Gary VaynerchuCk

Here's the video version:

Here is the platform for creating your own Alexa flash briefing. You can use the discount code: frontrow

I was so thrilled when Garyvee featured the podcast on his vlog, "The Daily Vee". Check it out!

TRANSCRIPT

Click here to download the PDF Transcript.

Jen                                      
00:02 You're listening to the front row entrepreneur podcast, episode number seven.

Gary Vee                            
00:09 Hey guys. It's Gary Vaynerchuck and you're listening to the front row entrepreneur podcast with our girl Jen.

Jen                                      
00:19 Thanks for that Intro, Gary. If you've been following along with the front row entrepreneur podcast, you know that the reason this even exists is because I heard Gary Vaynerchuck on James Altucher's podcast and he said this,

Gary Vee                            
00:34  Listen, honestly left turn here. Here's what we're doing. I'm going to do something wild right now because I can feel it just bubbled up. If you're starting, if you're listening right now and you actually start your first two episodes of a podcast because of this, around whatever, I don't give a fuck jelly, you know a sneakers I'm buying. If you start this, I'll definitely love garage sales, buying stuff and flipping it, whatever it is. You know if you do it off of this, because we know the date, this will air and I can see and I'll do the homework. Hit me up on Twitter. Say Hashtag. I started Gary Vee Right, or Gary Vee and James. I started long hashtag because I need to filter them, but if you've actually taken the first step and I've done two episodes of your podcast, I will come and make surprise five minute appearances on all of them. All right, I will match you on that as well.

Jen                                      
01:30 So I was out walking my dog when I heard this and literally did a one eighty and headed right back to my office. I learned how to do a podcast that I created my first two episodes and I did all that in about 36 hours and then I got busy tweeting the heck out of James Altucher and Gary Vaynerchuck, and if you don't know who these two gentlemen are, they are best selling authors and as that guy in Napoleon dynamite said, kind of a big deal, having them on my podcast obviously would be a great way to launch it and grow my audience a little more quickly than I would otherwise. Not to mention the fact that I really liked both of them and I really wanted to meet them. So James came on this show for episode four and today I had the pleasure of interviewing Gary Vaynerchuck, but I have to tell you, I almost miss my moment.

Jen                                      
02:21 We were scheduled to record at 1:00 PM and it was about 10 after 12, or when I heard my computer shut off and back on again, you know that apple sound and I looked at my computer and it did it again and I thought, oh no, there must be some weird power surge or something happening, not today of all days. Then I saw the dreaded apple logo and that white progress bar and that's when I realized that my computer was doing an operating, what do you call it? Operating System Update without my permission. So whenever I get that thing from apple that says there's a new update, I will click remind me tomorrow, I'm for like two weeks until I finally can find time to do it. And I knew, I knew that this morning I had done that. I set it to remind me tomorrow, but it didn't care and it downloaded anyway.

Jen                                      
03:16 So there was nothing I could do. But wait. And I waited and I waited and I had to decide whether I was going to jump ship and move to my other computer, which was not set up for this interview in any way, shape or form, or if I should wait it out. I decided I had to move. So I moved everything to my second computer, but I couldn't remember my skype password. I had to get a password reset and I had to download the tool for recording the skype interview. That was 40 bucks, couldn't find my credit card, couldn't remember my paypal address, starting to panic. I unscrewed the boom mic that is attached to my desk on the other side and moved it to the to the new side. I moved my microphone and had to make sure that skype was picking it up.

Jen                                      
03:59 Then I had to moved my giant backdrop in case Gary Vee decided to do video. So after doing all that with about 10 minutes left on the clock, my other computer comes alive again. So I decided to move it all back again and I was really feeling a bit panicky and flustered. But by the time the Skype call came in from Gary Vee, I was ready. I was absolutely thrilled that when I opened the call that he was on video, I was just really thrilled about that and uh, because I could see him and he could see me, but there's one point in the interview where you will hear me asking him what he's doing and that's because he was really all fidgety and his chair, which is why I asked. And uh, you'll hear his reply.

Jen                                      
04:42 So I took the challenge just to catch you up. I took the challenge you were on James Altucher's podcast and you put it out there and I took it and um, and thank you for the kick in the butt. It's been a total game changer for me. Did you, uh, did you get a bunch of takers?

