– Hey Gary, hey ET,
it’s Byron Lazine. I appreciate you guys
taking the question. I’m about going into the gym
here, it’s 5:45 trying to get my hustle on.
– 5:45PM? – I sent my question to Gary
last week and I hope whoever is editing this will throw in
my YouTube channel here just obviously hustle a
little bit of exposure. You guys have been such
a big inspiration to me. ET, I found you a number of
years ago at the talk you did to that classroom. Inspired the crap out of me. I’ve watched it
over a hundred times. Gary, first time I saw you
was a keynote to RE/MAX. You ripped their faces off. And I’m going to be giving a
keynote actually or rather 18 minute talk at the
Tom Ferry Summit next week. This is the Super Bowl of all
real estate conferences. I’ve done two, three,
400 person talks but this is in front of 5000 people. What advice you have for me
stepping up into the big leagues and guys I’d also like to know
when your speaking career really launched, were you out pushing
that or did you let all those paid speaking
opportunities come to you? How do you grow and
paid speaking business? Thanks guys, be well. – Eric, let’s
answer it, go ahead. You go first. – Yeah, so first of all I want
to say this because you talked about that first speech. Again, Gary, I wasn’t
doing that for the world. It’s an accident
that video came out. I had no idea. – [Gary] Somebody was recording
it and put it on YouTube? – Actually a guy
recorded for his thesis. – [Gary] Yep.
– Never used it for his thesis. – [Gary] Okay. – The only reason he mic’d
me up was because of that. – [Gary] When was this? – This was 10 years ago. Actually, the anniversary to the
Guru story is this school year. So that’s when I did it. – And that was your break out?
– That was the break out. When we say break out
we mean to the world. I have two careers. The first one was
I had been doing this,– – 100%. – I had been doing this
for 10 years before that. – People are like,
“Oh, you broke out.” I was like, “Yeah, I
worked every day of my life. “I finally broke out.”
– Right, right. So I ended up breaking out
after 18 years, yeah broke out. – If you call breaking out like
punting anything that was happy and fun and easy and just
grinding my face off, yeah I broke out.
– Yeah. So for me that speech was to
about 40 or 50 kids from the inner city who were about to get
kicked out of Michigan State and I was going off. I was just going off because
they don’t have three chances like their parents, you know,
just got laid off from Ford, GM and Chrysler. We’re talking about when the
country hit the recession. These kids parents
had lost their jobs, GM, Ford, Chrysler
all crashing. This is their chance
to get a degree– – And they’re bullshittin’.
– So I’m going off. – Of course.
– Somebody happens to record it. – Especially ’cause, you know,
I’m going to use that as my answer which is when you tell
your truth it’s not scary to talk to one, it’s not
scary to talk to 50,000. You ask me right now to read
your email, right now, if you gave me a long email and said
read it, I’d be scared shitless. You know why? I’m bad at reading.
I don’t like reading. – Yeah. – It’s not what
comes natural to me. – It’s not jut me it’s Gary.
(group laughter) – I could go speak in front
of this whole city, this whole thing. Give me 80 million
people, I’m ready. Give me the mic, I’m going. I’m ready right now. You ask me to read in front of
this inner circle I’m like, uh, let’s get a drink guys.
– Yeah, yeah, yeah. – Nah, that’s stupid
let’s do business. It’s unbelievable. So to Brian, Byron?
– [Andy] Byron. – Byron, just go
speak your truth. The biggest mistake people make
and your by accident similar to me, I was a businessman just
going to a conference, I don’t know, the number one
reason people fail is ’cause they have to think.
– Yep. Yep. – And when you think because you
don’t know, ’cause you’re trying to fake it, you know what’s
easy for us and your’s is more extreme than mine but I have my
version of it, when you’re not at any plateau, when you’ve been
there nothing’s super scary. – Yep, yep. – What you’re
going to laugh at me? When kids made me drink pee
’cause I couldn’t speak English? Things aren’t scary.
