“Jewel, why do you think so many
people struggle to be happy?” – Because happiness
is a byproduct, not an actual destination. And so people have this
misconception that they’re gonna find happiness like it’s Europe and they’re never
gonna move out. (laughs) Happiness is a
byproduct of certain behaviors and can set yourself up to win and you can set
yourself up to be happy. The sad thing is happiness is a
learned skill and a lot of our houses don’t teach happiness. That was the situation
I was in and so I actually just started studying
people that were happy and I saw what
the algorithm was. What did they do that’s similar
and for me I don’t focus on happiness as much as harmony. I don’t really believe in the
word balance ’cause balance is a binary thing like oof,
it’s a great very tedious. Harmony is saying my
life has many components. I’m a woman,
I’m a mom, I am sexual,
I am spiritual. I’m a businessperson, all of
those limbs have to have tone and that brings about harmony. That brings about satisfaction. If only have one limb
that is very buff and the rest of us is atrophied, we have disharmony,
we have dissatisfaction but there’s no human school and so that’s what I’m
looking at starting. I want to be able to teach
people emotional and mindfulness skills so that they can
gain tone in every area. – From my standpoint, you know
since Jewel took it up here, I will take into one very narrow
place that I’ve been really try to spend a lot of time
on and that’s perspective. It’s so interesting to me why
I deem myself happy because I just am so grateful.
– Mhmmm. – Like the thing we got excited
about of you know the data behind being a human
being is 400 trillion to 1. When you just start there and
you realize forget about the odds of like beating
homelessness and like other or like being born in a communist
country like just actually becoming a human. I always make the joke that your mom could have had
another glass of wine. Or your dad could have
been late because of traffic. The odds are so insane. I’m just so grateful for what
I have versus what I don’t have and I think people just have all
these admirations and envy and all these hard-wiring things. To me, it’s perspective
just like there’s always, I just generally believe there’s
always somebody that has it worse and the problem is that’s
where I default into mentally and have practiced
to put myself there versus somebody’s got it better. – And the importance
with gratitude is, I do a gratitude
practice every night, and when you’re grateful,
you can’t be angry, you can’t be resentful. It literally just leaves
no room for anything else. – I’m just grateful. Alright, And.
– [Andy] Cool. Alan asks,–
– Alan.

“no to good things so you
can say yes to great things?” – You know Kyle, you’re talking about decision making and time management and opportunity costs is
a tremendous question. Who gets to decide what is good or great? Is first and foremost. What may be good to me may not be great to you. For me if I can meet Ric Flair for dinner that would be great, for India, are you excited about having
dinner with Ric Flair? – Yeah, totally. – Do you know who Ric Flair is?
– No. – Exactly. Now name one
of your favorite bands. – I don’t know. You know who
I really had dinner with? Jeff Bridges. – I don’t know who that is, the actor?
– Yeah. – I know who that is. Give me a band that you love right now. – A band that I love right now? – Follow me here. – This is really scary. – Just say it, stop being scared. Some random. – Grimes. Grimes. – Good, I don’t know
anything about Grimes. I never heard of Grimes. And you’d be like, Hey the lead singer of
Grimes, it’s a singer? E-mailed right now and said,
“I want to have dinner” I’d be like, delete, like
I don’t even know, right? And so who gets to decide
what is good and great and that’s why I’m answering this question with that little skit. Which is you don’t know until you do it. And so, Kyle. Kyle, too many people
crippled by this question. And I’m going to get
serious now for a second. You won’t know if something is good or great until
it actually happens. Some of the greatest things that ever happened to me in business
look terrible on paper. Wasn’t somebody fancy,
wasn’t fancy, you know? It just was kind of like, oh wait, and then that person knew
and then I connected them. Meeting Blaine Cook, the original CTO of Twitter for a taco
at South by Southwest on the dawn of South
by Southwest this week. That didn’t look like one of the greatest meetings of my life, but it turned into one of the greatest meetings of my life. This happens all the time. Too many people are crippled by the right hire, by the right meeting. I say work harder, work more efficient, make more 15 and 30 minute meetings that leave you more
time to do more things. And create more opportunities and don’t be crippled by choosing the right opportunities or not. So the answer is, nobody
can answer that for you. Normally you can’t answer it upfront. I did a bunch of podcasts that I never heard of the people before. And I think some of them
have been paying dividends. And I did a podcast
with Shaq that is going to air shortly. On paper it looks like Shaq is a greater thing than good. But I think we’re going
to sell more books, from some of that good because I didn’t realize the
audience that person had. Be more efficient with what you do to allow you to do more things. Then you don’t have to worry about the subjective and non controllable like knowing what’s good or great. That’s the recap.

