#AskGaryVee Episode 227: Young Garyvee, Meditation for Self Awareness & Marketing Print Magazines

First off, I want to start by thanking you for putting
out all that content. I’ve been an entrepreneur for
over five years now and I feel like that I am becoming
a better businessman, a better entrepreneur
thanks to your content and insight so thank you for that. This is my question. I’ve been working to get with a
few interns for couple years now and they’re always around
21-years-old and I feel that they’re lacking two
important skills. The first skill is critical
thinking or self-criticism. They should think about what
should I do first and what next. Why am I advising this? Is what I produced
really good enough? The second skill is
taking ownership. When all given tasks are
finished do they start thinking about what the next
best step could be? Do you have any idea how I,
as a boss, as a guides, can help them
develop their skills? Thanks. – Jelle, listen, I think that the answer to your question is the critique that you
are putting on them. You are critiquing them for
this kind of thoughtfulness, critical thinking and then
action and taking the initiative in being on the offense. My answer to you is you need to
do the same with you as a boss and you need to audit
yourself to do that. Meaning there is no reason
that you should be in a scenario where you’re struggling with
21-year-old interns for long period of time because the
truth is if you put the time and effort to really audit them and
really spend time with them and then decide for you whether
you’re right or wrong as the judge and jury, as the boss,
that they’re good or they’re not good you could speed up
this process very quickly. So my answer to you is go deep
and spend more time with them whether that’s virtually
or in reality or in real life where these interns are. Figure out if they’re good. Give them very detailed
feedback at scale. Suffocate all the excuses and
then make a decision whether that person should be in
your organization or not. For me, if I wanted to know if
anybody here should be in my organization or not it would
literally take me two days. Just make it the
thing you do today. Today you should decide
if these interns are capable, have the talent and
the capacity to deliver on your
expectations or not. Have you been clear in them
and move forward so I think the answer to your question is in
the same way that your upset with them that when
their task is done, they’re not doing
the next thing. I’m upset with you which is
if you slept last night you could’ve allocated some of those
hours to auditing your interns and giving them clear feedback
and making the decision if you wanted them here or not. Now I know what you did at
age 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 getting

Now I know what you did at
age 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 getting involved in wine and selling
sports cards but what would you be doing if it were 2016 and you were 12, 13,
14 and 15 and 16? Appreciate your answer, appreciate everything
you do, thanks. – Buster, Buster, Buster
honestly what I would tell you is to give you the answer that
you’re looking for which is what what I do what
should you be doing? How should you be
thinking about things? Reverse engineer
your strengths, right? You like the NBA you should hit
up Dunk first of all and have him put you on but besides that
I think that you need to figure out what you’re good at and
what would you want to do. I would basically be
today, I’m trying to think. There’d be so many
things I’d be doing today. I give a lot of that advice, I would’ve made bank
on Snapchat filters. I think that one guy who did
the Pokémon GO consulting. I think that was super smart. Having the
internet to buy and sell. I’m a salesman. Buying and selling, uh, just
buying stuff on you know in Asia and re-marketing in the US. I think I’d be doing pretty much
everything I was doing at scale. So because when
I was growing up sports cards were
what people collected, I would just be focused on
whatever that version is now. Sneakers, I’m telling you right
now, I would be, my stories of Toys “R” Us and garage sales
would be waking up, you know, at one in the morning and
standing in line at a SoHo sneaker
store to get that thing, flipping like I would
be doing a lot of that. I think the truth is, Buster, I’d be focusing on
what I was strong at. What I think I’m really
good at is buying and selling. I did that with
stuff my whole life. Now, I do it with
people’s attention and the end consumer’s attention. That is my strength that
I would double down on that. You, my friend, need to
figure out what you’re best at? Is that making
content on social media? Is that being a charismatic
personality that I think was shining through the question? Is that being a salesperson,
buying selling stuff? Connecting with people? When you’re 16 you have time. Like, Jesus, remember
when you were bored? Remember when you could do that? Andy, do you remember when
you’re like, “I’m bored.” You don’t have that kind of time
when you grow up and so I would take advantage of that time
because that is the asset. – [India] That’s good. – ‘Member being bored?
– Yeah. Was good times. (laughter) – From Brandon.
– Brandon.

