear the booing.” (Gary, [68:40])

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Important Timestamps

• 00:02–06:18: The digital media landscape (“Distribution is free”)
• 12:00–19:30: Insecurity, fear of judgment, and debunking content excuses
• 20:28–22:25: Why content volume matters
• 24:21–65:08: Q&A – personal branding, scaling, monetization, handling haters, balancing privacy, cultural barriers, tactical B2B targeting, and more
• 68:40: Judging praise & criticism, social media impact on self-esteem
• 70:15: Food truck case study—market validation and flexible planning

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Gary’s Tone & Language

• Energetic, practical, motivational, direct
• Unapologetically honest, sometimes blunt, always empathetic
• Frequently uses humor, personal anecdotes, and anecdotal “real talk”
• Focuses on actionable mindsets over tactical “hacks”

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Concluding Action Points

• Start posting—ANY way you can. Stop overthinking the how and lean into your natural style.
• Volume matters more than polish. Frequency beats perfection.
• Don't let fear or judgment hold you back. The only thing worse than failing is never starting.
• Think long-term. You don’t need to know your entire life plan at 19 or 25. Taste, sample, and iterate.
• Prioritize brand and reputation over short-term income.
• If you’re not happy at work, rethink your strategy and make moves to fix it.
• Use the tools at your fingertips—Google, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Shopify. There’s never been a better or cheaper time to experiment.

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For more rich insights and real-world Q&A, listen to the full episode, and if it motivated you—take action today.

Transcript

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Hundreds of people would see that post. Because the organic reach of A post on LinkedIn is reaching far more people. Because there's so much supply, demand, opportunities, meaning there's more people paying attention on LinkedIn than there is content being made for them to see. Thus, if nobody knows who you are, even when you post your first thing, some people will see it, which is now not the case on let's say Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. Whereas if you started your jam company, which most people would, with an Instagram account, cause it's the place to be right now, that first post, if you had no followers, would have no views. 3, 2, 1. This is the GaryVee Audio Experience. The majority of the social web and these opportunities. And There are still two platforms right this second that require $0 for you to start communicating what you want to happen in the world. I think is remarkable. That doesn't even take into account the fact that Facebook ads, YouTube, pre rolls, Facebook, Twitter, Twitter's appropriately priced. But everything else I just mentioned to you, the ads are underpriced. The cost of spending $1,000 on these platforms to get people to see something is underpriced. I really am desperate with even the tone and tenor that I'm bringing to this talk. I'm desperate for people to understand how wild this is. I want to remind everybody, for everybody who raised their hand in the first group like myself, the way you built a business or broad awareness if you're 43 and older in the way we grew up, was by spending a lot of money. Ads cost money. Direct mail, newspaper, radio, ads, television that cost money. It was a very high cost of entry to build brand. Brand is the whole game. I think when I analyze what's going on in the business world and with people, I think most people are transactional. I believe how many people here are entrepreneurs? Raise your hands. I believe the majority of the hands that just went up that when I look at the delta between the ones who've won and the ones who've won less than they wanted to, I put them always in my mind into two groups. One, one group is transactional, AKA deeply care about the money in the short term. And the second group is looking to build brand, AKA reputation in perpetuity and are more concerned about playing it out in the long term. What is exciting for me right now is that this device, this device, like the fact from this young man down and up, every one of us has a device in our hand that is a computer that is actually more powerful than the computer that Ronald Reagan had when he was running the free world. It really is interesting. It really is. I think again, what I'm really trying to establish in this talk this afternoon, this morning, is I don't think people have quantified the opportunity. I struggle regardless of circumstance with people dwelling or complaining in a world where the Internet is free. Has no idea who you are, could care less. It's right there. And it becomes a game of skill, not necessarily finances to actually win. It's interesting to me. It's interesting to me that you can be in the retail business overnight by setting up a Shopify account which costs nothing when that same action to sell something 30 years ago meant that you had to sign a lease and build out a store and rely on the local traffic that walked by. It scares me and excites me that the biggest music company in the world, Spotify, was built in Sweden by a kid. And on and on and on. And you've heard every story. But more importantly, for every ridiculous story we've seen of Instagram or Facebook or Uber or Spotify, there are hundreds of thousands of stories of people with wins that are micro versions. I actually think the most unhealthy thing in entrepreneurship and opportunity is the big stories that everybody thinks they have to build a billion dollar company. I think we do not talk enough about the practical $150,000 a year, $300,000 a year, $700,000 a year business that you genuinely love what you do and you can live your life being happy and financially sound and what the cost of entry to be able to do that is in today's environment, which once again, let me say it very slow, between putting out a media company, if you decide to put that on a WordPress or a Squarespace, a retail company on the back of a Shopify, you could start a radio show that is global on the back of just uploading something you record on your memos on your phone and upload onto Spotify and Apple and SoundCloud. My friends. Distribution is free. Where is Daredevil? I'm right here.

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[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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[Gary Vaynerchuk]

