Hey, guys. Uh, before we get the podcast, one thing I've realized that I'm doing a terrible job at is letting you know where the hell I'm gonna be in the world. So if you go to Gary v e dot com slash events I'm gonna be in El Paso, Texas. I'm gonna be in Edmonton to be a Super Bowl next weekend. What else do I have coming on Amira All Star weekend in Chicago? I'm just out and about doing a lot of public events. Go to gary B e dot com slash events. I'm just tired of so many people being like shit. I didn't know you were here because we fucking suck. Had telling you where I am, and I don't promote this events link enough. Gary B e e dot com slash events Just like kick it serious with you guys like March 11th and due by March 26th Amendment in March 27th in Vegas and 20 April 28th in Vegas. I'm in Romania on May 4th time in London.

May 5th. Uh, I'm in Jersey City. What up, Jersey? May 19th Syracuse, New York Jesus Christ, September 17th I'm in British Columbia. Hello. Hola. Wanna like? On October 23rd? None of you people knew this. Go to gary v e dot com slash events Now to the broadcast.

This is Gary

V. Audio Experience. Everybody, It's Ah, it's Gary again, uh, back with another episode of my knee show that I'm super excited about called Interrupted by Gary V. Today's guest is Jesse Itzler on Entrepreneur. But I'm gonna let him frame it up for you, and then I'm gonna fire away with a bunch of questions. But first and foremost, Jess, thanks for being

on. Thanks for having me. I appreciate

it. So tell them, Internation, it's listening right now. Who you are.

Great. Well, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I started out in the music business. I had Ah was signed to a record label called Delicious Final in the nineties.

What year did you sign?

I signed in 1990. I was 21.

And what kind of artist were

you? Don't laugh. I was a rapper. I believe

it. And I'm aware it could see it was just saying you'll hear some laps in the background and things that make sure we're here an offsite kind of conference things. So we're just recording the podcast in between sessions, so keep going. Just so your wrapper at 21 started out. Did you

grow up? I grew up in Long Island and then say I went to school in Washington, D C. The Merrick University got a record deal. Um, a good test taker, maybe. I don't know about smart, but enough. Got a record deal right out of college after a lot of rejection. Um, scientist Delicious. Final got dropped from the label a year later. Why, um, cells and just wasn't the right thing. And tough timing.

I was behind vanilla ice, and I wasn't nearly as good as I am. And here I am. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me. The worst thing at the time, because I only had two things on my resume. After that, I was a kiddie pool attendant and I was a rapper. And that's not gonna get you a lot of Jabba

the rapper thing. Go down. How old are you?

Um, Going to be 52.

You look great. So 52. So you're eight years old. Me? So when does rap hit your radar

Rap hits my radar in right away, man. Right when it came on the scene, I was probably my 16 15 So early eighties I heard it's like that by Run DMC sucker and seized by Run DMC ing fell in love with it Go up in Long Island where hip hop was like emerging fast Yes, and just got the book So started out break dancing started out in the, you know, just doing whatever I could do this a different era, you know, Remembers and, um just got into it when everybody in college is like making resumes and sitting resumes the cos I'm like, I'm getting a record deal. I don't need a resume and att that time I've never been in a studio. You an entrepreneurial kid? I was an insane kid, like I tried everything. My parents gave me a long leash and, um,

I just tried anything and they allowed me and supported me to do anything like that. But I wouldn't say I was ah, sharp entrepreneur. I wasn't never Paper route was now, but I was just

looking to make money.

I was looking for adventure, man. I was looking for fun, and I still am. But I was never really wired for to

make money. So what does your crew look like? Were you like a skateboard kid, too?

I was. I was athletic. Okay, Um, I was artistic. I was a good storyteller, and, um, I wasn't scared. I wasn't scared to fail. I wasn't scared to try because my parents really just supported my effort. They praised my effort and not the results. And

did they acknowledge when you failed,

they praised the effort. So we got blown out of a basketball game. Or if I had a great game or a bad game, it was like you tried so hard and they've always praised the effort. And as a father of four, that's something that we do with our kids

about the effort. Where do you think? What do you think? The Mendoza Line is on praising effort and making one appreciate process versus creating delusion when one is not good at that

thing? Well, I think the fine line in between those two points is disappointment, and I think disappointments been stripped from kids agree. There's participation. Trophies get everyone's on it, you know,

you can make this your parents on the way home of losing a game 42 to 16 were like, Hey, I really appreciate the fact that you're down by 30 that you were going hard, but the same token they weren't making excuses, were saying you're could be Michael fucking Jordan.

Yeah, but my pet, my dad on the plumbing supply house. Man, my dad didn't even get that deep into it. It was like he took me to the came he watched it. And then he went and sold plumbing supplies. Let me talk. Of course he talked, but he wasn't there. Wasn't about, like, raising this kid that's going to go to Harvard, or there's gonna be an amazing athlete.

So let me. Well, you went hard and you get in the car and he says, Good job, kid.

He says, How'd you feel about it? You know, really? Yeah. And I feel terrible. We got blown out, right? And then it's a like, Well, you know, you did great and keep keep trying And that kind of stuff. My father wasn't the kind of person that put any kind of pressure on me to succeed. He was a family guy still is. And it was just about that.

That and Mom,

it's teacher and then raised four kids.

And what was she saying to you?

Um, same thing. It was

just You look so cute in your shorts. Like, was she like that kind of mom? My mom was. She was like, You look great, too. Was like, Thanks, Mom. Something was, like, 16 when I first realized Wait a minute. I'm not the best looking person on earth. Like Like Like Like, was she like that kind of mom?

She was. She really gave me my distance. And they let me figure

it out for you. And

this is the bottom for

Got it. It's cool, though. Very good is cool. Like they've been through enough reps. Where if I'm sure you're a sister or brother, that's the oldest brother. Had a slightly different Yeah, It

was the best kind of childhood for me, though, Man, there was no in feeling pressure to have to You know what they did? They put the pressure on me.

