- Awesome. - Thank you!
- Take care.
- My spoken word kind of stuff
has really been the one thing that these kids,
no matter where I go, freak out over.
So, a lot of people have been telling me
to just do a lot a videos for that.
Post them on Instagram, Youtube, and all of that.
And again with the quality I'm just you know, I'm worrying.
- [Gary] That's why you're struggling.
- Okay.
- You've put quality,
your personal subjective quality on a pedestal.
It is such a cliche reason people struggle.
- You're gonna have to jump into the pool,
and just see what happens.
In the same way at a macro level, writing the book itself,
you gotta basically do the same thing with social.
There's no piece of content with bad enough lighting,
with bad enough quality,
there's no piece of content that's gonna take you down.
- [Aija] Okay. So it doesn't really matter
about the lighting.
- Nobody cares about your brand positioning in real life.
Do you know what I mean, you are what you are.
Your brand position, you're a human.
You're not a bottled water.
Whatever you put out is your actual brand positioning.
Do you understand? Yeah, definitely.
- So I think you're treating yourself
too much like a product,
and I think that's inevitably hurting you
and it's hurting you,
not because of the authenticity of the content,
but because of the utter lack of content.
Like four to five, six times a week
on Instagram is for what your ambition is
and the fact that your target audience
at least in the beginning, was younger
is just not anywhere close to enough.
- [Aija] Okay, that's very helpful.
And then in terms of Twitter, Facebook,
and Snapchat several times a day as well?
- A hundred percent. Okay.
- Yeah and Twitter's awesome because you can just
search people's conversations and engage in them.
Have you used Twitter's search?
Have you searched bullying or other social justice issues?
- I have, yeah.
- [Gary] Twitter's a cocktail party.
You can interject yourself into every
and any conversation, and you should.
- Okay.
- The others are more content CMS's
and you put out content, but I highly recommend that.
- I was doing a lot of research on VaynerTalent,
and all of the amazing things that you guys do
and I was wondering at what point
in a person's career do you suggest approaching...
- [Gary] Something like that?
- Yeah, because I know it's out there.
- Yeah, to me it's when you can afford
to invest $25,000 dollars a month into,
You know, we built it because we think it's best in class.
And I do think it is, and I think it will
inevitably be commodified.
I think more people will realize its value
and more people will do it,
and more people won't have the overhead costs that I have.
So I'm sure it will come down in price over time.
You should be, so for me,
the way to really win is to have pillar, right?
Book is a pillar, but it's a historic pillar.
To me a new age pillar is either a vlog
or a podcast and you should have one or the other.
Period.
To me ironically,
actually this is the first time I'm saying this.
To me ironically, if you do not have a vlog or a podcast,
right now
you are just leaving an enormous amount of opportunity.
You know I guess I'm hedging.
To me it's, you become vulnerable to not being relevant.
You need to have both of them, one of them,
or you need to be an actual celebrity.
To me it's the only thing that equals
having a television show, or being an actor or actress.
It's a pillar, you need a pillar.
Otherwise your social media content
is backdating into something, or it's rando.
Got it?
- [Aija] So posting spoken word raps
and stuff is not as relevant necessarily.
- Well, I like it 'cause spoken ,
When I hear that that's what people are reacting to,
maybe you know, either one of two things.
Either you do a vlog, first person
more like Kaycee, less like me.
And you do a spoken word rap in it at some point.
Or I think it's a great content pillar,
but you should put out one every,
can you put out one everyday?
Yeah, see that's why I like documenting.
- I can do like two a week and vlogs the rest of the time.
- Correct, and just documenting.
The reason I like documenting or vlogging
is you don't have to do anything other than live your life.
The reason I like podcasts is you don't have to do anything
other than interviewing somebody.
So that's the key.
The key is to put yourself in a position
where you can create volume.
So many more young people get involved
in nonprofits, they'll start them,
and then they hit 29, 32, 34, and they're like,
wait a minute, I'd like to make money.
Wait a minute, I'd like to do this.
And they have guilt, and the have, you know.
And I always tell them you've done more for bullying
already than 99.999 percent of people.
- Oh I guess my...
last kind of question to you would be
two parts in that, as I, I'm like in the beginning
and I'm making mistakes and I would love to get to a place
where you're at one day.
And I'm wondering, one, how to continue to monetize
something that is not directly in the business world.
You know it's kind of like nonprofity.
Even though I've done so thus far,
I'm trying to find new ways.
And then the other aspect, just in general
any advice that you have for someone of my position
trying to climb that ladder
and figure out new innovative ways.
- Yeah I mean, I think you have to reverse engineer
what you want, so you have to make a decision between legacy
and financial, and that changes all the time.
You need financial more in the beginning always, right?
The ways to monetize are always through content,
access, and services or product.
So the tried and true ways to make money exist.
So as you know, you didn't know this, I didn't know this.
Speaking can be very lucrative.
So you could do just fine continuing to put out content
whether in book form, video form, vlog form,
podcast form, Instagram form, and then just speak.
If you have the ability to speak,
which clearly if you're still doing it, you do.
I mean you could make six figures very easily speaking.
Which is very good, especially at 21.
So I think that, you know,
I assume with all this, are there opportunities to write
another book and getting a better advance?
You know there's that.
I mean look, I always tell people build your brand
because your brand becomes the halo on everything.
You get paid more for speaking, you get paid more for books.
You know there's opportunities coming to me that I never
could of imagined because my brand is out there, right?
So I think--
- [Aija] And that's with the vlogging?
- Mmm-hmm.
The podcasts, the blog, public speaking, interviews.
You know just attention arbitrage.
Right, so, my biggest advice is to deploy patience
cause you're so young.
You've had a lot happen at a, in a quick period of time.
You need to contextualize how much a year and a half
or how much 21 years is in the overall macro of your life.
And then that slows you down
and you start making better decisions.
- [Aija] Yeah, exactly, it's that patience that's the key.
- It's the hardest.
You know, you gotta decide what you want.
Do you wanna act?
Do you wanna make 40 billion dollars?
Do you wanna buy a football team?
Do you wanna start a nonprofit?
Do you wanna milk it and then start a family?
What do you wanna do?
Or at least what do you believe you wanna do right now?
And then all your decisions should be based on that.
- Okay, do you suggest making a plan for the scope of?
- I mean, I think everybody does their own thing.
I never did, I made one kind of like,
I wanna be a very successful entrepreneur,
and I want other people to know who I am
and that's what I've done.
And I want them to know who I am
because I feel like I have something good to give.
I think that builds real legacy.
That's why I take random meetings like this.
You know, you just provide value, you know?
- I've read that you said you take all the meetings
all the interviews, even it gets one hit and one view.
- Yeah, and I did that for years, years.
I never thought I was fancy,
I still don't think I'm fancy, you know?
- Absolutely, that's great you're being that.
- I think so.
- Thank you so much. - Cool,
you're welcome so much.
Where were you born, thank you.
- I was born in New York,
and then I moved to California, but I'm Russian.
- Is that right? - I am.
(speaking Russian)
I don't speak Russian.
- But you understand it at all?
- Tiny bits.
- Tiny bits, hmm? - Yeah.
- Was your, were your parents born there?
- My grandparents were.
- Your grandparents, awesome.
- And my dad speaks Russian.
- Awesome, yeah it makes sense.
Awesome, such a pleasure, have a great day.
- Thank you, can I take a picture with you?
- Sure, of course.
(tranquil music)