office even though I have a meeting I
feel guilty about leaving my team in the office I’m scared of my team thinks that
the bosses are explained how to find it always taking a long break at lunch and
have ice PCR results like if you’re playing around and having a coffee with
this person and networking that person was sitting courtside Knicks game and
you aren’t working but you bring somebody to make a ten million dollar
deal it’s called mother fuckin result in a funny thing squashes all the boss
doesn’t do anything results so you know how to deal with it
it’s you know it’s it’s first you know it’s funny it’s first wrapping you know
I grew up in a world that my dad taught me and I executing the first ten years
of my career that was predicated on being at the store meant you were
bringing value and like and so I get it actually get that question hardcore I
barely ever left one library in the first ten years of my career I was in
the same goddamn place like every day Monday through Saturday every single day
for like 10 years from 9 I was super flex cable you know it was so I get it and you know
what it was a mistake I shouldn’t take more trips to wine country I should have
not got more done doors and done b2b and 1,200 cases that
a pop took corporations in New Jersey I shoulda got out and about and so you
know if you’re kind of boss that goes to off-site and then thinking and parties
at night and your business goes down well then people feel like you didn’t
deliver and so you get away with anything if you drive results I don’t
think anybody have any more questions me being around are not being around
because of the results and so that’s it i mean you know the score is the score
you know you know it doesn’t matter how you get there cheating doing the wrong things the
moral compass matters but if you’re able to do things on the up and up then the
scores the square ATF is it a beautiful interruption here consumers day a good
thing or should it be seeing us because

“engage to become the number
one knowledge leader?” – Ah, T this is such a good question. India you’re getting very
strategic about your book ending of questions, I’m very
proud of you actually today. You’ve really grown in your
DJing of question skills. – [India] Thank you.
– Great year for you. – [India] It was a good year. – The reason I said that is India knows that I’m gonna go off on this one mainly because it’s such a simple answer T. Yes there’s so much noise and there’s so much bad crap and the
way to break through, this is crazy now, stick
with me, is to actually be the best and actually have the skills that allow you to break through. Being a thought leader
is no different than being the best football player in America. How does one become, with all the people that want to be a
professional football player, you know, 80% of dudes that are 15, 60, whatever I don’t know. Of all those people how do
you become Aaron Rogers? Crazy thing, you have to
have the natural ability and then you have to put
so much work into that ability that you rise
above all the other people that equally had around the
same level of that ability. How do you become the thought leader or the one in your space? You need to be the best. The reason I was the one in the wine space is for 15 years, since I
was 15, before I started Wine Library TV, I had learned an insane amount about wine, I had
executed for eight years running the fastest
growing and then ultimately one of the biggest wine
businesses in America. I amassed my knowledge,
I went all in, I worked 15 hours a day and then
I started content on what would then become
one of the most important communication tools of
our time called Youtube on top of the internet and
then after I showed everybody the way, every other wine
personality decided to get a camera like this and do it too. That was 2006, 7, 8,
and 9 was in wine world. They’re like wait, if that
idiot can do it, I can do it. And then I had to be the
best and that’s what this business show’s about,
there’s a lot of other business shows, either
I’m gonna be the most valuable for you or the
second most valuable or the third most valuable or
you’re not going to watch me. It’s the quality. You break through, not by your tactics. You break through by your
ability and your skills. It’s the truth, that’s whats
so great about a market. The customer gets to decide,
not you, not me, not you. And so, you go out there and you execute and then you let the chips fall. Do you know how many people are running around on Youtube and
Instagram and Twitter right now trying to do my tactics? A lot. See it everyday. Do they have the same business acume? Do they have the same business skills? Do they have the same 20 years of experience of running businesses? Do they have the same
history of being right where the consumer behavior
is going in the country? Not as much and there are others that are. And there’s plenty of
you watching right now, there’s a 16 year old
watching this right now whose got more chops than me whose gonna put in just as much work as me and he’s gonna go out and win. There’s a girl right now in Alabama who has more natual DNA to understand what the consumers are gonna do in 2020 and 2030 and if she puts in the work, cause she’s gonna,
she’s gonna go and she’s gonna be bigger and more successful and more dominant than me. That’s what’s awesome about the game. That’s how you break through the clutter. You break through all that crap that you decided is crap by being
better than that crap. Now let’s just see if
you’re not that crap too.

