- On this episode I talk high-end wine,
bucket lists, self-confidence.
(heavy hip-hop music)
(audience applause)
You ask questions,
and I answer them.
This is the #AskGaryVee Show.
(hip-hop music)
Hey everybody, it's Gary Vay-ner-chuk,
and this is episode 49 of the #AskGaryVee Show.
So before we get into the show,
let's talk a little bit about yesterday's miserable weather,
at least for the first quarter,
DRock, Staphon's first NFL game.
Staphon is now 0-1 as a Jet fan,
that pisses me off. (laughter)
AJ felt it was perfect, you know,
they made it interesting and then they lost at the end
to maintain our draft pick.
I usually stay in that realm,
but I hate the visiting fans in my own stadium,
the Dolphin fans feeling good about themselves,
and so, this year was alright.
What else?
Wine bug is in full effect.
Super excited for 2015,
I feel like our team is starting to hum.
I think you're gonna be seeing a dramatically higher level
of content output on GaryVaynerchuk.com,
and other places like Medium and LinkedIn
and WineLibrary.com, so
feeling good.
Let's get into 49,
episode 50 is coming up, huh?
I'm not taping tomorrow, right?
(unintelligible offscreen) What's that?
I'm done for the week, right?
I was originally on but then I'm doing something.
So no 50 tomorrow.
(smacks lips)
Let's go to the questions.
- [Voiceover] Jelle asks, "what came first at VaynerMedia:
clients or employees?
And did you ever do stuff without employees?"
- So let's get into this question.
First, I actually don't know how to pronounce this,
so let's go to India, who I thought helped us with that,
DRock, how - ?
- I don't - "yell"? "Yelle"? I don't know.
- [Gary] Got it, alright.
Steve? What's your shot here?
- "Yella?" I don't know.
- You know. - [India] It's very pretty.
- It's gorgeous. Yeah, don't worry,
you're not hurting feelings anyway.
India's going to be very sensitive on this show.
(laughter) Alright, you know,
we started Vaynermedia, two things happened in parallel.
We got out, I got ahead of it, AJ was graduating college
and we were gonna start a company in May.
In March or April I got ahead of it
and got us a big project with a big client.
So I guess customer came first.
I kinda used, I did something clever.
I made that person pay the entire project up front
and then used those dollars to pay the first 3-4 employees
who were all of AJ's homies,
who are all still here, hence the foundation.
So I guess client, right?
I got an upfront campaign that I used those dollars,
and then the official first day
we had those five or six employees, so
but we never did anything without them,
though actually me and AJ did some of the early stuff
for that project by ourselves, so
that's the answer.
I don't know how you wanna look at it.
I will say this:
any time you can sell ahead of your expenses,
you do it.
One of the biggest reasons
so many people go out of business,
and many of you who watch this show will go out of business,
is you do not know how to manage cash flow.
You think in terms of, you know,
accrual versus cash basis, if we wanna go hardcore,
you know, CPA-style here,
oh, we're gonna make 80k so I can have 70k in expenses,
but if you don't get paid properly or if there's a hiccup,
or, you know, no buffers,
no practical knowledge of that vulnerability,
and then a bunch of you who are tech-driven,
you raise too much money, you don't keep your burn in check,
you assume you're gonna raise more money,
it doesn't go as easy or as well as you think,
because once you actually become a company
people are looking at what you're doing
versus what you promise you're gonna do,
and those are the vulnerabilities
of how you go out of business.
- [Voiceover] Gabii asks, "Do you have any bucket list items
that you want to complete before 40?"
- Gabii, this is a good question,
one that I was excited to answer
mainly because the truth is,
I only have one bucket list item in my life professionally,
and that is to buy the New York Jets,
and thus I don't have any bucket list items professionally.
Personally, I don't want to climb any goddamn mountains,
or jump out of anything. I'm not that dude,
so I don't care about that,
the bucket list item, you know, on my personal life
is quite basic as well,
which is, I just wanna love my family,
and I'm executing on that and accomplishing that,
and so the answer is no,
not before 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 or 90,
and the truth is, and this may actually
lead to why I'm so happy,
the two bucket list items in my life is
to love and cherish and make my family proud,
and to live the process of buying the New York Jets
more than buying the New York Jets.
And I've actually accomplished both.
Which puts me in a good mood.
- Gary, is the high-end wine business just a complete hoax?
(laughter)
Does anyone actually ever taste the oak?
What does oak taste like?
- That's a great question, Steph.
Is it a hoax?
It's as much of a hoax as the art world is,
it's as much of a hoax as a high-end restaurant
that charges, you know, $10,000 a head
for a once-in-a-lifetime meal.
It is the classic example of supply and demand, my dear.
And coming from a, you know, business-oriented TV show
and living in the world that you're in,
is a stock price a hoax?
