The Resilient Mind - How To Build Resilience & Become Unstoppable - Gary V

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO and founder of VaynerMedia, a full-service digital agency servicing Fortune 500 clients across the company’s 4 locations. Gary is also a prolific public speaker, venture capitalist, 4-time New York Times Bestselling Author, and has been named to both Crain’s and Fortune’s 40 Under 40 lists.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠►Follow Gary Vaynerchuk:YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/garyveeInstagram: http://instagram.com/garyveeFacebook: http://facebook.com/garySnapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/garyvee Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to How to Build Resilience and Become Unstoppable with Gary V. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. I work like a fucking madman, and so when you want to allocate time to your family, I knew when my brother seven or eight years ago got serious about golf and now it's his biggest passion, like it is for so many people. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ironically, his big joke is that I have slightly better hand-eye coordination. And I've been out like 11 or 12 times and he's always so blown away of how well I do. Yeah. So I think I was naturally disposition to be pretty decent at it. But I'm just too, I just know that I can't do that because I'm going to get into it. And already my Sundays, like I've so little time that I have to allocate every second to my family. Yeah. and golf widows and like golf, you know,

that's a real thing. People really get about that golf life. And then like just the way my career in life is, I know that I'd be on all these trips and it's like an extra day and like, oh, let's fly to them. And the masters would become a thing I'd go to every year. I just don't have those days.

And so I've really like been very thoughtful of like, I know I will love this the most. Thus, it's like someone who would know that they have an addictive personality and decided to never gamble or drink because they were so deeply self-aware, I feel like that's kind of my relationship with golf. Well, I'm like, I know you.

You and I would be, I know you golf. I'm just putting out right now, I know you golf. I know you and I would be best fucking holiest. We're gonna get you, we gotta know right now. And so I just know I can't go there. So that's why I've really kept it at bag. Everyone's gonna play you on like,

oh, but you do business on the golf course. I'm like, cool, you don't know how I do business. I have 15 minute meetings every single second. Like I'm like, it moves so fast. even people I fuck with, like I can see like once in a blue moon. Like I don't do business like that. I don't take two-hour business lunches. So I'm definitely not going to take a four-hour business lunch,

which is really what golf is. Because my dad lost his dad at 15 and my mom lost her mom at five, I would tell you only in the last three years, I've always known, and a lot of you have followed me for a long time. I always talk about like family over everything and like health and nothing else. Like you guys know my spiel, but even the last three years, I'm like, oh, I'm like this, because of this.

To hear you just say, I'm walking the high line and I'm being grateful, I believe that I was so scared, unhealthy. Like in modern ways, I probably would have had, like, if I grew up in,

like, wealthy parents that grew up in America, I would have been in therapy pretty early. I was, I'm going to use this word, crippled in my childhood, thinking about my parents dying, because their parents died, and I just thought that's what was going to happen.

And when I tell you, I thought about it every day, I thought about it every day and I will tell you it is so clear to me why Gary V. is who he is shooting none of this shit fucking all of you are going to eventually

DM me and text me and tell me you were right because eventually we're all going to have heartache at the highest levels God willing because you'd like to live long enough to go through some of that obviously parents being very high

that's real shit and like sitting here talking about like oh I can't get my Facebook ads to work well or like fuck and Macy's fucked us or like, you know, like, oh, that collab didn't go through. Or like me being like, oh, what, we lost the club. Like, it fucking does not fucking matter.

And so like what ends up happening is at 80, if your pops is thinking it, it makes them retrospective. When it's happening at a young age, it allows you to actually start to become grateful. All of you, me included, I'm talking to myself right now and I'm about this life, all of you are grateful. enough. All of us.

If you're watching this right now and we're listening to this at any point when we launch it next week and a year from now you're listening to this, if you had the capacity to consume this podcast, you are not grateful enough. Because that means you live a life

that has optionality. And so like I just don't think we're grateful enough and like no matter what someone comes at me with in the comments on something like this, they're wrong. They're like, yeah, but they may say, yeah, but I lost my dad, I'm like, how old was he?

80, you got to live that long because my dad lost his dad at 15, and other people lost her mom at birth. Their mom died giving birth to them. Like, there's life out there. Yeah, and so I understand that you're going through that gratitude framework. I believe in it so heavy.

