I just wanted to say thanks
so much for doing your show. It’s been the number
one inspiration for me starting my own daily video show at shawnwest.tv. – I like the hustle.
– My question is – hustle something that can be taught, because you’re probably
the only person I know that out-hustles me, and I want to help other people get that,
but do you think hustle is something you either have or you don’t? – Man, these are tough, this
is a tough question day, jeez. You know, I do think
work ethic is a trait. I think hustle is
something you’re born with, but I do think the hustle
meter is fundamentally effected by who you’re doing it for. So it’s really easy to
hustle for yourself. So if you’re a solopreneur, super easy, you will be 100% the highest hustle that you are capable of within your DNA. When you work for somebody else, you know, I think the hustle meter is completely predicated
on how inspired you are and how protected you
feel for that leader, for her or for him and the
organization they work for. I truly believe that the
people that work for me hustle way harder because I
instill trust and protection and I set a high standard for it, and then thus I am able
to get them to a place where they do hustle harder
by the context and the culture from within, but they do it
selfishly for themselves first and then equally, because
they don’t want to let me down or they want to grow up in a meritocracy where they know they can grow, but that’s a selfish play. I think there is a level of hustle that ultimately is predicated on your DNA, and then, and then I think that at some level it’s the context of the game you’re playing, right? I’m blown away by how many
people on my own team here hustle harder working
for me than a lot of my entrepreneurial friends
working for themselves, and that, to me, is fascinating. I think that comes from motivation, and so the level of motivation
you have from within yourself and the level of motivation you get from outside sources,
whether it’s an individual, an organization, some other variable, you want to stick it to your dad who said you were never going to be anything, or the other way, you want to fulfill what your mom told you
you were capable of, the neighborhood you came from, there’s just so many
interesting variables. I’ve been thinking about writing a book called “I Wish Everyone Was an Immigrant.” It’s insane, it’s insane
how motivated I am from coming from zippo,
and I didn’t even come from as much zippo as my parents did when they were first here, but I tasted those early days, and
it’s a level of taste that I know AJ doesn’t have. Not that he can’t be more motivated, but that happens to be
one of my motivators that is not one of his motivators. Maybe one of his motivators is to stick it to the world and tell them that he’s better than his brother. It could be a million different things. They’re all fascinating. I think that you are, I think that you are born with some level of it, but I absolutely think this
is a nature, nurture game where circumstances, look,
you may get motivated by something horrible
that happens in your life and I don’t want to go dark, but you know, we’ve gone dark in the past. You know, like, everybody
in your family dies on a family vacation
that you didn’t go to. You are now motivated in a different way or you’re crumbled by that. So it’s your inner strength
and makeup and infrastructure. I’ve been fascinated
by watching my friends watch my other friends become billionaires over the last five years, and some of them have been motivated, and
some of them pushed back. It’s like being the child
of a very successful person. You either try to trump your moms or pops, or you go so far away from
it you want to go, like, fish in the Amazon for
the rest of your life, and I’m fascinated by that, and so I think that’s DNA, and then
there’s the circumstances that wrap around it.

