“What are some easy ways
to become more self-aware?” – TagLine Tom! I think there’s one hack for
becoming more self-aware, which is asking people around you and creating a safe zone, a permission for them to actually tell you about you from their perspective, and it’s on you to create that safe place so that they actually tell you things that you may not wanna hear, because what I think could happen is that you get chipped
away at and I think that ultimately if you
hear enough people say that you you’re too kind or too aggressive or full of shit or whatever it
is that eventually, you know, I gotta stop cursing ’cause
all the Facebook posts now you guys need to beep. That’s extra work for you guys. I like how you guys (mumbles). (laughing offscreen) You know I think that
that’s the one place, that’s the only hack I know. I don’t think there’s any other move. I think it’s about
getting people to tell you about yourself in safe environments. Be aggressive about that. Really seek out that feedback and then be man enough, woman enough, to eat it, really. And the way you get more of it is when a friend of you says, “I think you’re a little full of crap.” You know, you don’t end that relationship. You triple down on that relationship ’cause they’re givin’ it to you. And that’s, if you really
want self-awareness, you need to wildly, if you
wanna hack self-awareness I actually think it’s
predicated on having thick skin. I think that is why,
I really think so much of what I pull off is predicated
on how thick my skin is. My skin is thick. You know, I just can handle it. I just can. I hate it. I hate it! I hate, like, reading, like, you know, bad stuff about me. It’s devastating. But I respect it. I can accept it. I understand it. And I try to use it as something that I go on the offense
with going forward and so they’re learning moments and so, you know, if you
could get over yourself, right, and the funny
thing is, I don’t know, I feel like I’m so
self-aware I’m not sure if, I think but I, you know, even like, even people that I think are
not self-aware around me, it’s funny to me how
self-aware they really are. It’s just you don’t let your brain accept your shortcomings. As we, oh, the self-awareness video. This’d be a good time to click it up. If you haven’t seen this, this is some of the best work. Who is this? This was DRock or Stephan? Stephan, this is great. This was great, this was great. Show him. This was great. Show him, show him. Great. Watch the video. Link it up and like show a little still. You know what? DRock, end in like a little, I want 13 seconds of it. Your choice, go. – [Voiceover] This is a word
that is rarely talked about in our space that I wanna start building more attention for. Self-awareness. I wanna deliver on this message so much. I would create a test or a drug that allowed people to become self-aware. One potion inject. Not hustle, not smart. Self-awareness. I don’t fear being self-aware. – All right, let’s keep going. – [Voiceover] Stephanie asks,

– What’s up Gary? It’s been a minute. Listen, I wanna talk about being selfish. How do you best make
decisions in your own interest even though they might negatively
affect people around you. That’s family, business,
personal, friends, anything. Let me know. – You know how long I’ve known this kid? – How long? – I think there may be a video of him actually being on Wine Library TV. – Really? – Like, eight, nine years ago. Okay, play it again. Jackson. – [Voiceover] It’s been a minute. Listen, I wanna talk about being selfish. How do you best make
decisions in your own interest even though they might negatively
affect people around you. That’s family, business,
personal, friends, anything. – Great question. Great, great, great, great,
great question, Jackson. There’s an interesting
part of your question. I truly truly don’t think that when I’m being selfish, it’s coming at the
detriment of somebody else. And so that’s how I handle it. I think I’m always
selfish and never selfish. Like, it’s just, I’m living. I’m living. The way I justify it a lot of times is I feel like when I’m in
my most selfish place it’s that I’m doing
something that optically looks selfish for me in the short term but is actually gonna positively affect the people in the long term and that I’m making a decision and I think I’m right
in a five year window versus a five month window and that history will allow that person to feel that it was palpable when they rekindle their thoughts around it, even though it might
sting or not feel as great in the short term.

“How did you meet Willie Morris, “and what attracted you to Faithbox? – Frank, you know, Willie, Faithbox, I’m an early
early angel investor. True angel investor in
both Birchbox and Barkbox and believe in the box of
the month business model. Especially when you lay
your media on top of it, which those companies have done well. I really wanted to be in that space and really thought of like, where’s the biggest open space? What’s a big business to
be in in the box space? And, you know, religion is a big business. And so, I thought that was fascinating. It was in the back of my mind. It was brainstorming. Phil Toronto, who is a
principal at Vayner/RSE was aware of Willie through maybe a girlfriend’s girlfriend, friend. He was leaving Amazon, coming to New York, I take a lot of serendipitous meetings. We sat down. We hit it off. I thought he had the right make up. He had great hair. And we made the move. That’s about it. It wasn’t super complicated. I had an idea. Got to know him a little bit. There was some correlations on passion around that subject matter. It clicked. And away we go. And he’s really kicking it in right now. Faithbox is really looking on the up. I’m really excited about
that company right now.

