- On this episode, it's a good one.
I like it actually.
That's what this episode's about.
It's a really solid three episodes in a row, killer.
(hip hop music)
- [Gary] You ask questions,
and I answer them
this is The #AskGaryVee Show.
- Hey everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk and
this is episode 227 of
The #AskGaryVee Show.
I gotta tell you, what's today, Wednesday?
- [DRock] Yep.
- Three episodes in a row, India.
Get over here.
Don't be scared.
I know the table's small of some weird reason all of a sudden.
- [India] Tiny.
What happened to your, oh, it was broken.
- It was broken.
It was broken.
You saw that with Simon.
It was a good episode.
A lot of great feedback from Simon episode, India.
Lot of people were excited to see you again.
Did you see all the tweets of like,
"Wait, India still works at Vayner."
- No.
- People thought you got fired, I loved it.
- Fired?
- Well, yeah, you'd clearly if you were not to be anymore it would
be more about you being fired.
- Right. - Yeah.
Tyler, am I doing one tomorrow?
- [Tyler] What?
- #AskGaryVee tomorrow?
- [Andy] Yes. - [Tyler] No.
- No?
- [Tyler] I don't know.
- We go to sneak one in because
I think I can go five days this week.
That'd be huge.
- [Tyler] Let's do it. - Alright, fight for it.
Yes, so all things are good.
I'm very focused.
I feel the shows have been really good this week.
Like from the quality of the content.
I don't think I've been as entertaining but I think that
the answers have been strong.
Obviously, the saltiness, oh by the way, we have to do one
tomorrow 'cause I have to make my Jets prediction.
- [Tyler] (inaudible)
- I have a strategy of not doing predictions this year.
It didn't work week one so I'm gonna give a protection
tomorrow against Chris Sacca's Buffalo Bills.
India, let's get into the show.
- [India] Alright.
- Yo.
What's up with the videos?
- Yeah, they're obsessed with them.
- Who? Do we only do videos now?
Did we agree to do that actually?
- [Andy] We've always tried to aim for more videos?
- Alright, we're gonna do a lot more videos if you want to get
in the show, use the hashtag
#AskGaryVee and submit more video questions.
I'm in to it.
- Hi Gary, this is Jelle from Belgium.
First off, I want to start by
thanking you for putting out all that content.
I've been an entrepreneur for over five years now and I feel
like that I am becoming a better businessman,
a better entrepreneur thanks to your content and
insight so thank you for that.
This is my question.
I've been working to get with a few interns for couple years now
and they're always around 21-years-old and I feel that
they're lacking two important skills.
The first skill is critical thinking or self-criticism.
They should think about what should I do first and what next.
Why am I advising this?
Is what I produced really good enough?
The second skill is taking ownership.
When all given tasks are finished do they start thinking
about what the next best step could be?
Do you have any idea how I, as a boss, as a guides,
can help them develop their skills?
Thanks.
- Jelle, listen, I think that
the answer to your question is
the critique that you are putting on them.
You are critiquing them for this kind of thoughtfulness,
critical thinking and then action and taking the initiative
in being on the offense.
My answer to you is you need to do the same with you as a boss
and you need to audit yourself to do that.
Meaning there is no reason that you should be in a scenario
where you're struggling with 21-year-old interns for long
period of time because the truth is if you put the time and
effort to really audit them and really spend time with them and
then decide for you whether you're right or wrong as the
judge and jury, as the boss, that they're good or they're not
good you could speed up this process very quickly.
So my answer to you is go deep and spend more time with them
whether that's virtually or in reality or in real life
where these interns are.
Figure out if they're good.
Give them very detailed feedback at scale.
Suffocate all the excuses and then make a decision whether
that person should be in your organization or not.
For me, if I wanted to know if anybody here should be in my
organization or not it would literally take me two days.
Just make it the thing you do today.
Today you should decide if these interns are capable,
have the talent and the capacity to
deliver on your expectations or not.
Have you been clear in them and move forward so I think the
answer to your question is in the same way that your upset
with them that when their task is done,
they're not doing the next thing.
