- Hi there.
- Gary Vee!
- (laughs) Hi.
- Three wor- ah, three words
to give me inspiration for any day I'm feeling down.
- Three words.
- You're gonna die.
- [Man On Phone] Um, which other hip-hop artist
or true entrepreneur, like in this digital era.
- [Woman On Phone] I think the guy to pay attention to
is a guy by the name of CEO Charlie.
- My name is Charlie Jabaley
and Gary has been an amazing friend of mine
for many years.
- Ahh-haa.
Hi, how you doin' man.
- Good, brother, how are you?
- Are you feeling okay?
- I feel amazing.
You look insane, brother.
I mean, I see it, I see it online,
but to see it in person just makes me so fuckin' happy.
Like, if you ever watch one of those movies,
where like, there's like a, a wise man like a oracle,
you know, but like he doesn't always like
make himself available, but you can like
live through his teachings, and you feel like you know him.
I'd always listen to everything he would say,
and it really sat with me.
There was this one thing he said, "one day you're gonna die,
and you should do something about it."
And I didn't know exactly what that meant
until I felt like I was actually gonna die.
I always had this one dream of being an athlete,
and growin' up, like I loved basketball,
but I was the chubby kid.
Playin' sports wasn't exactly like the right fit
for me in life.
It seemed like I was overweight
and I was very insecure about it,
and when you're insecure about things,
sometimes you mask it and you cover it up
with something you can be good at.
You gotta have something that's you,
and um, I was like, I'm gonna be business.
Like, I'm CEO Charlie, like young age,
I'm CEO Charlie at that early age.
I buried what I truly wanted to be
and I did business and I got good at it,
and as the business grew, you know like, I grew.
Um, I got up over 304 pounds,
and you know with all this amazing things
that were happening in my life, I was never as un-unhappy.
I was very depressed.
Look how bad I look, that's horrible.
That's horrible.
My name's Charlie Jabaley,
and I've been overweight my whole life.
My addiction to food just, just beats me down.
I binge-eat until I get sick,
and I do that so I would never want to binge-eat again,
but it's just a downward spiral.
I don't wanna be in a depression anymore.
Health, health is the most important thing
to business, because you're looking at a guy
who had all the business, you know, he could ever want,
but, um, with my health not being in order,
it meant nothing.
One of my best friends, his name's Scott Cameron,
he saw something in me, and he knew that I'd
been dieting my whole life, and he said,
you know, we're gonna run, we're not gonna
do diets anymore, and uh, we ran three marathons,
and um, people don't believe me when I say this,
I gained weight, I gained 30 pounds
through the marathon process, and um, it seems,
it seems kind of hard to believe,
but it was one of those situations
where you just keep tryin', but you keep messin' up
at the same exact time, but you're super ambitious,
but when you mess up, it just undoes all the ambition.
And I felt stuck, and uh, I was just like, ask God
what else do you want me to do?
You know, I'm doing everything, and uh,
ran three marathons, gained weight
and I thought I was at rock bottom,
and then things got worse.
I knew something was wrong but I didn't know what was wrong,
and one day I woke up and the room just started spinning.
- And this is when he was doing the gav-in-hans-flyer,
there like, killin' a whole game.
- Yeah, like.
- When you're at the top of your business game.
- Never sad, never, wo, wake up, room is spinning,
I'm like, oh this isn't good.
And then I got outta bed, went to pick up the shoes,
boo-, fell. - fell.
- Went to the doctor, brain tumor, left the ground,
left optic nerve, coronary artery,
it could start corroding the top of my spinal cord.
At that point, it's like, when you gave me
my secret sword to go slay my dragon.
Like, I'm like...
I'm-a change everything.
This is the sum-life shit.
I'm-a change everything.
It was scary 'cause I knew something
was really really wrong, and I felt like I was about to die
and, uh, the brain tumor had grown,
and it was, uh, wrapped around my left optic nerve,
my coronary artery, and um, said it could
start corroding the top of my spinal cord.
The levels of, like the hormones and everything,
that my brain tumor puts off
were at like 10 thousand times what they should have been.
And um,
So, I went on a journey,
and that's when, that's when that voice of Gary
was kinda in my head.
Like he said, one day you're gonna die,
you know, you gotta do something about it,
and the social pressures, um,
were strong you know,
but I knew something drastic had to change.
And the social pressures are,
you're supposed to have this much money
in your bank account, you know,
you're supposed to have nice cars,
you're supposed to, you know, do all these things,
uh, that relate to business and money,
but, at this point, none of that made any,
made any, uh, it didn't matter to me.
It didn't matter to me anymore, so
I just heard a voice, and it was like,
go on a journey, and I left,
I left my company, I left the city of Atlanta.
I left everything, because I wanted
to start a whole new life, where I could
do it right this time.
And, um, I became the exact opposite
of every single thing I was, and uh,
I was this workaholic, work a hundred hour workweeks,
and I just wasn't a happy person,
I was depressed and anti-social,
and now, um, you know, I've lost 125 pounds,
I'm training for a IRONMAN in March, in New Zealand,
and um, I'm reversing my brain tumor,
and I'm vegan, uh, and I live in California,
and I'm chasing my dream, and uh.
Wow, it just feels amazing to chase my dream,
and I know, you know, my story might be the opposite
of most people, because most people, you know,
wanna chase their dream of success,
but the same rules I believe apply,
that, you know, if somethin's not right,
and you're stuck, and you feel like it's.
If you felt like how I did?
Like, I felt stuck.
I felt depressed.
I felt like there were no answers,
and I would just look on social media,
and everybody seemed to be so perfect,
um, I want you to know that,
you know, we're all not perfect.
We're all gonna do somethin',
it's just none of us show our vulnerability,
and, um, I wanna let you know that
if you're stuck,
that, you know, there is somebody like you
who felt stuck and couldn't figure it out,
and look out in to the world and see that
it just seemed like everybody had it figured out,
but that's the message that I wanna give,
because I've seen both sides of the spectrum,
of the business, chasing my dream,
and the health, chasing my dream.
And I want you to know that there's a community
of people who will help you if you jump
in the swimming pool,
you can't just put your toe in,
but you gotta jump,
and when you jump, you've gotta learn
really really really fast, or you're gonna die.
And, when I jumped in, I realized
that when I was strugglin', there were so many people
there to help me.
Like, I was scared to make that big jump,
but then once I realized that all these amazing people
jumped in and helped me,
that means I can try again.
(uplifting music)