“How do you not procrastinate that well?” – Cédric. It’s unbelievable how well Cedric the Entertainer branded himself, because I literally was about to call Cédric here the Entertainer. Cédric, I’m calling you the Entertainer. As a matter of fact, I want to make a little piece of content for Cédric and I’ll tweet it out. Cédric, you won. I need a little “Cédric
is the Entertainer,” take his Twitter profile,
and we’re gonna make him. This is a new thing we can
do on the #AskGaryVee Show. We could make things for
fans, one-off t-shirts, pieces of content, I’m
seeing something here. This is gonna make a lot more people ask a lot more questions. Cédric, here’s a curveball, I actually think I’m an
obnoxious procrastinator, while equally not being. Meaning I stay in constant audit mode. Can I get a constant
audit mode alert here? By the way, I have to
watch yesterday’s episode to see what you did with the alerts. Yesterday had a lot of editing.
I gotta watch it outright. I don’t watch my stuff, by the way. It’s a little fun fact for all of you. Sorry, DRock, Staphon,
get to see the great work. There’s a ton of stuff
that I procrastinate, and I think I’m a procrastinator, but what I think I also am is always leveling up
whatever’s most important and prioritizing it in real time. Team can tell you here, I bet you Steve’s favorite inside joke is DeMayo. Can somebody get me the, literally, get me DeMayo? Watch this. This will answer your question
perfectly, VaynerNation, because the truth is, I do procrastinate, but I’m adjusting to
the reality of my life at the moment I’m living it, so if something is
super-important yesterday, I can literally decide that
it’s less important in an hour, predicated on what comes into my inbox, or the meeting that I’m about
to have right after this. And so the reason I think
it feels like I’m not, and so much is getting accomplished, is my pants are on fire for the thing that I deem most important at this exact moment. And that is how it works over and over, where’s DeMayo? And over. I’m trying to stall here. And over, and over, and over again. Let’s go to the next question,
we’ll get back to DeMayo. – [Man offscreen] Oh, here he is. – Oh, here we go. Don’t go, DRock. Leave all that. Don’t
edit that, I’ll be pissed. Now, tell the VaynerNation how– – What’s up, world. – Tell the VaynerNation
how often I’ll send an email that will say “now, this is top priority” versus the next day, this is top priority, and then you get crippled
by the notion of, hold on.
(laughter) If, like, literally, when I’m like, no no, this is the #1 priority in my life. – No, tippy-top priority
is the way you always say. – Tippy-top? Tippy-top. – TIppy-top priority. Yeah, probably every
time you’re on a flight, there’s probably about 15 emails
that come after the flight. – And then you struggle
with, like, what’s tippy-top versus number one. – Yeah, unless you say tippy-top priority. – Is that the new context? (laughter) – If that’s what you’ve
been using for the month. – Alright. – So maybe it’ll change for the new year. – Thanks, man. And that’s what happens, right? Matt, my admin, you know, he has to struggle through what is tippy-top priority of the moment, because it might change tomorrow, so as long as you’re executing
something every day, as a tippy-top priority item, then you’re moving the needle. And sure, something might have moved from second most important
to fourth most important to ninth most important, Alex, you’re dealing with this right now. A lot of things that you
would have dealt with, like BizDev was like the most important, you can’t get a minute from me because something has caused it to become the eighth most important thing versus the number one important thing, and, like, there’s a lot of serendipity, Steve’s been waiting
for this top six things at WineLibrary for four days, I found a minute, I decided it was tippy-top
priority of that minute, and it just works that way at all times. – [Voiceover] Pressian asks,
“How exactly did your mother

– [Voiceover] Iwona asks,
“How many punches in the face and failures can an ordinary person handle before achieving success?” – Iwona, the right word in that
question is ordinary person. What was it, an ordinary person? Yeah, and I think that’s the interesting part of your question. Which is this whole
notion that pisses me off that I don’t believe that the far majority of people right now who claim that they’re entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs. You know, I don’t get to claim that I’m an NFL quarterback,
and then I just am one, and that’s what’s happening, right? A lot of people that
don’t have the skills, you put that word ordinary
in for a very specific reason and it’s the reason I want to rant on this which is the ordinary person a.k.a. the person that’s not
meant to run a business can probably only handle one punch, right? I mean like, that’s just
what it comes down to. You know what my answer is, unlimited. You could punch me in the face 8000 times. I’m here to get punched, right? Like, you know I really do think of it like a UFC or a boxer. Have you ever watched
a UFC or boxing match, and literally watched
and thought to yourself holy crap, if I took one of those punches I’d be in a coma for the rest of my life. They’re meant to be in the octagon, I am not. On the flip side, you show me a world where all 420 of these wonderful and amazing people quit VaynerMedia, and I know exactly what
to do the next day. That’s how I roll. Those are the punches I can handle. Top 10 clients quit, cool. Can’t ship to a state at
Wine Library anymore, cool. I can handle unlimited punches because I’m pure-bred 100% entrepreneur. And so for me, to a person
that is a wannabe-preneur, who first punch in’s like eh,
I’m going to go get a job. From there, everybody fits
somewhere in between that. And that’s your answer. – [Voiceover] N asks, “Any
tips on how to get a mentor?”

