I believe that right there is the definition of entrepreneurship. It's when you love your game more than what the game gives you. Unless you are producing content that is meaningful to an audience on this device across 7, 8 podcast, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr. Unless you're producing content in written form, audio form or video form across 7 to 10 apps on this device, unless you are relevant on those 10 apps, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, if you are not, you are fundamentally irrelevant in society.
This is the Gary Vee audio experience. I love you back, mom. Yeah, exactly. Everyone thinks that they already know you and think they can just talk to you when they want.
They can. I'm like, I love you back. I think the, I think, you know, social came along, the Internet of evolution came along. Life is so much about timing.
You know, I was born in the former Soviet Union and if I was my grandfather, I'd probably be in a Soviet jail during this time of my life. And I'm not kidding because both my grandfathers spent time in the Soviet jail. I happen to have the serendipity of timing where the Internet came along and created a framework that allows people to interact at scale. I disproportionately enjoy human beings so they can come up to me like, I like being accessible.
We have never lived in a time where brand was this underpriced. Let me explain. What is the biggest difference between me and a lot of people that look like me or me and the companies that I work with and I get them there? It is the fact that I do branding, not sales.
Branding is different than sales. I love when people come to me like, Gary, I'm a marketer. I'm like, cool, what do you do? Well, I am affiliate marketer and it's, you know, conversion based topic.
I'm like, you're a salesman, bro. This is a very important thing to understand because I know there's people sitting here who have 11 million dollar business, are super happy and aren't even on social media. I get that. But what you're not factoring in is what happens next to me.
What's most important is not today. I stand up here and so unbelievably appreciative of that reception that I just got and knowing how many of you came here to hear me speak. But I promise you, as I breathe here right now, I recognize that literally everything I did an hour ago back is irrelevant. If I'm able to execute going forward tomorrow, if I start making the wrong decisions and not executing Begins the vulnerability of unwinding everything I've done.
I think we all understand society. We react much heavier to mistakes than we do to successes. The reason I'm pushing that you're irrelevant if you're not here is I don't think everybody here, including myself, has factored in how much more attention is going here. Let me promise you this.
No matter what you think about technology, your kids on iPads all day, you always on the phone, nobody talking to each other, how you judge kids because they don't shake people in the hand and look in the eye and all the other horseshit that demonizes technology right this second. The way we interact with technology is the most basic you will ever see in your life. Ten years from now, every one of these phones, every one of these video game platforms, every one of these websites are gonna seem like a fucking beeper in MySpace. You have to understand this.
Here's why there's nobody here, pot committed enough to this, including myself. There's nobody in this theater right now pot committed to this enough, including myself. When I say pot committed to this, what do I mean? I mean every person needs to get a substantial step back and understand, am I producing enough pictures, videos, written words in these platforms to achieve what I want?
And the answer on saving time is no. For everybody. And for somebody who's putting out 85 pieces of content a day across audio, video, and written word a day, my answer is staggeringly no. Meanwhile, there are people here who take four and a half hours to figure out a perfect Instagram post because they want it to look good when somebody lands on their fucking profile.
It's true. The quickest gateway, the quickest execution for everybody here to get whatever the hell they're trying to get out of here today is to produce content on 10 websites. The quickest way for you to get what you want in your life is to produce videos, pictures, and written words across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, podcast, your website, email, text messaging platform, period. You know what's crazy?
I literally want to say right now, thank you, London. I'm out. It is like, I'm thrilled to go into the mindset. I'm thrilled to tell you.
And if you follow me on Instagram, where I've taken most of my content, I'm thrilled to tell you that the reason you're not producing enough content is, unfortunately, you value other people's opinions more than your own ambition and happiness. That literally pants 47 can leave a content that you're ugly and makes you stop posting I can go into that. I can go into a million other things, but I make this very clear and obvious. The reason I am just beginning to succeed in my ambitions is because today is the least amount of content that I will produce, because I will produce more tomorrow and more the next day.
