The GaryVee Audio Experience

Episode: "Your Exact Game Plan for Career & Business Success | Tea with GaryVee"

Host: Gary Vaynerchuk
Date: October 2, 2025

Overview

In this episode of Tea with GaryVee, Gary Vaynerchuk hosts a live, unscripted Q&A where he delivers straightforward, passionate advice to listeners navigating career growth, self-doubt, business challenges, personal branding, and life transitions. Gary’s signature candor, humor, and motivational fire shine as he fields questions ranging from personal setbacks to scaling businesses. This session centers on actionable strategies, self-awareness, and the tough love often missing in mainstream career and business discourse.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal vs. Company Brand (Julio's Question)

• Julio shares that he and his family hit the road to support family-owned restaurants, documenting their journey and offering free content as a way in the door for his agency. He asks whether to focus on building his company brand (Foodies Forward) or stick with his personal brand (Julio de Furio).
  • Gary’s Advice: “Both.” (03:56) Don’t overthink the split; focus on where the value is, and prioritize making good content.
  • Algorithm Misconceptions: Gary dismisses the notion that the algorithm is sabotaging creators and stresses it’s about content quality:

    “Everybody has this weird dream that the algorithm is fucking them up. When it’s them fucking themselves up.... The algorithm is the content good?” (04:18)

  • Own Your Output: Gary recounts how his content struggled because his team was “mailing it in,” but once they brought energy and thoughtfulness, engagement rebounded.

    “We just weren’t fucking good enough. And miraculously…my shit’s hitting hard. Because we have a refocus.” (05:37)

2. Chasing Dreams with Adult Responsibilities

• Question: “What do you suggest I do to become a theater actor at age 46 with a family and full time job?” (07:37)
  • Gary’s Tough Love:
    • Spam every theater in your area, DM/email, and ask to audition and rehearse.
    • Responsibilities come first—if you have kids and family, you owe them, but nights and weekends are not “off limits.”

    “If you decide to have children, you need to take care of them. I don’t know what to say.... What do people want from me? You’ve made decisions. You need to live in those decisions.” (14:37)

    • Critiques the modern entitlement to instantly “live your dream,” saying reality involves sacrifice.
    • Calls for self-awareness—most think the rules don’t apply to them.
  • Wisdom for the Younger Listeners:

    “I’m yelling at all these fucking kids 18 to 30 right now and telling them to go fucking chase their dream BEFORE they have responsibilities.” (14:01)

3. Breaking into Public Speaking or Improv

• Chris Leap asks about promoting himself for public speaking and leveraging his personal story.
  • Gary’s Playbook (16:59):
    • Use ChatGPT (which he nicknames “Chatty”) to find speaking gigs—search, email, offer to speak for free.
    • The first 25 speaking gigs Gary did (besides his first paid) were all free.
    • Mix brand-building via social content with direct outreach:

      “It’s always brand and sales.” (20:20)

  • Prompt Engineering Tip: Gary prefers voicing prompts to ChatGPT for more natural language.

4. Confidence Among Successful People

• Adi’s Question: “How can I be confident among successful people even if I’m not yet successful?”
  • Gary’s Unfiltered Take:

    “By not giving a fuck what they think about you.... My success has nothing to do with any of your confidence or insecurities. Do not put people on a pedestal.” (20:54)

  • Wealth is not a valid reason for reverence; real confidence comes from within.

5. Dealing With Shame and Overcoming Public Mistakes

• Anash’s Question: “I did something bad under the influence, people are taunting me and I’m struggling with my mental health. How do I get past it?”
  • Gary’s Formula: Extreme ownership and public accountability.
    • Make a public apology video, own all of it, and give grace to yourself after.
    • Self-forgiveness is foundational—if you master it, you’ll become less judgmental of others:

    “Having accountability AND grace yourself, I think matters. If you’re able to learn to forgive yourself, you’ll forgive others.” (23:40)

  • Explains why people judge others—it’s rooted in their own dissatisfaction.

6. How Older Adults Can Start Over / Social Media for Seniors

• Umar (70-year-old woman) wants to make money for retirement and is learning AI/social. Where should she start?
  • Gary’s Encouragement:
    • Begin by telling stories on social media; you have a life’s worth of wisdom.
    • Trend prediction:

      “Within the next 15 to 20 years, five of the 10 biggest influencers in the world will be over the age of 70…. Wisdom’s gonna be hot.” (28:20)

    • Personal branding at any age is potent and the world is ripe for more “elders” in the influencer space.

