Mick Unplugged - Gary Vee: The Inconvenient Truth About Winning in the Interest Media Era

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

What if the problem is not your content, your reach, or the algorithm? What if the real problem is that you are trying to be social instead of becoming unmistakably yourself? In this Mick Unplugged re-release, Mick Hunt sits down with Gary Vaynerchuk, known worldwide as Gary Vee, for a direct conversation about interest media, authentic personal branding, accountability, gratitude, and the discipline required to build something that lasts. Gary explains why intent matters more than tactics, why audiences can sense when a creator is only trying to sell, and why the only niche no one else can copy is you. He also shares how staying close to culture helps him see shifts before they become obvious, why blaming other people keeps us stuck, and why winning should make us more compassionate, not more bitter. This is not a conversation about shortcuts. It is a reminder to get back in the trenches, live within your values, protect your energy, and take responsibility for the life and work you want to build. Note: This episode contains explicit language. In this episode, you will learn: - Why social platforms are increasingly organized around interests instead of existing social connections - Why genuine intent can matter more than a perfect content strategy - How staying close to culture helps Gary form original points of view - Why the only truly defensible personal-brand niche is being fully yourself - How accountability changes your relationship with money, work, and opportunity - Why limiting negative inputs can help you rebuild your energy - How to respond when people close to you struggle with your success - Why Gary believes collecting and live social shopping will keep growing Chapters 00:00 Interest media and the conversation ahead 00:30 Gary Vee joins Mick 02:52 Gary's deeper purpose and the power of gratitude 05:36 Consistency through cultural and political change 08:32 Why intent matters more than the transaction 10:56 Measuring 45 times before cutting once 14:29 The more you become yourself, the more you win 16:19 Personal brand, garage sales, and serving people at every level 18:21 From social media to interest media 23:05 Remote work, entitlement, and changing expectations 27:09 Money choices, humility, and personal accountability 28:56 When you need to move your feet 29:19 Protecting your energy from negative inputs 33:07 Compassion for the people who boo your success 34:46 Gary's vision for VeeFriends and collectibles 38:16 The VeeFriends quiz and closing challenge Connect & Discover Gary Vee: Instagram: @garyvee YouTube: @GaryVee TikTok: @garyvee Facebook: @gary X: @garyvee LinkedIn: @garyvaynerchuk Website: garyvaynerchul.com FOLLOW MICK ON: Spotify: MickUnplugged Instagram: @mickunplugged  Facebook: @mickunpluggedYouTube:  @MickUnpluggedPodcast  LinkedIn: @mickhunt  Website:  MickHuntOfficial.com Website: howtobeagoodleader.com Website: Leadloudseries.com Apple: MickUnplugged

Are you struggling with your social media likes, clicks, engagement? It's probably because you're thinking about social media and you should be thinking about it as interest media. In this podcast episode, I sit down with the goat. He's going to break down literally every single thing that you need to know about interest media. But we're going to go further. We're going to go deeper. We're going to talk about some things that you've never heard Gary V talk about.

This podcast is the one you want to listen to. Buckle up. It's live. Gary, how you doing today, brother? That's very kind, my man. Thank you so much. I'm doing quite well, and I'm glad to be here. I'm the honored one, man, you don't know how much you mean to me, to my life, to my businesses.

Most importantly to my podcast, man. I started this podcast 18 months ago. So well before it became the number one self-improvement podcast, before it started doing crazy numbers, you were in my ear. And you said, Mick, if you're going to do a podcast, do it with purpose and do it like a business. Because so many people play, if you're, you want to make impact, do it for real. So I owe you that, man. And no one knows that. I've never told you that. But that's why I do what I do, because in my ear, you said, ran it like a

freaking business or don't do it at all. Thank you, my man. Thank you so much. I mean, you know, I'm in this great point in my career where it's, you know, I'm detached from it because, you know, as the great poet once said, never get high in your own supply, right? Like, I'm detached from what I know I've been able to accomplish. The humility comes very natural to me because I was well-mothered. But, God, it feels really nice, man. To really know that I'm putting out stuff there

for the last 15 years that people that have amassed more wealth, more fame, more happiness than I have on the backs of the content and the words that I've put out over this last decade and a half, it feels like a life worth living and I hope God blesses me with another 50 years to keep building on it because it really is intoxicating to me.

