- I don't care if you have the same pair of clothes your whole life. At least you're alive,
you've got it down pat, you gotta shot. I choose optimism. (laid back music) - [Nicole] So everybody please, give me a huge round of
applause for my friend, Garyvee. (audience applauding) - You're welcome, thanks for having me. Look, I'm really excited to be here. You know, obviously with a smaller group, I hope we can do bunch of Q and A, I'll try to give you a little context about what I want to talk about and then take it from there. I think the thing that has
allowed me to travel a lot and speak is that the only
thing I ever think about when I talk is the audience. How do you create context that matters for the people in the room? I speak at events that have people that run Fortune 500 companies
that do $50 billion a year and I speak to athletes and
emerging hip hop artists and kids and I run the gamut. To be very frank with you, I'm only interested in
talking about something that's gonna bring value to
the 20, 30 people in this room. And so the things I'm gonna spin right now are the things that I think make sense based on the very little I know about the people in the room. I was born in the Soviet
Union, in Belarus, when I came to America
I was three years old. I lived in studio apartment in Queens with eight family members. I didn't see my dad
until I was 14 years old 'cause he worked every minute and we didn't have much and we grinded. I think the thing that excites me, I so appreciate the nice intro, but me investing in Facebook
and Twitter and Uber is not what's on the mindset in this room. What's on the mindset
of this room, for me, and I'll let you ask your own questions, I'm not interesting in
judging or assuming, but for me, what I'm most excited about is that there's never been a time, ever, where there's been so much
opportunity in the world. And I don't think people realize it because I think people don't realize what's gone on with this internet thing. Most people in here are
a bunch of youngsters, you've never known the world pre-internet. When I was 18 I still had never
seen the internet in my life 'cause I'm old and that's how I came up. And so for me, this internet
thing is changing everything. Everything that's
happening in our society, everybody in this room, including myself, is grossly underestimating the internet. And for me the only passion
I have is how quickly can you have it consistently because the second you
realize what the fuck that thing is and you
understand what it means, it eliminates everything that
has ever happened before. Every single thing that's happened before become irrelevant when
you have that opportunity because the reality is,
it's just game changing. I'll give you a quick story. This Saturday I had
dinner with my parents, which was awesome because
I'm hustling so hard that I don't get to see
them as much as I want, and we had dinner and we're bouncing and the waitress ran after me
and grabbed me and was like, "Hey, I just want to thank you." And I was like, "Sure." She's like, "My fiance didn't
have a job 15 months ago. "And then he saw a video
you posted on YouTube "and the last 15 months,
he made $1.5 million "off of a $1,000.00 investment
and buying stuff in China "and selling it on Amazon." Yeah, that's real good. It really hit me so hard because
I was thinking to myself, my God, between YouTube and
Instagram and these things, free information, right? The guy had $1,000.00
and if he made $15,000.00 that would have seemed crazy. If he made $150,000.00 that
would have been all time, that would have changed his life. To go from not having a
job and having a $1,000.00 to making $1.5 million in a
year is just bat shit crazy and was not possible
when I was growing up. It took decades to amass
that kind of wealth. The opportunity is ridiculous. What's up everybody? How you doing? Thanks for coming through. So look, for me it's real simple. I was kinda laughing,
if you do have Instagram and you went to my Instagram account and you looked at my post, eight posts or nine posts ago, you'd
see something interesting. I'm sure for a lot of people in this room, you're pounded the value
of education, school. Got brought up like three or four times. I was a D and F student. I sucked at school. I actually was so bad at
school that I had my admin, my assistant, reach out to my high school and get a copy of my report card so I could put it on
Instagram the other day. 'Cause people are confused
what success looks like or how you get there. It doesn't mean that you should look at me and not do school, it means
you need to look at yourself and figure out who you are. What are you good at? What are you like? How are you gonna get to the
place that you wanna get to? And so for me, I got
four A's in high school my entire career, all in gym. I got a D in year book. And so to me, there's just
a thousand paths out there. And so for me, I'm
curious about one-by-one, one-by-one, for the 30
people in this room, where's their mindset? Where are they at? Who are they listening to? What are they judging their self worth and their ambition based on? How are they counting the points? Because when you're a youngster, you're looking at all
sorts of different things. You're being affected by all
sorts of different voices. And for me, the only thing that worked, even though I was getting D's and F's and all my friends parents
told me I was a loser, you know, all my teachers told me I wasn't going to be anything, even though I didn't have stuff, even though I was, I
just was in my own head. I knew exactly who I was. But the thing that I was willing to do, was I was willing to work. And the thing that my parents