You have to understand media dictates everything, right? There's a specific reason that when there is a coup in a country that the army goes and takes over the TV network and the newspaper, communication is the game. Maybe because of being born in the Soviet Union and raised in the U.S. i had this paradox of being fascinated by closed, an open system of communication.
Maybe because I'm an extrovert and I talk a lot. I don't know why, but something came natural to me my whole life, which is. Is communication one of the things that make people do things right? What I'm fascinated by is the democratization of media.
What I'm fascinated by is that everybody here, how many people here have been following me for more than one year, raise your hand. The fact that 90% of this audience knows that all I want you to do is run Facebook and Instagram ads and you still aren't, makes me want to punch all of you in your fucking face. I mean, literally all I've been asking you to do for the last two years is run Facebook and Instagram ads, and you fuck faces still aren't. And I say this because I put it on film, because I'm gonna run this exact video against you in five years on some platform telling you that you missed the golden era of Facebook and Instagram because now it's appropriately priced.
And you guys have heard me, if you follow me, say this. I regret that I wasn't able to build my dad's business bigger because I didn't spend enough on Google. I didn't spend enough. I had to figure it out.
It was called Google AdWords. It was working. Yet I still was doing newspapers and direct mail and radio and television because I didn't understand the context of the moment that I was living in. Hey, everybody.
I 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.
They'll make my mom super happy. We really need to have a conversation 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 people 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's very cute that you tell me you didn't grow up with this. And that's why you don't get it. I am wildly 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 got your perspective. Don't you wanna be happy? Don't you wanna be happy?
The fact that we sit here in 2020, in the maturity of the social web and these opportunities, and There are still two platforms right this second that requires $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, this new Spotify ad product that's gonna have host like the old game for podcasts, Facebook or Twitter. Twitter's appropriately priced. But everything else I just mentioned to you, the ads are underpriced.
The cost of spending a thousand dollars on these platforms to get people to see something is underpriced. I really am desperate with even the tone and tender 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've 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 for 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 becomes a game of skill, not necessarily finances to actually win. It's interesting to me. It's interesting to me that you could be in the retail business overnight by setting up a Shopify account, which costs nothing, when that same action to sell something costs 30 years ago meant that you had to sign a lease and build out a store and rely on the local traffic that walk 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. 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. Actually, I think the most unhealthy thing, 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 very slow. Between putting out a media company, if you decide to put that on WordPress or Squarespace, a retail company on the back of 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. I know it's a nerdy thing.
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.
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 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 that you want to be a professional football player? And now there's all these websites where you can upload your film because the scalp 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 this 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? How many people here have a Google home or an Alexa in their house? Just raise it high up, theorist.
Raise it high a lot. People see this Google 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 a 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. Where. 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, 76 Carols muffins in 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. When we killed Mr. Peanut yesterday, which a lot of you heard about, that is us doing brand. That makes you think about Planters.
We weren't thinking about it prior to what we did yesterday. We think about it. It's all brand. And so I just want you to get your long tail of it.
And this is what led me to the most interesting conversations in my career. Because as a businessman, I never thought I would get into categories like parenting 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've 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 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 people 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's very cute that you tell me you didn't grow up with this. And that's why you don't get it. 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. Somebody leaves a post that you look ugly and you cripple and fold like a cheap chair. So that's why I spend my time right 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 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. 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.
I grew up in a very Eastern European household. I think there's like eight pictures of me and my entire youth, right? We didn't take photos, so it doesn't come natural to me. On the other hand, there are people here who took 97 of those on their rifle 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 gonna start talking? What are you waiting for?
If you are not communicating, you don't exist. I believe that if you're not communicating, you don't 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 here who's watched every episode of Friends.
Okay? Deeply loves Friends. Can't get enough in their own mind of debating. Rachel and Ross love 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 code came Netflix and then 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 2009 called Crush it and 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.
