Gary Vaynerchuk's Blog, page 34

10 Mental Shifts for Success in Business

1. Figure yourself out.

Self awareness the biggest keys to my success.

There are SO many people out there who are working jobs they hate because they haven’t found their passion.

It’s why so many people struggle with working 18 hours a day. If you don’t love what you do, of course it’s going to be hard to put in work. It’s hard to spend time doing something you’re not excited about.  

One way you can do this is by asking the five people that you know best.

You can split them into two categories: People who you deeply love, and people who you’re close with.

Then, ask them to tell you what they think about your skills, abilities, and weaknesses.

I genuinely believe that collecting data from the “market” after creating an atmosphere where people can be safe with you. For example, someone might not want to be totally honest with you because they’re afraid it’ll hurt your feelings.

But you need that honesty to find out what you’re good at.

2. Do what you love.

Everything starts with yourself. If you’re self aware, you’ll know exactly how to navigate your life. 

Look yourself in the mirror, and ask yourself: “What do I want to do every day for the rest of my life?”

Do that.

So many people are struggling with the thought of monetizing their passion. But no matter what it is, I promise that can find a way to monetize. 

Doesn’t matter if you love the Smurfs,  Spongebob, Elf, or anything else.

3. Put in the work. 

To be great, I think you have to fight.

My dad came to the US with no language skills and zero dollars. We lived in a studio apartment the size of his office with multiple family members. He got a stock job for 2 bucks an hour in New Jersey, learned English, saved all his money, worked 18 hours a day, bought a store, had a business, and did all this in a 5-year period with no base.

I very much think that my success as a product is in large part because I’m willing to outwork people. The fact that I’ve been working 19 hours a day every day for the last 20 years is easy for me.

Let’s say I played Roger Federer right now in tennis. Let’s say I had the greatest tennis racket ever made, and he had a John McEnroe 1974 tennis racket. He could still beat me — just like I’m beating salespeople that have every salesforce, every tool, every feature, and went to every sales conference.

I’ll beat them every day of the week because I have talent, and I’ve worked to hone my craft.

Stay humble and work hard on your craft, and you’ll see some great things happen.

4. Don’t dwell on mistakes (everyone else is already doing that for you)

People love to ask me about mistakes I’ve made in the past.

The truth is, I’ve always struggled in answering that question.

It’s not that I get nothing wrong. I get many things wrong.

For example, I was a breakout YouTube star in 2006. Then, I decided that the right strategy was to leave YouTube completely and go to Viddler because Viddler offered me equity in their company. Even though the attention was on YouTube, I moved over to Viddler because I was tempted by short term economics.

I could’ve had millions of more subscribers than I do now on YouTube if I had just stayed the course.

Here’s another one: I passed on investing in Uber twice in the angel round.

Even though the founder Travis Kalanick is one of my best friends, I passed on investing. And that mistake cost me hundreds of millions of dollars.

So I make mistakes all the time.

I’m adjusting my strategy at VaynerMedia everyday because of a mistake I made the prior year.

It’s just that I can’t recall my mistakes once they happen.’

I just don’t care about my mistakes everybody else cares about my mistakes.

If you’re judging yourself for your own mistakes you’ve already lost.

5. Be 100% accountable.

What a lot of people don’t understand is, accountability sits very close to happiness.

When you blaming someone else, you feel like you’re not in control. You feel helpless, like there’s nothing you can do about your situation.

It’s why I blame myself for everything. I think everything is my fault.

If an employee turns out to be toxic, I hired that person. If an employee messes up, I created the process they’re following.

So many of you are pointing fingers at other people — your parents, your environment, your teachers, or where you grew up.

Of course, there are a lot of bad things that can happen to people. People get abused, people get killed, that’s real.

But for 95% of people, it’s about mindset.

Blame everything on yourself, and you’ll be stunned how happy you become.   

6. Be grateful right now. 

What I told you this was the last day of your life? What if I told you you’d die this week?

Would you complain about your crap job or that test you don’t want to take?

I doubt it. You’d go much higher level thinking.

You need to understand that if you’re not pumped right now, if you’re not looking forward to it, then your game is broken.

Look… don’t get me wrong. I respect practicality.

You got to go through school because your parents want to. You’ve got to pay your rent. You got student loans. I get it.