Those compliments, those words are dramatically more delicious to me than any of the fruits of my labor. There's no private flight. There's no car or watch or vacation. Well, vacation because it's family life. But there's very few things outside of my family that bring me more joy than those words. words, and I'll tell you why, because I actually think it's a bigger cosine hat tip flower to my parents to New Jersey, to America, to good parenting than it is to me. I'm the byproduct, my man. Yeah. You know,

I'm the byproduct of humble beginnings. You know, so thank you. And I will pass those words on to my parents. I love that, brother. Tell them, I said hello. And speaking of your parents and your journey and all the generosity that you do, man, like, you do so much for free, like so much, just here's some tips, here's how you can do it. I always wanted to ask you, like, what's your because, what's your purpose, that thing that's deeper than your why for doing the things that you do? Because I'm good. You know, it's, you know, when you're full, you're not really eating everyone's at food.

You're not, you know, like when you're full, you're handing out food. You know, that's the real answer. I talk about this concept of gratitude and guilt sometimes to that question because I do feel unbelievably grateful for, again, I started with it impromptu. The parents I had, especially my mom, the way she raised me, being born in the Soviet Union coming to America, living in a household full of love with no money. So by the time I was 10, it was ingrained in me that money had no impact on happiness.

I'm so happy I grew up. in the early 80s, 80s, 90s, in Edison, New Jersey. I'm happy I went to Martin Luther King Elementary School. I'm sure for everyone listening knows that means I knew how to scrap. I knew how to play spades and silo. Like, I grew up with such humble beginnings and such diversity back to MLK. MLK was not just black kids, black, white, Indian, Asian. I just, I have so much love in my heart. I grew up with all kinds of people, you know, I've, now that I'm 49. I've lived and been in the muck when I first came to America in a studio apartment in Queens. I've been poor. I've been in the poor rooms. I've been rich. I'm in the richest rooms.

And when you live a coast to coast life, whether you go from rich to poor, which is obviously incredibly challenging or from poor to rich, when you've seen happiness and you've seen despair, you know, when you've seen light and you've seen darkness, you have clarity. And I do the things I do because when I started giving away all my information, my wisdom, my hope, my happiness, and my best practices, I was already good, my man. You know, I was financially less successful in I am today at 31, 32 when this started happening.

But I was equally happy. Yeah. You know, and I was equally gracious and I was equally humble and I was equally hopeful. And the truth is the last 10 years of the world, you know this, given those beautiful words and thankful for them. I have stayed me through every twist and turn, every twist and turn in my own life. But then even more hard when I look at public figures, the culture, and I don't mean black culture, which is actually the culture. I mean popular culture, culture, political culture. The atmosphere in our society has changed a lot in the last 15 years.

Yeah. And a lot of people talked about optimism. and loved and now pontificate hate in disguise of political views or strategy or bullshit. So the thing I'm most proud of is I'm consistent. I haven't been caught up when the left wanted me to left and when the right wanted me to right. I'm just right here in the fucking middle.

I got love for everyone. Life is complicated. I don't have the audacity to think that everyone should see the world the way I think. I'm blown away by people's audacity to think that everyone's audacity to think that everyone should see the world, the way they see the world.

Yeah. So I'm staying kind of in my pocket. I'm in my studio, even though I have no music skills. I think of it as like, I'm in my studio, I'm working, I'm writing,

I'm making beats, I'm putting out music. I just do that in a different way. But I'm not trying to go to the red carpet. I'm not trying to go to Abiza and party. I'm a true musician. And without a musical bone in my body, I'm just in my fucking cocoon,

spitting my words, building my businesses, because I think that's important. If I'm going to pontificate about what to do, I don't want to be a professor. Yeah. You know, when I say do this, I did it. When I'm out there today, my morning post, everybody should do social shopping,

live shopping, social media is about to be QVC. Well, I'm doing $100,000 a night selling shit on whatnot. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I think that's something else I'm proud of. And, you know, now you're running these circles. What's cool for me is, Before we started, we talked a little bit about Damon.