I'm upset with you which is if you slept last night you
could've allocated some of those hours to auditing your interns
and giving them clear feedback and making the decision if you
wanted them here or not.
Let's do it.
- Buster. - Buster.
- Question for you.
Now I know what you did at age 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 getting
involved in wine and selling sports cards but what would you
be doing if it were 2016 and
you were 12, 13, 14 and 15 and 16?
Appreciate your answer,
appreciate everything you do, thanks.
- Buster, Buster, Buster honestly what I would tell you
is to give you the answer that you're looking for which is what
what I do what should you be doing?
How should you be thinking about things?
Reverse engineer your strengths, right?
You like the NBA you should hit up Dunk first of all and have
him put you on but besides that I think that you need to figure
out what you're good at and what would you want to do.
I would basically be today, I'm trying to think.
There'd be so many things I'd be doing today.
I give a lot of that advice,
I would've made bank on Snapchat filters.
I think that one guy who did the Pokémon GO consulting.
I think that was super smart.
Having the internet to buy and sell.
I'm a salesman.
Buying and selling, uh, just buying stuff on you know in Asia
and re-marketing in the US.
I think I'd be doing pretty much everything I was doing at scale.
So because when I was growing up
sports cards were what people collected,
I would just be focused on whatever that version is now.
Sneakers, I'm telling you right now, I would be, my stories of
Toys "R" Us and garage sales would be waking up, you know,
at one in the morning and standing in line at
a SoHo sneaker store to get that thing,
flipping like I would be doing a lot of that.
I think the truth is, Buster,
I'd be focusing on what I was strong at.
What I think I'm really good at is buying and selling.
I did that with stuff my whole life.
Now, I do it with people's attention and
the end consumer's attention.
That is my strength that I would double down on that.
You, my friend, need to figure out what you're best at?
Is that making content on social media?
Is that being a charismatic personality that I think was
shining through the question?
Is that being a salesperson, buying selling stuff?
Connecting with people?
When you're 16 you have time.
Like, Jesus, remember when you were bored?
Remember when you could do that?
Andy, do you remember when you're like, "I'm bored."
You don't have that kind of time when you grow up and so I would
take advantage of that time because that is the asset.
- [India] That's good.
- 'Member being bored? - Yeah.
Was good times.
(laughter)
- From Brandon. - Brandon.
- Hey Gary.
My name is Brandon and I'm social media manager for a
digital magazine app in mid-town Manhattan called Zineo.
Looks a little something like this.
My question for you is how do we leverage content from 5000+
magazines to throw jabs at a millennial customer who's
attention is typically away from magazines?
Thanks so much for your answer.
You keep answering questions, I'll keep asking them.
- Brandon, I have a couple things.
One you're avocado ambassador,
I need to figure out what that means.
You're also a Mets fan but I didn't see any Jets love and
I'm very concerned that you
might be one of those rare people that
are Mets and Giant fans who I hate oh so much.
I didn't fully get the context of the question.
I'm not sure if you guys got it.
Obviously, you guys picked it.
I didn't fully understand
what the objective was of the magazines.
Was he referring to how we make micro digital context that
actually gets people to care about a magazine?
Meaning like buying a subscription to a mag,
I mean actually I'm very curious while we're here,
where is your magazine life right now?
Andy K? - [Andy] Zero.
- Zero? - [Andy] 100%
- [Gary] Nothing. - Nothing.
- [Gary] Zero. - Zero.
- [Gary] Dunk? - 5%.
- [Gary] What magazine would you consume?
- Back home from Sweden.
- [Gary] Swedish magazines that you read?
- Fashion magazines, yeah.
- [Gary] That you'll at?
- Look and read.
- [Gary] So that comes to your home and you'll do that?
- Yes.
- [Gary] And that's 5% of your world you think is your gut?
- 2.5, yes. - [Gary] 2.5, got it.
DRock? - [DRock] None.
- Zero.
Other Tyler?
- [Other Tyler] Maybe like 2 or 3.
- Like what do you consume?
- [Other Tyler] Like photography
and design magazines a little bit.
- You'll flip through it a little bit.
- [Other Tyler] Yeah.
- How about compared to 24 months ago?