But think about it: it’s incredible that you’re even alive. Your mom and dad could have had sex a couple of minutes later, and you wouldn’t even exist. You could’ve ended up as a tree, or a bird.

And not just that… we’re living in a world where there’s SO much more opportunity for us than there was for our parents or grandparents. The internet completely changed the game for everyone.

I just don’t get the mentality of complaining on Monday morning, or living for the weekends.

If you’re reading this, I implore you to take a step back and think about how awesome life actually is. Recognize that you can attack the world in a totally different way because you were lucky enough to be born during this era.  

It’s unbelievable how good we actually have it.

So many people get caught up in day-to-day headaches, but in the macro, almost none of those things matter.

There are so many people in the world who have it much worse. There are people who have to live through the death of their children. There are people living in areas where there’s massive genocide going on. People out there are being persecuted and killed.  

We don’t have real problems.  

To me, nothing stands close to the health and well being of my family. That’s why it’s easy for me to be happy.  

We’re very strong. We’re just being sold that we’re not. There’s just a lot of money in telling us that we’re not rich enough, pretty enough, or good enough.

I’m here to tell you that you’re the best. Go do sh*t.

7. Be a practitioner.  

Most people are “headline readers.”

It’s especially true when it comes to social media. Most people out there are just reading headlines instead of going deep and really understanding each platform.

It’s why so many people have opinions when it comes to running ads on Facebook or Instagram, even though they’ve never actually tried running ads on those platforms.

Headline readers don’t think that B2B is happening on Facebook. Practitioners are exploiting it and making real money.

Headline readers think that you have to make short videos on social media. Practitioners are making 20, 30, 40 minute videos telling their story, and re-marketing to the people who want in.

The most important think you can do in life is be a practitioner. The ones who do will see disproportionate returns.

8. It’s better to be fast than to be perfect.

Speed is 4 billion times more important than perfection.

Working faster is something that I don’t think people talk about enough.

At one point, I was debating with my Chief of Staff, Tyler, why I have three hours of down time in Boise, Idaho. We spent time deciding whether I should squeeze that into 15-minute phone call or fly back to NYC.

On a daily basis, I’m scrutinizing my 12 to 15 hour days, down to the second. I’m trying to fill in as much smart work into that bucket as possible.

Train yourself to do a little bit more in each hour than you normally would. Every day, add something. And get it all done.

Maybe that means scheduling non-negotiable time for a project if it’s that important. Maybe you need to work more odd hours.

In time, you’ll see that you’re doing much more in a day because you’re moving faster.

9. Don’t care what others have.

You don’t want the same things that your friends want. So why do you care what they have?

One of the biggest mistakes that people make is caring what other people have.  

It’s the reason I don’t get caught in “keeping up with the Jones’s.”

When people ask me which entrepreneurs I look up to, my answer usually surprises them. I don’t answer with the cliche “Steve Jobs”, “Elon Musk”, or other billionaires.

I’m inspired by people in the dirt. Normal people in average jobs who decide that they want to build something for themselves. People who don’t “get” Facebook or Instagram, but are determined to figure it out. People who have humility to put in work in the face of judgement.

I don’t care if you have a Rolex. I don’t care if you’ve got a fancy house. I don’t care if you’re on vacation in Ibiza.

That’s why it’s easy for me to not get jealous of people.

If you’re worrying about other people’s accomplishments, that’s a losing formula.

10. Care more about your legacy than your bank account.

The most successful entrepreneurs are driven by legacy over currency.

I’m obsessed with my legacy.

Every decision I make is predicated on the long term.

It’s not about what’s in my bank account. It’s about how many people will show up to my funeral.

If there’s one thing I hope becomes evident through my actions, it’s that I’m patient. I play the long game.

I want to have a big impact on the world, not just the people closest to me. I want my work to impact people. I want to make a real difference by allowing others to siphon my advice and become successful in their own pursuits. Whether as an entrepreneur or an artist or a lawyer or just a good, compassionate human behind.

I’m documenting my journey through my vlog, not just because I like that attention, but because I think it will be the ultimate resource for generations to come.

When you care about your legacy, it eliminates short-term financial aspirations. Caring about your legacy will still lead to long-term financial accomplishments, but it will happen in a far better way.