“What are bad habits you had and overcame, “and how did overcoming
them aid your growth “as an entrepreneur?” – Shady, good question. Not like the last one. I think the things I
overcame were big eyes. Which was, hey I’m gonna
do a lot of things at once. Actually, I don’t know
if I’ve overcome it. I’ve gotten a little bit better. Definitely in this chapter
of building VaynerMedia I’ve overcome that issue, I’ve been really focused
as CEO of VaynerMedia, and general partner of Vayner/RSE. So, I’ve been really focused. And so, big eyes. Just trying to do too many things at once. And what that’s allowed
me to do is be successful and build another big business instead of half-pregnant across the board. I think the other thing that I’ve overcome is I’ve started, and I’m still not great at this either, these are always works in progress when it’s not the thing that
comes most natural to you, but I think what I’ve
been doing well lately is I’ve been giving more honest, critical, direct to people’s face feedback. You know, I tend to be a little bit soft, I’m much more of a honey over vinegar guy. Between our former manager
and director Kelly and AJ, very straight-shooter operators, they’ve moved me along. I’ve definitely evolved in that category. I’m definitely better at it. I still want to deal with a ton of empathy and heart and soul, but shooting it straight is
bringing more value to me and it’s just speeding up
the process of victory. You can’t have a CEO,
I wouldn’t say I’m not, I’m very decisive, but boy, delivering bad news
does not come natural to me and I don’t love it. Building infrastructure around me and then doing it myself
has been an important evolution that I’ve done
much better at VaynerMedia than I’ve done at Wine Library, and what that’s given me is a thing that a lot of you know that I value which is speed.

Sucks here. What can they do to bring
themselves into this decade? Online and off. So antiquated.” – Jose, there’s nothing they can do. Now, let me explain why. There’s nothing they
can do because, I think, I’m not even educated on this. They are run by the state. Which would make sense. Which means it’s political. It’s all the things that
I do not believe in. And they won’t fix it. The only way that DMV’s can be fixed is if they go private and are run by entrepreneurs who then actually care about the customer and will fire somebody
if they suck at the DMV like everybody I’ve ever had. And care about efficiency
and time and speed and getting people out and do things like bring in
Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts into the DMV to make
more money on the rent. Or the arbitrage of making
a percentage of each sale. You know, innovate and
care and give a crap. All the things that government industries and objects don’t do because it is not in
their best vested interest because the people that can’t innovate and can’t win in a competitive landscape they default into doing
those things instead. How’s that for some (beep) fire? It pisses me off, it’s so crazy. And I don’t wanna be a hardcore like– Honestly, I don’t wanna
be a hardcore capitalist on this issue. And that was as hardcore to that side of an answer I ever give
’cause I do think I blend but like, I don’t know. If you don’t incentivize
humans in some way to do the right thing, you can’t win. And more and more, in a digital world, I would say I’m more
passionate and more hardcore about my points of view
on government agencies and school today than
I even was 10 years ago because there’s alternatives. I’m a pragmatic kind of
dude and I understood that some of the things but now
there’s so much innovation. There’s so many ways we can solve. It’s just, we’re not incentivizing. These are bigger issues than you and I and so privatizing is the way
I think those would be better. I really do and look, privatizing
has its own bad stuff. I’m not one of these like,
everything should go that route because I believe– but in the same way that I believe unions were really valuable
when the titans of the first– By the way, I could see unions coming back as an important thing as
we live through the second industrial revolution but for right now, while we’re alive, take
advantage of these opportunities. – [Voiceover] Anthony
says, “I recently learned

“What should I get my
mom for Mother’s Day?” – Corey, I think the big
strategy for Mother’s Day 2015 is for people that are
watching the show to recognize a lot of their moms are on Pinterest, and that they should go to
their mom’s Pinterest board and see what mama has been pinning and buy her something from there, and so if you’re not
lucky enough to have that, where your mama is pinning,
then I would highly recommend looking at her social media and looking at what she’s tweeting or Facebooking, which will not be as good as Pinterest, but you might find the
diamond in the rough, and then, if you can’t do that, the move that so many don’t do that I highly recommend for
you and the VaynerNation, is to randomly call
your mom’s best friend, the one that you might have
not talked to in a long time, or it might be your aunt that
you only talk to once a year to wish a happy birthday
or whoever it may be, and ask her what, or him,
what you should buy your mom, because friends know, and I
think that would be thoughtful. I think putting in the effort
to try to really buy your mom something she wants for
Mother’s Day is the move. I feel like I’ve inspired three or four of you,
because that’s about as high as I think this will go,
but that makes me happy, because three to four of your moms are gonna have a better Mother’s Day because of the #AskGaryVee Show.