– Right. – What is somebody
going to do to you? When you’re eating shit
out of the fucking corner? Who’s going to do what? Somebody’s gonna laugh
at you at a conference? They didn’t like
the way you cursed? That’s the silliest. I think the biggest thing
is to talk your truth Byron. Don’t try to act
bigger than you are. Everybody does that.
– Yeah. – Oh, now that I’m a big stage
let me make pretend or embellish that I built, sold a lot of
apartments or people embellish or fake it and
then you’re scared. You’re scared somebody’s
gonna call you out on it. You’re scared
somebody’s gonna come, you know what I’m pissed about? I had Tyler right now
I’m getting my report card right now sent to me. My report cards from high school
because somebody in the comment section of Facebook said, “Gary,
you aren’t that bad of a student “from high school.” Only ’cause I they like me and
they didn’t want to believe I was such a bad student.
– Right, right, right. – I’m like, “Oh, you think
so, let me go get them.” I just thinks it’s truth. – And I would say to him as
well, give them something, man. Too many people spend so
much time talking about their accomplishments and what they’ve
done, give them something, give them a tool or two that
they can literally take. I’m talking about as soon. Don’t, I listen to some of these
guys, no disrespect but it takes about 18 messages before you
actually say something to them. Right? So I’m saying, do me a favor
just give them one or two things that as soon as the conference
is over they can really take with them and actually use. – I’m super mad you said that
because you’re more right than what I was saying. It’s more important than
your truth even though this doesn’t sound like it. I believe that 90% of talks in
public today are press releases for that person and they’re
doing propaganda for themselves and they just leave.
– Absolutely, Gary, absolutely. – I’m trying to guilt
mother fuckers to love me. – Yep. Yep. – That I gave them so
much that they’re like damn. Honestly, you know what I
like about Kendrick Lamar? – What do you like
about Kendrick Lamar? – I like, oh, we got a nice
little cadence going here. (group laughter) I like that when I feel like if
I was good enough to be a rapper I would have the same mindset. What I think he does, and
I don’t know if this has been talked about, again I don’t read
anything so I don’t even know if this is out there, I assume it
is ’cause it’s so obvious, he goes and goes on
other people albums and he’s trying to steal those fans. When I listen to how he
does it, I’m like I get that. I literally, Eric I swear to
God, I go to every conference and I’m trying to make anybody
that came there for somebody else question that person.
– Yeah, yeah. – I want them to be like damn.
– No, no, no, explain. ‘Cause they’re laughing.
Explain that though. – [Gary] Okay, I go to every
conference and I go look this is a conference and there’s
this fancy person, there’s Warren Buffet,
there’s Tony Robbins, there’s Eric Thomas,
I’m sure they a lot of people, I’m not the only person but
I’m going to go on stage and I’m going to make every single
person leave saying I don’t like Warren Buffet anymore.
I like GaryVee. – Yep. – And by the way, that’s
not having by having bravado. – Yeah. – That’s not having, that’s not
cursing that’s I’m gonna provide so much stream of value so hard,
so long that they’re going to be tired when I’m done.
Bring value. – And that’s why you
know who GaryVee is. For real.
You guys got to hear that. Because a lot of people that
study, studying GaryVee this is why I laugh, Gary. There’re people who look up to
you who don’t do what you do. – You mean everybody? You mean everybody? Do you know how many
people tweet hustle and work six hours a day? I know.
– I’m serious. – I know. – I’m serious. Someone I’m very
close to today asks me about my schedule and I told him
the schedule and then they asked me well why are you up so early?
(laughter) – Yeah. Let’s move to the next
question before I get angry. By the way, real
quick I got angry.

GiantThinkers.com.