When you care what other people say behind your back, you start treating people like they matter. You start treating people with kindness and respect.

I genuinely believe that legacy should be something we push more of in the public conversation, not just in entrepreneurship, but in life. 

 

Scooter Braun on Building a Network in the Music Industry and Lucky Breaks in Business

In episode 295 of AskGaryVee, I talk with Scooter Braun — the music mogul behind Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, and Martin Garrix.

Scooter is one of my top five contemporaries that I really admire for a lot of reasons. He’s completely crushed in business, culture, and most importantly, he’s just a good human being.

Super excited up to share this conversation with you.

Here’s what we talk about:

— Scooter talks about being raised by immigrant parents and how that affected him

— How Scooter broke into the music business

— The moment Scooter knew he had to sign Justin Bieber

— How luck plays a big part in success

— The best way to get noticed by A&Rs and record labels  

— How to find partners in entrepreneurship and new friendships

— What to look for in an employee

Here’s what’s got me excited about this episode:

— We both talk about how we’re the product of two wonderful parents, and how parenting played such a big role in our success.

— I believe that you’re only as good as your last at-bat. Scooter pushes me on this, and we talk about balancing that mindset with not judging yourself for failing.

— I’ve never been a big fan of the word “luck”, but it does play a role in success. We talk about how luck helped Scooter blow up his music career.

— Scooter talks about how important it is to surround yourself with people who are grinding for the same things you are. Helping your peers win is the best way to have a killer network in 10 years. There’s enough for everybody, nobody else’s win is coming out of your pocket! 

— I needed to go to a very important meeting and had to run, but Scooter made me stay for one last call.  And we ended up handing out an internship offer and a car on the spot. Big moment for the AskGaryVee show

How to Lead a Team With Empathy and Kindness

Empathy and kindness aren’t normally seen as qualities you need to lead a team.

But I believe in them so much.

A lot of people think of  leadership qualities as “paternal” — qualities like being aggressive or stern. I think of them as maternal. I think the best managers have caring, empathetic personalities.

Most people overlook the importance of being able to show emotion.

Even if you think of yourself as an empathetic or kind person, becoming a leader will change how you exercise that empathy.

At VaynerMedia, we’ve got 700+ employees. And as CEO, it’s my job to make sure that they feel safe at work.  

Here are some things I think about when I lead my team:  

1. Don’t ask people to “earn your trust”

I give trust more than most CEOs would.

Giving trust is offense. I think people say “no” too often because they fear ramifications.

Many are also driven by ego. A lot of people don’t want their direct reports to be better at something than them because they’re insecure.

I empower my team to make their own decisions. For example, Andy runs my personal brand team. And I don’t talk to him much at all.

I give feedback, but I let him lose and win on his own and learn.  

Empowering people to make decisions is how you scale. I’ve always thought that someone else doing an “86” instead of my “100” is better than not doing it at all. Plus, how will I ever learn if someone is capable of executing without giving them the chance?

Eventually, you have to let your kid swim. Eventually, you have to let them swing the bat and let them win or lose on their own.

The reason I give trust so easily is because I’m completely not driven by fear, and most people are.

Now don’t get me wrong — even though I give trust, I also take it away. Trust is lost if you prove yourself to be incapable, or not worthy of the challenge.

But expecting an employee to “earn” trust before you give it to them just makes you go slower.

Trust also allows me to see what people do naturally. To me, the ultimate scale is allow people to roam free and expose themselves — whether good or bad.

2. Build great culture to generate speed

The biggest incumbents in every industry have never been quicker to copy features from startups to stop them from winning.

That means you have to move even quicker to penetrate your market than ever before.

Speed is no question the variable of success.

Speed is no question the variable of success
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And what a lot of people don’t understand is, speed in business comes from great internal culture. The biggest things that will make your company go fast is 1) continuity and 2) lack of politics.

Go audit every single employee in your company, and figure out which employee makes the other ones miserable.

It doesn’t matter if it’s your number one salesperson, your best developer, or your co-founder.

Cancer spreads.

With cancer and politics comes lack of speed. You’re not spending time executing if you’re bickering with your coworkers or wasting time wondering if someone’s trying to ruin you. Your company will get slow if people are stressed about having meetings with certain individuals.

Negative internal culture makes people go slow.

The problem is, most businesses don’t know how to build culture.