What I like about my life is I'm so fortunate that I have men like you saying what you just said. But what I know is that Damon knows me more and he likes me even more than that because he knows the shit I do behind the camera. There's so many people that are their best selves in front of the camera and they fucking disappoint you off camera. my best work is done when y'all don't see me. Yep. Yep. Absolutely, man. You know, it's the same thing I was just telling you, Robert Irvine and I talked about you for a couple of hours, not even trying to talk about you.

You were just a part of the conversation. And we both said, the most consistent, authentic person we know is Gary V. Right. And I call you, and Robert was laughing, but he goes, you're right. I said, what I call Gary Vee is the inconvenient truth. right he is always going to be consistent he's going to tell you like it is and you're going to learn on everything that he says whether you agree with it or not which is i don't know why you would not agree but you are the inconvenient truth brother you know what's funny it comes from an interesting

place and i hope you know when i do something like this i want people to get value so let me tell you all where that comes from that compliment it comes from two very very interesting things One, it comes from intent. Mick, what makes me super different in hindsight, I knew it was happening along the way and now it is just on wax, as they say, is I've never thought about anything I've done publicly from any other lens than the intent of why would this be good for Mick? I believe most of the content we consume in our streams, the person that's making it is making it for their best interest.

buy my course make me famous I want your follow I want to make money so make me famous or buy my thing like you can smell the intent my intent has been

I'm going to give you all everything I got the shit I can charge unlimited amounts of money for it if I had a master class if I had an island if I had courses if I had mentorship programs, inner circles.

I'm going to give you all better shit than the people at the top of the game that do that shit. And yes, occasionally I'm going to be like, yo, we want to buy my dad's wine? You want to buy my collectibles at V-Frette. Like, I'm going to have things. I'm a businessman.

Right. But I have no expectations of anyone that extracts unbelievable value for my free shit. I do not expect them to buy a V-Friends trading card or a wine. I don't expect anyone who's listening right now to sign up for wine.

But I said winetex.com because I'd love for them to do it because it's my dad's business and I want to help him always. And if they buy wine, don't buy it on bullshit wine.com. Buy it on winetext.com if I brought you value. But nothing I do is to then later get the thing. Right. And that's why I'm who I am. And I think people forget that humans are animals. I think you all can smell it. If I'm out of here trying to fake it. If I'm here out fronting, because I really deeply just want you to buy X, I think most of us know it. Even the ones that are not that in tune, eventually they're going to know it. The other shoe always drops, my man. Always. And so, A, why am I an inconvenient truth? Why am I consistent? Because my intent is consistent. The other reason I think I'm consistent or having In Comvenience Truths is I'm about that life. Meaning, when I say I'm in my studio, I often say I'm in my cocoon.

What's wild about me is I'm such a talker and I'm so out there. But the reality is, is almost all of my time is spent listening, not talking. When I come up for air and do this podcast, it's on the back of fucking the last 8,000 hours I've spent this year studying live social shopping, studying Sabrina Carpenter versus Netflix versus Andrew Schultz and Shane Gillis versus Labibos versus baggy jeans versus poppy soda versus Netflix versus Hulu versus UFs. I'm a culture savant. Right. So I'm consistent because I don't talk. You know how they say there's that old saying that I like a lot, like measure twice cut once?

I'm so petrified to be wrong and lose equity. I'm out here measuring 45 times cutting ones. But by the time I'm going to talk about something, that shit has been fucking quadruple checked. It's real. It happened. I'm not guessing out here. I get a lot of extra credit for he sees around corners.

He predicts the future. I'm like, nah, I'm just in it day to day. And I'm willing to talk about it faster than most people because I'm in it day to day. I don't need, nobody else is garranted. Gary being me. Y'all are Gary being me. I'm telling people things and then people are moving.

The way I'm learning is not from Johnny or Sally or some other person. I'm in the trenches with all eight billion of you. Yep. And then I'm creating observations, which I think makes me unique fresh because I'm not parroting someone else. I'm in my own feelings.

Yep. When I know substack's gonna be big a year ago, I'm not going to see who's already talking about substack, if there's anyone talking about substack. I'm living substack, and then I'll talk about substack, which then makes my point of view original. I'm using music for some weird reason a lot in this interview.

