Hi Gary, I’m coming from you
from my dental office in North Bergen, New Jersey and my
question is in regards to sleep. How do you develop rituals for
your sleep and bedtime when your life is unpredictable as a
businessperson and a parent and you have a lot of obligations
and a lot of people contacting you at all hours of the day? Thank you. – Okay, well, first of all
you know what they tell you on airplanes put your
own oxygen mask first. – Yes.
– That is key. They don’t say that
because they are nice. They say that because you won’t
be much use to anybody else if you’re not breathing. So you’re not going to be
much use to your children, your patients anybody if you
let yourself burn out. Nobody should be able to reach
you at all hours unless you have what I have which is a dumb
phone that has no data for my daughters and for overnight news
editor if there is a crisis. But my regular phone that a lot
of people have that has all my life and my work on when
I’m asleep it is asleep and it is outside my bedroom. The same thing for me I have it by my bed but it is
completely on silent. It never wakes me up. Never know, I’m out. I totally agree with that
and I think it is binary. To answer your question, Doctor, either you are doing
this or you’re not. There is no half
pregnant in these strategies. For me with health two years ago
I went all in and so now I found the hour that I
didn’t think existed. Excuse me, it’s two hours ’cause
you got to get ready, shower after it’s just binary. If you want to, if you believe
it, if you read this book if you believe this thesis if you
Google, if you watch her interviews, if you believe in
this if this has been bubbling up, now if you have a job where
you have to get paged and come in firefighter, doctor – But it doesn’t
happen every night. – [Gary] No, it doesn’t. – Even if you’re a doctor– – I wanted to ask you how many
times has the news editor– – Never. – It hasn’t happened yet?
– No. – No major thing
has happened yet– – That woke me up? And touch wood, I haven’t
heard from my daughters either. It’s just a security blanket. – It makes you feel better. – It makes you feel better. But the point is that it is
absolutely critical to realize that we have been living
under a collective delusion. I have to say that. We are now where we were in
the 60s regarding smoking. The science was in but people
were still glamorizing smoking and there were doctors I saw an
ad that the other day from the 60’s of a doctor in a white
coat saying, “I smoke menthols “because they
refresh my throat.” So really that’s where we
always sleep deprivation. – Yeah, you know it’s funny over the last year and a half
and have probably not often enough and probably
why I had so much passion to do this with you so I have
something to point to I’ve sprinkled in a lot more
of hustle but that means what you’re doing when you’re
awake not don’t sleep. Don’t watch four hours
of “House of Cards” if you want to build a business. Don’t play video games for six
hours but get your sleep in. I’ve been thinking about more
evergreen pieces of content that I can point to when people are
like, “Gary you don’t sleep.” I’m like, “No, no watch
this episode with Arianna.” That had a lot that was a
deciding factor for me. – Because people
are looking to you. – And by the way,
I sell hard work. And I want to make sure that
it is clarified as in I’m more worried about playing Candy
Crush for an hour when you want to build a big business versus
taking that away from yourself. – Absolutely. Hard work is not the problem. I’m not talking about slowing down just look at what
I’m getting done. – [Gary] Right. – I’m talking about being your
most efficient best self when you show up for work. – How much does
that young man sleeping? – Tell him.
– I sleep eight hours– – [Arianna] Daniel is my
fabulous Chief of Staff. – every single night. – [Gary] Eight hours?
– Eight hours. Oh, we work hard.
We get it done. We hustle like crazy but
when I’m out, I’m out. – [Gary] And before? How long have you
guys been together? – [Daniel] About a
year and a half. – [Gary] And so before that? – Before that I honestly thought
that the hustle meant giving up wellness and sleep. I was convinced then. I had drunk that Kool-Aid. It’s a collective
delusion like she said. – So what were you
spending asleep? – Maybe five hours. – [Gary] Yeah. – Maybe because I
wanted to brag about it. I wanted to say hey folks I
don’t sleep and therefore I’m working my hardest. – You know it’s funny, Snapchat
has been interesting to me I guess last night, not last night
but man when I don’t six to me is the number I’m really, if I’m
under six I’m very concerned. And usually I’m under six
and you guys know this if you’re following
me on Snapchat is when I travel but then I
sleep on the flight to make sure I close that gap.
