(playful upbeat music)
- How are you guys?
- [Audience] Good!
- Good.
So by show of hands how many
of you are...
Is my mic on?
Are you guys, It doesn't feel like it.
Do you guys?
Yeah I can go loud.
I don't know if you guys are doing it like before.
No worries.
I don't think I touched it.
- [Staff Member] Technical glitch.
- No worries.
I can wait a second.
(mic thumping)
Oh that's right, you're right I did.
I'll take this, can I take this?
Awesome.
You're right, sorry.
That's the Daily Vee mic.
Sorry about that.
(audience laughs)
By show of hands how many of you have context for me?
Raise your hands.
And how many don't?
Okay good, so I'll give you a little background
and I'll talk a little bit
and then we'll open it up to Q and A.
'Cause just wanted to get a sense.
So I'm an entrepreneur
and I'm an entrepreneur that probably
spends a disproportionate amount of time
looking at consumer behavior
and have basically spent the last 20, 30 years of my life
reverse engineering what I think is
actually happening with peoples' attention
and that's what brought me to email marketing in 1996
when I had 90% open rates.
It's what brought me to Google AdWords
the day Google AdWords started with five cents a click.
It's what brought me to YouTube
seven months after YouTube started
and started one of the big first shows
that was longer than a minute.
It's what made me an early investor in Twitter,
and Facebook and Tumblr
and
it's my current scene.
My intuition on where you're spending your time
and usually I'm just a little bit faster
than the next guy or gal in executing on those platforms
and then I spend all my time trying to figure out
how to bring value in that new paradigm shift.
So, for example, for the ones that do follow me
you know that I'm very obsessed with voice right now
and so because I believe that Alexa
and Google Home and Apple Home Pod
and whatever you know,
AliBaba or Tensen
or the big Asian players do
that everybody, in six years,
will have a device or the voice will be in the paint
or in the building but that most of you
will be interacting with a voice activated AI environment.
And, to me, now what do I do?
I've binarily decided that's happening
the same way I binarily 10 years ago thought
the cell phone would be the most
important thing in our lives
which is what led me to betting on the platforms
that were being built on top of it.
And I believe in my intuition.
I execute within those white spaces
and so intuitive understanding of consumer behavior.
Dating sites, in the 2000s, when it was taboo
and now it's mainstream.
So believing in my intuition,
jumping into new territory, it's real estate.
I'm in the real estate business.
I believe some place is gonna be good.
I start building.
I learn the space better than the next person
and I become a player in that domain.
Obviously, for a lot of you, it really
became obvious to you in the social media domain
over the last 10 years
but it was happening in the web 1.0
domain with search and AdWords.
It was just I was doing it for a liquor store
behind the scenes and I was starting from zero.
I think voice is gonna be my third chapter
and that's it.
And then for you guys I think a lot about supply and demand.
I spent a lot of time on supply and demand of attention
which is what I've just been
talking about for a few minutes.
And then I also, to be very frank with you,
think about supply and demand of entrepreneurs.
There's never been more startups.
Lucky for me 'cause it's fun and it's cool.
Entrepreneurship has been put on a huge pedestal.
It is crazy to me that you know,
there's celebrity around entrepreneurship
but that's the case
and that means there's a vulnerability.
That means a lot of people that
shouldn't be entrepreneurs are
and what I mean by that is everybody should try
you're more than welcome.
It's just I'm scared that there's
a lack of self awareness
and everybody does binary things
like the same kids that blindly went to MBAs
are now blindly doing startups
and let me just remind everybody
number 11 at Facebook made a lot more money
than number one in 99% of companies.
So when I go into a room like this
I'm less worried about marketing arbitrage of attention.
I'm more worried about are you self aware enough
of what kind of founder or entrepreneur are you?
And do you know how to surround yourself
with the things that you need to be successful
instead of blindly thinking you can do everything?
And then are you doubling down
or tripling down on your strengths
and are you putting that pieces together
to be successful in what your ambition is?
And are you aware of all the
vulnerabilities of what you're doing?
And how are you combating those?
And, most of all, are you building a business
based on the way the world is right now
without anticipating what the world's
gonna look like in 36 months
by the time you actually have something?
So those are the themes on my mind.
