THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Gary Vaynerchuk on AI, Self-Awareness, and Why Almost Everyone Is Pretending

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Can you imagine getting to the end of your life only to realize you pretended the whole way there? Gary Vee looked at me and said: "Almost everyone does." I've wanted to have this conversation for a long time. Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the most visionary, most generous, and most honest voices in the history of entrepreneurship. He didn't just see TikTok before anyone else. He saw Twitter, he saw NFTs, he saw the iPhone. He's been right about the future consistently, and he does it all without asking a dime from the millions of people he's helped along the way. In this conversation, Gary and I go places I don't think either of us expected. We talk about AI and why the window to get ahead of it is closing faster than most people realize. We go deep on self-awareness as the foundation of every success in business and in life, and why most people are gambling instead of building without even knowing it. Gary breaks down the only content strategy that actually works: stop chasing where you think the money is and make content about what you know or love. We also get personal. Really personal. About our parents, about the fuel behind everything we've built, and about what it actually means to live a life that's yours and not a performance for somebody else. This one hit me in a way I didn't see coming. Here's what you'll gain from this powerful episode: Self-Awareness Is the Whole Game: Gary's single most important principle for building anything in business or life, and why most people skip it entirely and pay for it later. AI Won't Kill You. A Human Using AI Will: Why you cannot afford to wait on this technology, and the exact first steps Gary recommends for getting started today no matter what industry you're in. Make Content Around What You Know or Love: Gary's no-BS framework for building a brand that lasts, and why chasing trends or money in your content will quietly destroy everything you're building. Macro Patience, Micro Speed: The mindset that separates people who build real wealth from people who gamble it away, and why Gary talks about patience so much while operating at full speed every single day. The Analog Opportunity in a Digital World: Gary's prediction for where the biggest business opportunities will be as AI takes over: physical, real-life, community-driven experiences that no algorithm can replace. If you've ever wondered what it feels like to truly stop performing and start living, this is the episode. Gary Vee is a force for good, and I'm grateful to share this conversation with you. 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ←  ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠INSTAGRAM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   ➡️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FACEBOOK⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LINKEDIN⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠WEBSITE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Trust me, I know fans. They don't skip. They stay for hours. They don't move on. They manifest. They're not a demographic group. They're fans. Spotify advertising.

You're among fans. This is the Edmunds show. Welcome back to the show, everybody. So I want to introduce a newcomer to the program. Probably haven't heard of this guy before. He's a rising star. I like to pick people when it's the bottom before they get to the top. So that's how I grab this guy today.

I say that tongue in cheek because you don't have to introduce him. Everybody on the planet knows him. He's one of the great entrepreneurs, one of the great voices, I think, visionary voices for the future on Earth. And he's had a big impact on my life. He doesn't know it because we've only met each other from a distance a bunch of times. We speak all around the world together and never see each other backstage, like literally 50 different times. Let me tell you my favorite thing about him. I was thinking about it.

There's this list. I'd like to think I'm on it of people who have created the most free content to change other people's lives at no cost. And the top of that list of all time is this man. He has helped more people, in my opinion, through this type of medium, changed their lives and never asked a dime or a dollar from them to do it. Millions and millions and millions of people he's helped out of the kindness of his heart and the brilliance of his big brain. So we're going to talk with Gary Vee today.

Gary Vaynerchuk, welcome to the show again, brother. Good to have you. That's incredibly humbling. Thank you for saying that it's a, before I get any credit for it, it's all because of incredible mothering, the American dream and many circumstances and a lot of good deposits by my father as well to not keep him out of it. So thank you for that. And I'm excited to chop it up with you.

And we're recording this right after the Knicks beat the calves. And so you're catching me at a perfect. When I saw my schedule today, because I'm very like, don't know what I'm doing the next day, but I look this morning, I'm like, oh, this is perfect because my energy is 11 out of 10. Well, this will probably be out when it's over. But so we'll see if you're still a visionary. Who do you want?

Do you want OKC or do you want the? Spurs. I want the spurs. I think we match up better, though I think some of the pedals are coming off the bloom for the OKC play. I think the foul baiting that Shea is doing is starting to get scrutinized. And so, and the Knicks are playing well. But honestly, you know, this was a season where it was like, let's just please get to the finals. So it's hard to say there's house money when you have it when you're playing this well and you got a real chance. But I don't underestimate either San Antonio or Oklahoma. So when this comes out, my fate will be sealed, it sounds like, but I'm very grateful. And especially I have a 13-year-old son to be sharing this

journey with him. It's like, I'll remember it forever. So I'm grateful. Yeah, you're known for wanting to buy the Jets, and I'm known for wanting to buy the Red Sox. And somewhere over the next 10 or 15 years, if both those things happen, that would just be epic. By the way, this is inside baseball stuff here, inside sports, but I should tell you this, Greg Ginski. Oh, yes. I've known Greg since the second grade. Yeah, that had out of it. I didn't, you know what? Actually, that has been brought up in some of our.

For everybody who's listening, Greg is my partner in VaynerSports. He runs VaynerSports baseball. And is a really great partner and a great baseball agent and friend. And he's a great surfer. He like both of you guys look way too good for your age. There was something in the water of that elementary school. Yeah, you only hear that once you get like really old. But I love Greg.

And Greg, shout out to you, buddy. I finally got you on the podcast. I love you on his guest as well. All right. So listen, I want to, we got to be serious today about a few things because the world's changing so quickly. Just interviewed Peter Diamannis a couple hours ago. Yes. We were talking about this.

I think you're one of the most visionary people. You saw a lot of things before anybody did. I was thinking even like, I remember I was already doing really well on social media. Like, hey, there's this thing called TikTok. Everyone, I'm like, no one's doing that. It's for kids. I didn't listen to you. I ended up way behind.

So I'm going to listen to you this time. What do you see now? Just your overall worldview, obviously AI is here and moving even faster. Is this bigger than the internet? Is it going to change things more? What do you see? It's more internet and electricity and the automobile. Like, it's big, big, right?