“as an entrepreneur sometimes. “How do you cope with that feeling?” – You know, for me, I’m built for it. I wanna be lonely. I want to struggle and grind
and have all the pressure. I’m gonna take the last shot in the game always, every time. It makes me simpatico with Staphon’s idol Kobe, the black mamba who’s on this amazing, it was funny, I was
working out this morning and I had to do some cardio
stuff that was hard for me, so I’m like Mike, put on TV
so I can watch Sports Center and not think about what
we’re actually doing, and I caught the clip of
the way Kobe last night in Philadelphia, and I said to Mike, I said, you know what’s
so awesome about sports? It’s that if you time it
right, and you know it, you can have this kind of farewell tour, so I’ve been thinking about
my farewell entrepreneur tour. I don’t know how to do that. I’m gonna be like 89, 97, be like eeeh, but you know, I don’t even
remember the question. I just wanted to talk
about Kobe’s farewell tour. What was it again? Oh! Being lonely. Look, the reason I brought up Kobe is, Kobe wants to take the last shot. Winners wanna take the last shot. You want to take the high with the low. When you are truly an A, and
actual pure-bred entrepreneur, you don’t know anything else than getting the accolades or getting shit on when you don’t execute. Actually, from first, you
know, it’s really interesting. I had a 100th of a second,
because I’m concerned about macroeconomic climates, for a 100th of a second yesterday, which is unheard of for me, I was like woo, what if Vayner took a step back and I had to deal with
people being like, oh, you’re not running this business well, or what’s going on? It’s so funny. I thought of it for a 100th of a second, and then I got so happy. I got so happy because
I quickly thought about the second chess move, which
was, for whatever reason, couple of our clients,
as you know, are starting to become very big clients
and I don’t like them being too much a percentage of my business ’cause they can go away the next day. I don’t like that, so that maybe is why it popped up in my mind. Or, I also think we’re in
a bubbly kind of world. You’ve got terrorism activity,
you’ve got Wall Street being too bubbly for
a long period of time. Anything can happen. Things can happen, and
so it was funny for me when I thought about it,
because that’s my job. I’m lonely at the top. I have to worry about
everything and make sure I’m hedged and ready and mentally prepared for anything that could go wrong, and then I got excited
about the second chess move, which was the thing I live for, which is the I told you
so when the doubters came and said, oh, you misplayed it, you didn’t think, social
wasn’t as big as you thought, you didn’t see this coming, then being able to navigate
through those choppy waters. I often talk about
being a war-time general over a peace-time general. Anybody can look good. Anybody who’s watching
or listening to this show can be an entrepreneur
now, ’cause shit is good. When it gets tough, when there’s not people throwing around $25,000 investment, when you can’t put up
your idea on Kickstarter and everybody wants to give you $100, because the economy’s crap
and they need their $100, that’s when the cream rises, and so for me, the way I deal with it, I, the way I deal with it is: there is no dealing with it. It is my DNA. It is my only known gear. I don’t even understand
that damn question. Now, I recognize that, to take
myself out of the equation and try to answer for the whole, look, you’ve got to put things
in perspective, you know? If you want the accolades,
if you have the audacity to want to be somebody that is successful, let’s play the data. If you want the audacity
to be a millionaire, which is by percentage, almost impossible. There’s very few of them,
if you really break down. Let’s play some math here.
