to hustle the way you do anywhere outside of the United States?” – Alex this is a ludacris question. It is complete- Do we
know where Alex is from? Maybe you can look it up real quick while i’m answering this question. Alex this is a ludacris question. This question pisses me off so much that it’s starting to start to show with it, as Steve is looking. The thought and nature of people saying well America is an
entrepreneurial paradise is the same conversation that’s happening within America of like to
be great in tech you need to be in San Francisco,
like no good businesses are made outside of Silicon Valley. That is just asenine. Let me just remind everybody that Facebook was invented in Boston. Alright, and the home of the Patriots It’s crazy for me when people debate this. Of course you can. Your country is not the variable
of your hustle life, right? Now the environment that
entrepreneurship is glorified in the US. The UK wants
to be more reserved. China got it’s own version
of entrepreneurship. Yes, does the environment
effect it? Of course. My parents growing up in soviet Russia where there was no business, of course they were effected by that. But your hustle, your work ethic, your drive is not
predicated on your zip code. – [Voiceover] Tony asks,
“Gary, what are your thoughts

– [Voiceover] Gabriel
ponders, “Gary, in the age “of social media, tweet, vine,
Instagram length limited, “how does, should this affect a startup “in choosing a name?” – Gabriel, this is a great question. I understand what you’re saying, right, Twitter, tweet, you know,
kind of the short form, you know I actually think
it’s an interesting question. The reason I decided to choose it is, a name is made. Meaning, when everybody’s sitting around, I have friends who sit
around and think about picking the name of the
startup for 900 years. And I tell them, what did
Google mean to anybody? What did Facebook mean to anybody outside of people that were
in the Harvard community that knew what the facebook was? None of these words mean anything until there’s something, right? People email me like, uh
I don’t like my last name, like you’re emailing Gary Vaynerchuk. I mean, Vaynerchuk sucks. Let’s call it what it is, right? And so now a bunch of you are gonna leave in the comments. No no
no, it’s kind of unique, it’s good. I get it. But it’s only good because
I made something out of it. And so, what does it mean? It means nothing to me. If you went with a long-winded startup, you could get abbreviations. I actually think that’s a new trend. Somebody’s gonna come out with a company called like Copperhound Thompson, but everybody’s gonna call it CHT, right? And so like in a world where
we’re short-forming everything, people call me V-chuk
because they don’t want to say Vaynerchuk and that became my slang last name to my
friends in high school and so we will evolve our
name into our convenience if it brings value. So stop worrying about the name, and start worrying about the product. – [Voiceover] Noble Rot Society.

– Hi Gary. – Hey man. – I’m Ashish, I’m a co-founder of a startup
company called lawtrades. We’re a market place for legal services. – Love it. – So my question is, you advise startups,
you invest in startups. But when startups become
inherently competitive with other companies. – Yes. – What’s your biggest advice
to stay ahead of the game? Is it just to give more value
than the person behind you or just interested on
your thoughts on that. – You know, I default as an entrepreneur thinking it’s always gonna be competitive. You know, I love when people are like, nobody’s in our space. I’m like great! Because if you’re good, everybody’s gonna be in your space, right. If you figured something
out, you’re gonna have plenty of competitors. You know, to me, it’s a same old game. Like, it’s better execution,
it’s better product, it’s better service,
it’s a better everything that’s actually going
to drive your business. So, I can’t give a blanket answer here. This is why VaynerMedia works in a world of #AskGaryVee and me
putting out content. I can give your general stuff. I’m trying to go deeper
and give you more stuff with this format. But I need to know who
your competitors are. So, for you, your business are they bigger entities with more money? When you’re David, you
don’t play Goliathscape. When you’re Goliath, destroy David. Like, that match-up, it
should have never gotten to the sling shot. Just squish that guy. So, to give the practical advice, it’s gotta be something … Here’s an example, back to depth. Something I’m trying to
challenge myself on this show. Was anybody else surprised as hell that I barely talked about
VaynerMedia for three years. Like, for somebody that’s
always out there promoting you noticed, if you went
to VaynerMedia’s website for the last two, three years. There was like nothing there because I was David. And I needed to make sure
that the bigger agencies didn’t realize how big
I was actually getting. That was my competitive play in a competitive landscape. Now that I’m getting a little bit bigger, I’m getting a little bit more out there. I’m putting myself more out there because I have the leverage
of having more money to hire the best talent or
acquire the biggest clients. So, the answer to your question is completely predicated on where you are in your life cycle versus
your competitor’s life cycle. And what I would tell you is, and here’s where I can give
the most tangible answer though still theoretical, never play the other person’s game. – Got it. – That’s where everybody gets, like oh, that big guy or gal is now running ads. We’re gonna too. Problem, they have ten million dollars. You have $80,000. – Yeah. – You lost.
– Yeah. – And so it’s never playing
the other person’s game. – Cool man. Thanks a lot. – Real pleasure meeting you.

