“you’re the sum of the five people “you spend the most time with. “How do you level up your five?” – This is an interesting question. This is something I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out. Do I, am I willing to surround myself with people who are better than me, I know it’s windy, DRock,
relax, we’re outside. I know, a lot of times
I’ve wondered if I’m surrounding myself with
people that are not. You know, I’m very nurturing. I like having a lot of people around me, I like building up people. – True. – Yeah, I like it. – Very true. Listen, not because he’s my son. I don’t want to sit and
brag on in front of him. He’s extremely, extremely special kid. If I knew what I’m going
to get, it’s a true story by the way, his mother
before we got married, said she has this thing,
she wants to have five kids. And of course, being a young
guy I say, hey, no problem. – (laughs) My parents were married at 20. – Right, we were young. And the time went on, I
got scared about education, to be able to pay, the
kids should not have loans, such nonsense, they should all have loans. – I would have paid it off easy. – Right, and so, he’s,
again I’m not going to sit and brag about you– – I think I might have you
on the show more often. This is, I’m feeling nice. – I’m being very honest with you, maybe somebody out there who’s going to stumble
on this video, whatever. His DNA should be bottled. I’m very serious, not
because we had four wines. Well, that helps, but,
I mean, he’s extremely, extremely special in many ways. And Barack Obama doesn’t
invite him to the White House. – Please, this is nice enough,
you don’t have to get crazy. – Just because, as a father I’m very proud. In the business, we had
a lot of disagreements. (laughter) – We could disagree about the
color of the goddamn thing. But end of the day, we
bounce off each other things. And I don’t think Gary
ever mentions that because he’s a very competitive guy. But a lot of good ideas,
and I don’t want to put myself somewhere, but a
lot of them beginning, was Wine Library, it came
driving an hour each way – I wrote a Medium– – I miss it so much. I miss it so much. And I understand, listen,
he’s got things going on, but that part I always miss because it was very special. You know even today when
the family get together, it’s, even my daughter’s
birthday was a couple days ago, you know she turned what, 30? – Six. – Right. – Sorry Liz. – Yeah, no but even her
friends saw the dynamic of our family, and I
have to give it to mom. Mom built a very strong foundation. Who grew up without a mother, you know. She was at age five, she lost her mother, and but she’s very special person who built this family, and you know, I work and she was building the family. It’s a great combination,
and it’s you know I’m very proud what this
family were able to accomplish, and especially what Gary and AJ. I mean you know, special kids definitely. All of them, and I see grandchildren, Oliver and you know. – Alexander. – Alexander. – Alexander is eating a lot of olives, so we decided to name him Olive. – He wants to call himself Olive. And that’s a really real
special, real special. – Thanks dad, I have no idea
Andy what the question was. But, what was it again? – [Voiceover] Sum of the five people you spend the most time with? – Yeah I mean, I think
that, yeah I think I have. I definitely over the
last five to seven years surround myself with
higher caliber characters. I think it’s a commitment, I think, but on the flip-side, I’m
very comfortable in bringing value to the people
that maybe aren’t better than me, I think giving
back is massively important. I think it’s, there’s a level of karma, and I think as long as you’re focused on surrounding yourself with five people that can bring your level up,
I think the real answer is it’s about 10, right, I think it’s about creating a scenario where
you have five people that are leveling you up,
and I think it’s about surrounding yourself with five people that you level up, and I think I think I get tremendous enjoyment on leveling up the five people around me. – [Voiceover] Chris asks,
“I got a question for ya. “How bad do you wish Tom
Brady was your quarterback?”

