- Talent is the great equalizer
of all the things that people are scared of.
Don't worry America everything will be fine.
Talent still matters.
(upbeat music)
- You were born in the Soviet Union.
- [Gary] I was.
- [Rebecca] How much do you think that shaped
who you are now? - An enormous amount.
I think being born in a Communist country as a purebred
capitalist and then having the great fortune to be able to come
to America and then to be really not wealthy and
not have stuff as a kid.
To be emotional that my parents
bought me two "Star Wars" figures when I was six and
knowing that was an enormous deal.
To know that when I wanted stuff my mom was very quick to tell me
go buy it yourself and go earn it.
It absolutely, absolutely, absolutely shaped me.
And the other thing, you know, especially in the political
climate we all live in now, I don't think people understand
how amazing America is.
It makes me enormously optimistic,
very positive and those are very important traits if you're gonna
be insane and actually go after entrepreneurship.
- How did you do this whole thing?
You built it from the ground up.
- I've been producing content online for 10 years.
Early YouTube when I started the wine show for my prior career.
(upbeat jazz music)
And about two, three years ago,
I wasn't doing the wine show any more.
I was once in a blue moon putting out some content
but it was building up.
I'm like there's an opportunity for me to talk.
There's new thoughts in my mind and we started
a show called The #AskGaryVee Show.
You ask questions,
and I answer them.
This is The #AskGaryVee Show.
And then vlogging started taking off on YouTube more and more and
so kind of the marriage of YouTube first person vlogging
and reality TV became the concept behind DailyVee which we
started earlier this year and it's become a very substantial
part of the brand building of myself and my agency.
("Legendary" by Welshly Arms)
- [Gary] I think it's really smart to create a
North Star and reverse engineer.
Seven years ago, after making a lot of money on investments,
decided to build an agency.
Full service, media buying, creative,
strategy, video production, all of it.
Not just one like the rest of the agency world and I was gonna
build it for myself.
And so I was gonna take a step back,
eat crap 'cause you have to have clients and that stinks.
Especially when you've already made your money.
- How do you do that?
'Cause you're very outspoken person.
- [Gary] I do it 'cause I eat crap.
'Cause they're the boss.
My dad has a Russian saying:
whoever pays for the music gets to pick it.
- When you were in those first years,
you took advantage of YouTube very early on as you said.
- Yes.
- Was there ever a fear of well if I'm not creating the video
content maybe I'm focusing on the wrong thing.
- I've only had one substantial advantage against the market
which is I just worked 13 and 14
and 15 hours a day.
If you're competing against people that are working seven
and eight and really five and six when he count in lunch and a
couple of YouTube videos and a phone call or two,
I was never worried about that.
I always had enough time to be what I am which is the
CEO of a $100 million dollar revenue agency and,
you know especially with the infrastructure around now 'cause
I'm a five person team which
really a modern-day production company.
- What's been the hardest lesson for you to learn in your life?
- [Gary] That I can't do everything.
- What are things you would
love to be doing that you're not doing?
- Nothing. I'm in full control my life.
If there's something I want to do,
then I can go do it.
We make our beds so I sleep in it.
- [Rebecca] What do you think about all the evangelists today
who talk about you need more sleep,
you need to work less?
- All of it is very personal.
I don't need society telling me how to do work-life balance.
I don't need society telling me how to raise my children.
That being said, I'm a huge advocate of sleep.
I'm all-in for six, seven.
I mean I always try to get six or seven hours of sleep.
That's plenty.
I'm just more worried about what you're doing while you're awake.
- Right. Not wasting your time.
- [Gary] 100%.
- One of your main things--
- If you're complaining, now by the way,
this is only if you complain.
If you don't complain, you can do anything you want.
This is for the people saying, "I wish I had," or
"You got lucky," or "This is unfair,"
for those people if you're on
four softball teams and watch
entire seasons of stuff on Netflix, you can't complain.
- Do you watch Netflix? - I don't.
I consume the reactions of my community
to my content and that's why I over index
with my community 'cause I've allocated
my leisure time or my escapism-- - To reading your comments?
- and providing value and I hope through example and content
I'm able to inspire that but I think practicality is grossly
underrated and for all my sizzle,
I'm obsessed with the steak.
- Because in the world of advice giving there is tons of sizzle
and not a lot of steak.
Does that frustrate you?
- I don't think I'm in the advice giving business and
I understand why everybody would think that.
I think I'm in the documenting what I'm up to business.
A quick little walk to the Garden.
Haven't done this yet so I'm excited about that.
Oh, DRock, look at that.
They're doing the, what is that?
- [DRock] What are you pointing at?
- [Rebecca] What do you think it is then
that attract people to you?
- [Gary] I think they understand genuinely that I have no
interest in getting anything out of them.
The only thing I want from them is their attention and in return
I'm willing to give them everything I got.
Oh!
I think when I look at my contemporaries
AKA other people that are in the advice giving business,
there's always a punchline at the end.
Sign up for my course, come to my event,
travel to my destination thing.
I don't want anything from them.
I just want the thing that my mom gave so much to me
that I still need it which is I want their attention.
- What do you think of the influencers and the desire among
so many people to become influencers now?
