How to Get Over Your Fear of Judgment on the Internet | Senior Bowl Summit Keynote 2020

Introduction

• We really need to have a conversation in here about judgment. (logo whooshes) (logo clicks) The far majority of you will not go home today and start posting more on Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter.
• I love when people be like, Gary, I didn’t grow up with this technology, I don’t get it. I’m like, that’s nice, Sue. You didn’t grow up driving and you figured it out. (audience laughs)
• It is very cute that you tell me you didn’t grow up with this and that’s why you don’t get it, I am wildly smart enough to understand that you are bright enough to spend two hours on an app to figure it out. The reason you’re not posting or doing is ’cause there’s insecurity about what you’re gonna say. (chill upbeat music)

Motivation

• Yeah!
• Hey!
• You got your perspective. (audience cheering) (upbeat techno music)
• I just wanna be happy, don’t you wanna be happy?

Opportunity on Social Media

• The fact that we sit here in 2020 in the maturity of the social web and these opportunities and there are still two platforms right this second that requires $0 for you to start communicating what you want to happen in the world I think is remarkable.
• That doesn’t even take into account the fact that Facebook ads, YouTube pre-rolls, this new Spotify ad product that is gonna have hosts read live reads like the old radio game for podcasts, Facebook or Twitter.
• Twitter’s appropriately priced but everything else I just mentioned to you, the ads are underpriced. The cost of spending $1,000 on these platforms to get people to see something is underpriced.

Traditional Advertising vs. Online Opportunities

• I really am desperate. With even the tone and tenor that I’m bringing to this talk, I’m desperate for people to understand how wild this is.
• I wanna remind everybody, for everybody who raised their hand in the first group like myself, the way you built a business or brought awareness if you’re 43 and older in the way we grew up was by spending a lot of money.
• Ads cost money. Direct mail, newspaper, radio ads, television, they cost money. It was a very high cost of entry to build brand. Brand is the whole game.

Transactional vs. Building Brand

• I think when I analyze what’s going on in the business world and with people, I think most people are transactional.
• How many people here are entrepreneurs? Raise your hands. I believe the majority of the hands that just went up that when I look at the delta between the ones who’ve won and the ones who won less than they wanted to, I put them always in my mind into two groups.
• One group is transactional, a.k.a. deeply care about the money in the short-term, and the second group is looking to build brand, a.k.a. reputation in perpetuity and are more concerned about playing it out in the longterm.

The Power of Mobile Devices

• What is exciting for me right now is that this device, this device, the fact from this young man down and up, every one of us has a device in our hand that is a computer that is actually more powerful than the computer that Ronald Reagan had when he was running the free world.
• It really is interesting. It really is.

The Internet as an Opportunity

• I think, again, what I’m really trying to establish in this talk this morning, is I don’t think people have quantified the opportunity.
• I struggle, regardless of circumstance, with people dwelling or complaining in a world where the internet is free, has no idea who you are, could care less, it’s right there and it becomes a game of skill, not necessarily finances, to actually win.

Entrepreneurship and Opportunity

• It’s interesting to me. It’s interesting to me that you can be in the retail business overnight by setting up a Shopify account which costs nothing when that same action to sell something 30 years ago meant that you have to sign a lease and build out a store and rely on the local traffic that walk by.
• It scares me and excites me that the biggest music company in the world, Spotify, was built in Sweden by a kid.
• And on and on and on, you’ve heard every story. But more importantly, for every ridiculous story we’ve seen of Instagram or Facebook or Uber, Spotify, there are hundreds of thousands of stories of people with wins that are micro versions.

Practical Business Opportunities

• I actually think the most unhealthy thing in entrepreneurship and opportunity is the big stories that everybody thinks they have to build a billion-dollar company.
• I think we do not talk enough about the practical $150,000 a year, $300,000 a year, $700,000 a year business that you genuinely love what you do and you can live your life being happy and financially sound and what the cost of entry to be able to do that is in today’s environment.
• Very slow, between putting out a media company, if you decide to put that on a WordPress or Squarespace, a retail company on the back of a Shopify, you could start a radio show that is global on the back of just uploading something you record on your memos on your phone and upload onto Spotify and Apple and SoundCloud.

Free Distribution

• My friends, distribution is free.
• I know it’s a nerdy thing. It’s not some big, profound statement but let me say it nice and slow. Distribution is free, it used to cost a fortune.
• Now, what you put inside of it is the variable of your success, not your financial capabilities to create the distribution.

Conclusion

• I wish we could zoom in. I literally have goosebumps on my neck right now. No, but really, I really do.
• I will live my last breath trying to get people to understand, this is remarkable.
• This is a game of perspective. Are you educated or capable of seeing it from the lens that I’m speaking about today, which is, the barrier to reach the end person, whether you’re a financial advisor.

Opportunities in Various Fields

• and trying to get to a client, whether you sell bow ties. How about the fact if you wanna be a professional football player and now there’s all these websites where you can upload your film because the scout didn’t come to your tiny, tiny town, and now, you actually can be discovered? Everything has changed.
• My question and my dream every time I speak is can I get one person in this room to get their piece?
• For me, if you are not disproportionately happy sitting in this room professionally, which will trickle into your actual life, you have to take a step back and understand this perspective.
• So, I think we’re living through the greatest era ever for opportunity.
• I think it’s on the back of the current internet, which is wildly visual. I’m very aware that the audio revolution of our society is coming.

Voice Assistants

• What do I mean by that? Is how many people here have a Google Home or an Alexa in their house? Just raise it high, I’m curious. Raise it high, I want people to see this. Google and Alexa, look around. Some real number.
• Now, granted, most people are just telling jokes with their Alexa or listening to music. (audience laughs)
• But I wanna remind everybody that the first killer app on the iPhone for the first year was that app that looked like you were drinking a beer, if you remember. It takes some time for the apps to catch up to the platform but we’re all very close to being in an era where we order a pizza or where we get our plumber or how and where we navigate by talking to a voice device, not to our phone.
• As voice becomes the platform and less happens on this, which seems foreign now because we all live in it, but I wanna remind you, we used to not live in it, and I wanna remind everybody here, technology likes to move.