Pickles like crazy Star Trek esports, don't even get me started. Because they pushed it out and people have gone completely and made real careers now. 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 ads. It's 2020 and don't give me this, not my town, not 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 things I think about. I spend a lot of time thinking about that. And then, you know, I have a company that helps Fortune 500 companies navigate that world and I see it every day just going back to the planters thing because I know it's on the radar today. Like, there was a real debate if we could get America to know that Mr.
Peanut was dead so that we could run a Super bowl spot that we're going to do in a Super bowl. And if we couldn't, the spot won't make any sense. I and VaynerMedia knew that the Internet is real. We knew that if we went on Twitter like we did yesterday, the Daily show will pick up at night and it will be on all the recap emails this morning and in the papers and the AP and the USA Today.
The Internet is real life. This is fake life. I just really, I'm really going to know where the U. S come From.
And by the way, an enormous amount of people hate that thought, right? Like, I live in life. I know how we are doing such a great job currently demonizing technology, we hate. You know, my favorite is my friends who are parents who, like, you know, because they know where I sit on tech, and they're like, gary, you know, 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 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 get 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 going to say it again, because when you're talking about 25 pieces of content a day in a world where 90% 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 going to 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. I'm speaking at Harvard tomorrow, so I have to go. I have a couple more meetings here. I got to go.
Dallas to Boston at 1:40 in the morning and then 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 calendar, podcast or YouTube show. And now, three years later, this happened. I love that.
That is a 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, because this happened because I was the leading lawyer in town and this other person who didn't. You know the emails are funny, right, Gary? I mean, they come in all shapes and boards. Gary, I wish I listened to you and you start reading it.
I read because I want the quality of 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 Naggy 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, is lawyer, doctor, real estate.
But 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 Vayner Sports, that we know. We were in the final two with them. They went in a different direction. I see them.
I grew for them. I'm a kind person. My mom did a good job. But I'd be lying to you.
I didn't say. When I looked 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. Cause 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 gonna be harder for you to build what you're building, Gary. And the right. The feed of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, it's just one feed. It's just supplying demand.
If all of you start posting, that's just more content, less attention, less opportunity for you to build up on a 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 Maggie no cursing.
I'm taking the Q and A's. I'm gonna take some of your questions right now 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. I was called history. And I finally figured out why I like history. Because I know that things repeat themselves and humans are consistent.
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 my company's exploding, because they work with other agencies from the madman 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.
7.7 billion. Yes, sir. Gary, what's your name? Brent.
Nice to meet you. Right. I think you do both right, like I do. I'm Gary Vee.
But my family wine business, wine library, has an account. Empathy Wines, my direct 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, if you're really phrased. I'm not using it. If your personality brings value in whatever shape or form, you're gonna see more follow people like to follow people over businesses, but it's all about value exchange. But you'll appreciate this.
But there is no right or wrong, really. There's. 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 because they're scared who's watching.
And like, I hate looking at all your LinkedIn accounts. You've got like a suit and tie, look all professional, like you think something bad's gonna happen to your normal skin. 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.
Yes, sir. What's your name? Tucker. So I started a podcast called behind the Grunt show on Instagram, LinkedIn.
Everybody's okay. We are individuals and we've had a decent amount of growth in a short period of time. And all because of you. All because of you.
You executed. We just recently got reached out by a couple people that are willing to come sponsors or have their, their bosses that are 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.
There's people in Principal Florida Student Community Institute. They reach out to us about potentially brainstorming on that idea. So with that, we made directions. Everything you said is yes and no.
And it's important for you at this young Vince 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 principal is to decide a two year deal. Do it live there. And after the second one, you're like, this sucks, 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. But I think it's so exciting, right?
Because I go through this spiel. How long have you been doing it? Since October. 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 gotta be self aware about it.
But my big thing is, you may be boring, but it makes you so happy. Like, my big thing is people don't like their jobs or 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 punk. 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 much. I saw Bill Belcheck on the sidelines. I want to punch him.
His face. Just. Thank you. Cool.
A lot of people aren't really accepting of it. However, I have a vision real quick. A lot. A lot of people aren't accepting of it.