Let’s keep it unemotional. If you want the audacity to
be in the top 1% of Americans, which is a very rich company, company! Country. Probably company too. Country. Are people in the hundreds of
thousands of dollars a year in revenue, not millions. So, we’re talking about a
very small group of people that are able to get to this
extreme level of success in business, and we can have shows about, actually, you know what, I
was going to point at India. Danielle, tell India, we
need to do a show about life and not business stuff, but
in the context of business, life happines, and there’s a million ways, and we ranted on it the other day, but if you want the audacity
to be a millionaire, to be successful, to write books, if you want the audacity,
don’t you understand the crap that comes along with that? Like, I wanted the
audacity to be in shape. It’s come with a lot of crap. It’s been a lot of work. I’m 18 months in, and I
said this the other day, on my fitness video, I’m
not sure I would do this if I saw what I would
look like 18 months later, meaning I look a lot better, but damnit, I would have been like really? For every single day for 18 months? To wake up at four in the morning? Like, I’m going (mumbles skeptically). You deal with it because it’s
a very small price to pay for all the phenominal
stuff that you headline read and you aspire to and you dream for. The problem is, most of you don’t want to eat that shit to get there.

– So, I’m an investor. – Okay, that’s something. – So my, my, my thought of it
is disproportionately jaded, not to mention I love Casey. He’s been on the show, as you know. I think it’s absolutely going to happen. Of course, I desperately
want Casey to do it, because I’d love him in it, and I’ve invested in the company, but, right now, the amount of people that would be interested in seeing
what I’m seeing is high, meaning, I really would
actually, I don’t, so, I don’t love music concerts so much, but I would absolutely right
now, if Beme worked at scale the right way, the way
I see it in the future, through glasses or contact
lenses, if I could watch what Taylor Swift is seeing
when she’s performing in front of a hundred thousand
people at Wembly Stadium, that’d be cool, I’d watch
that a little bit, right? I’d love to watch what
an athlete is seeing as they’re going on the field. Or, me in a business
meeting, just like as I enter and how it flows, how my,
you could actually really figure me out, of how I
sell, just by how I behave, if you actually saw how I am seeing it.
– Yeah. – So, I think first-person
viewing and disappearing, the way life actually
works, is gonna win in the, so, I hope he wins, but, so,
I believe in the thesis 100%, because, look, the contact lenses are coming.
– Yeah. – Like, they’re coming,
and you’re going to be able to record and watch. They’re not even going to
be knowing if somebody’s recording or watching, so
that means we’re all going to be living and believing
it’s always going on. – Yeah. – The world’s going in a
very interesting place. So, I think he’s, it’s
very progressive and I’m excited about it, I think
it goes way beyond the phone, and that’s why I’m bullish on it.

