- All I'm ever doing is trying to take empathy,
gratitude, kindness, positivity, optimism,
and create repacking for it
in modern society to help somebody see it,
'cause life is one big game of perspective.
(funky music)
You have crazy beautiful eyes.
(laughing)
- The first time you said that to me was like,
I think it was the first time we met,
and it was like one of the most awkward things ever
'cause it was like--
- Yeah, for me it was awkward. - 'Cause I did not expect that
from Gary, it's the last thing I'd expect from you.
- So like, but you did nothing to make that happen.
- True, I always say I can't take credit for them.
I say that all the time.
- I don't take credit for anything I am.
All my accolades, I'm like my parents,
my circumstance, ooh Soviet Russia to America,
oo the '80s, oh Jersey, oh this,
oh some form of learning disability
that made me shitty at school, like oo, oo, oo, oo, oo,
right, you know by the way, not being diagnosed
with a learning disability which then either
I'm right or I'm wrong, but it doesn't matter,
I didn't have to deal with that pressure
especially in the '80s when it was a little bit
more of like, scary than it is now.
Like what if I was, what if I did, maybe I didn't,
probably not because they would've caught,
but like, you get into all these circumstances.
This is a big deal though.
I'm sure that what I talk about is right for me
because I'm incredibly in tune with myself
and I'm an incredibly good communicator
in a style that hits a certain group,
which helps them get the insight
to create affirmation, to create lack of fear,
to try something to start the process
to get to a happier place.
That is a fucking blessing.
- Yeah, 100%.
- Now I want people to figure out
that things are right for them,
based on their luck, circumstance,
what's their beautiful eyes?
Yes, maybe they're not an entrepreneur
because they don't have incredible lack of fear,
but maybe that they are incredibly compassionate,
unbelievable analytical, remarkably competitive,
incredibly gorgeous, wonderfully funny,
like let's lean in to what we're fucking awesome about.
Everybody's spending all their time on what they suck at.
Themselves, they're doing that, and I promise you,
everybody else is spending all their time
telling you what you suck at.
I'm spending all my time
thinking about what I'm fucking awesome at
and I'm spending all my time
trying to figure out what everybody else is awesome at.
Some of it's very obvious like beautiful eyes.
Others are like, hey you're a good fucking kid,
keep listening to me.
(funky music)
I am stunned by how almost binary
my judgment is completely predicated on intent.
If I believe your intent was to be there for me,
but your actions were not that you were consistent,
I'm completely unbothered and I don't know what that means
but I'm super fucking grateful that I have it.
- Yeah, but that's an art and a skill that you have,
and I'd like to think I'm the same
where I'm able to do that too, I'm able to let go.
- What is the concept of not having expectations?
From your perspective, because I would tell you
that that may be my great superpower.
- Yeah. - You know somebody
said to me, Tom Bilyeu on my podcast said to me,
"Gary, your superpower is your ability
"not to judge yourself."
And I've been saying it a lot,
and then literally on a flight this week
I was like, right 'cause I don't judge others.
Like I'm able to not judge myself
'cause I don't judge others.
A lot of people who are like--
- Powerful. - A lot of, right?
So tell me, I don't know, I'm just--
- So powerful. - What do you think?
- No I love that. - Okay.
- That's such a great point. - How do you think about that?
- That's such a great point, no, you're spot on,
because the reason why we judge others
is because we judge ourselves, right,
the opposite of what you're saying.
And so for me it's the same thing,
the reason why I don't expect
is because I see everything as my responsibility,
I see everything as my work,
and I see everything else as a bonus.
Like it's just amazing that anyone even cares about me
or has time for me, or makes an effort
to do something or connect with someone or whatever it is,
and that's just a beautiful bonus of life.
But I've gotta be in charge of it
and I think that just came
from many years of having expectations.
I think that came from times when I did expect,
and I didn't get, and I realized
I don't wanna feel this way anymore.
- Well this gets into parenting,
you know, this is the framework
of what our parents are creating for us.
We're one of the most interesting things
that are happening in a lot of modern societies
is we have had disproportionate prosperity
over five, six, seven decades.
America has had a clean run.
I mean, we've had a couple of recessions here and there,
we've had a couple of internal country scandals,
we have underlying issues of sexism and racism
and things of that nature, but in its most macro,
this has been the empire, things have been good,
and what has happened is we've created
unbelievable levels of entitlement.
- Entitlement, yeah. - Entitlement.
- Entitlement.
- I can't stop thinking about it.
It's starting to consume me.