– Right. When you check into a hotel
especially after a flight I highly recommend a hot bath,
a hot shower there’s something wonderful about
water washing away. – Big fan, big fan.
You know, right? Remember those 10 seconds you
are an assistant when I was like shower before.
I’m a big fan. – I need to get him a shower
and they’re like “No he doesn’t.” – I buy hotel rooms from the
night before because there’s no early check-in just to
take a shower when I land. – Absolutely essential. There is no better investment
than investment in yourself. Don’t buy a bag,
buy a hotel room. How are you are going to show
the next morning, that is the key.
– India. – [India] One more?
– One more.

“After clean water is creating “sustainable jobs the best
way to see impact?” – I think they’re a bunch of
pillars people need food,– – You believe once
water is drilled it opens up the whole gamut. – I do but jobs are
incredibly important. Shelter is important. Food is important. Health is important. We’ve just started with water
because I get to touch jobs. We hear these amazing stories of
women who will use the time back in their day specifically Ashley
in Uganda sometimes and they will sell rice at the market,
they’ll sell peanuts. I was in Zambia– – By the way, we’re going very
quickly here, it’s how we roll. That’s how this show rolls. I know my audience
guys when he says, gals when he says time back these are women who would walk three
hours because an hour there, 30 minutes, 20 minutes
to scoop up the crap water. Brown. Brown. And then walk back. – 40 billion hours are wasted
just in Africa collecting water. We need to talk the workforce. They did a study, 88-page study
out of the UN, every $1 invested in water and sanitation makes
the community 4-8 times richer. It yields $4-8. Jobs are incredibly
important and that’s one of the things that’s attractive to us about water because
without the time. – What’s her name?
– [India] Her name is Melissa. – Melissa, thanks
for the work you do. – Yeah.
– Yeah.

– [India] What is the best
advice you give to someone that wants to start a small business but they’re still
working full time? – To do it after your hours. It was called Crush It! I wrote it in ’08 it came out in
’09, 7PM to two in the morning. This is all the same things. Are you guys willing to
put in the work and pay… Guys, are you willing to pay
the price for what you want? I want to have a business so I
can make lots of money and go on vacation and have lots of things. You want a 1% life but you’re not willing to put
in a 1% worth ethic. Work your job, come home and do I have to go
through it again? Do I have to make fun of
“Game of Thrones” and the Golden State Warriors
one more time. I’m more than happy too. You’ve got to give up all the
leisure stuff and you got to work from seven to
two in the morning. Start a business,
sell shit on eBay. I put that out there.
Everybody can do that. Become the wedding
photographer of America like I became the wine guy. Not everybody can do that. You’ve got to make the mental
switch in the same way that two years ago I said I’m going to
make, there was no tactic to get into better shape. Get in here.
Get it here. – What’s up? – Timing is unbelievable. – Good. I was just talking about my
health switch ironically you started around the time that I
was starting to smoke around it. – Yes. That’s right. – You’re an unbelievably
athletic kinda dude. – Sure. – You agree with me that it is
a mental switch not a tactic. – Oh yeah. – There’s no do this. It’s binary either
you’re mentally in the place I take it
seriously or you’re not. – Life does
whatever it’s gonna do. You just gonna decide what
you’re going to do around it. And that happens with
exercise too I think. So yeah just go
with it or you don’t. – One or zero. – One or zero.
– Thank you. (laughter) Ah, that hurt.
(laughter) Do you remember two years
ago when we went to Vayner Camp and he climbed
the wall in one second? Do you know about this?
– [India] Yeah. – Like this wall thing that
everybody was like, yeah. It took him one second. He’s a machine. Anyway. What’s the person’s, Ash?
– [India] Ash. – Ash, what’s my recommendation? Unless you’ve been in my cycle
for the last 30 or 60 days and I’m new to you I’m going to
get really pissed off at you. The work. And by the way, you may not be
good enough to make $10 million a year with the work
that you make $4,000 but it still gonna be the work. I can’t instill more talent into
you you can do a very good job trying to find white spaces and
figure out what you are good at. But once you put in the work. The talent the white
spaces that’s a coin flip. That’s a lot of DNA,
that’s a lot of luck, that’s a lot of skill. There’s a lot of things there but the work is always
part of the equation. And that’s the part
none of you want to do. Can we just finally have
this conversation together? You just don’t want to do it. You just don’t. You really don’t. You say you do but you don’t. You’d rather lay in bed
and sleep in for 15 hours. You’d rather play video games. You’d rather play
bullshit games on your phone. You’d rather watch TV
you’d rather watch this show. You’d rather go play beer pong. You’d rather do
something else than work. It’s hard. It’s hard. It’s hard. Which is why I push people to
do work around their passions because it makes a
little bit easier. If I had to do this
around bricklaying, I’d suck.