My name is Brandon and
I’m social media manager for a digital magazine app in
mid-town Manhattan called Zineo. Looks a little
something like this. My question for you is how do
we leverage content from 5000+ magazines to throw jabs at
a millennial customer who’s attention is typically
away from magazines? Thanks so much for your answer. You keep answering questions,
I’ll keep asking them. – Brandon, I have
a couple things. One you’re avocado ambassador, I need to figure out
what that means. You’re also a Mets fan but
I didn’t see any Jets love and I’m very concerned that you might be one of
those rare people that are Mets and Giant fans
who I hate oh so much. I didn’t fully get the
context of the question. I’m not sure if you guys got it. Obviously, you guys picked it. I didn’t fully understand what the objective
was of the magazines. Was he referring to how we
make micro digital context that actually gets people to
care about a magazine? Meaning like buying a
subscription to a mag, I mean actually I’m very
curious while we’re here, where is your
magazine life right now? Andy K?
– [Andy] Zero. – Zero?
– [Andy] 100% – [Gary] Nothing.
– Nothing. – [Gary] Zero.
– Zero. – [Gary] Dunk?
– 5%. – [Gary] What magazine
would you consume? – Back home from Sweden. – [Gary] Swedish
magazines that you read? – Fashion magazines, yeah. – [Gary] That you’ll at? – Look and read. – [Gary] So that comes to
your home and you’ll do that? – Yes. – [Gary] And that’s 5% of your
world you think is your gut? – 2.5, yes.
– [Gary] 2.5, got it. DRock?
– [DRock] None. – Zero. Other Tyler? – [Other Tyler]
Maybe like 2 or 3. – Like what do you consume? – [Other Tyler] Like photography and design
magazines a little bit. – You’ll flip
through it a little bit. – [Other Tyler] Yeah. – How about compared
to 24 months ago? Even less?
– [Other Tyler] Yeah, even less. – Dunk, compared to 24
months ago even less? – [Dunk] Same.
– Same. India? – I subscribe to a couple.
– [Dunk] No, less. – Less. Less. India? – Same, a couple.
– What do you have? – The New Yorker and
then like an art magazine. – Playgirl?
– No. (laughter) Why do you tease me? – ‘Cause I like you. So, the New Yorker? – Yes. – And do you read that?
– Yeah. – And, it’s not just collecting. Do you think you read as much New Yorker today as you did
24 months ago? 36 months ago? – The same. – ‘Cause there’s a
scenario where you like it. Like, weekend morning
coffee kinda thing or? – Subway magazine. – Perfect subway
magazine, got it. Look, I think, that’s obviously
a small focus group, (Gary stammering) and I don’t know Brandon so
that where I’m gonna have to go. If you’re talking about the
notion of what kind of content can we put out, jabs, in an
ecosystem that is going to get millennial’s excited about then
going in to the magazine world and subscribing to a magazine,
I think it’s a lost cause. I really do and I think the
magazines that have anybody’s attention right now, I bet you
if we could take these three wonderful people’s brains and
put them here and dissect how they cared about the
photographer magazine, the New Yorker and these Swedish
magazines it had a lot more to do with those brands did to them 10, 15 years ago
and that’s the problem. They thought those were cool magazines when they
were in junior high. They were around in the house. The New Yorker
is an iconic thing. I think it’s a very difficult
proposition and as digital and mobile devices have become
more magazine-ized A.K.A. photos have become such a
foundation of the way we consume the internet versus written
words of a decade ago I think you’re fighting an
uphill battle, my friend. – Sometimes you got to
hear that, you know?