You don’t build culture by having offering free snacks or a gym membership or open seating. You build culture by talking to people one by one, and understanding what they care about. What you’ll learn is, some people want money. Some people want time with their family. Some people want a fancy title. Some people want creativity.

And it’s your job to know every one of those things about every person, every single day.  

It’s what we do at VaynerMedia. We’ve built a dictatorship around culture. We force it. If you’re toxic to the other people in the company, you’ll get fired — no matter how good your “numbers” are.  

I talk about this more with an employee here:

It’s why the number two person at the company is not the CFO. It’s not the COO. It’s our Chief Heart Officer (or “Head of HR”), Claude Silver. And it’s the biggest variable to my business’s  success.

Claude leads with her heart. If there’s any debate between doing something that’s good for our bottom line that doesn’t help our internal culture, she’ll win that debate 9 out of 10 times.

Most companies have problems with this because playing a short term game. Building culture takes financial commitment.

If your top salesperson is toxic, you need to be willing to  sacrifice profits in the short term for long term culture. If your investors are measuring you on 90-day returns, you need to find a way to justify why you’re spending money on a team bowling event, or taking time away from pitching to spend talking with employees.   

That’s why most companies never do it.

3. Set the right expectations for new hires

When you scale a business, there are usually only two things holding you back:

Your inability to operate, or
Your ego.

For a surprising number of people, it’s their ego.

Business owners set their own level of talent as a basis of hiring for their employees — and then complain that they can’t find any “good” employees.

It’s a fun game to play. You set an arbitrary benchmark that nobody’s hitting because you put yourself on the pedestal,.

But it comes at the mercy of building a bigger business. If your impression of them as an employee is based on some interpretation of how you decide they model your behavior, you’re just scratching your own itch of how great you are.

People think I play on ego, but in reality I play on confidence. It’s what allows me to scale. I don’t hold anybody to an arbitrary metric that has no reality other than what’s playing in my own head.

I’m not holding people to some fake Mendoza line that I’m the judge and the jury of.  

It’s the reason I have 700+ employees with high retention. I don’t hold them to my standard because they don’t need to be me.

Navigating the transition to a management role

Transitioning to a management role can be a very difficult thing.

There are many incredible executors who yearn for the financial upside and the title that comes with leading a team.  It’s actually the thing I fear most in VaynerMedia.

There are a few things that people struggle with when they make the transition to a management role.

The first big mistake is micromanaging.

I hate micromanagement. But it’s a big struggle, especially if you’re a great executor and you know how to cross those T’s and dot those I’s. When you see someone on your team who’s not great at executing, it’s hard not to micromanage.

But here’s the truth:

Most things don’t matter. It’s what I tell my managers, and it’s a mental shift that many struggle with.

The other mistake a lot of people make when they get into a management position is that they think other people work for them.

They act like “bosses” instead of “mentors.”

But the reality is, all the best managers are actually mentors. All great managers have mentorship DNA within them.

A lot of things come with being a mentor. It means you need to be the bigger man or woman in every situation. It means you need to become a full time listener. It means you need to eat dirt and have humility.

There will be plenty of times when you need to swallow your pride and do what your is best for your team. You’ll have to learn how to take blame. You have to be willing to accept responsibility for your failures. No one likes a boss who passes the buck to an employee in a tough situation.

When you go from being an executor to a manager, you go from trading on IQ to trading on EQ. And a lot of people can’t make that transition.

The reason VaynerMedia has grown so much is because I disproportionately focus on EQ as a CEO, and the “motherly” skills you need to run a company.

Last reason people fail as managers is lack of self-esteem.

There’s no place for insecurity in leadership.

If you didn’t have self-esteem instilled in you as a kid, or if you didn’t develop it along the way, you need to find an outlet to create it.

It’s what I do with managers in my company. I try to instill self-esteem by talking about the positives 90% of the time.

Your self-esteem “outlet” could take a lot of different forms. You might be a great soccer player, or a great improv actor, You might even find someone to date who instills that.

Regardless of how you get there, it takes empathy, self-awareness, kindness, and self-esteem to be a great leader.

 

Strategies for Scaling a Company – With Jeff Cole and Mark Brazil

In this episode of the AskGaryVee show, I talk with Mark Brazil and Jeff Cole — founders of Ikonick, a motivational art canvas company.