“letting go of my job. “I don’t like it, but I’ve
been there for so long. “I have loans, two kids to
support, a deep fear of leaving “the security and I’m not sure
what it takes to make it as a “solo-preneur. Any tips on how
to release the fear and “decide whether to
take the risk?” – I’ll go first this time. Punt leisure.
Punt leisure. You can work, I’m going to call you out. If you really mean that you
can live on six hours sleep. So you have 18 hours,
18 God damn hours. I want to know what you’re
doing with your 18 hours. Because you can work your 9-to-5
and that’s fine and you can travel for an hour here
and there, respect, nice little solid commute. Oh you want to be a family man? Mazel Tov, you can spend two
hours with your kids, what are you doing with
those of the five hours? You’re watching
House of fucking Cards. You’re playing Madden. You’re relaxing from
the other intense. Gary already spent 11 hours. Well great then don’t
complain or want more. Respect that by getting rest and
this and that you’re giving up opportunity to go
into a new market. You want the
audacity to have a 1% life. Let’s call it what it is. You want to live as well as
the 1 to 2% in the world. It’s not very complicated
the math is very raw. If you want to have one of the
best lifes in the world and you live on your terms then you have
to pay your dues to get there. And you have to be lucky enough
to figure out that you had talent in the thing you actually
want to do because you work 24 hours a day and if you stink
at golf or you’re not a good content producer or your logos
like the shit I would make then you’re going to lose. So that’s what you gotta do. And Fiverr was built for you. Fiverr was built or those
talented individuals while trying to find– – Was Fiverr built
for everybody? – Yes, yes for talented and
skilled individuals that want to find financial and
professional development. So what you have on Fiverr today
yes you have sellers making your six digit a year
that are top sellers. – Real quick I apologize, I
know you want to say it but like they’re all going. Here’s the punchline. What’s the mechanics are
you guys taking 20% of the transaction?
– That’s correct. – Is at the number?
Yeah, listen. The reason I went there is
because he’s the chief revenue officer is all going to sound… How do you cure cancer?
Fiverr. How do you go to the movies?
Fiverr. Let me save us time here. Here’s why I’m curious at the
scale that you guys are now not five or six year
ago, four years ago. Giving up 20% for that attention
no different than eBay or an Amazon I think is very
minor for the exposure. I think there’s a Fiverr and
things like Fiverr but you guys are at scale that’s why you’re
sitting here and social media combo if you can make that
one plus one equal four there’s something very real there.
Let’s go.

that’s high praise
coming from you? – My parents.
– Your parents? – My parents
worked their faces off. My mom never and have
a nanny, we didn’t have a babysitter ever. She had three kids. My mom did everything for us. She regrets raising, I’m not
even capable doing my laundry. I’m a slob. My mom picked up
everything after me. Things that she
liked to joke about. That’s what she wanted to do. She did all the
work, no vacations. We took no vacations. Guys I took three,
three vacations in my life. We worked all the time. My dad worked every minute. My parents it’s learned
behavior by watching them and probably my own DNA. I respect my parents’ work
ethic and I respect all the single moms and
single dads out there. You know life is complicated.
Been thinking a lot about as I’m starting to build momentum as
somebody who’s advice is being taken seriously that I’m trying
to be very careful because I’m starting feel a bigger
sense of responsibility. – Yeah. – I’m starting to get nervous
to be very frank with you. Here giving advice and
tomorrow somebody’s spouse is going to die. Die. I had a distant
relative it hurts very bad. He was diagnosed at 65 or
55 as you can tell distant. Trying just to remember. 65 with cancer and
was gone a month. Gone. Now that kid, I know the kid
met him a couple times. Met him at some family
functions his advice is different now than
it was yesterday. – It’s just perspective. – There’s just all these
different variables, right? Who I respect? My parents because
I know that truth. Who else do I respect? Millions of people who work
really hard to provide because life gave them a curveball. You can do everything right
and your wife and kids can go get killed tomorrow by a
truck falling over on them. – Yeah, yeah.