- I'll separate them.
What do I think about the actual influencers?
That they're the one of the
two or three best deals in advertising.
What do I think of everybody's aspiration to be one?
Makes a whole lot of sense.
Sounds like a lot of fun to make $300,000 a year taking selfies
with products on Instagram. - [Rebecca] But?
- But 99% of the people watching aren't talented enough
to actually create an audience.
- What do you think because, you know,
everything about who you are--
- By the way, everybody should try.
- Really? - Of course.
Let me rephrase everybody who wants to should try.
- [Rebecca] This is why I think,
this is why I question your thoughts on that.
- Go ahead. - Because every--
- I'm excited this is where it gets fun.
Go ahead.
- Everything you stand for authenticity and being true to
what you are, who you are. - [Gary] Yes.
- There are so many influencers now who,
not all them but a lot of them, in order to make that
$300,000 a year you have to endorse tons of products,
some of which you probably don't actually stand for.
- Yeah and so what will happen over time is that audience will
start to walk away from that person if they're not creating
enough value in return.
I think it's a value exchange.
I also think that we're educating our clients of just
'cause she has 4 million followers if when she says buy
this, if they don't believe her you're gonna waste money and
I think as the maturity of the market understands that
authentic execution's gonna really matter.
- That's what you built your business on.
- [Gary] Listen, I have never done a sponsorship deal on my
content in 10 years and I got offered in 2006 to put
bottled water on the table of Wine Library TV.
- Why didn't you do it then?
- Because I knew I was gonna make money in a different way
and I didn't want to lose the exchange.
Once you ask for something, you've lost leverage.
- What was the lowest point for you so far along the way?
- Fourth through 12th grade. - Why?
- Because I wasn't built to go through that horse crap of a
education machine that America
is for kids that are purebred entrepreneurs.
- What were some of the experiences you had?
- Teachers telling me that I would never succeed in life
while I was making $3,000 a weekend selling baseball cards
and making more money than they were making.
For all my bravado and ego, I got really lucky.
My parents gave me the right DNA.
I have a lot of humility.
I didn't need to prove it to those teachers.
I didn't need to razz them.
I didn't need to stick it to my friends' parents who didn't want
their kids hanging out with me because I'd be a bad school
influence and I wasn't gonna be a winner.
I grew up in the era in the '80s and '90s when
education was the only way to win.
You were gonna be successful
if you went to Harvard and then won.
There was no conversation around entrepreneurship.
When I was a kid, entrepreneur meant that you were a loser.
- What is the worst advice you've received along the way?
- Almost everything anybody's ever told me.
Advice is bad unless it's contextual and
you really dig deep.
I give very little advice to my employees until I start
to really get to know them.
And so, most people like to give advice without context.
The best advice only comes from the people closest to you and
the ones that actually have
your best interest in mind, not theirs.
That means almost nobody because that means everybody's on the
outside and a lot of times the people on the inside.
I mean mommy and daddy are
giving you advice in their best interest, not yours.
- So how do you differentiate?
- I just don't listen to anybody.
- Has that come back to hurt you in any way do you think?
- I'm sure but I'll take where I'm at.
And I mean in life, not in business.
It's so funny how your flaws can end up becoming your strengths.
My enormous need for attention has made me give so much more to
my audience than I ask in return
because I know that will give more attention.
My sense of self has made me obsess over how many people are
gonna show up to my funeral which then makes me want to be
nice to everybody along the way because--
- [Rebecca] What do you want them to
say about you at your funeral?
- [Gary] That he was the
greatest human being that ever lived.
- [Rebecca] The greatest human being that ever lived?
- [Gary] Yep. - That didn't take my advice.
- Yeah, I mean I don't think anybody's gonna be there,
like at my funeral nobody's gonna be there that ever tried
to give me advice.
Because there's only, there's nobody left.
It's unbelievable how visceral I am to advice.
Nobody even attempts it anymore.
- For people out there who are feeling stuck,
they've been trying over and
over again to get what they want.
It's not working out, what do they do?
- Something severe like get a divorce or stop talking to your
dad or quit your job.
I mean it. I mean it.
Let me tell you why, stop talking to your dad sounds like
terrible advice until you start realizing the thing that
I've come across over the last year or two which is most people
don't do things because they're
scared to fail in front of somebody.
And then you start unwinding and you realize my God they're
scared to fail in front of somebody who's within their
inner circle, who they love the most,
who's holding them down.
Poison is bad. It's bad.
- When is the last time you were afraid?
- I'm afraid everyday.
- What are you afraid of?
- The health and well-being of my family.
And I mean for real.
I'm actually more scared than almost anybody I know.
I've never been scared in business.
- You're neurotic?
- [Gary] I'm just genuinely concerned about the health and
well-being of my family.
- What are you afraid of? - Them dying.
I love them very, very much.
I'm being very serious with you.
Work? Never.
- Usually I ask people for their best piece of advice to people
but since you're not in the advice giving business--
- Yes.
- for people who see what you've built and they wish to emulate
it in some way, what do they do?
- They have to punt almost everything besides their family
and work 24/7/365 hard as hell.
(house music)