They might not putting

the party made me want it for me. Like it can't be my parent's dream. It would have to be in my dream, I get it and they never I remember when I wanted to get good grades for my parents. My great sucked when I was like, I want to do good to get good grades so I could, like, get to a good school for me. They skyrocketed, so they took the pressure off of

meat. The freedom created. That was my goal.

I was my

dream. So now you get signed. Tell them about the New York pixel.

I get signed to this label called Delicious Vinyl. I wrote a couple songs for an artist named Tone Lok. I get dropped from the label. A year later, I moved back to New York City, had two things on my resume. I was a kiddie pool attendant and I was a rapper. And but, um, my wife always says, This is so true. You find your passion at the intersection of what it is you love to do and what you're good at and providing a product that people like her enjoy. I love sports and music, so I married those two things I wrote a theme song for the New York Next was called Go New York. Oh, I was 22 and the Knicks paid me $4000 for the song. It cost me $4800 to do the song.

She asked me if I was into money, not really lost $800 on my first big trade. But the reality is I would have paid the next 10 grand to do the song, and the song became the number one most requested song on New York radio, and that took

off as a 44 year old Knicks fan. You can't imagine what that song actually is. It was. It was being played while the Knicks made a run and actually got to the N b A Finals lost. Unfortunately, seven games to the Rockets. But like I probably heard that song 1000 times. 7800 of them were in a four week period in 1994. Yes, it was insane. It was insane. And like that became like Tell me living that moment. Where Jean 1994. You're eight years old. Me. So you're 22. 22?

23. Are you basically, you know, the Internet's not around, so people don't know shit the same way. Like, are you just walking around life? And before you can say hi. You telling people that you wrote that fucking song I

would be? Yeah. Well, it was interesting, because at that point in my life, I slept on 18 different couches. Yep. So I had 18 different friends. I bounced around for a week here, a couch couch, couch, couch. And then all of a sudden, I wrote this song, and it's the number one song. You know, at the time, it was big and big

in New York Uncomfortably

big. Yeah. And, uh, I didn't really know how to handle that, you know? But, um, everyone was asking me for playoff tickets on I had no money. I was sleeping on couches. And you know what I did? I got everybody playoff tickets. That's cool. Yeah, I'm on my credit card. And I realized at an early age that to be a connector and not having to ask for anything in return and just I knew it would come back tenfold. And I wanted to be the guy that could get anything done.

You know, that was what you wanted to stand

for I still d'oh. Anything like there's no obstacle. There's no business, There's no gold. There's no race

so much in playoff tickets to you end up spending.

Um, enough that it could It set me back, But But again, those seats, those seeds, you know, we're going out later. Yeah, they paid off

later. So what happened next?

So all of a sudden, I was like, Whoa, as an entrepreneur. Guys, we have a lot of entrepreneur in this in this room. Um, you realize that you look for something that differentiates yourself, and this was a big deaf differentiator for me. I was like, no one else is doing sports music. Everyone's trying to be vanilla ice at the time or whatever, but no one's writing theme songs for pro sports teams. So that was my ah ha moment, and I started. I set up a company to write theme songs for other teams, and I'm like, I speak ended up doing almost every team. Then I sold that company from the MBA, MBA and some baseball football.

What was the most next famous song?

Um, well, what happened was the songs became somewhat popular in each region, but that turned it into selling them as a compilation with all the songs that

but in its own

region in Chicago, because Jordan came back right back in it. But I sold almost a 1,000,000 units, so it became a business. And I sold that company public company.

And in that transaction, did you make some money? Yes. Did you have to work there for a little

bit, Uh, work? We didn't turn out. So I worked there for a year and 1/2 and then we hit the urn out.

Talk to me about that year and

1/2. Uh, well, in our contract, they paid us a couple $1,000,000 up front. But we had a $16 million trigger if we hit x amount and profit. So we literally had a calendar with three years to do it. And I'm like every day was like, I was about 364 more days. Man way gotta hit this number. Every day was a countdown. And, uh, that's how I mean and we hit

it. So you're wildly motivated. Interest aligned. Yeah. Day you hit it, you're out. What happens next? Now I have some money.

What happened? How old are you? I'm 20 at the time. Maybe 26.

You have some money, like, way more than you ever have before.

Yeah, And

in my family. And do you go crazy? Do you know shit

when you d'oh? No, I mean my life. My life was pretty simple. It's pretty simple than three. Simple now, But I was still 26 27 years old. But what happened was the guy that bought our company had a time share in a private jet and he invited me a 27 years old on to his private plane. It was like when I walked on, it was like if you guys saw The Wizard of Eyes was like the scene in The Wizard of Oz. When everything goes from black and white to color, people fly like this. It was like, You gotta be kidding me. I want to fly like this. So by the time we landed, my partner and I like,

let's start a private jet company so we can fly on private planes when we travel. Definitely. Except we had no airplanes, but we had an idea, and we took that idea it was that partner. Uh, his name is Kenny Dichter. And we took that idea to

How did you meet Kenny?

Kenny? What? So I own the trademark to all these themes. The songs I was writing for the sports teams were popular, but the trademarks were more valuable. So go New York. Oh is being used by Budweiser. But locker all these big companies now, is it getting in money? Because I sold a song for four grand, so I got smarter and I started licensing the song and keeping the marks can be only the clothing company. So I'm like, we make go New York O T shirts and hats and we started working together and you built a big business out of it. Then I was a guest. I'm like, Let's start a private jet company was like, Definitely.

And, um, we took the meeting with a company called NetJets, owned by Warren Buffett, the largest private jet company in the world. Did

you get to that meeting?