The people that blew us away, Lauren Hill, Tyler of the creator, like whoever, right? I believe that they're influenced by people before them, but what they did well was they stayed in their own pocket, and they felt unique to us because they are unique to us. They still might have been influenced, right, by Michael Jackson or Aretha Franklin or Prince or Pink Floyd,

but they feel original because they are original. And I think other artists come along and have commercial success, but they listened too much. They copied prior people too much. And so they were just half or 25% original which was good enough to give them some pop and maybe even a hit record and this and that,

but they're not the icons that changed it completely for us. I'm not saying I'm an icon or completely changed it for us, but using your kind opening, I do understand why I've hit. And now let me bring it for everyone who's listening. The more you're you, I'm going to say it nice and slow for the kids in the back. You can slow down your, what is that thing you run on,

your treadmill. right now, or you can let your dog pee real quick, or you can pull over on the side of the road if you're listening right now. I need you to hear this. The more you're you, and I mean all the way you. I've cursed twice, Mick, in this interview so far. It is not lost.

It's not lost on me that 15 to 5,000 people just decided, okay, I'm not with Gary Vee, because I don't, you know, especially you grow up in the South, you grow up with that kind of grandma. Like, I respect that. But I have no other gear besides being me. And I grew up in Queens and New Jersey

and cursing is every third word in our lives. Yeah. Yeah. Dude. Again, that's who you are. If I got anything from you and Dame and John, it was this and it's just what you just say.

Mick, you are the brand. Correct. And whatever you're... People, I'm sorry to interrupt you, I apologize. It just happened two minutes ago. two people today in my office asked me they're young kids who are interning who then are going to go back to college

and they want to build personal brands because you know every kid now wants to be famous right and they're like how do I find my niche everything feels overcrowded? I'm like everything is overcrowded. I'm like the only niche you have is you. We could end right now but we're not going to because again you and Damon both

18 months ago when I started the podcast and I was like, all right, I'm going to run it like a business but I do so many things. How do I figure out what's the angle, what's the lane. And Damon goes, Mick, just be you. Just be the brand.

And then the things that you do are the services or products that you provide. When I started doing those garage sale videos, trash talk, right? Yeah. Where I go out and spend $113,000 buying a bunch of trash at garage sales and then show people that's worth $800 on eBay. I had billionaires, the Titans, the most famous people on earth that we all follow and think are the best business men and women. literally reach out to me and say, why are you doing this? You're belittling yourself.

And I said, the reason I'm doing it is because when I do podcasts like Mick and I talk about investing $25,000 into Twitter and it's changing my life or things of that or Facebook or this, I get a lot of DMs and emails saying, Gary B, I fuck with you, but, yo, fuck you, man, I don't have $25,000 to put into Twitter.

I got $19 in Wells Fargo. And after reading enough of those, I'm like, well, guess what? I had $19 in Chase Bank, too, one day when I was 20, getting paid nothing, building my dad's business for him, by the way, not for me. On Saturdays or Sundays or Friday afternoons, I had to sometimes step out of the store real quick and go to a state sale or garage sale and buy something for $18 and then sell it on eBay for $109 because that was money to me. I said, you know what? I'm going to start making those videos. So I'm driving around Jersey and fancy cars or sometimes even with a driver garage sale it. Why? Back to the beginning. Because I wanted to make content.

for people that have $99 to their name because I know, and it's already happened. I did that in 17, 18, 19 before COVID. There's not a month that goes by that I don't meet someone in the real world at a restaurant or at an airport where they don't literally, Mick, literally come up to me, open up their eBay app

and show me they have $59,000 in there and they're like, that's you, bro. I was making $8 an hour at fucking Walmart and you made that video about garage sales and I've been flipping since and this has made my family be able to go to good vacations. I can send my kid to private school because of you. Like, that's why I did.

I don't give a fuck if a billionaire thinks I'm a slub because I'm going to a garage sale. In fact, I'd prefer them to think I'm a schlub. Yep. The inconvenient truth. Every time. Every time. Big topic. I'm just going to say the two words.

Interest media. My man, you're listening. Because you and I are on the. the same vibe there. I've been telling people for the past six months, it's not social anymore. There's nothing social about anything you're doing on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, or X, whatever they call it now. Like, there's nothing social about that. It's interest. Yeah, it's interesting media. You know, there is something social. The comments are still an incredible opportunity that people are missing out on Mick. Huge missed opportunity. In fact, watch this.