– And so what? You’re gonna go
hustle the next day? You’re going to grieve. You’re gonna
adjust so I don’t know. I respect anybody who’s
trying as hard as they can, trying to live the
best life they can, trying to do the right things but no question my work ethic
only comes from two people and I think you guys know this about
me I don’t have any role models. I don’t care Richard Branson and
Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg and Albert Einstein and
Bill Gates none of these people inspire me.
They just don’t. My parents do and then it
flipped into my responsibility to my friends that worked for
me, my brother worked with me, the DRock’s of the world and
most importantly what’s given me unbelievable scale
is the community. I get inspired by people
wanting to take selfies with me. I get inspired with two guys who
are working their butt off in Ireland who really
really wanted me on the show. Because it would be good for
them to use my name to get other guests and I like that. – [Both] Yeah, yeah.
– I like that. Or appreciated my work or
a percentage of both that. Do you know what I mean?
– 100% yeah. – There’s a lot of ways
to get motivated outside. I love that I motivate people
but I don’t think we need the big names at the top of the
heap to be the motivators. – Yeah, that’s we decided
as well with start ups. We’re going to look after every
startup that we can interview from somebody who’s
opened from five days ago rather than two or three years. – We got a guy at the end of
January who literally came into van and he had quit his
full-time job that day. – Yeah. – And you could see the look
on his face was fear– – Sure.
– but it was good. – There is good fear.
– And we could sense. – He knew what he wanted and
went out for it which is great. – That’s awesome.
– Great to see. – [DRock] Let’s do
one more question. – Just one more question
on that, if you owned

“Gary do you expect your own
employees to work like you do? “Does it affect your opinion of them?” – J, I do not expect any of my employees to work as hard as I do because it’s not their business, and I get so mad at so many of you that get mad at employees that don’t work as hard
as you, they shouldn’t. Why in the world would they? Now there’s plenty of employees here that know that I value
hard work and hustle, and they know they’ll be
rewarded within the context, but no I do not expect
anybody to work harder than me and I think one of the quickest
ways for a business to fail is to have an employee
working harder than you and let me break that down. So many of you think you make it, and then you get to chill. Then what? You expect everybody underneath
you to work hard to sustain. Nobody cares that you worked
your ass off for 15 years, to get to this point if you’re fucking sailing
right now and fishing and like hanging out with
your boyfriend on the beach for a month and you’re
supposed to hold it up? Why because they worked hard
for 15 years, what about them? People have their own best at interests, and if you’re not out working them. As a matter of fact never, I have to work so hard to
create an infastructure that can even allow me
to have the audacity to have people to wanna work
with me for a long time. The only way I can even expect
all of them to work with me for a long time like I want them to is that I create such a big thing that they can make the monies
and have the challenges both get the monetary values they want the work life balance and the
money they wanna take home and do things that are
interesting and creative and challenging and not the same thing. The only way I can do that is to build the biggest thing possible which means I have to outwork them to have the wants and needs and audacity to have
people to work for me, talented people to work for me people that can really move the needle. So no it doesn’t change my opinion as a matter of fact I hope, and I know a lot of you are
watching right now at Vayner. I hope that I’m creating
something that allows hundreds of them to have a nine to six, not nine to five, a nine to six 45 hour
to 50 hour kind of job that pays them enough to be happy and gives them plenty of hours
to be on the bowling team, or knit, or work on
their music on the side, or come home for dinner every night. No I do not judge them, because if they wanted
to be exactly like me, or if they were wired like me, or had the ambition like me, or the talent like me, they’d be doing it for themselves. As they should, and I want that for them. Yeah I’m in a good zone.