This is crazy story, man. The president of NetJets daughter had a sweet 16 and Christina Aguilera was performing. And through somebody that knew me, they knew that I knew the manager and called up like this guy wants to new special for his daughter. And like I said, nothing is impossible. I called up, and the next day at the concert she was a background singer with the mic off and he called me up here like I don't know what the fuck you are or what you're d'oh! But my daughter is a hero in our town. If you ever need anything, let me know. A year later, I need 650 airplanes. Jim, remember Christina Galera story like that was May can I see you on Friday? Friday comes,

we go. We have the meeting and it lasted about 12 minutes. And the CEO Rich San Tooley said, literally threw us out is a direct quote and it really pissed me off. He said, if you think I'm giving two guys who probably didn't break 1000 on their S a T, which really pissed me off, I got a 90 on my S a T. That really bothered me. He's like That's never happening, threw us out. And then the president, Jim, who had got his daughter hooked up, grabbed me and said that was unbelievable. We got thrown out in 12 minutes.

He goes. Santulli doesn't give anyone 12 minutes. I believe in this. But bring it to life. Come back next week. So we came back next week and we realized we could never sell this idea of the power point things. Guy sees 100 power points and entrepreneurs have to differentiate. So we brought in our focus group and we set up a table by the boardroom table. And one by one, we had eight people come. Carl Banks from the New York Giants run from run D. M. C ah, powerful female real estate mogul in New York. And one by one, they stood up and they said they'd never buy a fraction what NetJets was selling.

But they'd buy a 25 hour jet card what we were offering, and he gave us a deal. And a year later, we did $5 billion in sales. Then what happens? Um then, like changed, um, the chips of purple and you know, money's interesting men. It's interesting. We all play for it. We all want it, but we don't really even know what we're playing for a while. We want it, and then we get it and it's confusing and my relationship.

We think of relationships in terms of people, has a relationship with your mom and your dad. We don't think of relationships in terms of money and time, and I have a very good and understanding of my relationship with time. I know you just post that talking that for a while and money and all of a sudden I came into a lot of money and I was single and and I had airplanes and I was in New York. I could go on a date with this lady. I'd be like if it was going good. Like you want to go to Canada,

you want D'oh! I mean, like people going to Studio 54

trying to get a Studio 54 mic. Let's go to Hawaii tonight. So I had a great decade.

Fair enough on, then what happened on

Then? I decided that, um I don't want to sell airplanes anymore. Like that wasn't, um I didn't feel like I felt like I wanted to make 1/4 by myself in a 75 cents in the in the company I was in I want to go out on my own. So I was training for 100 mile run. I realized I signed up for the USA National Ultramarathon Championship because you didn't have to qualify. You could just send $50 registration and you're in the national championship and I'm like I'm competing in the national championship. It's unbelievable that I Googled. How do you run 100 mile race on? And it came back with a year. Everything came back.

How did that even hit your radar to enter?

I went to a crazy period of time and I was thinking about giving all my money away. I was thinking about charity. I was just like I just,

you know, trying to figure

it out, figure it out. And I was like, I want to do something big for charity and, like, I don't have a big sale or a golf outing. My friends robbing a foursome. I don't I'm not forcing God

term. Relax. Just trying to help the kids at home. I

want to run a 100 miles without stopping, so I like. And what would be the biggest race to do that in for me? It was the national championship. So I googled it. It gave me everything was like a year training program. The race was in 90 days, so I went from basically couch to 100 miles in 90 days. And during the training I did a lot of research around hydration and nutrition and everything pointed a coconut water. So I became the human guinea pig for coconut water. And like

there was this.

This was in 86 4006 because when you run 100 miles like how many calories have taken an hour? How much sodium, how many fluid ounces do I need? Coconut water was the solution. So anyway, I finished the race when I got to my 83. I have seven toenails floating around in my shoe, but I don't negotiate my goals like we don't negotiate our goals in this room. Like whatever our goal is, its unwavering and like the plot might change in, the script might change, but the goal doesn't change. Like my goal wasn't 87 miles or 83 miles. So I finished it. And then I was like this coconut water shit, man, this don't do this like, by the way, I was in a wheelchair for four days after the race, but I did finish it. And I spent a year trying to figure

out the photos. Yeah, never posted. Yeah, that's a good

God. The whole documentary on it, you know? Anyway, long story short, I spent a year trying to figure out how to import coconut water. And I did get a 9 80 on my S a. T s because I couldn't figure that shit out. Man, it was way over my

head, but I knew I couldn't spell coconut. Right. Okay, keep going.

You would have a great pointer for May. Clearly, um, but I knew I could market and sell it. So I partnered with a company called Zico Z I Seo. They were doing about $3 million himself at the time. You know, one of the things is an entrepreneur is figuring out how to get from point A to be the fastest, you know. And for me, the learning curve was too great, So partnering was the fastest way. So I partner with Zico, and two years later, we sold it to cope. And, um,

I got married I married an entrepreneur. My own. My wife owns a company called Spanx, Uh, which is a big deal here in the States internationally, too. And, um and that's where I am.

And then what?

Um, I started shifting

my life to think about changing my show toe. And then what? What? God,

I started focusing putting more on my plate of the things I love to do with the people I love to do him with. So my life shifted. It didn't really shift because it's always been this way. Actually,

you just put the energy into a different bucket.

The energy was actually always there, but I started really obsessing on experiences and expect just really obsessing on, almost like living a manic

lights. Is that how you ended up in Atlanta? The Coke transaction?

No, my wife's business in Atlanta understood. I shifted after that. The sales to like, really becoming more experiential and being intentional about what

was that was the coconut water sale

2013 fish. Yeah, and coconut water. Deal was interesting because we were the first company ever. I believe, or at least publicly toe actually go to again. How do you get from A to B the fastest to goto influencers and celebrities like Giselle and Kelly Ripa, M and M and take money and his investors in exchange for equity for doing more stuff like 50 cents. Got 50 cent got equity? Yep, and vitamin A vitamin water. These guys wrote checks. It was a really authentic. And customers are smart now, man, they can see through endorsements. So we have these,

like, really people that really believe that real brand ambassadors and it worked. Way sold it pretty fast. And now I got four kids were part owners the Atlanta Hawks, which, you know we live in Atlanta, and I got

just the epicenter of culture in America. You may be the world, even, for that matter. Yeah, but it's a really dynamic time in Atlanta for May like just like it's been really fun to watch it for the last decade. It's just very clear to me an importance of business because I think business is a byproduct of what is established and culture. Uh, popular culture in America starts in Atlanta. I really believe that

it's an amazing city.