It's not derivative. You know, I would say the last thing that was like this, in my opinion, was the iPhone, the mobile device that was a true computer. changed everything, right? All the companies we think about, all this, many of the things, if you really look at the crux of where some of my foresight came from,

it was betting the farm on the iPhone, that the iPhone was going to win the world. And then, as you can imagine, then when the app store came out, it's like any app on there had a chance of being monstrous, and that kind of led to a lot of my points of view. It is, to your point,

it is much more like internet than social media is a, version of the internet, a part of the internet matters quite a bit because it democratized, you know, communication and distribution. But I, yeah, it's very big, brother. It's very big. I'll go 301 before I go 101. 3.01, people like yourself and many others listening that are highly functional, successful and continuing to build, if they don't have a computer harness like an open claw already set up, they're already behind. the 1%. So that would be the first thing I would put out there. If you don't know what open claw is,

go Google it, go understand it. This concept of agentic agents running in real time at all times, that's going to be the TikTok for you. If you and Max and the rest of the team don't have that set up, that's really good summer exercise to figure out how to get your open claw. What does it do? Does it help you make content? Does it help you manage your contacts? Does it, you know, do shopping for your analysis. So that's the 301. The 101 is no one listening to the Ed Show should not already be actively using AI every day,

whether that's Claude, whether that's Pigsfield, whether that's runway, whether that's nano-binanamo, whether that's Gemini, Open AI, chat GPT, perplexity. Like, everybody who's listening should be dabbling. And what I mean by that is,

you don't get running your world. You don't need it like, you know, doing anything too crazy. You need it. You need to be tasting. It's kind of like everybody who didn't use the Internet. In 96, 7, 8, 9, 2000, that were real players. They lost market share and opportunity. The difference is with AI, and you already said it,

it's moving faster than the Internet did. Because it's building on top of the Internet, on top of social, on top of the blockchain. When the internet came along, it had to establish all of its foundations of websites and browsers and all this. And so we have a compounded, you know how those charts go, right?

It's compounding. And so, yeah, I mean, listen, content creation, strategy, thinking, creative output, management, admin life, all this stuff. There's a lot of things already being slightly disrupted. And we haven't even hit the crescendo moment. So yes, do I think every person that's listening to this should spend 10 to 20 hours researching how they can use AI using AI?

Let me give you an example. You literally go to, you know, Claude or ChatGBT, GBT, BT. I do voice interaction more than I do writing because I'm better at. Same here. You literally just type, you literally record and you say, hey, ChatGBT, I'm an architect. I listen to Gary on Millett's show. He said, I have to use this. I really don't know.

what are the five apps and architect should use, five AI apps and architects should use to be better at his or her job. Using AI to get better at AI is the most meta, crazy thing ever, right? I made a career of educating the masses on things. Now a lot of people can just, you know, search that. My strategic brain is not going to outpace the wisdom of AI. And so I'll have to adjust. everyone will have to adjust.

But as an opener, please do not put your head in the sand. Do not use a political, ideological point of view on this technology to really make the excuse that you don't want to put in the work because you're tired and finished or you're lazy and unmotivated

or you're indifferent or you're scared. This is an inevitable outcome. Technology laughs at humans' opinions of it. And I just hope that everybody gets to working. Because AI is not going to kill you. A human using AI is going to kill you. Oh my gosh. That's so good.

You and I are interesting. You talk a lot, especially with young people, like, hey, be patient. Yes. Right? You got time. Then the other side of the coin is when you hear what you just said, people are like, I got to hurry up here. Like, I got to get in front of this. I got to catch up.

Macro, patience, micro speed. What do you mean? In the macro, and this will really resonate with you. I think this is going to land for you as I break it down. When I say patience, I don't say complacency. I'm really glad you just said that. Keep going. Yeah.

When I say patience, I don't mean, I'm not, there's a reason there's a different word called laziness, a different word called passiveness. There are different words in the dictionary. Patience, I think the reason I pitch it so much, Ed, is, and you know this, a lot of young men, but and young women, they want things. too fast and they get sloppy. And you know this. This is really fucked up

and I'm glad people can hear this. We know people through our lives who've compromised their morals because of lack of patience. They've made a strategic over-leveraging thing that really set them back. They've compromised much

all because insecurity led them to wanting to have something to close the gaps of the emotional holes they had. So I talk about patience because I know everybody wants, listen, I was a 19 year old guy. I know what a 19 year old guy is thinking about when of the opposite sex, of meeting validation. I get it. But I like talking about patience because you remember, you're talking to a guy who's 34 years old still working in a liquor store, building a business for his daddy.

It's crazy. Start over at 34. And I've been easily able, because I was capable to create everything for myself. because why I'm frustrated when a 27-year-old is willing to borrow money on a credit card and buy a cryptocurrency hoping to hit the lottery. And I think a lot of people that are running around the world today are really much closer to gambling than they are to investing. They're much more into financial over-leveraging than they are to operating and building.

And so that's why I talk about it. But that is not to be confused with, I just want you to be off from 20. I want you to third one. I want you to be high risk for 30 because that's when you can really actually be high risk. You don't have the family. You don't have the responsibilities often that you have later in your life. But yeah, I think people want to take certain things I say out of context. Because it's leveraging for them.

They want to take the counter. And that's what's tough about this fast-paced world. You know this. This is why I like doing these kind of shows is you get to go deeper. A lot of things in a clip. You know, why I write my, I don't know if you know this, that you'll find this fascinating. I'm going to show you something right now visually.

I know people at home can't see it. But I'm going to show you something. Take a look at this. I write the copy to every one of my Instagram posts. Whoa. Whoa. Okay. You wrote that.

This is a WhatsApp with me and my team sharing different content. Look at this. You will see there's a lot of content shared and then you'll see when I am writing the copy. Yep. Your voice writing it, you're saying too. I actually wrote, for some weird reason I haven't. Once in the Blue Moon, I've gotten to voice here,

but I'm still doing a lot of writing. I don't even know why. Okay. Everybody just motivated me to get back to my best form. But the reason I write every Instagram copy is I need to hedge the lack of context the one-minute video has. Wow. So that, I didn't, well, the way,

I was talking and thinking how loud I mean to interrupt you. Like, I'm so glad you gave that context. I wanted to ask you that for like seven years. Because also observing you, like you're not a calm dude. You're not a late back dude. You're wired tight. You're intense. You're fast.

You're New York. Super ambitious. Everything's very fast. I have an interrupting problem because I comprehend quickly if I hear it. Bad reading comprehension. God-given verbal and audio and visual comprehension. And so, yes. And that's why I think it's so important that I stand on that patience platform

because I got to nuance it here. And I know, knowing our audiences, there's a 27-year-old that needed to hear what I just said because I really do talk about it being when you lack the patience in the macro, you go into compromising your moral compass and you go into gambling behavior, not business building and investing behavior.