I'd love to kick off with a little bit of Q and A
and see where you guys take this
and then if I need to jump back in
and change the tone of conversation
I'm happy to do so but does anybody have a question?
- [Staff Member] So, I know that we have
friends all the way from Indonesia as well as with
you know people asking questions.
Sorry, I just got to open up and ask,
so I just recently got a power profile
on LinkedIn.
- Okay.
- [Staff Member] And this morning I asked my LinkedIn...
Because I did have a question for you.
- No worries.
- [Staff Member] So I'm just gonna take to my LinkedIn
real quick.
- Sounds cool.
- [Staff Member] And see what the question is there.
- Cool.
What's your name?
- [Staff Member] My name is Casey Lane Delapose.
Okay, so this one comes from Jessica Horgen.
Can you describe a time you felt lost in your career path?
What did you do?
And what was the outcome?
- So I think for me,
I felt super lost the first 18 years of my life
because I wasn't a student.
And in he 80s and 90s there was
no such thing as entrepreneurship in America.
And the only way that you traded was
based on how good of a student you were.
And so for the first,
kind of from six,
kind of from 10 to 18
I had a lot of pressure being thrown at me
by teachers and parents of my friends
that basically painted me as a loser,
because I was getting Ds and Fs.
Even though that I was making
3000 dollars on weekends selling baseball cards,
I was "losing".
Which you know,
built up a good skin.
Made me very prepared for entrepreneurship.
The only, only time since I was 22
for the last 20 years that I have felt lost
was when I knew that it was time
for me to transition out of my family business
and I was worried that it would hurt my dad's feelings.
Right?
Luckily, what manifested in that two to three years
where I was kind of like starting to build,
was my dad also was struggling
because I was starting to be
the real operator of his business.
And he was feeling less of a man,
and less of the man.
So, as that hit a crescendo point for both of us,
it actually became easy to leave the business
because we were both winning.
He got to be the boss again,
and I got to go on to do other things.
I don't want to manifest a bullshit story.
I've never felt lost in operating,
this is what I was meant to do.
Probably no different than somebody who's
meant to be a soccer player
or meant to be a musician.
Like I'm pure bred,
you know?
(Audience laughs)
I really am.
I really, really am.
I never was capable of doing anything
but selling and branding,
and marketing and businessey, busni-bess.
Long before
it was cool.
So, I got very lucky.
That's why I really push people to do
what they're passionate about.
Because sometimes you get lucky
and the world comes to you.
And that's absolutely what's happened to me.
The thing that I always was,
has now become the thing.
And
that's really worked out.
Questions?
And listen,
Just to give you guys context,
because I know a lot of you may not know who I am.
I've invested in over 200 startups,
like I'm very comfortable answering a very
detailed subtle question that you may have
on your mind for your business.
Be selfish.
That's what Q and A's about.
And a lot of times the question you have
is 60 percent of the audience
is also thinking of a version of it.
So, don't feel like you have to
come up with a question that's valuable to anybody.
Go real selfish, we have some time here.
- [Audience Member] Hello.
- Hello.
- [Audience Member] My name is Gwen
and I'm the founder of Sushibit.
We help friends to find hired work with
social media influences for marketing things.
So my question is for personal for my business.
I started this business last two years ago.
And the first year was like fun.
It was a lot of pitching and everything
and very exciting.
And then the second year comes,
and I'm always in the office coaching people,
scaling the business.
- You're managing.
- [Audience Member] So yeah.
- You're managing.
- [Audience Member] Sort of.
So, what is the next thing I cost it?
I've been coaching for six months,
and like okay.
- Coaching your employees?
- [Audience Member] Yeah.
- Mhm.
- [Audience Member] What is the next thing?
- More coaching.
(Audience laughs)
- [Audience Member] Okay.
- So here's the real question,
if you don't like it
and you like the hunting and not the farming,
you need to find a farming partner.
- [Audience Member] Okay.
- Do you understand?
- [Audience Member] Yeah.
Because I'm also the sole founder and a...
- Right.
So that either that comes in the form of an actual partner,
or you bring in a managing director
and she or he is really good at operational and HR
aspects,
and you're out building the brand
and hunting for business.
- [Audience Member] Yeah.
I love the coaching part,
it's just you know,
I don't want to always be there then what's outside.
And I'm missing out and I'm not doing to make it go further.
- Sure,
but I think first of all you have to deploy patience.