Overcoming Insecurity and Judgment

• and trying to get to a client, whether you sell bow ties. How about the fact if you wanna be a professional football player and now there’s all these websites where you can upload your film because the scout didn’t come to your tiny, tiny town, and now, you actually can be discovered? Everything has changed.
• My question and my dream every time I speak is can I get one person in this room to get their piece?
• For me, if you are not disproportionately happy sitting in this room professionally, which will trickle into your actual life, you have to take a step back and understand this perspective.
• So, I think we’re living through the greatest era ever for opportunity.
• I think it’s on the back of the current internet, which is wildly visual. I’m very aware that the audio revolution of our society is coming.

Voice Assistants and the Future

• What do I mean by that? Is how many people here have a Google Home or an Alexa in their house? Just raise it high, I’m curious. Raise it high, I want people to see this. Google and Alexa, look around. Some real number.
• Now, granted, most people are just telling jokes with their Alexa or listening to music. (audience laughs)
• But I wanna remind everybody that the first killer app on the iPhone for the first year was that app that looked like you were drinking a beer, if you remember. It takes some time for the apps to catch up to the platform but we’re all very close to being in an era where we order a pizza or where we get our plumber or how and where we navigate by talking to a voice device, not to our phone.
• As voice becomes the platform and less happens on this, which seems foreign now because we all live in it, but I wanna remind you, we used to not live in it, and I wanna remind everybody here, technology likes to move.

The Impact of Voice Technology

• When, when. Not if, when you start doing a lot of things that you do on your phone right now start happening on a voice device, it will no longer be visual and written which will lead to less opportunity to grab attention to the current opportunity landscape, which I’m gonna remind everybody, is quite remarkable.
• Because if you’ve got a local bakery now and you can do a really good job on LinkedIn and TikTok for free or on Instagram with money, when in a decade, we go into voice and I say, Alexa send me six muffins to the office, Amazon gets to decide which muffins come to the office.
• Now, if you did such a good job building brand and I knew about Carol’s Muffins, and I said Alexa, send me six Carol’s Muffins to the office, You’ve now accomplished your task. I spend 100,000% of my time on brand.
• I want people to know my name, I want people to know the name of the things I do, VaynerMedia, my agency. When we killed Mr. Peanut yesterday, which a lot of you heard about, that is us doing brand. That makes you think about Planters. You weren’t thinking about it prior to what we did yesterday. We think about it. It’s all brand.
• And so, I just want you to get your long tail of it. And this is what’s led me to the most interesting conversations of my career because as a businessman, I never thought I would get into categories like parenting and insecurities and self-esteem.
• But as somebody who just spoke all that and has done that pretty much every day 600 times a day on the internet for the last decade, it has led me to realize, wait a minute, there’s the other component of everything I said.
• I can show every one of you what to do. I’ve just sat here and told you 100%, not 99, the two attention arbitrage platforms of our society right now.
• If every person here went home and made five to seven pictures and videos a day on both TikTok and LinkedIn, within a year, something good would happen for the far majority of you. 99% of you won’t post on either once after this talk.

Overcoming Insecurity and Judgment (Continued)

• The question to me became why. That led to the next part.
• We really need to have a conversation in here about judgment. The far majority of you will not go home today and start posting more on Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter.
• I love when people like, Gary, I didn’t grow up with this technology, I don’t get it. I’m like, that’s nice, Sue. You didn’t grow up driving and you figured it out. (audience laughs)
• It is very cute that you tell me you didn’t grow up with this and that’s why you don’t get it. I am wildly smart enough to understand that you are bright enough to spend two hours on an app to figure it out.
• The reason you’re not posting or doing is ’cause there’s insecurity about what you’re gonna say. You go very deep into who’s gonna care what I’m gonna say. What would I say? Who cares what I think? Or even worse, the thing that breaks my heart the most, you actually do post something, somebody leaves a post that you look ugly and you cripple and fold like a cheap chair.
• So, that’s what I spend my time right now: trying to figure out how to get people to realize that the judgment of others has zero actual impact on their lives, they have zero context on your actual life, and how do I get you to understand that perspective, which would then lead to you speaking?
• And when I say speaking, let me break this down. Let me take out the other excuse of why you for yourself and your business aren’t posting. Not everybody is great on camera, I get that.
• Not everybody is so wildly charismatic and very good looking, I get it. (audience laughs)
• However, on the flip side, I am incapable of writing. It’s not my natural skill.
• I struggle with reading and writing, it’s not my skill. Plenty of people here are incredible writers and it is an incredible opportunity to go write six to 15 sentences together around the thought on LinkedIn and hit post.
• Others can work in Photoshop and make a picture. Others enjoy, I don’t.
• I was born in the Soviet Union and grew up in a very Eastern European household. I think there’s eight pictures of me in my entire youth. We didn’t take photos, so it doesn’t come natural to me.
• On the other hand, there are people in here who took 97 photos on their iPhone yesterday. (attendees laughing)
• There are plenty people here who are great at taking photos. My question here today, my friends, is very simple. When are you gonna start talking? What are you waiting for? If you ar