– Dmitry, I took this question
for a very specific reason, because this is absolutely, no question, one of the flaws of my being. I am terrible at celebrating victories. It is actually quite sad in some ways if you decide to look at it that way, or a very strong winner’s mentatlity which is how I like to look at it, but the truth is I stink at it. As a matter of fact,
one of the bigger flaws that I think I’m creating
at VaynerMedia as a culture is that we don’t celebrate our wins. We land big new accounts. We grow like crazy. We win awards. Hush, hush. Nothing. No chest pounding, and I
think it’s interesting, because when you look at me as a character and you look how I roll,
for all the humble bragging and the outright bragging, and the ego and the confidence that I spew out there, it’s funny. It’s always in hindsight,
and it’s in showmanship, it’s not in reality, meaning,
I celebrate victories poorly. For example, the New York
Rangers and the New York Yankees have both won championships for me. They won their championship. I was very happy for
about a couple of hours. No parades, no next day taking
off and like soaking it in. I won, and I moved on,
and I stopped caring. I’m gonna say it here first. I’ve really never said this
out loud outside of my family. I am completely convinced
that if the New York Jets win a Super Bowl before I buy them, that I will no longer
like the Jets that much and all my energy will
then be transplanted 100,000% into the
New York Knicks. I firmly believe that. I just completely believe that. I love the climb. I celebrate victories in a very soft, non appropriate way. I’m really dissapointed in the way that I celebrate victories. It’s something that I want to work on because smelling the
roses is an important part of growing and living, and it’s just not something I’m good at. – [Voiceover] Corey asks, “What should I get my
mom for Mother’s Day?”

“during negotiations something that is in “someone’s DNA, or can it be taught?” – Anthony, I think it is probably a very strong combination of both. I, for a long time, up
until July 7th, 2014, believed that almost everything was DNA. But something that does
not come natural to me is taking care of my health, right? And what I’ve done is I’ve hacked, and I’ve taught myself, and
now is it my own behavior? No, I have a babysitter. His name’s Mike. You’ve seen him, you’ve heard of him. So I do think certain things can be taught to a degree, meaning, for example, I’ve been playing basketball more often and my jump shot is getting better. I’ve brought back my running jumper. Staphon knows what I’m talking about. And so I do think negotiating skills is something that can be taught, but it would be naive to not recognize that some people are just
born with that talent. So probably, like every
answer to every question in the world, the answer is both. A little bit of training and building up, I think I taught AJ to
be a better negotiator. I think he naturally had it in him, but I think there was some
teaching moments there at the garage sales of New Jersey, and so I actually think the way it can be taught is more through osmosis. I think surrounding yourself with those kind of strong negotiators is better than watching a video about it or reading about how to do it, and so I think learned
behavior by feeling it, not just by reading it, is the way to go. So I would say both. I would say 80 20. I think 80% of the equation is natural, but I do think you can be taught 20% lift off of where your natural place in the lexicon of negotiation, or maybe anything else, really is. – [Voiceover] Dmitry asks, “How
do you celebrate victories?”

