The Fear That’s Stopping You From Building the Life You Actually Want

Summary

The GaryVee Audio Experience

Episode: The Fear That’s Stopping You From Building the Life You Actually Want
Air Date: October 23, 2025

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Overview

In this lively, no-holds-barred episode, Gary Vaynerchuk speaks with Paul, a 34-year-old entrepreneur from West Texas, about the fears and psychological roadblocks that hold people back from pursuing the life and business they truly want. The conversation centers around Paul's burgeoning garage clean-out business and the internal debate over whether to leave his stable marketing director job to double down on his company. Gary pushes Paul—using his trademark mix of tough love, humor, and sharp business sense—to see past the fear and recognize both the success he's already created and the enormous potential ahead.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Garage Clean-Out Business: Real Opportunity

• Paul recently started a garage clean-out business in Odessa, Texas, cleaning people's garages and reselling anything valuable left behind ([00:11-01:16]).
• Customers are paying $699 per job—a figure that astounds Gary ([02:24-02:32]).

Gary: "You need to quit your fucking job. Are you out of your fucking mind? What? $699. I would do it for $69." ([02:32])

• In just one month, Paul's team has cleaned 16 garages and uncovered valuable items, including $600 baseball gloves ([02:53-04:02]).

2. The Mindset Game: Fear vs. Opportunity

• Despite early traction, Paul is hesitant to quit his steady job, citing security concerns and the fear of giving up stability for his family.
• Gary challenges Paul's thinking, using a playful "Common Sense Game" to drive home the reality of Paul's success ([01:46-03:56]).
• Gary emphasizes that fear of failure is misplaced when opportunities and fallback options abound.

Gary: "If you quit and it fails, you can get another job being a marketing executive. Everybody's going to have jobs. Don't let this AI thing scare you." ([05:02])

• Gary predicts Paul would easily land a higher-paying job even if his business failed ([05:38-05:48]).

3. Strategizing for Scale and Security

• Gary advises front-loading marketing and bookings to build more security before quitting, suggesting a burst of focused ad spend to book out November and December ([06:11-06:27]).
• He highlights the power of promoting scarcity and momentum in ads: "Hey, this has been massively successful. We're taking clients for November and December." ([06:11])
• Gary gives practical reassurance: interview for jobs once a week so the safety net is visible while scaling the business ([09:59-10:14]).

4. Psychological Barriers: Past Trauma and Projected Fear

• Paul reveals he lost his previous business during COVID, leaving him "fucked up hard" by the experience and gun-shy about returning to entrepreneurship ([10:16-15:29]).
• Gary reframes the loss as a "once in a century pandemic," not a personal failing ([15:29-16:36]).
• Gary confronts Paul about projecting his own fears onto his wife and children, emphasizing that they are not the real obstacles ([11:24-13:56]).

Gary: "What you're doing is you want to decide to ruin your kid's life by making them entitled... You don't want to do this because of the ideology of going right down the path of what the last 30 years of bad parenting has looked at." ([11:24])

Gary: "You took a macro, or I wouldn't say a macro, but definitely not a micro. You took a medium L and you've allowed it to consume you." ([15:13])

5. The Importance of Humility, Resilience, and Owning Your Narrative

• Gary stresses humility and self-awareness as foundational traits for long-term success ([16:36-16:56]).
• The discussion ends with Gary applauding Paul for his courage and realness, highlighting that his story will inspire others wrestling with similar fears ([14:04-14:36]).
• Gary closes with a final piece of signature tough love: don't let a historical anomaly (the pandemic) define your limits, and don’t confuse past losses with future risk.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Gary: "You're the best version of a loser. You're a winner... putting on loser makeup." ([12:47])
• Paul: "It's not me I'm concerned about. It's the wife."
  Gary: "No shit, dick face." ([11:52])
• Gary: "You literally got thrown off by a once in century pandemic... and you've decided to give it so much validity." ([15:29])
• Gary: "The reason I'm so dangerous, the reason I'm out here publicly selling love and optimism... is cause I'm not scared of any of you fuckers." ([16:56])
• Gary: "Come on, Paul. Are you $699 and you get their stuff? ...You do understand you could scale the out of this?" ([07:40])
• Paul: "Yeah, I'm excited, but yeah, I'm with you, bro." ([09:54])