– Yes, Merv, you’re also month what, one, – [Merv] One and a half.
– two, one and a half? – Some newbies on the show! – Yes, absolutely. So one of things that I love
the most about being here is the hustle way of life. I think it’s amazing. – Okay. – What are your suggestions
when working with external partners, who you gotta work
with to get the job done, who don’t share your hustle? – You mean like the rest
of the entire world? – Yes, them. Exactly. – From an agency dynamic,
we’re stuck, right? You wanna look good in the sandbox which for people that don’t
understand, you work with a brand and you’ve got
four, five, six, three different agency partners
and it’s important that what a brand hates that we
work with is when the agencies are playing politics
with each other because their assumption is that we as
Vayner, are trying to get the money of this person,
and that makes sense. That’s a cynical point of view, that’s the right point of view by the way, 90% of the time. And so, I, and you may not
fully know this but some of the people that have been
here a little bit longer, I’m actually very aggressive,
like don’t go down that route, we’ll get ours by just
showing what we’re about. But it makes it frustrating for all of you that are in the trenches because I’m probably taking,
I’m probably pushing it even too far of like
“be nice to everybody”, even though they suck. Or you think they suck. – I don’t think they suck, I just said they don’t hustle.
– I get it, I think everyone sucks. And so, I think that it’s a balancing act. It’s a really fine, tight rope. I think letting your work speak for itself is a very smart strategy. I think the truth is undefeated. Meaning, I do think eventually
the truth bubbles up right? Now, you may have a
flawed judge of the truth. Like there’s a human
being that runs that brand that may not see it, maybe tricked, may have too much romance
for the prior world. Or logos over team players. And so, I think you have to
assess who the judge and jury is number one because that’s
just the real game. I think you need to build
a relationship, for real, outside of what’s happening
in the room with those people. Because let’s not forget they’re
just humans that work for a company, and I have
found that a lot of times they realize they stink too. Because maybe their company stinks and at least that gets you
aligned where you’re not mad at the person, you’re mad at a logo. Which I think often times
takes a lot of venom out of the situation,
makes it all more palpable. I think what it comes down to is good old-fashioned
communication, on all levels. Your own team. As somebody who’s a little more senior. One of the things that we
struggle with here at Vayner is the youngsters don’t
fully get it all the way they haven’t been through it. So they’re looking just at the narrow like this project isn’t done
at Thursday at 4, they stink! There’s a lot more going on than that. So I think communication
with your team, to the side, the different players, the client. Just communication,
communication, communication. – I like it, thank you!
– Cool, you got it. – [Group] (applause)

and Gary, the question I have for you is about all this talk you’ve had about self-awareness lately and I love the idea of
understanding what our talents are and what they’re not but my fear is that we’re gonna get into a mindset of things we can and can’t do. Robert Browning says, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” I want people think that they can try and do a lot of different things and I’m afraid it’ll bleed to our children and make them start saying
what they’re good at and what they’re not good at. Let me know how you feel about that and how you can incorporate that into your self-awareness talk. – Ted, big ups to you. First and foremost, you’ve
been, you know, again, back to the theme of the show not digging fully deep, I’m not completely sure
but it’s been really fun to watch from afar of
you amassing an audience and people really respect
you and kudos, do your thing. I think this is a great
question and a challenging one. First and foremost, here’s
the way I answer it. This. Nothing completely one way
or the other is ever healthy. You should always be
pulling from directions, finding a blend. I will say that I think people
are way more, at this point, June 2015, in belief that
they can do anything, are good at everything,
should try everything, should work on their weaknesses so I believe that I’m being aggressive in starting a conversation
that lends itself to like drawing a line of
strengths and weaknesses that I think is very small. I do not believe this
is a big conversation. I believe modern parenting is like, hey little Steve, you
can do anything you want. Steve sucks at basketball. (laughter) He can’t do everything he wants and the amount of people
that want to play basketball for a living or sing or
wanna be an engineer. You know, like a, entrepreneur, I mean you know how I feel about that. So, I think that, Ted,
I think you’re right. I think right at this moment, my point of view on this is so small compared to the overall conversatIon that I’m going 100% all in and I don’t want to hedge
against it with your point which is correct because I think the whole
market’s hedging against it and thus, I’m just trying to crackle it. It’s the same way I talk
about social media marketing versus traditional TV. I believe in TV but I don’t
need to advocate for TV. 99% of the market’s advocating for TV. I believe that the
market, 90% of the market is advocating for you
can do whatever you want, you should try to do everything,
you should push yourself. They package it in you
should try new things and push yourself. I don’t think people
are talking enough about be very self-aware, know
what you’re good at, force yourself, guys, I don’t know if you’ve broken this down. Do you know what forcing yourself to be self-aware, do you know
what that process entails? Drinking a shit-load of humble kool-aid. Uh-huh, like it’s insane of how much, like, it’s why I talk about liking to lose. Like, it’s insane of how much humility I’ve had to instill to now
make it optically look like I have too much ego and self-esteem. So many of you, the first
time you consumed me, some of you, like I’m really
getting in my Facebook mentions as a lot of you have noticed. Plenty of people sharing my stuff and their friends are
saying screw this guy, ego for days, full of himself. I get it but what it actually is is the post game of me being really humble every minute of my life to recognize what I should stay away from. And I think people have
not gotten into that gear so Ted I would say that I
get it and I agree with you. And everything should
have a push and a pull. I just think the market is way, way in the direction of (pats Steve’s back) and I think that we need a
hell of a more a lot of like you kinda suck at that, you
may want to focus on that. Now, if you love that, then do it. But you need to know what
that comes along with which is if you love singing
more than breathing, cool but you’re gonna wait tables and you’re gonna make eight bucks and that’s great! Because guess what? I pay the price for doing what I love in a lot of different ways. And so that’s just life. That’s just life.