Humans are underrated, bro. Humans are fucking resilient. So like we love to dwell on what's worse, but this goes back to, it's fun to think back to back I try to make parents feel good because they're stupid about technology. They blame it. They're like, what about TikTok?

I'm like, be a fucking parent, take it off your kid's phone. We're soft with kids now. Like, our parents did gangster shit. You know, like, you know, we're all scared of all this stuff and I'm like, so take it away. Well, they'll be upset. I'm like, that's called parenting.

Yeah, that's a trick. Limiting the time, you know, how often do they get caught scrolling endlessly or watching YouTube? forever, you know, things like that. We did the same shit. I stayed in my room and watched MTV and played Zelda and fucking, like, and my friend would come over

and pull out a fucking playboy and like what? Like, as if. I don't understand how people forget the fuck we were doing. The fuck we're, they're like, they're just on their phone all day. I'm like, you did that? These are like friends of mine who are mad at me because I'm in technology. They're like, yo.

I'm like, yo what, bro? You played second genesis 10 hours a day. I know you, dude. I know you. The fuck you talk about. You played NHMCHL 94. smoke the blunt 15 hours straight

the fuck are you talking to me about worried about the kids you should be shock you're alive motherfucker you're right you know what I mean

all day playing twisted metal too oh my god that was a great one yeah you know what I mean as if we weren't listening to fucking

beastie boys or Snoop or Tupac on tape deck or CD for five hours in our room reading fucking Rolling Stone we weren't doing

shit either right right I love how people rewritten all these 20 30 40 50 year olds rewriting history As if you were doing shit.

You weren't doing, they're doing more. They know more shit. They've got information. Unfortunately, the world has taught us to focus on bad shit. All the shit we're worried about is never been better. Including the most intense shit.

We just want to choose, we just entitled. We're an empire. Yeah. We're soft. You're 35. Right. You're at a great, fun age

where you're just thinking about different shit. Correct. I think 35's a world. really fun age. Because if you're still single, like, you know, four minutes ago you were just chasing. And now you're like,

huh, I wonder if I do want to settle. Like, you just start to have, it's this generation's 18. You know, our parents and our great grandparents, they lived to 40, 50, 60. That's why you got married at 18.

You were only living in a fucking 50. We're living to 100. So our bodies and our subconscious is like, I'm not locking down at 18. It's not like we want to hook up any more than our parents did. It was the whole world

was structured differently. And so you're just at a fun inflection point. You're just growing up. And it happens more at 35 now than it does at 20 in the way we were all taught when we're coming up. But I'm gonna use this to the segue.

The best way to not be scared of messing up is waking up knowing you're always gonna mess up up. The reason I'm cooling is because I expect to lose every day and I'm talented. I'm aware that I was gifted by the luck of the draw when mom and dad had sex and by the fact that they had sex in the Soviet Union. I was born there. Americans and all of you watching right now, I don't think people really understand the Soviet Union. It's not like Russia today. The Soviet Union was North Korea. You couldn't leave. You couldn't leave. Not even like

like Iran where you're allowed to visit, most countries don't take your passport, but if you live in Iran right this second, you can go to Turkey, you can go to the UAE, you can go to Canada. My parents spent the first 20 years in life in a place you couldn't leave, aka jail. All those people in Cuba go on those boats

because it's jail. Cuba followed what the USSR did. They couldn't leave. And so, you know, so I know that I got lucky that I was born to them, they're the best, I got great parents, they did it right, They just did. It's like being a good CEO, they're good at it.

Especially my mom, make sure my dad's not listening. And then I also grew up with adversity and I grew up with diversity and I grew up so forth. And with all that, and with now I'm being 48 with the gray hairs and all the accolades, I still wake up every day and be like, I'm gonna make a lot of mistakes today. And I think people are fucked up

because they're worried about making mistakes instead of flipping it. I think we all have to to flip it. It goes back to gratitude. To actually give a fuck and be like, it is a sunny day and I'm alive. And being like, I'm good. To your point, I speak foo,

foo, foo, fo shit, but I live it. I see so many people spit it and I know they don't live it because I know them. They don't live it. They're fronting. It's like kind of like street culture, right? We know people that are about that life and aren't about that life. They're fronting. And so on a happiness level, I know I live it.