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Segment Timestamps

• [00:00-00:11] Intro and setup
• [00:11-01:16] Paul describes the business
• [01:17-03:56] Common Sense Game and business numbers
• [04:16-06:07] Fear, security, and quitting the day job
• [06:11-07:40] Marketing, scaling, and operational advice
• [07:59-09:14] Discussing regional opportunity and rapid scaling
• [09:59-10:45] Fear of entrepreneurship, fallback options, and family concerns
• [11:06-13:56] Family mindset, projecting fear, and tough love
• [14:04-14:36] Psychological breakthrough and inspiration for others
• [15:29-16:36] Contextualizing past business loss
• [16:36-17:32] Closing remarks on resilience and authenticity

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Closing Thoughts

This episode is a raw, motivational snapshot of Gary Vee's fearless approach to entrepreneurship and overcoming internal obstacles. It captures the power of reframing fear, recognizing opportunity right in front of you, and refusing to be defined by past failures. Paul’s journey resonates as an everyman’s challenge—and Gary’s advice is a wake-up call to anyone on the edge of leaping into their own ambitions.

For anyone struggling with self-doubt or the fear of leaving security for opportunity, this episode is essential listening.

Transcript

[A]

Dude, come on. You need to quit your fucking job. Are you out of your fucking mind? What?

[B]

This is the GaryVee audio experience.

[C]

I am from West Texas, odessa, Texas. I'm 34 years old. I actually just recently started a garage clean out business. We go and clean people's garages out and then we buy the stuff they don't want and we're trying to resell.

[A]

I love this part, bro. Paul, I swear on my children's health, I wish I was running this business that is like my. You just literally described my dream life. Go and eat shit and clean shit and I'm not scared of anything. I'll walk in dead rodent. I'll pick that shit up with my hands and not wash my hands for a week. I'm not scared of shit. Court, I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck if it's unsanitary and, and what? Court, I will let him talk. Let me just finish my excitement and then to find like if I fucking clean out some dirty, dirty fucking garage and then on top of it I find some he man figures in the corner. Oh shit. All go ahead, Paul.

[C]

No. So we're working through some bottlenecks of trying to get stuff sold out. We're trying whatnot. We're doing Facebook marketplace. It's going, it's slow. I'm in an interesting place right now is I also have a full time job.

[B]

I see.

[C]

I'm a marketing director. So I work, you know, eight in the morning. I'm six in the morning really if you count taking my kids to work or to school and. And then it's five to whenever to try and get stuff sold and then we're mostly cleaning stuff on, on the weekends right now.

[B]

Makes sense.

[C]

So I think it's a process of going through and trying to build that out. I think the biggest thing that question I have is it at what point or what kind of indicators do you look for? For like, yes, this works. This is going to be something that I can do full time. You know that that's kind of where.

[A]

You'Re asking the right question. Watch this. Paul, have you heard about the concept of common sense?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Good. Let's play Common Sense Game.

[C]

I'm ready.

[A]

Can I get some music for the Common sense game? This could be an ongoing thing. I'm like, it's like, like we got to make a little thing, like maybe make an AI song with me. I'm like rapping like Common Sense. Like I think it's like time for the common sense. It's like prices, right? Common sense game. Common sense game. Common sense game. Common sense game. All right, good. It's time for the common sense game with Paul from West Texas. All right, Paul, question number one. In the common sense game, have you been able to get customers?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

How much are they paying you to clean a garage?

[C]

699.

[A]

$699?

[C]

Yes, sir.

[A]

You need to quit your fucking job. Are you out of your fucking mind? What? $699. I would do it for $69. And that wasn't a high school joke.

[C]

700. Yes, sir. What? Yep.

[A]

And how many. I mean, let's go to the next question. Even though the game's over, how many. How many garages have you cleaned?

[C]

We've done 16 so far. We're only about a month in.

[A]

Paul, you're an asshole. Paul, you're a fucking asshole. You have an enormous business. How many fucking people in West Texas would clean garages for $3 an hour under the table. You just need to build the infrastructure. Let's go. How did you get the 16?

[C]

Facebook, bro.

[A]

Because you know how to do the marketing. You know I'm right about this Facebook local ads thing. You know I'm right. And you also know that people are lazy or incapable or prefer like me. I'm not lazy, but I'd rather pay for something I don't want to do. I'll happily pay 700, but I'm rich as fuck. I have no idea why people are paying 700. $699.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, we have. Wait, go ahead.

[A]

Here's the best part. Question 3. In the common sense. Play the music. The common sense game. Common sense game. The common sense game. All right, back at Paul, question number three. In the common sense game, have you found any expensive, worthwhile stuff in any of these 16 garages?

[C]

We found furniture. I found some $600 baseball gloves. I mean, yeah, there's some good stuff.

