Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax on investment advice. I want to help my kids and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my own office has a forever setting.
An IG private wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your [email protected] long form content, like long YouTube videos are dead uncomfortably false. We just sat here for 40 minutes to give a ton of fucking value.
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This is Gary Vee audio experience. This guy doesn't need an introduction. We got Gary V. Widely regarded as the original influencer.
Gary was listed as Forbes top social influencers in 2017. Since he's built banner media into a global powerhouse and big voter, six time year bestselling author. Pleasure have you on man. Thanks my man.
Happy New Year. Happy New Year's. Listen, you were born in Belarus and came to America as a child and you started trading cards. You know, let's just talk about the early hustle to get, just get everybody familiar with how you got started.
Yeah, even before trading cards, which was really fifth, sixth, seventh grade, you know, I was, you know, you know this stuff. Like some people just born for certain things. Like when I see athletes or when I see musicians, you know, back in the day, like a lot of tennis players were like 14 and 15 are winning grand Slams, especially on the female side, these Olympians that are like 12 and winning the gold medal. Like I was just that person with business.
Like by fourth grade I was getting D's and F's because I couldn't, I couldn't understand why it mattered. I was so passionate about lemonade stands and washing. Like if it snowed, I wanted to shovel snow five bucks instead of sledding. If it was 90 degrees out, I wanted to sell lemonade or ring doorbells and wash cars.
It was just so in me and, and yeah, I just refined that game as a child and then as a teenager. And I've just always been in both business but also hard work. I think there's some people smarter than me that are like business people that like, they figure out like, let me code this and like I've just Been in both. Like, get dirt under my fingers and grind.
I tried to be smart, but like, I love the process. I love the practice. I love the late nights. Like, I'm just that person that's process over.
Over profits even. Like. Like the money has shockingly not been at some level the motivator. Even as a kid, it was just like more fun for me to create a fake little store in the neighborhood and have people buy things then getting the money.
I didn't want to buy shit. Like, it wasn't even like that. It was just the fucking game. You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, so the money didn't matter. One of the things I noticed, you know, right now we employ 1300 people. And the people that came as immigrants, they're relentless.
They're not afraid of rejection. They are like, this is the United States of America. You think being an immigrant just gave you a one up. Yeah.
And I would say that for a lot of immigrants like myself, you know, I was born in a shithole. The USSR was a bad place. And then we came here, we were dead fucking broke. So we lived in a shithole in Queens, like New York.
Like, I don't think it was per se. The immigrant, like, I argue an American born in a trailer park has that same advantage, which is like, when you're from the fucking dirt, you're like, you're a different animal. I mean, it's not complicated, right? Like, does a zoo animal beat a.
Does a lion that grew up in the zoo beat a lion from the jungle? Never. And so, you know, and then I had to. And I had the best circumstance, which is we didn't have shit, but we had.
My mom filled every room with nothing but love and optimism and joy. So some people grow up in shit, but the parents are in a shit place and it's dark, you know, I grew up, we didn't have shit, but we had the most important shit, which is fucking nurturing, love, fucking, you know, I just had a fucking monster mother. And so like, I was destined to be unstoppable because no one was gonna fuck with me. Cause my mommy said I'm good for me.
Like, I'm not going to believe you. My mom said I'm good. My mom said I can fuck you. Yeah.
100. I felt like I got the most love if literally I got in a car accident. And the person that lived, My mom would come out with a shell, doesn't have the best back, but she'd be like, let's go ahead and Take care of this. If I didn't go to prison, she moved back to the prison.
I mean, I'm her baby boy. Like that's it. Like she's gonna be close, but my dad was reliable. Did your dad have like competitive, like, no participation trophies?
What was your dad. What was his claim to how you turned out? His best claim is word is bond. He really my dad.
I don't know what my dad thought. I didn't see him until I was 14. He worked every minute. Like, he showed me how to live a certain life.
Not. He didn't tell me my dad wasn't. I didn't have a dad that told me life lessons. My dad showed me life lessons.