and valuable work you know call it a great question and
honestly that’s a work in progress always to me is really a real-life
lesson in retail get his hand so so I think the ship the brain for retail this is something I’ve dealt with my
whole life like you know i i don’t think I’ve mastered it I don’t think that I am
doing busy work even now at the level let them that I’m still doing busy work
that i think is in hindsight not as good I think experience helps you I think
over time I’ve learned through oh crap I remember when I did that back in the day
don’t do that again you start understanding but I think one of the
biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make especially as they grow their business
in the beginning with their crippled by the start of quality workforce is just
doing it you know like smart work versus just work he is when you start judging
it too much you start leaving yourself out of opportunity for serendipity and
upside the you can’t see there’s been a lot of things that on paper may look
like busy work going to get you know just kissing babies and shaking hands or
just replying to everybody on Twitter things that not everybody thinks is the
best skillful use of my time that has led to enormous upside because it wasn’t
obvious when you first it including a video shows including ten years ago in a
month sitting upstairs doing a video show
where everybody’s like we needed you that our to sell wine or to reorganize
our operations why are you putting a video on youtube twenties you to like
that it could end up being the biggest single biggest decision of my career up
to this point transitioning myself into a media
property in a brand from just being operated on this floor wasn’t obvious
that like it could have been busy work and there’s been other things that I’ve
done like that that have been busy work you know trying to think of a good
example but like a million things that we’ve stopped them started it didn’t
become real it happens with us every day in our team show so I think that I think
you don’t always know I think you find out after the fact that I think I have a
long forty to sixty year old old professional career that successful
as long as you’re learning in your 1379 12 patterns are becoming more self-aware
about yourself understanding your strengths and
weaknesses you start having less just busy work and more high-impact working
at the top of my career yes my question is if we wanted to start
a subscription box service should we buy

“a lot, but what cost did you
have to pay to get here now?” – Peter, you worked really hard. – That’s a great, I would
say, at the end of the day, there doesn’t have to be a
cost, and I really believe that. – Hmm, you got everyone’s attention. – You’re talking to a guy
who kind of spent a career maybe averaging a number
of hours say almost 6-1/4 to 6-1/2 days a week, 12-14 hours average days, over an entire career, having said that– – You’re giving a lot of
insight to why Lizzy is able to deal with my insanity. – Beyond multitasking
and learning how to do all this stuff, when again,
you take a deep breath along the way, step back, the
things that make a difference, and the things that count
that you want to focus on, to me, family first,
and so I always planned. I was traveling a lot, half my
career was in the consulting business, and I traveled a
lot, but I always tried to do day trips to get back
in time for a late dinner, whatever, be there when
the kids took baths, managed little league teams, my son– – How was Alex Kline as a
little league baseball player? – He was all defense. (laughing) A little offense, but — – Yes, on the record Alex eat it. – He held his own, and he was a starter. – Okay, all defense. – You make time and you
try to balance it out, so I don’t know if there were
any real trade offs on a day in and day out basis, doesn’t have to be. If you let what your focused
on solely run your life, there will be usually
people, family, relationship trade offs. – I fully believe in that. I think that the practical
level is that probably you and I got to spend a little less time, what we gave up was our
passion for business or our careers, probably
came at the expense of some other potential, hobbies, and other leisures, that it didn’t come at the expense
of the family, but you maybe never developed your
golf game, or your tennis game, or fishing, or other
things that could have been interesting to you in your life. – That’s good enough. – That’s what I can feel. I mean I’ve got the Jets,
so I’ve got a thing for me, but I definitely, I would be
very interested in all these other little things, but I
punt them for the business. – Great point, may or may
not be necessarily relevant I think because again, when
you step back and in business, we make a point in the
book, which is by the way Think to Win– – This is the best. – Strategic Thinking (mumbles). – Link that up boys, let’s
make sure we link that up. – Amazon, 23 testimonials from– – This is awesome. – With that said, life,
personal, business, relationships, is about making choices– – 100%. – And so there’s always choices
to be made, and if you get your top 2 or 3 priorities
right, the order of magnitude of the next level of
those kind of choices, maybe you know, are not as relevant. – That’s right. – If you try to be too much– – That’s right. – Too many, you run in to a stone wall. – Let me close this with
something that I think will connect with the audience
because it’s a truth and it’s something I admire tremendously. I know this dude very well. This man’s retired, from