– [Voiceover] Sarah asks,
“As a private music teacher “I have limited hours to teach. “What are your thoughts on
how to increase my income, “or build a brand?” – Sarah, a lot of thoughts on this. It’s called the Crush It! manifesto, which is, there’s plenty of damage between 11pm and three in the morning. I get it, you teach,
you know, I don’t know, teachers to me are actually,
my sister is a teacher, like they have the most
time to do other stuff. They have fairly good schedules. There’s the summer. There’s, you know, and
again, maybe you’ve got a different kind of teaching thing, but to me, if you want to build
more of a scalable brand, you gotta put out content. You gotta look at things like Skillshare where you can put out your teachings and sell that. There’s a lot of ways to do it. Technology has created
an enormous opportunity for you to scale it. You can do live Spreecasts
and Google Hangouts that only have access to people that pay. I would recommend putting
out a lot of content at first as a gateway
drug to the opportunity to charge people so you
can establish yourself. But this whole notion of where is the time, I need more time, I just think people are
loaded with excuses. They aren’t auditing themselves. They don’t realize that
they’re watching every season of Homeland and Game of Thrones. They don’t realize that
they’re having an hour and 15 minute lunch, like lunch. I’ve had two lunches. Robert Souza, our new SVP made me go to a lunch to meet somebody. I was pissed. I was like, why couldn’t
we do that as 11pm drinks? Lunch, like leaving and having lunch? The inefficiency of that time? So you know, I’m pissed at lunch and I’m pissed at Game of Thrones and I’m pissed at playing video games and I’m pissed at a lot of
things in a world where somebody wants more
financially or career-wise. I love it for the people
that need it to escape. I love it for people that are content with their monies and their career path. I love it. As a matter of fact, I envy it. Boy, if somebody could take a shot and suck out some of my ambition,
I’d be really pumped. You wanna do a start up? Create a suck out the ambition app. I’d be really happy about
that because I’d love to be able to take a lunch. I’d love to be able to relax
and play Madden against somebody in Iowa, because
that’s how you can play Madden these days, with the kids, for the last 10 years. But I haven’t been playing it because I’ve been hustling,
because that’s what I want. And so, whether you’re a hundred or zero, you just wanna zen and live in
a mountain with no technology or you wanna buy the Jets
and hustle your face off, or anything in between, you
need to find your cadence. And so if you’re asking this question, my intuition is you’re
spending an hour or two on things every day that aren’t achieving this extra brand or extra
monies that you’re chasing. So cut that crap out and
apply it to these things, putting out content, writing content, making videos, building up a brand, engaging with people,
going to Twitter search, Twitter.com/search searching teachings around, you know, key words around the things you teach. Engage with people, say hello, cold call, saw somebody shout that out in the YouTube comments yesterday. We talked about that, as a matter of fact, link up that video. People need to watch it.
That’s a classic. I don’t know where you want it, DRock. But you guys know which
video I’m talking about. The cold call. I had a
shaved head in there. Anyway, the bottom line is, you need to re-calibrate to your ambitions. By the way, it may be going
from seven hours of sleep to five hours of sleep
because you need all those lunches and video games, and that’s fine. But if you want it, you just gotta go and do that. episode 42 of the #AskGaryVee Show.

and I was actually born in
Russia like you were as a baby. I’m 14 years old, and here’s my question. I wanna be an entrepreneur
when I get older, but I don’t know where to start. Like, what actions should I
be taking right now as a kid? Thanks. – B, listen to me. First and foremost, by
asking this question and knowing what The #AskGaryVee Show is, you’re putting yourself in a
position to be an entrepreneur. I like that. What I don’t like is the question because what you should know if you’re a purebred entrepreneur, so wanting to be an entrepreneur versus being an entrepreneur are
two very different things, and I have no interest
in giving the medicine to a 14-year-old, especially
’cause I gave the medicine to a 14-year-old Steeler’s fan yesterday, and it wasn’t pretty
and I’m not proud of it. On this show is probably the
second most competitive place I live in, and so what I
want to tell you is this. Look, if I were you, I would sell that Under Armour sweatshirt
that you’re wearing in the video to some other
kid in the neighborhood. I would go back in the woods
in the video that you just had and find some rocks and sell
’em to some nine-year-old girl. That’s what I did. I was that raw. Now, we’re not all the same. What I’m trying to tell you is the best way to become something
is to act like something. So, you wanna be an entrepreneur? Start acting like one, meaning start a business,
start selling things. Both will work, or find a mentor. Find the 18, 19, 20,
21-year-old kind of entrepreneur in your neighborhood and
start helping her or him out for free just to learn the
hustle, to taste the game. You’ve gotta put yourself in the position. There’s no reading about entrepreneurship. There was a question today that
came through for #AskGaryVee that said, “Gary, name the first, “name the four best business
books you’ve read this year.” And I laughed my ass off because I don’t think I’ve read
four books in my life, and definitely not four business books, and so there’s no reading, my man. There’s doing, and so sell
the shirt off your back. – [Voiceover] TJ asks, “As
a fellow son of immigrants,