How to be a man, provide for your family. Fucking your word is what you fucking back up. He was old school like that, but he didn't even know I was doing sports. I think my dad is real.
Showed up to one sporting event in my life and it was because the baseball game was like five minutes from the liquor store and he popped out. It was huge for me. I can't even explain to you what it feels like to my body right now. I'm shook that he was there.
It was that out of character, out of my norm. He woke up and went to work before I woke up and came home after I went to bed. And he worked seven days a week. So I didn't fucking see my father until I started working in the liquor store that he had when I was 14.
And that's when I really got to know my dad. The next one years was all my dad. I was in the liquor store all the time. And he was cynical and like different than my mom, but my mom had already laid the foundation.
And my dad was able to sprinkle in his things. And, you know, I'm incredibly grateful for my parents. Yeah. So you started working at your dad's Jersey liquor store and you started the E Commerce giant, the wine Larry Wine, library, tv.
What do you think you learned in the process of watching dad and just even before you constantly were thinking about the business? Well, there's only probably one year of that tone. There's only one year where I wasn't thinking about the business that I saw my dad. It was the first year I worked in liquor store.
I fucking hated it. You know, just keeping. I just came from making actual money. 300 bucks, 600 bucks, 200 bucks, 500 bucks at the malls of New Jersey, selling cards and fucking being my own boss at 13 and fucking feeling like a fucking million bucks.
And now work at my dad's liquor store on weekends instead. And I'm getting paid $2 an hour to bag ice in a dungy fucking basement like I was sloth from goonies with some 17 year old fucking degenerate who hated my father. And I'm bagging ice for 10 hours a day. My fucking pinky's about to fall off because it's fucking cold in that icebox.
I'm like, what the is this could give a was in the basement. I hated it. And what I learned was like what I didn't want to do. My dad was a dick to his employees.
Straight up. He would yell at them. I didn't like it. This was not where's this optimistic rainbows I was used to with my mom.
It was year two when I went upstairs and started stocking shelves where I started thinking about the business. I could watch customers. You know, I was a psycho. I was like watching how they bought what they bought.
Why? I was 14. Psycho, bro. Like business, like savant.
In hindsight, it was my norm. I didn't know anything else. But now looking back, like that's just crazy. Like that I was so in that game.
And what I learned a lot of things, no question. Thing I learned from my dad was no complaining, hard work, period, end of story. You know, like did not complain. Like, like it just, it didn't cross his mind, nor my mother for that matter.
Everything was so shitty back in the USSR in the 60s and 70s when they were growing up that the worst things happening in America. My mom, my grandma got mugged the first week we were in America. And we were just happy that like she didn't go to jail for 10 years. Like, like, you know what I mean?
It was like such gratitude of being in America. So you know, it was, it was hard work and discipline and non complaining. I also learned not to eat breakfast and lunch. My dad didn't eat.
Yeah, my dad did not eat breakfast or lunch. And I don't eat breakfast or lunch. Like 35 years later. That's been like my framework.
All this intermittent fasting that got popular like five years ago. I've been on that shit for 20 years. Let me ask you this. So this is an out of the box question I didn't have written down, but if you got to go, if your dad hired you today, and you know your dad, what would you, what would you tell your dad about pricing?
Would you tell him raise your prices obviously before the Internet game, because that's what you really revolutionize the Business. But, you know, what do you think? You tell them. Well, if I'm thinking about your audience and all that and good news, let me tell you the real story.
I started working on my dad for 1990. I didn't launch wine library.com until 1997. I made a big impact on my dad's business before the Internet. The Internet obviously took us to the moon.
And then Wine Library tv. I got Wine Internet famous, and that took our business to the moon. But there were several things. First, I was into merchandising.
So my father's the first impact I had. My dad was making signs for the store. Like, there would just be a box with wine and be like, $4.99. Like, no one wants to buy this shit.
I'd make a big assign and be like, this wine pairs of fucking chicken. And it's better than $10 wines. All of a sudden, we're selling three times as much. I'm like, that was number one.