When I think about what hip hop actually means to the world and where the innovation and it's just him. And then you start layering in the tax breaks that are now in place for Hollywood and just the Hollywood infrastructure that's being built. It's just a really interesting time in Atlanta.

I feel fortunate to be a part of it. And I feel fortunate to have been raised in New York because I think New York gave me a lot of edge, a lot of competitiveness and, um, help me just get over my fear, man, You couldn't get swallowed in New York. If you walk around scared,

right? What do you think? What's what's, you know, hearing that background and a lot of people, you know here that it's obviously you know, I think this is what you know. We don't even really know each other that that well. And I think our relationship is like so good, because I think it's bound on this intuitive, creative, entrepreneurial execution that we have more similarities, then we don't but obviously we have differences. What? It's what leads me to this question. What's just hot? Take what are 4 to 7 observations that you think are interesting, right now in the world through the lens of entrepreneurship, individual person platform. What somebody's doing, what's like on your

radar? Well, I

think as a consumer of energy around shit

like this, I think that a lot of entrepreneurs have been tricked into thinking that things happen quickly. And, you know, for me my journey was different and I remember going to Coke when we had Zico, and the president of Coke said, It takes eight years to build a brand in this country, and I was like eight years like, You know, I live in dog years. Everything's time. Some I've got eight years is forever and I feel like every year for me is four years, literally the way I live my life. So I feel that's

in the speed of your execution.

I just feel like I've done 200 years worth of stuff in 50 years, But I feel like entrepreneurs are feel like it's get rich quick and everything has to be quick, and we try to cut corners and that wall. But that's just the vibe that I'm getting, and because we live in a new age of likes and instant and fast and speed, and that's amazing. But there's also that leads to disappointment, like it takes time. And that's okay. To build the foundations of a long lasting

business, I think what? What we've glossed over and you touched on it lightly with the tickets is ah, lot of your execution. You know what? It's really cool to get the meeting with the jet company. What's more interesting to me is why those really fancy people would go to that meeting and sit there. You built up equity through relationships with takes time to be able to convert that energy for that execution. Yeah. Yes, right? Yeah. I mean, why did Why did Carl banks and run and all these people? Why

did they go? I tell you what, I'm gonna tell you why people buy into stories. People and mo mentum more than products. Always. So you're the business plan. You're the business plan. Like we had momentum and we had a story. And when you have a story, that's exciting.

But they've been taking it for yes. Yes. But what I'm curious about is buying the tickets on your credit card. Hey, Sorry to interrupt the podcast real quick. Don't worry. I'm not in the mood to dio mid roles, but the new Vlog week Levy had such obnoxious reactions this week. If you're paying attention and Video World Daily V has not been daily be for like 15 months. And and so we decided in 2020 to Goto Weekly B, which were very focused on the first episode, was epic. They're working on Episode two right now where Launch to get every Friday on my YouTube channel, which a lot of you in the podcast or not, subscribe to at 3 p.m. Eastern. And then on Sunday nights in the I G. T V form,

go check out weekly V, The feedback of people learning things that they are not getting from my content on instagram, the text platform or this podcast was enormous. And the entertainment value and the insights and team insights and a lot of shit anyway started interrupt the podcast. But I'm gonna do that this whole week to make sure all of you are subscribed and checking out weekly Be, uh, this Friday, 3 p.m. Eastern on YouTube. You're right. How does one who's listening right now get in front of the Carl Banks and the run of their day. Gonna right now getting from the gun and Von Miller right now for everybody who's listening is a disconnect. I want to go into that because I would argue the seed of so much of this foundation is within that

you put yourself in a position where luck can find you. You put yourself in a position where you attract luck. So, like when I was 21 years old, man, I had nothing. I wasn't Amendment. I wasn't like broke, but I had nothing. I was staying on couches. My office was the Beverly Hills Hotel because I realized that if I went to the Beverly Hills, I was 21 years old. I got invited to a lunch meeting and I walked in. I'm like Russell Simmons. There's Lior. There's all these mood music moguls and entertainment moguls, and I'm like,

This is what everyone

is. You don't have to have a room at the hotel to come here for lunch. I was like what? I could buy an $8 sam salad and sit here for 10 hours, and I did every day and that was my office and then people started recognizing me, and then it was on need to attract them.

Hey, get your again. You look whatever

just to get a face and and now all of a sudden, after six months, I put myself in a position where I could get a record deal where I could find somebody where I could call somebody because he can. I borrow you for

five 1,000,000 to rub. I apologize. It's the name of the show, Thank you very much. What scares the fuck out of me is how unbelievably true that is, how an $8 salad for that cost is the arbitrage and how somebody in Iowa that's listening to this story right now in the rural part of Iowa has something 37 trillion times more powerful than your ability to be in a place to pay $8 for that salad, which is called direct messaging on Instagram. What scares me to no end is that people will spend 80 trillion hours on dwelling and complaining and worrying about what they don't have. But we live in fumble bumble Fuck. I will listen to these two right now and not realize of what they do have, which is us to Schmuck O's with all our charisma and all this still didn't have something called Instagram d m and the 21 year old. You would have stayed on that couch and d m for 19 fucking hours because you would have bled for it. And then there would have been one. Yes, and that is such a real story right now for anybody listening, Not just people that happen to be in city areas where this shit could happen. The serendipity off creating that for you now is little people than hear me say that I put out that content and they give up after 29 people that they d m and then the DEA me and they're like,

Gary. And you're fucking full of shit idea. And a bunch of people I haven't gotten my music out there or sold my T shirt. I'm crazy and I reply like, Hey, Carl, with three followers, I'm like, how many people have you? D MD 29? I'm like, Go fuck yourself. You sat there for fucking 12 15 hours a day.

