- The internet is a place where you can make
$54,000 a year just talking about peanut butter.
(light laughter)
This is important, guys.
(slow music)
You got your perspective.
(crowd cheering)
I just wanna be happy.
Don't you wanna be happy?
(slow music)
How many people here work somewhere
but really wanna have their own business or hustle?
Raise your hands?
A lot.
For me, the internet is for you.
For me, if I sat down with these two dudes,
black shirt and white shirt right in this third row,
and they both raised their hands,
for me, it's not about,
if I was sitting down with you for three hours,
it's not about coming up with a business
that's gonna do 10 million bucks,
it's about understanding how much money
you make now working a job,
what you spend your money on to live,
and trying to figure out how quickly
you can get into a place
where you don't have to work in a job.
One more time.
How many hands work somewhere,
but wanna do their own thing?
Raise your hands.
More than half this audience.
Meanwhile, let me tell you why most of the hands
that just went up will never get there.
They buy dumb shit.
(light audience laughter)
Do you know how many people here
literally drive cars to impress people
that they fucking hate?
(light laughter)
People literally going in debt,
or getting further from leaving the job they don't like,
to do something that will make them happy,
because they have to buy a certain car
that has the logo that impresses people
that they fucking despise.
Do you understand how fucked up that is?
Do you know how many people here live in homes
where they don't use more than
half the rooms in the house?
Like we are so fundamentally in a vortex
that makes no sense,
that I am unbelievably passionate
understanding how much money you make,
and what you can do to get off of it,
but the problem is, again,
people are doing so many things
to keep up with the Jone's,
to make it look like they're successful,
to appease their parents,
and a million fucking other things
that have nothing to do with themselves.
And we need to change that fucking game.
(applause)
Thank you.
And the internet is the most likely thing.
The internet is a place where you can make
$54,000 a year just talking about peanut butter.
(light laughter)
This is important, guys.
This is super, duper important,
what I'm talking about.
The internet, unlike the real world,
is a place where the long tail gets rewarded.
The long tail.
The reason I'm on this ridiculous,
to many people, garage sale hustle thing,
is because the quickest way,
by the way, 'cause I knew I was gonna be here,
do you know how crazy it is,
especially in a market like this,
where Ebay, because Amazon wasn't here,
is even more mature and ahead,
do you understand how crazy it is
that if you went to the clearance aisles
of your five biggest retailers in Australia,
bought things on clearance,
went home, relisted it, and posted on Ebay,
that the far majority of this audience
could make between $50,000 to $100,000 a year,
just on doing that for nine to 10 hours a day.
Meanwhile, everybody's sitting here
with the next big app,
that's gonna be the next fucking Uber for lawnmowers.
(laughter)
The thing that has made me successful
far more than my passion, or my energy,
is my disproportionate practicality.
Most people want to look the part
of an entrepreneur that came up with
the next Supreme or Adidas brand,
or the next Uber or Facebook,
yet are $40,000 in debt,
working a job that they hate,
and literally, if they went to the five
discount stores that dominate this market,
buy things on clearance, go home,
take a picture with their fucking phone,
and upload to Ebay, and when people buy it,
go to the post office and ship it,
they would be able to get out of debt
and get to a financial place.
But people don't wanna do that.
'Cause they don't wanna be judged
for that being their hustle.
Most people in this room, and this world,
would rather lose looking like they're doing
something successful than win and be judged
for something that seems dorky.
(applause)
It's fucking facts.
And that leads me to the thing
that I matter the most,
which is why you're living your life
based on other people's opinions.
If I could punch every person's mom
in the face in this audience, I would.
(laughter)
It's scary to me how much pressure parents
put on their kids and use them as products
to look good to the other parents
that they're spending their time on,
when it is not in the best interest
of their kids happiness.
It's just a real broken system,
it's really unfortunate.
And I am the byproduct of parents
that went the other way,
which really allowed me to lean into
the things I was passionate about,
even though in the 90s in America,
immigrant kids were supposed to get straight As,
if you follow me on Instagram,
you saw my report card,
that thing is fucking ugly.
(light laughter)
That is the reason I get to stand here today.
Because I had nothing, so I had adversity.
Because the quickest way not to win in life
is have too much when you start.
And two, I was able to breathe.
I am here, and I promise,
if you really study me,
all I'm doing,
and it took me a little while to realize it,
is all I'm doing is I'm trying to do to the world
what my parents did to me.
I feel such a level of guilt and gratitude,
a mix of the two, of how I had it,
that all I'm trying to do with my popularity,
or my attention,
is create the shield for you to point to.
Do you know how happy it makes me,
how many people use my content
to show to the person they're fighting
with internally or subconsciously,
to give them the air cover
to do the thing they wanna do?
That makes me feel incredible.
It's the great gift of my life
that a lot of people use my content
to give them permission to do
the fucking thing that they wanna do.
And that is what drives me
to fly across the whole world and keep doing it.
That is unbelievably fulfilling.
I'm gonna get mine.
I have news for everybody,
I got mine long before I got onstage
and started doing stuff.
I don't need to monetize my audience.
There's no fucking product that I'm gonna
try to make you buy for the next fucking 14 minute.
What I'm doing, (laughs)
(applause)
what I'm doing, is trying to be happy
when I fly home in a couple days,
and read the emails from people,
and by the way, I get them every day.
Every day I get emails that start with
"I was $47,000 in debt a year ago,
"and now I've got a business doing $300,000.
"I don't know why it took me four and a half years
"to finally do what you've been saying."
And that's the thing, just so you understand why,
I love when people like,
the comments are just so fun.
"Gary V.", like, "You suck, bro,
"you repeat the same shit."
I'm like, 'cause it's right, dick face.