Number two was the customer's always right, even when they're wrong. My dad was very good about customer being right, but my dad's very principled. So if a customer was trying to be cute, he didn't like that shit. And I definitely changed our culture like that.
That's a battle not worth fighting. You cursing out a customer on the floor who's trying, Forget about stealing. I'm talking about being cute with a coupon or something. Well, the other customers see that.
That. And that's bad for our reputation. That's gonna fuck up her. So a little bit of that.
Little controlling the emotions. And then the biggest thing, my dad's liquor store was called Shoppers Discount Liquors. We sold beer and liquor. I was very good at listening to the customer.
I knew that people wanted to buy more premium wine from us, so I brought in a lot more premium wine. And I also got educated about wine and started really getting wine nerdy. There was more margin in wine than there wasn't beer and liquor. So really, those were some of the.
And most of all, brother employees. If my dad was on right now, they'd be like, yo, og Sasha. That's his name, Sasha. What?
What'd the kid teach you? He would say to treat the employees better. And I don't blame my dad. My dad's not a bad person.
Let me tell you, Tony, what was going on? You know, it's like. Like, you know. You know.
What was going on, Tommy, was that in Russia, everyone stole because the government owned everything. Tommy. Right? So.
So my dad just Thought everyone was gonna steal America too. Like, you know, like, he just grew up in an environment where employees stole everything. Everything in Russia was a black market. You worked for the butchers, the government owned butcher store.
You would steal some of the meat and try to trade it for some clothes. Everything was scarce, you know, so, you know, my dad's first piece of advice to me the first time went to the store was keep an eye on the employees to try to steal. That was his first piece of advice to me. Wow.
So I think I transformed him from seeing the employees as enemies to see the employees as teammates. Very, very valuable lesson. You know, it's funny, I didn't know you were there seven years before the. What did you see about the Internet?
Because there's bitcoin right now. There's AI. But you were like. I mean, this is before you even had any buy domains really.
It was hard to get website up in 1997. How did you see that? The World Wide web and what was gonna happen with it? You know how, like some people are like talent agents or like, remember, like back in the day.
How old are you, brother? Tommy, how old are you? 42. Great.
Your hair underneath me. I'm 50. You might have caught this, but you definitely probably wear it back in like the 70s, like these a and R guys in music, they'd have to go to a fucking club and like, catch fucking, you know, Guns n roses playing to 50 people. You know what I mean?
Like, someone discovered Pearl. Yes, that's right. Exactly. Like.
And in sports, right? You see like a kid, you're like, I see, you know, like somebody high school. Yeah. So I have that in business.
I do. I have it. Like, be dead serious. Here's your answer.
In 1995, I went into a dorm room, deserve some commotion. And they're like, you gotta see this. And I'd heard of it, like a little bit like on the news or something. The World Wide Web, the information superhighway, bro.
I did not own a computer. I was not a tech nerd. Like, I wasn't that kid. But I literally watched.
Literally. For the young kids listening, I watched someone go on the Internet on aol. Like, I stood behind him on a desktop computer and heard that shit, if you remember, and watched a human go on the Internet. And I was like, what the.
You know, like, quick. Like, I was like. And then I waited an hour because Everybody got like 5, 10 minutes to fuck around. And I sat down.
This changed my life, brother. I fucking just typed in like buying baseball cards. And we didn't go to web. We stayed in aol.
And I got a bulletin board where people were like, eric Davis, rookie card, nine bucks. Like, looking for Don Russ, 82. I was like, what is that? Like, my brain was.
And I was like, is this prodigy shit that some kid told me about a couple years back? Like, this is real. I'm giving you my internal thinking. And, bro, 20 minutes later, I swear to God and my kid's health, I was like, this is gonna change my life.
That's it. Like, I don't know what else to tell you. I just knew that every f. Cking person on earth was gonna do this shit and that I had to figure out how to use it for business.