Even less? - [Other Tyler] Yeah, even less.
- Dunk, compared to 24 months ago even less?
- [Dunk] Same. - Same. India?
- I subscribe to a couple. - [Dunk] No, less.
- Less. Less. India?
- Same, a couple. - What do you have?
- The New Yorker and then like an art magazine.
- Playgirl? - No.
(laughter)
Why do you tease me?
- 'Cause I like you.
So, the New Yorker?
- Yes.
- And do you read that? - Yeah.
- And, it's not just collecting.
Do you think you read as much
New Yorker today as you did 24 months ago? 36 months ago?
- The same.
- 'Cause there's a scenario where you like it.
Like, weekend morning coffee kinda thing or?
- Subway magazine.
- Perfect subway magazine, got it.
Look, I think, that's obviously a small focus group,
(Gary stammering)
and I don't know Brandon so that where I'm gonna have to go.
If you're talking about the notion of what kind of content
can we put out, jabs, in an ecosystem that is going to get
millennial's excited about then going in to the magazine world
and subscribing to a magazine, I think it's a lost cause.
I really do and I think the magazines that have anybody's
attention right now, I bet you if we could take these three
wonderful people's brains and put them here and dissect how
they cared about the photographer magazine,
the New Yorker and these Swedish magazines it had a lot more to
do with those brands did to them
10, 15 years ago and that's the problem.
They thought those were cool
magazines when they were in junior high.
They were around in the house.
The New Yorker is an iconic thing.
I think it's a very difficult proposition and as digital and
mobile devices have become more magazine-ized
A.K.A. photos have become such a foundation of the way we consume
the internet versus written words of a decade ago
I think you're fighting an uphill battle, my friend.
- Sometimes you got to hear that, you know?
- Yeah, just yeah.
- Hey Gary.
I'm Sam I'm from Nigeria, I'm living in San Francisco--
- He said I'm soft.
- And my question for you is were you too soft to start a
mobile development agency, brah?
Was that too hard for you, blah?
(laughter)
- [India] Brah! - That's amazing.
I love that whole, are you, do you lift, bro?
So did he say am I too soft to start a mobile?
- [India] Development agency.
- I want to say, I want to fight you is really what I want to do
but I think, yeah, I mean, look,
to answer it in a straight way the
reason building a development shop in a genre is not
interesting to me is that if
I was to build a development shop
in a meaningful way, right now, I would build a messenger
development shop way before
I'd build a mobile app shop, brah.
Because I don't care about 2016
legacy software.
To me, the reason I built the company I built is that, unlike,
a VCR or a video game console or
a cell phone or virtual reality,
messaging is tried-and-true.
The mechanism that delivers it gets killed eventually.
Right?
So the guy caveman Rick
who took a rock and carved it into the
cave he was messaging and communicating, right, but the
platform of the day, where the eyeballs were, were inside the
cave and the smoke signals and the written word and a telephone
and a television and a movie theater and a cell phone and a
VR world and apps within cell phone and so brah, the reason
I didn't go with a mobile developing shop is it was just
too small and I needed to win the communication game
infrastructure that I can deploy against any mechanism that
delivers the story, brah.
(laughter)
- Every episode we have to have
a question that gets you a little fired up.
- You found it.
That's awesome, by the way, thanks for the question.
- GaryVee! What's happening, man?
My name is Bo Muchoki.
I'm a real estate agent and a motivational blogger and
I have a question for you about self-awareness.
You've spoken a lot about this topic and
how to gain self-awareness.
You've also touched on how meditation is a trend that's
really gonna take over and be in every household in the near
future so what are your thoughts
on how to gain self-awareness through meditation.
I, myself, gained a lot of self-awareness and clarity on
who I am and what my actual goals are through meditation so
what are your thoughts on how
meditation can help you gain self-awareness? Thanks.
- Bo, thanks for the question.
I think the answer is, I believe.
I believe I believe you.
There'd be no reason for you to make this video and lie.
I believe that there's a lot of people that are gonna gain it.
I'm a very, very, very strong advocate for way more discovery
by the human race around understanding the brain and
mental health, mental fitness, mental, mental, mental.