It sounds crass, like never expect anything from anyone,
but I almost wanna find new ways to say it
just to help people understand,
it is the great gift of life.
When you get into a place where you have zero expectations
and you actually don't believe you're entitled to anything,
you can actually start doing things.
- Yes, absolutely, because otherwise
that's what's paralyzing you.
- Because you feel like somebody else is in control.
The man, the society, the government,
the president, the not-president, the governor,
the mayor, the system, the systematic infrastructure.
(rhythmic exhales)
- And really it's a crutch, right?
- [Gary] Of course.
- Like really, it's just a crutch,
like that's another way of saying it.
- At its worst, it's an excuse.
- [Jay] Yes.
- At its best, it's a lack of perspective.
(funky music)
- You talk about so much about the value of human life.
- Yes. - And how rare it is.
- Yes. - And how amazing it is.
Which I don't know if you know this,
but it's like such a deep Vedic concept
which is like thousands of--
- Wait, what? - So Vedic--
- What's Vedic? - It's a philosophy
that I studied in, it's one of the oldest philosophies
in mankind, and one of the biggest principles in there
is about the value of human life.
- Like the way I think about 400 trillion to one?
- Correct, correct.
- It's helped so many people by the way.
Out of all the pieces of content I've ever put out,
something in it has penetrated.
- How does one get, like when I hear you say it,
when I look at the way I always taught it,
when I look at the monks that I know live it,
when I know people that really live that,
what was it that helped you really accept--
- Gratitude. - And live that,
there we go, okay, nice.
- It's my, all I'm ever doing,
is trying to take empathy, gratitude, kindness,
positivity, optimism, and create repacking for it
in modern society to help somebody see it
'cause life is one big game of perspective.
And if you've been raised by parents
in an environment and have natural DNA
that makes you look at something upside down,
I've gotta flip it.
And when I say I got to,
I have this enormous love and need for admiration
that I've come to realize.
Admiration will not come in the form
of me making the most money.
Admiration will not come in any other form
than if I give so much more to you
than I expect from you in return.
I was gifted an ability of the gift of gab.
I am creative, I understand attention graphs,
I have work ethic, I have aspirations.
All of that has created one big game
where I feel responsibility
to be able to get this message out
in a way that won't get to people
that can never become monks
or that won't become disproportionately
high educated philosophical.
I'm in the trenches with my style,
but it's the same fucking product.
And so 400 trillion to one
was one way for me to get people to be like,
do you fucking understand?
There's nothing any of us in this room will accomplish
that is even in the fucking galaxy
of that we have had the chance to do something.
I just don't understand.
What are you going to complain about today
that is even remotely close
to never having the ability to have a life?
Like what, what are you gonna complain about?
Like what's so shitty in your life?
You've got the (exhales).
Even if you're the worst ranked person,
7.7th billion in the world.
You're born to slavery and genocide
in a 5th world country where you're raped everyday,
starved, slaved, lose your parents, no love.
The game of life actually still creates
the rare potential for you to break out of that
and go on to do something
and then bring positivity to the world,
better than not being born at all, I believe that.
(funky music)
- What's the worst advice you're hearing out there right now
that you want people to be more thoughtful about?
- Uh, all of it, because it lacks self-awareness.
It lacks pushing people
into self-awareness and it lacks context.
All advice right now is a problem,
including all of mine,
it's why I'm trying to make it about them.
There's a lot of bad advice, brother.
If somebody watches me and gets fired up to start a business
and they're schlemiel and can't do a business,
they're going down a path of depression.
If they're a competitive, ambitious person
but they also went to high society education
and right now the push there is balance,
and like hard work is bad, and we've become
too much of Europe, I believe this by the way,
like that's bad advice for somebody
because they're gonna be depressed
because they leaned into current
social political correctness
and what they actually are is a dog
and they just wanna grind.
But right now grinding is bad.
All advice is bad if you haven't deployed
enough love for yourself and self-awareness
to understand what to pick off.
(funky music)
- You have a video titled the dumb stuff you buy owns you.
- Yes. - Which I love.
- Yes. - What is the dumbest
thing you've ever bought?
- Great question.
- Because we've all bought dumb stuff, you have.
- My current apartment in New York City.
- Ah, interesting.
- It made me super not-liquid,
made me miss out on investing in Uber.
(laughing)
You know, it's the dumbest in literal,
but it established my family in a neighborhood
that I wanted to raise it, so it's obviously way better,
but in the second level, you know,
probably the dumbest thing that I've ever bought
are the things that I didn't buy.