Gary Vee                            
05:00 Yes, I think we did actually scared that I made that claim. So I don't know what's actually out there of like people that I actually deserve. I, oh, podcast too is to show up on the blog, the salary. I was like, no. I took the challenge to represent everybody that I'm going to tell. I'm much busier and James, so james has to do the rest.

Jen                                      
05:20 OK. All right. Well I'll tell. I'll tell him. I'll tell him that. All right. So this led me to other things. So after this I was like, wow, I really liked this. I really liked this medium. So I started doing flash briefings because I found these guys that are basically like the Libsyn of flash briefings where it takes like one minute to get it up and then I read your chapter in your book last night, uh, in, in crushing it all about your calling it voice verse. Are you going to use that term for like flash briefings are all voice.

Gary Vee                            
05:55 That to me, look I think voice is kind of term I'm using for podcasting and flash briefings and Google and apple home pot and like all this stuff that's coming with voice.

Jen                                      
06:07 And so on that note, do you think pot is going to do, let us do briefings as well?

Gary Vee                            
06:17 Apple and Google and Amazon or just people that are businesses to create a platform. Then let people build on top of it and then make a percentage of the action.

Jen                                      
06:26 Let's see. I also want to ask you, so before this podcast I was, I was very nervous and I was telling my friend like, I'm really nervous and then I said, but I just have to remember that you're just a human being and you put on your pants one leg at a time. And my friend was like, I don't know, I'm not so sure about that. Fine wine shop does exactly what he said. He's like, I think he jumps into his pants. So. But then that got me thinking like, what do you, what do you do two  in the morning?

Gary Vee                            
06:54 I wake up, I grabbed my phone, I go to the poop on fire in the world of my world, you know, my biggest thing, like when you're, when you're the CEO of a thing, it's your fault, you're the last line of defense. And so that's the tough spot and the fun spot. And so really my morning is really interesting, right? Like it's funny, I can actually break that my morning. The first thought that ran through my mind is, am I tired? Like, did I get the sleep that I did today to go hard and like I'm in a good place nine out of 10 times, and then the one time that I'm not going, I'm like, oh, I hope that might work out today is going to wake me up or make me feel better. So I love that I worked out now because whereas I used to not have that and we struggled through the first couple of hours.

Gary Vee                            
07:43 And then my adrenaline would kick in. Now usually it's very rare for me to like be tired and go work out and not be ready for today. Right. Um, but the biggest thing I do is I check on fires and make sure nothing happened in London. Don't forget it five or six hours ahead of me. So even when I wake up at six a, m, they're already well into their day and their to be a problem. And so an overnight in la right now by going to sleep at midnight and stolen nine, their clients are still doing things. So I make sure there's no problems.

Jen                                      
08:11 What are you doing right now?

Gary Vee                            
08:14 I'm rolling a bat on my lower left back. OK. I'm fixing my lower left back muscle issues and tissue quality and it's been a weird couple of weeks for my team watching me, like do all sorts of weird things with my back.

Gary Vee                            
08:29  But it's really good. I bought from at least watching right now tissue quality. I don't know if people know this. Your brain protects you from like your most inefficient physical attributes and creates huge inefficiencies by protecting you. And I realized how limited I was in my rotation and bending and stretching and it's not about, you know, Yoga and massages. This is like real fucking tissue work. Like you've got to really like do it, but it's amazing. And I'm getting. I've had a bad back for like 25 years and I'm like this close stuff like on the final pieces right now, which is why I'm like I'm taking this huge piece of wood, right? It's a half a baseball bat, ramming it into my back, my back.

Jen                                      
09:11 Where did you get this idea? Like, did someone recommended to you or do you just thought this looks like something that would work?

Gary Vee                            
09:19  My trainer Jordan, we roll a hard ball, a Lacrosse ball and we have three of us stick. This is not something he recommends is just, I know this is working because I'm beating up the muscle. Like I can feel what's happening

Jen                                      
09:33 Back to your morning routine for just a second. Like OK, I want to know how long you, how long it takes you to reach for your phone and like, do you stay in bed and read your tweets? Are you up immediately? And if you didn't have to get up early, would you naturally be a morning person or a night person?