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When you finally find your thing, you want the whole world to know about that thing. So you use a thing called Canva to make it an even bigger and better thing. Whether you want to create flyers for that thing, make presentations for that thing, or design merch for that thing. You can do anything so people can see your thing, feel your thing, love your thing. The next thing you know, it's a thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I know it's a nerdy thing. Like, it's not like some big, profound statement, but let me say it nice and slow. Distribution is free. It used to cost a fortune. Now what you put inside of it is the variable of your success, not your financial capabilities to create the distribution you have. Like, I wish we could zoom in. I literally have goosebumps on my neck right now. No, but really, I really do. It's like a very. I. I will live my last breath trying to get people to understand. This is remarkable. This is a game of perspective. Are you educated or capable of seeing it from the lens that I'm speaking about today? Which is the barrier to reach the end person, Whether you're a financial advisor and trying to get to a client, whether you sell bow ties, whether you want to be. How about the fact if you want to be a professional football player, and now there's all these websites where you can upload your film because the scout didn't come to your tiny, tiny town, and now you actually can be discovered. Like, everything has changed. My question and my dream every time I speak is, can I get one person in this room to get their piece for me? If you are not disproportionately happy sitting in this room professionally, which will trickle into your actual life. You have to take a step back and understand this perspective. So I think we're living through the greatest era ever for opportunity. I think it's on the back of the current Internet, which is wildly visual. I'm very aware that the audio revolution of our society is coming. What do I mean by that? Is how many people here have a Google home or an Alexa in their house? Just raise. Hi, I'm curious. Raise it high. I want people to see this. Google and Alexa. Look around. It's a real number. Now, granted, most people are just telling jokes with their Alexa or listening to music, but I want to remind everybody that the first killer app on the iPhone for the first year was that app that looked like you were drinking a beer. If you remember, it takes some time for the apps to catch up to the platform, but we are all very close to being in an era where we order a pizza or where we get our plumber or how and where we navigate by talking to a voice device, not to our phone. As voice becomes the platform and less happens on this, which seems foreign now because we all live in it, but I want to remind you we used to not live in it. And I want to remind everybody here, technology likes to move when, when, not if, when you start doing a lot of things that you do on your phone right now start happening on a voice device, it will no longer be visual and written, which will lead to less opportunity. To grab attention to the current opportunity landscape, which I'm gonna remind everybody is quite remarkable because if you've got a local bakery now and you can do a really good job on LinkedIn and TikTok for free or on Instagram with money, when in a decade we go into voice and I say, alexa, send me six muffins to the office. Amazon gets to decide which muffins come to the office. Now if you did such a good job building brand and I knew about Carol's muffins and I said, alexa, send me six Carol's muffins to the office. You've now accomplished your task. I spend 100,000% of my time on brand. I want people to know my name. I want people to know the name of the things I do. VaynerMedia, my agency, it's all brand. And so I just want you to get your long tail of it. And this is what's led me to the most interesting conversations of my career. Because as a businessman, I never thought I would get into categories like parenting and, and insecurities and self esteem. But as somebody who just spoke all that and has done that pretty much every day, 600 times a day on the Internet for the last decade, it has led me to realize, wait a minute, there's the other component of everything I said. I can show every one of you what to do. I have just sat here and told you 100%, not 99 the two attention arbitrage platforms of our society right now. If every person here went home and made five to seven pictures and videos a day on both TikTok and LinkedIn within a year, something good would happen for the far majority of you. 99% of you won't post on either. Once after this talk, the question to me became why? That led to the next part. We really need to have a conversation in here about judgment. The far majority of you will not go home today and start posting more on Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter. Not because you don't get. I love when people are like, gary, I didn't grow up with this technology. I don't get it. I'm like, that's nice, Sue. You didn't grow up driving and you figured it out. It is very cute that you tell me you didn't grow up with this and that's why you don't get it. I. I am wildly smart enough to understand that you are bright enough to spend two hours on an app to figure it out. The reason you're not posting or doing is because there's insecurity about what you're gonna say. You go very deep into who's gonna care what I'm gonna say? What would I say? Who cares what I think? Or even worse, the thing that breaks my heart the most. You actually do post something that somebody leaves a post that you look ugly and you cripple and fold like a cheap chair. So that's what I spend my time on now, trying to figure out how to get people to realize that the judgment of others has zero actual impact on their lives. They have zero context on your actual life. And how do I get you to understand that perspective, which would then lead to you speaking. And when I say speaking, let me break this down. Let me. Let me take out the other excuse of why you, for yourself and your business, aren't posting. Not everybody is great on camera. I get that. Not everybody is so wildly charismatic and very good looking. I get it. However, on the flip side, I am incapable of writing. It's not my natural skill. I struggle with reading and writing. It's not my skill. Plenty of people here are incredible writers and it is an incredible opportunity to go write six to 15 sentences together around a thought on LinkedIn and hit post. Others can work in Photoshop and make a picture others enjoy. I don't. I was born in the Soviet Union and grew up in a very Eastern European household. I think there's like eight pictures of me in my entire youth, right? We didn't take photos, so it doesn't come natural to me. On the other hand, there are people in here who took 97 photos on their iPhone yesterday. There are plenty of people here who are great at taking photos. My question here today, my friends, is very simple. When are you going to start talking? What are you waiting for? If you are not communicating, you don't exist. I believe that if you are not communicating, you do not exist. More importantly, communicate about what you love. What scares me about the long tail of the Internet is, I know there's somebody sitting in here who's watched every episode of Friends, ok? Deeply loves Friends. Can't get enough in their own mind of debating. Rachel and Ross loved the show. Watch it every night to go to sleep too. And I know they make 49, 62, 88, $103,000 a year doing something they don't like. And I know that if they started a podcast about Friends every day when they went home, instead of consuming content to escape the fact that they don't like their job, if they created content around the thing they love, that after 24, 36, 48 months, that along could have came Netflix and been a sponsor of that podcast, that would allow them to actually leave that job they hate and now be a full time Friends podcaster. You don't believe that. I understand that that seems like a far fetched story to you. The problem is you don't live my life because I wrote a book in 2009 called Crush it that laid this out. And I get to live the best life now, where I get three to six emails a day of people that tell me this exact story, whether it's about pickles. People like pickles. I do too. I eat pickles like crazy. Star Trek esports don't even get me started, because I used to push it a lot and people have gone completely and made real careers in that just stuff. I just, I just really, really, really hope you hear me today. Whether it's for yourself, whether you're a top executive in your organization and the company still does direct mail or print, or still sponsors the town fair instead of running content and ads on Instagram and Facebook. And don't give me this, not in my town, not in my industry. I'm watching your town, your industry. And so that's where we're at. The biggest opportunity in the history of humankind to do what you want to do, and yet you will continue to find reasons not to. And I think that comes in under the categories of self esteem and self awareness. And I think we need to make those words important in our society. You can work hard all you want. If you're insecure, you're gonna be vulnerable. Because the second there's pushback, and there's always pushback in the journey, you won't go there. So that's my framework. Those are the things I think about. I spend a lot of time thinking about that. And then I have a company that helps Fortune 500 companies navigate that world. I know how we are doing such a great job currently demonizing technology. We hate that the kids. My favorite is my friends who are parents. Cause they know where I sit on tech. And they're like, gary, I'll be hanging out with them. And they'll be like, gary, this tech is terrible. And the kids are on it too much. But the second the kid comes over and bothers our conversation over a glass of wine, they throw the iPad at that kid like it's the cure to every disease. The hypocrisy that we have around technology is fascinating. We as humans are incredible at romancing the past and demonizing the current. And so these are the trends I watch. But I will say this. If you are a vibrant, active, ambitious human being, which there is zero reason for you to be at this conference, if you're not zero, and you do not, for yourself or your company, produce in the ballpark of seven to 25 different pieces of content across three to nine different platforms a day, you are making a fundamental mistake. And I'm gonna say it again, because when you're talking about 25 pieces of content a day, in a world where 98% of this room is not making 25 pieces of content a year, we have a very big disconnect between where I sit on this and where you sit on this. I am giving this talk for one reason, because Drock is filming it. And I'm gonna air it in a decade on whatever the current platform is when it has been completely accepted that everything I just said was 100% right. I have zero interest of you actually taking the advice I just shared. I don't know you. I've got my own problems. I prefer it. I deeply. You know, I'm speaking at Harvard tomorrow, so I have to go. I have a couple more meetings here and I gotta go. Dallas to Boston, I land at 1:40 in the morning. And on those kind of flights, I like reading the emails of you saying, hey, I saw you in Mobile in 2020. It's now imaginary 2023. I finally listened. I was passionate about X, Y, and Z. I did do an Instagram account or a podcast or a YouTube show, and. And now, three years later, this happened. I love that. That is the big win for me in this room. But you won't. You won't. And I know that because I've lived this life now for a while. You know what is more likely is you're gonna email me in six years and say, I wish I did. Cause this happened because I was the leading lawyer in town. And this other person who didn't, who's not even. You know, the emails are funny, right, Gary? I mean, they come in all shapes and forms. Gary, I wish I listened to you and you start reading it. Because I read. Because I want the qualitative feedback to learn. Right? Heard you. Four years ago at the Atlanta Business Summit, you said the thing, I didn't believe you. I thought you were loud and obnoxious. I'm not cursing today because Nagy asked me. But you cursed. It turned me off. I'm a Jersey boy, you know? You know, meanwhile, this upstart kid, he listened to you. And then my favorite line, no matter what it is, lawyer, doctor, real estate. He's not even good at being a lawyer, but he's killing it on Facebook and he's hurting my business. What do I do now? And I smile. I smile the same way that I saw some of the kids on the field yesterday that didn't go with vaynersports that we know. We were in the final two with them and they went in a different direction. I see them, I root for them. I'm a kind person. My mom did a good job. But I'd be lying to you if I didn't say. When I look at their faces, I smile, knowing they made the wrong decision. Because I love merit. I love sports. You either make the right move or you don't. I've already won by articulating my thoughts here today. Either you're gonna actually use this talk as the final piece to actually get out there and finally do this, because you cannot be in this room and not know what I'm saying is actually right. Or you're not. And then you lose. And then I get to see you. Because they're both good. I did it or I didn't do it. I both enjoy. Because I actually love the merit of the game. I mean that. So I hope you do it. I don't need you to do it. As a matter of fact, I'll get really technical on you. A lot of my smartest friends always ask me why I do this. Because if these people start making content and start running ads, it's going to be harder for you to build what you're building, Gary. And they're right.