And that's what I'm trying to mitigate, especially where I think we're in an era where civility and good is really on its back foot. you know, the political atmosphere has created, you know, the rewriting of history, the false narratives have really confused the youth of what it really stands to be a sustainably successful person, first emotionally, then financially. And I do feel a sense of responsibility that the clarity is very real to me. And I know that I have the platform. And I know that I'm a rare breed of like, you know this. I'm a little funny for as a personal brand in the plethora of

male popular brands. I have some I have some off speed pitches that are not like down the and I believe in them and they're authentic to me and whether they're right or wrong is completely irrelevant. They're true to me and I feel to share them. Yeah, no, you are and you're right about that. The other thing too, you said something a minute ago. We're kind of sharing a brain. We're in a good flow. One of the things I think that's underestimated in the digital world and internet world is like everything's quick. Everything happens in a buck. Everyone's driving a Lambo. Everybody's in the Caribbean on vacation. Everyone's got. And when I look at you, because I've done this now, I want to talk to you about endurance and fatigue for you. So I'm talking about you personally, right? Like, okay. So you've been doing

this twice as long as me and probably three times the amount of content. Okay. And I know, the pace I've gone the last, say, eight or nine years, the amount of content I've created. Yeah. And I have felt fatigue from it. My super strength as an entrepreneur, though, has been my endurance through ups and downs, through days I didn't want to do it. Have you, do you, how about you? Like, do you, have you, imagine that, you guys, imagine the amount of content this man's generated.

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I don't want to do it today. I'm fatigued. Does this matter anymore? This matters anymore, never, because I'm very aware that content is the top of the sphere of opportunity. But post-COVID, because I got into a routine of not film, you know, don't forget, pre-COVID, I did a five-year run where I filmed every minute in my life. So I was vlogging at a level that was so high. and post-COVID, what, one of the craziest things about me, Ed,

that I don't even think you know, like people that are actually thoughtful and pay attention, I don't think people understand how much of an actual day-to-day businessman I am and not a content creator. So I'll give you some, I know your audience is a level up, so this is going to really hit.

I am six or seven, now active businesses that are generating between eight and nine figures of top line revenue where I am either the active CEO, active co-founder, or active chairman of the board, right hand to the CEO. Vayner X, VaynerMedia, Ed is a $400 million a year revenue business. Awesome. And I am like the actual CEO, like if you look at my calendar, like that is taking up most my time. V friends, my Pokemon Marvel thing, which start in NFTs and now is trading cards,

comic books, coins. That is a hefty eight-figure business in selling physical collectibles. I am the active, true day-to-day CEO, kind of like Elon was with SpaceX and that great. I'm really in those two. Vayner Sports, you know, back to Greg's business, I will tell you, AJ will tell you my brother, those guys run that business, but I'm a meaningful, I mean, I'm like recruiting sophomores in high school. Yeah, yeah. Jeez. The restaurant group, VCR group, Flyfish Club, K-pons, hefty eight figures.

Vayner Watt, my TV production company will be there next year. Wow. The wine business I still run through my best friend. Wow. What happened during COVID was... Wow. I went Gary Vaynerchuk operator and then Gary Vee Content Creator. I made a switch.

2014 to 19. I was doing a lot of this stuff. Most of them were much smaller, including Vayner Media. V-Friends didn't exist yet. The wine business I was still running. Vayner Sports was small and growing. The restaurant group didn't start yet.

The TV production group didn't start yet. My sports portfolio with the pickleball team and all that didn't start yet. So pre-COVID, even though it was running Vayner Media successfully, and the wine business and starting with Vayner Sports a little bit, they were smaller and revie the person. brand was a top of sphere of opportunity and I was able to go kind of all in on all. Post-COVID, I got so accustomed to operating 12 hours a day and I stopped traveling as much, Ed.

It was such a big source of content. I stopped speaking as much. I stopped doing this as much. And, you know, in a lot of ways, like probably the best chapter of my career these last five years is interesting because, as you know, I was so far. far ahead on personal brand. I definitely took a little bit of a foot off the pedal last three, four years to kind of build the operating business empire.

But I was able to really still sustain and accelerate, even though I wasn't feeding my content machine with as much fresh content, I just became more strategic. But it was the first time in 10 years where, yeah, I didn't want things that used to be filmed for the vlog. I would no longer want to film it. I was out of practice. We were also not doing the blog. I also worried about the person

that I was having the meeting with not being their full self because we were filming it. But in the macro, probably the most interesting thing when I analyze myself is I am far less attached to my professional career

than someone would believe if they didn't know me. What do you mean? I mean, the reason I don't think I get burnt out or, like, tired or fatigued or like, f*** this shit is because it's not that important to me. Okay. Keep going. Let me break it down further.

I am truly the byproduct of poor immigrants where the propaganda in my home for my great grandmother and my grandmother and my mother and father was. Everyone just died so early in the Soviet Union. My mom lost her mom at five. My dad lost his dad at 15. Nobody lived to f-6. Everybody was drinking vodka. People don't know.

And I was born in the Soviet Union at a time that it was like North Korea, not Iran. Today, if you're born in Iran, you can leave Iran. Now, only UAE and Turkey and a couple places will take you for vacation or what have you. But you can leave. Like, there's a lot of people. from Iran in Canada right this second on vacation with a visa. If you're born in North Korea today, you're in jail. You're not, I don't know, again, I know a lot of people,

Americans are not geopolitically. You're not allowed to leave. I was born in a place where you were not allowed to leave. And because of that, and because of socialism, this is why so many Cubans and Russians get scared when socialism gets thrown around. No one does, everyone's depressed. everybody's apathetic, everyone's indifferent, everyone's stealing from the government

because the government owns everything. And it's just a sucky life. And that's why the cliche of like Russians drinking vodka, if you understood the deeper reason, which is the suppression is so extreme that alcohol was the escapism from your real life and because everyone's drinking from 15 to 50, and I mean really drinking.