When you're small and you can't maybe
afford the proper farming partner,
you've got to eat shit.
(Audience Member laughs)
- [Audience Member] Yeah.
- You got to make choices.
- [Audience Member] Yeah.
- You've got two answers.
You either work more
so that you hunt from seven pm to midnight,
or, you deploy patience.
- [Audience Member] Good point.
- Cool, but don't underestimate patience.
- [Audience Member] Okay.
- Patience is usually the reason people lose.
It's hard.
You have something to prove.
You want to get something with the money.
You want to scratch the chip on your shoulder
to prove everybody that you weren't a loser
because you had Ds and Fs.
I understand why patience is hard.
But it is absolutely the superpower
of most successful businesses.
And it is something that most young people never want to do.
- [Audience Member] Thank you.
- And then you have the subtleties of
an Asian culture where's there's a lot
of conflict with parents
if you're taking that risk.
So the quicker you're successful,
the quicker you can say,
"See mom."
(Audience laughs)
But a lot of times that becomes the flaw,
because you try to overextend
and then you break the whole thing.
So be thoughtful.
You know, the I told you so
ironically is even more sweet
if it takes longer,
because then people are building
more cynicism because you didn't do it fast.
Which makes it even more fun when you stick it to them.
(Audience laughs)
There's nothing more fun
then losing 30 to 10 going to the fourth quarter
then winning.
Too many people want to win 30 to 10
in the first three quarters and then lose.
Because it feels better up front.
I care about the finish line,
not the starting post.
Bjorn.
- [Audience Member] Yes good eyesight, I agree.
- Thank you - [Audience Member] I'm Bjorn.
And I must say that you know,
I follow your videos
and you are less mellow and more thoughtful in person.
- I agree.
(Audience laughs)
I agree.
It's a really good insight.
And I'll tell you this Bjorn,
if there was a thousand people here, I wouldn't.
I think the context drives my behavior.
I'm always listening right?
So when Drock and I are on camera,
I'm envisioning 400,000 people,
which drives my energy up.
You think this is thoughtful and mellow,
you should have dinner with me for two hours.
(Audience laughs)
You know what I mean?
And so the context is always the driver of my behavior.
- [Audience Member] If that was a real question,
I would say yes.
- What's that? (laughs)
(Audience laughs)
- [Audience Member] Okay, I think we got to run
a meditation start up called Mifi.
- I'm already interested.
- [Audience Member] I know,
because you talk about this being
a trillion dollar industry.
- I believe it's the biggest space for
consumer behavior going into the next decade.
As a consumer product,
the way fitness was in the 90s.
- [Audience Member] Yeah.
And I also,
found this video information a year ago
where you had this switch
where you talked about
you weren't so hot on meditation
about a year ago.
- Me doing meditation?
- [Audience Member] Yes, you doing meditation.
- And I'm still not.
- [Audience Member] Yes.
- I did do it once on a podcast for fun,
but I've never done it since.
- [Audience Member] Right,
so I'm really curious
which brings me to my question.
As a non-meditator...
- Yes.
- [Audience Member] What makes you excited
about this space?
What are some key trends based on,
that you think on.
- So I don't think the person that observes things
has to be a user of those things,
or look like the person that you know,
some of the greatest coaches in athletics
never played the game.
So it's about the ability to synthesize the psychology.
Why am I so excited about it?
Because the brain is the operating system of the human being
and we haven't even begun to explore it.
Because we've lived in such an environment
of prosperity in the world
that we are now into second and third generation
wealth in a lot of places.
Which means we have anxiety about dumb shit.
Which leads us to these kind of trends.
I think we've become more educated about
our health from a physical and food standpoint.
And that humans are incredible.
We're survivors.
I always bet on humans.
Even when I'm scared about macro political issues
in North Korea, US, China.
I always say to myself,
the fact that we're still here
is something you have to bet on.
And we've gotten better in our life expectancy.
And I believe that meditation is the unlock
of the next chapter.
That people will live longer and happier
once they start really getting into that game.
And I'll be very honest with you,
I think I was born gifted.
I think I'm meditating while I'm talking to you right now.
I think I feel like I'm a tough read.
I'm an enigma, because of my personality.
But I think the people that know me better,
or have been around a little bit longer
have a pretty good read in my groundness.