Pat from Smart Passive
Income, quick question, when you get a new idea, when a new idea pops into your head, how
do you, do you have a validation process before
actually taking action on that idea to make sure
it’s worth it or not? Do you have a vetting process,
does your team help you? I’m curious because a
lot of us entrepreneurs, we have a ton of ideas, how do you know which ones are going to work or not. And to follow it up,
do you have an example? – That’s a great, great, great, great, great, great, great question. I’ve two processes. One is completely emotional, the other one is completely rational. There have been ideas,
a la, the #AskGaryVee Show where literally in one shot, though it’s perculated a little bit, in one moment I go, I execute against
the idea and I let the results speak for themselves
and I can stop it. For everytime I look like
a hero, where I make the first episode of Wine Library TV
or #AskGaryVee and I say we’re gonna look back at
this and this was right. There’s seven other things
that I have done like that which are floating
in the internets, and I’m gonna be, we’re gonna look
back at this and be like merr. My first picture from Flickr,
my first picture for Flickr. – [India] I have it somewhere. – Do you have it somewhere? My first picture from Flickr I drew out gourmetlibrary.com. Drew it and I said one day
this will be one of the most iconic pictures in my
life or something like that. And it was because at
that time I thought I was gonna launch gourmetlibrary.com
and I knew that I was gonna build $100 million gourmet business. What happened was I
started Wine Library TV two months later as well
and that became the thing and I never got around to
really doing gourmet library. So, I think I got that intuitive part. The other part is like Wine Library TV, since February, since
really like March or April of 2005 I knew that I
wanted to do a Youtube show. That it was gonna be
big, but it took me until February ’06 to start Wine Library TV. I knew that I wanted
to do an ecommerce site in ’94 but I really didn’t launch it until ’96 but really run it until ’98. I know that I’m going
to buy a brand one day. Puma, Snickers, you know
Pabst Blue Ribbon but I’m perculating and learning for
10 years before that moment. So, I’ve both, but Pat
really the answer is it’s very internal, I don’t go
to my dad or to Brittany and be like hey Britt what do you think. Like, I don’t give a shit
what Brittany thinks. Now that is either a strength
or a weakness, sorry Brit. That’s either a strength
or a weakness but I want to give you the truth which
is I go very internal, I feel it with myself, I
care, you know what’s funny? I don’t care what Brittany
says as my consultant or teammate, I care what
Brittany does as a consumer. I respect the market over
my friends, my family, the people I respect and even myself. And so I think the way to find out what the market’s gonna feel and do is by giving them a chance to react to it. So, I let the things that
I feel the most bubble up and then I execute against those things and then I let the chips
fall where they may. – [India] I found it.
– You found the picture? – The caption is so
funny, one day everyone will know why this pic is so amazing. – Oh my God, see this
is so cool because look, I mean obviously you’re
gonna put the subs on, the so is very similar to show. – Yeah. – That’s unbelievable, one
day, December 30, 2005, oh my God, this is
literally, what’s today? – [India and man] The 16th. – This is literally,
literally a decade ago. Like, two weeks short of a decade ago. There’s a picture of the
pasta I ate while I drew out gourmetlibrary.com
and one day everyone will know why this pic is so amazing. And I’m gonna tell you why
this pic is so amazing, though I didn’t execute on
gourmet library ten years ago, and big shout out to
Eric Caster and John Kay who were there with me that day. Even though I didn’t, this
date was the two week period, this was the height of the
holidays, this date represents the day that I knew that
I wasn’t gonna be in the wine business the rest of my life. This picture really
represents the transformation into what all of you have known me to become over the last ten years. – The dirty bowl is so significant though. – I told you that one day everyone would understand why this pic is so. – I even bookmarked it
cause we were eating. – Cause it’s so amazing, that’s cool. – [India] That is cool. – I’m a little bit emotional about that.