[A]

You have a straight. Paul, I hate you. I hate. I also broke these, but that's good because these are broken anyway. Paul, I hate you, bro. What are you talking about? Quit your fucking job now.

[C]

I think it's just, it's the. It's the security that scares me because I.

[A]

You can get a job. You can get another job if this fails. You're doing this for like three hours. Dominating. You'd be able to sell the shit on whatnot, ebay, Facebook marketplace, if you had time. You don't have fucking time.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

$700.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Is the Wife hearing this?

[C]

No, she's not here. I'm sure she'll love to watch this later.

[A]

Is anyone hearing this? Yeah, I've got.

[C]

I've got my co workers here at the. The job. I'm talking about leaving.

[A]

They should quit too, Paul. I mean, this is quit too your hire.

[C]

Paul.

[A]

If you quit and it fails, you can get another job being a marketing executive. Everybody's going to have jobs. Don't let this AI thing scare you. I can even just tell by your temperament, like just talking to you for five minutes, by the way, this is how I hire people. Just five minutes. I could tell that you can get. By the way. I'm going to make a prediction. If your garage thing fails and you have to go back in the market and you're like, there. It's that night, right? You're laying in bed and you're like, play the music. Like this is playing, right? You're thinking about this moment. All right, Turn it off. And you're laying there, you're hearing the.

[B]

Music and you go, man.

[A]

Gary V. Right, if that's the moment you're in, right, sure. Let me tell you what's gonna happen the next day. You're gonna get a job that pays you more than what you're getting paid now.

[C]

Yep. Yep. It's just. It's fear. You're 100% right.

[A]

Did you see my fucking face? $699.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

In West Texas.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah. We got. We got oil money.

[A]

I know you do.

[B]

That's fair.

[A]

But still, man, that's Manhattan prices.

[C]

Damn it. I was afraid you're gonna say all that, but I think I knew it was coming.

[A]

Here's what you do. You go ham now on your ads and get bookings for like another hundred, right? You position the ads as, hey, this has been massively successful. We're taking clients for November and December. You see what I'm doing?

[C]

Yep, yep.

[A]

Then you push that as hard as you fucking can. And then you see that you. If you actually get 3, 400 bookings, then you actually get all those people around you right now to quit. And you guys go hard.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Got it. You front loaded. You front load the man. Create security that you're looking for. But the real security for you I gave you, which is you can get another job now. I'm gonna really stun you.

[B]

Let me.

[A]

I'm whisper. Even though the hot mic is hot, Mikey, I'm just gonna go in for it. Including maybe this job. Cause if you're actually decent, they'll take you back sometimes for an increase.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah. That's happened once before, actually.

[A]

Oh, well. Dude, come on, Paul.

[C]

Yeah, I know.

[A]

I hate you.

[C]

Oh, I love you, Gary.

[A]

I love you, too. Joking.

[C]

And this whole business model was based around a lot of the stuff that I've been see.

[A]

No shit, Paul. Yeah, no kidding.

[C]

Pretty awesome.

[A]

No fucking kidding, Paul. Sorry. Paul, I'm gonna kill you if I check up on you in a week and you're not doing this. Like, kill you. Like you're dead. Okay. Do you want your children to be fatherless? No.

[C]

God, no.

[A]

Okay, so come on, man, are you $699 and you get their stuff? Yeah, in just a little area of Lex, Texas. You do understand you could scale the out of this? You do know, like, kids built up that one, 800 junk pick. Like, this is a big business?

[C]

Yeah, yeah, there's. And even in just West Texas, there's. There's several towns just outside Lubbock, Amarillo, San Angelo, Abilene. No one has any competition to what we're doing. So there's. There's plenty of room for that. For sure. I think it's just. Well, like I said, we're a month in, so the fear is just. This is working so damn well. Is it just a fever dream? Is this just kind of a fluke? That's my concern, you know.

[A]

I know what your concern is. It's what everyone's concerned is, for some reason, when people see good, they're like, oh, this can't be. But when they see bad, they're like, that's true. You guys are all fucked up out here. Literally, you believe negativity blindly. Like, oh, the neighbor stealing. Yeah, the neighbor's stealing. But, oh, my God, I've proven myself. I have a real business. Nah, that can't be real. It's too good to be true. Motherfucker. It happened. The other shit is hearsay.

[C]

Yep, I'm with you. Damn it. Yeah, I'm with you.

[A]

AI's gonna take my job one day in 97 years. I better fucking stress about it every minute. Over here, I'm fucking selling garage cleaning for 700 bucks all day long. I haven't even started spending ad money. There's nobody else doing it, and we get their free shit. Let me cry that I don't know how to sell the free shit fast enough, you fucking asshole. Come on, Paul.