The answer is, yes and no.
To me, it's not a hoax, because I live a very basic life
of supply and demand.
I think when I get paid to speak onstage is a hoax,
and I did for awhile until I realized, well, not really,
because I'm compensated for what I do for that event.
And so, you know,
does an actor who gets paid $8 million for a movie
but never gets brought up, like an athlete,
for being overpaid, is that a hoax?
Yes and no.
When you start understanding
that actor brings people into the theater,
or makes people watch,
and then they sell advertising against it.
It's all an arbitrage.
And so the wine world, back to the basic question,
can you taste differences in wine?
Absolutely. I live it.
I mean, I can taste the difference
between an $80 wine and a $10 wine pretty consistently.
Can I taste the difference between the $1000 wine
and a $500 wine,
or a $1000 wine and a $100 wine?
A lot of times, no.
The beauty of wine is, everybody's got their own palette,
back to art or music, right?
Is it a hoax that an EDM DJ
gets a ton of people into a place in Sweden?
For me, well, actually, I've gotten more into EDM,
but, like, theoretically it is.
But, you know, and that's it.
It's brand, it's supply and demand,
it's how the game works,
and so the answer is, I don't think it's a hoax,
but if you're watching this show right now
and you don't appreciate the game,
so here's a good piece of advice,
let's get into real good advice.
Don't drink good wine.
Let me say that one more time.
Don't put yourself in a position
to understand why it's not a hoax.
Don't sit first class,
because then you realize it's not a hoax,
because you like it better than the middle seat in coach.
Don't get front-row seats to a ballgame,
then you understand that it's not a hoax
compared to sitting in the upper deck.
It's context, baby.
And so the bottom line - that made me happy.
(laughter)
The bottom line is, it's all perspective,
it's all supply and demand,
but that's what it comes down to,
you start understanding
why these things fetch the dollar amounts they fetch
when you actually taste it,
versus you theoretically complain about it.
- [Voiceover] Cédric asks,
"How do you not procrastinate that well?"
- Cédric.
It's unbelievable how well
Cedric the Entertainer branded himself,
because I literally was about to
call Cédric here the Entertainer.
Cédric, I'm calling you the Entertainer.
As a matter of fact, I want to make
a little piece of content for Cédric
and I'll tweet it out.
Cédric, you won.
I need a little "Cédric is the Entertainer,"
take his Twitter profile, and we're gonna make him.
This is a new thing we can do on the #AskGaryVee Show.
We could make things for fans, one-off t-shirts,
pieces of content, I'm seeing something here.
This is gonna make a lot more people
ask a lot more questions.
Cédric, here's a curveball,
I actually think I'm an obnoxious procrastinator,
while equally not being.
Meaning
I stay in constant audit mode.
Can I get a constant audit mode alert here?
By the way, I have to watch yesterday's episode
to see what you did with the alerts.
Yesterday had a lot of editing. I gotta watch it outright.
I don't watch my stuff, by the way.
It's a little fun fact for all of you.
Sorry, DRock, Staphon, get to see the great work.
There's a ton of stuff that I procrastinate,
and I think I'm a procrastinator,
but what I think I also am is
always leveling up whatever's most important
and prioritizing it in real time.
Team can tell you here,
I bet you Steve's favorite inside joke is
DeMayo.
Can somebody get me the,
literally, get me DeMayo?
Watch this.
This will answer your question perfectly, VaynerNation,
because the truth is,
I do procrastinate,
but I'm adjusting to the reality of my life
at the moment I'm living it,
so if something is super-important yesterday,
I can literally decide that it's less important in an hour,
predicated on what comes into my inbox,
or the meeting that I'm about to have right after this.
And so the reason I think it feels like I'm not,
and so much is getting accomplished,
is my pants are on fire
for the thing that I deem most important
at this exact moment.
And that is how it works over and over,
where's DeMayo?
And over. I'm trying to stall here.
And over, and over, and over again.
Let's go to the next question, we'll get back to DeMayo.
- [Man offscreen] Oh, here he is.
- Oh, here we go. Don't go, DRock.
Leave all that. Don't edit that, I'll be pissed.
Now, tell the VaynerNation how--
- What's up, world.
- Tell the VaynerNation how often I'll send an email
that will say "now, this is top priority"
versus the next day, this is top priority,
and then you get crippled by the notion of,
hold on. (laughter)
If, like, literally, when I'm like, no no,
this is the #1 priority in my life.
- No, tippy-top priority is the way you always say.
- Tippy-top? Tippy-top.
- TIppy-top priority.
Yeah, probably every time you're on a flight,
there's probably about 15 emails that come after the flight.
- And then you struggle with, like, what's tippy-top
versus number one.
- Yeah, unless you say tippy-top priority.
- Is that the new context?