And I think one of the ways you could flip it is be like, you're gonna make unlimited mistakes. And as a leader of a company, like people can go work somewhere else. And you and your boy are gonna dig it through all the way through. And then also like smelling your roses without accepting them.

Let me say that. Smelling your roses without accepting them. That's what I mean by that. All of us are fortunate that we've done some shit. Yes, you wanna fucking fixate on Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and be like, I haven't done shit, cool, knock yourself out. I have no interest in looking at seven people on earth and deciding my self-worth is based on their financial success.

But everyone's doing that right now. Smelling your roses but not accepting it for you too is, you've already gone so much further. You know, you know this better than I do, but I'm in it. You know many street brands never get to where you're at right this second? Let me give it to you real, almost all of them. and you got, we all grew up in it.

I don't know how much you followed streetwear, but like every friend presses t-shirts coming up to get, right? Everyone's gonna build the next kid. There's 77,000 kids telling me right now on DM. I'm building the next rude. I'm building the next palace. I'm building next kid.

I'm like, cool. And I watch it. When Matt Happy said it, I'm like, I think they might, and they did. When you guys said it, I told you. I told him too. And I've been wrong other times too. Like what pirates are doing right now.

I'm watching. I love it. But smelling your roses without accepting them, meaning never get high in your own supply even though you have supply, right? Which is you've already done so much more than almost everyone who's ever done it. Yes, we can point to all the brands that did it bigger.

You can decide to spend all your time on Supreme or Stateboro, you can, but like you already have. So if you accept I'm gonna make mistakes every day and lose and I've already done some shit, but I haven't even started. Like I feel like I haven't done shit yet, but I'm aware I've done way more shit than most people, professionally.

Right. That's good shit. That's how you won't be scared. That's how you won't be, you know, imposter syndrome. That's how you won't beat yourself up. Gotcha. That's a good one, Gary.

Yeah, when I was younger, I had an artist, teacher, kind of mentor figure, and he used to say, for every good painting you're going to make, you're going to make 20 bad paintings. It's a great teacher. And that always stuck with me.

It's still to this day. You know, and I was a teenager when I heard that. And that, it takes the pressure off a little bit to like win every single time, you know, and I've heard you talk about that kind of feeling also. And I mean, that just kind of lets you get more into it rather than being on the surface of, you know, everything's got to be. I really, and first of all, it's a great teacher. Think about something, a man or woman.

There's a man. A man said to you. fucking 30 years ago, you know, and that you're bringing it up today. That's why words matter. That's why I love doing what I do for a living. Like one sentence. I take the extreme view on what that great teacher taught you.

I think I'm catching a nut once in a, I'm a squirrel and I'm finding a nut once in a while. And I'm just eating shit every other day. The problem is I love eating the shit. I think the biggest issue in society right now is that people don't enjoy being discomforted. Yeah. I enjoy.

the discomfort. I like when my back hurts. I like when I skin my knee. Like I like when I lose a client. I'm dark. That's smart. Like I always feel like I'm that guy in like a movie where like if I was a boxing movie

like I get knocked down in the first round and like my tooth came out and I go in the corner and I'm like, okay now we're good. You know what I mean? Like I don't like prosperity. I don't think it's fun. This is why I like not being a Boston fan. Boston fans are soft.

If you're like 20 to 40 Boston fan, you suck, you won everything, you're fully entitled, you're a Nepo baby sports fan, you're not interesting and you're not interested anymore. That's the interesting part. Boston fans when I was a kid with the Red Sox on that long, forever, 1918 or whatever fuck their shit was, they were interesting.

They had battle scars, they had character. Patriots were one in 15, fucking, they had the Celtics, The Bruins had been good in the 70s, but they were starting to soften up. They're in the mid-80s, they were good, but like they have character. Now they're boring.

Nobody's, it's boring. Now Boston fans walk around all entitled as if they were on the field. The Vayner Media VaynerX part of my world is the funniest thing. Like people think I'm like a motivational speaker or like, I don't think people realize that I'm the active day-to-day CEO

of a 2,000 person, global. And there's, this is going on right now in London and Singapore and Australia, LA and like, like, Like, it's funny, it's like, it's the thing that I'm most, it's my most merit thing, but I don't talk about it. I do talk about it, I bring it up like this a lot, actually, but people just, this is the whole conversation.