I'm going to throw a right hook for you. Everybody. We take so many things for granted in life. If you love what Mix done for you with this podcast, please take the time. They'll take three minutes. It would mean the world to me, but I know even more for him. Please take three minutes right now

and close out or minimize or maybe at the end of this podcast. Don't forget. And I know some of you forget, so jot it down. Please go to Spotify or Apple and leave preferably a five-star review if you love this podcast.

But look, if you think Mick's at a four-star level, give them the four-starch. Make it true. There might be a three-star person on you. here. Please leave a review. That's social, Nick, right? If right now what I just did for you leads to a couple thousand people actually leaving a review on both of those platforms, it's going to make you get more listeners. So there is some things left social. If everyone who's listening here that wanted to grow actually replied to every comment on every Instagram post, you would

grow a lot. So social still is out there. Now, what you and I are referring to and what I've been yelling about for about three years, and I kind of like got this term down now because it makes it very easy to understand, is the algorithm doesn't work the same way. Social media for 15 years, as you know, I've said this a bunch. Used to work like email marketing. Get as many followers as you can, and a certain percentage of them will see it. Now, literally me and you are cooking, we're growing. There's somebody listening right now who's never posted once, but they own three dry cleaners. And you know what? They're like, you know, I want to be like Mick and Gary too. And they're literally going to be inspired by this little rain.

and they're about to make a video, literally, they're on their way to work right now. Literally, they're going to make their first video telling the story of how they built these three dry cleaners and they're going to post it on TikTok. And it might get 90 views, but they might get a message that kind of gives them a little more juice. And their ninth video they make is going to get one million views,

lead to more business, and they're going to be on their way to be us. And that excites me, and that's not how it was from 06 to call it 21. But that is how it is now. followers are diminishing in your guaranteed to get views and awareness. The content now is binding their audience. Let me give you a for instance. If I make a video, we talked about it, I think before, yeah, we didn't talk about spades here. We were talking about it before we went on.

You and I are both passionate about spades. If I make a video right now about spades, okay? Like, I love spades. Like, I know how to sneak it in. You're never going to catch me. I know what to do. I've got hand signals with my partner. We know what to do.

If I did that in 2017 to the audience I had, it would be a low performing piece of content because people are like, occasionally they want a little randomness for me, but they want their business stuff, their motivation stuff. Today, if I posted that on TikTok, especially, but more and more every other platform too,

that is literally going to show up in the feeds of people who don't even know who I am that fuck with Spades. Now, it's going to show up to 12 or 15 people, and if none of them react, that it'll probably die pretty quickly, and it will low before. But I made a video years ago that still gets brought up all the time

of me talking about how much I love blueberries and that I can eat blueberries better than anyone. And that video got 5 million views at the time when most of my stuff was getting $500,000. And so that one just hit. And that goes back to you are the niche, that goes back to talk about what you love or you know, and that is the truth of interest media now.

If you make content that is really, random that is true and honest or passionate to you, it will find audience versus not. Now, again, don't get discouraged. Let's say someone got excited about what I just said, and they made a post tomorrow about Stratigo, the board game, and the following day about lasagna, and the next day about run DMC,

and all three did way worse than the stuff they normally do. I don't need a DM from y'all saying, Gary, you're wrong, you lost it, you're the worst. You just did three. If you do 100 of them, then I'm about that life. Then you can come and yell at me. But I have a funny feeling on your road to 100,

something good's about to happen. Damn right. Damn right it is. You know, Gary, I tell all my friends, you personally are like my brother from another mother. About a month ago, we're on a live on whatnot, right? And a person, I'm not going to say their name, in the comments, was trying to go for sympathy.

And it went something like this. Gary, my company is ending remote work in the next nine months. I don't think this is a great place because we can continue to work from home. We are just ineligible for raises. In order to get a raise, you're going to have to come back into the office. No, no, by the way, me. The company, just to add color, because I went crazy on this one too. I'm glad you brought this up.