most big successes have a huge turning point where
things really take off. What was that turning
point for Wine Library?” – Sean, great question. I guess there were some turning points when the Wine Spectator ad that we ran, the first New York Times full page ad, the time I reset the score and took 50% of the beer off the floor
and added more wine, when I started WineLibrary.com, the day I started the email service, the day I jumped into Robert
Parker’s forums in ’97 and became part of the
internet community around wine, the 2000 Bordeaux Vintage,
when we bought heavy, when I first started
promoting wines nobody ever heard of on email, Richard
Partridge Cabernet comes to mind, when I hired Brandon. As you can tell, there are
many moments that we made it, but it was just trucking
along, building on top of each other step by step. My friends, if you listen to
two of my answers on this show, you understand one very
interesting thing about me, which is, I may have
the energy of the hare, but I am the tortoise.
(bell ringing) You know what I’m putting up there, right? That beautiful thing you did, Zak. Show Zak. You did a very nice job on that one. For everybody listening,
I’m pointing to the tortoise and hare image I put out on Instagram. Go check me out on Instagram/garyvee. Anyway, when I made it,
the turning point moment, everybody who’s watching
and asking these questions are looking for this
sign, like I saw the sign, It’s not that. It’s head down, you love
and believe in what you do, and you just never think
about those moments, you just keep trucking along. It’s lunch pail mentality, it’s old school Eastern European
put-in-the-work mentality. I don’t think about these things, guys. The Fortune 40 Under
40 that just happened, is that a turning point in my career? Sure, some people now
think of me differently ’cause I’m in the context of
those people, but it’s not. It’s just chug and chug and chug and chug and chug and chug and chug and chug, And so chug. Thanks for watching the show.

“Gary, love the iTunes touch. When was the moment you knew you would be okay when starting your company?” – East County, right? That’s a little bone thugs reference to episode, I can’t remember. East county, the moment I
knew that I was gonna make it was the first day I walked
into my dad’s liquor store. And the reason I decided
to answer this question and trying to find value
for everybody watching other than me bragging about that I had the bravado from day one was, the notion of not even
worrying about that moment. Meaning, one of the biggest
things that I’m trying to teach, I’m turning a lot today. One of the things I’m trying
to teach all my management here at VaynerMedia, and all
my founders in my start-up investments and my
co-founders in companies that had meeting with my
co-founders at Resy last night, the number one thing I
keep telling everybody is to not worry about the
things that don’t matter. Worrying about or trying to figure out, this is the moment when I made it, is something that I think cripples people, and I just don’t even
think about those things. I could answer this question two ways, which are the two right
ways, which is one: The moment I walked into my dad’s store, because I had that
confidence, or I could answer the other way that’s equally as true, pulling on both sides
like a bridge, which is, I haven’t made it yet. They both are right, and the
truth is, outside of this question, I don’t think about
it at all, ever, period. And the reason I’m answering
the question is because I’m trying to get as many
of you who are watching the show right now to not
worry about those things. Worry about executing,
worry about feeling good about your life, don’t
worry about making it. Because making it is an outside force. The inside force of you just doing it is what you should be focused on. – [Voiceover] Kyle asks,