taught me was not to dwell, not to cry about it, I didn't have shit when I rolled up on my
mom when I was nine, when Nintendo was poppin'
when it first broke, I was like, Mom, I need Nintendo. And she was like, good, go get it. And so, I shoveled snow and
I ripped people's flowers out of their yard and
sold it back to them, (audience laughing) which is my favorite one. There's so many amazing
people, but ultimately, the world doesn't care. Everybody grows up with shit. Right? It's crazy for me to be in this room because 48 hours ago I
had dinner with somebody who was crying for four
hours over dinner with me because he has $10
million in his trust fund and he thinks that he'll never
be able to be his own man 'cause everybody's gonna say, that his grandfather put him
on and his life is ruined 'cause he has $10 million in the bank. Every person in here that just heard that, said, get the fuck outta here. Right? Right? But guess what? That's his fucking thing. That's in his head. That's his circumstance. And to be straight to the face with you, I actually think that that is scarier 'cause there's nothing he can ever do to get away from the fact
that he was put on like that and everybody will judge him for life. I genuinely believe,
genuinely believe this, I don't know your circumstances,
but I'm telling you, once you get this, if you don't have it, your emotion for getting started, period. Give me $5.00 and a cell
phone that has internet and I'm off to the races. I'll go to the Dollar
Store, I'll buy five things, I'll put 'em on Ebay and
I'll have $13.00 later and on and on and on. And so, I am at a place where
I'm not here to ra-ra you or make myself feel good that
I'm doing something nice, I'm doing something nice everyday. I'm here because if I can
get one of you to realize, how ridiculous it is,
how your grandparents if they were in this situation, it would have taken them decades, but for you, if you really put in the work to educate yourself. Educating isn't school. Educating is a whole different game. And so for me, I'm here
because I'm giving back to the one thing that got
me to the place that I'm at and that's hustle, work. And everybody has that
at bat if they want it. And there's a million ways to do it. And the fact that you
can do it now, at scale, with this, blows my face
off, changes everything. And if you don't have that,
you need to figure out how to get to that. If you can get to that, then
the whole world is open to you. You need to really quantify
how special this time is. It's real. And you've got two choices. Everyday of your life, you're either optimistic or your pessimistic. You're either seeing what's good or you're seeing what's bad. My whole life, even when I
was in a very different place, I would always just say 7 billion people, now 7.7 billion people, where do I rank? For all the shit that I
got, for all the negativity, where do I rank? Am I better than the person
that's terminally ill that has a lot of money and
that's gonna die in a month> Yep. Am I better than somebody
who's living in cage in parts of the world that we
don't even want to look at? Yep. And so, to me this is a mindset game. And it's real hard, it's
real hard to penetrate your mindset right now 'cause where you're at
in the game, it's early. My one ambition in here right now, is to get one person in this room to realize how much offense and how early it is in your game. I put out a lot of content. My favorite piece of content right now because I get so many emails
from 20 and 30 year olds who are upset, concerned, worried and I always tell them,
it's not even half time. It's not even half time. You're worried about losing
or it's not going your way and your game hasn't even started. If this organization can
really do you some good, they need to start sending
you to retirement homes and you need to start spending time with people who are 80, 90, 100 years old. You need context. It's really hard for me to
worry about anybody in this room when you're in the first inning, when you're in the first quarter. What happens in the first 20
years of your life means shit, it means nothing. And to be very honest, you
don't want to hear this from me, but I'm just gonna tell you
because it's the fucking truth, I think your adversity
is your fucking gift. Straight up. Because what you don't realize is happening right now in the world is the internet is making everything equal and the chip on the shoulder that's forming on you right now, the fact that you're not entitled and you're not fucking soft
and you can appreciate shit, that's gonna play out in
your 20's, 30's and 40's. You don't see it now, but
you're gonna look at it the same way I did when I
was nine and my mom said, go fuck yourself, buy your
own Nintendo, I hated life. Now it's the best shit
that ever happened to me. When I was 13 I had to work every weekend and make two bucks and hour bagging ice for 15 hours a day and all my friends were partying and
hooking up and having fun and going to parties and shit, I hated it. Now it's the best shit
that ever happened to me. So, while everybody was
looking down at me back then, I was looking inside my own head. And honestly, every time
anybody looked down at me, I registered that shit
and put it in the column and that fucking shit became my fuel. And so I think you're
lucky and I know you don't. But just remember in 20
or 30 years this talk because I think you might agree if you're willing to put in the work. And a bunch of you are
just gonna dwell on it. That's facts. That's just real life, that's just math, a bunch of people are gonna be like, yo, I got dealt a
bullshit hand, fuck this, life sucks, the game sucks. Which is cool, you do you, actually I'll be really frank