So I audited myself, and I’m
taking in serious consideration that I just might be a two or a three. My question is, man, is if I am, do I need to go get my college degree? Like what, how do I put
myself in that position? Because I really don’t know how to, I only know how to make doors. I don’t know how to walk through them, if you know what I mean, and ya know I’m all EQ and no IQ, so if
I have to go get my degree, that’s gonna suck. – Charlie, great question. I’m super into this. I think if you’ve audited yourself and you feel like, ya know, you need to have, you
need to attach yourself to a leader, a CEO, a
number one, a founder, and you can be a supporting cast member because I guess making doors
not walking through them maybe you, I don’t know, but maybe you understand
the tangible execution, not the architecture. Maybe you’re the greatest
mason in the world, and you need just a really solid
architect to be successful. I would say it has nothing
to do with getting a diploma. It has everything to do with if you’ve been auditing yourself, and you started with,
“I’ve audited myself,” which I appreciate, and you know, for anybody who’s watching this who doesn’t understand auditing themselves and I’m a number two or three, these are themes that
I’ve been talking about in the first 105, 106 episodes of the show which is if you know yourself,
you have self-awareness, you have a real chance to succeed. I would tell you, Charlie,
that you don’t need to get a degree unless
you wanna go latch up to a number one that values that degree, and the truth is you’ve
already lost that game because if that number one values it, they’re gonna wanna go with
somebody who’s got a degree from clearly, in my opinion,
based on the vibe of the video, comes from a better school
than you would go to. Take it from me, I mean
Mount Ida College isn’t like rolling up any like
unbelievable excitement for anybody who’s an educator. And so I would tell you your journey, your focus should be finding a number one who shares your DNA and philosophy. You guys can be similar, and
she could just be an architect and an incredibly strong leader, where you could be that support system. So find her, find him, find the number one that is the match to you. Not find the number one
that you clearly think society has created. To me, more number ones
actually look like you on paper, so I actually think you’ll
be able to find that. I think number twos, when
they’re not the straight man or the straight woman,
when there’s still also a little bit of magic,
a little EQ over IQ, make great number twos. I still think one and two
in that play is great. I think three, four, five,
six, somewhere along the line, you need that straight,
really straight person, and so your job is to really go out and find that person. Find that number one that
matches your skill set, that matches your philosophy,
that you can really jam with. Find your number one.

“You say one, play to your strengths, “two, don’t worry about small details. “What if my strength is
attention to detail?” – Adam, couple things, and this is for the entire VaynerNation, so many of the things that
I say are contradictions. I like pulling from both directions. That’s where I think
the strength comes in. I really do think of life,
business, as a bridge. If you pull equally very hard, ego, humility, right? I don’t care what anybody thinks about me, I care about what everybody
thinks about me, right? Big, big, big picture, clouds,
but I’m a practitioner. I know more about all the
details of social than you. Details, dirt. And so I love pulling
from opposite directions, so if I’m giving advice
and you’re listening to 105 composite shows
and things are coming from different angles
that are contradictions, this is where you have
to go within yourself and not listen to a
guru, ’cause I’m not one, nor is anyone else, this is
on you to figure out that, and so if your strengths are, you know, to me in that one, you bet on yourself. To me, look, I can answer these in detail, and I will this time. I would bet on the strengths. Cool, you’re detail-oriented. You need to recognize two things. If your skill set is detail-oriented, two things are gonna happen. One, if you’re the number one, if you’re the top dog, your company, your business is gonna be small. Number two, you’re probably an awesome number two, three, and
four to a number one that goes all the way out to the clouds and doesn’t care about the details, and you may be able to make more finances, or whatever you’re looking
for, and be happier and not have the pressure
of being the number one by laddering up or attaching
yourself to a number one and acting your two, three, four role. If your strength is the finite details, your upside is limited as the number one. You have two decisions to make. One, you’re cool with that, back to the first question in this show. Or two, you’re gonna latch onto somebody who’s gonna be able to elevate, and your 8%, your 20%, your 40%, your 2% of the whole nut is going to be greater than 100% of what you’re gonna do for yourself.