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[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So good, so good, so good.

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[Gary Vaynerchuk]

The feed of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. It's just one feed. It's just supply and demand. If all of you start posting, that's just more content, less attention, less opportunity for me to build what I'm building. That's where it's going. So I hope I've articulated the punchline. I don't think I'm supposed to be doing Q and A now, but to be very frank, I gave Nagy the no cursing. I'm taking the Q and A. So I'm taking a couple of your questions right now.

[Audience Member - Food Truck Entrepreneur]

Thank you.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Because to be frank, I think I've articulated my point. And it is the point. If you do any. You know, I was a terrible student. But there was one class I was decent at. It was called history. And I finally figured out why. I like history because I know that things repeat themselves and humans are consistent. And I like context. If you listen to my talk right now and immediately ran home and read a book or articles about the transition of America from the radio to the television, everything I just said would make sense to you. My friends, we have transitioned from the newspaper and television to the Internet. It's happened. It's not going back. I'm sorry. It's not my fault. It has happened. It's never going back. This is why the mainstream media will always be wrong about their predictions. Because they look at the wrong data. They will always be wrong. Watch it again. They'll always be wrong. It's why big companies, why my company's exploding, because they worked with other agencies from, like, the Mad Men era. They're always wrong. It's based on subjectivity, politics, ego. We're here. I want you to take advantage of it. Because if you don't, somebody else will. There's 330 million of us out here in this country. And 7.7 billion. Yes, sir.

[Audience Member - Podcast Host (Tucker)]

Yeah.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So, Gary, a person runs a company. What's your name?

[Audience Member - Apparel Entrepreneur]

My name is Brent.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Brent, yeah. Nice to meet you. A person runs A company. Of course.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

They have their own social media platforms, accounts.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

The company have one for their personal business. How do you divide up the kind of content? Do you cross pollinate there? Yes. What would you recommend to a person, Brent? I think you can do both. Right. Like I do. I'm Gary Vee. But my family wine business, wine library, has an account. Empathy Wines, my direct to consumer wine brand, has an account. VaynerMedia has an account. We cross pollinate. Obviously, if you're a big personality, and big comes in a lot of senses, let me rephrase, I'm not gonna use big. If you're a personality that brings value in whatever shape or form, you're gonna see more following people like to follow people over businesses, but it's all about value exchange. But you'll appreciate this, Brent. There is no right or wrong. Really. There's not. I would say the only thing that you can do wrong is not being yourself. I see a lot of people scared to actually be themselves. Cause they're scared who's watching. And I hate looking at all your LinkedIn accounts. You've got like a suit and tie, looking all professional, like you think something bad's gonna happen if you're your normal. I look like a mess up here. I'm wearing a Tierra Whack sweatshirt. Like the results always win. And I think a lot of people hold back their natural self. The market doesn't care in the end. Somebody may judge you, but the market doesn't care. Hey, everybody. Hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy. Yes, sir. Hey, G, what's your name?

[Audience Member - Podcast Host (Tucker)]

Tucker. Tucker, so I started a podcast called behind the Grind show.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Okay.

[Audience Member - Podcast Host (Tucker)]

On Instagram, LinkedIn, everywhere you listen to podcasts. Started in October.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Thanks for your commercial. Next. Got it, got it, got it.

[Audience Member - Podcast Host (Tucker)]

We started in October.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Okay.

[Audience Member - Podcast Host (Tucker)]

We interview entrepreneurs and high performing individuals and we've had a decent amount of growth in this short period of time.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

That's awesome.

[Audience Member - Podcast Host (Tucker)]

And all because of you.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

All because of you. You executed.

[Audience Member - Podcast Host (Tucker)]

Yes, sir. We just recently got reached out by a couple people that are wanting to become sponsors or have their. Their bosses that are entrepreneurs on. So my first question is when is the right time to start? And then, and then second, we just got reached out to potentially do like a live. A live audience podcast.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yep.

[Audience Member - Podcast Host (Tucker)]

There's people in Pensacola, Florida, Stud Community Institute. They reached out to us about potentially brainstorming on that idea. So would that be

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

everything you said is yes and no. And it's important for you at this young of an age to understand that no matter my level of successes or different people's levels of experience, the punchline is it may be yes or no. The key is to not do something that you're so locked in that once you taste it and you realize it's no that you can't get out, the wrong thing to do with whoever you just talked to in Pensacola is to sign a two year deal to do it live there. And after a second one, you're like, this is. I don't want to do this. So you keep flexibility. The audience won't be mad at you for monetizing. They'll be mad at you for selling out. And that's a very big difference. That's all. But it's so exciting, right? Because I go through this spiel. How long have you been doing it?

[Audience Member - Podcast Host (Tucker)]

Since October of last year.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You mean four minutes. If I'm correct with October and you factor in Thanksgiving and Christmas, you're talking about nine seconds, right? It's important for you to see now for them to get that level of reach out, they just might be good. Like, there is a variable in everything I've just said. You may love talking about basketball, you might just be boring, so you've got to be self aware about it. But my big thing is, you may be boring, but it makes you so happy. My big thing is people don't like their jobs, lives, and then they go and consume things to escape. And I'm trying to get them to create, to get happy. You may never become Stephen A. Smith. But if you start a podcast about the Pelicans, even if it gets a little juice, maybe some free tickets to a game, now you're pumped. You like the Pelicans. It's a lot better than watching an entire Aaron Hernandez Netflix documentary. Yeah, I had to go there. I hate those guys so damn much. I saw Bill Belichick on the sidelines yesterday. I wanted to punch him in his face. Jets fans, you know, Cool. What's up crew?

[Audience Member - Real Estate Entrepreneur]

Before we came out there. So I'm a road runner of a small real estate company in Birmingham. We do a flat fee model.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Okay.