– [Gary] Giant thinkers. – Recording this from Sydney, Australia. I am an author, a blogger,
a podcaster, a speaker and CreativeLive instructor
that helps emerging designers be employed. I have a “what would
you do” question, Gary. Currently I have one book
and CreativeLive courses for all of us bloggers
and podcasters out there that are looking to better monetize. What would your next right hook be? Would it be to create another book, potentially a video course or
even a membership component? Cheers. – That’s a good question. Ram, right? Ram, great question, big
shout out to Australia. Looks like Australia next
March for the book tour is becoming very realistic. So going down under could be fun. Haven’t been there since
I’ve been in the wine world. Not true, actually just
remembered I flew in and flew out for a business talk
three or four years ago. Ram, I think it comes down to what’s the best product you could put out? Whatever form you think
that you can execute in. Whether that’s a second book
’cause you’re a great writer or an online course ’cause
you’re charismatic on video or a membership site because
you think you can provide enough value worth paying for
in a differentiated market, and yes you can taste my cynicism there, or continuing to build
up your brand to become more of a persona that
gets to publicly speak. I think speaking is a very
lucrative way to monetize one’s personality. I think it’d be really interesting
if, since it sounds like you’re teaching other
people to become employed, I think it’d be really
interesting for you to do more of that yourself. So instead of teaching
people how to make money, maybe you go out and get employed more so that you can speak to, like, “I did a million dollars
worth of gigs this year.” I think you know that from
me, I’m cynical to people just teaching for the sake of teaching. So I enjoy the fact that I’ve built, of course with AJ and team, but, like, I’ve built a
machine that does, soon to be, a hundred million dollars
in social media work. It sure give me a lot of
oomph to say now, like, this stuff works ’cause these companies don’t keep us around
’cause I’m charismatic. And so, you like the recall there? Recall. Go ahead, Stephon. Stephon? (laughs) Hey, Stephon. Hey, Stephon, over there.
(everyone laughs) Talk to Staphon.
(everyone laughs) And I’ll take a recall
(laughs) component here. Little rusty, a week away and… I think all of those are viable options. And for everybody who’s watching, you can tell the back-end
ones were the ones I’m more excited about because
I love proof in the pudding. I love proof in the pudding. I love proof in the pudding. That make you think of Bill Cosby, too?

– [Voiceover] And your last, “Hey Gary, “to what extent would you say “your success is due to your
showmanship/charisma factor? “Thanks!” – Angel, I think my
showmanship and charisma is a major fact, my
charisma is an absolute, being charming is a stunningly
important personal trait. Being likable is really
cool and I, especially, have a weird thing going on
because in my public persona, especially when I’m on
stage or performing, I get very competitive. Very, like, I wanna rap
battle the world, right? Like I want to beat everybody. So I’m combative and I say
things that most people don’t want to say so it makes
a certain group uncomfortable and actually makes them
not like me as much. So then when they meet me one-on-one, and that charming, kind
of real person plays out, I even get extra credit. Yeah, listen, I think it’s a major factor. Now, on the flip side, I
can rattle off 50 people, which I won’t ’cause this is a dis, that are massively charming,
massively charismatic but have no depth. It’s classic sizzle and steak. I think I have both. Now do I think a steak that
really sizzles sells better? It sure does and so I would
almost say maybe it’s 50%. All right, if you wanna go
basic, it’s 50% of my success because having the goods
to back up that hyperbole and charisma and
excitement and showmanship is a major thing. There’s a lot of people faking this show. There’s a lot of content
on YouTube and out there. There’s a lot of people that are trying, there’s a lot of people
doing quote pictures the way I do them or videos the way I, I’m not talking about you, DRock. (everybody laughs) And doing videos the way I
do and there isn’t traction because I think people can smell it. So you have to be able to back it up. But I don’t run away from it. I definitely think that, I
hate when people don’t think that they’re lucky. Like, I don’t how to not quantify my charisma, my personality
as anything short of I took great features from my parents. Who just, my parents
deciding to get married, unfortunately even though, if
my dad ever watches the show, which he doesn’t, mom, make
sure you show dad this part. As much as I’d love to
take credit for mom and dad getting married, I just can’t. My dad always likes to zing me
for taking credit for stuff. Yeah, I think my personality
is a major factor. I’m also equally happy to
know that my work ethic and my tenacity and my
skills and my compassion are equally factors in my success. – [DRock] Does your mom watch every one? – I think my mom’s watching
almost every one, yeah.