“every episode, but guys outnumber women. “Do you see women and men differ “on success and tactics?” – Heather, great point. Stunman, we need more women questions, but you can only do what you can. I mean the truth is, now
that I’m loosing some weight maybe we’ll get some more female fans. But the fact of the
matter is I really think that I need more female fans. No, I think that I think that there’s absolutely no, it’s crazy. It’s so funny how I think about business. I don’t care if you’re a corkscrew. If you’ve got the guts,
if you’ve got the juice, if you’ve got the ability,
I’m super interested. I don’t see, you know, we’re probably a 60/40 female company,
and we’re probably, more, Trouty? What are we? – 63. – [Gary] 63? – Yeah, as of two months ago. – So we’re 63% female driven company. On the upper scale, our
executive creative director, the woman that runs our
San Francisco office, up until last week literally my right hand managing director, I mean, I don’t see any real difference. One, I’m not looking
for any real difference, but I don’t see a huge
difference of how, you know, a male or female view success or acting. I mean, within them there
are differences, right? Look, nobody’s confused that
we’re wired differently, but I haven’t really noticed it. But what I have noticed
is that this wine’s finish

“helped you innovate in marketing. “Do you think any of
your areas of expertise “hold you back from innovating?” – Jared, thank you so much
for making the #AskGaryVee Show what it is. For all you hardcore Vaniacs, and I’ve appreciated all
of you, and by the way, all the new lurkers, that means the people watching this show on YouTube
or natively in Facebook, ’cause that’s the way
I’ve been putting it out, and are not leaving
comments are pissing me off. So lurkers, episode 19, get your asses in the comment section. It is the fuel that helps me continue to do this show. Jared, thank you for
making this show what it is and what I mean by that is,
so many of you have heard, if you’re hardcore about me, which is that that Medium post like,
maybe you’d wanna put the picture up here like, you know, me failing all my classes is why I’m good. My lack of reading, my lack of knowledge of a lot of things, that
keeps me very creative ’cause I’m not folding into things and using the same thing over and over, there’s that, it’s a big advantage for me. My lack of education, IQ knowledge on a lot of subject
matters, really helps me. And so for the same
reason I say that, Jared, the answer is yes, the
things that I believe in or I’m more knowledgeable
about hold me back because they get entrenched in my brain, I believe them to be the way they are. Now, because it’s in my soul to fight and to counteract and to go in the grey, not the black and white,
and all that stuff, I think I maybe get away
with it a little bit more, but truth is, I’m still human and yeah, those things are holding me back. – Hey Gary, my name is Mark Cersosimo.

– [Voiceover] Mrs. Jones asks, how do you make sure lack of confidence doesn’t stop me from chasing my dreams? Mrs. Jones, this is a very
important question to me because I’m actually quite scared to give you the answer which is we need to seriously think about how to build up your confidence. I am the the kind of person that believes that self-esteem is the
ultimate drug in society. And I believe that when
you have self-esteem, you give yourself the
audacity to dream big aka buy the New York Jets. When you dream big, what ends up happening is the little things
stop mattering as much and you’re not crippled by them and you start really kind of becoming, you know, I’m actually maybe the least anxious person I know in a world where anxiety
should be, on paper, the thing that I most
have ’cause I have so much going on and I have these
enormous aspirations. You know, I really
struggle with this question because I would actually tell you to not say, well don’t worry
about it, you’ll get there. And no rah-rah I can do real quick here is going to affect you, but what I’m hoping to affect you with is I would highly recommend
doing some deep searching into what you can afford and what is practical to work on that whether that’s literally
seeing somebody to build it up, mapping your life backwards, surrounding yourself with
positive, self-esteem driven people, I think is a
very unique way to do it. This is the big one for
me fellas and ladies. I am all in on self-esteem and I would say if you
are self-aware enough to know that you lack it, I would tell you to execute about finding a way to gain more of it. – I’m loving the show, like loving it.