with you, I don't give a fuck. I mean it, what? It's the truth, I can't control that. But I'm real curious about the people that are putting this
energy in the right pocket, in the right place, building
that chip, building that chip, because if this was 1986 with no internet you would have been in a tough spot. It would have taken a long long long time, but this internet thing
doesn't care who you are. It's real. So, biggest piece of
advice I can give you, the quickest way you could
figure out how to sell shit that would really teach you a lot. No matter who you are in
this room, if you can learn how to buy something or get something, get it how you have to get
it and learn how to sell it, I would highly recommend it. The quickest way you can figure out how to sell on Facebook
Marketplace, Ebay and Amazon, if you can learn that game,
if you've got aspirations, if you want to win, it's
a land grab out there. It's a land grab out there. You know there's a piece of content I've been making on Instagram
and YouTube for about a year, a year and a half about going to. Trying to set the mood? (audience laughing) I got ya. About going to thrift
stores and dollar stores and flipping and it's crazy. So, I'll tell you how
it happened actually. About a year and half ago,
I was on Breakfast Club and it was going real well,
Charlamagne was real nice and an NB kinda ran up on me and was like, this motivational shit is bullshit, give us something tangible. And so I'm on the radio, you're live, you gotta few minutes I'm like
shit, what am I gonna say? And I went back to what
got me to where I am today, just buying and selling stuff. For me it was baseball cards, 'cause that's what people
wanted back in the day. For a lot of other people
there's so much to do. To me it's really interesting. I was thinking about this the other day, I was going to the airport and I saw this huge line
outside of a sneaker shop and it was like 5:15 in the morning. And I looked at everybody and was like, yep, those are my people,
'cause they're just hungry, they're just willing to
stand outside a sneaker store at 4:30 in the morning in the cold 'cause they know they're gonna
flip those Yeezys or Supremes to make a couple hundred bucks. And I think that person has
the advantage in the world going forward because
what's stopped everybody from winning before was there
were people stopping people. But now the internet is the actual, not some old rich person or anything else, there's nobody else that gets to judge. So if you, and especially for you, because once you get the
phone, once you play, this stuff is native to you. You understand it and so I
highly recommend you figure out how to use it get yours,
'cause it's there. It's really really there. And if it's selling, cool, 'cause I think that's the easiest
one to be honest with you. Start with $10.00. But if it's not selling, then
it's about making content and getting people to
pay attention to you. Maybe you can sing, maybe you can dance, maybe you can dunk, I don't
know what you're up to. But sitting and worrying about it and sitting around the contemplating it isn't gonna get it done. And the only people that
are willing to listen to you complain are other people that are losing. And that's facts. So I highly recommend you
get your head into a place where you just go on the offense. Straight offense. 'Cause you have the options,
you have the options. And so, I think it's the
greatest time to be alive, the internet is still new,
there's still so much to take, you could absolutely grab
it, it could be yours. It's just about going
into a different place in your mind and getting real quiet. The thing that got me through,
is everything got quiet. Everything became Charlie Brown. All those teachers, all those parents, all those people telling
me I couldn't or I wasn't or I was losing, I just drown 'em out. And so, that would be my recommendation. Drown out the noise. And get real focused on the opportunity. Because I have a lot of empathy that you may not see it right now, but it doesn't mean it's not there. And I see it everyday. I get emails and DM's everyday from people that are building up
from real small places. It's just patience. If I can leave you with
anything, it's patience. Patience. How many people in this
room right now are over 30? Raise your hands. They don't know. Right? When you were 14, you
felt old, like I'm grown, you don't get it, how early it is. I'm 42 years old, I feel
exactly the same way I did when I was 16. I got straight fire in my chest. I'm hungry. I want it. It feels the same. I don't even know what to tell you. And all the nine people
that just raised their hand will tell you the same thing, we're still thinking
about the same dumb shit we did when we were 15. We're still ambitious, we still want it, we're still growing, it's the same thing. And you can't see that
now and neither could I. When I went into the liquor
store when I was 22 years old and my cousin was 30,
I thought he was old. You know, so I know what you think, I get it, I remember, I've
got a good enough memory. But, I'm not trying to ra-ra you or give you hope off some bullshit. I'm just trying to tell you the truth which is the internet's here,
it's a complete land grab, there's unlimited opportunity, nobody cares where you
started, nobody's stopping you, there's nobody that's
gotta take your resume, there's no grades that matter, none of it. What matters is are you willing to hustle and how bad do you want it? And are you willing to live
a life where you're not lettin' other people judge you so then you're not pandering to it. The biggest problem I see right now with a lot of people, a
lot of 20, 30 year old guys follow me and every one of
