– Gary, what’s going on? It’s Captain Cory
from CaptCory.tv and the Captain’s Vlog on YouTube. I’m in the back of the airplane
because it’s more quiet but I got a couple
questions for you. First off, Gary aside for your
incredible interpersonal skills, what would you say is the most
important leadership quality that you deploy amongst
those that you lead? And the second part
of that question, what are two important
leadership qualities that we as young leaders can develop
that’ll make us more effective as leaders and have a greater
influence and make a bigger difference amongst those? Appreciate all you do.
Love the show. I’m not watching as much any
more ’cause I’m grinding and hustling but love it.
Love what you do, man. If you ever need
a ride too, man, let me know. – That’s good. That’s my big thesis
by the way, Oliver. Unlike a lot of people, I actually want my audience
of people to decline– – Sure. – because I want to inspire
people to actually go do. – Right. – The amount of
reading all our books, watching all our stuff,
that’s fine and I like that. – Yep. My tagline’s always
been I get shit done. Just get it done. – You’ve been a successful
leader in your companies, what’s the biggest thing
that has really worked for you? – I think being humanistic which
is a word that I don’t think many people, especially
in this country, use. But there’s a real value
to putting humans first. And it sounds so trite but
there’s a real value to having empathy and putting humans
first and looking at them from a perspective that you can
say, how do I help you grow? What is both this sympathy parts
and the nourishment parts that are going to help you realize
your potential as a person? And I’ve started
seven companies now and made a lot of mistakes. Human resources is the hardest
thing to do at scaling a company because I always make
the joke they are neither a resource nor human,
human resources. And so–
– That’s why the head of mine is called Chief Heart
Officer, Claude. Claude is the number two person in this company
and everybody knows it. It is the foundation at
Vayner because we sell people. – Yep, exactly and so, I mean
you’re in a service business, in a content business so
that makes sense and so I think taking a lens of humanism has
been the biggest gift for me. It’s one of the reasons
I moved to Iceland. You have a humanistic society that doesn’t punish people
for their weaknesses. – I like that. – You have no poverty,
you have no homelessness. You have reform
instead of prison. Big, important things especially
coming from a place like Mississippi where I was born. You look at that and
that’s a place where people are not
treated like humans. There are systems in place. I remember with American Express
we made a movie called “Spent” about payday lenders in America. Talk about your
audience and the pains. That’s $1 trillion business
in America that is parasitic. – Yep. – It adds no value to
the system whatsoever. In Iceland, a human human right is to be able to
access your money. – Sure. – Here we have the basic
principles of our economy are inaccessible in my hometown to
80% of the people have to go to a payday lender and a check
cashing place and spend a percentage of their income just to take just to be able
to spend their money. That is not humanistic. That is counter to anything that will help a system
grow and evolve. – I couldn’t agree
more with the human– – Not to rant about
payday lenders but fuck– – but it’s a valid point and
I think from my standpoint it’s listening and
it’s self-awareness. I think the biggest mistake
charismatic CEOs make is they try to fake the funk and act
like they know everything. – Mhmmm. – I always feel like I think
I know everything and lot of you leave
comments about ego. Only ’cause I stay in my lane. There’s a very narrow
world where I’m very good. I tend to never go out of it. You notice how
I have social media and business people
on the show. This is not a healthcare expert. We’re not talking about
hair dying activities. This is not, nobody’s gonna be
on the show talking about how to raise cattle because I’m not
gonna put myself in a position where I do not know what
the fuck I am talking about. – Right. – And so being all-in on what
you know and then being very empathetic and listening and deploying humility against
the things you don’t know. People pick up on
that real, real, real fast. Because when you come across
somebody that works for you that does know the thing that
your bullshitting about and you bullshit it,
you just lost a winner. – Yep.
– You’ve just lost a winner. – It’s about building
that trusted relationship at every level of all of this. – I got to get the
hell out of here.

The question I have is you
did that song with Ashanti a while ago. I think it’s
called “What’s Love”. How do artists ever hook up and how do they get to collaborate with each other? Is there somebody like producers
that brings that or agent, how does that happen? – How do collabo’s happen?
Take it away. – A lot of times with me when
I make music I hear a certain artist on it and I reach out
and I hope they want to work with me.