I promise you that when it's all said and done for me people will
realize that that was the game that I won.
That that's the gift that I was given.
That that was where I had all-time skills.
It's just we've grown up in a world and I,
for the last 40 years, where that wasn't the conversation.
People can tell if you're pretty or good at athletics.
Nobody rolled up on me and were like,
"Yo, bro your brain is on point." Right?
I'd say that because when I say brain I mean the mental pillars
of emotional intelligence that are the foundation of everything
I've been talking of last four years.
You could tell me I'm good at school.
Memorizing something and regurgitating.
That's not what we're talking about.
It's having that centering, having that place, that energy
that allows you navigate through all adversity.
Not getting too high in your highs
and not getting too low in your low.
It's balance.
It's the contradictions that make me me.
I want awesomeness for everybody but I want to punch all of you
in the face too because if you want to compete with me,
you're gonna lose and it's all that stuff.
Sorry, India.
And that's all that stuff and so it's all of that foundational
stuff that we need a lot more for and
if meditation through a
process is what unlocks people to be happier,
to be more grateful,
to deploy more empathy to do all the tried and true
cliché things that would make the world awesome, awesome
then we would be in a really, really good spot.
And I don't believe that there's Nirvana and it's gonna be
perfect but moving anything just a little bit really works.
We've had world wars.
We've had in epidemics.
We've had enormous atrocities.
We continue to do them in the world today.
There's genocide and
people are confused and so yeah I'm I'm all
'bouty, 'bouty, I don't even know why I said that but I was
thinking about Master P the other day.
I'm all about, all about people understanding that mental
health, meditation all these things have a lot of upside and
that we do not understand
anything about the brain currently.
Just an enormous, vast opportunity for us over the next
century to learn more about this and I'm excited and grateful
that my great, great, great, great-grandchildren will live in
a world where that will be
understood far more in a substantial way.
In the way that people died from disease that we so easily
navigate through today, all these unhappy people,
and all these tragedies,
and all these negatives that are completely,
completely coming from the fact that the mental status of that
person isn't in the best place it could be are gonna be an
amazing challenge for our race,
for our world, for who we are as humans.
And I'm really into it and I really bank that that is where
so much of my happiness comes from.
I'm actually quite sad that I'm not to be able to see it where
it's gonna be 100 years from today unless somebody figures
out technology and I'm into it.
I'd be pumped to be a buck 40.
I will Yoda this fuckin' world up.
And so that's that.
- [India] "I will Yoda this shit up" as a t-shirt.
- I would love to look like Yoda.
- [India] So not how long he lived, just what he looks like?
- The punchline there is like if you told me I could live to 840
and it would be like Yoda or
Crane from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
where I'm just a brain in a machine but
I know what's up, I'd be into that.
- [India] Either option or you want Yoda over the brain?
- Well I'd probably take Yoda only because he's still like a
complete thing and bad ass cane I'd be like, "Hey, India."
You know?
Yeah, you're still there.
Yeah, you're still around.
- That's everything.
- We'll because if I figured it out, I'd pass it on to you.
- Oh! Thank you. - You're welcome.
- I'd prefer you'd live. - Oh, that's nice.
- Yes.
Question of the day, this is actually an interesting question
because I actually think this
last little rant is not for everybody.
If you could control it, if I told you,
"Pssst, weird thing, India is a genie from the future
"and can make anything happen."
In the comments section and just go, you can justify, you can do
whatever you want but just a number's fine by me if you could
control it at what age do you want to die?
How long do you want to live? What number?
Andy?
On the spot, let's go, quick. Let's go.
- 120.
- [Gary] Dunk?
Infinity is the only non-answer allowed.
- 140. - [Gary] 140.
- [Dunk] Yeah.
- Other Tyler? - [Other Tyler] 150.
- [DRock] At least 500.
- I'm like 100. - 100.
Yeah, you're so, you're so that.
I would've bet the farm on that.
You're counter-culture.
You're like, "Oh, I don't know."
Mine's, I think mine would be 888.
You keep asking questions,
I'll keep answering them.
- (hip hop music)