I think Kai and

onto that you could do anything

so I think a lot of people do send e ems. Don't even actually know how to send the property. M I

people away real quick because I'm gonna add on to it. There's been plenty of people that want to the right places that lost. You had the right tack to start the conversation with Russell Simmons. It's my life. I'm on the other end of this now. It is fascinating to me. Tow watch. People go with selfish behavior in there. 17 distinctness moment to get something to

happen. When

I write and people roll up on me, I apologised 99.999% of the time to tell me what I can do for them. Yeah,

it's the whole thing about this. It's like as entrepreneurs, there's one rule of thumb. We have to create value. If you obsess as humans, right? If you obsess on value and wake up, how can I provide value as a husband, as a boss or whatever? In the long term, it's gonna pay

off. And always you won't. You won't have the ability to pick up all the opportunities,

right? One thing that I do that really helps helps me. I asked myself a very simple question. What I recommend myself as fill in the blank. What I recognize recommend myself as a dad as a CEO is a business partner. If the answer's no. Why on what am I doing wrong? When it comes to de EMS, I feel like people want to know, like, What's in it for me? So what? I write an email. I could spend three hours on an email, sleep on it, review it, edit it.

How can I make it shorter? Is the caption punch here? If I was the recipient, how would I react to it like it's not like just omen a D M and boom. It's like, How do I get this person to respond in the way that I want the response toe happen? And I don't believe in

real quick and what we're painting for everybody was listening is look, The fucking Internet has given everybody in that bat. It doesn't mean that you can hit a fastball. And so the work he put into having the ability to hit a fastball. But the fact that we're now in a place where everyone gets an at bat, which was not the case. Pre Internet is bonkers, bonkers

Shit. Your genius about this d m thing, though, because, like, I got a lot of layers to get to me. I have my assistant voicemail. People scream my e mail, but I checked my own social. So I actually to your point now that you bring it up the guy that does all my merch for my company, 29 20 in this race company, we have the end of me And you know what he said? He created a win win. I'm outside. He created a no lose. Win wins don't work, because if I say a win win with you, talk about this,

too. No, no, I like where

you're going. Would you have a win win? Gary might win here, and I might win here. That's not a win win. That's a Gary's dominating. The wind are no loses. Oh, there's no risk I can't lose. He sent me a damn it and said, Hey, seven year logo. I'll send you a bunch of samples of stuff. No cause, no risk, no anything if you like it. I love a shot to work with you on,

Mike. Okay, I sent it to him a day later. I get a FedEx with these amazing product line, and I'm, like, done hundreds of thousands dollars

later. We talked about this earlier, and it's great for ever been. Listen, it's about doing instead of talking people be at me all day long. Gary, I wanna work for you for free. Okay? That was amazing. Like, if you think about it, that sounds win, win. No loses. Gary made this, and then we look at it. Artie looks at things that are made with my content.

Way 99.999% of time. Don't even hear you when you say you're gonna work for free. Yeah. Action. Always action.

I invited. Um, I went to a dinner party with my wife and they went around the room and they asked everyone in a name three people that were alive they'd want to have dinner with And you came up a Gary buffet. This one, that one. But when it came to me, all three of mine were rappers. And the reason was I wanted to meet the three people that changed the course of my life as a 14 year old kid growing up in New York. So at the end of the dinner, I called my 10. I invited the 10 most influential artists in my life to my house for dinner, and they all came. I knew two of them and people like, How did you get rockin, Man? How did you get Big Daddy Kane? And I'm like, I asked them in a no lose. And they came. People want to help

people. Yeah, it's really crazy, because again, it's super important because I want to make sure the list forgets value. You put up enough W's on the board and had enough social currency to pull off that Hail Mary, which is amazing, right? On the flip side, it's also how you got there, because the 21 year old you that had nothing was willing to ask 100 people to get one. Yes, yes. Okay, that's why I'm fired up. So for everybody listening, if you put enough wins on the board,

you're probably more likely to get seven out of 10 yeses than you think. And for everybody who's the 20 year old you and me that nobody knows at all or gives any fucks, you will get a one out of 400. How do I know that? Because you and I are exactly the characters. That's a yes. Out of that 400 once every 1000 times, I still do it. Me too. Which is why I'm saying it again. This is a very important conversation. And because we grew up in the same era, I shit on these entrepreneurs in this era. You gave me the Internet. Fuck you. Fuck you.

This Internet thing. Fuck you, man. First of all, I would have definitely not graduated high school. And second of all, I would have made some crazy shit happen. Like you've got it so easy right now.

Yeah. I mean, I remember we're not just up to that point, Gary. When I was starting out at Marquis Jet, I was looking for my first customer and I don't have a database. I don't have sales force. I have no way

to get lead. The only way

I could get a lead was to show up. We're really here. This'll was like in 99 right? But to go where rich people where I didn't

we didn't have a pager. What did you have? A pager? And

I got a pager. I probably have like there was

No Yeah, that pager

like that. Cool. I had to show up. I didn't like that. No email list and I heard about this event called Ted This conference in Monterey, California. I'm like, there's got to be rich people. A Ted. So I flew 16 hours I connected in Chicago, landed in L. A. Drove five hours to Monterey, and I get to the event and I recognize immediately like you can't get into Ted without a credential. I'm like that. So that's ridiculous. You need a credential.

So I just traveled 16 hours. I need a sale. So I go to the coffee shop and I realized that every 15 every hour and 1/2 people are coming in and the ordering lattes and muffins because they're on break. They have credentials. They're on break at the conference. I'm like, So the next day I showed up at the coffee shop and I stole No, I bought every single muffin in the store. I controlled all the muffin inventory in Monterey, California Mission First break comes and the guy comes in like I have a lot in a muffin. The guys like you can have a lot, but we're out of muffins. He comes back out. I'm so sorry, sir. I overheard you can actually have a muffin 450 more. Would you want one?