– Like flat-out? You got it in your head and
you’re like this would be perfect for this person? – Let’s skip that.
– Go ahead. – Let’s just say Cool & Dre, Scott Storch may get it popping and I immediately
heard Nelly on there. So we reached out and Cool & Dre
wrote the hook and I reached out to Nelly and I was like, “Nelly, do you want to do
this hook over for me,” and he said yes. We heard him on the song. “Make It Rain” I wrote the hook
to “Make It Rain” and I heard Lil Wayne on it because it was a
South song and I was like, “Yo, Wayne can you do this
over,” he did it. You hear certain artist that you
want to collaborate with on the songs and you hope sometimes. – Have you ever been devastated
when you’ve really wanted it? – Not devastated but I’ve been
chasing Future on this album and he’s been acting
real Hollywood with me. Acting like he don’t
want to do this song. – Uh-huh.
– Got to be honest with you. – Playing hard to get you think? – Yeah, hard to get
sometimes it’s like that. You know?
– Of course. Let me play it in for
everybody who’s watching. Same thing in business, a lot of
people always ask me how do you get an angel deals when you
invest in the people when you are doing these things?
It comes in all forms. Sometimes it comes to you,
sometimes reach out but I love, I was curious how you
were going to answer it. I think sometimes people try to
big up too much and I have too much pride and they don’t want
to reach out. When you want something you have to
go out and grab it. I love instead of you saying oh
sometimes it comes to me or this and that you said look I hear
somebody I wanted, I’ll reach out. Sometimes they say yes,
sometimes they say no. Way too many people
watching right now, you know how successful this
man is in his genre? You know how many of you are
too proud to reach out to do something with somebody and you
haven’t made shit happen yet. – Nah, that’s not how it works.
– No, it is not. – That’s not how it works. – I think one thing and I’ll use
this moment I’ve been wanting to say this to really win you
have to equally pull at ego and humility. What do you think? – What I have done,
what I’ve done the new Fat Joe– – And when did the new Fat
Joe come out in your world? – Maybe this year.
– Okay. – Let’s just say
it all the way up. – Okay. Yep. – I’ve had riffs and not
everything was so good between me and Jay-Z in the past.
– [Gary] Yep. Yep. – I reached out to him–
– [Gary] Be the bigger man. – Yes and collaborated
and we did the remix. – [Gary] That was big
news in that world. That was big news. – I did not see eye to
eye with Daddy Yankee. I got him on the Spanish remix.
– [Gary] Mhmmm. – Me and 50 Cent made peace and now we performed together not too long ago.
I laid down. – [Gary] Are you enjoying this? – I’m enjoying it because you
eliminate all the barriers. – That’s right.
– You know what I’m saying? All the enemies and
all the people– – When did this happen?
January 1 thing for you? Was it a long time? – It wasn’t January 1.
It was just me. I tried all the wars–
– Right. – And then I just said to
myself, you know what I’m going to eliminate all obstacles. And I’m going to try to say
put all ego and pride aside and let me just try
the non-ego route. Let me try working with
everybody and see how this workin’ and so far we’re
platinum on the single, go on to double platinum,
tours opening up– – Go figure.
Go figure. Go with positivity
and imagine that. – It’s a magical miracle
pill that seems to be working. – Yeah, it happens.
I’m glad you went there. It’s been a theme of mine
over my whole life but I’ve been really… With all the shit that’s
going on in the world, if you can’t go half glass full. If you can’t be the person of
change and drive positivity and optimism I just
think it is a mistake. India.
– Mhmmm. – [India] This is from Craig.
– Craig.