[C]

You're right. You're right.

[A]

I know I'm right.

[C]

I appreciate this so much. This is. I needed this.

[A]

Good man. I'm Happ to give it to you. I love you, bro. I'm so fucking proud of you. Go hard as fuck. You clearly know what to do with the Facebook ads. I know it will work. I know it will work. Like, I've literally pieced this together, have told people to do this at scale. You actually put it together without me fully saying do this exact thing, which is like, I'm a very big fan of like, get you to the water, but I need you to drink. Cause if I tell you to do it. Exactly, you're gonna lose. Too many people will do it and lose. And like, I don't want to get it muddied. You listened. Put it together. Have the marketing background to know how to make good ads. I'm giving you some insights on how to future sell. Give you, you know, like, it's there, bro.

[C]

Right? Yeah, I'm excited, but yeah, I'm with you, bro.

[A]

You can get another job if it makes you feel better. Let me give you another thing to like, triple down on your fear while you're building this. 60, 70, 80 hours a day, a week. Excuse me. You can interview for other jobs once a week for 30 minutes on Zoom or physically.

[C]

Yeah. Just to have it there.

[A]

I just think that you need peace.

[C]

Of mind, but little backstory. I mean, I think what. What hurt me a lot. What's going on in my head right now is we. I had a marketing agency I was running pre Covid, and we had a lot of oil field companies that were on.

[A]

I'm stopping you. That. That you were running a company versus a job.

[C]

Huh?

[A]

Right.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah. It's just the fear of going back.

[A]

To entrepreneurship and then going to zero. Because it's different now.

[C]

You know, I was in my 20s. I had no kids. I had no responsibilities. And so it feels different now.

[A]

Yeah. How old are the kids?

[C]

One three and six.

[A]

Now you're six. Three and one year old. Don't need that much, bro. Yeah, your six year old does not need to go to kindergarten in a pair of Air Jordans.

[C]

You know, you're gonna. You're hitting on something that's gonna be an interesting, more psychological thing here for me, because for me, I'm okay eating. I'm fine with it. I'm. I'm pulling rats out of a garage. Like, I don't mind that side of it. I could move back into a cardboard box if I wanted to.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So what.

[A]

So what you're doing. What you're doing is you want to decide to ruin your kid's life. By making them entitled and soft and trust fund babies. So you don't want to do this, which will actually ironically get you more success, but you don't want to do this because of the ideology of going right down the path of what the last 30 years of bad parenting has looked at.

[C]

So almost. It's not me I'm concerned about. It's a wife.

[A]

No shit, dick face. Yeah. And.

[C]

It'S one. Yeah. No, Yeah. I don't know. And that's it. I mean, that's. That's the biggest. It's taking a step back. Me taking is okay. I don't know if she will be okay with it.

[A]

What is she gonna lose out on?

[C]

You know, the nice house, the nice car.

[A]

Well, hold on. You haven't sold the cowser car yet.

[C]

Not. No, no. It's the fear of taking the step back, you know?

[A]

Is she telling you not to do this?

[C]

No, no, she's been supportive. She's been definitely supportive.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it sounds like you're imposing on her your ideology. Sounds like you're scapegoating her on your own fear. Maybe.

[C]

Maybe a little bit, yeah.

[A]

What do you mean maybe a little bit? You just said she's fully supportive, Paul. You're the worst. She's supportive. She's supportive of Paul. You're the worst, Paul. What do you mean?

[C]

Yeah, yeah, I'm an asshole. I know. I know shit.

[A]

But you're capable. What's pissing me off? If you were a loser, I wouldn't be saying this. I'd be like, stay with the job, dude. You know what I mean? Like, that's the worst part. You're the best version of a loser. You're a winner. Yeah, that's putting on loser makeup.

[C]

Yeah, I missed that in my 20s. Not giving a shit and just going. And that works so well for me. I don't know. The kids. The kids fuck with me. Yeah.

[A]

What do you mean the kids? The kids have no fucking idea what the fuck you're talking about, Paul. They don't. They don't.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

What do you mean the kids?

[C]

You know, I.