The Importance of Communication

• What are you waiting for? If you are not communicating, you don’t exist. I believe that. If you are not communicating, you do not exist. More importantly, communicate about what you love.
• What scares me about the long tail of the internet is I know there’s somebody sitting in here who’s watched every episode of “Friends”, deeply loves “Friends”, can’t get enough in their own mind of debating Rachel and Ross, loved the show, watched it every night to go to sleep too, and I know they make 49, 62, 88, $103,000 a year doing something they don’t like.
• And I know that if they started a podcast about “Friends” everyday when they went home instead of consuming content to escape the fact that they don’t like their job, if they created content around the thing they love, that after 24, 36, 48 months, along could’ve came Netflix and then a sponsor of that podcast that would allow them to actually leave that job they hate and now be a full-time “Friends” podcaster.
• You don’t believe that, I understand that. That seems like a far-fetched story to you. The problem is you don’t live my life because I wrote a book in 2009 called “Crush It!” that laid this out and I get to live the best life now where I get three to six emails a day of people that tell me this exact story, whether it’s about pickles. (audience laughs) People like pickles. I eat pickles like crazy.
• “Star Trek”, E-sports, don’t even get me started ’cause I still push it a lot and people have gone completely and made real careers now. Just stuff.
• I just really, really, really hope you hear me today, whether it’s for yourself, whether you’re a top executive in your organization and the company still does direct mail or print or still sponsors the town fair instead of running content and ads on Instagram and Facebook.
• Guys, it’s 2020. And don’t give me this not in my town, not in my industry. I’m watching, your town, your industry. And so, that’s where we’re at.
• The biggest opportunity in the history of humankind to do what you want to do and yet, you will continue to find reasons not to. And I think that comes under the categories of self-esteem and self-awareness and I think we need to make those words important in our society.
• You can work hard all you want. If you’re insecure, you’re gonna be vulnerable ’cause the second there’s pushback, and there’s always pushback in the journey, you won’t go there.
• So, that’s my framework. Those are the things I think about. I spend a lot of time thinking about that. And then, I have a company that helps Fortune 500 companies navigate that world, and I see it every day.
• Just going back to the Planters thing ’cause I know it’s on the radar today, there was a real debate if we could get America to know that Mr. Peanut was dead so that we could run the Super Bowl spot that were running during the Super Bowl, and if we couldn’t, the spot won’t make any sense.
• I and VaynerMedia knew that the internet is real. We knew that if you went on Twitter, like we did yesterday, “The Daily Show” will pick it up at night and it will be on all the recap emails this morning and in the papers and the AP and the “USA Today”.
• The internet is real life, this is fake life. (audience laughs) I know where the giggles come from. And by the way, an enormous amount of people hate that thought. I live in life.
• I know how we are doing such a great job currently demonizing technology. My favorite is my friends who are parents who, ’cause they know where I sit on tech, and they’re like, Gary, I’ll be hanging out with them and they’ll be like, Gary, this tech is terrible, my kids are on it too much.
• But the second the kid comes over and bothers our conversation over a glass of wine, they throw the iPad at that kid like it’s the cure to every disease. (audience laughs)
• The hypocrisy that we have around technology is fascinating. We, as humans, are incredible at romancing the past and demonizing the current. And so, these are trends I watch.
• But I will say this. If you are a vibrant, active, ambitious human being, which there is zero reason for you to be at this conference if you’re not, zero, and you do not, for yourself, or your company, produce in the ballpark of seven to 25 different pieces of content across three to nine different platforms a day, you are making a fundamental mistake.
• And I’m gonna say it again because when you’re talking about 25 pieces of content a day in a world where 98% of this room is not making 25 pieces of content a year, we have a very big disconnect between where I sit on this and where you sit on this.
• I am giving this talk for one reason. Because D Rock is filming it, and I’m gonna air it, in a decade on whatever the current platform is when it has been completely accepted that everything I just said was 100% right. (audience laughs)
• I have zero interest of you actually taking the advice I just shared. I don’t know you, I’ve got my own problems, (audience laughs) I prefer it. I’m speaking at Harvard tomorrow, I have a couple of meetings there, I gotta go Dallas to Boston, land at 1:40 in the morning, and then those kinda flights, I like reading the emails of you saying, hey, I saw you in Mobil in 2020, it’s now imaginary 2023, I finally listened, I was passionate about X, Y and Z, I did do an Instagram account or a podcast or a YouTube show, and now,

three years later, this happened. I love that. That is the big win for me in this room. But you won’t. You won’t.

• And I know that ’cause I’ve lived this life now for a while. What is more likely is you’re gonna email me in six years and say, I wish I did ’cause this happened, because I was the leading lawyer in town and this other person who didn’t. The emails are funny, right? I mean, they come in all shapes and forms.
• Gary, I wish I listened to you. And you start reading it ’cause I read ’cause I want the qualitative feedback to learn. Heard you four years ago at the Atlanta Business Summit. You said the thing. I didn’t believe you, I thought you were loud and obnoxious.
• I’m not cursing today because Maggie asked me, but, you cursed, it turned me off. (audience laughs) I’m a Jersey boy. Meanwhile, this upstart kid, he listened to you, and then my favorite line, no matter what it is, lawyer, doctor, real estate, but, he’s not even good at being a lawyer but he’s killing it on Facebook and he’s hurting my business. What do I do now? And I smile.
• I smile the same way that I saw some of the kids on the field yesterday that didn’t go with VaynerSports that we know we were in the final two with them and they went in a different direction. I see them, I root for them. I’m a kind person, my mom did a good job.
• But I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say when I look at their faces, I smile knowing they made the wrong decision. ‘Cause I love merit. I love sports. You either make the right move or you don’t.
• I’ve already won by articulating my thoughts here today. Either you’re gonna actually use this talk as the final piece to actually get out there and finally do this because you cannot be in this room and not know what I’m saying is actually right.
• Or you’re not and then you lose and then I get to see you ’cause they’re both good. I did it or I didn’t do it, I both enjoy ’cause I actually love the merit of the game. I mean that. So, I hope you do it.
• I don’t need you to do it. As a matter of fact, I’ll get really technical on you. A lot of my smartest friends always ask me why I do this because if these people start making content and start running ads, it’s gonna be harder for you to build what you’re building, Gary, and they’re right. The feed of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, it’s just one feed. It’s just supply and demand. If all of you start posting, that’s just more content, less attention,

Gary Vaynerchuk’s talk emphasizes the importance of communication, finding your passion, creating content around it, and embracing the digital age to seize opportunities. He encourages individuals and businesses to produce content consistently and adapt to the changing landscape of technology and communication.