“has been boring for way too long! “What would #AskGaryVee
do to create a bad a- “golf coaching business?” – Well golf is boring. I’m just kidding with that. So wait, Matthew starts
with golf coaching, – [India] The golf coaching world’s been boring for way too long.
– [Gary] Got it. Now look I mean, every world
is boring in a lot of ways outside of heavy entertainment
genres or high energy genres until a personality comes along. I would say for the
common American financing and finance news was boring
until Jim Cramer came along. I take a lot of pride in the fact that a lotta people through the years, tens of thousands maybe
hundreds of thousands, have told me that wine was
boring until I came along and so you’re always one personality away. You know Howard Cosell
changed sportscasting. I think you’re one extreme, high-energy, entertaining person away from changing an entire culture. And so this is quite basic. I mean to me any time
something becomes exciting it’s on the back of a human
being making it exciting. And so, Emeril Lagasse made chef culture, you know, less boring by saying pow or whatever he did right and that was in the early 90’s. So the answer to your questions is, and I assume you’re
alluding this way Matthew, listen Matthew if you’ve got the chops, if you’ve got the charisma,
if you’re entertaining enough then you will be that person. And I think that’s an important thing for everybody to understand. Everything is based and
predicated on the actions, you know everybody who wants
a change, you know my tagline on Wine Library TV is we’re
changing the wine world whether they like it or not. Caught a lot of people’s
attention and brings a lot of people coming to me
around this question. If you, you’re actions
have to represent the thing that you want to happen and
so please anybody who’s trying to change the hair extension
world, or the art world, or the music world, or you
know whatever, the making apps for the iPhone, like
whatever thing you’re trying to change you’re either
changing it or you’re not. Your actions are creating
your change and so when I hear that question, if you’re
not putting out the content that’s compelling and
entertaining experience well then there’s no talking about it. Like if you’ve been doing
it, then it’s happening and if you’re not doing it, it’s
not happening and saying that you’re gonna do it or asking me to, for the answer to it,
it’s just the actions. It’s every single boring
world can be changed. Science, there’s people that
make science interesting and literature interesting,
it’s out there. Like LeVar Burton made reading
interesting with his rainbow. I mean like you know anybody can do it. So, that’s the answer. It’s just a human being coming
along and being entertaining within the genre and having the expertise to not have the experts
laugh them off the stage and make it seem like they’re
a comedian, just doing that. And I think that’s what it comes down to. The equal parts, you actually know what the hell you’re talking
about with golf lessons and golf culture and really know golf and can really teach and then you’re also ridiculously handsome and
charismatic to execute that entertainment factor.

“from telling blatant
lies about my business, “without stooping to their level?” – Craig, by recognizing those blatant lies have no impact on your future. Now, stick with me here. It’s hard, because you’ll say, “no way, Gary, it’s already had an impact. This person stopped working
with me because of that lie.” Net net with me, my friend. Net net with me. If they’re lies, and they may not be, let’s first make sure
they’re lies, my man. But if they’re lies, you will win. Lies have been, people have
tried that tactic on me, you will never, ever win that game if you’re on the lying end. Like, the truth is undefeated. You just have to be patient. So, the fact of the matter is, that’s too much on your mind. By you even asking me this
question, it’s bubbled up, and it’s really no different, and I’m sorry to use this, ’cause it’s an extreme version of it, and it’s obviously top
of everybody’s mind. It’s really, in some weird way,
no different than terrorism. Like, terrorism works
because people get scared, and that’s propaganda. Right? And of course things happen, but what they’re trying to
do is get people not to fly, not to go to Europe,
like, all these things. They scare you, they make these videos and say “we’re gonna go
after all these places” to scare people in those places. That’s how it works. That’s what that is as
well, which is like, they’re trying to propaganda your clients into believing that. But when there’s a net result a year later, two years later, when people are like, “oh,
Gary’s just good at Twitter. VaynerMedia’s not,” I mean, you know people said
VaynerMedia was gonna fail because I’m just a social media pundit, I’m just bullshit and
pizzazz, I’m all this? Well, they lost. Because now here we are. And so as long as you’re
confident in your execution, please do not spend time
going on the defense against your competitors
who are lying about you. Just go do your thing and let the results show for themselves. This is a very important thing. People get way too hung up on their negative comments on YouTube, the competition making lies about them. The results always speak for themselves. Marky Mark was not gonna
transition into a real celebrity, until Mark Wahlberg did it. Justin Bieber was always
just gonna be a teeny bopper until he put out fire. Right? Like, the truth always wins. Period. – [India] Nice.