Let's talk real quick. Who's not accepting of it? Correct. The people that aren't accepting of it are the ones whose commissions and margins are getting affected.
That has nothing to do with the end consumer. I haven't had a single competitor ever love me. The next connection to my point we can show is how to scale that and what we maintain culture, but also keep the consumer mindset first. 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 Car 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, like, we weren't talking about culture 20 years ago.
Like, we're just getting the results done. So to scale, I do believe you need culture. You know, a thousand people, we have offices in Singapore and London. You've got to 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 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 in the crew. This is just intent. The reason I always win is because I have intent. My employees first, my customer second, me third.
That's a very easy way to win a business. I think we all know that's not how most people do it. If you're sitting here right now saying, me, I'm starting this business to my boat, to customers, because they're people that give me money. Free employee, you're building a very small business.
Yes, sir. Yep. Say it up, bro. Don't freak out.
My name is Ahmed. I'm 19 years old. I'm not even like, no worries. But my question was.
I know you say people don't look. Yes. My thing is, where do you start with that? Okay, let's play.
You're 19, which I'm so thrilled you're at. Your ask. This question is super important. This thought that you need to have your life figured out, this age is laughable.
This thought that we 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 zero to real life, you're supposed to go play real life to have a chance to figure out what you do. So what 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?
Do you like? What do you like? That's where you start. So what do you like?
What are you about? Good. Let's start with comic books. Do you want to create comics?
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, Liv? Yeah, bro.
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 again, you didn't just, like, say, like. You know, actually, ironically, once in a while, I come across an OG was 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 scale 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 in 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 one of those people, that's how I hired, hired Drock. Cause he emailed me three times and now he's Drock. And people like call their video people Drock.
That's his story. I'm here. So my name is Christian. About a year and a half ago, I started a boardback development company in the northeast area.
Love it. 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 surround people just wasn't about that. So wanted to say thank you for yourself for like kind of being that person.
Kind of moving. So about a year and a half ago, we started doing podcasts, 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 Ayo, which is American football in the northeast, to do all their kids and clean. So it's been super awesome. Also, my name came up for some high school coaching jobs.
So like the world has been kind of going crazy right now. No, that can't be. 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 my mouth. But my goal is to get into the NFL as a coach one day.
And right now I see myself in a point of struggle between maintaining the company and then having to go over into putting 100% my effort into the coach. 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 not looking at the company from the perspective of as you know, an alpha, as a winner, as an ambitious young dude. You're not going to make.
I'm building this. You don't have to build it. Like so many people in this room. How many people?
Your 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 build companies. And they built it, let's say from zero to a million a year or half a million. But take then they loved it. Life was awesome.
But from a million to a million five that like screwed it up. Like there's a Mendoza line where like people don't understand. This is why 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 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 have to be very patient. Good. So then you shouldn't be stressed.
If you say how old are you? Great. If you say I'm gonna be in the NFL when I'm 42, guess what? It gets less stressful when you're thinking 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 biz kid who's out in Buffalo right now. That has nothing to do with you. Take it for 44. 42's plenty young to get her first medical coaching job.
You understand our relationship with time is something we really have to start talking about in 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 have accomplished in your life. Got you, bro.
Yes. Ladies. Lady, what's your name? Rosie.
And I'm new to this for three years, but I'm the only female in the office. I have no offense to the white men in the room, but I'm obsolete. 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 the financial industry very heavily regulated. What NSA can't say I'm very weird. But people use regulation as excuse to not do well. That's what.
So how do you combat you 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 is 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 you 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 Ads than I was spending on direct mail 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 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. With the wild shirt. Ethan, you said you launched yesterday first. And so essentially what I'm here is I'm going to get believed.
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.
Gary, at VaynerMedia, you need to put in the title, I'm the dude with a weird shirt at lunch today. Because then I'll see it, right? I'm the dude with a weird shirt at lunch today. And you need to articulate what you mean on the value exchange.
And then if it's there, I'll give you good. Yes, sir. Will. Awesome.