No one's living. So I grew up in a household where Nasduroga, right like everything's for health everything's like your propaganda and then i was personally scared of losing both of my parents because they both did was the oldest from the old country and my mom would say things like if anything ever happens to us you've got to take care of your siblings i feel like by the time i got to 18 ed and this is probably why i was willing to build a business for my parents and like not resent and like all that um i was kind of i've been kind of playing with house money since i was 18 and

and the goal was never financial or fame. The goal was really the reason I love entrepreneurship and why I've always done what I've done is I just want optionality. I don't want someone telling me what to do. Yeah. You also seem to me, bro, I think, by the way, what does surprise me about what you said

is the magnitude of your business life. I knew they were big. In fact, Andy's always telling me, bro, if you knew how much Gary's really go, Gary's this, you know, like he's always telling me. So I do have a little insight from Fricela. I didn't know all that. But the second part, I see your heart through all of it.

I see your love for people for all of it. I don't think me either. I think it's why we both, you know, quietly got pretty wealthy. And we don't talk about it because I don't think it's your end zone. I think that there's a lot of cliches on the internet about gratitude, rituals and stuff. I think you're a very grateful man also. I think you live these things. You have the luxury and the same to why.

why I show up here is like, we, you know this, we know a lot of stuff that other people don't because we have access to a lot of people. Right. Right. You know, what's really been fun about getting a little bit older is your reputation, you know, I think people are very confused. Like, you can only act on the internet for so long. That's so true. You know, like eventually.

You can get away with it and you can even die without people really knowing you. But I've always been very big on, I'd rather the 1% of winners, knew the truth about me than the 99% of people that are by default cynical, envious, jealous because I don't, I'm not mad at them, I'm actually deeply empathetic to them, right? Like if you want to tear down other people,

if you're mad at other people, but I do get great joy out of knowing what's being said behind my back by people that know me. That is my North Star. My North Star is knowing, I know every, for example, us, I know every interaction I've had with Andy in my entire life. All of them, right? Because I remember

everything. I just know how I show up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm a giper by nature. I actually have probably a flaw of vulnerability or asking, right? It's that immigrant stuff, like no complaining, do everything yourself. So unlike a lot of people, I've, I've navigated last 25 years, incredibly built on not asking and trying to give and, you know, and listen, my mom did a bang-up job, like deep down, like real talk. Ultimately, I'm just a good boy, you know? I do. This blows my mind. I have to tell you. By the way, this is the side of you. I don't think most people know or see. It's why I love this format, too. I just had a conversation with someone last week. I won't say who they were because it's not relevant, but somebody that everybody would know.

And I said to him, I direct quote, I said to him, I said, I just think I've been a good boy. Gary, I mean, verbatim, that quote. That's crazy. And it's actually where my self-confidence comes from. Mine too. I don't know that I'm any smarter than anybody else. I had a thing with, I'll tell you quick, I met Wayne Dyer when I was very young. At the end of it, he gave me a bunch of compliments about what I was going to do in the world.

And he said, and it's not because you're talented or smart or you talk really well, although you do. He said, I just think you have a beautiful heart and great intentions. He goes, would you do me a favor all your life attach your confidence to your intentions, not your abilities or your results? And I've held on to that all my life. I do see that in you. In fact, this is a big shout out to all the parents while I wear this dad gang hat. I will tell you, be very careful what you cheer for in your house. My mother, she grounded me with my bad grades, but she didn't make me think I was lesser than because of it. She showed me accountability.

I was in school. You can't get these and EFs and just quote unquote get away with it. I was a really good athlete until about fifth grade. That's when strength, power, size.

Size. My hand-eye coordination's off the charts. I was crushing third and fourth grade every all third team, all that stuff. My mother only made a big to-do when I was being nice. If you are,

if you're a parent right now and you're, and listen, I believe in pretty privileged, so I'll say it this way. If you're at home right now and you're fortunate that your child's just really gorgeous, like good-looking guy, good-looking girl,

if you constantly are reinforcing that, that is where their self-worth will come in. If you are constantly only focused on the fact that they're a great athlete, that is where their identity will mold. The great mistake most parents are making is you're putting, getting good grades on a pedestal, which is why for 100 years

we've created so many workers because they want to go into systems that reward them every court. They live for getting a good review and getting a raise every year, a good rapport card. But my mother, her greet to do, her pom-poms came out

when I opened the door for an elderly lady or when I would, you know, my whole life, all I heard is you have a golden heart. You have a golden heart. Wow. And that got so entrenched that I myself also only, only, only resonate with who I am as a human.

And listen, I'm a human. Like on the record, when I'm not Mother Teresa, I've made plenty of missteps. My intent is off the charts. I've never wanted, needed out of insecurity to do wrong by someone. In fact, most of my missteps were lack of candor because I didn't want to hurt people's feelings

by telling them the truth of them not being good at work or things of that nature. And I, so I would just tell everyone, Please give thought to what you're putting on a pedestal in your household. Your children will find their identity in that. And you need to be thoughtful about what you put on as a North Star. Yeah, I tell you, man, like there's some similarities here. Success leaves clues.

By the way, I've made way more mistakes than I wish I had made. But my parents both the same way. But in fact, my dad lived long enough to see me get wealthy, honestly. I literally did not care. Could care less. How are you treating people? Are you giving it away? Are you calling your sisters?

Are you being kind? I got to ask you something. This just occurred to me. My dad's been gone about six years. I think it's six years. I still try to make him emotional. Yeah, I know where you do. I still try to make him proud of me.

It's the only thing I live for. The only time I get emotional is when I am being honored a nonprofit event. And my parents will go to those things. things. And I have to speak about them with them in the crowd. You know, there's that, there's that moment when Stephen Bartlett, like, really went there deep with my mom. Yeah, I saw that clip. I got emotional. Like, you know, weirdly, I just want to give him flour. My best friend, since I was 14, who runs the wine business, Brandon Warnocky. Recently, I got choked up talking about him, and I'm like, oh, my God, he's gotten so deep in my heart. Talk about family that isn't, you know,

your blood. Um, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's a, yeah, I'm very, it's very clear to me that I live to make my parents proud. Isn't it interesting people listening to you and I talking and, you know, we both affected lots of people and to know that our motives and outcomes are pretty simple. Yeah, I mean, I would argue that the foundation of my humility is knowing that I had nothing to do with it. Like, to me, I'm the byproduct of my parents. I get a lot of pride in my businesses, the employees I've shaped and, you know, the things I'm trying to build. But even that is a struggle, though I do feel like I had more of a thumbprint. Me?