There are so many people  fronting on Instagram these days acting like they’re winning in business, so it’s rare that I find young hustler entrepreneurs that are actually the real deal.  That’s why these two are so special to me — Mark and Jeff are legit.

In this episode, we talk about how Ikonick started, and how Jeff and Mark landed partnerships with Scooter Braun and myself by providing value for free. I think you’ll find their story inspiring

6 Time Management Techniques from a Guy Who Has No Time

So many people out there don’t have techniques in place to manage their time.

I get messages from people all the time complaining that they “don’t have time” to build the type of business they want to build. They don’t have time to grow their personal brand, put out content, flip stuff on eBay, or follow the other advice I talk about.

The truth is, you have a LOT more time than you think.

You’ve got 24 hours a day.

Let’s say you work a 9 to 5. Cool. That’s 8 hours a day.

And let’s say you commute an hour there and an hour back. Cool. That’s 10 hours total.

Want to spend time with your family? Awesome, you can spend 2 hours with them when you get home.

Need 7 hours of sleep a night? Great.

You’ve still got 5 hours a day left.

What I’m curious about is, what are you doing with those 5 hours?

The reality for many of you is, you’re spending that time watching House of Cards, hanging out with friends, or “relaxing” because you’re tired after spending time at your 9 to 5 during the day.

In this article, I share some tips and techniques I use to squeeze every drop out of the limited time I have — and how you can do the same.

1. Stay in “audit mode” to stop procrastinating

People might be surprised by this: Even though I run a $200 million agency, I’m an obnoxious procrastinator.

But I also get a lot done. 

I stay in constant “audit mode.” I’m always leveling up what’s most important and prioritizing it in real time. I’m adjusting to the reality of my life in the moment I’m living it.

So, if something was super important yesterday, I can decide that it’s less important predicated on what comes into my inbox today. I’m completely obsessed with the thing that I deem most important in that moment. But “priorities” might get pushed back.  

As long as I’m executing on something every single day, I know I’m moving the needle. I don’t get crippled by the amount of things I “need” to do, or the number of priorities I have.

Something might go from 2nd most important to 9th most important to 10th most important, and might not be addressed for an entire year. And that’s okay — as long as I’m constantly doing.

2. Don’t be crippled by the “unknown” problems in business

When it comes to dealing with problems in business, I’m not crippled by what I “don’t know.”

This is important. So many people struggle because they don’t have the perfect knowledge around every fire they have at work or in their personal life. They feel like they need to have the perfect plan to address every single thing that goes wrong.

But me? I’m just constantly doing.

If I’m in the process of addressing one fire and another more important one pops up, I’ll address that one. If fire #4 gets out of hand, I’ll switch my focus to that one.

I just recognize that my game is in perpetuity. I’m playing for the long term, which means I’ll have to keep dealing with fires one after another for years. So I need to be constantly adjusting, without overthinking whether I’m making the “perfect” moves or not.  

3. Maintain motivation by loving what you do

The reason I’m able to maintain motivation without losing energy is because I love it.

I love doing the AskGaryVee show. I love flying all over the country for meetings. I love pitching clients and getting rejected. I love selling stuff.

It’s why I still go to dollar stores and garage sales to flip products on eBay even though it’s a horrible use of my time as a CEO “on paper.”

People who love the process are the happiest. I see this come in all different shapes and sizes — from the hedge fund guy or gal who genuinely loves the accumulation of  wealth, to people who love the stability of working 9 to 5 and being part of two softball teams.

I love the process of the work. I talk about buying the New York Jets, but when I clarify it, I want the process of trying to buy the Jets — I don’t care about whether or not I actually end up buying them.

All the extra hours I put into Wine Library or VaynerMedia don’t feel like “work” to me because I’m not doing it to accumulate more stuff, I’m doing it because I love it.  

4. Audit what you’re doing with your 18 hours a day

Nobody you know ever made it without putting in the work.

‘You might know someone who’s rich because their grandfather gave them money. But you don’t know anyone who “made it” on their own based on luck.  

Sure, there are people like Lil’ Yachty who can make a hit song out of nowhere, but that rarely happens. You can win the lottery too. The truth is, most of those people who see on Instagram who made a million in a few months have been working on their craft for years up to that point.  