“Like you, I believe there
is so much to be gained “from social media, but what
do you think we have lost “or are in danger of losing?” – Benjamin, I think this
is a great question. I haven’t given this a lot of
thought because the truth is, I’m such an optimist. The truth is, I think most people default
into cynicism and pessimism, (ding) that I think I allow those
people to do that work for me. But, what I do think about, the one thing that is interesting to me, is I do feel that all of us, especially the ones that decide
to participate in putting out content, which if
you look at the data, may not be at full, full scale
in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, gets bigger as you go down. And as the younger you get, the more you’re really putting out content whether in private form or public form. I think the most
interesting thing is that, I think we’re losing peace of mind. And that’s different than privacy. I think that we all now
know we’re living a life on the record. Whether we decide to put it
out there in selfie form, or if we just happen to be
in the background of somebody doing it. And what that does is it
makes us all kind of be on the record, tense up, right? We’re in PR form. I think a lot of us are
living the PRed version of our lives to the public. It’s always the pictures of
us at concerts and on trips. People do share, you know my Facebook feed is really, basically the extremes, and maybe I’m evolving my answer here. I think we’re losing the middle. Maybe I’ll change my answer because when I think about what’s happening, is everybody’s like, look at me, I’m at a Beyonce concert front row, right? By the way, massively interesting data
that I’m looking at of why people are now going to
public events just to take the selfie to say they were there, which is why concert and sporting events, it’s amazing how social is
making the real world business go up. But then, number two, I see a lot of people on my Facebook feed and my social feeds, sharing their tragedies. Literally, yesterday’s Facebook scroll, which I do occasionally, was literally people announcing
that they’ve become sick or pictures of their daughter
with open heart surgery. Just these real extreme emotions, and then the other things which is like, I’m at Bora Bora and
I’m living the best life and I’m pouring champagne down my throat. The middle is getting
kind of squeezed as we are going to social. Ironically, the middle is peaceful, right? The middle is less tense. The middle is relaxing. The little lacks tension. So, for me, I’m good because I need insanity. Like right now I’m pissed. As you may notice behind me, we’ve opened up a 12th floor. (hip hop music) That’s right, DRock, you’re going to go down there
and film some 12th floor. That hurts me because now the
insanity’s down a little bit, but I recognize that I’m
an anomaly of somebody who needs to blast Weezy songs, at full blast, for a six-hour flight to San
Francisco yesterday to get off and be able to do my thing. I worry about the people
that are more centered or introverted in this
environment where we’re getting suffocated by storytelling
and our public personas, whether we intend to do it or
we become a byproduct of it. So, I think separating our public life to our private life is going to become more and more difficult
and we’re losing that. It was just a hell of a
lot easier back in the day. Ironically, keep it rolling, ironically, I think that’s
where Snapchat’s winning. I think Snapchat is content of the middle. If you think about it, the
shit you put on Snapchat, you’d never make an
Instagram photo, right? It’s just the shit you don’t
care because it goes away. You don’t care about the lighting, it’s almost the closest
thing to real life.

content versus making
appearances and attending social things like parties?” – Megan, this is a great question. I often say that money and fame don’t change anybody, they just expose who someone actually is at a bigger scale, and there’s an enormous
part of me that believes there’s a lot of truth in
that in technology as well. We’re not making, you
know, people are like, I had this funny argument
with this guy at Wine Library the other day where he was
like, all these phones, the art of talking to each other. He goes, I was in Starbucks. This was great. I was in Starbucks, and
everybody was head down. Nobody was talking to each other. I was like, where were you? He was like, New York. I’m like, alright, let’s
talk about this for a second. I’m like, do you think
13 years ago at Starbucks that people were just
yapping with each other? Like, hey brother, great shirt. That’s not how New York rolls, my man. And so I think that all
that technology is doing is making more visible
what we actually were going to do. I mean I do believe the
far majority of people are introverted at first, at scale, by math. If you asked me, or any
I think common sense person in society, I think
we’d all agree on looking for refirmation here. There’s way more people that are gonna sit either timid or middle timid or somewhat timid, and then somebody
whose just gonna roll up. The reason we love and hate the people that just roll up and are loud. Zoom in real good. You got him? – [DRock] Yep. – Really? On that angle you get him? You got Gabe right there? The reason Gabe who works at VaynerMedia is somebody that so many
people know, is ’cause he’s loud as shit, right? And some people love it, and some people hate it, but that’s why. He’s an extrovert extreme. He’s probably like singing
his song right now. It looks like he’s in a meeting. He’s probably just doing some Drake lyrics while he works. I think that it’s important
for us to understand, that first of all, could
you be having an addiction? Sure. I think everybody’s addicted
to their cellular device. I fully believe that every
single person is addicted to their cell phone, like straight up. Maybe, but I would say this, I think that it’s great
for all the introverts or the people that don’t like to party and don’t like to go out, what
they were doing before, they were interacting with the television. Let’s call it what it is, or with like a very small
group of one or two friends who equally were close in location to them and were like that. Now people can really communicate at scale with the people that
have similar interests, find new people, and
all that kind of stuff. I think that you are fine. I think your picture is rad. I think you and I are friends. – [Voiceover] Max asks,
“I’m from Germany where