finished i hope they serve beer and how
lot has changed what you do it all again of course I
mean I’m not here right I was trying to do a lot of things differently but you
like what’s the number again in a noble shit
way because I’m doing this because I think you could you know there’s no
other way for me to be beautiful but it but knowing that like again that’s all I
was happy when you’re like a like I want to go to like a place like I know you’ve
been on so many different things like like in a very fucking real way like what’s the one core thing you think
you can do stiffer um i would realize a lot earlier that it’s not about me right
now even though I’m really good at doing that with my heart like my stories even
though about me if you read all my books we
don’t know very much about me at all you know a lot about things that
happened to me and you’ve laughed a lot of really enjoyed it but i don’t i don’t
burn the reader with nonsense about me because people reading my books want to
be entertained they’re not trying to learn deep about my emotions whatever
right but in the way I meet business decisions
early in my career I was arrogant and stupid and I made most amazing so you
have the leverage it so there was a movie made about my first
book that movie should have done a hundred million or more the box office
and it did like two million and because of my arrogance and hubris and he wanted
to impose certain things that your creative control over I mean yeah it really was like writing
is a very singular art right it’s also i got and I don’t have anyone else help to
the brush your book to make a movie it’s a whole group of people and that
even the smallest movie ever is still being people went into that place of
like look a lot of the guys on business like right holding tight and and I did
because of that I picked the wrong director i picked most of the wrong
production you pick Danny people no I with my pic guys you made it might
have been just my vision which would be better than water water because it
became a Frankenstein yeah it was a print yet exactly and and
I picked a lot of people who told me what I wanted to hear early on but had
their own agendas for and I was blind to it and I was so caught up in myself my
own ego that I screwed up a really massive opportunity for myself sure it’s going to change that and that
goes for a hundo different things well I know it’s funny people always ask
me my biggest mistakes and I was trying to come up with something because i
don’t like to think about my mistakes I actually like this respect my mistakes
it’s a very interesting thing like I recognize them right but I give them no fucking energy
like I really like cool mistake you go over there right to you but no question
my biggest mistakes of the things that I passed on and and done no like it was interesting to
think about like that did not happen right like I could have been a judge on
Top Chef I could have done all these other
business shows like there’s a lot of things you know that i always think
about the things that I haven’t done the investing right I’ve done well but
passing on twenty twice was the clear one window to
everybody but everybody having that all right let’s go daniela asks I’m an immigrant with an
entrepreneurial dream all my parents

– [Voiceover] Mark asks “What’s
one question nobody has ever asked you that you
really wish they would?” – You’re right, I hate
this question, India. I don’t know. I feel so comfortable bragging
and having my own ego and tooting my own horn because I
think that’s appropriate. I think you should be your
number one fan and as long as you’re balancing it with humility
and I know people will catch you in different moments and
that’s why you think you’re egotistical but as long as your
balanced for yourself the market will
come around to you. Because I’m comfortable I wish
people asked more about that I’m not a marketing guru that
build tens of millions, hundred million dollar
companies, right? But I don’t have to ask
that because I say it. Right? I wish people asked me more
questions about me being a good HR driven CEO and me having a
lot more humility and patience and kindness and empathy than
they are but I don’t need them to ask that question
because I say it. And so I don’t have a want or
need of any question because most people that have want or
need of a question is they want to use somebody else’s question
as is the disguise to brag. It’s why we
created humble bragging. And I think we should
just be more transparent. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook so
many people love that and they learned and they’ve
been successful and right. Give, give, give
and then ask cleanly. Yet when acting humble
or acting with bravado, they want to mix it.
Humble brag. They want to mix it. They want people to ask
them questions because that’s their opening
to brag a little. My think the way you talk about
yourself and the way you paint a narrative to the world
should follow the jab, jab, jab, right hook. Humility, humility,
humility, ego. Maybe I’m in the jab, jab,
right hook, right hook business and so there’s equal
parts of both. But I think that the reason I’ve
never wanted anybody to ask me a question is because
anything I really want to say I’ll say.
Both pro and con. Somebody left a comment
in the DailyVees of like Gary admits he’s sorry a lot. I guess on the from the
phone calls like sorry team. Sure if you’re going
to amplify your W’s you have to accept your L’s.

listening and going
through people’s twitter feed. Finding stuff they’re interested
in, responding to that. – [Gary] Yes. – You’ve now evolved to a
book called #AskGaryVee,– – [Gary] Yes. – and it’s very much your show
is now focused on you and your world–
– [Gary] Not true. It’s all listening. – What’s shift? – [Gary] Nothing shifted.