Vision and Acceptance

Speaker 1: However, I have this vision in my mind– – Real quick, a lot of people aren’t accepting of it. Let’s talk real quick. Speaker 2: Who’s not accepting of it? – [Attendee] Well, not necessarily at work. These are industry professionals. I’m worried about the consumers. Speaker 1: Correct. The people that aren’t accepting of it are the ones whose commissions and margins are getting affected. That has nothing to do with the end consumer. I haven’t had a single competitor ever love me. *(attendees laughing and applauding)*Speaker 2: [Attendee] I guess my point is as we try to scale it, my disconnect is finding the next connection to find someone that can show us how to scale that in a way that we can maintain culture but also keep the consumer mindset first.

Scaling and Culture

Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I’m pumped that you’re thinking about that. You’re aware of what I’ve done with Claude and Chief Heart Officer. Do you know what I’m saying there? Look, even hearing you deliver that sentence, I think for some of the veteran businesspeople in this room, we weren’t talking about culture 20 years ago. It was just get the results done. So to scale, I do believe you need culture. At 1,000 people, we have offices in Singapore and London and Chattanooga, Tennessee, you’ve gotta really have culture. I think the fact that you’re even thinking about it already means you have a shot at it. It means you’re gonna throw money at it and you’re gonna have an HR department that cares about the employees, not as a disguise for the finance team to fire people. It’s just intent. Just even hearing how much you know, talking, senior vibes in the crew, this is just intent. The reason I always win is ’cause I have intent. My employees first, my customers second, me third. That’s a very easy way to win in business. I think we all know that’s not how most people do it. If you’re sitting here right now saying to me, I’m gonna start this business to buy a boat, two, customers because they’re the people that are gonna give me money, three, employee, you’re gonna build a very small business. Speaker 3: Yes, sir. Yup. Stand up, bro. Speaker 1: [Ahmed] I’m sorry, I’m kinda freaked out. Speaker 1: Don’t freak out. *(attendees laughing)*Speaker 3: [Ahmed] My name is Ahmed, I’m 19 years old. I’m not really a huge business guy. Speaker 1: No worries. Speaker 3: But, my question was, I know you say the people who don’t know what their passion or anything to try a lot of stuff, my thing is where do you start with that? Speaker 1: Okay, let’s play. You’re 19, which I’m so thrilled you asked this question, it’s super important. This thought that you need to have your life figured out this age is laughable. This thought that we’ve created in society that 18 or 22, you need to know. We’ve literally built society backward. When you first get out of the school machine which maps zero to real life, you’re supposed to go play real life to have a chance to figure out what you do. So, where do you start? You start with what are you consuming and paying attention to when you have leisure time. Do you play video games? Do you listen to music? Do you like to go out and eat weird food? What do you like? That’s where you start. So what do you like, Ahmed? What are you about? Speaker 3: [Ahmed] I’m kind of a geek. I like reading comic books. Speaker 1: Good, let’s start with comic books. Do you wanna create comic books? Do you wanna sell comic books? Do you wanna buy comic books and flip them? Do you wanna work at Comic-Con? All of those things would be a good place for you to start. Cold email and DM 850 different people that are players in the comic book world and one of them might reply to you and that starts your career. You could literally work for Funko tomorrow. You could literally work for Marvel tomorrow. You could, you just have to write 137 compelling emails.

Dreams and Goals

Speaker 1: and DMs and LinkedIn things. (attendees laughing) What’s up with that? (Ahmed speaking faintly) Bro, you can literally do that. (audience laughs) Who’s 43 and older? We couldn’t do that, Ahmed. (attendees laughing) That’s not how it worked when we were coming up the game. You didn’t just like say. Actually, ironically, once in a while, I come across an OG who’s like, actually, I did do that, I wrote 800 letters. It took two months for me to get a response instead of two hours, but yeah, man. In the comic world, there’s the movie aspect, there’s the actual skill of it. If you like the drawing of it, you could. Look, let me tell you one thing about winners. A lot of winners didn’t get there by accident. So when you write a winner an email, your favorite illustrator at DC Comics, hey, Sarah, I will bring you coffee, get your laundry, grind and bleed just to intern or work at minimum wage just to see how you do it, one out of 800 of those people, that’s how I hire. I hired D Rock ’cause he emailed me three times. And now, he’s D Rock and people call their video people D Rock. (attendees laughing) That’s his story. My man. – [Christian] So, my name is Christian. About a year and a half ago, I started Quarterback Development Company in the Northeast area. – Love it.