Like, the thing that has kept me uncomfortably grounded is when, you know, that, you know, that was very kind of you, the way you started this podcast. Literally in my brain, I'm like, good job, mom. You know, like, what did I do? I shouldn't have sex at that exact second. I didn't parent myself. And then there's circumstance, right? The American dream, like, coming from communism and, you know,

growing up and then and then there's like if I wasn't lucky enough with all my chemical DNA talents then I got lucky that I wasn't born in America to a third generation wealthy family I got to grow up from the dirt I got to go to Martin Luther King Elementary School I got to get into fights and grow up in really the lower middle class jersey era of the 80s you want to talk about being turned into a man quick go grow up in the 80s in early 80s mid-80s in New Jersey on the wrong side of the tracks. You become a man real quick. So many of you have asked how to see me speak live and for the first time ever, you can come see me speak live in person. All of my speeches have been private events, but now I'm teaming

up with Life Surge speaking all over the country. Life Surge is a one-day faith-based event where you'll walk in hungry for success and you'll leave ready to build your resources to leave an impact on others. We're talking faith-fueled finance, growing your resources, crushing obstacles, and then yeah, yeah, using it all for something way bigger than yourself. I'm joining Life Surve. in a few cities this year and I'd love to see you there. I'll be sharing the stage with legends such as two-time football champion Tim Tebow, star of Duck Dynasty, Willie Robertson, and leadership hero of mine, John Maxwell, pastor and author Craig Groshell and worship with artists like Natalie Grant.

Tickets are on sale at LifeSurge.com. And just for my listeners, you can use the code, ED30, for 30% off a ticket. There will be a link in the show notes, so click through and take some time to join us. Cities are being added all the time, so if you don't see you. one near you now check back i hope to see you there so guys the last eight weeks or so i have not been feeling on my game and i'm like what the heck changed what is it then i remembered we switched from one of the places we live to another and i stopped taking i am eight i'll never do that again i am eight is unbelievable i am eight is the way to simplify your supplement routine once and for all

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These statements have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration. of this product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. So I was just doing a podcast the other day, and my guest complimented me on my blue shirt. And I said, well, guess what? That's quince, brother. He said, what's quince? And then I told them what I'm about to tell you, which is, number one, I said, hey, summer's changing. And so I want pieces that feel lighter and more breathable.

And that's easy, but it's not easy if you can't pull it together. So that's why I keep coming back to quince. Think like breathable linen and soft organic cotton, but they've got all kinds of stuff. Well-made basics without the luxury markup. and there's a rare balance where everything feels elevated but still effortless and it's affordable. Quince European linen pants and shirts are the perfect warm weather upgrade to add to your rotation. Listen to this. Starting at $34.

Their teas are soft and easy to wear. Had one on in the podcast yesterday. So elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash ed for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash ed for free shipping on your order. shipping and 365-day returns, quince.com slash ed. You know, all that's true, by the way, but you also are the person who did all that

traveling, who did all those interviews, who had all that vision, who put that camera in front of his face 10, 20,000 times. Let me ask you this. Let's do a little for a second. Yeah. Let's do a little clues of success for people listening who want to someday have a podcast where they're talking about their mom and their dad and they've got something to honor them with, right?

Yeah. you were going through that your business life and I'm like how much of that happens without his personal brand without the attention so a lot of it yeah a lot of it what people forget about my career is you know history rewrote it as like Gary built his dad's business on social media it's just not true I built my dad's business on being on the floor for 12 hours a day and being good salesman so literally Ed high net worth individual comes in and hey I need a bottle up or a gift for a boss or an employee. And then an hour later, Ed's going into the car with four cases of wine saying,

how to f*** this happened. You know, so, you know, I won, I built that business for my dad on first being good salesman. Then I did it on direct mail, email marketing, website, early 90s, late 90s, early 2000s, marketing behavior, not social. I didn't make my first video for the internet until I was 30 years old. There is a lot of video that in existence. And the business had already been 40-something million a year at that point, up from 3 million. So I'm a good businessman who then happened.

Understand the power of notoriety and brand building. And of course, much, you know, listen, I made a video that was titled, one of the first videos that were not wine that I ever made was titled, Facebook should be worried about Twitter. It went viral and it opened up all my doors. Silicon Valley. Oh my gosh. Do you think that, how do you feel about that? Andy and I talk about this too. So you were a businessman first. In other words, there was some reps and accomplishment and learning and growing and development of skills, then the branding, right? Well, forget, I branded Wine Library. So Gary Vayner was the architect. You know, I say this actually often. I have more pride in being Gary Vaynerchuk

that built Gary Vee than being Gary Vee. get it. I know exactly what that means. But let me ask you this. How do you feel about, I don't have a strong opinion. Andy has a very strong one on this, but how do you feel about people who do it the other way around? So you're encouraged to be able to make content all the time, but then there's the type of content where people are teaching things they've never actually done before. I mean, I think, listen, I don't blame anyone from trying anything. I don't think it's honorable to make content and say you're an ex. Like if someone's lying and said, I build $10 million businesses, blah, blah, blah.

If you know, anyone can do anything they want, I surely struggle with getting excited of taking feedback from someone talking about something they've never done. But I would argue that the audience needs to be accountable to themselves, not the content and creator in that scenario. It just seems to take so long, if ever, where that's sort of uncovered. That doesn't mean, by the way, don't create content. I just think it means create content for where you are. Well, that's right.

You know, that whole document, don't create thing that I talked about years ago that went viral for me. And I also, actually, I'll say this to everyone. I think it's way cooler if you're making content on the path to becoming a great real estate agent, the path of becoming a good business person. I mean, I would have crud, oh, I'm so devastated in some ways that it wasn't around for when I was coming up

because I know that, first of all, I've been doing business since I was six years old, for real too, by the way. When I say for real, I mean more than half of my summers starting when I was in second grade was lemonade stand, washing cars, shoveling snow, yeah.

So, you know, my content at 20 would have been like, first of all, if it was actually out there, the timing would have been like, this is email marketing, this is why I believe in it, people are going to do email. It would have been like the same version of TikTok

just for websites and email and Google AdWords. But it would also been like, hey, I'm 20. Like I don't know everything. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But I feel like I could be, I would probably make a lot of comparisons to athletes. I'm like, hey, I think I might be a young tiger. It's like I think I'm going to be great

because I've been doing this successfully. And I see things. Let's see how this works out. versus faking the funk and saying, buy my course because I, like, I'll teach you how to do it. The first logical question is, have you done it? Yep. Yep. That's exactly right.