Gary Vee                            
09:47 If I didn't have to wake up to be naturally a night person, I grabbed the phone and I'm usually, I never lay in bed. Like I'm up. I grabbed the phone, I go ahead and take the water or go to the bathroom. Like I'm in, I'm out of bed within seconds I'm usually because I try to maximize sleep. So like, I've gotta go, like I've gone to the extreme of like I've got a workout in four minutes, like I've to go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, put on gym clothes and get downstairs. Like I keep a tight. So I would naturally be a night person. I like to get work done at like midnight. One, two, three. I don't like the morning. I wake up way earlier than they used to. There was a time where it was such an extreme laypersons building library. Go to three or four and not get into wine library till 11. That happened for like a year. And that's how extreme I was. So now I get up at six or seven. Um, and that's how I roll.

Jen                                      
10:41 OK. So I also want to ask you like we get the sense all the people who love and adore you and you may be the people even who don't really know you because you know, you're everywhere  and, and I really do feel like we, we  do know you to some degree, but what, what will we be surprised to know about you? That we don't know?

Gary Vee                            
11:04 You don't know anything about family.

Jen                                      
11:06That's true. You really don't talk about that

Gary Vee                            
11:10 You know nothing about my kids or my wife or I spent very little on that. We keep that private. So you guys don't know that part of me, the part that most. I think the part that most people don't know about me is all of you. Anybody that likes or dislikes me, but more like snake has to keep a percentage to themselves to keep them protected from me. Not letting them down. Right. When, sorry Myers. If somebody is a protective mechanism that everyone has, which is man, I really hope he's like that in real life. Right?

Jen                                      
11:10 That's right.

Gary Vee                            
11:41 So been really felt bad. And what about you? Did you, when you first started working here, it was a party. You'd be like, oh I hope he's not real in real life. Like, right. Like you, like you didn't have the same dynamic cause I was in a different place. So nonetheless, I think the biggest thing that people don't know about me is that I think I'm even nicer in real life than I project

Jen                                      
12:03 OK

Gary Vee                            
12:05 like steel, right? Because you see the real stuff that show where really nice, but if it's inappropriate for me to show it because it may look the other person look a little weird.

Jen                                      
12:14 Alright, well that's like the perfect lead into this question that I'm dying to ask you or just I want to mention because I saw this the other day where you said that like you're in this unique position where you have like crossed the chasm into like being cold for the younger people and a 17 year old son like is completely hangs on your every word. And I have to quote it exactly because it was so good. You said, um, you said if I can achieve making self-awareness in patience and gratitude and empathy, cool characteristics of an Alpha male, I will have made a real impact. And I thought, God, that is like for all the moms and dads that are probably so mad at you that their kids are changing their minds about college. That you probably get just as many love letters or more after a statement like that. But then. But then I'm like, can we really do that? And what, what would it take to really make those things cool without it just being like a good quote? You know what I mean?

Gary Vee                            
13:14 Yeah. I mean, I think I'm doing it like, you know, with me, my coach come after I've already done something. I would never have the audacity to say something that ludacris if I hadn't started seeing it actually start to happen.

Jen                                      
13:27 It's amazing. It's amazing.

Gary Vee                            
13:28 It's amazing. Like I, I really think it's very special when somebody comes along and is a great communicator and can move people's minds and does it for good. I mean because some do it for good or for bad and some never realize they can do it, you know? Why do you think about how excited I am about both your 17 year old and for your 17 year old son? I'm going to create a new paradigm of cool and hopefully that will work for you like I inspired him to do. And now you're finding out something that you're doing that you enjoy. And that's incredible.

Jen                                      
14:09 Yeah. Thank you.

Gary Vee                            
14:14 I talk about it as if it's not even me living it because it's almost too heady for me to like I'm being serious right now. I try not to overthink it because it becomes a little daunting if you realize you're sitting on a superpower. Right? So I try to like take it for what it is. I try to make my tea. The truth is I actually think it's a bigger indication on my parents and my environment and miss on me, so I don't get big headed about it. I'm, Oh, I know my intention is to do the best I can. I don't feel daunted by the responsibility. I don't feel like it's my, I don't think I'm that special that I could change the world. What I'm more than interested in trying.