And the two things I used it for were the only two things I knew. I found ebay a few months later and started posting, buying, and clipping. And I started trying to convince my father that we needed a fucking website for a single store liquor store in New Jersey. And I registered winelibrary.com.
that was a name I was kicking around with my dad because I wanted to change our store from Shoppers Discount Liquors. And we launched one of the first five E Commerce wine stores in the country. Quite the story. You know, I found out about Craigslist early on, and that changed my life forever because I posted 500 ads a day on Craigslist.
And you know this, brother, hustlers like us, like, we find the thing we're not scared to waste. You know what my biggest strength is? I wonder if it's yours to me, I wonder if people hear this. I'm not scared to waste my time.
Even now when it's extremely valuable, bro, I get paid. I'm just gonna be very honest here. I get paid $350,000 to give Keno speech for an hour right in New York City, which takes me 10 minutes to get to. But I'll sit and spend nine hours on something that might never materialize.
Because I know if all I need is one of those things, Bitcoin, blockchain, AI Social media. I mean, it's happened to me, you know, time and time again. I've wasted many hours to not waste several hours that have changed the course of my life. And everybody out here, brother, that's listening, many of them are scared to waste their time when their time is worthless.
Yeah, well, they watch their Netflix and they'll do that. You know, Jeff Bezos said, this is probably one of the best quotes is in baseball, you get four runs. But in business, if you hit a home run, you get 10,000. Yeah.
So that's basically VCs. You don't know all the part, but you gotta be able to take the time, meet the people. And what you learn how to do is recognize winners. And I'm sure real quick for people that you invest in, because you can invest in Bitcoin is a little bit different.
You're investing in a business. What do you look for in the person? What kind of traits? I used to.
I've run the gamut again. I don't know if you're doing video or audio, but these stock certificates above my head, which. That's Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, they were the first three companies I invested in. I killed it.
Like, you know, like, you know, sometimes your first album, your best actually in music, a lot of times your best album, your first album is your best album. But, you know, in those scenarios, I looked at the horse and the jockey. So Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr had already existed when I invested. They were early.
First little couple, first year, first couple months, first year. So I could see what it was. I could taste it back to like, you know, the Internet thing. And then when I met the kids, Ed Williams, who was Jack Dorsey's partner, he was primary for me.
They were really co founders. Mark Zuckerberg obviously went on to be the iconic assistant of all time. And this really brilliant kid, David Karp, the founder of Tumblr, who I would argue understood where social was going. I think TikTok is more Tumblr than his Facebook.
You see interest instead of social. Anyway, all three of them workaholics, you know, ambition. I felt that they could will their way to the other side. Later taught me.
Cause I wanna teach people about my mistakes after those three, where I loved both the platform and the person. Later I started investing in companies even earlier. So I had to hear a pitch of an idea and judge the kid. I started to overvalue education, which was crazy because I fucking hated school and thought I meant nothing.
But too many of the startups, the kids went to Stanford and Harvard. So I got tricked. And so I started overvaluing the college they went to. That was bad.
I started overvaluing the idea because I couldn't see the product because they were pitching me the idea. It was early and I thought about how I, as a good operator would operate it. But I didn't know how to judge a kid. If they knew how to operate, I could judge their energy, their tenacity, their hopes and dreams.
So my chapters For a long time in very early startup life, early stage, four million dollar valuation, angel round that was. That proved to be great because I hit some real home runs, Venmo, and other things of nature, but definitely in hindsight was a little bit more guessing than I would like. Because if I want to gamble, I'll go gamble, right? If I want to invest, I'm now looking for the jockey and the horse and I want to see the horse.
Show me your little pony. Like, show me it six months, like now, what I need to do like that. Just show me. I don't care.
You don't need any success. I need to fucking see it, right? Like, I can't look at the deck anymore. Show me the product.
Six months, I can project if it's gonna be different. Netflix was fucking very different when it came out than what it is now. Yo, you know, Venmo, I can project, but I need to see it, I need to touch it. So that's where I'm at as an investor now.