7. Conquering Failure, Imposter Syndrome & Momentum (Robert’s Story)

• Robert shares: He was inspired by Gary to leap into improv, and found personal joy and growth. He’s successful at work but struggles with imposter syndrome.
  • Gary’s Response: Imposter syndrome = normal human insecurity, shaped by upbringing and circumstance.
    • Even “confident” people have fear and anxiety; just keep building momentum, small wins compound.
    • Positivity and optimism beat constant exposure to negativity in media and social.
    • Takes zero personal credit—attributes his mindset to parental upbringing, especially his mom.

      “All I was, was insecure as a kid. I was scared of everything… All I’m doing for all of you is what she [my mom] did for me. I’m an empty vessel.” (36:02)

  • Robert’s Advice to Theater Hopefuls:

    “I have a wife, I have a kid, a full time job… I was taking comedy classes on weekends, my nights to work on my craft… Connect and connect… Nights and weekends are not off limits.” (38:24)

8. How to Get Your Company to Try Live Social Shopping

• Jonah’s Question: “I want my company to go big on live social shopping, but nobody is convinced. Advice?”
  • Gary: “Conviction over convincing.”
    • Don’t try to persuade—just do it. Run a test, make a sale, and show the results.
    • “We need to get out of talking and we need to get into acting.” (39:16)
    • Older generations are sometimes less eager for the new; prove with results, then scale.

9. Scaling a Marketing Agency While Maintaining Quality

• Zach’s Question: “How do you scale an agency and keep quality?”
  • Gary's Simple Formula:

    “Hire good people…. You hold them accountable, you fire bad people, you hire more good people, you take care of good people, you’re there for them however they want to be there for [money, recognition, WLB]… That’s it.” (45:18)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Algorithm:

  “Do you know what the algorithm is? The algorithm is a system that puts content in front of people. And when the people in the beginning… don’t fuck with it, the video doesn’t get seen as much.” — Gary (04:18)

• On Adult Responsibilities:

  “You’ve made decisions. You need to live in those decisions. And then you have to realize you have tons and tons of opportunity.” — Gary (15:10)

• On Thought Leadership After 70:

  “I predict in 21 years, five of the 10 biggest influencers in the world will be over the age of 70… I want my shit to wrinkle up crazy. I want to be like Pruni V and out here.” — Gary (28:58)

• On Confidence:

  “Why the fuck is their success creating insecurity in you? …You know who’s the last person we should be putting on a pedestal? Someone that has made money.” — Gary (20:54)

• On Accountability and Forgiveness:

  “Full, full accountability… being able to forgive yourself is a powerful thing. If you’re able to learn to forgive yourself, you’ll forgive others.” — Gary (23:40)

• On Proving Your Concept:

  “Conviction over convincing… don’t talk about it, just do it.” — Gary (40:00)

• On Losing and Competition:

  “When that game ended, I wasn’t like, ‘oh, I learned something.’ …I wanted to punch Zach in the fucking face. …Just leave me alone.” — Gary (34:27)

• On Scaling Business:

  “You hire good people, you hold them accountable, you fire bad people… you’re there for people. So you have retention. That’s it. That’s it.” — Gary (45:18)

Timestamps for Notable Segments

• Julio’s Question: Personal vs. Company Brand — 02:11–07:30
• Algorithm/Content Quality Rant — 04:18–05:37
• 'Chasing Dreams with Responsibilities' Discussion — 07:37–16:14
• How To Break Into Public Speaking — 16:51–20:35
• How to Be Confident Around ‘Successful’ People — 20:48–21:59
• Dealing With Shame, Reputation, and Moving On — 21:59–28:02
• Older Adult Starting on Social / Age & Influence Prediction — 28:02–31:02
• Robert’s Story—Improv/Career Growth/Imposter Syndrome — 31:02–38:59
• Convincing a Company to Do Live Social Shopping — 39:03–45:13
• Scaling a Marketing Agency While Maintaining Quality — 45:13–end

Takeaways

• Don’t overthink platform or brand—just make good content and test on both personal and company channels.
• The “algorithm” is about resonance and value, not magic tricks—focus on user attention and reaction.
• Responsibilities aren’t excuses; if you want something, give it your (remaining) all, sacrifice accordingly, and own your choices.
• Confidence shouldn’t be tied to others’ wealth or status; build internal validation.
• Own your fuckups publicly, learn, and move forward—apology and intent matter.
• There’s massive untapped power in older creators and wisdom-driven storytelling; age can and will become a superpower in the influencer era.
• The only way to prove new ideas at work (like live shopping) is by doing and demonstrating value.
• To scale, relentlessly focus on bringing in, taking care of, and setting standards for good people.

Gary’s tone throughout is unfiltered, compassionate, humorous, and blunt—a blend of encouragement and pragmatic, sometimes expletive-laden, reality checks.