– He said I’m soft. – And my question for you is
were you too soft to start a mobile development agency, brah? Was that too hard for you, blah? (laughter) – [India] Brah!
– That’s amazing. I love that whole, are
you, do you lift, bro? So did he say am I too
soft to start a mobile? – [India] Development agency. – I want to say, I want to fight
you is really what I want to do but I think, yeah, I mean, look, to answer it in a straight way the reason building a development
shop in a genre is not interesting to me is that if I was to build
a development shop in a meaningful way, right
now, I would build a messenger development shop way before I’d build a mobile
app shop, brah. Because I don’t care about 2016 legacy software. To me, the reason I built the
company I built is that, unlike, a VCR or a video game console or a cell phone or virtual reality, messaging is tried-and-true. The mechanism that delivers
it gets killed eventually. Right? So the guy caveman Rick who took a rock and
carved it into the cave he was messaging and
communicating, right, but the platform of the day, where the
eyeballs were, were inside the cave and the smoke signals and
the written word and a telephone and a television and a movie
theater and a cell phone and a VR world and apps within cell
phone and so brah, the reason I didn’t go with a mobile
developing shop is it was just too small and I needed to
win the communication game infrastructure that I can deploy
against any mechanism that delivers the story, brah. (laughter)

My name is Bo Muchoki. I’m a real estate agent and
a motivational blogger and I have a question for you
about self-awareness. You’ve spoken a lot
about this topic and how to gain self-awareness. You’ve also touched on how
meditation is a trend that’s really gonna take over and be
in every household in the near future so what are your thoughts on how to gain self-awareness
through meditation. I, myself, gained a lot of
self-awareness and clarity on who I am and what my actual
goals are through meditation so what are your thoughts on how meditation can help you
gain self-awareness? Thanks. – Bo, thanks for the question. I think the answer is,
I believe. I believe I believe you. There’d be no reason for you
to make this video and lie. I believe that there’s a lot of
people that are gonna gain it. I’m a very, very, very strong
advocate for way more discovery by the human race around
understanding the brain and mental health, mental fitness,
mental, mental, mental. I promise you that when it’s all
said and done for me people will realize that that was
the game that I won. That that’s the
gift that I was given. That that was where
I had all-time skills. It’s just we’ve grown up
in a world and I, for the last 40 years, where
that wasn’t the conversation. People can tell if you’re
pretty or good at athletics. Nobody rolled up
on me and were like, “Yo, bro your brain
is on point.” Right? I’d say that because when I say
brain I mean the mental pillars of emotional intelligence that
are the foundation of everything I’ve been talking
of last four years. You could tell me
I’m good at school. Memorizing something
and regurgitating. That’s not what
we’re talking about. It’s having that centering,
having that place, that energy that allows you navigate
through all adversity. Not getting too
high in your highs and not getting too
low in your low. It’s balance. It’s the contradictions
that make me me. I want awesomeness for everybody
but I want to punch all of you in the face too because if
you want to compete with me, you’re gonna lose and
it’s all that stuff. Sorry, India. And that’s all that stuff and
so it’s all of that foundational stuff that we need
a lot more for and if meditation through a process is what unlocks
people to be happier, to be more grateful, to deploy more empathy
to do all the tried and true cliché things that would make
the world awesome, awesome then we would be in a
really, really good spot. And I don’t believe that there’s
Nirvana and it’s gonna be perfect but moving anything
just a little bit really works. We’ve had world wars. We’ve had in epidemics. We’ve had enormous atrocities. We continue to do
them in the world today. There’s genocide and people are confused and
so yeah I’m I’m all ’bouty, ’bouty, I don’t even
know why I said that but I was thinking about
Master P the other day. I’m all about, all about
people understanding that mental health, meditation all these
things have a lot of upside and that we do not understand anything about
the brain currently. Just an enormous, vast
opportunity for us over the next century to learn more about this
and I’m excited and grateful that my great, great, great,
great-grandchildren will live in a world where that will be understood far more
in a substantial way. In the way that people died
from disease that we so easily navigate through today,
all these unhappy people, and all these tragedies, and all these negatives
that are completely, completely coming from the fact
that the mental status of that person isn’t in the best place
it could be are gonna be an amazing challenge for our race, for our world, for who
we are as humans. And I’m really into it and
I really bank that that is where so much of my
happiness comes from. I’m actually quite sad that I’m
not to be able to see it where it’s gonna be 100 years from
today unless somebody figures out technology and I’m into it. I’d be pumped to be a buck 40. I will Yoda this
fuckin’ world up. And so that’s that. – [India] “I will Yoda
this shit up” as a t-shirt.