“Sometimes my passion
is seen as aggression. “How do I walk the line? “Do I change to someone more passive?” – Nasir? Nasir, first of all,
don’t change for anybody. Now, finding that balance of grace and having that tact to be
consumable is a process. I, somewhere around eighth grade into sophomore year, didn’t hit the right tone anymore. I was too intense for my classmates, and I could taste it ’cause I have empathy and kind of self-awareness, and it’s an ongoing process. Like, you know, for example, my keynotes are interesting, I just referenced them. I’m actually evolving
that cadence throughout the conversation of the tone, ’cause I’m reacting to the body language of everybody else. It’s not about how do
you become more passive, ’cause I’d hate to suck
the passion out of you which is a huge variable to success. Controlling it and people saying, “You’re just a little too much.” I have a feeling that that’s predicated on you caring too much for it to be valuable for you. I’m gonna say that again for everybody. The only reason I think that I’m able to pull off this is because there’s a healthy balance of caring about you. When you care more about your audience than what you have to say, you start winning, right? When you care more about
your global audience listening or watching and it’s not about the 15 minutes of what am I gonna get out of it, then sure, in a right hook world it’s always there. Let me actually use this question to define something that I don’t think I talked about in the book. I live in a world of
jab, jab, jab, right hook. Let me tell you two
interesting things of that. I don’t necessarily feel that I ever have to throw a right hook and I don’t expect the
need to throw a right hook based on my jabs in micro levels. At the holistic level, I do. Also, there’s another part that we never talk about, is there? Which is, what happens when the right hook doesn’t land? I’m actually not disappointed. What happens when I do all awesome stuff for these guys or anybody else? I don’t have any expectation that they’re gonna do something
awesome for me in return. Eliminating that lack of expectation opens up a world of where you can provide. So, based on your question, based on my intuition,
my vibe on this question, it has a whole lot to do with you caring more about them, the people that are judging you, they’re telling you to chill out. They’re telling you that because, not about your passion, because, take it from me
and many other people, people love passion. They don’t like selfish passion.

of a client because they are
just an all around clown?” – Galen, this is a funny question. I think a lot of VaynerMedia
employees are going to have a fun time with this quesiton if they are watching or listening. I think that for me I
hold on for dear life. First of all business is business. I think one of the reasons
people recommend getting rid of clients is they don’t have
the stomach for adversity. I actually can deal with the negativity and it’s business is business. If they fire me then I
deserved to be fired. But the notion of there
are clients to be fired. It’s right and a lot of
times it helps your business and so it’s about self-awareness. So for me, Galen, it’s
very late in the process, like almost borderline, I don’t know, when they take a knife and
stab it through your eye. It might not be a good
relationship anymore but that’s literally the level
that I’m looking forward to because I can handle it and
it’s not slowing me down. We’ve got plenty of clients that I think by all modern standards
should have been fired but I have not and it has
not hindered the growth because yes there’s some time
and attention put into that and even in a world where
we get lots of new business. There is value in retention.
There’s also moods. How about relationships?
Do you just get divorced when a time comes tough? The ebb and flow. Do you
just get rid of a best friend because of a bad night? Do you get rid of friend
after six straight bad nights? One could argue yes but I’d
say hmm there’s a lot there that you may want to fight for it. So I think it comes
down to self-awareness. A lot of people are not capable of dealing with the conflict
or it brings them down. To me, I like to rise to that challenge. I like that game but it comes down to my own self-awareness of me as a leader and more importantly i have
to factor in the empathy of 400 other people and
is it bringing them down. So cool, I can stomach it but
as they’re getting yelled at on the phone every single day, is it bringing them to a
place where they want to leave and so for me it’s when
it’s effecting other people that are in my family that I value more and family I mean my company that I value more than the client itself. That’s when I’m looking at
it but then a lot of times, I’m trying to surround,
interchange and account people of the people that have more of my stomach and can handle it.
To me, that is the timing. Thanks for watching episode
32 of the #AskGaryVee Show.

“Gary, when you left Wine Library “to start VaynerMedia, was
it a conscious decision “not to have someone take
over Wine Library TV?” – This is a great question. People have asked me this question a lot, and I wanna interject some depth, like last couple questions,
last couple episodes with some of this kind of fun stuff. And insight that I’ve never talked about. You know, I don’t know if
it was a conscious decision. Nobody really raised their hand, nobody wanted that spot. It’s kind of like my
speaking career right now, knock on wood I’m doing so well, the bad part is I always
have to speak last because nobody wants to go next. I don’t think it was the
right or obvious choice internally at Wine Library to jump on it, Ian, Brandon, you know all
these great people internally just didn’t’ wanna have
the kind of, you know, not responsibility, look it
takes a certain personality to put yourself out there. We’ve talked about the past, my blog post about this the other day did really well. You can link that, Stunwin. So it wasn’t a conscious
choice, it was the right choice. If that person existed in the building, maybe it would have
continued in that manner, but I think one thing that
I’m really focused on, why I took this question to interweave it to everybody else while answering it is I think you have to assess. Like you always have to assess. And I think way too
many people come in with what they want it to be, the notion of, somebody will take over this show, and then you’re forcing someone to sit in the hotseat, and then you really lose the lustre of it. Not to mention, I may want to jump back in that seat one day. (bell dings) Question of the day.