I'm balanced in my extremities.
And so I know the benefits of a very peaceful mind.
I think maybe it was handed to me,
or the circumstances handed it to me.
But I wish it on everybody.
And if meditation is a gateway to that feeling,
which I believe intuitively it could be.
It's going to be a big deal.
Now,
anytime something's a big deal,
business people come in.
(Audience laughs)
And so you're gonna have a lot of
people from these parts of the world.
India, other places where this has been
common culture for a long time
who are going to be mad at the American
you know, business DNA of turning meditation
into SoulCycle and Coca-cola.
But that is what's gonna happen.
And I look at that as a positive,
because I think anything that gets
a lot more people into a good place is just good.
And if some people have to make a lot of money
to make that happen,
I'm cool with that too because I like capitalism,
I think it's interesting.
So,
it's as black and white as any trend for me.
More than I think that the sun will come up tomorrow,
do I believe that meditation is going to be
a very substantial commerce trade
over the next 30 to 40 years.
Now it becomes the next question,
what are you gonna do about that?
What is somebody who here just got inspired
gonna do about that?
Are you gonna be the fashion brand?
Are you gonna be the app?
Are you gonna be the food compliment too?
Are you gonna be the studio location?
Are you gonna build the high luxury retreats?
What are you gonna do about that, is the question.
- [Audience Member] Maybe we can talk about that,
over dinner.
(Audience laughs)
- Thrilled. (laughs)
- [Audience Member] Thank you.
- You're welcome.
Questions?
- [Audience Member] Hey Gary, I'm Sam.
- Hey Sam.
- [Audience Member] There's a couple of things
that you talked about already
that resonated with me
and go to a question that I was gonna ask anyway.
- Great.
- [Audience Member] You just been talking about happiness.
- Yes.
- [Audience Member] And you're interested in happiness,
so personally my background is,
I started out in a corporate job,
and after that I got into entrepreneurs
and worked on startups,
I was basically that person you were talking about.
The farmer ability in the market
in terms of getting involved in startups.
And I didn't take kind to it,
I really quickly said that was
no longer the cool thing to do.
I wasn't the natural part for people.
So I started with what a lot of people think of
as quite a boring job,
and then I moved into jobs that a lot of people knew
were very interesting.
And that's what I do now,
I work with a lot of startups.
And I do a lot of interesting stuff personally,
I love it.
This means I get a lot of people reaching out to me
to figure out how to do it themselves,
effectively to do correct transitions.
- Understood.
- [Audience Member] So...
- And do you now see that a white space
that you want to play in?
- [Audience Member] Not especially.
- Okay.
- [Audience Member] There's a lot of people who
are jumping on it.
- That's right.
- [Audience Member] Because it's a massive market there.
- Of course.
- [Audience Member] Personally--
- Most people are unhappy.
- [Audience Member] Correct.
(Audience laughs)
So this is where my question goes.
- Sure.
- [Audience Member] Because something that
I think resonates with most about audio content for me
is your sort of focus on Legacy.
- Yes.
- [Audience Member] Personally for me,
that's my biggest focus too.
- Cool.
- [Audience Member] And I've took it a long time
to figure this out.
To go through my sort of professional gratification
and happiness, what makes me happy.
And what it all comes back to is,
the most important thing for me is my happiness.
- Yes.
- [Audience Member] Can I separate personal professional
when you're talking about happiness right?
- That's exactly right.
- [Audience Member] So I am,
acutely clear on this personally.
- That's good.
- [Audience Member] But I'm talking to a lot of people
who aren't.
- That's right.
- [Audience Member] They're asking me for help
to transition into new interesting jobs.
- That's right.
- [Audience Member] One thing I'm struggling with
when I speak to these people
is sort of breaking through that wall,
which basically took me a few years
to be able to
really focus on obviously,
what are your drivers.
- It's radical candor.
- [Audience Member] Yeah.
- It's pressure.
You know, it's where people confuse my content.
Where people struggle with me out front,
is I'm making them uncomfortable.
Because I'm suffocating their bullshit.
- [Audience Member] So this is something I struggle with,
is being able to--
- I get it.
It's because you're at a place
where I used to be probably at some point too,
it's tough for me to recall.
You're playing empathy, you're a good guy.
It's not fun to be disliked.
