(comic zoom) (comic snap)
- And long before social let us flex on each other,
we did my the things we wore, by the things we drove,
but the stories we told at the PTA.
Most, most people continued to parent their children
based on what they think other people think of them,
not by listening to their actual children.
(smooth R&B music)
(hollering)
You've got your perspective.
(audience cheering)
I just want to be happy, don't you want to be happy?
(snapping)
I'm unbelievably humbled to be speaking at this event,
just what an extraordinary collection of people,
and I hope I get to say hello to all of you
before I get out of here.
What I'm about to talk about is predicated on the fact that
over the last three to four years,
off of a pretty sizable base of followers,
engagers on social, my awareness grew exponentially
over platforms that skewed younger,
and as my attention on Instagram and YouTube
grew aggressively over these 36 months,
what ended up happening was a lot of the people
I was interacting with got younger,
and younger, and younger.
What I want to talk about today is predicated on me reading
hundreds of thousands of direct messages
over the last three years.
What I want to talk about today is not predicated on
my opinion, it's an observation from one person,
one man's point of view.
It's also the observation of somebody
who is so deeply grateful for the remarkable way
that I feel that my mother parented me, and my father,
and the circumstances of being an immigrant born in Belarus
coming to United States and going through that struggle.
I believe that so much of what every single person
in this audience cares deeply about trying to affect,
and so many of the characteristics
that we are passionate about, whether it's empathy,
or kindness, or gratitude, needs to have
a remarkable conversation with ourselves around a word
called entitlement.
Entitlement is not privilege.
Entitlement is a very important word for all of us,
because it is foundational in the starting point
to all the other things we've been talking about
over the last two days.
Entitlement is also gonna be very difficult
for all of us to talk about in this room
because it means we have to look at ourselves,
not look at the people that we're imposing it on.
Over the last three years, I have received hundreds
of thousands of messages from 15-25 year olds
telling me variations of stories of how much they love
and appreciate their parents deeply, but deep down,
they resent them and, or hate them so much
because while they continue to take their Unlimited Uber
from their parents, while they continue to take
a brand new BMW on their 17th birthday,
while they continue to be thrilled
that their parents bought them their first apartment
in New York City, or much smaller things,
like a first class plane ticket,
or something of that degree, they inherently
deeply understand that they are a zoo animal,
and are completely unprepared to actually live in the world.
This is very difficult, because so many, like myself,
come from places where you start with nothing.
Half this audience came from the fucking dirt,
the others had parents or grandparents that did.
This is deep within us that once you tasted garbage,
you have no interest in letting your children taste it.
This is not judgment.
You're looking at a man whose run two companies now,
and the number one vulnerability I've had
running these two companies successfully
is I personally created too much entitlement
with my organizations, because I don't like conflict,
I struggle with radical candor.
I'm a tough guy on fucking Instagram,
but in real life, I just want to take all the pressure
and do it myself, and put everybody in a happy place,
'cause happiness deploys better success
until it over corrects.
We have a whole culture that is disproportionally judging
the youth, literally judging the youth
that they fucking parented.
My friends, for us to look at this and understand
what's actually happening, we have to understand
that so many in today's society, and long before social
let us flex on each other, we did it by the things
we wore, by the things we drove,
by the stories we told at the PTA.
Most, most people continue to parent their children
based on what they think other people think of them,
not by listening to their actual children.
This is a very important conversation.
We cannot get to the path of all the other talks
that we've been listening to without
eliminating entitlement.
It is very difficult to be empathetic or grateful
without eliminating entitlement.
We must put accountability on a pedestal.
We must destroy eighth place trophies.
That doesn't mean that we don't admire effort,
but results fucking matter in life.
My mother gave me so much fucking self esteem
that it makes some people not like me.
However, she equaled that with uncomfortable
amounts of accountability.
When I went 0-4 in a baseball game,
and struck out four times, it wasn't the sun's fault,
it wasn't my coach's fault.
She looked me in the face and said, "You fucking sucked."
(audience laughing)
It didn't taste great, it must've not been fun
for her to deliver, but my deep, deep happiness
is predicated on her sucking out every piece of entitlement
out of my body.
My deep capacity to be empathetic and grateful,
which transforms in what most people see
is somebody who markets, but in the way I navigate my life,
and the way I market to the end consumer,
my unbelievable opportunity to speak
in front of this crowd today, is predicated on listening.
I talk, you listen to my podcast,
I interrupt every single person that is on my show
because I've already heard what they said,
and I just want to move it along, and we don't fucking edit.
It seems mean, it seems audacious,
it's deeply based on listening.
We have to start the process of listening to the youth.
They're telling us the answers,
you just care what your neighbor thinks about your kid,
you just care about what your mother thinks about your kid,
you just care about what your sister thinks about your kid.
You need to start listening to your kid.
When this little hub-bub that popped up
about USC and other colleges, this was no surprise to me,
there was no shock behind this.
We are a mass society predicated on overreacting
to other people's judgment.
We are awfully good at judging,
we are awfully good at judging.
We have to start the conversation around entitlement.
Entitlement's a tricky one, it's a tricky one,
because it's not a lot of fun for people
that are trying to do good to really look at it.
There's a whole lot of people that clap for Greta's talk,
and then act a different way the next day.
We all know that.
The hypocrisy is fucking heavy.
Some things are really lofty.
It's hard to fucking boil the ocean, but the truth is
you can absolutely start with yourself,
and let me promise you the deep happiness in perpetuity
that you will have if you start with your child
will change the course of your life.
I've seen this up close with my siblings,
I've seen this through the eyes of hundreds of thousands
of people who I've talked to yesterday.
The resentment is palpable.
More importantly, they genuinely believe
that you do not believe in them
because you're subsidizing their behavior.
Fake environments were the seed that lead us
to the uncomfortable place were in,
predicated on an enormous amount of money and happiness
in the macro over the last 70 years.
And much like in out venture community
where people no longer actually build businesses,
but they're building financial arbitrage machines
to raise capital and spend zero fucking time
caring about their consumer, and 100% of their time
caring about venture capitalists and press.
We equally have a community of parents
worried about what other people think
instead of how their kids feel.
It is also why the marketing world is massively audacious.
We are entitled to think somebody wants to watch
our bullshit video just 'cause we fucking made it.
We have to have a much, much deeper conversation
about entitlement, and when we do,
all the other beautiful words that have been spoken
in the last two days will start to fall into place.
Thank you.
(audience applause) Thank you.