The company is moving to Florida from wherever they were. Obviously, they're doing that because of the, taxes and all the things happen, but also we're living in this AI world. The fact that this company said, we're moving to Florida, but all of you get to keep your jobs and we're giving you a year's notice that we're moving and you get to keep your jobs and can be 100% remote, but as you can imagine, because HQ's in Florida, the promotion cycles and the rising will be a little bit different. And they're clowning on that. I lost my shit, shit. Dude, I was writing down because if you didn't say anything, I was literally going to go do

an Instagram post about that because how freaking... Titled. Bougie of yourself. How entitled for you to be upset. And I'm sure it's a six-figure job that that person was complaining about. Even if it's a five-figure job, here's where we're at. And you know this big. And boy, do I have a funny feeling knowing... your audience of what you talk about, like, shit got soft out here. And like, do you understand what our grandmas

would think about the work ethic of our children? Our great grandmothers would be rolling in their goddamn graves if they understood what these kids' expectations and entitlement was. We got soft, and that's what empires do. We need to be real with ourselves in America. And I'm not even talking about rich people.

Like, I'm not, like, I'm talking about, Let me go this route. The average person that makes 60,000 a year right now, which is not an extraordinary amount of money, but way closer to the average of what Americans make them people realize, everybody thinks everyone makes a million dollars now. When people live, when I was growing up

and I was poor, very poor, like poor, then it was lower middle class, then it was lower, then it was lower, then it was middle class. When I was coming up in my life, all the way to high school, and then I went to college, were not literally, and this is where I got my spades skills from, I went to a school where 90% of the kids that I went to school with were on financial aid.

I grew up humbly. These kids were from hood, hood culture, okay? When we all grew up, when you had humble stuff, you didn't buy 30 pairs of sneakers. You weren't buying Starbucks. You weren't ordering Uber. You weren't fucking, what has happened is,

yes, there's a separation of wealth issue, which I fully believe it. But you're not allowed to complain when you're buying a $36 cocktail on a Thursday night happy hour when your money's tight. You're not allowed to complain when you've got Netflix, Hulu,

Amazon Prime, and fucking Paramount. Plus, when your money's tight. You're not allowed to complain when you've got eight different kith and essential hoodies when your money's tight. When I was growing up, growing up and money was tight, we looked poor.

My homies had one pair of sneakers, so did I, for fucking three years. Yep. So what's happened is a combination of things. We've become unfortunately too materialistic. Again, motherfuckers had banged up used cars when our money was tight when I was growing up. Mick, everybody's leasing, new cars now.

Yeah. Everybody's credit is all fucked up. Everyone's in huge debt. People lived within their means in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. We've lost our way. People are buying dumb shit when they don't have money to impress people that they don't even like. We've become insecure.

We've become way too nosy. We keep up with the Joneses, let alone the Kardashians. And we're fucking lost out here. And we need to get back to humility, to family, to fucking simplicity. We need to be hungry and ambitious. Look, I'm about that life. I'm trying to get every fucking person

that's listening to this podcast to a different plane financially. And I will tell them how to do that. Social media content, live social shopping. Like, I'll put it out every fucking day. The problem is when your mindset is complaining and blaming, Mick, I made fucking money with Bush. I made money with Obama.

I made money with Trump. I made money with Biden. I made money with Trump. I'm not fucking blaming my problem. By the way, I had problems with Bush. I had problems with Obama. Not them. I had problems during their rates.

I'm not pointing fucking fingers at a politician. I'm not even blaming my mom and my daddy. Like, why are we blaming everyone? Everyone's pointing fucking fingers. Why don't you point thumbs at yourself? If you were upset right now, if you don't have the paper you want, if you don't have the relationship you want,

become accountable. Yep. You will win. And I'm not trying to give hard love here. I'm trying to get you out of your place of unhappiness. Blaming's clearly not working for y'all. Yeah. So why don't you try blaming yourself?

You're in bad relationships? Stop fucking hook it up with fuck boys. I love it. Dude, literally just had that conversation, and I said it a different way. Like, I have this thing about being present and always being where your feet are at, right? Well, sometimes you need to just move your freaking feet, right? Like, if you don't like where you're at, you can move. You can change.

And I don't mean physically moving, but, like, sometimes it's a mental move. I mean physically. Yeah. When I get into deep political conversations with people, I'm like, move. Right. Like, like, you're allowed. Like, if you, you know, some of my friends are like Sweden. I'm like, move to Sweden.