(laughter)
The reason I keep repeating it,
the reason I believe in it,
is 'cause I know for so many of you,
even though you've seen it 87 times,
this moment in real life,
this time might be the time it happens.
That's how it actually works.
This is a game of perspective.
Either you understand what's happening, or not.
Do you know how many people have defaulted
into thinking this is a terrible time?
My friends, this is the greatest time
to be a human being in the history of earth.
I mean, I don't know what else to tell you.
This is like math, this is not my opinion.
This is what's going on with
genocide, and health, life expenses,
like this is the best.
Like for all the fucking shit we have
with racism, and sexism, and a lot of terrible,
we've got plenty of shit,
meanwhile, they had the black plague.
Meanwhile, they had World War fucking II.
Meanwhile, they had real shit.
And we sit around and complain
about the dumbest shit in the world.
People complain about getting the wrong milk
in their coffee from the barista.
Or that your, this is my,
your wifi is a little slower than normal, asshole.
Like you're upset you can feel the speed
is a little lower.
Or you got a few less likes
than you're usually getting on a post.
Like the stuff that we actually spend time on
is fascinating to me.
It is a complete and utter lack of perspective.
And so I spend all my time trying to
contextualize what's actually happening.
And what's actually happening is
the internet is finally mature enough
that it's on such a scale
that literally every person in this room can win,
and not at the expense of anybody else in this room,
'cause the long tail is that huge,
if they're willing to lean into things
that most people aren't willing to lean into.
Humility, getting quiet in their head
from everybody else's judgment,
patience as fuck,
patience as fuck.
Nobody has ever built anything meaningful overnight.
People have inherited money.
You could win the lotto.
It happens.
But not for the 99.9%.
And all of this is available to every person here,
if they're willing to figure out
how they communicate to the world.
And now the most important part.
I laugh at you.
You know why?
Because a lot of you commented
about this conference today during the day.
Some of you complained that people
came up here and sold.
Right?
I am a weird fucking dude.
I decided to look at everybody here
who complained about people up here to sell,
and I decided to audit their social media profiles,
their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.
Let me tell you about all the people that complained
that people who came up here and sold.
Every fucking post out of their mouth
on their Facebook is selling shit.
(light laughter)
It's fucking funny.
It's fucking hypocrisy at scale.
People shitting on other people selling,
yet every post out of their mouth is "Buy this."
My favorite, one person here complaining
has all, every post is, "Come for my free assessment."
(light laughter)
Which is their sales pitch.
And so I highly recommend everybody here
starts really becoming religious about empathy.
You wanna really win in life?
Figure out what empathy is, and practice it.
And I have no idea how to teach it,
but fucking get it into your skull.
The reason I sell so well is 'cause
the only thing I think about is the audience.
Not what's in it for me, what's in it for them.
That will always work.
The reason I have a good organization in culture
is because I work for 900 people,
not they work for me.
The biggest mistake that many of you will make
within an organization is when you go from doing
to being a manager, you think you've made it,
and now people work for you.
That's the beginning of you working for them.
And so we're really in desperate need of perspective.
And so what you may wanna do,
is not actually strategize your Instagram posts
based on how many followers or likes you're gonna get,
but maybe actually, weirdly, maybe just one time,
it would be a good idea to think what the few people
that decided to follow you,
actually get out of you putting that picture up.
Maybe that will work.
You wanna build a fucking audience?
It's not gonna be bullshit engagement groups,
or fake followers, or all the other horse shit hacks
that everybody wants to fucking figure out,
to have the perception of having 4000,
or 10,000, or 100,000 fans,
it's actually putting in the work
to create a meaningful community
based on you actually bringing them value.
How 'bout that for a fucking strategy?
(applause)
And another thing, while I'm on that.
For so many people that are complaining
that they don't have a big enough audience,
how do you have the audacity to wish for more fans
when you don't go into your own comments
when you only get 17 of them,
and reply to the people that are
already part of your community?
From 2007 to 2011, when nobody knew who the fuck I was,
and Twitter was the platform of the day,
I spent every day replying to every single tweet
that made a mention of me,
and used to go to sleep at 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning,
until I completely got to everybody,
and that's how I built my foundation.
People want the glitz and the glamour, and the caviar,
but they're not willing to eat the shit.
Period.
I mean, if you don't understand how this actually plays out,
there is no fucking short cut.
There's no hack, there's no tip,
there's just the work.
My favorite are the fitness influences on Instagram.
They figured it out in fitness, that you know,
they eat well, they work out everyday,
they're so disciplined, yet for their business,
or their social media following,
they're looking for the fucking short cut.
The shit they make fun of that people do in health,
they're doing in social and in business.
It's cliche, I see it every day.
My friends, please understand what I'm about to tell you.
Social media's golden era will go away.
Just like search engine's golden era went away,
and email's golden era went away.
Everything we're talking about right now,
is in the prime of its career.
The prime,
like at athlete or a supermodel.
At the apex.
Over the next decade or two,
it will lose its throne.
Most likely, in my opinion,
to voice devices like Alexa and Google,
which are gonna steal our attention
because of the level of convenience
it brings to our lives.
But visual's always gonna play,
and it will always have a place,
just like email, not as good as it was in 1997,
but still an outrageously effective way
to sell, and market, even to this day.
It's not like it's gonna die,
it's just not gonna be as fucking awesome
as it is right now.
You're sitting here, if you're at this conference,
you're paying attention to what I'm saying.
Now my question is, are you really gonna allow me
to make fun of you in seven years
for not doing anything about it?
Because I promise you, in seven years,
most of my content is gonna be shitting
on 98% of this room for not doing anything
about 2017, 18, 19, and 20.
Please don't let me shit on you.