But the dirt isn’t glamorous, so people don’t show it off.

You didn’t see Beyonce singing and dancing at 4 years old — you only see her on stage now. You didn’t see NFL coaches working as ball boys since they were 6 or 7 years old and dedicating their whole lives to the game — you only see them now. 

The only “hack” I have for you is to love what you do. Because if you love it, it’ll get much easier for you to put in the work needed to win.

5. Go faster in the hours you’re working

Not only am I working 18 hours a day, but I’m working fast as hell in those 18 hours.

I think this part confuses a lot of people.

I talk a lot about not watching House of Cards and working harder. But there’s another variable:

Go faster in the hours that you’re working.

On a daily basis I’m scrutinizing my days, right down to the second while I try to fit in as much stuff as I can into those hours. We fight for minutes and seconds around my office. There’s not a moment that I spend messing around.

I’m fast in the micro, while being patient in the macro.

I really believe that 95% – 98% of people reading this have it reversed. They’re not squeezing every minute out of every day. They take an hour and a half lunch. They check Facebook and Instagram for 2 hours.

Most people worry about their years, while wasting their days.

6. Stop judging yourself

One of my big strengths is balancing being accountable with not judging myself.

I think everything is my fault. Everything that’s wrong in my company is 100% on me. There are hundreds of issues that I deal with everyday that I can’t blame anybody else for.

If an employee messes up, I hired that person. I created that process. Everything runs through me.

But at the same time, I’m numb to judgement — even my own judgement of myself. I know I’m doing the best I can.

Judging yourself is a huge vulnerability because everyone else is already doing it for you. And if you’re not in that place, you’ve got no shot.

Everybody else sucks at stuff too.

Don't judge yourself. Everybody else sucks too.
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How to stop caring what others think

To have a winner’s mentality, you have to stop caring what other people think. You’ve gotta get quiet in your own head.

So many people make big life decisions based on other people’s opinions. You care so much about what your mom, dad, brother, or friends think that you’re allowing them to dictate your actions in life.

At the core of it, the barriers so many people have aren’t really about “money” or “time.” They’re about opinions.

It’s the biggest reason so many people are unhappy right now. Because they value someone else’s opinion more than their own.

Once you get past that, life can get real good. 

Here’s how you can get quiet in your own head:

Take feedback with context from others  

The best way to take feedback is to understand where the feedback is coming from.

What’s the agenda behind the feedback? What’s the intent?

For example, so many parents tell their kids what direction they should go in their lives. But parents have an agenda too. Many parents are insecure, and use their kids’ success to justify their own self-esteem.

So they tell Ricky to go to Princeton because they want to brag about it — not because it’s the best move for their kid.

And it goes broader than just parents.

The truth is, no one has 100% context on your life outside of you. The reason I don’t value my wife’s or my mom’s opinion more than my own is because they don’t know 100% of everything.

I have empathy for their opinions because I understand how they could come to their conclusions with limited context.

But I don’t take those opinions to heart.

Regret is the biggest poison of all time   

When I was younger, I would go up to old people and talk to them. I’d ask them to tell me about their life. And their opening line was, “I wish.”

Every one of them — at parks, bars, airports — all started with what they wish they did differently.

They wished they worked harder. They wished they spent more time with their family. They wished they didn’t listen to their Mom and did what they wanted to do.

They wished.

Spend a day volunteering in an old folk’s home, and you’ll see it yourself.

It’s so devastating to me that your life’s choices are being dictated by the opinions of people who you won’t care about when you’re 92 years old.

Don’t judge yourself

Sometimes, people tell me that the negative voice in their head isn’t someone else’s — it’s their own.

But the truth is, someone else put that negative voice there.

Your mom, dad, aunt, uncle is being negative towards you and it gets in your head — until you think that negative voice is your own.

So many people judge themselves for “underachieving” even though they’re in normal positions.

21 year olds judge themselves for not having their life “figured out”, even though virtually no 21 year old knows what they want to do yet. Parents judge themselves on how they’re raising their kids. Entrepreneurs judge themselves on how they’re running their business.

Be your own biggest fan, instead of critiquing every move you make.

Surround yourself with people who are optimistic

The only way I know to build confidence is by surrounding yourself with people who are optimistic.