By the way, it's interesting. Lemonade stand, auto detailing, baseball cards. Those were my businesses before I was 20. All of those businesses, that same thing. Ed, this is a good one to talk about. I want people to hear this because this is the courage of following your convictions. You know what I'm about to say at the height of the Gary V brand where I was like, really, separating, had the credibility, but I was in a white-hot moment,

I start coming out with content in 2018 saying buy baseball cards. You did. And when I tell you, Ed, like, people that really know me, both from like the Fortune 500 CEOs or the other personal brand, like agents, L.A., New York, San Francisco, London, Tokyo, everyone literally reached out to me and said, you're at this super high level of, and basically the argument from my inner circle was you're about

to explode into, like, which was inappropriate, I thought, but like they believed that it was so hot. They're like, you're about to be one of the five most important business. Ironic, iconic. And they're like, this is going to hurt you. And I'm like, but it's true. Yeah. I said, what's true? I'm like, I think sports cards are about to explode.

And it was funny. They went way up. People were trying to figure out, was that me? Was that? But I already saw the trend for a year before. In fact, that it's one of the few things I sat on for a year before talking about it. Because I was scared. I was forcing it subconsciously because I loved it growing up.

Do I want this to happen? Or is this, like I was checking myself because I didn't want long, exploded. COVID boom. Then they went down. Everyone's like, see what the fuck now. It's like, my God. I went all in. I should have put every dollar into it.

That's right. No, I should have listened to you sooner too. And I wanted it to be true, too. I wanted the same thing when you were talking about it. So I waited another two years. Am I just loving what he's saying? Because I love the business and I love sports. Well, collectibles has become a huge.

Massive. Especially as we go more digital. I'm very bullish analog, Ed, one of the ideas I'm thinking about. Everybody, feel free to steal this because the world is abundant. I'm actually contemplating starting a drive-in movie theater business. Wow. Yeah, like I actually, here's a prediction. This is how I think about it.

And I don't love predictions. You know, I like to observe and then talk about it when it's happened. This is a little more in prediction land. But I think this is on. Here's how I think about it. It's 2026. I think in 14 years it will be 2040. In 14 years, when it's 2040, I think it's going to feel more like 2065.

I think the speed of technology is about to really explode. And then I think in 14 years, it's going to feel like 2065, which means building businesses that were built in 1965 is the opportunity. I think we're about to go into a barbell. As we go more extreme AI and digital, the big upside is an analog. You know, sporting events, live concerts, running clubs, hiking, meditation resorts, hotels, restaurants. Experiences, is that what you're saying? That's right.

Physical, not digital. Yep. Physical experiences, more community. One of the reasons collectibles works is because of the shows. If you go to San Diego and look at Comic Con, you realize real fast why collectibles work. It's a sense of community. It's tribalism.

It's like sports. And this morning, I've run into like 10 people wearing Nick stuff. Yeah. It's like we're family. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Bibalism. And that's what collectible says. It's like, oh, you collect a rebel. We're family. Yeah. Everybody listening, you entrepreneurs, just listen to what this man just told you. First off, those are the businesses to go into and those that have businesses. You need to be able to create those experiences for your. consumers, your customers, your employees, your vendors, whoever they are, because everything

else is going to be pretty even. It's the experience you can create, the emotions you can generate. I, by the way, I know you don't like this because you're a New York fan. But the same thing happens, I sit back in Marvel. I go to a lot of Red Sox games now that I'm in New England now. And I sit back and I like Marvel, it's different than other towns. New York has it too. But you sit back an hour or two before the game and you can see all these families walking down the street all in their Red Sox gear. And when you... walk into the stadium together. It's different.

Fenway is just like, you know, you're right. I despise Boston. But a couple fun facts. I'm so psycho. I'm actually trying to figure out this is going to happen with the Knicks. So the Yankees win in 96, Ed. Yep.

And I grew up and I'm a funny, I'm an 80s Yankee fan. So the Mets were more successful than the Yankees in that little weird window. We're not talking about the Red Sox Mets series, so don't even try. No, I can't even, Ed. Old were you that you?

I don't know, but I cried. I think it was, oh, I could tell you. I was 14, and I literally cried in my bedroom when the ball went between Buckner's legs, literally for an entire day. I have many times thought if I was a Red Sox fan and I was that age, like that was just insanity. Nonetheless, Yankees win, and this is insane, literally the next day, I didn't care about the Yankees anymore.

And the same thing happened with the Rangers in 94. So I've been a two-sport fan now for the last literally 30 years. Knicks and Jets. Nix and Jets. And so much so, I want you to hear this, that when the Red Sox won the fourth game against the Yankees that year, I was actually rooting for the Red Sox to come back from Rio.

Now, couple of them, one, that's psycho. I'm not even sure what it is. I'm not sure what it is either. But I love it. I think that's underdog over everything. I think that was God actually finally whispering to you, truth and wisdom. Oh, no, no, no.

In fact, you know, like now that you guys want a couple now. And by the way, all that winning, by the way, no one is, I don't even know what it feels like to be a NEPO fan, but if you're 37 and you're from the Boston area, why do you even watch sports? Yeah, I know.

That is true. It is true. You grew up, I mean, the Red So and my best friends are Cubs fan. And I took him the game. When I was 14 years old, we met the first day of homeroom. This is Brandon, who runs the wine. Literally day one, buddies, by day four, four days in.

I'm 14. I said, Brandon, if the Cubs ever make the World Series, I'll take you. And I delivered. We went to the East one. It was awesome in Cleveland. And they lost. Awesome. That's awesome.

Thank God. Yeah, man, it's just, I don't know. Like, I, Fenway is so special. Like, Fenway especially. Foxborough's in the middle of nowhere. Correct. No one knows that, right? Boston Garden once the old one went down, this thing is not the same.

But Fenway is like, like, it's like, you know what? We all Americans go to Europe and we go to, like, the churches and the special places. That's Fenway. It is. It is Fenway. The good news is, you may get the same thing. But we could do this podcast in 20 more years and you'll probably still have that thing for the Jets that you have now. No, it's just true.