– Nothing shifted? Think about what you just said. Let’s break it down #AskGaryVee
is completely predicated on me listening to you first. No, it’s true. – That’s not the sense I get. I’ve been
following you for a while. We’ve communicated
with each other. – [Gary] Yes. – We follow each
other on Twitter. – [Gary] Yes, yep. – I felt a shift and the shift was
very much it’s all about you.– – [Gary] Yep, yes. – to a little bit
it’s all about me. – [Gary] Yeah. Well then, I’m doing a poor job. I totally understand
because how could I argue that if that’s what you feel. So maybe my bad job was the
tactic of it being #AskGaryVee instead of ask everybody, right,
may be it’s something like that. I don’t know man I’ve never felt
like I’ve been able to provide more value than
I’m doing right now. May be the positioning. May
be what’s going on with the positioning is throwing it off
but I’ve never been at the scale of engagement so Thank You
Economy I really feel like this is absolutely evolution of it
because instead of me putting out content that I want to put
out its completely predicated on everybody else. Right? I’m answering and
engaging more than I ever have. I’m producing more
about myself than ever and maybe
that’s the shift. Right? I’ve never had DRock following
me around so I have empathy for where you’re going with it. – And by the way, the reason I
ask is a lot of people ask me

respect for business people if they go
off and rely on you wanna take pics etc do you feel respected or used I feel
flattered I mean I don’t I definitely don’t respond I don’t disrespect that
it’s the same way I reacted Brandon Marshall or you know when you’re into
something if you’re into you know the great blessing of my life another nice
thing that happened to me was I in the prime of my career when this
entrepreneurship became something people want to talk about right and so I mean
for the things that I was taught that I was a loser at from first grade to 12th
grade has now become the foundation of people wanting to take some things with
me the streets of New York I do not
disrespect somebody I don’t feel like that first of all if they’re saying how
I roll I already think I have an edge on all of you so there’s nothing to change
right if you ask me for something I don’t think like oh now I got you I
think I got you from the get I think I’m better than everybody and that we were
way when it comes to my business uniform on so I don’t think it changes my
relationship that somebody wants to do that I equally be located do that to a
Jets offensive lineman because that’s the thing I’m passionate and excited
about for me the feeling is very simple I’m flattered and humbled I actually
think the people that like me and are able to get through my facade of energy
and ego and bravado and actually value my content are quite smart and probably
have a little bit more each year and maybe that’s my own ego talking about
myself but the truth is that I look at it and so I’m actually intrigued by my
fan base you know a lot of people are always let you know a lot of you’re like
me you should more YouTube followers like more people should know Gary be all
the stuff that you guys are not so easy to figure out my friends we talk about
this is why post on internet like what was your first reaction to be because I
want you guys it’s not for me to feel great about myself I really got that
check that box that set for life it’s for you to see how other people reacted
to learn why this is all happening I’m a little bit of a contradiction I’m not
sure easy to figure out and so if somebody comes up to me as I like your
stuff the things that I default into the quick rush of emotion the blood rushes
to my head is like holy crap number two is like anybody else see this like that
India see this see how popular you know like number three is interesting that
they were able to figure out why you know those are the things that tend to
rush to my great good show good show right now it’s funny question of the day

– [Voiceover] Gabriel asks,
“What is the best example “in your life, where your ego
has gotten the best of you? “How significant was it in retrospect?” – Well, this is great, right, because you’ve already dropped ego. I almost called this The Ego Show. So you know, what was the question? – When the ego got the best of you? – [India] And how significant
was it in retrospect? – Oh my gosh, should I go? – Sure. Yeah go ahead. – For me, oh man. Any relationship that I’ve been in I allow my ego to get the
best of me in the past. Where it’s like–
– With, like, girls you mean? – Yes, yes.
– [Gary] Okay, go ahead. – [Lewis] And then it just
affects me, it like consumes every decision.
– [Gary] What’s the ego part? Like you think you’re hotter than them? – No, no, it’s like after we break up or end things, it’s like– – You don’t wanna call first? And say, “That was a cool run”? – I don’t know it’s just like
I’m still holding onto things and I can’t let certain
things go, and I’m mad still or pissed, or why it didn’t work out. And that, holding onto things as opposed to fully letting go, – Yeah. – will hold me back in
other areas of my life, and just my health, my business. Like making clear decisions. And that ego, I gotta fully
let go in those situations. – Interesting. – What about you? – For me, I think with ego, I think it’s things that I don’t know. – I thought you know everything. – Well, I know everything
that actually has happened. So, maybe my ego of recognizing, well no, hear me out India. Like, let me give you an example. I know you’re laughing over
there and having a good time. Let me explain. I would tell you that I slash, it was the right business
decision, but ego of not doing a lot of television
shows because I feel like the world’s gonna change
and I’ll wanna own the IP, maybe kept me away from being
50 thousand times bigger because clearly I’d be incredible. I’d probably be the biggest TV star in TV if I decided to do a TV show.