He's like, Well, he's like, No, no, no, you could take When

I said, Well, what do you do? We start talking. I said I wanted a jet company goes, Get out of here is like I'm actually in. This really happened to me. I'm actually in the market for private Jet goes Do you mind if we sit down and talk about it Like Mr Qualified? You can sit wherever you want to set a bad. Absolutely. And he was my first sale, Josh compliment from half dot com. And that's how my

first sale. But like, but if you think about it, it's actually stunningly unbelievable and wildly not. It's incredibly practical. You know what your customer is? Go there. What pisses me off And this is why he's telling the story. And it's an interesting take is that's amazing and epic and iconic of a story you can lay in your fucking bed and email and d m people like, what is the matter with people back to? Nothing is impossible. Well, the Internet has made it uncomfortably easy. And yet people are losing. Fuck you.

I think it goes back down to what I said earlier, even deeper than the D M. Z. Gary Gut is is negotiating your goals. And I think you asked me about entrepreneurship and I said, You know, people want to get happened quicker and speed up the process and this and that. But I also think it's easy to negotiate your goals. It's easy now to say, like, I'm not gonna do this. I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna throw and like, people don't stick with things night. Most people do 95%

of the same thing, just they actually don't. It sounds good, like there's there's a really deep psychology on this that people have to wrap her, and but there's nothing wrong with it. Like why do you want to be a billionaire? Why do you want to start a business like this is what goes into like a very deep conversation, which is, people do things they think they're supposed to. They don't mean it when you mean it. There is no other option when you mean it. There is no other option when you don't mean it because you think it projects well. Or it's the thing you should do or your parents want you to or you think it's cool or I'll get you girls or it sounds fun.

The deeper layer of that, the deeper layer of that of meaning it comes from wanting it. And I could say if someone said to me, What's the silver bullet of being an entrepreneur? I would say You have to really want it and then people laugh. I really wanted the promotion. I really wanted to win the lottery. They don't understand what I'm talking about. I can look at someone in their eye and tell right away if they want it or not. If they're willing to go through the 18 couches that I went through and I'm not I plenty egg on my face, too. You gotta want it so bad that the obstacles don't anything. So if you do 400 g. M's

and they don't hit, it doesn't mean anything. You're on GM one that starts with anyone here. Really? There. You're, like, almost evil about it. And you're happy? Nobody replied. Like where I go is a scary place where I'm like Like I hear that I'm like, Yeah, like I'm like, I want I want disgusting. Like I want, Like I mean it. If I had 400 g m's and it comes back Goose egg,

I get crazy. I'm like, uh, like, you fuckers are gonna be real sad when you see this D m. In six years. It's real fuel. Like I'm on some real chip on shoulder. I'm gonna fucking kill your mother ship, will you? When it comes to business, really? Nine witnesses to everything like in real life. I don't want to kill your mother, but in business, like like when I watch athletes play like I love people that,

like, I love Draymond green like that's why I am is an athlete. Fuck you at all costs. I'm gonna fuck. Fuck!

You see, I think I think it's everything because if you don't have that attitude and other buckets of your life, it like, it's everything. If you create to create an environment in your head that no matter what, you're

going to get it done, but real quick. And I'm because you're part ownership in the Hawks is a good camp. The I'm always fascinated by this. You're on the field football game, right? That's a rough fucking sport. You're breaking people's fucking faces. Triple zero, game over. Everyone comes to the middle. And you're like, Hey, how Sarabyn, I actually feel that in my business life, like in the context of business, I'm gonna break your ankle and,

like, I don't give a fuck and fuck you and I want the whole crowd. The reason I've become friendly with Novak Djokovic is he's one of the few people have reached out to ever because I'm like, motherfucker, there is only one thing I see on earth right now that I completely wish I could. D'oh, which is being Centre Court at Wimbledon against Roger Federer and no every fucker in that stadium. And everybody who's watching is rooting for Federer. When no back goes into that zone, when he's like, basically like fuck all of you. I get crazy, I hear is in the back of my neck right now and use bumps. Novak, when he's against Federer in Centre Court and Wimbledon, like happened this year and the entire world is like Let's go, Roger, let's go Roger when he hits a big shot and everyone goes quiet the chemicals in my like all I want to do is be in that moment because nothing excites me more to look at every single person in the crowd off like, What's up with your boy Dick?

Listen, if there's one thing we agree on, it's that that's the way I'm wired. And what that

does is it makes you not be scared of losing. You actually already set it up to enjoy

the losing. When I took my book living with the Seal to the publishers, I got 11 rejections and all it did was make me be like I can't

wait. My brother agent. I have a sports representation business. We we just went through a draft class, right. We got a ton of nose when I tell you, I can't wait to see those fuckers in real life in six years and look them dead. And if I'm already doing it, cause there's some kids that said No. Three years ago that are already not doing as well as they thought they were gonna. D'oh! And their agents don't give a fuck about them anymore. Because they're not gonna make any money on. I would have fucking taking care of them for life. I look them dead in the face and say, You fucked up, Dick.

Listen, anger is a really, uh,

listen,

I know it doesn't sound angry to be Gary someone's mother.

It's sound. No, no, I know. You know, it sounds wildly aggressive. It's actually an unbelievably good oxygen for its deep, merit based competitiveness.

It is, I think, listen, I think you whatever you have to pull whatever emotion you have to pull from, people say, like, get rid of your anger. It's negative. I anger to me is like fuel. I need a little anger if you you know it's fuel, I need it. It's a hard thing to channel consistently, and there's a negative.