- Right, right.
- Like a vacation that I should've taken
which would've been a fruitful use of time.
That's definitely it--
- Yeah, the opportunity cost. - As I'm trying to be
a little bit better in communicating regrets
'cause I can't focus on them,
but I wanna talk about them
because I don't wanna make it seem like I'm not human,
I could've done a lot more balance of leisure,
14 to 30, because I worked every minute,
I wish and when you start with I wish, that is regret,
I wish I had five to 10 more memories in my 20s
with my high school and college friends
of going on those trips that everybody does.
Like there's a very interesting clip
of me where you can really see it manifest
where I talk about like I'm not lucky.
Like a bunch of kids when I first started blowing up
from high school and college would hit me up,
and they're like Gary you're so lucky.
I was like motherfucker I'm not lucky.
When you went to the Jersey Shore every weekend,
I worked my ass off.
It's not necessarily what I wanna be talking about right now
and I'm trying to get the temperature of society
but it's a very big truth, so I would say that.
The dumbest thing I ever bought
were the things that I ended up not buying.
(funky music)
I talk a lot about why people aren't capable
of producing content to the world
which is now the requirement as a human
to achieve happiness, I genuinely believe that.
I believe taking advantage of all of our abilities
to reach out to the world through these new channels
with no friction is an enormous gift and opportunity.
The reason most can't achieve it
is 'cause they're unable to take back
the inevitable feedback
that immediately comes with the opportunity.
To your point, I genuinely believe the reason
I can take the feedback is because when I go
into my Instagram post that I just posted,
literally in back-to-back comments,
one will say that I'm walking on water
and the next will say
that I'm a snake oil salesman charlatan.
The fact that neither penetrate my psyche
is absolutely where I'm at.
- Absolutely, and that's equanimity.
Like that is that, whatever you wanna call it, that's yeah.
- It's the game because people want
the positive reinforcement that, you know,
there's so many models on Instagram, right,
men and women, you're so beautiful, you look so great,
you're so beautiful, you look so great,
you're full of shit, you look fake,
they're crushed because they take too much
in that you look so great.
- Yes and I think that's the point
that we're hitting on here which I love
is that that overemphasis on positive,
it's what makes the negative so hard to take.
- It's also an incredible place for me
to add some clarity that I haven't done a good job on
historically which is something I'm thinking
a lot more about, Rogov it's fun to see you here
because we had this call yesterday,
I'm like look, I'm at my worst
when I'm excited in an interview
and I'm drilling a headline.
'Cause I love doing it, it's fun,
it's showmanship, it's wrestling, promo videos,
it's my natural state, you know,
I talk a lot about not giving a fuck
about other people's opinions.
It's also because I take the complete opposite approach,
which is every negative piece of feedback that I get,
I genuinely go into two places.
A, I deploy sympathy and empathy
for the person leaving the comment
because inevitably immediately on that action
I know that they're not in a good place.
If you go to somebody else's social,
consume it and then spew hate,
you're not in a good place.
- Nah, absolutely. - You're unhappy.
- Yeah. - Next, I start trying
to see the insight to any truth in it.
You know the second that you're high on your own supply,
you're vulnerable, and so I don't give a fuck
about anybody's opinion, ironically,
I value everybody's opinion, I just synthesize it.
And then decide to take the good from it.
By deploying empathy and sympathy to the deliverer.
I'm stunned by our lack of conversation in society right now
on this part, there's a lot of judgment
and hot takes and comments,
we need to judge the person delivering the message.
- Absolutely.
- Like how is your mother's opinion of you
have the same weight as anonymous 54's comment on Instagram.
That is ludicrous.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- In the same way of, how does a coworker's opinion,
you have to factor that in different than your mother
'cause your mother blindly thinks you're the best,
if you're lucky enough to have that mother, you know,
and so it's super fascinating,
it's just pulling from opposite directions
and I think I'm pulling so hard from opposite directions
that my balance is coming in that.
- Look, when I do a podcast like this
knowing that you have such a thoughtful audience,
I come on knowing we overlap in a lot of places.
All I've been thinking about for the first 10 minutes
and all I'll think about for the rest of this talk
is can I bring one person value?
Can I add an adjective, a sentence,
saying the same thing in a different way than Jay
or somebody else says that helps Karen
who's listening to this right now on her treadmill
like actually do something.
There's nothing more intoxicating
than when you're a communicator,
than getting the feedback loop
of somebody saying, you said something,
I did something, I'm happier now, end of story.
(upbeat music)