By the way, and you know I'm probably right about it. So I hope I'm not right. Just for your own. Maybe we should just wait until you own the team. Yeah. Let me ask you a couple things, by the way. So people would kill to get 20. minutes with you. So I'm going to give them 10 of those 20 minutes right now. They walked in.

They said, hey, I need help. I really need help. So first off, let's just check a box on content creation. You're the guru. Like, and I'm, I don't say this to be nice. I'm really good at it. I ain't at your level. It's just, you're just the best. What type of content? Let's break it down. Let me answer your first. This is fun because you asked the question that is micro and I'm going to go macro. Hey, Gary, I need help. I'm going to talk about content. But this levels up to the whole game, Ed, the whole game. And as we're just jamming here and vibing, I feel like this is going to hit for you. The whole game is based on self-awareness.

The whole game, Ed, you and I, especially know, I know myself inside out and knowing enough about you, meaning like you and me. We went through a whole plethora of hypotheses and feelings in our youth and our teens in our early 20s. a lot of it felt like you could do anything and everything. And then even if you knew you couldn't, people like me, if you knew you couldn't, I was okay with it, a different version of me and I don't know you well enough. Try to prove that they could. That was a waste of time.

Same here. So for me, I hope everyone's listening. I'm going to go very detailed, both in content. So for example, many people right now are making millions of dollars. a year just being on substack. Right. That's writing. Just substack.

Wow. Yeah. You don't need to be in front of camera. I think there's, in fact, I think a huge opportunity is to be a content creator that's off camera just talking, using your hands. Whoa. Yeah. So audio, video, and written word are the three.

And there's drawing and animation. There's some others, but the core three communication frameworks are written word, audio, and video. I, I, you're like one of the three. the things that separates me is I do all of them at scale across every platform. It is for sure one of your separators. Yeah, because there's very few people on Earth that have three million followers plus on both Snapchat and LinkedIn, right?

I run the whole pletra and everything in between. But I would say the first thing I would tell everyone about content and then I'm going to level it up to life is who are you versus who do you wish you were? I wish I was Jalen Brunson. I'm being dead serious. Like, I wish I was Joe Namath. I'm telling you I'm serious, right? I wish I was a professional athlete.

But by four grade, I realized I was more likely to buy one than play for one. A lot of people are not self, here's a big one. This was a real curveball. I threw the world because I had the platform at the time when I started making content around you don't need to be an entrepreneur. Yeah. The number three and four and seven at Uber and like and at Facebook and at Google. So Ed, this is something you may not know about me. A weird thing about me that we touched on earlier is not only am I a CEO, not a mascot.

I'm actually a C-O-O. I'm very operation. In fact, things I need to work on in the, these next 30 years is dropping my CO onus because I like it too much. I would never have known that, yeah. It's a very bad use of my time at this point in my career and for a long time, but I'm holding on because I pick joy over maximizing financially. But I can feel that I want to move on more.

So I'm an operator by heart. There's a lot of people here who are operators but not entrepreneurs. There are a lot of people here who are content creators but not entrepreneurs. we are in the golden era of entrepreneur creator and creator entrepreneur. I am entrepreneur creator. Logan Paul is creator entrepreneur. True. Got it?

So we're all going to have different paths. But I would tell everyone, know how you make content best and make it about things you know. Well, or love. No or love. No or love. The biggest mistake people make, Ed, is they try to make content around where they think the money is. That's a freaking fact. You know this when I know so many people six months ago.

They're the Repto guy. Four years ago, they're the real estate guy. Seven years ago, they're the funnels guy. 13 years ago, they're the affiliate guy. Like, you know, then they're the cannabis guy, then the wellness guy, then the f*** collectibles guy. They're just basic. Yeah.

So what do you know, whether that's sports, sci-fi, cooking, travel, science, and or what do you love? whether it's all those things. Now, if God forbid, which means God willing, you're both knowledgeable and passionate about the same thing, well, now I'll show you where you can win as a content creator. That is really good. Yeah.

If you really know Boston sports and really love it, you will wake up every day for three years making a podcast no one's listening to. My God, yes. To get to the other side. Bro, I did 100-50 episodes of Wine Laboratory TV. No one gave a f***. And by the way, it wasn't like it is today where you know that that's the cost of entry. I was pioneering when there was no light at the end of the tunnel.

I just knew I had to. Can I validate just really quick? By the way, that's a master freaking class. You guys, right before we came in here, I'm scrolling, there's a dude I watch, nerdiest dude on the planet. All he does all day is does Red Sox trade injury and starting lineup updates. I watch this guy every single day of my life. And he did a podcast for three years that I guarantee you nine people never listened to.

And now he's growing. And he's growing. And what can happen, again, I want everyone to hear this. Because when you're on with us too, I just need to say this and please validate this, Ed, because you've lived a similar but different life. Friends, there's a lot of people who have a very happy life making $230,000 a year. and live within those means. And there's unlimited people that push themselves from $2.30 to a million.

And they don't live within those means and they hate their life. Like what I love about that Red Sox thing, look, that's not people. Wait, I want to say something. I want to say something about what you just said. It is the number one thing. I'm actually just got a little choked right there. I don't know that you and I are the only two, but we're one of the few. What he just said, you guys, go back, rewind if they still do that, and listen to it again.

what he just told you is a trillion percent right. You don't have to grind that thing to a million bucks doing stuff you don't love anymore, don't want to do. Don't feel ethical about. There's so many people really happy at the former, not the latter, that he described. And by the way, I grew up so in the dirt that I have friends that are true nine to fiveers, true but wiser at the bar at five, soft all team six to seven, wrestling three nights a week, and literally have. happier than friends that I have that are making $45 million a year. That's what you met by self-awareness earlier, isn't it? Yes, that's right.

And so I just want everyone to take advantage of this podcast. There's a lot of versions of this. I've done a lot. It's done a lot. But maybe this is the moment that you were ready to hear this, which is like, you need to live life for you. Not to impress others. You know, only you know you.

Even as well as people know us said, there's so much no one knows. My mom knows me better than anyone on earth. There's no things she doesn't know. And I don't mean like something I did. I mean, in my soul, because there are certain things that human keeps to themselves.

And I just need people to understand that if you lean into self-awareness, like you know what a lot of people do out of insecurity and lack of self-awareness? They peacock in front when they're not that guy or girl. And the issue with that is the winners, and I feel like I'm one of them.