– Hi, VaynerNation, I am
Sid, I’ve been working with Team Gary for the last 10 months. I’m a graduate student at Babson, and my question is a little
bit around you because like, how in depth I’ve seen you working, and, I’ve seen you go all
in when you were like, doing something, but
then we also, as a team, have seen that you step
back and see things in a wider perspective and
then you change direction, come up with creative ideas. So, how do you decide when it’s like, a moment to just step back and reconsider? – That’s an interesting question. You know, it’s funny, you know, I always say to candidates
when I meet with them, meeting with a lot of senior people who are gonna run a
lot of departments here at Vayner in the future, and I say, look, you know me in the outside, and you think that I’m gonna micro manage a ton. What’s weird is I’m very the other way. Like, I actually have a lot of, you know, it’s, you know, I always
wanna ask, you know, I almost completely wanna reverse this to the ask Sid show because I’m curious how you quantify for, to me, this is a very hard answer for me because it’s just innate, right? Like, it’s just to how
I, I don’t even know. Meaning, yeah, I mean, I feel when I have to go deep, I feel like
when I have to go wide, I’m reacting to what feels intuitive to me at the moment, I’m quantifying the people that are involved in the situation. The market, it’s, you know,
it’s kind of like a feeling to understand what to do at that moment. What I think happens is when I taste it, I talk about, I use the analogy of like, blood in the water,
shark mentality, right? When I taste it, then I
wanna go all in, right? Like, then I’m like, let’s go, right? And so, but I don’t know how to quantify what it takes for me to taste it. I feel like it’s a combination
of me and my partner in crime, team, or individual
is now at a crescendo to like, to be able to really attack it, and I can like, really
go in, and there’s like, a cadence between the
two of us that allows us to deliver on it. You know, Sid, I think
that’s a shit answer, and I apologize. There’s some answers that
are just tough to, you know, like, it’s just, how do
you describe the feeling, but I do believe this
is the essence of what, why I always believe that entrepreneurship and being a business man
or woman is a talent. This question is the same
question of like, you know, like, how do you know
when to hit the high note? Like, when do you know it’s game time, and you’ve gotta shoot,
and stop passing the ball? Like, you know, when do you know like, how to like, like, being
a great surgeon, like, where do you like, it’s
just the feel and the rhythm of the game, and as a business
person, I’ve said this, Emily, you might have heard this, like, some of you guys might have heard this, I’ve been saying to a couple
people here and there, that the company feels
more manageable to me. Like, right now, I feel more in control of four offices and 550 people than I did when we were at 200. It’s just, it’s the rhythm of it. And so, that’s why I know it’s a talent. There’s nothing I was taught,
there’s no blue print, it’s just being one with the business. So weird. But it’s what it is, it’s
like, it just, I understand it. And you know what’s funny? I don’t think it’s right or wrong, I think what you’re observing, and I know you’ve been very observant, which is why it was a fun question to hear from you, it’s right for me. You know what I mean? It’s not the right thing
that you need to go and deploy against you, it’s
not right for your start up, it’s what’s right for me, and what’s, the one thing that I do love about myself, and this is just flat out, I don’t let, nobody has any equity from
my parents, to my brother, to my most trusted
employees, nobody has impact, or can wait, make me
waiver, or dents that belief in me, and it, and that thing. An that unwavering has brought me enormous amounts of value. It’s like, just like, just the
strongest thing in my world. Like, me and the business
at hand, you know, in harmony without
allowing any other voice to even have a peep in that direction has been very, very important to me.

do you practice to keep focused?” – Raymond, that’s a good question. Daily rituals to keep focused. You know, now that I’m a year and two days into my physical regimen, that is what you would think is one of the things I do, but I don’t. I do not find that my working out has done anything for me
mentally, I really don’t. I don’t feel any different mentally today than I did a year ago. I don’t sleep better. The only thing that’s happened is I just look way better, and you know, that’s that. I’m sure there’s plenty of other, I’ll probably live a lot longer, that’s that thing. I feel much stronger, by the way. Traveling is where I’m really feeling it, just little silly things
like grabbing my suitcase. I think I only have one ritual which is in parallel to the way I live my life. Even right now, as I’m
talking to you guys, there’s a little part of my
brain that’s always moving. It’s just like think of
it as a hamster wheel, and it’s always just reminding
myself to keep things in perspective. I think my daily ritual. How was the question phrased again India? – [India] It was phrased daily
rituals to keep you focused. – To keep my focused, I think the one thing
that keeps me focused is the perspective of
understanding how lucky I am, how good life really is, how
the things I complain about are not that big of a deal
