- How do you stay driven?
I'm gonna ask you a question, how don't you stay driven?
Let me get this right, you won the lotto of the universe which
is you are a human being on Earth and you're not driven and
you're not fired up and you're not going for it and
you're willing to sit like a lump and just to you die?
You suck.
(light music)
We're running the gamut of somebody who's
literally in the Hall of Fame to somebody you literally didn't
make it in to a first season but it's all the same thesis to why
I was intrigued by our call and how we got to the second meeting
which is, listen, there's a percentage with no question
I'm gonna be able to walk into mama's house across the country
and win because the ones that
have the best emotional intelligence
are gonna realize I would do a
better job for their son than the majority.
As all this digital stuff works as I have 14-year-old girls
making more money and Musical.ly with content I'm doing than
fucking first round picks in the NFL and NBA draft making
endorsement in a year.
I mean it's crazy.
So I'll win that.
I want to surround the agency with that and so what the agency
wants to is be incredible sports agents, like really know how to
do contracts and all that stuff but become the greatest machine
ever in the building of personal brand and endorsements but
really I think you like this based on it sounds like your
upbringing I really want people to feel like in eight years,
10 years I want the reputation of VaynerSports to be like
you go there because they teach your
son how to become a man for real.
- [John] Yeah, for sure.
- Real pleasure, man. Yeah. - [John] You got it.
- I wish you well. - Yeah.
(light music)
Cool.
Awesome.
- My name's Tyler Schmitt.
I have been working here at Vayner November will be
three years, November 11th.
And I for starters community manager here then got to know
Gary and AJ through playing morning basketball.
I was taken, I used to take a 5:15 train in from Jersey just
to get to know those guys.
And then one day AJ was looking for an assistant, Gary's younger
brother, and I said whatever
the hell I can do to make that happen,
I would love to.
And so I met with AJ a couple times.
One thing led to another and I moved into that role.
Was with AJ up until he stepped away and when he stepped away
I was kind of thinking about what else to do and Gary kind of
brought it up to me about potential of doing it and after
doing it for two years, you know, I made the decision
overnight to end up working with him because it was a no-brainer
but it's definitely an interesting role.
With AJ it was very operational.
It was very about the internal VaynerMedia operations and then
Gary's just a whole different beast in the sense of you know
he is the CEO of VaynerMedia but at the same time that's like
one of a million different things that he's doing and so it
was definitely a learning curve in terms of speed,
in terms of work ethic,
in terms of hours that I've put in.
And at first it was super tough for me actually because I was
trying to operate in my old ways
of the amount of time that I was working,
the focus that I was putting in at work and I wasn't
doing a good job which in turn was tough because I was like oh
you know I wasn't adjusting to what the role needed and then
just was thinking that the role was hard and like oh this sucks,
duh-duh-duh-duh-duh.
But once I changed my mindset in terms of like this is super
doable you just need to attack it and start working more.
So now, I've been putting in the hours and the more I've been
working more I've come to love it.
- I would tell you the way most people digest environment is
very different than the way I do.
For example, if you think of it as just a human-based thing the
amount of people that come out of homes that aren't pretty and
don't have good skylines
and come out and are straight winners.
I grew up in a townhouse.
That environment it wasn't, you know, like it's not about
having a foosball table.
The environment is only the people.
It's not the tables and the chairs
and the views and the location.
People are always like, "Look Gary, we've updated our office,"
and they're like, "We're like you now.
"We're open."
I'm like, "You're the furthest thing from us ever."
When you are forced to do the
right thing you're doing the wrong thing.
That's it.
Either you just are or you aren't.
This is binary.
Hardwiring, my ethos, who I am,
is adversity is underdog.
I won the wine world.
I won the wine business world.
How did I do, what did I do with that?
I left it and came to an industry where I was nothing.
And everybody made fun of me I'm Twitter boy.
I have a lot of Twitter followers.
I'm gonna start an agency and now I'm fuckin' sticking it to
their faces, right, and now I'm almost done and another five or
seven years I'll build the undisputed great agency of this
generation and you know how I'm going to handle that?
Not by cashing in and fucking laying on a beach.
I'm gonna do what I always do which is walk directly away from
it and start a new challenge where I'm the underdog.
Wait, he can't do that.
That has nothing to do, don't forget what I did.
I went from the wine retail business to the advertising
agency, that had no connection.
And so, you know, I don't know I'm gonna go win a fuckin'
Golden Globe or something.
Mostly seeking the dirt when
they should be looking for the clouds.
I would say 80% of time, I sure can.
80% of time people are asking me for a tactic
that's gonna allow them to win when
they don't realize that it's strategy that's got them stuck
to begin with.
Their North Star, what they're trying to achieve
and so
almost all the time it's a dirt question.
Gary, how exactly do I use Facebook to make $1 trillion?
Have you thought about like not
trying to make $1 trillion in five seconds?
Have you thought about understanding communication
before you worry about what it means in a Facebook environment
so almost every question that's asked of me is a dirt question
and almost everything I do is predicated on a clouds strategy.
(light music)
How do you stay driven?
I'm gonna ask you a question, how don't you stay driven?
Let me get this right, you won the lotto of the universe which
is you are a human being on Earth.
You, I'm just gonna say this,
I don't think people think about this.
You won the lotto.
You, in the universe,
you're not some weird specimen in Mars that does nothing.
You're not a bird.
You know, you're not a sunflower.
You are a human being on Earth.
You won the ultimate ultimate lottery
and you're not driven
and you're not fired up and you're not going for it and
you're willing to sit like a lump and just to you die?
You suck.
I don't know.
You suck.
How do I stay driven?
Because I couldn't even comprehend the alternative.
And by the way, by the way, let me clarify one thing, if you're
happy with your life and you don't complain, play Pokémon GO
15 hours a day, right?
It's too many people complain that they're not winning and
they're not auditing their actions and realizing that
they're spending too much of their allocation of time on
leisure and escapism and that's fine but
work is the variable of success.
Work.
At some level on I'm just trying to be realistic.
How about just having a conversation that you don't know
a single person on Earth that's
successful that didn't put in work.
Nobody watching this right now, nobody watching this right now
knows a single person that
became successful without the work.
We have different levels of talent,
all that but work required, my friends.
Work required.
'Nother good day, super productive.
Banging out operations at scale.
Client stuff just a really, really solid day.
Going to a little bit of an event here at Hudson Yard now.
Got another kind of spec meeting tonight.
Just grinding along.
Tomorrow big day, Jets football.
Season on the line.
Season on the line five seconds into this world.
Anyway, hope everybody's doing well.
Talk to you soon.