“You seem to be everywhere! “Are you democratic about
your talks or do you “have a strategy in place
for public speaking?” – Irina, I have a
strategy about everything. So I have a strategy
for my public speaking. At this point in my career
I try not to speak much unless I’m getting paid
my very expensive fee. It’s a promise I made myself and my wife. So there’s that. But when I am not getting paid, it is absolutely a
disproportionate opportunity to do one of two things. Which is build my brand. And if I have to speak where, I spoke recently where
Hilary Clinton was first and Steve Forbes was behind
me and I was in the middle. That’s good brand positioning. Ninety percent of the
crowd, 98% of the crowd, they didn’t know who I
was, but they sure knew that I was one of those three people and that means something
and that makes them Google me up a little bit more. The other thing that I do is that I really want to support
certain communities. New Jersey tech scene,
the Harlem tech scene is something that I’m going
to be doing in the future. You know, interns, young people. So if there’s something that
emotionally feels right to me, that I know that if I do it, people in the future will do it as well cause that organization
can leverage my name. And I’m giving back to something
that means something to me, Jersey, kind of like the come-up, underdog
area, you know, youngsters. Those are things that
I’ll invest my time into. But there’s no, like, sure! No, it’s all like, (clicking noise) No, “Sure!” – [Voiceover] Matthew asks,

“to swear to make a point?
Surely business credibility “is better built without swearing? – You were excited about
asking this question? I don’t feel like I need
to swear to make a point. I also don’t agree that
business credibility is lost when you curse. Business
credibility is lost when you curse when the judge
of your credibility is a d or f player and
somebody that is making surface level decisions. As a
matter of fact, I would argue that, at times, I use my cursing
as a filter to filter out the people that are not capable of seeing the bigger picture,
versus being so blocked. “Oh my god. I heard the word (bleep). I can’t hear anything else.
Everything else must be bad. There’s no good advice,
this is a bad person.” That is ludicrous. It
goes into the same context as the way you dress, or
a million other variables of ways people that will judge you– See, when you’re great, you
can dress in all red, all red. You can blend into phone booths. I mean, you can dress how you want. You can talk how you want.
Because at the end of the day, the way you deliver is all
that people really care about. And the way you make them feel. I’m not cursing to disrespect someone. I have empathy and respect
why a lot of people may not like me, or consume me. There are plenty of people
that don’t watch this video because they saw a keynote where I cursed and they were offended, and
they are no longer in my set. Surely, I would have a bigger
audience if I didn’t curse. That is absolutely true.
And business respect, sure. I may lose out on a deal
because they were offended. But in the net, net, net
score, I win so many more by being me and just being me
versus creating a half-version of me for the one conservative
person and leaving the hundreds of magic
business opportunities, that are predicated on
winners making decisions. So, yeah. I’m completely
in disagreement with you. I don’t believe either one of us are successful because of our cursing or non-cursing,
I think it has a lot more to do with a lot of things that
matter a hell of a lot more than some choice four letter words. – [India] From Cherise.

alongside a United States
senator Mark Warner. You’ve been a prolific investor in some of the coolest
companies in mobile and Uber. Twitter, Resy, and my in
my humble opinion Button. Tell everybody a little bit
about why you’re speaking at TAP and what you hope to get out of it. – So this is an interesting question. Really nice right hook
by one of my investments. Jaconi nice job. I’m speaking at TAP because
I feel obligated to you. Because I invested in your company. And what I’m hoping to get out of it is the realization from other people that are involved with me in business is that I’m a supporter
of the things that I back. It’s actually very black and white. There’s no PR answer to this question. It’s when you invest in
somebody else’s company, it’s not just the money
that you’re deploying. It’s the energy, it’s
the thought leadership. There’s an arbitrage in having me there. I’m going to give the best
talk at the conference. People are going to think
your conference was good. They’re going to think
your product is better. They’re going to see that I’m
invested into your company in a world where I have
hundreds of investments. And in two years I’m going
to be competing for a deal and that person’s going to say “I don’t know Gary, maybe you, “maybe this other person, why you?” I’m going to say “Well you know what? “Hit up the Button CEO, and ask him “what kind of investor I am. “It’s not just the
money, it’s smart money. “It’s not just the money,
it’s money that sweats.” So that’s what I’m
trying to get out of it. Delivering on my promise,
deploying effort, and most of all continuing
to paint a narrative of what kind of individual
I am as an investor, as a business man, and as a dude.