[Audience Member - Real Estate Entrepreneur]

We're essentially in our local market, but I'm seeing nationally that it's growing quickly. A lot of people aren't really accepting of it.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

However, I have this vision in my mind real quick. A lot of people aren't accepting of It. Let's talk real quick. Who's not accepting of it?

[Audience Member - Real Estate Entrepreneur]

Well, I'm not necessarily worried about it. It's our industry professionals I'm worried about. The consumers.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Correct. The people that aren't accepting of it are the ones whose commissions and margins are getting affected.

[Audience Member - Real Estate Entrepreneur]

Affected?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

That has nothing to do with the end consumer. I haven't had a single competitor ever love me.

[Audience Member - Real Estate Entrepreneur]

I guess my question is, as we try to scale it, my disconnect is finding the next connection to find somebody who can show us how to scale that in a way that we can maintain culture but also keep the consumer mindset first.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Well, first of all, I'm pumped that you're thinking about that. I mean, you're aware of what I've done with Claude and Chief heart officer. Do you know what I'm saying there? Yeah. I mean, look, I think you're, like, even hearing you deliver that sentence. I think for some of the veteran business people in this room, we weren't talking about culture 20 years ago. It was just get the results done. So to scale, I do believe you need culture. At a thousand people, we have offices in Singapore and London and Chattanooga, Tennessee. You've gotta really have culture. I think the fact that you're even thinking about it already means you have a shot at it. It means you're gonna throw money at it, and you're gonna have an HR department that cares about the employees, not as a disguise for the finance team to fire people. It's just intent. Like, just even hearing how much, you know, talking, seeing your vibes and the crew. This is just intent. The reason I always win is because I have intent. My employees first, my customers second, me third. That's a very easy way to win in business. I think we all know that's not how most people do it. And if you're sitting here right now and saying, me, I'm going to start this business to buy a boat. Two customers. Because they're the people that are going to give me money. Three, employee. You're going to build a very small business. Yes, sir.

[Audience Member - Real Estate Entrepreneur]

Yep.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Stand up, bro. Don't freak out.

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

My name is Ahmed.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I'm 19 years old. I'm not really, like, a huge business guy.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

No.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Racist. But my question was, I know you say people who don't know what their passions are, anything to try a lot of stuff. Yes.

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

My thing is.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Where do you start with that? Okay, let's play. You're 19, which I'm so thrilled you're asking this question, because it's super important. This thought that you need to have your life figured out at this age is laughable. This thought that we've created in society, that 18 or 22, you need to know, and you go, it's like, we've literally built society backwards. Like, when you first get out of the school machine, which maps the zero to real life, you're supposed to go play real life to have a chance to figure out what you do. So where do you start? You start with, what are you consuming and paying attention to. When you have leisure time, do you play video games? Do you listen to music? Do you like to go out and eat weird food? What do you like? That's where you start. So what do you like, Ahmed? Like, what are you about?

[Audience Member - Health/Wellness]

Good.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Let's start with comic books. Do you want to create comic books? Do you want to sell comic books? Do you want to buy comic books and flip them? Do you want to work at Comic Con? All of those things would be a good place for you to start. Cold email and DM. 850 different people that are players in the comic book world, and one of them might reply to you, and that starts your career. Like, you could literally work for Funko tomorrow. You could literally work for Marvel tomorrow. You could. You just have to write 137 compelling emails and DMs and LinkedIn things. What's up, brother?

[Health Coach / Audience Member]

Bro.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You can literally do that. Who's 43 and older? We couldn't do that, Ahmed. That's not how it worked. When we were coming up the game, you didn't just like, say like. You know, actually, ironically, once in a while I come across an OG who's like, actually, I did do that. I wrote 800 letters. It took two months for me to get a response instead of two hours. But yeah, man, I mean, like, you know, in the comic world, there's the movie aspect, there's the actual skill of it. Like, if you go, like, if you like the drawing of it, you could. Look, let me tell you one thing about winners. A lot of winners didn't get there by accident. So when you write a winner, an email, your favorite illustrator at DC Comics. Hey, Sarah, I will bring you coffee. Get your laundry, grind and bleed. Just to intern or work at minimum wage just to see how you do it. One out of every hundred of those people, that's how I hire. I hired Drock because he emailed me three times and now he's Drock. And people, like, call their video people Drock. That's his story. My man.

[Audience Member - Quarterback Development Coach]

So my Name is Christian.

[Audience Member - Real Estate Entrepreneur]

I.

[Audience Member - Quarterback Development Coach]

About a year and a half ago, I started a quarterback development company in the northeast area.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Love it.

[Audience Member - Quarterback Development Coach]

You know, listening to a bunch of your stuff. I've always been kind of in the world of wanting to create content for things, but my surrounding people just wasn't about that. So wanted to say thank you first off for, like, kind of being that person to kind of motivate me to go. So about a year and a half ago, we started doing a podcast, live podcast on Facebook. Kind of started taking off. We started getting messages. The company started growing. About a week ago, we got a contract for the ayf, which is American League Football in the Northeast, to do all of their camps and clinics. So it's been super awesome. Also, my name came up for some high school coaching jobs. So it's been like, the world's just been kind of going crazy. I'm super happy right now.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

No, that can't be.

[Audience Member - Quarterback Development Coach]

So my question is. And it's just crazy that, you know, a year and a half ago I dreamt about this, and now, you know, this is actually coming out of my mouth. But my goal is to get into the NFL as a coach one day. And right now, I see my. Myself in a point of struggling between maintaining the company and then having to go over into putting my 100% of my effort into the coaching.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Maybe don't try to make the company as big as you know you can, because you can't allocate 110% of the energy to it. You're now looking at the company from the perspective of, as you know, an alpha, as a winner, as an ambitious young dude. You're like, I gotta make. I'm building this. You. You don't have to build it. Like so many people in this room, how many people here own their own business? Great. This is gonna really hit for a lot of you. There's a lot of people that you can talk to afterwards. If you guys see this man afterwards, tell him that built companies and they built it, let's say from zero to a million a year or half a million. And they loved it. Life was awesome. But from a million to a million five, that screwed it up. There's a Mendoza line where people don't understand this. This is why I push happiness so much. I'm thrilled that your business now does 3 million instead of 1.6 million. But you used to love your life at 1.6, and you hate it now because you're managing or you're doing this or that or you're stressing. I think you can control the size of your business. You can also bring someone in. You can bring in a partner. You can bring in a big time employee that gets bonus on net profits. There's a lot of hacks for you to go at this. You also can be very patient.

[Audience Member - Quarterback Development Coach]

Oh yeah, good.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So then you shouldn't be stressed. If you say, how old are you?

[Audience Member - Quarterback Development Coach]

28.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Great. If you say I'm going to be in the NFL when I'm 42, guess what? It gets less stressful when you're thinking in 14 year terms. It gets a lot less stressful when you're reading, when you're not reading other headlines. When you hear some 26 year old got the look to be the number two on the offense at the Bengals, all of a sudden you're frustrated. Don't worry about anybody else. Just like those friends around you that are like nah, nah, nah, that won't work. Don't worry about the 26 year old whiz kid who's on Buffalo right now. That has nothing to do with you. Take it from 44 42's plenty young to get your first NFL coaching job.