– Hey Gary this is Ian Westerman from EssentialTennis.com, I’ve
got a quick question for you for #AskGaryVee.
First and foremost though, thank you so much for what you do. It was six years ago that I
was commuting an hour in each direction to a job back and forth, listening to Crush It!, and
that book fired me up so much. So, my question for you is,
when you played tennis or at if you’re still playing tennis now, do you see parallels
between tennis and business and being successful in
either one, or in both? What are those? I’d be really curious
to hear your thoughts. – Great, great question,
you know it’s really interesting to me, tennis
is a game I love a lot, and I’ve recently figured
out how not good I am because I’ve met a lot
of private school kids, rich kids who play tennis
a lot, and were on the college tennis team,
and so I love the game and I like playing the
people that give me good 6-4, 7-6, 6-2 kinda
matches in both directions I have a lot of fun with
it and I like it a lot and as a matter of fact I
really do see one parallel and I never thought about this before, and this is really why I
love the #AskGaryVee Show, (bell) ting, you know,
I do see a parallel. I’m blown away that I
once lost a match that I was winning five zero in a set. And I’m also super happy,
can somebody get Nate, Zak, can you get Nate? This is gonna be fun. I’m also happy that you
know and you’ve heard me talk about half time adjustments, right, I’m the coach, they’ll be down 21 nothing, and then it’s 23-21 and I won because I didn’t game plan well but I adjusted? That to me is tennis, right? To me tennis is fascinating
’cause the set is very long, and you can be down three zero and then you’re adjusting. You’re seeing patterns. For example, – [Nate] Yo. – [Gary] Nate, is it true,
is it true that you’ve never beaten me in tennis? – Unfortunately yes. – Now, is it also true
that you once had me down five, you’ve had me, like help me here, you’ve had me down 5-2 twice? – Yep. – Right, and you lost those matches. – Yes. – Okay, so what I did
in those matches were – Done? – That was it, thanks bro. So in those matches when
I was down 5-2 to Nate, what happened was, you
know, one I just like refused to lose, but two,
I really kind of took a step back, looked at
what happened in those first seven games, and
started attacking either weaknesses of his or strengths of mine, it’s a very mental game, I was reacting to what was already happening
in that specific set, and I was able to adjust
then and win 7-5 much to my happiness, and so
much like in business, people set out to do
things, it’s kinda like the Mike Tyson quote, right? “Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face.” You know, that’s what I see in tennis and that’s what I see in business. You have your business plan. You think you’re gonna succeed. And then you’re out in
the market and somebody copies your product for
less, or is better than you, or nobody really wanted your stupid app. You gotta adjust. And in tennis, ’cause it’s a
set, it takes a lot of time to that for that kind
of like set to like form and you’ve gotta adjust to, wait a minute he’s playing off of
his backhand, let me go at his backhand, things
of that nature, let me go to the net because I’m not
winning this baseline game. The adjustments in real
time, and the emotion and composure, and the
intestinal fortitude to be down 5-2 and come back
and win, that’s how I see it.