“to speak in front of an auditorium full “of elementary schoolers,
what would be your topic “of choice and why?” – My topic of choice, so first of all if I was in a room full of
elementary school students, like I was once ever in my
career which was in Houston in a tremendous conference that I went to where it was the best students
from elementary school of all of Houston and I
cursed up a storm and I talked about like all sorts of crap. I remember I tried to connect with them so I was using like random hip
hop artists that were popping at the time and the teachers
were literally flabbergasted and completely pissed off and the kids were completely pumped. And like these were like
the greatest students of like seventh and eighth
grade in all of Houston and like a third of the class
quit school in seventh grade when I was done with the talk. Because what I really talked
to them about was real life which is look you’re a great student, you’re goin’ down a
certain path right now. Bad news, education in
America is screwing you over. You’re gonna pop out and
you’re gonna realize holy crap I don’t wanna do this or this
and that and then I talked about the virtues of good schooling. Which is the randomness of
having a college roommate that’s a billionaire and some
of the other random stuff. But you know it was a tremendous talk. My choice of topic today,
if I was to do it today, would be you know I would tell them to really recognize how to build self-esteem and self-awareness. I would pound that and I would say look, you’re looking at me and
I’m an old dude up here and I’m cliche just like all
your other teachers and parents but you need to find the
things that you’re good at and really find the friends
that you’re looking for and you know you hear it a million times that you’re not gonna look back and care about the dumb shit
that you care about now but you don’t believe me,
but that’s not gonna stop me from trying to pound it down
you’re little f- throat.

I’m speaking to follow
up with Jen’s question before your follow on Instagram I’m forever indebted,
it was the coolest thing I could’ve possibly asked
for so thank you. – Thanks, man, I’m humbled. – So, my question is Wednesday I’ll be on stage
for the first time at a conference speaking and your keynotes are
particularly special and unique but do you have any
advice on how to go about? – Yeah, getting or how about giving it? – [Tony] Giving your first. I think the reason my
keynotes have worked for me is I just stuck to what, into
the way I communicate right. I think people over think presentations. They are stressful and
there’s a lot, you know. First of all, look, It came
natural to me. I didn’t know. Like the first talk I ever gave,
I was like thirty something right like, wasn’t like, oh,
I’m going to be public speaker. They come natural
to me right, but I think I think there’s another real strong reason they worked for me and that’s because I just talk about what I know. The reason I don’t need slides, the reason I feel very comfortable
doing #AskGaryVee show is I stay in my lane.
I’m pumped, by the way I’m hoping today, I can answer, not sure. Right, you know like,
you guys saw recently with the new Facebook
integration, just I’m using that I don’t ever thought like
so, I would say you know and it is back to the great question from twenty year old from Poland, right? Which is like, you just have
to, you know it’s the same game which is like stick to what you know like I’m, the by the way that
interaction is super fun for me because I believe he’s got a shot I think you need to focus on
the plus side not the down side so, I think you just need
to focus on what you know like, you got us to speak. The problem is, a lot of
people are faking the funk with speaking. Right, a lot of people are I’m an expert before ever doing anything. And so they are, they’re stuck because they’ve got a like talk about their execution, right? And so, as long as you
stick to what your execution is even if it’s, even if
you’ve been billed and billed at a higher level
than you are think you are just stick to what you
know, walk-in with humility. The reason I often, start my
keynotes as you’ve all seen with “How many people here,
know who I am?” I always know that 90%
of the room doesn’t. It always freaks out the
10% that does, right? But the world is big, and
there’s a lot of stuff out there. And so, I would walk in with humility. I would talk about what you
know and I would communicate the way you are most
comfortable in communicating. I’d be crippled right now,
if I had to read cue cards because it’s not comfortable to me. I can barely read and like
that will be a problem. Cool, man. (audience clapping) I’m noticing a lot of
people are not clapping.