[Podcast Advertiser (Palmolive)]

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[Gary Vaynerchuk]

headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more, can make me feel like a spectator in my own life.

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[Audience Member - Health/Wellness]

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[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Why wait? Ask your doctor.

[Podcast Advertiser (Palmolive)]

Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-844botox to learn more.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You understand our relationship with time is something we really have to start talking about in a society. It just, it will take a ton of anxiety out of the system. Bro, in 18 months, you've accomplished more than a lot of people ever accomplished in their life. Got you, bro. Yes. Ladies, lady, either whoever. What's your name?

[Audience Member - Food Truck Entrepreneur]

Rosie.

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

Rosie, I am a financial advisor.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Okay.

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

And I'm new in the business. I've only been in it for three years.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Okay.

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

But I'm the only female in the office. I have, no offense to the white haired men in the room, but I have an office full of that. So they don't understand. So we need to be doing this, we need to be doing that. And the other thing that we face is because it's the financial industry, it's very heavily regulated. What you can say, can't say.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I'm very aware. But people use regulation as an excuse to not do well.

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, so how do you combat you

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

execute by not talking to those old dudes. Very simple. Don't look for permission. Focus on execution. There's nothing more. My whole life I was told what I was doing was wrong. It was crazy to launch an Internet site for a liquor store in 1996. People thought the Internet was a fad. Forget about is TikTok a fad? Some of the OGs in here know we debated if the whole thing was a fad, right? And then I did email instead of catalogs and that was not smart. What's email? And then I bought Google AdWords and I was spending more money on Google AdWords than I was spending on direct mail and newspaper ads. And that was stupid. And then I sat down and started filming a wine show on YouTube a month after YouTube came out and people thought I lost my mind, let alone that it was stupid. And then I took all the money I had in my life that I saved my whole life and invested in Facebook and Twitter five years before they became public companies. And all my financial advisors and family and everybody else thought that was stupid. I'm only excited when people tell me it is stupid. That's when I know I'm about to do something smart. Yes, sir. In the back with the weird with the wild shirt. Ethan. Yes, sir.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

We launched yesterday on Twitter.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You said you launched yesterday?

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

Yes, sir.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

First day. Epic. Go ahead.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

People that are afraid to complete their dreams or pursue their dreams are down.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Basically, everyone's preached. Okay. I started watching it last year and

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

I was stake mom.

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

And so I want to build a

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

platform that people can achieve their dreams

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

because, well, I've always known that I

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

could, and I lost that.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

And so essentially why I'm here is

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I want to schedule a meeting with you.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

It's not about what you can bring to us.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's about what we can bring to

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

you and your community.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Okay.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

And what we can do for people that want to pursue their dreams.

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

We live in the era that anyone.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Agreed. So in a world where I've got a lot of things in front of me, and as you can imagine, this pitch, though much more fun in real life, happens 8,000 times a day. Here's what you need to do. You need to email me. I'll read it tonight because I have long flights. GarynerMedia. You need to put in the title, I'm the dude with the weird shirt that launched today. Because then I'll see it. Right? I'm the dude with the weird shirt that launched today. And you need to articulate what you mean on the value exchange. And then if it's there, I'll fly to New York. Good. Yes, sir. Will. Awesome.

[Audience Member - Apparel Entrepreneur]

My idea for advertising, and I'm just kind of wondering if this is, like, a good idea. I'm listening out pieces of my apparel, and then I. And you have to have an Instagram account, pretty much.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And so I'll hand out a piece

[Audience Member - Apparel Entrepreneur]

of my apparel, a shirt or something, and I'll say, listen, put the shirt on. Do something badass in it.

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

Yes.

[Audience Member - Apparel Entrepreneur]

So that's kind of how I'm getting my ads out.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I love that. Yes, that is a very good idea.

[Audience Member - Apparel Entrepreneur]

Can I give you a shirt?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes, You can definitely give me a shirt. Is it a medium? I won't wear it. Get me a medium and I'll wear it.

[Audience Member - Apparel Entrepreneur]

I'll get you a medium. What am I gonna send?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

How should he do a drock? You know what? Drock's right in front of you.

[Audience Member - Apparel Entrepreneur]

Message me on Instagram.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah, he, he. I get 80,000, he gets 8,000. It's all screwed up. Drock will give it to you right now, the info. Like, drock. Send it to Attention Lou. And then I'll wear it.

[Audience Member - Apparel Entrepreneur]

And can I get a picture?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah, you can Picture?

[Audience Member - Apparel Entrepreneur]

Yes, please.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah, dude, this guy's huge. How are you? My name is Colton. Colton.

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

My brother, Cody.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Cody.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

And we come from a father son company. Our dad started a B2B medical distributor

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

like 20 years ago.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Okay. So now we're kind of taking that over. Okay.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

We still do a lot.

[Audience Member - Podcast Host (Tucker)]

Lot of direct mail.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

A couple thousand pieces a month.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

We started LinkedIn this year. Yep. What are you seeing?

[Audience Member - Real Estate Entrepreneur]

What's that?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

What's happening on LinkedIn?

[Health Coach / Audience Member]

Good.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

We, we. So we've got about 4,000 followers.

[Audience Member - Podcast Host (Tucker)]

We get about 5,000 views on our videos.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

How often are you posting?

[Podcast Advertiser (American Express)]

Once a week.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Once a week. So we need to do nine a day.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

My question is about targeting.

[Podcast Advertiser (Palmolive)]

Yep.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

We're all B2B, so I'm very aware, as you know, you can run LinkedIn ads against people, job descriptions. Have you done that yet? That was my question. Yeah. I got a great way for you to learn this. I'll give you guys. If you guys want to learn this as well, I'll give you the website. It's G O O G L E dot com. But what's really pumped it, why I'm really excited about this is you guys clearly are capable. Can literally. This is crazy. You can literally go to Google and say, how do I target specific professionals on LinkedIn ads, enter and have unlimited ways to figure out how to do it. It's not the tactics, it's the knowledge of. The knowledge of knowing that you can Target people on LinkedIn. LinkedIn makes direct mail look like child's play when you understand it. Then when you really understand it and you realize that you have to do different content for different, different doctors in different sectors, in geographic, gender, race, mindset, it gets real gnarly. You understand?

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

And you can target specific companies too, right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah, you can. And the way you do that is you target a specific company, all the employees, and the ad, the piece of content starts. Does your head buyer know? Does your accountant know? Like, you see where I'm going? So what you're trying to do is get the employees to flip forward it to the CFO or the CIO or the head medical device buyer. I don't know what that terminology would be. You see where I'm going? You can literally write the words to say, does your account. If you're selling SaaS to financial services, you can literally write along with the video or the PDF or whatever you want. You gotta try different stuff. Does your CFO know that she can? Because you even know that the CFO in that company is a Woman like you can do such smart stuff. People don't. All of this is just like health and wellness. Would you like to be healthier, in better shape? Let me help you eat well and exercise every day. Meanwhile, people are like ass implants, steroids like apple cider, celery. Like people are looking for the hack because people don't want to put in the word work. Yes, sir.