Like, I don't like being disliked on first impression.
I just know it's my responsibility
because I have a gift of communication
and now I feel almost a sense of responsibility.
You know?
I mean the answer is self awareness,
to all
questions.
If you have excitement or energy towards helping people
whether professionally or just kind of random,
the answer is radical candor and suffocation.
Which is not a normal
trait
for a lot of people.
I hate being disliked.
Which is crazy because a lot of
the way I roll publicly,
creates 25 to 40 percent
dislike on initial contact.
But I'm gonna win in legacy
because I get a hundred emails a week.
A hundred emails a week that just start with,
I first started hating you.
How many people here consume my content
in any shape or form, raise your hands.
High, I want everybody to see this.
High, higher, don't be scared.
Okay.
How many of you the first time you saw me,
though I was a bullshit artist or didn't love it.
Raise your hands.
This is a very interesting insight.
But you know what's cool about legacy?
It's truthful.
And so, I would tell you that
if you're trading on legacy,
you will start gaining,
just in the same way that you realize that, me too,
you'll start gaining sharper edges
to get people there quicker
because you could bounce around and pander with it,
or you could just get right to the punchline.
And getting to the punchline
is the beginning of the process of them winning.
- [Audience Member] I think that's great insight.
A sort of step further...
- Go ahead.
- [Audience Member] Is, if I am straight in
there with a punchline,
if I'm just crafting down on radical candor
and people will block it out
as they do. - A hundred percent.
- [Audience Member] They don't want to
take me seriously right?
They say, "What happened, that's not my situation."
They're not getting...
- That's why you've got to roll with honey
and then vinegar right?
You know it's like being a fighter.
It's like MMA.
Right?
You've gotta, you know this.
Like I can even tell,
you've got to throw different kind of angles.
The other question is you know,
my dad,
I've worked on him more than any person on earth.
It's not gonna happen.
So like, some people prefer to live within their non truth.
- [Audience Member] So then you move on?
- Then you move on.
Now, there's different ways to move on.
It's not like you cut them out of your life.
But you have to be also self aware
and accept things as well.
There's only so much one can do.
You know?
- [Audience Member] I appreciate that.
- You got it.
It's a super interesting thing man.
What's crazy is that I think technology is exposing us.
It's unbelievable how I see this whole thing,
and I'm putting it on film.
I will not be able to see this be true.
I believe the next 50 years is a giant step backwards
for human beings in the short term,
because we're about to be exposed to who we actually are,
and we're not gonna like a lot of things that we see.
Right?
That's Brexit, that's Trump,
that's a lot of the stuff.
I think though that's gonna put us
in a hundred year macro much further along.
Because once we actually get to that point
we're gonna start fixing it.
So, I think it's gonna be super interesting.
- [Audience Member] Hello.
- Hello.
- [Audience Member] Hi my name is Sarah.
- How are you?
- [Audience Member] I'm good, how are you?
- Good.
- [Audience Member] I ran out of content partly
between industry and most of the time
dealing with content for friends.
- Yes.
- [Audience Member] While I love the craft of it,
and getting deep into the insights of people
and as you said, what makes them stop
and pay attention to trends.
- Yes.
- [Audience Member] A problem that I have,
a struggle that I have is
usually I serve them questions from the trends.
- Yeah, the clients are the problem.
- [Audience Member] How do you mention
the conversion to sales?
And I think it's even more of a struggle
when you don't have the digital infrastructure
as a place to measure that.
- Correct.
- [Audience Member] And even more so in the end
on the plain company.
- Correct.
- [Audience Member] So what are your thoughts on that?
- Well, the first thing I do in that scenario
which is a very tricky one,
is I ask them how they measure
all the bullshit they're actually doing.
(Audience laughs)
Right?
So, whatever you're talking about right,
let's talk about a fashion retail
or brick and mortar store.
They can be mad at me that the metrics
don't prove to them that the pictures
on Instagram and Facebook sell blouses.
And I'm empathetic to that.
Though I'm more than capable of driving
a transactional sale versus a branding sale.
Which is a more short term play
than a long term play.
I'm thrilled.
But before I even let them beat me up
on the lack of metrics of my environment,
I ask them to tell me how they justify
the print and outdoor that they do.
The answer is, they don't have an answer.
They've just accepted it.