Let me ask you a few reading questions I ask every person that comes on. What's one piece of game changing advice that you wish you knew in your 20s? It's not advice, it's I wish I knew what my kryptonite was in my 20s so I could fix it. Gary Vee, Tommy, you can tell on this podcast he's, as a public figure, very canderous, shoots it straight.
Gary Vaynerchuk, in real life, if I like you, even if I don't need to love you, if I like you, I struggled with giving you actual feedback because I was scared that you would get scared and get fucked up or like, I didn't, I didn't value candor. So I wish in my twenties I understood that candor was a gift you were giving to people, not a scare tactic. Really, really, really wise, you know, feedback. There's a great book, Burn Feedback in a Fragile World.
Because very hard to accept feedback. And it's probably the hardest thing about business. But when you get good at it, the world's your oyster. We call it, we call it, we call it internally kind candor.
You know, I have 27 candor. Yeah. 2700 employees at VaynerX at our marketing firm, VaynerMedia. And we call it kind candor.
And I've been training it to my team and it's changed our business. Give you an example. You know this, brother, you're now in your career. A lot of our managers use candor or feedback as an excuse to be A dick face.
Yeah. The end. We have managers, you and I, who have kids that are more talented than them, reporting to them. And the manager's gonna suppress them because they're scared they're gonna leapfrog them.
So if you just call it firm feedback or if you just call it candor, well, now you got a fucking problem. Because people are gonna weaponize it by calling it kind candor and holding our readers accountable to it. They know they're getting graded by people that are giving feedback as well. And one of the things we ask is, did they have any question?
Did the person giving you this feedback show any level of humanity? What does that mean? It means that, you know, it's that old Mary Poppins song. I don't fucking remember it, but it's like, little sugar on it.
Like, I don't know. What's that little spoonful of sugar? It helps the medicine go down. That's it.
Like, I'm a buyer. Like, you know, you're gonna have to tell someone that they're on the ver. Fired, ain't getting fired, or they're not doing a good job. But starting with a little bit like, hey, brother.
And not, like, over coddling, like, just checking the box. Just be a human. Be like, yo, you show up, you're a dude. Like, hey, lady, you're awesome.
Like, you got a lot of creativity, but, like, hey, these things have to happen. Or, like, the calculus, you know, sports. You're gonna get bench. You're awesome.
We love you. Bench. And sometimes that's less opportunity. And sometimes, unfortunately, it's getting cut from the team and like.
But I think you gotta be a human. I love it. If you had $10 million in your account, that's it, you know, businesses still got your contacts, where you put the money. So I got 10 million, but I have nothing else.
You have no other businesses, but you still have connections. You still have relationships. Oh, I'm starting a business that I'm in charge of. You know, I'll decide what I want to sell or do.
But, like, I'm not investing. I'm not buying real estate. I'm not buying bitcoin. All things I like.
I'm starting business because I can turn that 10 into 100, easy. Yeah, you can take my connection to my. And I'm doing the same thing, because I just don't. I'm an operator, bro.
Yeah. I have seven meaningful businesses. I call myself a business juggler. I have seven real businesses.
I have a TV production company called Vayner Watt I have a huge sports agency for all the sports fans. Maynard Sports reps. Boba Shack just signed up Next for about 40. Sauce Gardner in Hutchinson, Kirk Cousins.
We've got tons of UFC fighters in Gary that have a huge fight pie first. Got a huge fight with Israel coming up. Sorry, Vayner Sports. I have a huge restaurant group of five very successful restaurants in Manhattan, three in Vegas, brand new ripping called the VCR group.
And then I have VaynerMedia 400 million revenue this year, Tony. 400 million in sales, not valuation, not some bullshit. 400 million in sales. I got Vee Friends, which is my Pokemon meet Sesame street thing that I'm building the biggest company I ever build, right?
Like I'm a real fucking operator. Doing over half a billion revenue in my companies. Like I'm an operator. Yes.
I'm a motivation to get an author and a personality and a personal brand, you know. Yes, I know people see me in 15 second clips on in feed or on LinkedIn, but like I'm a real fucking operator. I was 34 years old before I made business content on the Internet. And I already built a business for my dad, you know, and we started with nothing because I built a business for my dad.
