- On this episode I talk about my next book, Money,
and tennis.
(pop music)
Hey everybody this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk,
and you're watching the #AskGaryVee Show, Episode 14.
Fun fact on the number 14, I am born on the 14th,
November 14, and I have played the number 14
on roulette every single time that the ball has
rolled in my life, we're talking 'bout 8,000 times.
- [Voiceover] Ekaterina wants to know
what role does internal culture play
in the company's success?
Can you give one concrete tip on building that culture?
Ekaterina, how are you doing?
It's always great to hear from you,
I'm glad you're on the show.
Company culture is actually the only,
you know what's funny, it's funny this question's
coming up today, I actually on the way to work today
said, "you know what, the book that I'm gonna write
that's really gonna like," you know,
I always think is Crush It!, ooh, Thank You Economy's
gonna sneak up on people. I know, as I sit here today,
the book that I write on culture and how to
build an organization through humans,
not CFO cash tactics, is gonna be my book legacy,
so whenever I get to that, so it's everything to me,
as an operator I'm all E.Q. over I.Q.,
the one concrete tactic I have is
way too many people make decisions on who they fire
or hire based on money.
"Oh, we have the budget to hire another designer,
or camera person, or" like it's a financial decision.
All my decisions on hiring and firing are emotional.
What is it gonna do to the collective community?
You know, if I fire this person, who's so popular
internally, because they have great people skills,
will that hurt everybody else, and can I
can I push that person into another direction
to help them get another job over 90 days
instead of firing them abruptly in one day?
That costs me a lot more money, but does a
hell of a lot for me in the culture.
And so, that is my one concrete
kind of curve ball
haven't heard a lot of people talk about that
kind of stuff, example.
- Hi Gary, this is Jelle from Amsterdam.
This is why I need to be in
Episode 14,
because our biggest Dutch soccer player
called Johan Cruyff he wore the number 14,
so it's really important for us, for our Dutch man.
And here's my question, Gary.
I've read a book in 2011 called
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
And that book changed my life in a very positive way.
I'm very curious about you, Gary, did you read
any books that changed your life in a very positive way?
Thanks.
Big shout out to all the Dutch Vayniacs.
The answer to this question is pretty interesting,
this is gonna be one of the shorter answers.
The answer is no.
That pre-mentioned book that I am planning on writing,
if it's my fourth or fifth or sixth book, when I hit
eight books, writing, I will accomplish a very rare feat,
which is that will be the moment where I've
written more books than I've read.
I believe that one of my core weaknesses is
my lack of reading books.
I just don't read books.
It is, I've read three business books in my life.
If you call the Steve Jobs book a business book,
John Battelle wrote a book called Search,
about Google, and then I'm trying to think,
my favorite book I've ever read was called Nine,
it was about the Supreme Court.
I've read like seven books.
Sorry.
- [Voiceover] And Tory asks, as I launch The Shift
in paperback, what were the three most effective
things you did to drive book sales?
Tory, thanks for the question, really was excited
to put your question on the show because
I just really want the Vayniacs to know about you,
I'm a fan, we've done some events together,
good luck with the book.
Without knowing the true contents of the book, though,
and everybody will have to do their own homework
on that part, there's a couple secrets I have
for everybody who wants to write a book that have
really worked for me and they're not really secrets
they're actually quite boring.
My belief is that you actually sell your book a year to two
before you're actually selling your book.
By providing, by the global jab jab jab right hooding,
here's an example Tory.
I'm actually selling my fourth book right now.
I'm putting out a show everyday, I'm taking time
which is my number one asset, I like time.
I like time more than money.
I prefer time, wish I had a watch, over cash.
That's how valuable it is.
And here I am taking time every day out to just
answer questions, to provide value, to give value,
to entertain, to give an answer to make somebody think,
to provide value in their entrepreneurial venture
to the people that have deemed me worth their
time, thank you, and so, you know, I'm selling
my fourth book right now because I'm providing
value to a whole new audience, as a matter of fact,
a quick question of the day, leave in the comments
section if you've discovered me because of #AskGaryVee.
That'll be interesting to see what happens to comments.
Please do that if you are, don't be a lurker.
Okay, I haven't used that term in a long time.
So that's number one.
Number two, and this is a big unknown thing
to a lot of people.
It surprises me how many people have not
figured this out.
People don't want more content as much as
they want more access.
Everybody wants to do book offers where if you buy
three books you can get a free Ebook or this that
more content, right?
Get into this.
What they want is access.
One of the biggest things that I did Tory that
really sold a lot of books for me was
give myself to the audience.
If you did this many books or bought this many books
I would do this live stream Q and A,
I would come to your school. I would make a video
for happy birthday. I would literally give, sell,
the number one thing people want from me,
which is more access, and it's the thing you want
from everybody that you appreciate.
You wanna spend more time with that person.
Those are two I'm giving you, I'm not giving you
a third one 'cause those are the two that matter.