“Gary Vee, as a successful
solo entrepreneur, “do I have to grow my business bigger “than I can handle alone?” – Q Studios Inc, that’s a great question. I think the answer to that
question is completely predicated on what you want in life. I mean, you’ve set up
the question by saying you’re a successful solo entrepreneur. Are you making the monies
and are you fulfilled enough to keep it at a one woman/one man show? I mean, to me, I can’t
answer that for you. I just had an interesting
conversation with AJ. Our professional ambitions
are in a different place. Everyone’s are. If you wanna build a bigger business, you need to build it
outside of one person. You can only be so big, but maybe what you’re
getting and what you’ve got and how it goes appeals to you. I find a lot of people not
being able to be good managers. They love to micro-manage, they’re romantic and
obsessive about what they do, they don’t allow other people
to come into their ecosystem, and they struggle with the growth curve and they get just as
little exponential growth, they go from making $73,000 a year to 113, but it comes with a lot of pain because they don’t like it, you know? They’re introverted, they’re solo acts, they’re flawed in building
out a big business, but incredibly good and
happy at doing their thing. So it’s not about making more,
there’s really a fine line of making more money
but giving up too much of your happiness for
that bigger money amounts, and then there’s probably
a place where that monies justifies what you want. But to me, doing what you love and doing it the way you love to do it is really, really, really important. I happen to be lucky that that also creates wealth and big dollars, but for the people that it
doesn’t, they need to reconcile. And look, what I don’t get
is a lot of other things, which is kind of the relaxation or the lack of pressure
that comes along with some of the smaller plays, but, I can’t answer this question for you, you need to know yourself. This goes back to all
the self-awareness stuff that I’m trying to put out. This goes back to
yesterday’s video about, or a couple days ago
video of a day in the life where a lot of people
critique my work-life balance, my family time, this, that, and the reason that video
ends with, you know, that’s me, now do you.
That’s a perfect way, actually, DRock, link up there. Give me like a, give me 13 seconds of the day in the life video. – Gary Vanderchuk. – You know I’m a hundred percent right. (laughter) You just do. (laughs) Like, I’m super glad
we’re connected, brother. Alright, now I’m back, and so, you know, I think um, I think it’s on you. – [Voiceover] Adam asks,

– I have a ton of strengths,
what’s the best way to drill down on the best one so I can move forward at a faster pace? – I have a ton of strengths? – I have a ton of strengths. – OK, good, I like Adam already ’cause he’s a brother on the ego train, and I love the ego train. I equally like the humility train, that’s the balance that I try to live and comes natural to me. Adam, I think that you
need to shut the fuck up and just pick one and go do it. If you have so many goddamn strengths one of them is clearly
not moving fast enough. If you’re even debating this, your strength on moving
and creating action is clearly not that strong. So, I would say that’s a great thing, that fires me up, and I believe that people
have multiple talents. I mean, I feel like a lot of people do. I’m flabbergasted by
somebody not just picking one and moving forward. I’ll give you better advice, cool, you’ve got a lot of strengths? Lay them down, look at them, say I like that one the best, do that. – [India] That’s good. – Right? I mean if you have so
many goddamn strengths, just pick one and frickin’ win. Start winning! You can get to all of them eventually. Ya know, I mean, God. No? Yes! – No, I’m just laughing, Dear Gary, I’m just too good
at too many things, help. – Yeah, I mean, right, pick one, dick! Jesus. And by the way I’m pumped, I like actually think he’s gonna win, like I know I’m being a little zingy, you’re being a little zingy, like, Adam, I’m pumped, just pick one man, just pick one and start winning. It tastes good. It’s delicious. (laughter) I mean– – All right. – [India] All right.
– [Voiceover] All right.

– 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?”