Sometimes people try to fucking, you know, flame me and I'm like, don't listen to this guy. Trust one baby. His dad gave him a winery. They make up all sorts of shit.
They know, you know. Swear I work 22 to 34 every minute, 100 hours a week, seven days a week in liquor store and started intermediate in a fucking conference room in another company because I know money to my name for rent because I got paid nothing. Working for my liquor store because my dad didn't pay himself. Eaters all going back into the business.
The problem for me was he owned the business and had that asset I had. So like I don't need anything. I'm a fucking operator. Well, one question.
You got these businesses you're. You're juggling. Is there ever. You know, I've always built to sell.
If I can't sell a business in five years or less, not that I have to sell, everything's going well, but that's generally I'm a different player. I love that and good for you and that's awesome. And you like that game. I'm completely other way.
I want to die and leave it to people. I love it. So there's no businesses you plan on selling ever? I had to sell two businesses.
One was Empathy Wines. You can see right over my shoulder here These wines we sold out in 18 months. We sold that business for just short of nine figures of consolation brands. I had two partners that started as interns with me at VaynerMedia.
They were my partners in that direct consumer wine brand. They were also both about to get married. We got this opportunity. They looked at me with those four puppy dog eyes and I was like, God damn it.
So we sold it. They made some money. It's really lovely. And the other business I sold in my career was I was the co founder and co creator of Resi, the restaurant app that sold to American Express.
I'm sure a lot of people familiar with that company. I co came up with the idea. I was investor, put money in. We housed that company in VaynerMedia.
I was always there for Ben. Ben was the captain, I was the co pilot. I definitely made some big cash and strategic moves. I feel like my DNA is in that exit.
But that was a big exit for Penn specifically especially. And so those are two businesses that have sold in my time. But neither one of them were like. The majority of my businesses were.
I'm like the lead. It's me. I own it. I don't have to factor anyone else's needs into the decision.
Just one quick thing. Have you ever heard Die with zero? The book? I have not.
Tell me. So the book says, like, listen, when you're 35 compared to when you're 85, a trip means more, right? Yeah. You can go do more.
You like, you can do more and you can give and actually see your money be given. If you're, you know, 56 years old, you have to take wow and actually get an impact. You can see your impact. So I'm not disregarding what you're saying.
I'm just thinking so many people, they make, they do all this work and they're workaholics and then they go to their grave and they don't get to see the fruits of their labor. But I have. Let me explain. I run very profitable businesses.
I just did a $10 million over 10 year commitment to charity water. I'm gonna see that impact. I've been to Ghana, I've watched the schools I built with pencil of promise. I don't want stuff right.
I don't want a Lamborghini. I don't want more houses. I don't want that. All I want is New York, jettison, Super Bowl.
I'm not in control of that yet. You know. You know, I. I'm a workaholic.
Not for the. I don't want the trophies, I want the process. Like, like, I don't, I don't need validation for the money. I don't.
I also have plenty of money. My apartment's plenty nice. I've had multiple homes. Like I've got stuff because I run profitable businesses and keep myself distribution.
But I don't need much. You know what I mean? Like, to your point, I love how you frame that. I've been able to do enormous amounts of impact financially through charitable work.
And then also why I spend so much time building the Gary Vee brand. I've literally fundamentally changed people's lives because of my content. And that feels fulfilled as a human. And then for me, selfishly, Tommy, I, you know, I've said this a couple times recently because it's the only way I can explain it because I don't have you vacation.
The way I like vacation. Because I go so hard is I want to plop my ass on a beach, fucking do nothing, listen to music, eat three times, go to sleep. Like, you know, on some of these vacations, you know, as I grow my career, the places are nicer, right? You go from Club Med to like fucking Aman Yara, right?
Like I, I've always been fascinated with a kid that is like just building a sandcastle all fucking day. And then like the sun's coming down, it's time to get cleaned up and go for dinner. And mom and dad are like, yo, Johnny, Yo Tommy. It's time to go.