[Audience Member - Health/Wellness]

Hey, Gary.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

My name is Michael. Michael, 25, from Scotch Plains, New Jersey.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Get out. That's awesome. I go to Scotch Plains, by the way. That's my favorite other thing. Side hustle life. You could be 20k a year, garage sale on the weekend, selling on ebay if you need some side cash. Garage sales.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

Anyway, I watch all your content, but you always tell us not to, you know, go out and do so that's what I try to do. Mine is kind of a two part question like his. Since I'm so young, I'm 25, I kind of have the pressure, you know, get a job, get out there. You know, all, you know, you see Instagram, everyone's doing everything and you say, go out and taste. And for me, that hit me, you know, a little bit later. For me to go out and taste. I did, you know, I'm in sports sportsman, what I majored in. Then I went back home to do real estate with my father, tried to do that and really felt like that wasn't for me and my passion.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Good for you. Good.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

So I'm trying to go back into sports.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Good.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

Still trying to find my way there. Well, I don't have responsibility and all that.

[Audience Member - Podcast Host (Tucker)]

Exactly.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

So my thing is, it's like there's different avenues that I've always supported. I thought active military, sportsman, like they're all, all over the place. So my question is. Well, my two part question is I've always felt like someone had to allow the taste. You know what I mean?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

Oh, I want to go out taste. I want to go out and do this. But someone has to hire me to do that. Someone has to read my resume to do that. And getting past that barrier, trying to, oh, I want to try this, but I have to get through somebody to do that is the first question.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Second question, the answer to that is yes and no. Right. First of all, back to some of the things I've already alluded to here, back to Ahmed who's sitting next to. And I saw him, noticed when I said to him that he has to reach out to 137 people. People come at me and they're like, Gary, I wanted to be a sports agent and I tried really hard. I'm like, cool, Barry, how did you go? He's like, well, I submitted to three places. I'm like, three? Like, yes, there are gatekeepers for certain jobs potentially for you to taste. There's also 7,000 of them. So, A, have you asked all 7,000? That's a B. In the world of content creation and zero startup costs, one could potentially, if they can afford to. One of the reasons it's funny that we're segueing off the garage sale thing. One of the things I tell a lot of people is like, get a job at 711 or do garage sale just to maintain your lowest possible cost of living so you can start the thing that makes you happy. And to Your point, at 25, like seven years from now, you'll be 32 years old. Do you know how young 32 years old is? Anyway,

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

the second part to that is like, I have to get up on the entrepreneurship thing. And the thing that for self awareness you always preach, and I've always tried to look inward in self awareness is a while ago and I still saved it on Instagram that I always go peek at is to find out what kind of. Of person I am. You always say, for a hungry dog. Yeah, someone that's been fed, doesn't know how to go.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Correct.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

And that always stuck with me, you know, I'm fortunate enough to have.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah, that was. Yeah, that's right. You were, of course, you were, of course, both. Both. It long before I came along or anybody else. The nature nurture thing has been established. So I don't know you well enough, but there's a deep. When I was five, it was not necessarily that my parents, we were very poor immigrants, but I still thought it was more fun to go shovel people's driveways when it snowed than build a snowman because I wanted a dollar. That was my chemicals. Then I was conditioned because when I was 11 and said, mom, everyone's getting Nintendo, she said, great, go buy it. I was like, all right, gotta go to work. You know, so for you, potentially it's the complete opposite, which is amazing. Maybe you didn't have those chemicals and then on top of it, you had the great fortune and there's nothing wrong with that. None of us picked our paths where you were fed. So, yeah, it's probably more unlikely that you wanna go and grind it at zero and build something for yourself and deal with all the fear and anxiety and loneliness and grind and dirt and blood that Comes along with being an entrepreneur. Not the popping bottles and flying in private jet entrepreneurs that you see on Instagram that are completely full of shit. Sorry, Jim.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

Thank you.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You got it, brother.

[Audience Member - Content Creation Business]

Andrew.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Hey, Andrew.

[Audience Member - Content Creation Business]

You've been a huge inspiration for us. We created a content creation, videography, photography company.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Love social media.

[Audience Member - Content Creation Business]

Zach's our two year anniversary, so it's crazy.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Congrats.

[Audience Member - Content Creation Business]

First, my question is, you talk about posting a ton of content.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes. On multiple platforms. Yes.

[Audience Member - Content Creation Business]

And like a lot of times we

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

don't know what to post.

[Audience Member - Content Creation Business]

And one thing we've seen, and I

[Audience Member - Real Estate Entrepreneur]

want to know if it's a small

[Audience Member - Content Creation Business]

sample size or if it's like something

[Audience Member - Real Estate Entrepreneur]

you see too, is a lot of

[Audience Member - Content Creation Business]

times when we post personal content, personality content, whether it's like Freestyle Friday or xyz, it gets a lot more attention, comments, shares.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Humans like humans.

[Audience Member - Content Creation Business]

Yeah. And is that something that a lot of us should be focusing on too as we build that brand?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

If you like it, Yeah. A lot of people are very shy and introverted and don't like the attention from other humans. I don't think they should be making videos.

[Audience Member - Content Creation Business]

Second, part of the question was, can we take a selfie with you?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You can real quick because I want to give an answer that will help a lot of people. Did you ever see that interview I had where I came up with the first time of documenting? Don't create. I really think people need to think about that. Just make people overthink they think they have. Like, even the way you structured it, you're like free stuff. You're making everything like shows or structuring it. Stop thinking, start making. Cool. Get up here and get on this side.

[Audience Member - Real Estate Entrepreneur]

Yes, ma'.

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

Am.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Hi, I'm a Jersey girl. Love, love. You grew up in Jersey?

[Podcast Advertiser (Palmolive)]

Yes.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Where? Yeah, I know it. And I cheered for the Jets. Amazing. I'm listening. I can multitask entrepreneur over.

[Podcast Advertiser (American Express)]

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[Podcast Advertiser (Palmolive)]

I did. I met so many people here.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I was just saying hi to everyone and just putting myself out there. Good for you.

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

But I want to know about two things actually.

[Podcast Advertiser (Palmolive)]

YouTube versus TikTok.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Would you just bother?

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

Got it.

[Podcast Advertiser (Palmolive)]

Thought that was gonna be the answer.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And two, but know this TikTok is a crazy place right now. In a great way. In a great way. I have given the same advice my whole life. I am very basic. How many people here follow me on Instagram. Thank you. So you guys know I love putting up videos. Ten years ago, a little chubbier, younger version of me saying the same. Same stuff I'm saying right now. So I'm saying that for the people in the room that don't know me, what I'm about to say matters a lot in the history of my career. The organic reach thing, the nobody knows who I am. I want to talk about Alabama football. Nobody knows who I am. I have zero followers. MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, Socialcam, Vine, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, none. Not a single platform has even been remotely close to what's happening on TikTok. When you post your third post and 800,000 people watch it now, it's already. I don't know if you noticed this drock. It's already declining. Cause here comes the content. Because there was so much attention compared to content. But you would destroy it on TikTok.