But it's funny just to play out the story to give context, cause I think all these things have layers. It's funny, I'm not angry and any of these kids I'm devastated for them, which then manifests me like like it's like it's like this Incredible, Like all I wanna do is have dinner with 11 people that said no to your book and you and, like, just sit. I love that shit I love. But I also like losing. Like if you're gonna meet that person, you also have to be the person that when you're wrong, you're like, Man, you saw it. I didn't fucking see it. I'll take that.

L So I love sports, bro. You win and lose entrepreneur ships hidden right now. AC, you hires fake headlines like it's just not sports right 1 82 to 79. That's what it was, you know?

Yeah. I mean, they're scored. You can use bank accounts of scorecards and they're

kind of bad. But people, there's a lot of hiding. There's a lot of manipulation in that. We're just like you're watching every I wish everybody recorded every single action. Then you could see it more because that's what sports is. We're watching all of them all the minutes.

I think also, at the end of the day, we can talk about this. It was a great conversation, you know, going back to your question about entrepreneurs and what I see at the end of the day, man, we humans, we all want the same thing. What do you think? The one thing that we all want us.

I think it's happiness

Exactly. We want to be happy. So if you're happy, all for you know things make people have different things, make people happy. People are driven by

different things. When you said my dad's a family man plumber, you know like I was like, so awesome like, because I know that like, I know someone like people that felt different, like to your point there 7000 ways to be happy. This is about self awareness of how you tick, not how you think you should take.

My brother asked me. My son is a swimmer, is young, 10 years old, and my brother asked me how my son was doing it. Swim and I said, You know, he's doing really good. It did it up, but he doesn't have the eye of the tiger, and he's a great swimmer, but he does just doesn't have my brothers. That that's okay as long as he's happy. Yep, and I'm like, No, my son would be happy playing Minecraft and eating. Haagen dies every day in Fort night on the couch. That's not what I want. I wanted to be to live up to his potential, and I don't see how anybody

but at a different framework than your way your parents went about it. I'm just curious because it was interesting to hear you like when you just said that I went back to the beginning of this podcast. Think about the freedom your parents gave you and were they into the guiding aspect? Is that why you run a basketball team or not? I'm just curious

their potential. So, like when I look at myself and I'll answer it this way, I don't want to be the 80% version of me, right? I don't want to grow up and be like, Okay, you could have been built vain her to this, but you only took it here within yourself. I understand. You know, I understand my parents. Their scorecard was how they raised their kids. That's what made them happy. My mom's whole life. I remember going to this grocery store and someone my mom got into confrontation on my I can't believe my mother even has a life outside of

our family. You'd react like this. Their whole

life was about building my family. That was it. That's what made them happy. My life is bigger than that. Not in the bigger it is. It's just got more bucking What? Wider. So for my family, that's their happiness. To them was taking care of their kids, putting him in college, giving him

a car. I got

it. And for me, it's I want a number one. My standards are high, man. I don't want to write a book. I want a best What

do you want to impose that on your Children? So I Children for me when you went there. I'm like, I have no interest in my kids taking on my characteristics in any shape or form. I just want them to be in love and respect their characteristics as much as I do mine.

That's fantastic. And,

to your point, everybody do step their own way. I'm just curious where you're going with

my kids were on their own journey, and because I used to play basketball till midnight every night and my someone simply fortnight, I can't tell Michael play basketball. They're on their own journey, but I do want them to live up to their potential. I just sat with a financial advisor and he said to me, What would you rather give your kids a boatload of money or a boatload of life experiences? I want my kids to experience and see what they

like on their terms of yours

on both, Like

I want to shit No, I want to give the amazing, by the way, your small While we're talking about this because a lot of people listening, I have 0.0 interest in ever getting into anyone's actual personal way of parenting, cause that's everyone's got their own uniqueness, and they should. I love the macro conversation of this game because where I go into this is kids are living in a reality that is intuitive, toe where their world is going versus the world we came from. I think so much about E. Sports. For that reason, it's changed the last 24 to 36 months, but the demonization appearance and you're not doing that, But I'm just using this is example. There are a ton of parents out there who have taken their kids out of the path of becoming all time great professional e sports players because they deemed that not being a thing. And I think about that every day.

My parenting is a work in progress, guys, I'm figuring out as I go, I don't I don't You know, I have four kids. They're

all undertake. I'm curious about four night all day and Haagen Daz as actually being the stepping stone to actually winning, actually getting full fulfillment. I really believe that, like I'm debating it for myself. I'm fascinated by that because because I and it sounds like you, too, for that matter. I didn't do anything that gave people confidence that I was up to something. When I was 11 I was doing everything off the reservation. I was an immigrant kid. Everybody had to get good grades. I was getting efs. I never clicked into wanting good grades for myself. I clicked into this is all horseshit and I always wonder, What are the 10 and 12 year olds thinking right now that we can't see? And I feel like some of them are exactly where I was and I think about that.

Listen again. I think I can only speak for myself. And just so you guys know my kids have glitches just like your kids of glitches. Everyone's got glitch. You know? It's like you think, Go. You sold the company and it's like I have the same. My kids don't get out of a carpool line because they have anxiety, the same kind of stuff everybody deals with. And I don't know. I just know that I want to give him a CZ much

opportunity. You'll appreciate that. I want to take even the four of them out of the equation. I just think you're a creative thinker, and it's just an interesting conversation for me. You know, just I think we're the interesting time. I think people are in deep shit in thinking they know where the world's gonna be in 15 to 20 years, when I think about what five G is gonna do as an infrastructure and what that opens up, you got fucking Elon musk today, talking about like living on Mars like people are like people don't get it like like we facetime people and fucking China. And it cost $0. The people that were making decisions for us didn't have phones that got awful wall. Like Like it's fucking crazy out here and it's about to get wildly crazier. You think technology's advanced? Now this is dog shit is a fucking pager. I know you agree.