“do you most commonly ask your clients “when meeting them for the first time?” – Zac, wonderful question. For everybody in client
services, agency life, this should be fun. Number one is what is your KPI? What’s your Key Performance Indicator? Like what is the thing that
you want us to accomplish? Is it views, is it
sales, is it perception, is it press, is it your own judgement on how you feel about the creative? How are you judging us,
what are the results? And they’re really separate. How are you judging us,
what are the results are number one A and one
B that matters the most, and then, really, the
third one would then be what are you willing to
tell me about your warts? Meaning, there’s just a lot of people that are not gonna tell you about, the politics that are an issue, the money that’s an issue. I’m always trying to get them
to be very truthful to us once I understand what
the issues at hand are, so what do you really want to accomplish? By the way, people struggle
with answering that. People struggle with answering that. Number two, how are you gonna judge me? Sometimes they struggle with that less. Number three, what are the warts? Most people don’t wanna tell me up front. We try to sniff them out
early so we can navigate them, and it’s like a minefield
to get to the finish line. Those are the three, and they’re very important questions, and trying to figure
out in every situation, in absolutely every situation, in dating, in building your own
business, in having clients. I really think those three
are super fun, and by the way, they’re very important equally. I think, for example, I think people that struggle with dating are spending way too much on number three. They’re so concerned about
what the person’s warts are, or skeletons in their closets. They’re not trying to figure
out how they’re being judged to be a good partner in that relationship, or how that’s gonna be scored, and so, having a great balance of all three. That’s a little nugget there. Give you a little fun fact
at the end of this question. It’s the 33% execution
of those three questions that may be equally as important.

“How can efficiency and
creativity better work together?” – They will be inefficient into the time and space you give them, to be honest. I mean, I was a creative a long time, and then I became the
boss of the creatives, and I knew how much fat was
built into their writer’s block and their, you know, thinking
and everything, and– – The zen room they needed. – And I had to come out
of the associate press, where you had to turn out
seven, eight stories a day. I knew that the creativity
expanded into that space. And of course, you gotta be creative, and creatives need some time
to decompress and so forth, but we give them a little bit too much, or maybe not we in general, but it is easy to listen to them moan and
groan about needing more, and so creatives can be efficient. – To get efficiency,
you gotta be creative, and you gotta have creative people. And efficiency doesn’t
mean some guy or woman in a hole, driving every day. It means that people
are thinking of new ways to do things, coming up with
incremental improvements, making things better every day. Finding a better way every
day takes a thinking head set, and you want that
mentality in your company. You want the whole company
to be thinking about, every day, what is a better way
of doing what I’m doing now? – I’m a big fan of
betting on your strengths, and also really
recognizing putting players in the best position to succeed. And we have nothing but creatives here, of the 500 employees, 200 of them, and if I’ve deemed, if we’ve deemed, if Tina, who runs our
Creative Department deems that this person is bringing us quality, I think one thing that a
lot of people try to do is mold them into being more efficient. I’ve done that plenty
of times in my career. One of the things I’ve
decided now is to look at it more as a net-net game, right? You know, I may not like
that they need to be in a zen room with unicorns in it, I may not, but if I’m
okay with the output. If I’m okay, net-net, 365 day year output, I’ll take it, right? You could have the most
prima donna creative, but if they do that one
thing that you decide drives the ROI, on the flip
side, you could have somebody who’s the most efficient
but lacks the magic. What you have to really do is, it’s wide receivers in football. Listen, they’re at the
mercy of the quarterback getting them the ball, that’s why, they don’t get to touch the ball. The quarterback touches the ball, the running back touches the
ball when the call’s played, the receivers don’t, so many variables, and I’m very intrigued by that psychology. That being said, you know, I value speed and execution over everything. And so, I definitely sit
on that Mendoza line, if there’s a coin toss. If I’m even debating it, if
I’m even debating your value as a creative over the
efficiency and the output, you’re in trouble. – That’s sensational, one of the things. No it is!
– Thank you, Jack. – One of the things that
really can kill a company is the innovators sit over here in a box, and they are Thomas Edison,
and they are Steve Jobs, – The ninjas. – And they’re these people. And then, everybody
else, keep your head down and be a grunt. You lose the minds of these people. You want everybody to be an innovator! – Right.
– 100 percent. And it’s interesting, here at Vayner, we’re a classic agency,
we want more practicality from our creatives, and we
want our account strategists being creative, and that’s
been a big benefit for us. And, you know what else it
does, it creates mutual respect. Because when the innovators are over here, they sit on a higher ground,
and it deflates the momentum and the equity. – Right, any time you get prima
donnas in an organization, it enervates everyone around. – So, let’s wrap up with this, we don’t do a wrap-up session, but we’re
gonna make a unique thing.