“I’m curious to know
what your thoughts are on tech consumption by young children.” – This is an interesting
one, because I’ve done a lot of lucky, serendipitous piggybacking on today’s questions, because
I just went into that. And you know, kids are
all up in this right now, and I think it’s evolution. I mean, if you were to ask the person that was like me
during the caveman days, on his or her show, what you think about humans
that look like us today, all of you cavemen and
women would be like, no, ugh, ugh, ugh, terrible, but we’ve evolved. And I think that children are
growing up with technology. We are definitely going
into that futuristic world. And I think it’s great. I think that there are going to be different versions of us, but that’s not bad. I’m not the dad that’s gonna be like, “Get outside and play.” Of course I want them to be healthy, but don’t forget, our kids are eating a hell of a lot better than any of us. All our Big Macs everyday are a hell of a lot
different than kale chips that we’re all growing up with now. And so there’s trade offs. Not to mention more people work out now. So, you know, I think they’re
gonna be more informational. Listen to me, less information-smart, because it’s a commodity,
’cause anything you want to know is here. And I think there’s just
gonna be different characters. And so, I’m super excited about it. I think it’s uh, I think it’s uh, phenomenal. I love that children are growing up totally different. I love that I see Xander
thinking everything swipes. There’s some downsides,
like everything else. I’m worried about them being as active, but you can, if you’re a good parent, you can do whatever you want. But I’m not restricting
hours of a second screen, or a third screen for my children, because I think it’s
actually prepping them for the world that’s actually gonna exist. Straight up. It’s kind of almost like alcohol, right? Like kids, like, wanna
drink because in America we don’t let them drink. And so, like, you know
the kids that are gonna be restricted to one hour a day are gonna over-value this, and so, um, I’m very fascinated by it, and I’m a very go-with-the-flow kind of character. And I’ll also adjust to the reality of how my kids adopt to it. That is episode 24 of
the #AskGaryVee Show.

– Hey Gary this is Ian Westerman from EssentialTennis.com, I’ve
got a quick question for you for #AskGaryVee.
First and foremost though, thank you so much for what you do. It was six years ago that I
was commuting an hour in each direction to a job back and forth, listening to Crush It!, and
that book fired me up so much. So, my question for you is,
when you played tennis or at if you’re still playing tennis now, do you see parallels
between tennis and business and being successful in
either one, or in both? What are those? I’d be really curious
to hear your thoughts. – Great, great question,
you know it’s really interesting to me, tennis
is a game I love a lot, and I’ve recently figured
out how not good I am because I’ve met a lot
of private school kids, rich kids who play tennis
a lot, and were on the college tennis team,
and so I love the game and I like playing the
people that give me good 6-4, 7-6, 6-2 kinda
matches in both directions I have a lot of fun with
it and I like it a lot and as a matter of fact I
really do see one parallel and I never thought about this before, and this is really why I
love the #AskGaryVee Show, (bell) ting, you know,
I do see a parallel. I’m blown away that I
once lost a match that I was winning five zero in a set. And I’m also super happy,
can somebody get Nate, Zak, can you get Nate? This is gonna be fun. I’m also happy that you
know and you’ve heard me talk about half time adjustments, right, I’m the coach, they’ll be down 21 nothing, and then it’s 23-21 and I won because I didn’t game plan well but I adjusted? That to me is tennis, right? To me tennis is fascinating
’cause the set is very long, and you can be down three zero and then you’re adjusting. You’re seeing patterns. For example, – [Nate] Yo. – [Gary] Nate, is it true,
is it true that you’ve never beaten me in tennis? – Unfortunately yes. – Now, is it also true
that you once had me down five, you’ve had me, like help me here, you’ve had me down 5-2 twice? – Yep. – Right, and you lost those matches. – Yes. – Okay, so what I did
in those matches were – Done? – That was it, thanks bro. So in those matches when
I was down 5-2 to Nate, what happened was, you
know, one I just like refused to lose, but two,
I really kind of took a step back, looked at
what happened in those first seven games, and
started attacking either weaknesses of his or strengths of mine, it’s a very mental game, I was reacting to what was already happening
in that specific set, and I was able to adjust
then and win 7-5 much to my happiness, and so
much like in business, people set out to do
things, it’s kinda like the Mike Tyson quote, right? “Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.” You know, that’s what I see in tennis and that’s what I see in business. You have your business plan. You think you’re gonna succeed. And then you’re out in
the market and somebody copies your product for
less, or is better than you, or nobody really wanted your stupid app. You gotta adjust. And in tennis, ’cause it’s a
set, it takes a lot of time to that for that kind
of like set to like form and you’ve gotta adjust to, wait a minute he’s playing off of
his backhand, let me go at his backhand, things
of that nature, let me go to the net because I’m not
winning this baseline game. The adjustments in real
time, and the emotion and composure, and the
intestinal fortitude to be down 5-2 and come back
and win, that’s how I see it.

“in five years?” Jeff, the truth is, I
don’t really see myself anywhere in five years. I am not a planner, I do
not have a five-year plan, I think all of us can
agree that five years ago, Instagram and Snapchat
didn’t exist. You know, GoPro, Netflix wasn’t what it is today. I mean, the world is
changing way too much for me to think where I’m gonna be
in five years professionally. Five years personally, I
will be in better shape, I will spend more time with
my family. I will be going to a lot of lacrosse games, and ballets, and shows, just trying to hack my life
to have a better balance. Professionally, I will be
doing what I always do, DRock, zoom on this ear, I
want you to go right in there. My friend, this ear will be
listening to the market place. I will be listening to the
market place and I will be adjusting on the fly in
real time and I will be running a business and
marketing like it’s 2017, like it’s 2019, like it’s
2022, like it’s 2027, I’m a reactionary, what I like to call, I am a half-time adjustments head coach. My game plan is okay going
into the game, I’m down 21-3 at halftime, I’ve got 15
minutes, I reverse, drop down, flip it and reverse it, I
come out and I win 27-24. That is who I am as an
entrepreneur, that is why I have no idea what I will
be doing or how I see myself professionally in five years.