[A]

No, no, here's what actually happened. Instead of blaming the kids who have no fucking. The one year old shitting his pants right now, literally, as we spe. Your one year old is shitting their pants, so is the three year old, probably, by the way. And if the six year olds like me, they're pissing their pants. All right, so you've got a six year old pissing their pants. A three year old shitting Their pants and a one year old shitting their pants. Okay? They don't know anything. You have a wife who's fully supportive. Here's what actually happened. You took a loss during COVID and you've not been able to realize that was a good thing. You've decided it's a bad thing. It's you, bro.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

It's not baby mama. It's definitely not the three munchkins. It's fucking you. Yep.

[C]

It's a lot, bro.

[B]

It's.

[A]

It's actually wonderful, bro. Like, I'm proud of you, man. This is fucking phenomenal. First of all, you've done a couple things. One, you've just helped a ton of people. How many people see themselves in Paul? And don't be full of shit because you want to be a winner and associate with Paul because he's clearly a winner. Like, don't say that, because none of you are. Not all of you are Paul, but some of you are Paul. You're winners putting on loser makeup. First of all, you're helping people because you had the courage to come up here and do this with me, bro. 699.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You could always get another job. You do understand that, right?

[C]

No. 100%. I mean, I've had multiple jobs over the years. Of course. Yeah.

[A]

Paul, you do realize that there's other places to live besides West Texas and America, right?

[C]

God damn it. Yeah, I know. I know.

[A]

So you're gonna say to me like, I'm trying to go through every angle of what your loser makeup is trying to send you down. Oh, but, Gary, if I give up this one, this is the best agency in the area. So if I go, if I have to come back and they don't give me a job, I can't get it. Well, then go to Houston. Oh, but, like, my wife likes this house. I'm like, get another nice house. Like, I don't know, get the out of Texas and go to Arkansas. I can get a better house. Yeah, bro. What you are doing is very common. You took a macro, or I wouldn't say a macro, but definitely not a micro. You took a medium L and you've allowed it to consume you.

[C]

Yeah. No. Yeah, it fucked me up hard.

[A]

Makes sense, but I don't know if you know about this. Put it on the common sense. Watch this. Common sense time. Common sense time. Common sense time. Oh, cool. Let's go. Common sense. Common sense. All right, Turn it off. Paul. You got fucked. Stay with me here. By a once in a century pandemic yeah, Paul, a once in a century pandemic. Not because you were taking your money and going to Vegas and putting it on black. Not because you're delusional and you overhired. Not because you fucking got high in your supply and just started getting lazy and someone else came up underneath you and got you. You literally got thrown off by a once in century pandemic. And there was people on the flip side. Some people exploded during a once in a century pandemic and they decided they were somebody and now they're eating shit today. It was a, from a common sense standpoint, once in two generation moment. And you've decided to give it so much validity.

[C]

Yeah, I think I just thought I was hot shit back there and I thought I would, I could do it, you know, and when I didn't.

[A]

Yeah, I think you are hot shit. I'm glad you took that l at such a young age because now you're more prepared to build a monster company.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And you've learned to never think you're hot shit, bro. The fuck are you thinking you're hot shit for?

[C]

I think I'm dog.

[A]

I think I'm dog shit. That's why I'm picking up racks and not washing my hands. I'll eat the dead rat. Court, in your face. In your face. Court. The reason I'm so dangerous, the reason I'm out here publicly selling love and optimism when the whole world doesn't want me to, is cause I'm not scared of any of you fuckers. None of you canceled.

[B]

By who?

[A]

Fucking losing players on social media? Fuck you. What the fuck are you gonna do about, oh, you got big bad words on Instagram. You stink. Gary Vee. Fuck you, dick face. The fuck do you do?

[B]

Podcast nation, Big announcement. As you probably heard at this point, because I had John from Stan on the show. I am an investor advisor to an incredible startup called Stan. Stan Store. I'm sending you right now to GaryVee.com, garyVee.com Stan, go check this out. We've done a GaryVee Stan store challenge, which actually has a weekly call with me. This is built for everyone who's been affected honestly by my overall content. The tech stack, all these features and the minimal costs per month that Stan Store has built is really the tool that was needed for this world that I envisioned when I wrote Crush it, when I wrote Crushing It. And this overall thing I'm thinking a lot about lately, which is the individual empire, right? This creator, entrepreneur, entrepreneur, creator economy that I think is gonna eat up the oxygen. Very honestly, the thing that so many of you want in your life and the reason so many of you are not there yet, is you've got the strategy for me. You've got the ambition within yourself, but you don't have the tools for you to fully maximize it. And I believe you can find that at Stan Store. Stan Store. But specifically, I want you to sign up for it through my challenge because I want to get access with you. And plus, there's a bunch questions of cool things. So if you want to go see those cool things, go to garyv.com. stan S T A N.