Jen                                      
14:53  Well, I mean, I would imagine that if you did think about it too hard, it would get kind of like, um, scary or I don't know. Maybe it would feel like a burden and you teach us to like really we should care immensely about everything but not but not give a crap about what people say. But I, but I wonder like, don't you, don't you ever get your feelings hurt? Like I've imagined that your feelings have to get hurt.

Gary Vee                            
15:19 I get my feelings hurt every day in like a fake way. Like I'm a human. I'm just not very emotional when it comes to this because I understand the score. I'm unbelievably emotional. I'm completely unemotional. Like I have this great balance that's coming from extreme characteristics. So anytime. I mean, you know, I mean there was a, there was a engagement I had today on twitter. We're two guys in Europe or somewhere not in the US guy. I kind of quickly glanced, quite think we're from the advertising industry. We're making fun of me. Like one of them put a picture of me where it says, hustle your fucking face off and he said some degree of like, this is an actual quote, like, can you fucking believe this guy? And his buddy were a similar thinking guy jumped in and said like, I think he said try to find a quote that's more ludacris than this kind of thing.

Gary Vee                            
16:11  And his buddy found one, but I don't think that was a vehicle because the other one is real, but is there a picture of me and put some ridiculous quotes and I think I did say like bottom line is they were bantering. I jump in because my feelings are hurt cause I don't know. I like, I want these two guys to like me not being from a douchebag. I reply with, with my true feeling, which is like Yo guys can stop creating the ammo for my friends to make fun of me with um, and I wish you good health. And like I hope we get to share a glass of wine because I noticed like I was actually the other night, one of the guys I. and then I got to the opposite and see if the other guys engaged. One guy jumped in and said to shea or fair enough, like if you're ever in Australia, let's grab that glass.

Gary Vee                            
16:51 I loved it because like, it's less than my feelings are hurt. It's that I respect everybody else's opinions no matter who they are. Even within my own success, like I think I'm going to be all time yet, I don't believe that your where your 17 year old sons or those two guys, his opinions are any less valuable than mine. I just think my ultimate superpower is empathy at the highest level. I think I'm so empathetic that it, that everything else I am is almost secondary even though I have a lot of other strong characteristics, strengths and weaknesses, so of course my feelings are hurt cause I'm so empathetic. Yet I'm so self aware and confident that it's not able to fully penetrate and become a negative. I think it becomes a positive because I know how to calibrate the pushback or the name calling.

Jen                                      
17:44 So obviously some of that is innate in and you were born with that and then other part is you had great  parents, but who else?

Gary Vee
17:54 I lost a lot as a kid. Speak the language.  We had no money. I wasn't a great athlete. I was a terrible student. I've lived my first 18 years of my life as a fucking loser, which made the next fucking hundred years super easy because I wasn't scared of losing a lot of people. A lot of people are eighth place trophies. A lot of people didn't deal with adversity because they figured out how to run the school model and were straight a students gifted with talent in sports and so they were winning their first 18 years. So when they go into real life with inevitable losses, especially for somebody who like pandered to the system, which means they then go work in a corporation where they have no control and Marin doesn't ride. You know. I'm the reverse.

Jen                                      
18:37 Where you, you said you were losing the first 18 years, but I have the sense that you were probably like a popular kid in school where you have had, are very popular

Gary Vee                            
18:47 And that part has never gone away.  I was popular for a, you know, I have charisma so that's always good. I was popular because I'm Super Nice, like nice has been, you know, over the last week or two I've started pushing kindness and nice. You know, like I, I feel like almost just like I figured out my back was hurt, athletic figured by abductor was hurt my knee and my neck and my shoulder. I feel like I'm just going through my life. That stubborn. Wait a minute, it's not just hustle, wait a minute. It's not just sales, wait a minute. It's not just the empathy like, and I feel like somewhere literally within the last 10 days, I'm like, Huh? Kindness is probably a regional big reason. This is all working out for me. And so in school my kindness was amazing because it was so self confident that I wasn't willing to make fun of kids, but that's what the cool kids did.

Gary Vee                            
19:38 And that in a weird way over time made me quite a lot of people.