[Podcast Advertiser (Palmolive)]

Thank you.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yeah. If I were you, I would make three TikToks a day.

[Podcast Advertiser (Palmolive)]

Okay.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

The way I think you get to the question they had, which is like, what do we make? I think you look at what's on the explore, like the trending page, and the biggest mistake people make is they hear this, they go home, they're like, screw it, I'm gonna do it. I'm motivated, Gary. So motivating. I'm gonna do it. And they're like, they download TikTok and they're like. Then they're like, now what? Two things. One, back to that crazy website, Google. It's crazy. It's an epic one. You know what works on TikTok? Enter, read for three hours. But way more importantly, consume TikTok for five hours and then make a decision. Don't call your 11 year old niece and be like, what's this TikTok thing about? She's gonna tell you, from an 11 year old's perspective, you're here for business, for building a brand. You're coming from a different angle. Consume it. That will help you know what to make. What's that? Do you have a TikTok account yet?

[Podcast Advertiser (Nordstrom Rack)]

No, I don't, but.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Love it.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

Thank you, man.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You're welcome.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

I love attention it's really hard for me to talk to you because I

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

admire you so much.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

Right. Like, I've done this a couple of times.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Thank you.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

Like, I'm freaking out and I'm obsessed with adding value.

[Audience Member - Podcast Host (Tucker)]

Right?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So like, guy with a shirt, I

[Audience Member - Quarterback Development Coach]

want to help you, man.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I'm obsessed with connection also, as you

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

know, as I came into your content and how you're like the Pied Piper for. You don't have to be a jerk to win and empathy and like the alpha guy that preaches, you know, kindness and kindness. And it's what I've been doing all my life. So I dove in two years ago.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I'm like the butt of your old

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

joke and like the hero story of the new thing, right? Like, coddled by parents. I had to completely unlearn that. Like my man over there. You got to unlearn it. You got to like, get. Bones will get dirty. You got to eat, you know, Like, I don't want to cuss because I know that you're.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Maggie will beat us up. Yeah, he's tough.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

And then restart again and iterate. Right.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

And real quick, I apologize. Let's not demonize. Like, none of us picked our spots. Like, I didn't pick, like, hey, I'm gonna be born in Russia, then come to America. Let's definitely not over demonize people that had great fortune of being in a situation. They just have to decide what they want in their lives. Like, you know, we really need to deploy self awareness. Not everybody's supposed to go on and be an alpha number one and build something big. Like, there's a lot of ways to skin it. But nonetheless, I just wanted to add that. Cause I didn't want that theme to get too far away. Keep going.

[Podcast Advertiser (Nordstrom Rack)]

Cool.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

That being said, man, the big. The big, like, connection point for me, I'm like yelling so.

[Audience Member - Apparel Entrepreneur]

Because I'm.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

Because I'm Hispanic and I yell and you're close.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Whatever.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

The big connection point for me was, like when I realized that content is like networking on steroids. Everything.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Correct. Correct.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

I put on content and put it out.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes. And I'm learning so much from you.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

And then I'm like reading the Steve Jobs book and I'm like, bro, I'm just learning from. From you. Like, it was an audiobook every day, all the time.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

The plan, you know, like, like for free.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

And then you release a library that's searchable.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

Right?

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

So, like, I just wanna. Man, I want you to, like, talk about that searchable library.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Okay.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

It's so Valuable for people that can see that and how you put that together. There's. There's two people. Those people that can't make content. The people that make a ton of content, they don't know what to do with it. So the categorize would be amazing.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So you. Thank you. So please. I do.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

This is from the charger that we gave you last night, bro.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I love it. Thank you, man. Thank you. I love you, bro. So the search engine, we transcribed all my words into metadata from every single video I've ever put out in the history of my life and then put it into a database and made it searchable. So we have a search engine on our website. I'm still not even promoting it. I still. You know what's so fun about playing the long game? Like, it's. You know, you're hardcore enough in my content that you know it exists, because I promoted it for, like, one day. I don't even really know where it is. I think it's on my website. Like, I believe it's gonna be the biggest thing I leave. Because the earlier thing I talked about, which was, like, the voice device. Yeah, of course I heard. You know, the. Like. I'm so excited that I'm gonna have an alexa skill in 10 years that's gonna allow you to be walking through the kitchen or in the office and say, alexa, I need to speak to Gary and be like, gary, what should I do when a manager is doing this? And. And I'll actually reply because the data has been structured. That's gonna be rad. So that's why I did it. That's what I'm anticipating. That's what we're building. And I think a lot of people are gonna do that with audio information. I think it's. We love speed. There's a lot of things you're doing now that you said you would never do because you like speed. Many of you here 10 years ago said you would never text. You now text. Many of you five years ago said that you would never use emojis. This is stupid. And now you send poop emojis.

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

Right.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

The reason you do that is because of speed. The emoji is literally. This is quicker than. Okay, all of you are gonna use voice devices in your home and office. Cause it's gonna be faster. That's all. We choose convenience over everything. We don't care about privacy. Everybody loves talking about privacy. You guys love talking about privacy. What about privacy? What about it? You put your credit card all over the Internet all day.

[Audience Member - Food Truck Entrepreneur]

Long.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

The IRS was completely hacked. Every single Social Security number in this room has been compromised. What's happened? The Russians kidnapped you. We don't care about privacy because it's fake. We love convenience. Yes, sir. So you look great. Pretty sharp, bro. Like that tie clip.

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

We're SC, like 12 cities a month is the goal.

[Podcast Advertiser (Nordstrom Rack)]

I remember.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yep.

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

This is a global issue. It's a huge market. We got stadiums, we got bars everywhere. And so we're deploying capital like crazy, Therefore, we're raising capital like crazy. And I feel like when you're talking about when Travis met with you, you're

[Audience Member - Apparel Entrepreneur]

like, you're gonna have to raise a

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

billion dollars to do that.

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

I don't feel like I have to do that. But my question is, like, right now, you know, we got successful business people all day because I'm posting on LinkedIn all the time, being like, hey, this

[Audience Member - Sports Enthusiast]

is really taking off.

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

I want to, you know, want to invest. And so we're, you know, we're raising 100k at a time. When do I make my move from private money, throwing in money to a big VC firm that I partner with?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Hopefully never.

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

Okay.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

VCs are bleh. The second you do a deal with VC is the second you lose control.

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

How would you target angel investors?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I would do what I said to a lot of people here. I think you've got enough juice going on right now that you're probably better off going to an extremely high net worth individual. I'd much rest. Whether you take $8 million from a guy or a gal that is either third generation wealthy or made it themselves and believe in you because they'll give you a lot more control than some kid that went to Stanford and likes Excel sheets.

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

When you do valuations, what do you do it at? 8 ads? 10 ads?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

As much as they'll give you?

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

Yes.

[Audience Member - Startup Founder]

I just closed at 10 mil and somebody's like, that's insane. I was shaking while we did it.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You could have said 12.

[Audience Member - Food Truck Entrepreneur]

Hey, my name is Jenna.

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

I'm from Auburn, Alabama. I still work in corporate America, but I'm trying to break into the industry.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

You're trying to what? Break into the sports industry. Got it.