And this kid fucking. I'm just laying there just listening to music and thinking and vegging out. And literally have watched this kid from 9:00am to fucking 5:00pm Build this fucking immaculate. Whether he did a good job or him and his sister, or his sister or just her, whether he did a good job or not, I watched eight hours of work.
Hey, Tommy, time for dinner. And then the kid just smashes it and runs up, bro, I'm that kid. I just need to. I just am curious and enjoying to see how big I can build all this juggling.
I don't need the financial payoff. I get enough of what I need from the day to day distributions and all that. That's what makes me happy. On the flip side, it was funny when you were like, I build businesses.
Like I was smiling inside like it's fucking awesome. Like, that's his chemicals. That's how he likes the game. I don't, I like my game for me, I don't recommend my game for anyone.
Unless what I just said for last four minutes lit you up on this. If you're listening right now, then let's go. Like, then do that. You can do that, too.
You got the Tommy way, you got the Gary way, and you got a hundred thousand other ways. Just do it for you. Do it for fucking me. Have you ever seen Rocky 4 with Drago?
Oh, yeah. So I don't know if, you know, I'm Russian, so I know what he was saying at the last scene, and it's really just Rocky celebrating. So it's a scene that a lot of people don't remember, but there's a scene at the end where Drago, after he lost, is, like, yelling at the Russian crowd in the Russian premiere. And he's saying in Russian, he's like, fuck you all for booing me.
Like, I was in this ring for me, not for the country. Not for you, Yasi. I was in it for. I'm in here for me.
It's me. I'm the man in the fucking arena. That's how I see life. I'm not trying to.
I'm not trying to impress anyone. I'm not trying to convince anyone. I don't think I'm special. I'm just fucking in the arena for me.
And for me, I just want to keep playing. I'm intoxicated by the holding the breath of it all. And that's how I roll. You know, I walked up to you.
You were at Yano's event. It was out in the desert. Cristiano, it was probably five years ago. We drank plenty of wine.
You went on there and you said, you know, all you guys doing billboards, why billboards I can beat with social media. Might take 100 tries. But I also went up to you and I said, you know, Gary, my mom and a lot of other people in my life say, when is enough enough? And you go, tommy, I get that all the time.
He said, I'm still having fun. I'm just getting started. It's just starting to get easier. And that had to be five, six years ago at this point.
And I'll never forget that, because I was like, yeah, I'm like, tiger Woodsmont didn't say, you won four. You know, you win the grand spot. That's because a lot of people around us really think it's about the money. And by the way, I just want to hear this.
Everyone's allowed for it to be about the money. And I'm saying curveball to everyone here. I wish all of you knew me at 17. I'm not saying this gibberish right now, because now I have money.
I was saying this gibberish when I. That's why I was such a cycle inside of her building a heathen. Parents left with nothing, Dick. Zero.
I left with fulfillment. Back to what you said. Leave with zero. I fucking lived it, bro.
I gave all of my best youth years to my parents because I have that in my soul forever. I go into the ground knowing that there are very few sons or daughters on earth that did more for their parents financially than River. Like, I feel good about that. Makes me feel good.
So anyway, that's why they're saying that time. They think you're doing it for another this or another that or another zero in the bank account. You know, this, the f. Are we gonna do the.
Are we supposed to do for my building? Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about. Talk about, like, not wanting to wake up in the morning.
Like, I can't imagine disappearing on a golf course and being like, I'm retired. We got under eight minutes. I'm gonna speak through here. What's your biggest professional dream at the current moment?
I want V friends to become Pokemon and Marvel. I think I can do it. I'm super deep into it. I'm obsessed with collectibles.
I'm obsessed with storytelling characters. I want everyone to fall in love with stoic slime and the elephant. And I need to make Dianetic dinosaur famous. I'm Walt fucking Disney.
I'm Vince McMahon. I'm Jim Henson. That is my biggest goal. And then when I build that and take it public or sell it because the jets are available, I want to buy the nerd jets and I want to ride them into a Super Bowl.