Jen                                      
19:44 Oh my God? I just thought of the name of your new book. It's crushed them with kindness. Instead it's going to kill him with kindness, crush them with kindness. That's it. Just send me like one percent. That's all. I mean,

Gary Vee                            
19:55 I think kindness is something that I will continue to tap into this year. This will be year kindness in my content, I can feel it and I'm excited about that because some awareness and gratitude and work ethic and honor I think is something that an Alpha male can kind of get there to kindness thing, sweet a sweetheart. It's just not necessarily the thing that I think people naturally gravitate towards, and it's funny, my Public Persona, Aka when I do interviews and speeches I wouldn't say is filled with kindness. I'm my most combative and competitive. It's that my real life is so filled with kindness and sweetness and I think it's an interesting. See how I tap into this and how I articulated.

Jen                                      
20:47 Oh Wow. I just can't wait to see where this goes. I think that's amazing and it's funny because my, the other challenger, a James Altucher, when he came on the show, I asked him, have you had situations where you've interviewed people who are winners or there are these big guys who are really like jerks, and he said, you know, not really one or two, he said, but the truth is people don't get that far usually by being super jerks.

Gary Vee                            
21:14 Definitely not people who are are playing in a game that is based on merit, like entrepreneurship, right? Right. Like, like it's a little bit easier to navigate from corporate, which is a lot of what we're seeing now in the world because you can be protected because the market isn't fair. It's hedged by the tastemakers and gatekeepers, but like the, the more entrepreneurial, more fair it is to James Point, the more likely you have to be a decent person and definitely if you want to build something really big, sort of a long haul, like I'm trying to build an app she business empire and be admired and like that is a, a zero sum game. Like either you are kind and talented or you're not.

Jen                                      
22:02 Who would it mean the most to you besides your parents and your kids and everybody? Who would it mean the most for you to be admired by? I mean like any one specifically that like you've got filed away that you're like, yeah,

Gary Vee                            
22:16 Probably Brandon Warnke who runs wine library. She's my best friend. To me it's very simple. I want to be admired by the people that know me the best because they actually know the true super more important to me that tyler and tyler who was sitting across from me right now, my admin and one of the guys who's on my team who tells me often it's much more according to me that they blindly think I'm the best than an employee at vayner. That's not interacting with me more than once or twice a year because they know

Jen                                      
22:43 and I was watching you walk through your office and all those, I guess hundreds of employees and I thought because you are your brand and because you were such a strong brand because people gravitate to you. I'm sure that's one of the big selling points that they want to come and work for you. But not everybody can get that access to you. So I bet that's a huge challenge for you to figure out how you're going to divvy up Gary to all those people

Gary Vee                            
23:11  Yes and no. I think, um, I think that a lot of them actually work a great agency, and haven't gotten into some people that aren't even. We're not oblivious, but really don't know the extent of what's happening out there with my life in that realm. And that's great because I'll be honest with you, I associate much more to Gary Vaynerchuck, the CEO of interacting or media that I do as Gary Vee, Gary Vaynerchuck, the guy behind the strategy of guarantee, even Gary Vee and then look, Gary Vee is me, like, it's, it's, it's my energy when I'm trying to talk to the world. Um, but most of my life was spent not talking to the wall and uh, and uh, I do the best I can. I think that's just important as the CEO, let alone as a personality. Um, I think the people that are most bought into me fans get their way into spending time with me because they can't hold out, right? They asked for the meeting they have around, they hang out. So some just kind of wait and wait for their moment. But, um, it's again, it's not something I show myself why

Jen                                      
24:18 I'm a marketer and a sea of digital marketers. I think I'm special or I think that I'm different because of the level of service and care and love that I give to the people who are in my, um, orbit. Uh, but I do know the value of it. I wish so badly that I could just like find a niche. Do you think that it's. I don't want to niche my audience either because I don't want to do just like lawyers.

Gary Vee 
24:43 Your niche is you might not meet my niches that it's me and my perspective and my efforts. To me, there's nothing more niche than being the human being.

Jen                                      
24:53 OK, that's awesome. That's so awesome. OK. Thank you.

Jen                                      
25:00 This episode of the Front Row Entrepreneur podcast has been brought to you by the Front Row VIP, a private membership community where members enjoy all of the latest, greatest, and most practical tips and strategies for building an online business. This membership includes live coaching calls, a library of fresh step by step trainings and support community. Unlike any, you won't find it anywhere. At the time of this recording, membership is open for a crazy low rate of a $37 a month. You could go to frontrowvip.com to learn more.