Move to fucking Stockholm, motherfucker. Move. Like, and I'm not saying like, you don't love America, get out. America, America has plenty of flaws. Yeah. News alert, so does everybody else. Yep. You know, when people like Sweden, like, what's Sweden's suicide?

If it's so fucking great, oh, Canada's healthcare, why do motherfuckers that need real surgeries come to America? Like what are we talking about? Yeah. So again, it all sits under one genre, which is when you go simple, and let me give you a big breakthrough. And this is why I'm so motivated to be on this podcast

because I know you're speaking that truth, which makes me believe that the people that are listening right now, like have the capacity to do it. For example, one of the biggest things that's screwing everybody up is they're just consuming too much negativity. Like, that's why I'm doing this podcast with you. This is double positivity. Right? Like, you want to know why you're not winning.

You're hanging out with losing energy. That could be your sister. That could be your auntie. That could be CNN. That could be Fox News because both of them sell fear. You're listening to fear. You're listening to negativity. like get your game up like change it up like you can't listen i'm not a big proponent of fully cutting

family because family's blood but if your dad is the most negative person on earth maybe you don't need to talk to him two times a day maybe once a week or twice a week will be okay or if you're like me once every 30 years but that's a different story yeah and by the way like you know again like nobody i don't want that for you right my hope is that when you cut to once a month once a week versus three times a day, you reset your energy, you're now stronger, and now you have the ability

to go back into the lion's den and try to pull dad out. You see where I'm going? The reason I, and I've seen this, I've done this, the reason I like to teach people to limit time with their negative family members is because if they're a positive one

and they're being affected dragged down, if they limit it, they build back up their juices, their cup fills back up, and then they can go, back into the lion's den and try to pull those people out. And it's hard to change people and they gotta do it for themselves and all that stuff.

But what ends up happening is if you don't step out and limit, you finally, it sounds like potentially what happened to you and it's happened to me in different situations. You get to a tipping point and then you're fully done. You know, people like, Gary Vee, I can't cut my mom out. I'm like, I'm not saying cut your mom out. In fact, the more you eat her negative toxic shit, the more likely you're gonna find judgment day

and you're gonna actually cut her out. If you limit, you can reset at times And one day you might be able to last man in Saigon kind of shit and pull him out of the fucking fire, right? So and then fuck, that's family. Now let's move it. Co-workers, other influencers, homies, acquaintances, random people, people in the comments, people in fucking Reddit. Cut that negativity out. And you want to know the fastest way to find out who those people are in your so-called circle?

start winning start winning and then see who really is there with you because for me that gave me so much perspective and you told me it was going to happen like I'm not saying something that Mick just made up Gary V has been saying that for a long time

start winning and you'll really see the people that were rooting for you and those that held you back and let me give you a real deep 301 fucking good energy lesson on that one let me tell y'all what I do when when I'm winning, when I was winning, when I currently winning, what ends up happening? I'm sure all of you thought, when Mick said that, he said, mm-hmm, you said, damn, I thought,

I didn't realize I had so many haters around me. Let me tell you something about the people that boo you. They're just hurt. When you start winning and I have a feeling a lot of people are going to start winning off this podcast, I could smell it. Once in a blue moon, it just happens, I can smell it. When those people start booing you that you, that you might, most thought we're going to cheer for you and you're shook. Just remember this part of the podcast and remember, don't be mad at them, feel sad for them and be the bigger person and try to be compassionate and help them too.

Because we're so quick to be like, oh, fucking hate her. Fuck, I fucking shoulda knew it. Fuck you, Sally, I'm never talking to you again. I thought you were going to be my number one cheerleader. You're my number one hater. It's because Sally's scared. You were her misery loves company, buddy. and now you're about to change

and now she's lonely, the fuck she's gonna do. Oh shit, a scared dog bites. Yes. She's biting. Don't be mad at her. Don't put her to sleep. Rebuild her.