them is just buying dumb shit. Just buying dumb shit,
like clothes and watches and sneakers and all because
they're trying to front and use it to get girls and all
that, that's fine, I get it. But they're letting other
people dictate their life. And that is the biggest thing that if you can get out of this talk, if you can get nobody
to dictate your life. And I'm talking this
organization, your parents, your friends, nobody. If you can get into that
crazy place that I got to and the other people
that I study and watch that broke through, it's
gotta get real quiet. And that's what I'm hoping for you. So, that's where I'm at. - But my first question, before we open up to the floor would be, if you don't have social
media and you only have access to the internet at school, how do you use the
internet to be resourceful and even get a job? - Well first of all, you have to decide if
you want to get a job and second of all, if you're
going into your computer lab you know you could sign into
your Instagram for that minute, 15 minutes, four hours. Here's what I would do for everybody here, I would do everything possible and I mean everything possible, you have to understand, I
lived a version of this life, not to the extremity that you did, to me the big game is very simple. If I know one person, if I
know one person that did it, then there's a blueprint. And so, obviously, I
know it's coming here, I did a little searching. One guy was like, yo, homeless,
I got $10.00 from handouts. I caught your video 'cause he had a phone. My service was cut off a month later so I lost you, I didn't have it. But I had the 10 bucks, I heard you. I went and bought $10.00
worth of water at the bodega. Went outside, sold it, made
$20.00, kept building, building. And he remembered, he remembered
the thrift store flip. He walked in, he had $47.00,
he bought a pair of Jordans that were in the thrift store for 19, he sold them for 57 on Ebay. He just kept going and going
and going and going and going, he didn't care what people were saying when he sold water outside, he didn't care what people said when he was going into every thrift store, he didn't give a fuck, he just kept going and going and going. Saved up enough to turn
back on his service, get a years worth of service,
now he's back on the internet, now he's really flipping
stuff on Instagram and Amazon and Ebay. And he just kept going
and he made thousands and thousands of dollars and
then he got an apartment. My big thing is what's your alternative? Like what? Are you gonna sit and fucking dwell? So it's just there, you
just have it so much better than people that look like
you and had your situation 30, 40 years ago and didn't
have the web, period, period. So I don't know, just remarkable. It's just remarkable. I don't know what else to say. That wasn't real, that
wasn't real when I a kid. I was buying all sorts
of dumb shit to sell, but I had to go to flea
markets on the weekend. If I had Ebay, fuck, I'd own the jets now. (audience laughing) - Alright, do you guys have questions? Anything? - People got questions. They're just worried about people's judgment on their question. I want to answer 101 basic
shit, I'll answer anything. Thank you. What's your name? - [Kayla] Kayla.
- Kayla, how are you? - [Kayla] Good.
- Good? - [Kayla] My question is, some people want to be other things like a writer, a dancer or a singer. How do we get to that goal? - You know, being a
writer, singer or dancer and getting to that goal uses the, look, I think the internet
is the magic pill, right? So, again, if you can
get to the place where you have social, you need
to write, sing and dance on Instagram, use hashtags,
you got the fucking book, you can read it, you can
go sell it for four bucks, I don't give a shit what you
do, but you need to go out and you have to make content at scale. Because if you can
sing, you need exposure. So if you can sing, well
then, my question is, this is not just, I think
people get confused by making it, if you want
to write, sing and dance, you also have to figure
out how that's balanced with how you're gonna live. So there's a big difference
between being Beyonce and being somebody who makes
$50,000.00 a year signing. Both are interesting, that's your talent. So first of all you have to
figure out how good you are. Because people are delirious out here. People think they're going to league. People think they're next Meek. People think they're
fucking the next Beyonce. People are delirious out here. Meanwhile, some people are it. So to me, here's the funniest part, there's no more debating. Take your phone, point at
your fit self and do it and then figure out if people like it. And when people say they don't like it, you gotta make more of it. You need two, three,
four years of rejection before you give up. Years. People post one post on
Instagram of them free styling, people shit on them and they give up. Make content. Got it? You wanna write? Write. If it's good it's gonna be found. - [Woman] I have a question. - Go ahead. - [Woman] So I went to tech
school during high school. I was straight A, but I
in the lower spectrum. - You were in the lower
spectrum of straight A's? (audience laughing) Where the fuck did you go? - [Woman] I was basic,
I was like the basic. But I got good grades from tech school. Got my cosmetology license at 18, I got shit on the whole time
and made fun of constantly, tech school was not the way to go, but I got my license for free at 18, working since 16, I do
makeup and I do hair. I made money, more than
if I went to college and went to grad school. So I know how to motivate
myself, but the negative aspects, how do you get out of it? - Look, me swooping in for an