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

But the issue is when it comes to LinkedIn or any type of social media having to, I want to say, conceal it, but I can't post or really, you know, get into it publicly due to my bosses or whoever, obviously being with the opposite, I have to represent the company I have to work for, but it's really difficult to manage both.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Well, I mean, it's one thing if you put on your LinkedIn, like, I hate this job, I'm looking for a new one. No kidding. You wouldn't do that. You feel like it would be disproportionately frowned upon in your organization if you started talking about your passionate about sports.

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

I actually had a coworker, like, what's that? A coworker of mine actually reported that I was posting something about sports or whatever on my social.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

What's her name? What about getting a different corporate job?

[Audience Member - Financial Advisor]

I have applied, so I'm just going to. I know it. I have it all.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I mean, here's the good news. That's what you have to do. If you're telling me that the culture within the four wall, like every organization is different. My company has so many side hustles going on, I'm not even sure if people have their own secret vaynermedias that compete with us going on, you know? So I think you may need to find a different place to work. If you were my sister, I'd be like, hey. Cause this is, you know, where I'm going. How many places have you applied? Are you so passionate and slash unhappy? Are you willing to get a job that pays you even 5,000 less a year because you're gonna eat a little more crow maybe, you know, like happiness over everything. But right now, if you're painting the picture you're painting, you have no answer unless you go somewhere else. Because it sounds like Sarah in accounting is a real issue. Yes. You should do it anyways if you're prepared to get fired.

[Audience Member - Content Creator]

Well, great.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Well then do. I mean, if you're prepared to be fired, do everything. Go punch her in the face. Start with that. Yes. Hi, Emily. I'm sorry. Health coach.

[Health Coach / Audience Member]

Health coach. And so I see this trend right now where people are talking about social media fasting. Okay, taking a step back.

[Audience Member - Apparel Entrepreneur]

Yes.

[Health Coach / Audience Member]

Finding that balance and also having that connection with people online.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Yes.

[Health Coach / Audience Member]

Pick your brain about it and get your thoughts about how you have found balance by putting out so much content, but also trying to stay connected.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

It's been super easy. For example, I'm the most public, private, private person of all time. You guys know nothing about my personal life. I post a trillion pieces of content, but I put it in my professional world. People was like, gary, I don't want to do it. I'm private. I'm like, you don't even know what my kids look like. I'm like, I know what your kids look like and you're private. But You've already posted them six times on your bullshit Facebook. So I found it very easy.

[Health Coach / Audience Member]

I guess when I'm coaching clients, you know, I always find that they find this artificial world is almost too much for them to.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

This is my point of view, is that it's not the artificial world that's too much, it's the world, period. They're incapable of judgment. So if they're appeasing people on Instagram, that's fine. They're appeasing people in real life too. That's why they're leasing a Lexus that they can't afford because they want people to that think they're successful. People are fronting 24, 7, 365 because they're insecure. And if you're insecure, getting off of Instagram is not going to help you. Why don't we take the conversation up a notch and talk about why you care about your neighbor's opinion or your mom's opinion.

[Audience Member - Health/Wellness]

Why?

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So Anderson, where you're going, that's great. And honestly I think it will be a huge trend. I think we're going to use technology so much more than now that there is an incredible, you know, the world always swings. I think there'll be incredible businesses, I think they'll be incredible. I think there'll be incredible businesses of detox centers where you go to the woods for four days. Like I've actually been doing a lot of work lately. I've never been into buying real estate, but I've started the process of looking at major cities and seeing what the most rural one hour drive is and what the, what the cost of the real estate is. Because I feel like buying a bunch of trees an hour outside of like any major city that literally has no cell service is like a good business in 10 years. Cause people are gonna want it for three days or a week. That's great. But there's a much bigger issue at hand, which is are you capable in dealing with other people's opinions? 99% are not. That is because of the last 30 to 50 years of parenting DNA and many other variables. And that is why I'm so passionate about the things I talk about. Because when you get quiet and it comes in both forms, the biggest breakthrough I think I've said that I like almost as the consumer of me is if you can't hear the cheering, you can't hear the booing. I'm sure for a lot of you that have no idea who I am or haven't seen me before, you've seen people come up today and give me some nice compliments in my impact. I don't hear that in the same way that I don't hear somebody saying I'm full of crap or a snake oil salesman. I keep it not too high, not too low, and that's helped me quite a bit. And I think the reason people struggle is you love Instagram when they say you look real pretty, but you hate it when they say you're ugly. You love it when they say that's fresh, but you hate it when you see somebody else having a fresh time and you're at home. People are getting too high and too low. And so we need to have conversations with ourselves. Limiting our time on TikTok is not gonna do it. Jim, one more, because I saw it up there. I didn't even know you four were up there, but I love you so much. Let's go. What's your name?

[Audience Member - Food Truck Entrepreneur]

I'm going to start a food truck, but I'm going to do it in a college town. So I'm wondering what you think, like, in terms of like, budgeting and all of that. Like, what's going to be the best things. It's going to be catered to college.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

That's what I'm going for. I think you should go to campus and search Twitter and instagram in that 10 mile radius and pay attention to what they like before you guess. I think you should figure out what the demand is.

[Audience Member - Food Truck Entrepreneur]

Well, I'm from Texas, but I've moved Alabama and like, one thing that I'm like, always finding with meeting people is that like, Tex. Tex is not a thing in Alabama. Obviously it's not Texas in Mexico. I've heard Mexican food in Alabama is nothing compared to what it is in Texas. People are always like, yeah, when I was in Texas, I loved it.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

So you're gonna bring. I love that. So, by the way, that's a great counter and something I love, like the introduction of something that, you know, humans like in one place, as long as it's not so foreign and doesn't hit the palate. And I think that connection's a layup. So. Okay, so you figured out what you're gonna make?

[Audience Member - Food Truck Entrepreneur]

Yes, I'm gonna do text nights. But my goal is to go the next three to five years from having a taco truck to having a, like a restaurant.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

Okay.

[Audience Member - Food Truck Entrepreneur]

I think that's like something that's smart or just a restaurant.

[Gary Vaynerchuk]

I don't think it's smart or not smart. I think it's not Smart to put yourself into a jail. You saying to yourself, I'm gonna do this in three to five years is gonna lead to anxiety. Do it in 12 months. Do it in 12 years. Oh, by the way, it all depends on what the arbitrage is. You might realize after a year. Wait a minute. Why would I open a restaurant where the leases are too expensive? I wanna open up nine more trucks. Stay fluid. Don't create a North Star. Here's what you focus on. Let me bring this Tex Mex delicious food to these kids and then let me react to what happens. If that leads to a location, great. If that leads to 13 more food trucks, great. If that leads to a big company coming in and trying to turn it into a national chain or a product that's sold by a frozen food company, keep it open. Because a lot of people at their young stage make these arbitrary decisions of three to five years. I'm gonna do that. They actually stick to that. And then they don't see all the other opportunity because they're on this narrow thing that a lot of times ends up not being the right thing. Awesome. Thank you guys so much, everybody. If you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.