So we're imposing today's reality against kids that are gonna live in a world that's 15 years from now. Looks nothing like today. And we must hedge for that. And when we think about shit, Gary President. But you know what I mean. It's an injury. It's fun. Yeah, I know that makes sense to you by products of that. Yeah. Isn't white kids talking about rap in 1985 and fucking Long Island rap wasn't even a fucking genre to people. It was a fat rock n roll. The Internet was a fat people laughed at my fucking father when I launched an e commerce wine. Mrs. The Internet was a fad.

Fuck Tic tac in vine. The whole fucking thing was a fat. Do you understand what's coming? Fuck party. Parting shots. What? You want people

to know You got a lot of people listening First, I want to thank you for the opportunity. Is this super cool? I want to do this for a long time way. Connect once in a while, but

it's grand. It's good to

see you, too, Like the arm

wrestling house. Major speakers going. Okay, well. D'oh review How's major speakers go? One thing that everybody should know is I think you guys saw about 16 months ago. We started banner speakers. I teamed up with my agency, a Zach Nadler. He's now the CEO of that. It's been really fun. He's actually in the room while we're talking on one of the key targets for us was Jesse because we're looking at things that are MMA Crush, who is way better than people realize at this exact second they are at this thing. So it's exciting that you're with us. Straight talk. That's what I love about you. How's it going?

It's been great. Zac's been amazing. I was hesitant to do it cause I was getting out. Yeah, so I mean, just so you guys know I started speaking about three years ago. I wrote a book. The book became a number one bestseller, was amazing, but it launched me a completely different direction than I anticipated. I started getting asked to speak and the first speaking event I went to there were 40 people, no microphone. The guy said to me Speak loudly and slowly You have 45 minutes and that has led to, you know, much bigger stages. And I did it all myself for two years, and then Gary text me and said,

I don't remember this. I'm starting this thing. And, you know, I saw you speak great, whatever and introduced me to Zach and

what goes through the process like, Why might get crying. I get so much

about myself thinking process for me was, you know, can I do this myself? I'm doing it myself. And it was became an easy decision for May because I fell in love with Zach and you hand picked Jack and and and what? You guys d'oh at Vania Speakers And I weighed it all, and it became super simple for me. Um and it's just been a really good process. Listen, after I sold my last business, I'm like, I'm never having partners again, right? I don't want partners. I want freedom. Write. You'd work, so you get freedom. And I have a partner with partnership with you guys, and it's been really it's been really good. And

what's been the most surprising thing I like learning. Um, it's just there has been

a 1,000,000 those big surprises. You know, you guys laid out exactly what it was bin, and it hasn't

We've been able to surprise is that you actually, like first time like

this is what we're gonna do and we're gonna do it. And when I was disappointed in certain things, I would say it is Act like I want something bigger, I need more and, you know, and he would respond. So, um yeah, we like

it. You like speaking?

I love it. I wouldn't do it if I don't like it. I understand you as you get older, man. It's like you only have two buckets. Gary, you got, um, Aggravation versus reward. And I want lo aggravation for the most amount of reward. If something's hi aggravation, even high reward. I'm not doing it. And you guys have made it low. Aggravate.

You know, it's funny just if you I and many others can get people to realize you don't have to wait 2 50 some success to put yourself in a position for that and you could actually do that. A 22. You just have to be a little patient and a little more humble. But you could be way happier, you and I and a lot of ways did do that, which is what I think led to this. And I think a lot more people can do it. But they have all these expectations of what they're supposed to do from 20 to 30 and it fucks

them up. It's true. And just to add on about the speaking, because I just, you know, I talked about walking in and speaking in front of 40 people and then, you know, used as entrepreneurs men. It's okay to start small. And I just want to say first God, it's okay to start small. You start small, you think big scale it fast, something my wife always says. You start small, think big and scale it fast, and that's the way we've been able to do it. It feels really authentic and grassroots

when I want to get into tech. The 1st 5 public things meet ups events. I did. This is in 2009 when wine library gone from 3 to 60 million. The 1st 5 things I did was cold email conferences in the tech world and offer to set up a table and pour wine. I was a bartender at the first a Robert Scoble JJ ICU event a Technorati uh, conference. I literally the 1st 5 of it. I found a picture of me and a J recently at a tech cocktail event in which was a d. C meet up. I was the help. That was after really success. Most people don't have the humility to do that with no success. Yeah, with couches. Catches, brother.

Thank you. Thanks for being on. Think couches could be a real framework for either a book or a talk, because I really think and you saw I zoned in on it. I think if you can go deep in the way that I've gotten deep into, like, fear and insecure, like if you go deep into the network you built which then became the foundation of everything you've pulled off and the pattern recognition of human arbitrage when you overdeliver and you ask for less in return. I think there's a real unlock there for you. And I think the framework of 18 couches could be a really cool starting point. Yeah,

my instead of me when I was on 18 couches was I'm a millionaire. They just haven't paid me yet, I said I was thinking That's how

I was thinking. I've owned the Jets for a long

time, right? Exactly. That's a tough. That's

a tough one, though. I'm gonna pull it off as we end today's podcast. I want to give a huge shout out to the people you know. It's so funny. People that leave reviews and written reviews of this podcast on Apple Spotify and all the other platforms just mean the world to me. You've taken an extra 13 to 95 seconds to show love and also give context of people of why this is a worthwhile podcast. So I appreciate that so much and even more fun, because I think we all love a little co signer shoutout or a little awareness I'm gonna have the team give ah couple of shout outs daily on our favorite reviews. So Dean, take it away, which were our favorites

this week. Thank you, Gay. Today's reviews gives me hype for every aspect of life and must listen. Written in by ABC. 123 Hoboken and Shelter 95 say there's no one like Gary. His energy, authenticity, optimism, humor, wisdom, game changers. This podcast is my absolute favorite. Always leave the podcast feeling so re energized to absolutely crush it. Thank you, G ve. And secondly, Gary Vaynerchuk is straightforward No B s and focus on bringing value to his listeners by stressing the right mindset for success. You don't have to be an entrepreneur to get something out of this podcast. Thank you both. So much for writing in and remember Keep leaving reviews because yours could be next.