hour, taking a couple selfies, signing a book for you, it's
not gonna get it done, right? This is way beyond this moment, so I'm not delirious about this. Here's what you and I were able to do, we were able to hear a lot of things and block it out. Do you know how many
people have questions, but they're scared to ask it because they're scared of
the judgment of the question from the person sitting next to them? So, I get it. I have plenty of versions of that too. Everybody's got it. I can do this, but there's
other things I wouldn't do because I'm scared of the judgment, I'm not gonna dance in front of you because it's gonna be wack at shit and I don't want to be laughed, I get it, right, I get it. But here's the punch line,
there is no alternative. So for me, I'm not ideological, I don't think I'm rolling in here and gonna inspire everybody
to go get their, to me, it's just putting facts in
people's heads and moving on. This is what it is. For example, you're gonna get
pushed education like crazy. Let me tell you what's
going on with education, unless you're a really good student and you think you're gonna
go to a top university that's gonna give you a scholarship and you're gonna get a great job, by the time you guys get
into the college system, it's not gonna be that
great of a deal for you. And if you are thinking
about going to college and collecting debt at 11%, you're really gonna be in
bad shape until you're 40. That's facts. That's not popular, your mom and teachers don't want to tell you that. I get it. But that's fucking facts. College is broken in America. Now, when you're 13, 16,
nine, that sounds great, yeah, fuck school, I don't need it. But for some of you,
school's exactly right because you've got it like that, you understand it, you
figured out the system, you know how to get good grades and maybe you should go, especially if people are gonna pay for it and you don't get debt. So what I'm just saying is that everybody's gonna
have a different path, everybody's gonna have a different path, you just need to figure out what you like and what you're good at and if your lucky enough
that what you like is what you're good at,
well then you fucking won. But if not, you gotta decide
if you're gonna live a life where you're gonna do
something that makes you happy and you like it and maybe
you're not gonna have private jets and all that stuff or you're gonna live a life where you're just gonna make some money 'cause you want to get that place up and that's what you want. This is about choices. There is no perfect. You already know that,
that is your advantage. Yes sir. - [Man] So ironically, we got a meeting at your office today. - Is that right? - [Man] 10 Hudson Yard? - Yeah. - [Man] This guy's office is so busy that there were no conference
rooms for us to actually talk. - Oh at Vayner? Yes, it was busy. - [Man] It was crazy over there. But I got a question for you
on how you answer the pivot. I started out in college,
going first pre-med ended up working on Wall
Street, now I'm in media. A lot of these kids probably
have a certain vision of where they want to see themselves, what do you have terms of advice on not getting comfortable
with their visions? - Look, and you know this,
the vision at this age is far more fancy. You get less fancy with your
vision as you get older. When you're 12, you're
gonna play in the league, you're gonna be a famous this, you're gonna be an influencer, you're gonna be a famous vlogger, you're gonna win Grammy's like and then as you get to 18,
19, you know how that works. So for me, if this was college kids, the pivot's super interesting, 'cause they've been hit
with that cold water, like oh shit, I don't want to be a doctor, I want to make money or
whatever it was right, that made you switch it up. You know for me right now it's like, it's funny what's running
through my head right now, is there one kid in here that hears me? Right? I'm like is there one
fucking kid that understands stop crying, stop crying,
nobody's listening. There's people that have compassion. I've got compassion for days. The problem is I know
there's 4 billion people that have it worse that you. I don't know what else to say. So, I got some compassion for you. So, you know what I think we're
all trying to achieve here because we have compassion, we care, I'm just trying to come at it,
not from a different angle, I'm not trying to shock
you with my cursing that's just what happens when
I have people in front of me, I'm just trying to get somebody to believe and not hyped and then
not care next Tuesday. I'm just trying to make sure one thing resonates inside, you know it works, we all lived it. Just one piece of thing
that could resonate and the only thing that ever resonates. I was very affected by
growing up in New Jersey and just East Coast in the
80's when the Beastie Boys and when I think back
to culture right now, what resonates is only one of two things, complete and utter bullshit
and straight fucking truth. Either stuff that just
everybody dreams of, oh shit yes, 50 fucking
bottles of champagne and private jets and fucking flossing coast to coast, you know? Or just the truth. I'm not interested in selling that. 'Cause it's not practical for 99.9999%. I like talking in this
environment about the truth. And the truth is not what
these kids get a lot. They get ideology, they get
people that come up here and spit facts that make them feel good, that they checked the
box and spent an hour. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in getting
somebody to do something. And the only way to do that
is to suffocate the bullshit that's running through their head. - You have a question right here. - What's your name my guy? - [Joe] Joe.