It's kind of like religion.
Right?
So I'm okay with that.
My answer to your question is very simple.
You have to understand that you're in client services.
Which means you're not the ultimate decision maker.
Which means you have to deal in the reality
of what you're dealing with.
I don't have a single client
of the 115 million dollars in revenue
that VaynerMedia will make this year,
that spends their money they way I would
if I ran their business.
(tongue click)
And I'm Gary V.
(Audience laughs)
Zero.
So, I think that you have to be accepting
of the reality of the situation.
But never waver from you strategic point of view.
I've never accepted that bull crap from a client.
I will always push back on my belief.
And I let the chips fall where they may.
Whether we don't,
do you know how many,
we don't ever win business pitches
because we just get handed business
because if we're actually going up
against somebody else,
we are not the consumable agency
because I'm not willing to waiver
to make them feel good.
In the same way that Sam just asked about
self awareness.
I'm not in the business to make a client feel good,
and make them justify programmatic banners,
and justify print.
I don't believe in it.
So
you know,
It's very easy to measure Instagram and Facebook
if you drive them to a conversion.
Make a coupon piece of content
and drive them to stores.
And see how that does against direct mail.
Tell them to do that same coupon in a print magazine.
No, no, no that's branding,
we have to put a pretty picture.
It's complete horse crap.
And it's why the big businesses of today
are on the verge of not being around tomorrow,
because a lot of their behavior doesn't map
the reality of the world that we live in.
- [Audience Member] Thank you.
- You're welcome.
She just looked you dead in the face
and said I'm gonna move out.
That was super gangster.
(Audience laughs)
You were right there,
you raised your hand.
She looked you right in the face
and said nah I'm gonna move it.
The was honestly the favorite part of my whole day so far.
(Audience laughs)
Hey.
- [Audience Member] Hey Gary, I'm Romand.
- Romand.
- [Audience Member] I'm also from the Legacy guest talk.
- No kidding?
- [Audience Member] Yeah.
- What town?
- [Audience Member] Mundulof.
- How close is that to Bulborusk?
- [Audience Member] One hour.
- Awesome. - [Audience Member] Yeah.
So, I run a website called Crypt the Jobless.
- Yes.
- [Audience Member] It's joke for Crypto positions.
- Smart.
- [Audience Member] Engineers, developers
is big blowout. - It makes sense.
- [Audience Member] We are one of the top garden websites
out there for this space.
- Understood.
- [Audience Member] Which is a specific niche
about 20 percent week on week growth,
but we want to grow it faster.
And I'm trying to figure out what's the best channels
and what's the best way to grow it.
Is it just content, is it something else?
What's the fire range I should pitch?
- I think you go above the line and below the line.
So what I would do is,
I would write white papers and manifestos
and distributed them through LinkedIn and Facebook.
And then I would do Google Ad Words.
I think you will do very like,
in the early nature of Crypto
so many people are searching.
And I think if you find the long tail of a couple
of different search queries,
you know how to get involved in the Crypto business.
Like I think there's a lot of long tail search queries
that will probably be disproportionately ROY
positive for you in Crypto.
- [Audience Member] What's the best unpaid...
- Non-paid?
- [Audience Member] Non-paid.
That's more interesting.
- Why?
- [Audience Member] Money, you can just start that way.
- I totally disagree,
let's talk about it.
- [Audience Member] Sure.
- I think that's ideological.
So if you confine in an arbitrage and paid,
that is more ROY positive for you
than what you're paying.
It's a hell of a lot more scalable,
and more interesting.
I think unpaid is philosophically interesting.
But I'm not against paid
when it's an arbitrage that is massively ROY positive.
And when there's new spaces and Crypto is new,
there's a lot of arbitrage in paid.
But there's a couple other ways you could go.
You could start a weekly podcast about Crypto.
I mean there's a lot of things you know,
when you go non-paid Romand,
the biggest thing that you have to wrap your head around
is you're running a marathon.
- [Audience Member] Okay.
- So non-paid's incredible,
I'm a big non-paid guy.
I'm also 15 years in the making.
- [Audience Member] Right, I know.
- So "faster" and "organic"
don't match.
But content always plays,
you're gonna have to have a unique point of view.
And you have to understand distribution,
but I'm in for it.