– [Lewis] Why haven’t you still done a show? – [Gary] Because I still believe
in this thesis which is– – Why can’t you do both? – You can, you can! – What are you waiting for? – You know I’m busy as shit here, what do you think is going on? I’m busy! – I’m overwhelmed just being in here. – You’re on one of the
three floors of four offices like there’s a lot going on. So I wonder if ego has kept
me away from mainstream media. – But, you were just on
Bloomberg this morning, right? – Yeah, that’s different
than hosting a show. – You’d be the biggest TV
personality in the world. – I believe that Lewis, say it again. India, you say it too. – You would be the biggest TV personality in the world.
– [India] You want me to say? – Yeah, I want you to say it because I know you don’t want to say it. No, I want you to say it. – You’d be so huge on television. – [Gary] No, see what she did, she hedged. – Nobody would ever be able
to be on TV after you again. – That was good. Cut that clip for me,
DRock, just a ringtone. I think there’s been an
enormous amount of things that have impacted me, predicated my ego. I just don’t know what they are because they’re the
things that I didn’t do, versus the things that I did. The things that I’ve done with
my ego, I know the outcomes. They’ve all been pretty damn positive. It’s the things that I’m passing on, that I can never play out and
know what would have happened. That’s where my upside is on the table. Me being bigger, financially, brand, happiness, opportunity, me
being bigger is predicated on my no’s, not my yes’s. – What would be the ultimate
show that you could have on any network, any time? Who would you be doing it with? Would it be yourself? What topic? – You know what’s funny, I’ve
thought about that a lot. And I don’t think about it a lot. Meaning, I used to think about the format, what would I want to do. I’m so not in the mindset of
having a TV show right now. I’m so enjoying this. I’m enjoying the way I’m
going about marketing this and the white spaces and
where the world’s going and how over the top
is changing the world. Look, if I had a business show on Netflix, if Netflix came to me right now
and said we want to make you our business show, that would
be really tough to say no to. So I would say that,
because it’s of the moment. – Really, not mainstream cable or network, or anything like that? – No, because I’d rather
go to where the pucks going and I’d rather be part
of the narrative of, you know those shows, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black,
whatever sports deal they do, and then that business show. That’s where they competed
with CNBC, ya know? – That’s what I did with the
podcast, I saw the opportunity. – Yeah, that’s exactly right. And that’s where the upside is, you wait and you let the puck come to you. I would say CNBC and Bloomberg
are interesting to me because it’s just right
down the pipe of business. Yeah, I just can’t get there. India? – This one, we’re both
wearing all black today.

I kinda been keeping up on
Facebook and your Twitter and I saw where people were struggling with identifying your passion as opposed to calling it cockiness. You know, along with
passion comes confidence and I understand that well
’cause I’m the same way when it comes to what I do. I was just wondering,
how do you handle that? It’s something that I’ve
dealt with my whole life. Where most, some people don’t understand that your love for
something or your passion for what you’re doing, it shines through and people have a hard
time understanding that. So I wanted to know what is
that you do to cope with that? What is it that you do
to try to help people better understand that? And I think that can also
help take me into next level. To the next level in what I do and I wanna just find out how
it is that you handle that. Look forward to hearing
back from you, thank you. – All right, world champ,
Draymond Green on the show. Staphon, you must — – [Staphon] No, it’s a great day. (laughs) – Thanks Draymond. I think, you know– First of all, thanks
for watching the show. Show. (laughs) I have a feeling and
I’ve watched from afar how you’ve been handling this as well ’cause you’ve clearly established yourself especially with the Golden State Warriors run to a championship this year. A lot more people are aware of you and you definitely come with a
lot of confidence and bravado And really interesting, right? Your story connects with me because you’re an undersized, power forward