- Joe. - What if someone is
good at doing something or a job or no matter
what it is and they can make a living of it, but don't like it? They don't have a good passion for it, but they don't want to think about that. - I'm a fan of it, if it
gets you out of a situation that you're not interested in. If we're being direct here. That can get you to the next spot. I'm interested. I worked for my dad's liquor store when I from 22 to 34 years old. I build my dad's liquor
store to $60 million business and at 34 years old I left, had nothing. It was my dad's business. I would inherit it one day,
but I hope my dad lives forever and I'll be 90 right? So, I did what I thought was
right, different circumstances, but I did what I thought was right, I was an immigrant kid, my parents took me from
shitty Russia to America, I wanted to pay them back,
I worked my face off, gave up all my 20's. Super easy to be humble
with her when you're humble. You know, when I hear
you asking that question, without knowing every one of your details, I think you gotta do what you have to do to get to the next step to
give yourself more options. Got it? So if you're good at it and it works and it can get you to that next spot that gives you options at 30. How old are you? - [Joe] I'm 15. - Mazel. You're 15, if that can
get you to a place at 27, that gives you options,
you'll be a kid at 27. At 15 you think 27's fucking dead, old. I get it. I remember. But I'm telling you to
your face, it's young kid, you're a young kid. How many people here would love to be 27? - [Man] I am. - Get to that next spot. I get it. Listen, let me tell you one thing that you will not hear often, the person that knows how to
eat the most amount of shit, usually eats the most amount of caviar. Got it? You need to eat shit,
get to the next spot, not directly. (audience laughing) But you understand? If it's good like that and it
can get you to the next spot, that's perfect, regardless of what it is. Whatever gets you to the next spot, is exactly, move forward. It's good man, I'm glad you, if you have something like
that brewing, that excites me, that's real easy for me to
see how it can go for you. You just gotta be patient. That's where you gotta stay disciplined and save that money and
not buy all that stuff that's getting fed to you that you need. It's hard to get to the next spot when you spend 700 bucks
to buy a Supreme bag. - [Nicole] Alright guys, let's
do one or two more questions. Anybody else? - I definitely want this man. And I'm willing to be a little late. My man right here, who I've been paying
attention to the whole time. What's your name. Nice to meet you. - I wanted to ask you, what
do you do in the moments that people try to bring you down, how do you fulfill your goals? - I liked it. I had meeting today with a sports agent, my brother A.J. and I
started a sports agency so we now represent players in football, and is big shot and he's in
one those conferences with me. And I was educating
him on what we're doing and he kind of took a
step back and was like, "Oh whoa, this is way
bigger than I thought, "you guys are really
gonna win this thing huh?" And I said, "Yeah." And I said to him, "This
is my favorite part, "when all the agents that
think they're big shots "with big players are shitting
on me and making fun of us." When people were putting me down, man, I was collecting them in my head. I just don't believe in
anybody's opinion about me anymore than I believe in the
opinion I've got about myself. Do you know what the most
delicious flavor in the world is? I told you so. (audience laughing) You understand? I don't admire anybody enough to take their point of view on me over my own. Listen, let me tell you
something about this country. We love the rags to riches story a hell of a lot more than any other story. You are set up for the good shit. It's just, are you gonna work hard enough and get to the right
mental place to get there? - On the agenda there's bad
and there's good inspiration, how do you use that? - Well, what do you
define as bad inspiration? - [Girl] Bad role models. - Like who do you think
is a bad role model? - [Girl] I don't want
to say that right now. - Okay, the way I look at anything is if decided it's a bad role
model, it's not a role model. You know? I mean, if you're saying
that it's a bad role model because of other people say it, but you like it or think some of the parts of what they're doing are good, that's when you have to dissect. Nobody's all good, nobody's all bad. To me it's just picking the pieces that you're interested in. My guy. - Gary, so I consider you're like a real rags to riches story. And I'm an immigrant as well and when you got to that level of success and you're around people who
didn't have to work as hard, how do you evaluate that? - I feel worse for them, man. It's really hard to walk into this room, look at their faces and have
what's going through my head as these kids have such a big
advantage they have no idea. Because they could never believe it and nobody out there would think it. I'd be judged as a bad guy
to think every kid in here has it better than all the rich