• [Christian] Listening to a bunch of your stuff, I’ve always been kinda in the world of wanting to create content for things but my surrounding people just wasn’t about that so, I wanted to say thank you, first off, for being that person that motivated me to go. So about a year and a half ago, we started doing the podcast, live podcasts on Facebook, kinda started taking off. We started getting messages, the company started growing. About a week ago, we got a contract for the AYF, which is American football in the Northeast to do all of their camps and clinics. So, it’s been super awesome. Also, my name came up for some high school coaching job, the works has been kinda going crazy. I’m super happy right now. – No, that can’t be. (attendees laughing)
• [Christian] So, my question is, and it’s just crazy that a year and a half ago, I dreamt about this and now, this is actually coming out my mouth, but my goal is to get into the NFL as a coach one day. And right now, I see myself in the point of struggle between maintaining the company and then having to go over into putting 100% of my effort into the coaching– – Maybe, don’t try to make the company as big as you know you can because you can’t allocate 110% of the energy to it. You’re not looking at the company from the perspective of as an alpha, as a winner, as an ambitious young dude. You’re like, I’m building this. You don’t have to build it. So many people in this room, how many people here own their own business? Great. This is gonna really hit for a lot of you. There’s a lot of people that you can talk to afterwards. If you guys see this man afterwards, tell him that build companies, and they built it, let’s say from zero to a million a year or half a million, and they loved it, life was awesome, but from a million to a million five, that screwed it up. There’s a Mendoza Line where people don’t understand this. This is why I push happiness so much. I’m thrilled that your business now does three million instead of 1.6 million but you used to love your life at 1.6 and you hate it now ’cause you’re managing or you’re doing this or that or you’re stressing. I think you need to control the size of your business. You can also bring someone in. You can bring in a partner, you can bring in a big-time employee that gets a bonus on net profits. There’s a lot of hacks for you to go at this. You also can be very patient. – [Christian] Oh yeah, I’m super– – Good, so then, you shouldn’t be stressed. How old are you? – 28. – Great. If you say, I’m gonna be in the NFL when I’m 42, guess what? It gets a lot less stressful when you’re thinking in 14-year terms. It gets a lot less stressful when you’re not reading other headlines, when you hear some 26-year-old got the look to be the number two on the offense at the Bengals. I wanna say when you’re frustrated, don’t worry about anybody else. Just like those friends around you, they’re like nah, nah, nah, that won’t work. Don’t worry about the 26-year-old wiz kid who’s on Buffalo right now. That has nothing to do with you. Take it from 44, 42 is plenty young to get your first NFL coaching job.
• Gotcha. – You understand? – Yeah. – Our relationship with time is something we really have to start talking about in our society. It will take a ton of anxiety out of the system. Bro, in 18 months, you’ve accomplished more

Pursuing Dreams and Advertising

Speaker 1: – I appreciate it, Gary. – Got you, bro. Yes, ladies. Lady, either, whoever. What’s your name? – Rosie. – Rosie. – [Rosie] I am a financial advisor. And I’m new in the business, I’ve only been in it for three years, but I’m the only female in the office. I have, no offense for the white-haired men in the room, but I have an office full of that, so they don’t understand, we need to be doing this, we need to be doing that. And the other thing that we face is because the financial industry is very heavily regulated of what you can say, can’t say.

• I’m very aware but people use regulation as excuse to not do. – [Rosie] Well, that’s what I’m saying. So how do you combat– – You execute. – How should I combat the– – By not talking to those old dudes. (attendees laughing) Very simple. Don’t look for permission, focus on execution. My whole life, I was told what I was doing was wrong. It was crazy to launch an internet site for a liquor store in 1996. People thought the internet was a fad. Forget about this TikTok a fad. Some of the OGs here know, we’ve debated if the whole thing was a fad. And then I did email instead of catalogs and that was not smart. What’s email? And then I bought Google AdWords and I was spending more money on Google AdWords than I was spending on direct mail and newspaper ads and that was stupid. And then I sat down and started filming a wine show on YouTube a month after YouTube came out and people thought I lost my mind, let alone that it was stupid. And then I took all the money I had in my life, that I saved my whole life, and invested in Facebook and Twitter five years before they became public companies and all my financial advisors and family and everybody else thought that was stupid. I’m only excited when people tell me it is stupid. That’s when I know I’m about to do something smart. (attendees laughing) Yes, sir, in the back with the wild shirt.
• [Ethan] I’m Ethan Lesley. – Ethan? – Yes, sir. We launched yesterday. (attendees speaking faintly)
• You said you launched yesterday? – Yes, sir. – First day? – Yeah. – Epic, go ahead. (attendee speaking faintly)
• [Ethan] Basically, I’m 23. I started watching you last year as a staple, and so, I wanna know the platform that people can achieve their dream because, well, I’ve always thought that I could and I lost it. And so, essentially, why I’m here is I wanna schedule a meeting with you. (attendees laughing and applauding) It’s not about what you can bring to us, it’s about what we can bring to you in your community and what we can do for people that once they get their dreams, they pursue their dreams. (attendee speaking faintly)
• Agreed. So, in a world where I’ve got a lot of things in front of me and as you can imagine, this pitch though, much more fun in real life, happens 8,000 times a day, here’s what you need to do. You need to email me. I’ll read it tonight ’cause I have long flights, Gary@vaynermedia. You need to put in the title. I’m the dude with the weird shirt that launched today. (attendees laughing) ‘Cause then I’ll see it, right? I’m the dude with the weird shirt that launched today. And you need to articulate what you mean on the value exchange. And then if it’s there, I’ll fly to New York. – Perfect. – Good. Yes, sir. (attendees applauding) – [Will] My name’s Will. – Will?
• [Will] Yes, I own an apparel company. – Awesome. – [Will] And so, my idea for advertising, as you said, it’s still defiant. And I just kinda wonder if it’s a good idea. – I’m listening.
• [Will] I hand out pieces of my apparel and you all have that Instagram account, pretty much. So I’ll hand out a piece of my apparel, a shirt or something, and I’ll say, listen, put the shirt on, do something badass in it, okay? So that’s kinda how I’m getting my ads out. – I love that. Yes, that is a very good idea. – [Will] Can I give you a shirt? (attendees laughing and applauding) – Yes, I can do that. (audience applauds) You can definitely give me a shirt. (attendees laughing) Is it a medium? – [Will] I think it’s a large. – I won’t wear it. (attendees laughing) Nope. – [Will] Somebody else can have it. – Get me a medium and I’ll wear it. – [Will] I’ll get you a medium. Where am I gonna send it?
• How should we do with D Rock? You know what, D Rock’s right in front of you. – I’ve been messaging him on Instagram. – I get 80,000, he gets 8,000.

D Rock will give it to you right now, the info. D Rock, send it to attention Lou, and then I’ll wear it.