People are focusing on the wrong shit. I talk with conviction so much. The reason I made conviction, this is an alpha story for everyone, the reason I made conviction cockroach, like I put the words together with the characters for different reasons, I'm still blown away that there was an atomic war.

that cockroaches survive. That's some real fucking conviction. I believe that I can live so much that even if there's an atomic war we're the ones that are laughing. They're on some resilient shit. I wish they were called rockeroches because I would have been resilient rockeroches.

So when you say you're standing on it, you're really just to break it down for people that may not understand the context of the slang. Like, okay, like when they don't believe us when we say watch, now we got to go do it. Yeah, then we go do it and build the company. The only way to do it is to be method.

And build the company into a place to where they have no other choice but to see it. I love, I love, we are, we have a very similar threat on this. Yeah. When I tell you that the amount of times in my career over the last 30 years, my brain goes to, I can't wait to make them succumb to accepting. They're gonna succumb to accepting what they wish.

I love that so much. Oh yeah. I believe if you, like, you know, we've all heard, the circle of friends. I think the reason I say audit is, I don't expect you to cut your, like your best friend that you grew up with. You're not taking him to zero.

Right, right. Your mom, who's toxic. It's not like you're never gonna talk to your mom again, you know, but can you limit? Exactly. That audit says, let me talk to mom. For a lot of you were listening, if your mom is the biggest source of negativity

in your life, but you love her, She's your mom, like I get it. Like maybe you don't have to talk to her twice a day. Like maybe it's once a week. Because that shit matters because you can't help your mom if she's depositing negativity into you, you're carrying that. The way you actually can fix your mom

is actually by limiting your time with your mom so you can get your positivity up to come back into mom and get her up. People think like, no Gary, I gotta do it, I gotta stay loyal. I love loyalty. But if loyal, comes at the expense of you actually contributing

to the solution, then that's delusion. And the number one reason so many people are upset right now is they're completely not accountable. It's their mom's fault, it's their dad's fault, it's Biden's fault, it's Trump's fault, it's America's fault, it's the system's fault, it's the company's fault, it's Tesla's fault, it's Elon's fault, it's Foll, it's everyone's fucking fault,

AOC's fault, Bernie's fault. I'm just sitting around watching everybody, I'm like, what about you? Yeah. Yeah. No accountability. Zero. Meanwhile, there's people that look just like you

from the same circumstances winning. So what was up with them? Oh, wait, maybe it's you. I think people think that if you go accountable, it makes you shit on yourself and you become depressed. I actually think it's the reverse. I think it's a misunderstanding of accountability.

The second you become accountable, you actually feel empowered that you can fix it. That's true. Okay. You're going to go? That's true. And you're right. And you're right.

Like, the reason I'm taking this moment is to break down some shit that I think people don't understand of what I'm saying. I'm not saying be yourself up. I'm not saying be more shitting on yourself.

I'm saying be more accountable and what I've seen is people go from deep, not accountability and in real like using alcohol to deal, using other vixas to going into accountability and then building up.

Just like working out. Like it's crazy to watch people go from like it's everyone's fault but me to it's my fault. they become dramatically happier people. I live my life as if I'm the only human being on earth. Because if I was the only human being on earth, then there would be none of you to tell me why I suck.

Equally, there'd be none of you to tell me why I'm great. No, really, the reason I think I'm able to deal with negativity is I don't believe the goat emojis equally to the emojis of your piece of shit. Yeah, that's fair. Right? Like, I get a lot of love. You guys know? I get a lot of love.

But I don't think about it. I'm grateful for it. It feels nice, but when I tell you, not only do I not think, I know I'm not better than anybody. So I'm a good entrepreneur, and I'm a nice guy.

I'm all right. I can't sing. I can't golf. I can't cook. It took me 45 years to figure out that candor was a huge vulnerability in my life, and I wasn't candorous with people, which made a lot of muckery happen in my real life.

Like, I got flaws. Like, I just, you know? Yeah. Like, it doesn't have to be hard if you just completely eliminate outside affirmation. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.