Bring her along. The thing I'm most proud of is the people I've brought along the most were the people that did the most wrong to me at first. That's real strength. That's real love. That's real winner's shit. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. Gary, I know you're super busy. I'm honored and humble that you would take some time with me. Personally, you don't know how much this just makes me feel fulfilled because of you taking this time. I can't leave without talking about mango super stickers, though, man. Like you and Steph Curry doing some cool stuff. I'm going to make sure we've got links to all of that. Like, talk to us about that.

Yeah. audience, Mick's giving me real love right now. He, probably more than most of you know, I'm in the throes of doing something big. I'm in my Muhammad Ali moment. I'm calling my shot. I'm telling the world. Just like Muhammad Ali said,

I'm a bad man. I shook the world. Like, I'm the greatest. Literally, he said, I'm the greatest. You know, when he just, he had the biggest upset in boxing history at the time with Sunny List. But he still said, I'm the greatest, even though he had to praise.

prove it the next 15 years, I am telling the world that I am building the next Marvel, the next Pokemon. It's called V Friends. I'm doing it in everyone's face, but because so much of the energy of me is about the Gary Vee of it all, and because it started as NFTs, which that brand has been hurt, but there's still five to ten of us projects that are cooking, and I believe in digital collectibles long-term heavy and the blockchain and crypto and all that. people can't see it. And so I'm building this incredible brand called VFriends, VEEFriends.com. Please go check it.

If you have a kid three to ten, you got to watch our cartoons. It's back to the throwback of like the 80s. Like it's a good cartoon, but it's teaching kids lessons because parenting's out hard out here, so I want to help. But I'm building this heavy collectible thing, comic books. If you're into that nerd culture or sports culture, comic books, trading cards, funco dolls, like action figures. It's fresh, I enjoy Squishmello collab,

Uno collab, He Man collab. I'm really enjoying it and I'm doing it. I'm doing it, doing it. This clip will run at my funeral. When I die in 50 years, it will say, Gary Vaynerchuk, creator Vee Friends passes at 99. Like I know it, that's how much I know it, Mick. And so I'm so excited for the people that are collecting,

all those people that are listening right now that threw out their Pokemon, that threw out their baseball cards, that threw out their comics, wish they didn't because now collectible is a cultural lifestyle pillar just like sports and music and food and fashion. I think collectibles, Lububoos, sneakers, watches, trading cards.

It's obvious to me. Collecting is the genre that's next up like sports and fashion and music were. And BeFriends is going to be at the forefront of the next gen. And so I really, if you collect things, especially if you collect Pokemon or if your kids collect Pokemon, go to VEEFriends.com, check it, get on board, check us out on whatnot. You need to learn about live social shopping.

Anyway, what not's an incredible app. I'm not an investor. Don't have any relationship with it. It's just I'm co-signing it, just like TikTok. I know involvement there. I just know it's going to win. It's already won a lot since I've been talking about it the last 18 months. You should learn about the QBCification of social,

but BeFriends is my jam and Mick, honestly. Are you a collector by Trillik? Do you have that DNA? Absolutely. What did you collect as a kid? I was baseball, basketball car. I was trying to find those rare. You remember when like Tops and Donnerus used to have like the

glitch cards. Of course. Right. Like, they have lines through certain things or they have, of course. Dude, I lived for that moment. I was a Beckett collector. Like, yes. Mick, have you gone to befriends.com slash quiz yet? Not quiz, no. Okay, literally when you hang up right now, I want you to go to VFri, and I want everybody to do this. VFriends.com slash quiz. Do the quiz. And at the end, it will tell you which VFriend you are. I want you collecting that character. Done do. And I want you to email me literally in the next three minutes. to the email that's on this invite and tell me which I'm dying to see which character you got you got it

I'm my man brother thank you I love you with my soul I genuinely mean that I can't wait to let's share a meal brother I feel your energy exploding through the screen let's let's keep this on the podcast let them hear it let's do that spades tournament thing like let's get to know each other hit up damon let's get dinner up here in new york and uh and I can't wait to see you and hug it out you got it brother I love you so much For all the viewers and listeners, remember your because is your superpower. Go unleash it. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Mick Unplugged. If today hits you hard, then imagine what's next.

Be sure to subscribe, rate, and share this with someone who needs it. And most of all, make a plan and take action. Because the next level is already waiting for you. Have a question or insight to share? Send us an email to hello at mickunplugged.com. Until next time, ask yourself how you can step up.