and we’re about to perform at MedLife Stadium with the marching band. My question to you is, if you have a great idea for a business or a product, what’s the next step you should take? – Well, I think, great question. – He followed up, too. – Yes, there was a little
bit of that yesterday, he followed up, I said yeah we got you, ’cause we already had you, and then everybody was
like, oh is that how you get on the show, and all this stuff. So anyway, I think it’s very simple. The next step is to go and do it. You and all your band-mates,
all of you got good ideas. Everybody here’s got a good idea. This dude’s got a good idea, she’s got a great idea,
she’s got a great idea. Everybody, everybody’s got ideas. What you do next is you make it happen. Maybe you quit band and
you go make it happen. Maybe you go ask money
from your Uncle Milton and that’s how you make it happen. Maybe you find a partner
that can build your app, you go to meetups, you’ve
got to make it happen. I don’t know if that’s money,
that’s time, that’s a partner that can actually build out what you need, but the answer always, youngster,
is go and make it happen. The ideas, the thoughts, are nice. I always say, ideas are
shit, execution’s the game. I say that on purpose. I’m actually gonna use this
video as a clarification. Staphon, cut this out
because I’m gonna need it ’cause everybody gets mad at
me, and they’re not wrong. You’ve got to have, a
great idea’s a great idea. It’s just, there’s so many of those. There’s so many great ideas, there’s way less great executions. The 7,000 greatest ideas of all time, never saw the day of light. They just haven’t. Because execution’s
hard, and that’s the key. And so, yes, ideas are amazing, and I’m sure your idea is wonderful. But I equally believe that
everybody’s ideas are wonderful. There’s a lot of great
ideas that are wonderful. I’ve seen a hell of a
lot more people execute very below-average ideas
to build amazing lives. There’s unlimited
multi-million dollar companies, people have made millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of
dollars, had tremendous success in business on
executing an average idea. Know what’s an average idea? A social and digital agency. That’s a below-average idea. It worked. Like, it’s good, it allows AJ
to have Tyler as an employee. So I think that’s the
key to that question. – [Voiceover] Mike asks, “What have you

So my question is, you’re always super busy, always looking to take on more. How do you do it all? – Let’s let this guy answer that. – Steve, that was a pretty good question, but a really simple answer
to the question, which is, it just comes down to time. At the end of the day, Steve, because you’ve worked at
VaynerMedia for four years, I know that you work, I don’t know, seven, eight, nine hours. I work 18. Just the volume of hours
allows me to do a lot more. Steve, think about it this way. I’m probably living twice
the life that you are. What it comes down to is, there’s just a lot more
hours of execution, and then also recognizing how
few things actually matter. One of the things, as you
know as a Vayner employee, we had a company-wide meeting once talking about, let’s cut meetings in half. All those hour meetings can be 30. All those 30 meetings can be 15. At the end of the day, I
think the biggest thing that people don’t understand is, they waste time on dumb shit. So if you have six minute meetings, if you have a two minute call
when it’s scheduled for 15, and when you actually work 18 hours a day, you can just fit in a lot more stuff. I think it comes down
to, ultimately, intent. How much do you want to accomplish? What do you want to get done? And for me, that’s a lot
of professional stuff. In those massive amounts of hours, if I maximize the width,
18 hours versus nine, and if I fit 97 things in, because you really only need
seven minutes, not 15 or 30, the amount of lollygagging that goes on by 99 percent of the market in meetings or the things they’re supposed
to do is extraordinary. So keeping it tight and
creating a lot of volume is how I execute.

“Medium’s new logo? “I loved their simplicity
and this new logo’s ruined “that for me.” – Shannon, this is an
interesting question. I’m an investor for Medium. That was the first investment we made in Vayner/RSE when we
transitioned to that world. I’m a humongous fan. I’m on the record
thinking that Ev Williams is one of the less than
a handful executives in the world that most
understands the consumer behavior of the modern internet world. He’s proven it Blogger,
Twitter, Medium he’s a beast. Talk about somebody
that is inspirational to me, that I’m competitive
with, because straight chops coming out of every
angle, that being said, this is one of the single worst
logo shifts I’ve ever seen. I was devastated the other day. I didn’t read about it,
I didn’t hear about it, I got on a plane, like my app updated, and I’m like, where’s
my black, what is this piece of crap? Holy crap, I hate it. I’m scared that this is gonna be passed on to medium employees
and the designer that made it sees this. Here’s the good news. It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m just one man’s point-of-view. There’s plenty of people that may like it. I don’t know. Just to answer the question straight, I really don’t like it. I feel like it blends in
with all the other stuff, whereas the other one,
now, I could be old man McGee, and I just got
used to the other one. I don’t know. But to answer it straight,
I don’t like it at all. But here’s the best part
about names and logos. It doesn’t matter. If they execute on the
product, and the service, and the narrative, and the user experience, and the many other things, I truly believe the
easiest thing to get over is the name and the logo. It’s the execution. It’s a good way to round
up this whole thing, right? How do you be a good listener. You don’t talk about it, you do it. What do you think about this logo or name? It doesn’t matter. Because what you execute
is what the end result is, and it just a very good
narrative for this show, and this theme of 150.5
episodes, which is, it’s about what you do. Keep talk, you know why I talk? Because I back that shit up and it feels double good. But a lot of you are talking
and never back it up, period. And you need to start backing it up. As a matter of fact, let me
remind you one more time, I didn’t talk shit at all
until I was 30 years old and I already have the win on the board to be able to talk about it. So, for a lot of the
youngsters, why don’t you go out and execute and talk shit. All of you social media or
life coach experts at 23, get the (beeps) out of here with that. And number two, all you
40-year-olds complaining this, that, and everything,
go do something about it. You’re a grown-ass man. You’re a grown-ass woman. Stop talking about not
being able to do it, or it’s so hard, or I don’t get it, or it’s different, or these
20-year-olds are lazy. Stop complaining, go do. Go do. Doing, doing, execution
is the only narrative. What you leave on the
table as your body of work is the game, right? And that’s that. Simple as that, period.