the day you retired, I visit him in Florida and
different things of that nature, his retirement hustle
is substantially stronger than a lot of people that I
know’s work ethic in their normal environment. I look at you and I get
pumped because I’m like cook, if Peter can retire like
that, which means, oh I don’t

“should never take a loan
to study entrepreneurship. “what should they do instead?” – I believe that if you go to college and collect debt to be an
entrepreneur, not a doctor, not a lawyer, not a
consultant at Baynor McKinsey where you have to go to
an Ivy League school, graduate and leverage that. But a true entrepreneur,
like father and brother, go out there and hustle, be a merchant. You know, that to me
is a crazy proposition to collect debt for in a 2016 world. So what I think they should
do instead is go work. Literally just go work,
I mean think about it, instead of going $80,000 in
debt, you can go work for $1 and be way up in the pot,
you can work for free and be on the way positive. And speaking of that, that
speaks to my next strategy. Go work for somebody,
a woman that you admire the way she did it and
take a lot less money working in her organization
than somebody else because you’re trying to
sap the IP out of her, out of that leadership. So not only go work, go work for the lowest
possible way you can survive. Go live with four roommates
in a studio apartment and eat fast food if you have too. You can go lose that weight
later, like the I did. The bottom line is you need to go work in an environment that inspires you and really you want it to be a place that you want to be like. To go work for somebody
that you want to be like is a tremendous value
proposition for an entrepreneur. When I think about what Andy and DRock have been affected by through osmosis, they’re probably scared to think about some of the tendencies they now have that are my tendencies
because I’ve affected it. It’s crazy how it works, it’s crazy, you should see the ego all 600 people at VaynerMedia walk around
with, it’s disgusting. But the bottom line is
it’s affected from the top so go work for somebody you
admire and want to replicate and regardless of the cost,
if you’re a true entrepreneur. – [Voiceover] Elite Sports Tipster asks,

– Hi, Gary. This is Nick Folk from the New York Jets.
– [Gary] Kicker. I’m just wondering what are
the few things I can do now to prepare for business after football. – So, Nick, I think similar to B Marshall, there’s a lot of networking aspects. But the other thing I
think you could be doing especially during the off season. Let’s talk about another thing real quick. Right now we’re very focused on the Browns and the season. Guys, all of you, let’s not
worry about these answers. We can focus on that in
February, March, and April. Let’s get really focused on football, but I got your back Coach Bowles. But, Nick, I think one of
the things that you can do is start becoming a
practitioner and an executor in the place that you’re passionate about. You know, you’re gonna kick
out of football at some point, and what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna want to go and do something. Being good at that actually matters. If you’re passionate about music, or you want to start a music app, downloading all the music
apps, reading about music apps, engaging with people and talking
to them about music apps. To me the advise here, and for everybody’s who’s
watching in the Vayner Nation, is listen way too any
people want to be something versus actually putting in the work to be a practitioner for it. And a lot of you are jumping
into things, by raising money, by quitting your jobs, by
putting your other asset the one you have most,
which is your time between 7 p.m. and two in the morning, into something without prepping for it. The amount of people that are
jumping into the cold pool of business without warming up, right? The amount of people just hitting the court without stretching. The amount of people that are
just jumping into business, doing no prep work. By the time I was 22 years
old to run my dad’s business, I’d done eight years of
real prep work, right? By the time I started VaynerMedia, you know this thing? It’s not winning by accident. It’s winning, because 2006, three, four years of
being just a social media personality and practitioner,
15 years being business. I’ve put in the work. You can’t run a marathon cold. All five of these phenomenal athletes, they didn’t just roll out of bed, this Sunday morning coming up, and play. They’ve been in mini camp,
they’ve been in training camp. They’ve been prepping, they’ve
been studying the film. I hope you guys are studying the film. They’ve been getting ready for this game. And, so, way too many
of you entrepreneurs, and, Nick, the thing that
way too many athletes take for granted, and celebrities, and other people that
transition other things is like cool, you just think because
you were a great kicker in the NFL, you’re gonna
be a great entrepreneur. It’s not just how it works. You’ve got to put in the work. And, so, I would say to you, and this is why I broke up
you and Brandon’s questions similar points of view. Brandon and Nick, it’s
about not only networking and having relationships, but then you’ve got to be
able to bring tangible skills to the table. And, so, that’s what I
would be doing, Nick. Now, getting deeper into your studies on the thing that you
want to be doing post NFL. There’s just no, there’s
no better show for me