kids on the Upper West Side. I just believe it. Because it's my truth. - [Man] So I've always felt
like success is when you're working in a certain class
and I think it would be more important in a certain
class if you retain it, to me, I don't consider that success. Like JFK junior, or something,
when you're born there. - It sucks man. (crosstalk) - Think about what you just said. You know how much it sucks, that was how why I
brought up that other kid, you're like JFK, that means that person lost from the get. What you're basically saying, is if you're born with money, you've lost from day one. And honestly, I'm not so
sold that you're not wrong. I'd be okay, but we also
are judging the game. When you don't have
anything, you want stuff. So you don't give a shit
about merit or respect or skills, you're just
trying to get some stuff. But once you get it, how
you get it becomes the game. And so, some of us are fortunate
enough to be judging people on the skills, not the stuff. So for me, once I made
$100.000.00 a year, Antonio, then I was good. I thought I'd made it
forever, I've never felt the impact of money since
that mark the same way, 'cause I don't need stuff. I don't need stuff. The reason I love being an entrepreneur is 'cause nobody's my fucking boss. So making $80,000.00 a
year selling rubber bands on Amazon sounds great to me because nobody's yelling at
me about how many rubber, I just like the autonomy,
I like the control. You know why I'm a nice guy? It's leverage. When you're giving more
than you're asking for, you've got the leverage. I like leverage. - [Nicole] Alright so
- Hold on, hold on. - [Joe] Sorry um,
- No don't be. - I have one last question,
how do you deal with you feel like what good
advice would be like if you would fail at something? What keeps you pushing forward
and keeps you motivated and what do you think are
some of the good things that might help some
people with doing that? - Well for me, the
reason I always do things that I think I might fail at is because I don't care what
anybody thinks if I lose. It's a very big deal guys. The reason I take so
many risks and always did and that's why I won. Was because if I lost, I didn't care about what anybody thought about
my L, it's my fucking L. I'm telling you, if you can figure out how to get every voice out of your mind, your whole life will change. It doesn't mean you don't
take advice from people, but if you realize how
to get quiet up here, everything's different, man. What's scary about failure? I love losing. It means I learned something. Figure how not to do it again. Right? - [Joe] They say, well
I say too, the only way that you can learn is from your mistakes and one way that you can learn and will learn is from failing because that's the best you can do. - My man, you learn from winning too. But let me tell you one thing, not trying or doing always loses. You'll learn from winning, I've learned a ton of shit from winning. I've learned a lot from losing. The only thing I've done much
better than a lot of people is I'm always doing. While you're sitting and debating should I or could I or how or what, I'm working. Go ahead my man. - [Man] How do you build confidence? - That's great question, my man. So I got real lucky. Even though there wasn't a lot and I was coming up a certain
way, my mom did it for me. Now, my grandma did not do it for my dad. She was an old Eastern European woman, she did it different. I'm gonna give you and
extremely, extremely, this is why I'm so glad that I let a little more questions go, because you just asked a
real important question. Something that I really
hope people can understand, it's gonna be really really, please pay attention to this one thing. The only way that I've
seen, now that I'm older, that you can build confidence, is if you surround yourself
with people that are optimistic. It's just super real. It's super hard what
I'm about to say to you. Everybody in this room needs to cut out as much of the noise and time
with people that are negative and spend as much time with
people that are positive. And I'm not talking about
positive as like, there's people in the toughest situations that
are optimistic and positive and there's the people that
have the most in the world that are pessimistic and negative. This isn't where you're
at or what you've got, this is are the people
you're sitting with at school on the bus, the shelter, here, right now, are they saying how shitty everything is or are they talking about
how to get the fuck out. Get rid of everybody who says it's shitty, including family members, I'm not kidding. It doesn't mean run away
from home, but, kinda. There's only one way to
build confidence, my guy, it's having people that are reinforcing good things to you. It's brainwashing shit, for real. - [Alicia] Yes, so.
- How are you? - [Alicia] I'm good.
- What's your name? - Alicia. - [Gary] Alicia, how you doing? - Good.
- [Gary] Good. - Okay, so, me, I want
to become an author, just like you, and I have been writing, it's my passion and I had applied to
this writing on YC Team and spilled my heart out
which is me, just me in words. - [Gary] Raw.