So my idea for advertising, what you said is I'm trying to work this like a good idea. I hand out pieces of my apparel and you got to have this right now. He's my apparel shirt something. I was like, listen, put the shirt on.
Do something badass in it. Okay. Yes, yes. That's kind of how I'm getting my ads out.
I love that. Yes, that is a very good idea. I could do a shirt. Yes, you can definitely give me a shirt.
Is it medium? I won't wear it. Get me a medium and I'll wear it. I'll get your medium.
How she do drock? You know what? Drock, right? From you, I get 80,000, you get 8,000.
It's all screwed up. Drock will give you right now the info like drock send to attention Lou. And then I'll wear it. Yeah, That's not.
How are you? My name is Colton. Colton. And we come from a father son company.
Our dad started B2B medical 20 years ago. So now we're kind of taking that over. We still do a lot of direct mail, a couple thousand pieces a month. We started LinkedIn this year.
Yeah. What do you see what's happening on LinkedIn? So we got about 4,000 followers. We get about 5,000 people in our videos.
How often are you posting? Once a week, Nine a day. My question is about targeting. I'm very aware, as you know, you can run LinkedIn ads against people's job descriptions.
Have you done that yet? Yeah. I got a great way for you to learn this if you guys want to learn this as well. To the website, it's G O O G L E dot com.
But what's really pumped, what I'm really excited about this is you guys clearly are capable. Can literally. This is crazy. You can literally go 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 you have to do different content for different doctors and different sectors in geographic, gender, race, mindset, it gets real gnarly. You understand? And you can target specific companies too, right?
Yeah. 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 that?
You see what I'm doing? So what you're trying to do is get the employees forward to the CFO or CIO or the head knuckle, vice buyer. I know what that terminology would be. You see what I'm going.
You can literally write the words that say, does your accountant. If you're selling fast financial services, you can literally write along with the video or PDF or whatever you want. You got to sign for yourself. Does your CFO know that she can?
Because you would know that the CFO of that company is a woman. Like, you do such smart stuff. People don't. All of this is just like health and wellness.
Would you like to be healthier and better shape? Let me help you eat well and exercise every day. Meanwhile, people are like ass implants. Steroids like apple cider, celery.
People are looking for the hack because people don't want to put in the work. Yes, sir. Michael. Yeah, that's awesome.
I go to Scotch Plains, by the way. That's my favorite other thing. Side hustle Life. You can make 20k a year garage sale in a weekend selling on ebay if you need some stock cash garage sales.
Anyway, I'm so young, 25, I kind of have pressure, you know, get job, get out there. Do you know, you know, you see Instagram, everyone and you say about taste. And for me that hit me a little bit later for me to out taste. I did sports workman then went back home to do real estate with my father.
Tried to do that and really felt like that wasn't for me my passion. So I'm trying to go back to sports. Still trying to find my way there. Why I don't have responsibility on that.
Exactly. So my thing is it's like there's different avenues that I hold military. So my question is, But someone has to hire me. That someone has to read my resume to do that.
And getting past that barrier of trying to oh, I want to try this, but I have to get through somebody to do that. The answer to that is yes and no. Right. First of all, back to something I've already alluded to here.
Notice when I said to him that he has to reach out to 137 people. People come at me like, Gary, I want to be a sports agent. And I tried really hard. I'm like, cool, Barry, how'd 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 could afford to. One of the reasons it's funny that we're seg off the garage sale.
One of the like one of the things a lot of people get job at 7:11 or do the garage saling just to maintain your lowest possible cost of living so you can start a thing that makes you happy. At your point, 25, like seven years from now you'll be 32 years old. You know how young 32 years old is. Anyway, the second part of that is like I have to deal on the entrepreneurship thing to think that for self awareness always preach.
I always try to look in self awareness is a while ago. I still say it on Instagram that I always delete it is to find out what kind of person I am. You always say for a hungry dog, someone that pet doesn't know how to go correct and that, you know, I'm fortunate. Yes, you were of course you were, of course, both.