• [Will] Can I get a picture?
• Yeah, you can.
• Yeah, okay.
• Yes! (audience laughs) (attendees applauding)

This guy’s fuckin’ huge. (attendees laughing and applauding)

• How are you?
• [Colton] Hey, GaryVee! My name is Colton.
• Colton.
• This is my brother Cody.
• Cody.
• And we come from a father-son company. Our dad started B2B, medical distributor 20 years ago. So now, we’re kinda taking that over. And we still do a lot of direct mail, a couple thousand pieces a month. We started LinkedIn this year.
• Yeah, what are you seeing?
• What’s that?
• What’s happening on LinkedIn?
• Good, so we got about 4,000 followers. We get about 5,000 views on our videos.
• How often are you posting?
• Once a week.
• Once a week.
• So we need to do–
• Nine a day.
• Yeah, my question is about targeting. We’re all B2B so we–
• I’m very aware. As you know, you can run LinkedIn ads against people’s job descriptions.
• Okay.
• Have you done that yet?
• No, that was my question. Is that something that we can understand ourselves and learn?
• Yeah, I got a great way for you to learn this. If you guys wanna learn this as well, I’ll give you the website. It’s G-O-O-G-L-E.com. (attendees laughing) But what’s really pumped, why I’m really excited about this is you guys clearly, you’re capable, this is crazy, you can literally go to Google and say, how do I target specific professionals on LinkedIn ads, enter, and have unlimited ways to figure out how to do it. It’s not the tactics. It’s the knowledge of, the knowledge of knowing that you can target people on LinkedIn. LinkedIn makes direct mail look like child’s play when you understand it. Then, when you really understand it, and you realize that you have to do different content for different doctors in different sectors, in geographic, gender, race, mindset, it gets real gnarly. You understand?
• [Colton] And you can target specific companies too, right?
• Yeah, you can, and the way you do that is you target a specific company, all the employees and the ad, the piece of content starts, does your head buyer know? Does your accountant know? You see where I’m going? So what you’re trying to do is get the employees to forward it to the CFO or the CIO or the head medical device buyer, I don’t know what that terminology would be. You see where I’m going? You can literally write the words to say, if you’re selling fast financial services, you can literally write along with the video or the PDF or whatever you want, you gotta try different stuff, does your CFO know that she can, because you even know that CFO in that company is a woman, you do such smart stuff people don’t. All of this is just like health and wellness. Would you like to be healthier and better shape? Let me help you. Eat well and exercise. (attendees laughing) Everyday. Meanwhile, people like ass implants, steroids, apple cider, celery. People are looking for the hack ’cause people don’t wanna put in the work. Yes, sir.
• [Michael] My name is Michael.
• Michael.
• [Michael] 25, from Scotch Plains, New Jersey.
• Get out! That’s awesome.
• [Michael] I see your garage sale all the time.
• I go to the Scotch Plains. By the way, that’s my favorite other thing, side hustle life. You can make 20K a year on garage selling on the weekend selling on eBay. If you need some side cash, garage sales. Anyway.
• [Michael] I say I watch all your content but you always tell us not to. Go out to do, so that’s what I tried to do. Mine is kinda like a two-part question. Since I’m so young, I’m 25, I kinda have the pressure of get job, get out there. You see Instagram, everyone’s doing everything. And then you say, go out and taste. And for me, that hit me a little bit later for me to go out and taste. I did it, but I’m in sports. Sports management, what I majored in, then I went back home to do this real estate with my father, trying to do that, and really felt like that wasn’t for me and my passion. I wasn’t happy.
• Good for you, good.
• [Michael] So, I’m trying to go back into sports now. I’m still trying to find my way there so I don’t have responsibility and all that.
• Exactly.
• [Michael] So my thing is it’s like there’s different avenues that I’ve always, what makes me happy, I thought, acting, military, sports, like they’re all old. So my question is, my two-part question is, I always feel like somebody has to allow you to taste, you know what I mean?
• Yes.
• [Michael] To say, oh, I wanna do this, I wanna go out and do this. But someone has to hire you if you’re gonna do that. Someone has to read my resume to do that and getting past that barrier trying to, oh, I wanna try this but I have to get through somebody to do that. It’s the first question, the second question is–
• The answer to that is yes and no, right? First of all, back to some of the things I’ve already alluded to here, back to Ahmed, whose question, I said, notice what I said to him that he has to reach out to 137 people. People come at me and like, Gary, I wanna be a sports agent and I tried really hard. I’m like, cool, Barry. How did you go? He’s like, well, I submitted to three places. I’m like, three? Yes, there are gatekeepers for certain jobs potentially for you to taste. There’s also 7,000 of them. So A, have you asked all 7,000? That’s A. B, in the world of content creation and zero startup costs, one could potentially, if they can afford to, one of the reasons, it’s funny that we’re segueing off to the garage sale thing. One of the things that a lot of people, get a job at 7/11 or do garage sale just to maintain your lowest possible cost of living so you can start the thing that makes you happy. And to your point of 25, seven years from now, you’ll be 32 years old. Do you how know how young 32 years old is? Anyway. (attendees laughing)
• [Michael] The second part to that, is like, I have to get on the entrepreneurship thing and I think that for self
• awareness you’re always preaching, I’ve always tried to look and work in self-awareness is a while ago and I still saved it on Instagram that I always will keep it is to find out what kinda person I am. You always say, for a puppy or dog, someone that’s been fed doesn’t know how to–
• Correct.
• [Michael] And that kinda hit stuff for me. Now, I’m fortunate enough to have–
• Yeah, yeah, that’s right. You were. Of course, you were. Of course. Both, both. Long before I came along or anybody else, the nature-nurture thing has been established. When I was five, it was not necessarily that my parents, we were very poor and immigrants but I still thought it was more fun to go shovel people’s driveways when it snowed than build a snowman because I wanted a dollar. That was my chemicals. Then I was conditioned because when I was 11 and said, “Mom, everyone is getting Nintendo.” She said, “Great, go buy it.”
• I was like, “All right, gotta go to work.” So, for you, potentially, it’s the complete opposite which is amazing. Maybe you didn’t have those chemicals, and then on top of it, you had the great fortune and there’s nothing wrong with that. None of us picked our paths where you were fed. So, yeah, it’s probably more unlikely that you wanna go and grind it at zero and build something for yourself and deal with all the fear and anxiety and loneliness and grind the dirt and blood that comes along with being an entrepreneur, not the popping bottles and flying in private jet entrepreneurs that you see on Instagram that are completely full of shit. Sorry, Jim. (attendees laughing)
• Thank you.
• You got it, bro.
• [Attendee] You’ve been a huge inspiration for us. We created a content creation videography production media.
• Love.
• [Attendee] It’s actually our two-year anniversary so it’s crazy.
• Congrats.