(laughter)
- If that's what you've been using for the month.
- Alright.
- So maybe it'll change for the new year.
- Thanks, man.
And that's what happens, right?
Matt, my admin, you know,
he has to struggle through
what is tippy-top priority of the moment,
because it might change tomorrow, so
as long as you're executing something every day,
as a tippy-top priority item,
then you're moving the needle.
And sure, something might have moved
from second most important to fourth most important
to ninth most important,
Alex, you're dealing with this right now.
A lot of things that you would have dealt with,
like BizDev was like the most important,
you can't get a minute from me
because something has caused it to become
the eighth most important thing
versus the number one important thing,
and, like, there's a lot of serendipity,
Steve's been waiting for this top six things
at WineLibrary for four days,
I found a minute,
I decided it was tippy-top priority of that minute,
and it just works that way at all times.
- [Voiceover] Pressian asks, "How exactly did your mother
instill that self-confidence in you?"
- And finally, Pressian,
thank you so much for asking this question,
'cause I always love to brag about my mama.
She
she
instilled so much self-confidence in me
because of a couple things.
One, I probably had some level of it in my own DNA,
but she brainwashed me.
My mom made me think that the things that I was doing
that many parents, on the negative side,
put down their kids for,
what the far majority of parents would consider mundane,
like getting a good haircut or, like,
running quickly to pick up the ball,
like it was so athletic,
stuff that none of you would ever think is
the kind of thing that you would compliment your child for,
the kind of things I compliment Misha for,
which is the greatest twirl I've ever seen ever,
is what she did for me, and you know what?
You start believing it.
I can tell you this,
and I'm positive of this,
I know that the peeps in this room
think more highly of themselves today
than before they started jamming with me.
The reason this company is so special,
one of the funniest things that happens in this company,
is when somebody comes in new that's senior
and they are completely flabbergasted by
the confidence of the youngsters in this room.
And I bet you, as they're all thinking about it right now,
and obviously Staphon and India are here a little bit less,
and DRock a little bit in the middle,
and Alex a little less, and Steve a lot more,
I know that that's what I do,
maybe not to the extreme level that my mom did for me,
obviously it was very focused, one child.
We have many children in the house,
but I would even say that many of you
have started to feel that way,
because the truth is, my friends,
positive energy is a good thing.
I don't know what else to tell you.
And when it comes from a pure place,
it's double good.
And so she just focused on it.
It's in her and the way that it's in me, we're similar,
and she just kept pounding me and making me feel like
the ordinary was something that was extraordinary,
until I finally believed it so much
that that's what I feel about myself all the time.
And if you don't have good empathy and self-awareness,
it can go into a very dangerous place,
but if you know how to balance it,
and my mom balanced it by punching me in my mouth
with her raw hand,
not kidding, when I would do something wrong,
so she's got a little old-school Eastern European in her,
and that's how she did it,
with an enormous balance of
just good stuff, man, really good parenting.
Really, really, really good parenting.
That's it.
Alright, Question of the Day.
That made me feel good.
It's a good, that was good,
people are gonna comment about
that nice little emotional minute.
Question of the Day:
would you physically punch your child?
I think this is an interesting topic,
I know this is gonna get very political in the comments,
but I'm willing to go there.
I find it interesting that
my mom punched me in my mouth a couple of times
and I still think she's the best of all time,
and it never came from an abusive standpoint,
it was just a,
Steve's scared about where this is going.
(laughter)
And listen, I'm the most, as you guys know,
I don't talk about religion or politics often,
I know this is uncharted territory for me.
I think it's an interesting question,
and what I ask the VaynerNation is to be respectful
when somebody has a different point of view.
And I'm not confused about
what happened with Adrian Peterson
and all that stuff,
but it's interesting, right?
And maybe I'll ask it in a different way,
'cause I'm gonna ask it in a different way.
Do you believe that America,
and I know there's a lot of international love,
and so Europe, I think you already went there,
so you can jump in,
or Asia, I don't think you're close to being there,
so you can jump in.
Do you think that wherever you're from,
and so the first state where you're from.
Do you think the culture has gotten soft,
right?
One would say, my grandparents,
if they were American and alive, and, like,
you know, that was commonplace.
What Adrian Peterson did is what he grew up with,
and we're getting into a very politically correct world,
and so maybe hitting children is a little extreme,
and I respect that, and as you can see
I'm already backpedaling
and I want to be out of that in the comments,
because I wanna keep it cordial,
but let's take in a different place:
have we gotten soft?
Alright, giving away seventh-place trophies.
Is that good or bad?
That can get political,
I know a lot of people have
passionate points of view on both ones.
Do you believe we've gotten soft?
Or, do you believe that we are evolving correctly?
Should be interesting.
You keep asking questions,
I'll keep answering them.
Oh, crap, wait.
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