I just wouldn't,
especially when you're running a business,
you would absolutely speed up the process on running paid,
because of the interest graph of Crypto is so easy
both in intent and targeting.
It's just, it's vibrant to run paid in new dynamics,
because there's a lot more search query
going on because people don't understand it.
And so, I would give that a lot of thought.
- [Audience Member] Hi Gary.
- How are you? - [Audience Member] I'm good.
And how are you, it's nice to see you.
It's good seeing you not on Youtube.
(Gary and Audience laugh)
So the first thing I have to say
is thank you for three things.
Number one,
for me I'm an actor,
and I'm going to be a design coach in DS
in a couple of months, so that's exciting.
So the first one is ignoring and
sticking with it to the haters.
By doing it because building in town
and conquering others.
For me as a young lecturer at 27 or 28 now,
my kids are all like way above and older than me
and when I came in
like they shoot me down.
- Yes.
- [Audience Member] And the second thing is,
by providing alternative prospective to my students.
And I'm just constantly experienced in all that they aren't,
unsure of what to do next when they are...
Some of them vent their issues.
Your content really helped me a lot.
- Thank you.
- [Audience Member] And the last one is,
I think the biggest one for me is that
I used to always think that I'm an entrepreneur.
- Yes.
- [Audience Member] But you made me realize that I'm
not an entrepreneur but I work with entrepreneur tendency.
- Yes.
- [Audience Member] So I think that's a big thing for me.
So that comes to my question.
Is that,
I have a big ambition,
I believe education has the power to change lives.
And for me, my childhood dream to be a lecturer
and business owner by age 40,
I already accomplished it.
Right now, for me to gain what's next.
Which is just about embassy over currency.
For me, I want to view the foundation
of new schools to give back to society.
So the one question that,
the one thing that I have is that
you talk about ambition and the
willingness to hustle for it.
I have the ambition,
but the willingness to hustle for that ambition is lacking.
- Why?
- [Audience Member] I've asked that question
for myself as well.
- What's the real answer?
- [Audience Member] I'll say that it's
my parents is upset,
but I think that's also bull shit.
I think the biggest thing is myself.
One that I maybe I'm scared of success, or failure.
That knowing I'm comfortable and uncomfortable.
- Yep.
- [Audience Member] But then I'm not sure
of whether I can do it really.
But ever since, I feel that I can do it.
- I think the biggest thing that you have to,
I think both your answers are right.
I think once you get into a place
where you're failures are just yours,
they get a lot less scary.
And you answered the right thing.
Whether it's your parents or somebody else in your life,
the biggest reason people don't take risks
is they worry about other people's opinions.
I wish you guys could feel what I feel in my heart
and in my soul.
I do not care about a single person's point of view
about me.
While equally caring about you think about me.
It's a very interesting contradiction.
It's a subtlety.
But saying both your parents and yourself,
you know, when I hear I'm scared to fail
but I feel like I can do it.
You're just worrying about outside forces.
It's no different than the way you would...
Like I love if my professors of 40, 50, 60 year olds
when I was 25 were to shit on me
because I was excited about sticking it to them later.
And if I didn't, and here's a big one.
And I don't talk about this as much,
when I fail,
I'm excited
because that it meant I deserved to fail.
I love the game so much even at my own expense.
Like I can't be pumped about the fruits of victory
without equally respecting the agony of the defeat.
I'm excited when I fail.
I'm like, okay tough guy.
The sneaker, this sneaker.
This is interesting to me.
Why did I do this deal?
It was win-win.
If it works, I get to run around
with the legacy of being like the first Entrepreneur
with a signature sneaker and then,
you know, it's kind of cool right?
Like if in 20 years Entrepreneurs are just like athletes
and musicians that have sneakers,
I can sit here in 20 years and be like
you know the way I thought about the first sneaker
you know, it's cool.
It's a legacy play of being strategically right.
But if I fail,
it's ammo for my friends to make fun of me.
"Like remember when you though you were so cool tough guy?"
Like it's funny.
But I have to have that humility
as much as I have that confidence
to be able to do my thing.
You have to be okay with losing.
I have a different question for you.
Which is, if that's your...
I agree with you that education
has the chance to change the world
because it's already happened.
Education changed the world.
- [Audience Member] Right.
- My bigger question is,
I just want to make sure that you're
not overly romantic of the format
of the delivery of the education.