– [Voiceover] John asks,
when you’re in a funk, what do you do to get out of it? – John, you’ve asked a
question that I’ve been really excited to share with the world, because it works, it is very dark. Like, this is dark, so,
I know that most people when they share my content say, beware, potty mouth McGee. This one’s beware, you
may be like, frightened, with a little bit of like a teardrop on your left eye. Left. (thumping) I’m gonna tell you the truth, because that was the commitment
when I decided to do this, which, you know, obviously I’m able, well Steve’s curating the questions but I could always kibosh them, so, when I start doing these live,
or when we do live events, or we take this show on the road and it’s audience participation
then it’ll really be the full monty but for now, I’m answering them and I’m
answering them truthfully. This is a dark one, I’m
stalling ’cause it’s dark. It’s dark. When I’m in a funk, I
literally close my eyes, put myself into a place where, something remarkable happens to me. You know, CNN names me the greatest man of all time. You know, just literally
like silly things like, I get on a list of being
the best entrepreneurs, or, Birchbox sells for
four billion dollars and I make a lot of money, or, the full extreme, when
I’m in my most funk, I literally try, usually I
do things that are realistic, and happen within a one-year window. But in my deepest funks, I’ll project, this is harder, this is
a little more role play, ’cause when I think about stuff that’s gonna happen,
intimately, it feels real. But I’ll dream about buying the Jets. And I’ll think about those great things, and then I literally, I literally make pretend
that Birchbox sells, that I make millions
and millions of dollars, and that that’s the phone call, and the next phone call is
from my hysterical sister telling me that my mother
died in a car accident. And I really do that. And I really go there. And it very, like, I’m very, as you guys know me,
I’m an emotional character. I go there, and it really does
something interesting for me. I really don’t care that I
made seven million dollars, if my mom died. I just really don’t. And I can, even as I’m
telling you this right now, I can feel it, I can truly feel how little I care about that, in comparison to what I
would feel with that pain, and very honestly, it
just sets me straight. It just reminds me what my priorities are, and it allows me to
understand that the health of my children or my wife, I mean, the fear and the shivers
I get when I think about their passing, in, you know, in real live, like them dying. And it just sets me so straight. It just makes me realize, how non-important losing that client was, or that best employee, or that
deal, or that opportunity. Passing on Uber, in the first round, which would have given
me 100 million dollars. In paper, so they gotta go public. But it’s pretty damn in there. Is something I can deal with, because, the truth is, it’s just
not what makes me happy. And more importantly, I’m so happy that everybody I love has
been healthy for so long, losing grandparents early
has put me in that position, so a negative is a positive,
and that’s what I do. I go in a very strange cocoon, and make pretend that
people I love the most die. – Gary Vee,

is confidence, skill, and luck?” – Simon, the truth is, you know, and some people don’t like to hear this. Sometimes they say I’m lucky and people get really pissed. A bunch of you will put
in the comments right now. But the truth is, I am a lucky guy. Like, I was born in the Soviet Union. I could’ve been my dad who
was born 20 years earlier in the Soviet Union and
wouldn’t have come to America until my 23rd, 24th, 25th birthday which would’ve put me
far behind the eight ball for what I’m accomplishing. So the fact that I was
born in the Soviet Union during the Cold War
and happened to be born during a time where Israel and America teamed up to make a trade with Russia for wheat. I was traded for wheat
that allowed me to get out through political asylum in the late 70’s and come to America and
live the American dream has a level of luck, right? And so, luck is part of the equation. Now, do I think I’m lucky? I do not think I’m lucky because the confidence
which is great parenting, by the way, maybe a little
luck in that, one could debate, and definitely just kind
of the overall skills and the hustle which is DNA. I don’t know if you can be
taught to work your face off. So, I think it’s just a mixture. I always talk about a great wine. Show Steve, he loves wine. – I love wine. – I always think a great
wine is never 100% Cabernet, never 100% Merlot. A nice little Meritage, a blend. And I think to answer your question, I think it’s a blend of all of the above. Some people, look, I think I make my luck. People are like, oh you’re so lucky that you got into Twitter and Facebook. I don’t feel super, trying to figure out
how I’m getting healthy? That dude. I love his raw, like, he just… – He doesn’t care. – He really’s like the only
person that doesn’t care, that’s what I told him to do. I think it’s a blend of all of the above and I think that that is
something that people need to recognize, feel comfortable with, bet on your strengths, and execute. – [Voiceover] Nick asks, “Do you
think that Facebook is still effective even though it’s pay
to play model and throttling?”