All right, we're just going to do this speed round here. There's 14 things true or false and your reasoning, okay, you need to establish a niche before you start posting false, because you could. First of all, you need a niche. You could be completely copyright like I am.
I'm talking about tons of different things. Next. If you post too much, people will unfollow. Not true.
No one's seeing everything anymore. It's the interest media era, not the social media era. People unfollow if you post things that they're not interested in consistent, consistently. Plus, if you post more, you'll gain more followers than you'll lose, and you'll net out with more.
Next. Taking a posting break helps reset the algorithm. False posting, better content helps reset the algorithm. The algorithm is just people.
There is no algorithm. It's people's interest in what you're saying taking a break and coming back and doing more bad shit isn't gonna help you. Next. All you need is one big viral moment.
Most people get into levels of depression because they have a viral moment and do nothing with it. It's the reverse. You don't need a big boulder. You need thousands of little pebbles consistently.
Next. Only viral content is valuable for bringing in followers. Yes. There's.
I would say, yes. Ish. I would say posts that earn a million views will get you more followers, but posts that get a thousand views will also bring in. So does an individual piece of content that gets tons of views bring in more followers than the others?
Yes. Is it more likely, like the gym, that you'll more likely get 4, 7, 9, 13, 23 every day? If you do that consistently for 365 days versus worrying and hoping for the lottery ticket, that's the framework you need to bring to this. Next.
Being too broad confuses the algorithm. Being too what, brother? Being too broad? Absolutely not.
Like I would say, I'm incredibly, incredibly broad. It's just, are you making shit that people are interested in? Again, there's no algorithm. The content is shown to a small group of people quickly.
Some of your followers, some not. And if people are not engaging with it, staying on it, reading it, clicking it, sharing it, liking it, DMing it, or just sitting on it, consuming it, then it will decline. Following trends or hot topics matters more than originality. It's and not both or both can work like trends, being contextual, being relevant, being in the moment, phenomenal.
But like, you know, quarter zips are hot, but you say something stupid and not valuable, you're not gonna be able to ride that trend. Both matter. Steak and sizzle. Next.
You should use trending audio on 90% of your reels. I would say false. I mean, I mean, first of all, you should be talking in more of your reels if you're using only visuals like talking matters. But I think catching a audio trend before it pops is even better than writing one that's popped.
So I think again, mix it up. Next. Long form content, like long YouTube videos, are dead, uncomfortably false. We just sat here for 40 minutes and gave a ton of fucking value.
Plus, now we have a piece of content that we can chop up into 13 pieces of content. Long form video, I would argue, is the starting point. Long form video is crushing on Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube Podcasts. That's an excuse of the week.
Next. Once you monetize, the algorithm publishes you one more time. The algorithm is Just people. If you start trying to sell, sell, sell.
Less people are interested in being sold. More people want information. So like I wrote years ago in jab, jab, jab, right hook, you gotta give value, give value, give value. But you should have no shame in asking.
But if you're asking, asking, asking, asking, you're gonna lose attention. Let's do one more close out here. The algorithm favors controversy. Forget the algorithm.
People in general, this is how we ask the question, you know? Yeah, I think, unfortunately, people are addicted to gossip, drama, rubber. You know, all of us are driving on the highway. We have to look at the accident.
We rubberneck, unfortunately. But here's a very important thing, everyone. In the short term, we all love candy. But if you eat candy for lunch, breakfast, and dinner, you will eventually throw up.
And so I would say a lot of why I'm me is I've consistently stayed protein in a world of candy. And I think in the end, I win. And that's how I see it. Gary, if somebody were to reach out, I mean, there's a million ways to get a hold of you, but where would you have him contact you?
The way where your team could get back to them? That's very gracious. I do think people can find him, but, Gary, BE is a very easy way to find me everywhere. I appreciate you, brother Tommy.
I wish you a great, great, healthy, happy year and hope we cross paths again. We will have a great day, my man. Thank you so much for doing this, 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.