- Hey Gary this is Ian Westerman from
EssentialTennis.com, I've got a quick question for you
for #AskGaryVee. First and foremost though,
thank you so much for what you do.
It was six years ago that I was commuting an hour in
each direction to a job back and forth,
listening to Crush It!, and that book fired me up so much.
So, my question for you is, when you played tennis
or at if you're still playing tennis now,
do you see parallels between tennis and business
and being successful in either one, or in both?
What are those?
I'd be really curious to hear your thoughts.
- Great, great question, you know it's really
interesting to me, tennis is a game I love a lot,
and I've recently figured out how not good I am
because I've met a lot of private school kids,
rich kids who play tennis a lot, and were on the
college tennis team, and so I love the game
and I like playing the people that give me good
6-4, 7-6, 6-2 kinda matches in both directions
I have a lot of fun with it and I like it a lot
and as a matter of fact I really do see one parallel
and I never thought about this before,
and this is really why I love the #AskGaryVee Show,
(bell) ting, you know, I do see a parallel.
I'm blown away that I once lost a match that
I was winning five zero in a set.
And I'm also super happy, can somebody get Nate,
Zak, can you get Nate?
This is gonna be fun.
I'm also happy that you know and you've heard me
talk about half time adjustments, right,
I'm the coach, they'll be down 21 nothing,
and then it's 23-21 and I won because I
didn't game plan well but I adjusted?
That to me is tennis, right?
To me tennis is fascinating 'cause the set is very long,
and you can be down three zero and then
you're adjusting. You're seeing patterns.
For example,
- [Nate] Yo.
- [Gary] Nate, is it true, is it true that you've
never beaten me in tennis?
- Unfortunately yes.
- Now, is it also true that you once had me down
five, you've had me, like help me here,
you've had me down 5-2 twice?
- Yep.
- Right, and you lost those matches.
- Yes.
- Okay, so what I did in those matches were
- Done?
- That was it, thanks bro.
So in those matches when I was down 5-2 to Nate,
what happened was, you know, one I just like
refused to lose, but two, I really kind of took a
step back, looked at what happened in those
first seven games, and started attacking either
weaknesses of his or strengths of mine,
it's a very mental game, I was reacting to
what was already happening in that specific set,
and I was able to adjust then and win 7-5 much
to my happiness, and so much like in business,
people set out to do things, it's kinda like the
Mike Tyson quote, right?
"Everybody's got a plan until they
get punched in the face."
You know, that's what I see in tennis
and that's what I see in business.
You have your business plan.
You think you're gonna succeed.
And then you're out in the market and somebody
copies your product for less, or is better than you,
or nobody really wanted your stupid app.
You gotta adjust.
And in tennis, 'cause it's a set, it takes a lot of time
to that for that kind of like set to like form
and you've gotta adjust to, wait a minute
he's playing off of his backhand, let me go
at his backhand, things of that nature, let me go
to the net because I'm not winning this baseline game.
The adjustments in real time, and the emotion
and composure, and the intestinal fortitude
to be down 5-2 and come back and win, that's how I see it.
- [Voiceover] Trey wants to know what situations
do you find yourself most comfortable in?
- Trey, this is a great question, you know,
I loved it when Steve brought it up, like
how he wanted to do this question, of course,
this is like a humble brag question.
(bell)
You know, I mean, where am I most awesome?
You know, listen, the thing I take most pride in
is I'm probably probably best when it's chaotic.
And I think a lot of people fold in that sense,
but to me I take enormous pride,
what I don't know is I'm really great in
chaotic non-threatening, I'm being very honest here
'cause I don't I wanna (bell) disguise this humble brag
with a little humility, 'cause that's how I like to roll,
you know, I I'm great in business when we're in
real trouble, like I'm great, that's my world.
I'm really good when people are upset, you know, like,
a kid in my class died in a car accident senior year
and like I like I was proud in the way I helped
a lot of people I'm really strong emotionally.
What I'm not sure about is if like somebody came up
and punched my wife in the face, like, what would I do?
Like I'm such a lover not a fighter, that I always
question myself in that moment, I actually think
I come out guns blazing, but it's never really happened.
But I'm most comfortable in chaos.
As a matter of fact, and people can tell you this
in the office, these guys can mention it, I mean
you've seen this stop, I'm like rolling my, ringin' these,
I hate quiet and standard.
I like walking into VaynerMedia everybody's
got their headphones on, like, can somebody
play some music?
Like, all this is like way not enough for me.
My wife actually like keeps making fun of me
because the other day I somehow said something like
New York's too slow for me, she's like "shut the"
you know like like I I'm best when there's
a crapload going on.
My friends, I really appreciate you watching this show.
The question of the day is quite simple.
Where is your favorite vacation spot?
I'm tryin' to get into the insight of you guys,
I'm also tryin' to figure out where to tape an episode
with maybe one of you.
You keep asking questions, I will continue to try to
answer them.
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