– [Voiceover] Paul asks,
“Can you provide insight into “how you nurtured your
public speaking chops, “besides just hustling on stage? “How do you prepare for a talk? “Have you ever been
nervous to speak publicly?” – Paul, great question. First of all, ridiculously rad picture. DRock, show it again. In love with the drone. Just completely caught
our attention, great job. The truth is, I hit the
stage somewhere in 2006, for the first, first time,
as somebody to listen to, and it was instantaneous. It was love at first sight. I loved the stage, the stage loved me. And so obviously, I’ve
got a lot of practice. Matter of fact, what I’m struggling with more than anything right now, is that I’m getting into such a rhythm, I feel like I’m a stand up comic, right, that I have my kind of talk. And I take a lot of pride of
making it eight to 15 minutes out of an hour different
based on the audience, but I want it to be 45 minutes different. But I’m kind of a cadence right now, so obviously I’ve gotten better. My timing has gotten
down, but I’ve never done anything like, it’s kind
of like this show, right? Like, one of the things I
love about doing Meerkat behind the scenes now
is that people can see how little to no editing there really is. There is no real prep. I think my biggest secret
is talk about what you know you’re good at, right? Like, talk about stuff you know. I try not to answer questions
about foreign-policy or currency or you know, I
stay away from Bitcoin or I don’t talk about the
things I don’t know, right? I can spew my opinion and
at the end of the day, this show and everything
else is my opinion, but boy, is that grounded
in really strong research and skill and practitioner DNA. I feel like my opinion
business matters because of the execution I did to get there, whereas my opinion on everything
else, I have my opinions on a lot of things, but
they’re not as grounded and as much researched. They’re more intuitive, which is fine. Take them for what they are,
you know what opinions are. I stick to what I know, and
that helps me just scream. I’m a good communicator by DNA, and by staying in my comfort
zone, in my lanes of expertise and the places where I
actually spend my time honing my craft, it comes
off very clean because it’s very natural because it is natural.

I love your hustle and
perseverance so much, but I’m gonna zing and zang
a little bit on this answer because I am really tired of 21, 19, 22, 24 year olds wanting to be speaker and coaches about things that they are not able
to speak and coach about because they don’t have the experience. You’re right, it is a disadvantage. It’s very hard for me to want to listen, or pay you for business advice when you’ve never built a business. And by the way, you don’t have to be 24, you could be 39 and try
to sell business advice, when you’ve never sold a business. Now, that’s me making a
leap and an assumption that that’s what you want to talk about. If you want to talk about the perspective of a millennial on how to use social media because you are one, cool. If you want to talk about
the things you’ve learned, you know, in whatever genre. If you’ve been making
music since you were 13, and you’re 24, that’s an 11 year career, but the truth is you can only talk about, and demand and command
attention and respect around something you’ve
actually accomplished. Just saying that you’re
a coach and a speaker doesn’t mean you are one because
you just said you are one. You’ve got to earn the
credit to be able to do it. Now look, do I believe that you can be a football coach without playing football? Yes, but we’ve hit on this before. When you look at the
coaches that were coaches that, you know, didn’t play football, most of them played college football, maybe they didn’t get to the pros. Most of them, if they
didn’t play football, at least, at bare minimum, played high school football competitively, and then had a father normally who was a coach, or was
within the organization of a major sports franchise. I mean, you’ve got to put in the work, and so you know, the reason
there’s a disadvantage of being 24 and getting
people to listen to you is cause they’re right. Now, there’s anomalies, maybe you were 17 and you built a huge
business and sold it at 21. The age is not the variable, you know, I feel like I did a lot by 24. I could walk onto stage and say, “Hey guys, in the last 24 months, “since I was 22, and I took
over my dad’s business, “I’ve taken it in the last 24 months “from 3 to 15 million dollars. “Here’s how I did it.” That’s some credibility,
that’s some chops, but I couldn’t have at that point say, “Let me talk to you about HR as a leader.” Only 24 months of that experience, only so much value compared
to when I do it now of having two decades of doing it. So you know, it’s a
disadvantage for a purpose, right, for a reason. If you’re an anomaly, radical, but if you’re not, you need to respect that people are not idiots.