This is not the outfit to do it in, so, one second. Okay, whew. – You’re wrong, brother. You had the right outfit on the first time.
– [Man in suit] I have these, occasional rushes of motivation. It’s like, yes. Now I’m gonna do this. But after a few days, that motivation goes away. So how do you get that constant stream of motivation? Thanks a lot. – You know speakin’, you know, this piggybacks well off of the last question. Ya know, my motivation
comes from a couple places. One, I love what I do. You know, you may not love, again, back to what you want. Especially seeing a lot of the youngsters jumping in today’s show, you may think that doing things is the process needed to what you want, which is you wanna be in Las Vegas with 30 beautiful women around you, and like, drinking
champagne and going crazy. Like, I don’t like that stuff. No, I don’t. You know, I don’t like that stuff. I like the process. So, you know, to me there’s
two things that drive me. One, I love what I do,
for the billionth time. My separating aspect from a lot of you, I’m keepin’ it real, is I love working, I
love putting in the work, I love the headaches,
I love HR nightmares, I love it. I like it. I like the grind. I like that I have a 6:30 call today with an upset customer. I like that. And so, that’s number one. Number two is straight up gratitude. You wanna have real fuel? I don’t know what this meant. I’m just trying to become Superman. If you want real fuel, that was injecting gratitude, You want real fuel to win? Be grateful. Now you can’t be grateful. You can’t watch this video and be like, oh great, Gary Vee said I’m not grateful. In me, in my personality is gratitude. The self-awareness that I was born in the, in the Soviet Union, that the
timing of when I was born, was better than when my dad was born, better than when my
grandparents were born there. It created a scenario
where this moment in time, where America and Israel got together, and made a deal with the Soviet Union, and people were able to leave the country, and that’s it. I got really lucky that,
what I’m great at is, is really kind of glamorized here. Entrepreneur businessman,
whereas in Russia, who knows, I’d probably
be dead or a trillionaire. And so, I’m just grateful. I’m grateful for the greatest parents that one could ask for. I’m grateful for, like, amazing wife. A lot of, unfortunately, I
lost a lot of my grandparents before I was even five. So I haven’t had a lot of death. And so, you know, it’s really like, I don’t even have a gear that’s like, woe is me or too bad. First of all, I also
don’t like complaining. I’ve made this bed. Like I feel ill today, I’m
under the weather, right? But I’m not like, oh. We’re always like, watch this. Here, I don’t know if you can get in here. People are gonna like this. Let’s show something of fun to everybody. I don’t know, talk to me. Can people see the schedule? – [DRock] Yep, they can. – Yep, I mean, like, you know. So schedule, right? Like, workout at 6:30, and travel, and meeting, and meeting, and meeting, and speak, and call, and
speak, and tape the show, right, and then call, and then
meeting, and then meeting, and then meeting, and then meeting. And if you’re paying
attention to 10 minutes, 10 minutes,10 minutes,
five minutes, 15 minutes. Planning meeting, call,
call, coffee, meeting, meeting, meeting,
meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting,
and today’s a good day, ’cause it’s a Friday. Because I get to be done, you know, by eight o’clock, with
dinner with some friends. But like, when you go back, you know, I mean, the bottom line
is, I’m in meeting, well this is Jet’s game. But, but (phone clanking against table), I’m making my bed. I’m making my bed, I’m going forward. I’m hustling from six to 11 pm everyday, with every second allocated. There is no break. There’s no, there’s no eat a salad, and read Reddit, or watch YouTube. That is not in my game. Yes, Steve, that was for you. You know that is not in my game. And so, because I’ve made my bed, I’m surely not gonna complain and be like, oh, I’m sick today. Like, I just, you know, no. So that’s it. I don’t even remember
what I was answering., but that’s what I think. (laughing)

– [Voiceover] Mahdi wants
to know, “What motivated you “to continue any project,
like Wine Library “without seeing any
significant growth prior?” – Mahdi, you know, for me,
that’s a very easy answer, which is, I just believe
in my holistic purpose. I’m blown away by how
many people are crippled by one project or the other,
to me this is a net-net game. I have a very clear vision
professionally where I wanna go but overall, I just want
to be a good human being, do business the right
way, the right process, put in the right hustle
and I control that. If I don’t get results, well
that means I made a wrong strategic decision, but that
doesn’t cripple me either because as a net-net,
I know where I’m going. So for every one or two times I decide to get in the wrong business
or invest in the wrong thing, I’m going to figure out
a win alongside of that and that’s all that really matters to me. – [Voiceover] Michael wants
to know, “As an entrepreneur

curious how you feel about
the impact you’ve made on people you’ve touched
and inspired over the years. – Carlos thank you so
much for that question. It’s very sweet. You know, a lot of you really know me because you’ve been following my career for quite a while and
we interact quite a bit and I think I’m more
tangibly and touchable than a lot of the other kind
of people that look like me and we engage quite a bit and I have a lot of contacts,
back to question number one, in comparison to others and
all that, blah, blah, blah, but the truth is, most of you don’t really, really, really know me and I think that, you
know, with the hustler and businessman and the north star of buying the New York Jets, one would say, he loves
and wants to buy the Jets more than anything and thus, the money associated with that process is very important to him. It is a distant second to
know that I’ve been gifted with a communication
style that touches people, that makes them, you know, maybe I’m saying the same
thing they’ve heard before, it’s either my conviction
or it comes from my soul in such a way, I talk about
what I believe in so much that it’s been able to move people. Crush It! was clearly a catalyst ’cause that book really
did move people’s careers. So many of you have been affected. It blows my mind actually to think about how many people have been affected even in small ways. Creating more positivity for some people and there’s just so many variables of how I’ve affected people and I don’t say that in like, look at how cool I am, I’m just so goddamn thankful, you know. It’s, you know, so how
do I think about it? I think it is my legacy. I think it is the essence
of who I am as a human being and it is the singular thing
that I’m most proud of. And it gives me enormous confidence of what kind of parent I’m going to be and that makes me very, very happy. – So um, you know, Gary Vay-ner-chuk,