who sometimes guards centers in the NBA and now, I just
read an article the other day that everybody in the
off-season is talking about finding their
Draymond Green in the NBA. That you’ve been
mentioned more than LeBron this off-season about
how small ball can work. You’ve literally, through
self confidence, perseverance I also know a little bit about
how your mother raised you so I caught that part of your narrative, that’s interesting to me. I think we actually connect pretty well. As a matter of fact, I
actually think that you and I should play one on one. (laughs) In an episode of the #AskGaryVee Show. Just to see if it’s humanly
possible for me to score a point I think this is one of
the things that I love about people that think
they can play NBA players on one-on-one. I actually think that people don’t realize how pretty consistent an NBA player against anybody who never
went past high school level basketball can shut them out 11 – nothing in a one-on-one game. So I would be super pumped
if I could score points with Draymond, that challenge is on. I think you might duck me
because I think you’re scared and you know we’re gonna film it. (laughs) But to answer your question, to answer your question in full. I think you just have to do you and I think that’s what you’re doing. I think I talk about the
truth being undefeated. I’m a 39 year old man. You’re in your 20’s, early, mid-20’s. Early 20’s. I know that you and I and
everybody in this room, and everybody watching
and listening to the show, we all want, we all
think about who we are. Social media’s been
really interesting to me because I think social
media’s been the first tangible expression of how
everybody wants to PR themselves to the world. Even the people that poo-poo it or try to play too cool for school or don’t believe in it, they don’t understand. Subconsciously, every
single piece of content that every person has ever
put out on social media has been absolutely
thought through and is– Not like, you’re thinking about it. It’s been thought through subconsciously. It is the action end
results of a narrative that you’ve been painting in your mind your whole life of who you are. Who you want to be. The ambition that you want. I have outrageous disproportionate want to be considered one of the
great businessmen of all time. And want to be known about how I did it. And they way I treated
people along the way. I am very far away from that. For as much as you guys love
me and as much as they– You have to understand, 99% of the world has no idea who I am. I have still not amassed
the kind of wealth that can give me the halo effect to talk about being a tangible
execution to that level. So, I’m still so far away but I know at 80 my
actions are gonna basically be the result of my wants. And I think you want to be great and you’ve already, at such a young age, hit the apex of your career
so you’ve got a different game than I do but I think
along with, he’s cocky or he’s this or she’s cocky and she’s that comes all the stories behind the scenes that people don’t know. That I’m sure, and I’m not sure. I hope that behind the scenes you’re doing these things for fans. And behind the scenes when
your competitor beats you, even though you’ve put
everything to it, there’s– As much as I hate the
Patriots, as much as might hate that you got knocked
out of the playoffs. Even if you’re kinda sour
about it, and I get sour. If I lose 11-nothing, I
wouldn’t even shake your hand. Even though I’m telling you
to shake that person’s hand in my advice right now.
(laughs) It’s really there, it’s that
respect level to the game. I think as long as you respect the game and respect, and this
something that I think a lot of people struggle with. I respect where I’m at right now. Because it’s the game. I could think maybe I’m slightly behind. I could think I should be
a little further along. I’m just not. And it’s a net net game. I think that you want people
to see you as self-confident not egotistical. You want people to see
that you’re working hard, that you’re not cheap in the trenches. So those actions just have
to be that way, right. They just have to be that way. So for me, I think you just do you and let the chips fall where they may and I have funny feeling you’re okay with what they’re saying along the way as long as you feel good about it. And for me, that’s my game too. Plenty of people say things and I just feel good about it. I feel real damn good about it. ‘Cause I’ll see you. I’ll see you soon and we’ll talk about it.