“good listener?” – Malik, I think good
listening comes from actual intent and actually wanting
to be a good listener. Like anything in the world,
when you want to beat something, be something, and beat. I wanna beat some things right now. If you wanna be something,
you need to actually mean it. Meaning, I decided I
wanted to get in better shape and health, I just
went out and did it. Like words are such shit. You know what’s the matter
with a lot of people? Like a lot of people. A lot of people watching this show, a lot of people in the
world, a lot of people, is there’s only actions. You know I always talk about
intent is what matters, right? Like at the end of the
day, I’m publicly tending, every time of that, I get tons of comments with like scripture
from the Bible, I think. I apologize I’m not up
on that, but I think I’m pretty sure what it’s like. Intense is good for leading things like, basically it says, intent’s great,
but like you can say you have good intent, but if your actions are you’re doing wrong things, like, and I get it. To me, like intent is the starting point so I think it’s nice to start there, but I agree. I agree. Words are the problem. Malik, you wanna be a good listener? Be a good (beeps) listener. Like, when somebody’s talking, listen. When somebody’s saying something, listen and try to do that. Because listening is not just listening, listening is listening
and then doing something about it. Like there’s a comma. The definition of listening
is consuming it and doing something about it. The problem is that
most people aren’t doing things about it. Just a whole lot of talking. A whole lot of talking
going on in the game.

However, I do have a question for you. I am developing an app with a partner. Basically the first time we built it we had an initial name and branding. However we discovered that there was a potential competitor with a similar name so we decided to go with
another branding oppertunity that we had, however
now there’s another app with the same name and a similar premise. My overall belief is that we have the superior product and
a way better strategy. My question though is do we continue to have the same name as
our potential competitor or do we completely
rebrand ourselves again to find a new name. What is your insights on this? Thank you so much Gary, you’re awesome. – That was amazing I love it. Man, that was amazing. I don’t think it matters. Next question. Fine, I’ll go into a little bit. You know, look. I don’t think it’s convenient to have a similar name with a similar
premise to a competitor. I think, you know, if Twitter came out when Twotter came out, it would have been awkward. Especially if there was
a company named Twotter. But I think, I think that, I
think at the end of the day my point of view on this would be I’d be sitting there
and say “You know what? “I’m just going to
out-execute the other person “and force them to change the name “because they realize they
want to compete with us “because we were the
thing that was winning.” Thought I don’t love the situation. I don’t want to also
say look how cool I am. I’m going to beat them to it. Like, I don’t mind you
walking away from it and changing a name either. I just ultimately don’t
think it’s going to matter. You’re going to have to out-execute. Angry Birds had a similar situation. There was a lot of birdy
kind of stuff going on. Like if you’re the best
and your product’s the best and you can navigate it,
you’ve got the right product, and you guys are the right leaders, I don’t think it ends up playing out and so I wouldn’t stress
about it too much. I think a lot of times
to make it more valuable as a question to everybody overall, I think a lot of times people
very much worry about names. I have consistently stayed on a plane of the name doesn’t matter. You can make a name matter after the fact. I don’t think Snapchat
or Facebook or Google meant anything to anybody until they actually meant something. You know, I guess maybe I’m affected by having a last name like Vaynerchuk. You know, it doesn’t feel
like the most brandable name. I also made an incredibly huge flaw in my Twitter handle with Gary Vee. I mean, I have two silent
Es at the end of my username which is not easily to explain in public. It takes time every
time, time is the asset. You know, people like “where’s the ee?” And it just wasn’t a smart move. Another bad name play by me that I think I overcame
in a Twitter environment. So execution will always trump your name.