Who you hang out with is a HUGE deal and most people don’t take it seriously enough.

It’s what happens in any team — traits like confidence and hunger get passed around, just like negativity and pessimism. It’s why a great player can mess up a team if she or he is not a good person.

Surrounding myself with winners has brought unbelievable ROI for me.  

I forced myself to go to SXSW in 2007 and hang out with ambitious kids who had dreams of changing the world. It brought me unbelievable opportunities and friendships. I started meeting people like Mark Zuckerberg, Ev Williams, Chris Sacca, and Travis Kalanik.

I see it with my team too. It’s amazing how much more confident, faster, and smarter they get after hanging around me.

But I get it. Cutting out negative people is hard. Especially if it’s your mom or dad or a friend you’ve been hanging out with since 4th grade.

If your Mom’s bringing you down, talk to her less. If your friend from your old neighborhood, hang out with him for 3 hours a week instead of 7.

If you can’t cut people out, spend less time with them.

You’d be stunned how your life changes.

If you’ve read this far, I think you’ll get a lot of value out of this video. Check it out and leave your 2 cents below

How to Dominate the Hollywood Film Business – with Michael Ovitz

In today’s episode of the AskGaryVee show, I talk with Michael Ovitz — founder of CAA (Creative Artists Agency), author of Who is Michael Ovitz, and one of the biggest names in Hollywood that most people have never heard of.

Michael Ovitz is a legend. And I don’t use that word lightly. Many of my contemporaries look up to him in a big, big way. Michael changed the paradigm of what it means to be a talent agent in Hollywood — and ultimately, sat at the top of the Hollywood machine.

You’ll learn more about this fascinating guy in this episode.

Here’s what we talk about:

— How Michael Ovitz ran advertising for Coca-Cola at a $600 million budget

— The story of how Sylvestor Stallone almost played Beverly Hills Cop 

— What it feels like to be at the top of the Hollywood game

— The traits and characteristics of individuals who are able to succeed in Hollywood

— Question: “What is something that could turn off a company like CAA to a potential client?”

— Question: “What lesson did you learn from the tough ending at Disney?”

Here are a few things that have me fired up about this conversation:

— Michael and I share the philosophy of saying “yes” to virtually every client that’s interested in buying. We don’t think too much about bringing the “right” client on board.

— Michael shares some interesting stories about how certain actors in Hollywood almost played completely different roles than what they were known for. We talk about how Sylvester Stallone almost played Beverly Hills Cop.

— We talk about how actors and producers can go “direct to consumer” with their content on the back of platforms like Instagram, YouTube, etc. And how I signed with CAA because of my wine show.

— Michael also talks about his belief that instant stardom is actually a huge vulnerability (both in Hollywood and the music industry)

Watch the video here:

Listen to the podcast: 

Listen on Spotify: 

3 Tips for Building Confidence in Kids

My mom built unbelievable confidence in me as a kid.

But the truth is, most children aren’t so lucky.

Most parents are parenting their children based off of their own insecurities. Not what’s best for their child’s actual future.

Most parents are parenting their children based off of their own insecurities. Not what’s best for their child’s actual future.
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They send their kids to fancy colleges because they want to brag to their friends that “Ricky went to Princeton.”

They talk about how they’re “working so hard” to pay for their kid’s baseball camp, but the truth is, they forced their kid to go because they want to brag that “Johnny got a baseball scholarship.”

They wrap their own self-esteem up in their kid’s accomplishments. And it leads to bad behavior.

My mom had incredible self confidence. She didn’t care what other parents thought about her or me.

Nowadays, if a kid is getting D’s and F’s in school but flips shoes on the internet, she or he would be looked at as a genius.

Not when I was in school.

When I was growing up, if you sucked at school, you were a failure. If you didn’t get good grades, you wouldn’t be successful. That was the conventional wisdom at the time.

That’s why I give so much credit to my mom.

She didn’t care what other parents thought of me — even though I was a D and F student. Even though I would get judgement, rolling eyes, and condescending comments from other parents.

My mom was quiet in her own head. And because of that, she raised the biggest winner in my high school.

Here’s how she did it: 
1. “React” instead of “force”

My parents were unbelievably supportive of my ambitions.

But they never “forced” me down any path.

There’s a big difference between “reacting” and “forcing” that a lot of people don’t get. Reacting means giving your kid permission to explore. It means giving your kid rope.