• [Attendee] My question is you talked about posting a ton of contents on multiple platforms, and, a lot of times, you don’t know that to post. And one thing we’ve seen, and (speaking faintly). Is a lot of times, when we post, personal content, personality content, where it’s like Freestyle Friday or X, Y, Z, it gets a lot more attention, comments, shares.
• Humans like humans.
• [Attendee] Yeah, and is that something that a lot of what we should be focusing on as we build that brand?
• If you like it. A lot of people are very shy and introverted and don’t like the attention from other humans. I don’t think they should be making videos. (attendees laughing)
• [Attendee] Second part of the question was, can we take a selfie with you?
• You can. Real quick ’cause I wanna give an answer that’ll help a lot of people. Did you ever see that interview I had where I came up with the first time of documenting Don’t Create? I really think people need to think about that. Just make. People overthink. Even the way you structured it, you’re like, freestyle, you’re making everything like shows or structuring it. Stop thinking, start making. Cool, get up here. Let me get on this side. Yes, ma’am.
• [Attendee] Hi, I’m a Jersey girl.
• Love.
• [Attendee] And watched football there.
• You grew up in Jersey?
• Yes.
• Where?
• [Attendee] South Jersey, Sicklerville.
• Yeah, I know it.
• [Attendee] And I cheer for the Jets.
• Amazing. I’m listening. I can multitask. Entrepreneur over here. (audience laughs) (attendee speaks faintly)
• [Attendee] The people, the media, the broadcasting, I just started recently. (attendee speaking faintly) And I just got started. I got so many people here, I was just saying hi to everyone and just putting myself out there. – Good for you.
• [Attendee] But I wanna know about two things, actually. YouTube versus TikTok, would you just–
• Both.
• [Attendee] Got it, thought that was gonna be the answer. And two– – But know this. TikTok is a crazy place right now, in a great way. In a great way. I have given the same advice my whole life. I am very basic. How many people here follow me on Instagram? Thank you. So you guys know. I love putting up videos 10 years ago, a little chubbier, younger version of me saying the same stuff I’m saying right now. So I’m saying that for the people that don’t know me. What I’m about to say same matters a lot. In the history of my career, the organic reach thing that nobody knows who I am, I wanna talk about Alabama football, nobody knows who I am, I have zero followers. Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, Socialcam, Vine, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, none, not a single platform has even been remotely close to what’s happening on TikTok when you post your third post and 800,000 people watch it. Now, it’s already, I don’t know if you notice this, D Rocks, it’s already declining ’cause here comes the content. ‘Cause there was so much attention compared to content but you would destroy it on TikTok. – [Attendee] Thank you. – Yeah. If I were you, I would make three TikToks a day. – [Attendee] Okay. – The way I think you get to the question they had which is like, what do we make? I think you look at what’s on the explore like the trending page. And the biggest mistake people make is they hear this, they go home, and they’re like, “Screw it, I’m gonna do it. “I’m motivated, Gary’s so motivating.
• I’m gonna do it. (attendees laughing) And they’re like, they’ve downloaded TikTok, and they’re like, “Now what?” Two things. One, back to that crazy website Google, it’s crazy. It’s an epic one. What works on TikTok, enter, read for three hours, but way more importantly, consume TikTok for five hours and then make a decision. Don’t call your 11-year-old niece and be like, what’s this TikTok thing about? She’s gonna tell you from an 11-year-old’s perspective. You’re here for business for building a brand. You’re coming from a different angle. Consume it. That will help you know what to make.
• [Man] What’s your username? – What’s that? – [Man] Her username. – Do you have a TikTok account yet? – No, I don’t. Malena, M-A-L-E-N-A Brown. – Love it.
• [Attendee] Thank you, man. – You’re welcome. – [Attendee] I love attention. It’s really hard for me to talk to you ’cause I admire you so much. I’ve done this a couple of times. – Thank you. – So I’m freaking out. And I’m obsessed with adding value, right? Guy with the shirt, I wanna help you, man, I’m obsessed with connection also. As I came in to your content, man, and how you’re like the Pied Piper for, you don’t have to be a jerk to win, and empathy and like the alpha guy that preaches. – Kindness. – Value and kindness and it’s what I’ve been doing all my life so I dove in two years ago. I’m like the butt of your old joke and like the hero story of the news, and coddled by parents, I had to completely unlearn that. My man over there, you gotta unlearn it, you gotta get dirty, you gotta eat. I don’t wanna cuss ’cause I know that your–
• Maggie will beat us up, yeah. It’s tough. – And then restart again and iterate, right?
• And real quick, I apologize. Let’s not demonize, none of us picked our spots. I didn’t pick like, hey, I’m gonna be born in Russia and then come to America. Let’s definitely not over demonize people that had great fortune of being in a situation. They just have to decide what they want in their lives. We really need to deploy self-awareness. Not everybody is supposed to go on and be at alpha number one and build something big. There’s a lot of ways to skin it. But nonetheless, I just wanted to add that ’cause I didn’t want that theme to get too far away. Keep going.
• That being said, man, the big connection point for me was like when I realized that content is like networking on steroids.
• Correct. – Everything you do person-to-person– – Correct. – And I put on content and put it out, I’m learning so much from you and then I’m reading the Steve Jobs book and I’m like, bro, I’m just learning from you like it was an audiobook everyday all the time. – That’s the plan, for free.
• And then you release a library that’s searchable. Man, I want you to like talk about that searchable library. It’s so valuable for people that can see that and how you put that together. There’s two people: The people that can make content, people make a ton of content, they don’t know what to do with it so to categorize will be amazing. – So thank you. – I now wanna give you a bean. I know you like it. – I do. – This is from the charger that we gave you last night, bro. – I love it, thank you, man. I love you, bro. So, the search engine, we transcribed all my words into metadata from every single video I’ve ever put out in the history of my life and then put it into a database and made it searchable. So we have a search engine on our website. I’m still not even promoting it. You know what’s so fun about playing the long game? You’re hardcore enough in my content that you know it exists ’cause I promoted it for one day. I don’t even really know where it is. I think it’s on my website. I believe it’s gonna be the biggest thing I leave because the earlier thing I talked about which was the voice device. – [Attendee] You can find it on Google. – Yeah, of course, I heard. I’m so excited that I’m gonna have an Alexa skill in 10 years that’s gonna allow you to be walking through the kitchen or in the office and say, Alexa I need to speak to Gary. And like, Gary, what should I do when a manager is doing this? And I’ll actually reply because the data has been structured. That’s gonna be rad. So, that’s why I did it. That’s what I’m anticipating, that’s what we’re building, and I think a lot of people are gonna do that with audio information, I think. We love speed. There’s a lot of things