in the scheme of things, how at moment’s notice I can get a text right now while filming this show and have the tragedy of my life
happen, and every second that doesn’t happen,
how thankful I should be for that, because those
are real scenarios. These are things that
you and so many of us deal with on a daily basis. Now that I have a 530 person company, HR sends me an email inevitably every week to two weeks of very scary things, like people’s families having
tragedies of death or people being diagnosed with illness. Just real stuff, real stuff. I am stunningly capable
outside of New York Jets football to understand
in check, in emotion, how 99% of things don’t matter. My daily ritual is
actually my ritual that I keep at an every second basis. It’s my moment, every second ritual of keeping myself in check to recognizing what is
important versus what’s not. Sure I get frustrated and
concerned and worried, but it never has a sustained level of a feeling, because I just put things in perspective so well and I’m so thankful for that gear. I really wish I knew how to teach it. I think the only thing I try to do is put it out to you guys. I’m hoping that somebodys like geez, that seems like hope you’re looking at
me or listening to me right now and saying, gee that sounds fun. You’re right, it is. I’m a very outrageously, stunningly, over the top happy person,
because of this gear. It is very difficult
for me to have sustained unhappiness because of this vehicle, and it also allows me, and
I really do believe this, allows me to affect the people around me whether they’re consuming
me on a daily basis or they work with me, to actually level themselves. Stunwin, as someone who I find
very cynical and different than me, straight up, no
bullshit, because I don’t care and you know that. Don’t bullshit me. Do you feel that this, how long have we been
jamming together now? 18 months, where are we at now? – A little over two years now. – Sorry, in these two years, do you feel that the answer, I don’t know how much you were listening, you
seem like you were working which is a nice change of pace. – Thank you, thank you Gary. – Stunwin, do you feel,
no bullshit, no bullshit, do you feel that you’ve moved at any level to be more optimistic, bigger perspective, happier? – Absolutely. – Talk about it. I know it, because I can see it from afar. I’m pumped to hear that, but I’m curious how you quantify it. How much? Or how or what, or talk? – I would say that the thing that you all, you say that resonated with
me the most is the whole you’re 100% in control
of your situation and don’t bitch about it. – You’ve changed in that way. – Yeah, in a big way, absolutely. – Yeah, you’re right. I think about you three years
ago, you complained more. – I complained a lot. – Yeah, no really. And you feel more in control. – 100% yeah if I have a problem, everything is fixable as opposed to – And talk to me as somebody whose, when did you start watching Wine Library TV? – 2007 I think. – The difference of being this, so you said, I listened very carefully. I’m a good listener. The thing you said that resonated with me you followed me for a long time. How long have you been at VaynerMedia? – Three years this month. – For almost a full year,
you weren’t as inner circle with me. Was it watching the execution
of that non-complaining that triggered it, or was
it just momentum or what? I’m trying to figure out what I wanna do for them
is what’s the difference between what they are experiencing which is what you
experienced, which is you’re listening to it versus
clearly being able to see it in real life. You see all the, you’re in my inbox, you know the insanity that I – I know what it is. It’s that you encourage
people to take control of the situation, and what
happens is the first time somebody actually acts on that and says, I have a
problem with this person and instead of bitching
and complaining about it, they actually take control
of the situation and they say, hey this is a problem. How do we fix it? People are afraid to do that. They think it’s gonna backfire. They think, I’m not allowed
to give that person feedback, or I’m not allowed to
act on this, because it’s not my job, or I’m not
senior enough or whatever, and the first time you do
it, and it doesn’t backfire, and it actually works, because you asked for what you wanted, it’s like oh shit, that’s actually really empowering. – And let me teach you about scale. That’s awesome, in that what I know and I’m gonna give you
a little love here is going from that what he just said which is complaining and
not doing anything about it, to the next step which
is doing something about it, but what Steve has
done, unlike others. I’m super pumped they’re just doing it. What Steve has done that I’ve noticed is not only that, then empowering others to do the same, and that my friends is scale. That my friends is how
you go from a small base to a big base when you are so religious and you suffocate all the wrong, and you try to teach, and you have people that level up to it, so that saves you time, but then some break through and actually teach it as well, and help me scale it and know much of a religion it is. That’s when you start really scaling it, and that’s who the hell knows how we got to this point. I don’t even remember the question, the daily ritual. That’s my ritual, and not only is it my ritual it’s my religion, it’s my passion, and it is probably fundamentally
why I do this damn show, because I’m so desperate for you guys to do the same, because
it’s just way better.