- Yes. They declined me. So it's like, that's me,
they're not accepting me. - [Gary] Fuck them. - But it's like, should I. - Honestly, guys, first of all. They didn't decline you,
one random fucking person that read your shit
declined you, fuck them. - [Alicia] But it's not
if I change some stuff up, if I change me they will
probably have took me. - You're wrong, you're wrong. Listen to my face, I'm telling
you right to your face, you're wrong. You're valuing somebody
else's opinion too much. You're wrong. I'm just telling you,
this is not a debate, you're fucking wrong. You understand? You're letting one random person, listen, do you understand how many people would have hired me? None. (audience laughing) Who's got Instagram in here? Cool, go to it right now,
please do me huge fucking favor, go to Instagram, go to
garyvee that's my account, go 10, 11 posts back
you'll see my report card, I was ranked 243 out of 254 in my class. 243 out of 254 in my class. You know why? Because I knew it was bullshit, for me, it might not be bullshit for you, this is about self awareness, you have to know who the fuck you are. But for me, it was bullshit,
because I didn't need it, 'cause I didn't give a fuck what Saturn, how many rings Saturn had. Listen to me, you can't let
something be valuable more that you can, you're pandering to them. Let them come to you,
take that same mess, I, and post that shit on an Instagram with a photo and see what happens. See what happens. Let the market decide, not some bullshit middle management person that read your shit. - [Alicia] Okay. - Good. Of course it's true and when you're young and 13 and 15 and nine, you think you gotta change your shit up because you don't know how it's played. That's why I'm here, to tell
you exactly how it's played. One fucking person read
your story, my dear. And fuck that person. - [Alicia] Okay, I got you. (audience applauding) For real. Who else has got a question. Not yet, Nicole. (audience laughing) Anybody else. Go ahead. - [Man] You spoke about
quieting the noise a lot and thinking about
there being alternative, - What's that? - [Man] To why you keep pushing, you think about there's no alternative. What are you tools? - One more time I apologize. - No problem, no problem, you said, that a lot of the reason, you talk about patience, you talk about there not
being an alternative, you talk about quieting
the noise in your head. What are your tools for
quieting the noise in your head? Sometimes you can be your
own worst enemy in that way. - You know that's a really
tough question to answer obviously, mindset came natural to me, it was a circumstantial thing. Here's what I want to say, back to the same way
this was not a debate, my friends, if you're thinking positively, good things are gonna happen. If you're thinking negatively,
bad things are gonna happen. I really, it's so weird right? When Nicole says I'm a motivational, it's like I don't want
to be a motivational, I don't want to be, I mean
it, I was 34 years old, I was a business man, there was no motivational me,
there was no writing books, there was no personality, there was no 3.2 million
followers on Instagram, I'm just practical. I worked and I thought life was good even though I didn't have, I felt life was good
when I didn't have shit. Like I get worried that Antonio
thinks I think life is good 'cause I have money in
the bank, fuck that shit. My grandkids are gonna get,
I'm not gonna spend it, they're not gonna spend
it, it's the same shit. It's just, to me, it
just became obvious to me that it wasn't a good idea
to listen to other people. Like the thought, you know
how happy I am right now that I stayed here and
we had that conversation? It's one person. I think your tie dyed
hoodie is fucking rad. - [Woman] Thank you. - Dude being you might
think it's bullshit. You know? It's just the way it is. People's got opinions. It's just one person, that's
not the whole company. So, I'm not sure, what
I would tell you is, I just choose optimism. Just because I know if I
choose pessimism, it's over. If I choose that Donald
Trump's gonna ruin America, I'll be sad. If choose that it doesn't mean shit, like, the same way I felt about
Barack Obama and Bush and every other president. If you think the president
is dictating your life, you're a fucking loser. Go ahead. - [Man] No alternative for you that's one of the main things. - No alternative, like, what,
nobody's gonna cry for me. You think about this situation
from people in here, right? I can be empathetic, I understand what you're gonna
put down on how I got here, why, it doesn't just happen, there's some other nasty shit
that gets to this moment. Here's my problem. I was at the doctor's office today, this is just real, a
person walks out crying, terminally ill, finished, dead, 30 days. I feel worse for that person. I don't care if you have the same pair of clothes your whole life. It's your life, you got it down pat, you gotta shot. I choose optimism. Please, go ahead. What's your name, I
didn't catch it last time. - My name's Zane.
- [Gary] Zane, cool, go ahead. - So how do you like
talking in front of a crowd, how do you prevent being scared? - It's all the same themes
man, I just don't care what you got, like I walk in here or when I speak to 7,000 people at Madison Square Garden the
other day, I just don't care. Fear comes from willing
to let somebody else have the upper hand on judgment. I'm gonna give my best. I came here and gave you my best. I'm 30, D-Rock's already bent out of shape because he knows I'm 30 minutes late for this important meeting, but I'm giving my best right here because this is more important to me. But if everybody leaves here and says that crazy white
dude, fuck him, right? I don't care. 'Cause I know I just left it on the line. So, I'm always gonna do me
and if it works out, good, and if it doesn't, good. (laid back music)