Insecurity and Technology

If you’re insecure, getting off of Instagram is not gonna help you. Why don’t we take the conversation up a notch and talk about why you care about your neighbor’s opinion? Or your mom’s opinion? Why? So, interesting where you going, that’s great. And I honestly, I think it will be a huge trend. I think we’re gonna use technology so much more than now, the world always swings. I think there’ll be incredible businesses. I think there’ll be incredible– (attendees laughing) I think there’ll be incredible businesses of detox centers where you go to the woods for four days. I’ve actually been doing a lot of work lately. I’ve never been into buying real estate but I’ve started the process of looking at major cities and seeing what the most rural, one-hour drive is and what the cost of the real estate is because I feel like buying a bunch of trees an hour outside of any major city that literally has no cell service is like a good business in 10 years ’cause people are gonna want it for three days or a week.

Topic: Dealing with Opinions

That’s great but there’s a much bigger issue at hand which is are you capable in dealing with other people’s opinions? 99% are not. That is because of the last 30 to 50 years of parenting, DNA and many other variables, and that is why I’m so passionate about the things I talk about. Because when you get quiet, and it comes in both forms, the biggest breakthrough, I think, I’ve said that I like, almost as the consumer of me, is if you can’t hear the cheering, you can’t hear the booing. I’m sure for a lot of you that have no idea who I am or haven’t seen before, you’ve seen people come up today and give me some nice compliments in my impact. I don’t hear that in the same way that I don’t hear somebody saying I’m full of crap or snake oil salesman. I keep it (clicks tongue). Not too high, not too low. And that’s helped me quite a bit.

Topic: Social Media and Self-esteem

And I think the reason people struggle is you love Instagram when they say you look real pretty but you hate it when they say you’re ugly. You love it when they say that’s fresh but you hate it when you see somebody else having a fresh time and you’re at home. People are getting too high and too low and so we need to have conversations with ourselves. Limiting our time on TikTok is not gonna do it.

Audience Questions

Jim, one more because I saw it up there. I didn’t even know you were up there but I love you so much. Let’s go. What’s your name? – [Attendee] I wanna start a food truck but I wanted to do that in college town so I’m wondering what you think in terms of budgeting and all of that, what’s gonna be the best since its gonna be catered to college kids, things like that that I’m going for? – I think you should go to campus and search Twitter and Instagram in that 10-mile radius and pay attention to what they like. Before you guess, I think you should figure out what the demand is. – [Attendee] Well, I’m from Texas but I’ve moved to Alabama and one thing that I’m always finding with meeting people is that like Tex-Mex is not a thing in Alabama. Obviously, not type of the market. – I’ve heard. – [Attendee] Mexican food in Alabama is nothing compared to what it is in Texas. People are like, yeah, when I was in Texas, I loved it. – So, you’re gonna break, I love that. So by the way, that’s a great counter and something I love. The introduction of something that you know humans like in one place, as long as it’s not so foreign and doesn’t hit the palette, and I think that connection’s a layup. So okay, so you figure out what you’re gonna make. – [Attendee] Yeah, so, I’m gonna do Tex-Mex but my goal is to go in the next three to five years from having a taco truck to having a place like a restaurant. Do you think that’s like that something that’s smart or– – I don’t think it’s smart or not smart. I think it’s not smart to put yourself into a jail. You’re saying to yourself I’m gonna do this in three to five years is gonna lead to anxiety. Do it in 12 months, do it in 12 years. Oh, by the way, it all depends on what the arbitrage is. You might realize after a year, wait a minute, why would I open a restaurant where the leases are too expensive? I wanna open up nine more trucks. Stay fluid. Don’t create an org chart. Here’s what you focus on. Let me bring this Tex-Mex delicious food to these kids and then let me react to what happens. If that leads to a location, great. If that leads to 13 more food trucks, great. If that leads to a big company coming in and making, trying to turn it into a national chain or a product that’s sold by a frozen food company, keep it open because a lot of people at their young stage make these arbitrary decisions of three to five years, I’m gonna do that, they actually stick to that, and then they don’t see all the other opportunity because they’re on this narrow thing that a lot of times ends up not being the right thing. – Thank you. – Awesome. Thank you guys so much. (attendees applauding) Thank you. (calm music)