- [Audience Member] Hmm.
- So I'm fascinated by everybody right now
in our current state, being in technology.
Let me explain.
The fact that we in society put
a written hand written note on a pedestal,
as this is some great gesture
versus when we text people,
it's fascinating to me,
because we've put the medium
on a pedestal, not the action.
So you're telling me if I write
an incredible six sentence empathetic
love letter to my mom of my admiration
of her in text form,
that, that for some reason is less powerful
than a written hand written note for that same delivery
just because we're anti technology,
because we fear change.
I laugh at that.
That's how I think about education.
I do not believe in a lot of ways
that education is being dispersed
because it is in the selfish financial interest
of the disperser.
So, one weird insight
could be that
that's your unlock.
That you believe in it but
subconsciously you know that the format is bullshit.
- [Audience Member] Thank you very much.
- You're welcome.
- [Staff Member] We have one last question to wrap up,
and we have a guest who flew in all the way from Indonesia
for this, so we will end it with them.
- [Audience Member] Thank you so much.
Hi Gary, I'm a content creator from Indonesia.
Thanks for flying here to Singapore, it's moving.
Yeah I saw you in Asia.
- Thank you.
(Audience laughs)
- [Audience Member] For a worker,
a person like you,
I'm really curious about
how do you manage you time with you and your family?
- Yes.
- [Audience Member] And in the previous session,
you talked about escapism.
- [Audience Member] We as-- - Yes.
- [Audience Member] Human beings,
we appear to have escapism.
And my question is,
what is your answer to that?
- My escapism is the New York Jets.
- [Audience Member] Okay.
- For those three hours, 16 Sundays a year
in the fall and winter,
you could tell me that
the world is ending and I won't care.
Because that escapism is my pure quiet zone,
and nothing in business,
technology, social unrest
is in my mind.
All I'm worried about is,
my guys score more touchdowns
than your guys, right?
So that's my escapism.
And some people use film,
like I don't watch movies,
but I love movies
because I know that does that for a lot of people.
You get wrapped up in that story, that's cool.
Reading, you know.
I love people having their version of escapism,
because it's the healthiest thing.
I think it's got some nuances to meditation.
So that's that.
As it comes down to work-life balance,
there's a couple things that I think about.
First of all,
I would argue to everybody
that the best way to become selfless
is to start by being selfish.
If you don't know who you are and what you're about,
you will lose.
So the first thing is,
I do not
crumble to current peer pressure
of how I should live my work-life balance.
I think that modern parenting advice
is quite flawed.
And has historically been flawed
because it changes all the time.
Because it's generational,
and it's macro political.
And so, number one I don't care
what other parents tell me.
If I work too much, or don't work too much.
I care about what my wife thinks.
I care about how my kids are reacting.
And most of all my friend,
I don't over judge myself.
I know what my intent is.
I want to be a great father.
I want to be a great husband.
Sometimes I'm over delivering,
sometimes I'm under delivering.
I'm always trying.
This is also a specific chapter in my life.
So because I squeezed it so hard in these four years,
next year I get to bring Misha and Zander to this trip
to Singapore, paid for by somebody who's gonna pay me
200,000 dollars to give a speech,
and fly my kids over.
And I'm gonna take them to this.
Like you know, life's about give and take.
There's no right or wrong.
There's what's your thing.
Are my six weeks of vacation of deep down time
higher quality time
then somebody who makes fun of me
that comes home at six o'clock every night,
but doesn't really spend time with their family?
Like, I'm not pandering.
I'm living in my reality.
And my reality is four people.
And I'm always putting a pulse on it,
while making sure I'm not full of shit
and conveniently creating a narrative
that works for me because of my passion.
Which I do just like anybody else.
And I just keep trying.
And I find angles.
Two years ago I had two weeks vacation.
Now I'm at six and seven.
That's a big shift for me.
I almost took all of August off.
It's unheard of.
You know, so I'm just adjusting.
I'm just adjusting but
never over judging myself.
Because I don't think anybody's doing it better.
I just think people are doing it differently.
That's how I handle it.
- [Audience Member] Thank you so much.
- Your welcome.
- [Staff Member] Alright, ladies an gentlemen
let's give a big round of applause for Gary.
(Audience claps)
- Thank you.
(upbeat music)