If your child is selling shoes or lemonade and they’re young, all you need to do is react to the fact that they’re already entrepreneurs and give them a lot of rope. Same thing applies if your kid is really into baseball, soccer, art, or anything else.

Reacting is about giving your kid encouragement and support around something they’re already drawn to — and building up “steam” around those actions.

When I was young, I would rip flowers out of people’s yards and sell it back to them. I was making thousands of dollars every weekend selling baseball cards.

My parents encouraged me to explore that side of myself.

You can enroll them in theater class, or violin class, painting class, or something else to see if they like it.

But there’s a BIG difference between doing that vs forcing them down a path because it makes you feel good as a parent.

My kids are still young. So right now, all I’m doing is listening. I’m watching. I’m seeing what they’re drawn to, so I can create supportive infrastructure around whatever they’re drawn to later.

I have absolutely no intention of imposing anything on them. Not even entrepreneurship.

2. Merit-based compliments (and punishments)

My mom didn’t just blindly support everything I did.

When I did something wrong, I got punished. Every time I got bad grades, I’d get grounded.

But the thing is… my mom didn’t make me feel bad about not being good at school. I never felt like I sucked for not being a good student.

My mom said there’s a price to be paid for not delivering good grades. And if I didn’t deliver, I had to pay that price.

These days, you see a lot of parents going one way or the other. Ether they over coddle their children and give them 8th place trophies, or they don’t compliment their kids at all in hopes that i’ll make them “hungrier.”

My mom gave me compliments and praise based on merit.

When I was 9 years old and opened the door for an elderly woman at a McDonald’s, my mom reacted as if I won the Nobel Peace Prize. She overreacted with praise on everything I did that was a good human trait.

And she held me accountable for things like bad grades.

3. Parenting each child differently

It’s ridiculous that so many parents raise each of their children the exact same way.

My parents raised my siblings and I differently. They raised us based on who we were — our personalities and what we were drawn to.

Context is everything. Especially when it comes to parenting.

For example, I was the oldest. So, it could be the case that I had to be held to a different standard so I could be a north star for my siblings.

AJ was good student, so there was different context around him, and different behaviors they had to react to.

Final Advice on Parenting

Apart from grades, I was the cliché “good kid” growing up.

I never did drugs. I never even smoked a cigarette. I went to like seven high school parties in my whole life. I didn’t chase girls.

I worked every minute, and I was friends with everybody.

And the way my parents raised me had everything to do with that.

But let me be clear:

I have zero interest in telling people how to parent.

Unless I have context on your kids or on your life, I can’t give you advice.

But the reality is, the parenting strategies we’ve been putting on a pedestal all these years just haven’t been working. 

I genuinely believe that future generations will look at this generation’s parents as one of the worst of all time. It’s why I scrutinize myself as a parent everyday.

And I don’t think most parents are doing the same.

Be the first to know about my secret wine project

As many of you know, I spent my 20s working in my family’s liquor store.

Apart from growing the business from three to $60 million, I saw from the inside how the wine industry operates.

There are a lot of layers in the wine world — wineries, distributors, retailers — people who handle the wine before it actually gets to you.

Which means, you end up paying more than you should.

When middlemen are involved, consumers end up paying more, and the people in the middle pocket the cash.

On the flip side, I’ve been fascinated by what companies like Warby Parker have done with glasses, and what Casper has done with mattresses — operating from a place of wanting to give the best value to the end consumer.

Along similar lines, I’ve been working behind-the-scenes on a secret wine project to give you amazing wines at a much better price

The Top 20 Podcasts From The GaryVee Audio Experience

The future is audio and voice. The same way I felt about social media in 2006/7/8, I feel about podcasting, audio and voice today.

On my global top 100 iTunes podcast The GaryVee Audio Experience, you’ll hear a mix of my best highlights from my DAILYVEE documentary video series, #AskGaryVee Show episodes, keynote speeches on marketing and business, interviews, fireside chats, and any of my new and current thoughts that I record specifically for this audio experience!

To listen to The GaryVee Audio Experience on Google Home, simply say “Ok Google, listen to The GaryVee Audio Experience Podcast.” The same works for the Amazon Alexa, Amazon Echo and Amazon Echo Show.