“integrity in the
communications industry?” – Dylan I want to too
and I think the answer is there absolutely is but I
think that there’s integrity, there’s very little integrity
in every single market, advertising, politics, sports, music. The reason integrity is so
attractive is it’s so hard. It’s far and few between and
integrity’s defined differently by everybody and I think
it’s interesting to watch. I actually think society
is giving people more room to be flawed, which is intriguing. I think the level of
integrity, the way integrity is viewed upon today I
think is in a much better place than it was by society
let’s say 50 years ago because I think we’re
now factoring in that nobody’s perfect and we’re making mistakes even by standards like
drugs and relationships and cheating, like intense
stuff, I think there’s an interesting evolution and I think that that’s allowed for a
little bit more gray and a little bit more if you’re
really on your high horse creating a scenario where
you judge integrity. But I think in a lot of ways
there’s plenty of integrity. I think there’s a ton of
integrity out there still. I’ve been saying this
a lot lately, I said on another video, are we gonna bang out that video that I did earlier today? – [Voiceover] Which one, we did four. – Yeah I know, the last one we did. – [Voiceover] The Twitter one? – Yeah, Staphon’s working on it? – [Voiceover] Yup. – In there I say, no I think
it was a different one. – [Voiceover] It was the other one. – It was in another one, I screwed up. But, I’m a big fan of this
thing that’s on my mind right now which is you find
what you’re looking for. You know, I see integrity everyday. Everyday and I think it’s
because I look for it and I look half glass full,
like this is Niagra Falls to me. Like this is a very full
glass and I think that plenty of people can see plenty
of what’s missing. I think that’s as much on you my man as it is on what’s actually
happening in the marketplace.

– [Voiceover] Duke asks, what
would you say A.J. has learned and applied from you in business, and, would he be willing to answer
this question on the show? – Duke, memo alert. This is the #AskGaryVee show. This is not the Ask A.J.
Vee show with no silent E’s. This is my show, I answer the questions. There is no A.J. answering the questions. It’s me, I do it, it’s my show. Take it away, bro. – Duke, thanks so much for the question. It’s a really good one, and
one that I could probably spend a couple of hours talking through, but I know this show
is long enough already. Tryin’ to think through it, like I said, there’s a lot I could go through. I think one of the biggest
things is perspective. I think that, in the course of
growing a business very fast, there’s a lot that gets thrown at you. And there’s a lot of good,
and there’s a lot of bad. And it’s really keeping
the highs not too high, and the lows not too low. And really taking a step back, thinking about the wider impact of everything that’s happening and really, just not stressing yourself out too much. I think every day goes by, a lot happens, but you can really just
focus on what’s important, think about the big picture. That’s been massively beneficial for me as we’ve grown the business
together at Vayner. Another huge one for me, is just the value of the team and HR. And just really focusing on personalizing the experience with your staff. I think, you know, when focusing on HR, I think there’s a temptation
to be a little bit too by-the-book, you
know follow a process, a handbook, of how to handle reviews, and how to handle situations, and we very much take a
look at every situation that comes our way, with
anybody that we work with. And really personalize
that, and really think about the situation and the impact of it. And don’t use a cookie cutter system. I think just really
focusing on HR, you know, we grew very fast at Vayner,
we went through a spurt, of, roughly, from 12
employees to 25 employees, to 100 to 250 to 400. And when you’re growing that fast, I think the two things
that I’ve mentioned: really keeping perspective
and big-picture thoughts, and really making sure that
you’re focusing on the team, and the team within, and
focusing on their growth, how they work with you, how
they work with each other, and those are the two biggest
things I think I’ve taken away from working with Gary and
having him as my brother, my business partner, and my mentor. And my best friend. – ‘Preciate it bro, nice answer.