And when I say winner, I mean emotionally intelligent people that can snip you out, they know you're pretending. And then you've already lost before you started. Oh, yeah. You imagine getting to the end of your life, bro, and you pretended the whole way there.

Almost everyone does, Ed. Oh, my God. That's why, by the way, that's why we have politically unstable times like this. The only thing that's happening in the world right now in this whole political air we're in, it's just exposing how many people are unhappy on both sides. And I spend zero time trying to hurt someone's feelings because they don't see the world the way I see it. Likewise. Likewise. So it's most people are fronting.

People are insecure. They want outside validation. Most people are stuck in sixth grade their whole lives. And meanwhile, back to the point of the question, everyone listening right now, whether it's about bowling or fishing, how to be an accountant or how to be a stay-at-home dad, everyone. Your has the potential. If they lock into, they like it or they know it. Expert-ish.

I don't mean expert. You're not the grandpuba. Listen, I do think of at the top. of my crap that I never go there, like, just be who you are. Expert-ish or passionate. You know, that's what's made me dangerous and collectibles. I'm both. I know my shit, but I, like, my friends laugh at me.

They're like, motherf-you get more excited. If you find a $29 item at a garage sale and buy it for a dollar, then when you land $15 million deals at Vayner, I'm like, and it's not even close. I just watched a clip of you today where the guy, you'll know the clip. The guy is now cleaning out garages for $600,99 bucks. You went ballistic. Ballistic because that one, everybody please go find it. It's called, I think if you put $699 Gary V into search, you'll find it.

That one I went ballistic on Ed, because if you watched the whole thing, not just the social media clip, this guy had a real business and it was working and he knew how to run the Facebook app. Like, he had it. He had it. And he was not realizing that it was a big business, not a side hustle. and he loved it and he had it but he was scared because he wanted stability and I was trying to explain to him if you got back those 57 hours a week

you would make four times your base salary and you would like it and so yeah that one really sent me off because it was the most clear interaction I had on film of someone who like couldn't see what was like already had happened he'd already built the actual business

says, but he, because he saw it as a side. I think of it like love. You know how I think of it like love? You know, no, you two are in love. But they can't, you know how you have some pretty. Yes, I do. One people on thinking up, they're like making pretend their friends or in their scenario because I knew both of them for so long.

No, they really, really, I think subconsciously were scared to ruin the friendship. Yeah, man. I know. I don't already have it. Yeah, I know one right now. Yeah. I know one right now. I do.

By the way, in an. hour. I don't think I've done eight, nine hundred of these. I don't think in an hour I've covered this much ground on this much different stuff with somebody. So like I'm super grateful for that. I really want you to know that man. Like you and I should do this like once a year, except we need to do it in person. Well, you just beat me to the punch. I was about to break the fourth wall. Everyone, Ed and I promised each other right before we record that the next one's in real life because we both agree that it's just better. And we'll also make more time. So we'll do that, brother. And let's, I look forward to that.

I do, too, by the way. All right, last thing, I want to make sure when they leave here, right before we went on, you were telling me about a couple cool things. By the way, let me tell you how good this dude is, you guys. I said, hey, I don't even say this to most guests. But in his case, because it was him, I'm like, hey, what can I promote for you? He goes, basically said, bro, don't worry about it. I just want to give.

Whatever we got to do for everybody listening to your audience, you know them better than me. Don't worry about me. You know, I'm sort of interrupt you. It goes to the beginning, which is like, look, I think when you actually give, it means you're giving without expectation. You know this, Ed. So many people have wanted to give to us. Yeah. They should.

They're making a deposit for the withdrawal later. They were manipulating the relationship, not give it. Yep. You know, no one here will find it hard to, like, find me if they decided they got valued here. But whether it's, you know, I mean, I don't say this. I don't say this. This is the one plug I'll say because it's actually been the thing that's really getting me

off lately. This V-Brens thing I'm building, this Pokemon, Disney. Sesame Street. I'm starting to realize I'm much more Jim Henson than I realize this concept of using characters to bring love into the world while you're building a month for business intellectual

property. But in V-Friends, VEE Friends, if you want to look at up, Friends, there's two characters, and they're two of the top 10 out of 280 characters. One's called Fearless Ferry. Okay. And one's called Ambitious Angel. Okay.

And through comic books and trading cards, specifically, the amount of fathers that have reached out to me. Oh. And said, you know, I went to the trading card store. I always bring my son and daughter. My daughter's always bored. But me and my son love it. And mom's out and I bring her.

We stumbled on your V friends. And the fact that my daughter is getting self-esteem out of it. Listen to the characters I screen. Ambitious Angel. A little brown girl. Beautiful. Fearless fairy. The strongest powerful character in our world.

Fear. You know how much I hate fear. Fearless fairy. If you're a girl dad and you love collectibles, please dig into V-Friends. Go to eBay and type in V-Friends. You'll be stunned on sold items. I think I'm pulling off the greatest rope-a-dope of all time. I am so known.

People definitely don't know about my business executions as we touched on. But I literally think, Ed, there's a dark horse chance that I'm building one of the premier, meaningful intellectual properties. And it's going to happen. And in 15 years, when I open up an amusement part, And when it's like this Pokemon, like, think everyone's gonna be like, how the fuck did that happen? It's almost like I'm like, look over here, look over here.

But meanwhile, I'm in the lab over here, you know? I don't have any doubt about it, brother. What you are, bro, like, I just think, I believe in the law reciprocity, you reap what you sew. There's a passage in the Bible called a parable of the sewer. When you plant the right seeds, eventually there's a harvest. And you know what's great about it? And if you're a planter that is okay if there's no harvest,

then you're unstoppable. Oh my gosh. And that's it. I'm aware that doing the right thing leads to the right thing, but when you're in a place where you don't need it to happen, then you're completely utterly unstoppable. This is one of my favorite shows of all time, bro. I'll tell you this, he's a force for good in the world.

He's a good boy, to quote him earlier. Thank you, my man. And I'm sure your mom is proud of you for the right reasons and your dad, bro. So I'm proud of you. Thank you for today. Thank you, bro. This was epic. All right, everybody.

I don't have to ask you this one. Share this episode. This one's going. This one is going. I love you all. Max out your life. This is the Edmireland show.