and Gary, the question I have for you is about all this talk you’ve had about self-awareness lately and I love the idea of
understanding what our talents are and what they’re not but my fear is that we’re gonna get into a mindset of things we can and can’t do. Robert Browning says, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” I want people think that they can try and do a lot of different things and I’m afraid it’ll bleed to our children and make them start saying
what they’re good at and what they’re not good at. Let me know how you feel about that and how you can incorporate that into your self-awareness talk. – Ted, big ups to you. First and foremost, you’ve
been, you know, again, back to the theme of the show not digging fully deep, I’m not completely sure
but it’s been really fun to watch from afar of
you amassing an audience and people really respect
you and kudos, do your thing. I think this is a great
question and a challenging one. First and foremost, here’s
the way I answer it. This. Nothing completely one way
or the other is ever healthy. You should always be
pulling from directions, finding a blend. I will say that I think people
are way more, at this point, June 2015, in belief that
they can do anything, are good at everything,
should try everything, should work on their weaknesses so I believe that I’m being aggressive in starting a conversation
that lends itself to like drawing a line of
strengths and weaknesses that I think is very small. I do not believe this
is a big conversation. I believe modern parenting is like, hey little Steve, you
can do anything you want. Steve sucks at basketball. (laughter) He can’t do everything he wants and the amount of people
that want to play basketball for a living or sing or
wanna be an engineer. You know, like a, entrepreneur, I mean you know how I feel about that. So, I think that, Ted,
I think you’re right. I think right at this moment, my point of view on this is so small compared to the overall conversatIon that I’m going 100% all in and I don’t want to hedge
against it with your point which is correct because I think the whole
market’s hedging against it and thus, I’m just trying to crackle it. It’s the same way I talk
about social media marketing versus traditional TV. I believe in TV but I don’t
need to advocate for TV. 99% of the market’s advocating for TV. I believe that the
market, 90% of the market is advocating for you
can do whatever you want, you should try to do everything,
you should push yourself. They package it in you
should try new things and push yourself. I don’t think people
are talking enough about be very self-aware, know
what you’re good at, force yourself, guys, I don’t know if you’ve broken this down. Do you know what forcing yourself to be self-aware, do you know
what that process entails? Drinking a shit-load of humble kool-aid. Uh-huh, like it’s insane of how much, like, it’s why I talk about liking to lose. Like, it’s insane of how much humility I’ve had to instill to now
make it optically look like I have too much ego and self-esteem. So many of you, the first
time you consumed me, some of you, like I’m really
getting in my Facebook mentions as a lot of you have noticed. Plenty of people sharing my stuff and their friends are
saying screw this guy, ego for days, full of himself. I get it but what it actually is is the post game of me being really humble every minute of my life to recognize what I should stay away from. And I think people have
not gotten into that gear so Ted I would say that I
get it and I agree with you. And everything should
have a push and a pull. I just think the market is way, way in the direction of (pats Steve’s back) and I think that we need a
hell of a more a lot of like you kinda suck at that, you
may want to focus on that. Now, if you love that, then do it. But you need to know what
that comes along with which is if you love singing
more than breathing, cool but you’re gonna wait tables and you’re gonna make eight bucks and that’s great! Because guess what? I pay the price for doing what I love in a lot of different ways. And so that’s just life. That’s just life.

– [Voiceover] Mike wants to know, “Are you building an
eco-system or an ego-system?” – Michael, this is a
great, great question, and I think the answer is both. I think the true answer is both. I think that I’ve
created an infrastructure of free content and interaction and organization that has created an ecosystem. It’s super hard to argue. I mean, wait ’til “Crushed It” comes out, the book that follows the 400 people, which is 400 of the 4,000 people that read “Crush It”
and their lives changed. Go read the comments in the Facebook posts and in the Instagram
posts around this show of people literally, in the last 30 days, ’cause I’m reading them all, just talking about how, like, weird, watching 100 episodes of
this has changed their life. They make more money, like, real life stuff. So that’s an ecosystem. On the flip side, it’s very centraled around a human being, right? Me. And that’s an ego-system, so I think the answer is both, and I think that, you know, I think like anything in life, there’s a very fine line. I often use Oprah to
bunch of spammy gurus. She just walked the fine line of inspiration and motivation just right to create all-time great billionaireship and all-time great impact, whereas, gosh, if she just turned an inch in the other direction, and if you look at her early career, she
probably was in that lane, and I think when she was able to squeak it a little bit more to the left, it took her to the stratosphere. Look, I think I’m
walking a very fine line, and I think I’m walking it properly, and I think I believe that because I just clearly know myself best and know my motivations, and I think that if you were to intimately look under the hood of
my actions and career, you would see all the dollars
I’m leaving on the table, which I think usually tend to be the motivator that forces people to get on the wrong side of the road of this eco-ego system
that you talk about. And so I think the answer is both. I very much thrive off the attention, the pressure, the admiration, the trolling and hating. It’s all part of it, and I think I’m capable and
I have broad enough shoulders and puffy enough chests to be able to deal with it, and so the answer is both, and I think done right, done properly, by all standards of the seven-person jury, I think it’s the way to
pull off a great legacy, and that’s what I’m trying to do.