How many followers you have on social media today is as big, if not bigger status symbol than how much money you have you got your i perspective want to be happy. Don't you want to be happy? May, let's dive in, i want to start with your most recent endeavor, be friends. Okay, so on our side of the world, nft is still not very clear um. Can you give us a brief idea about nfts? Where do you see this going with artists and how can they benefit from it? I think the first thing for everybody understand is it's really not just about artists or collectibles? This is a very substantial technology that has started in art and collectibles, but long term.

A non-fungible token, which is a digital asset or the digitalization of something with an underlining contract underneath that digital asset will impact home buying, will impact ticketing to events will impact every contract. You can imagine from a lease uh to maybe even a wedding certificate. I mean it is a very, very, very big technology, so i always tell people it reminds me a lot of internet 95. 97.

99, where people were like. Oh okay, you can search for things on the internet. Many many people in 1996-75 thought the entire thing that the internet was was basically an encyclopedia, that's it that is like where people started and stopped, and if this interview was in 1996 - and you would say in our part of the world this internet thing, we called It world wide web back then the world wide web is not as big here gary explain it. Obviously we can all look up information and i would say no, no, no.

This is much bigger than information. This is going to be how people buy things. This is people how people are going to date. This is how people are going to communicate with each other and 85 of the audience.

95 of the audience would not believe it. I believe that what an nft is is a digital asset. I believe every person that's watching this right now will want to own many many many many digital assets, no different than people want to own clothes want to own. You know tchotchkes mirrors sneakers, anything physical, a baseball people are going to want to own a digital version of that now people are going to say why.

Why would i want to buy that? I could. I could just take a picture of it. You know you could take a picture of a mercedes-benz, doesn't mean you own it. You can take a picture of the mona lisa doesn't mean you own it.

What i think people are missing about nfts is that nfts have already happened. They just have happened in video games and gaming, and they haven't happened in the real world and what i mean by that is whether it's fortnite, whether it's fifa soccer whether it's mind, share minecraft. Excuse me whether it's roblox there are many games going back a decade whether it was farmville on facebook. Many people at this point have themselves or definitely know a child who has bought something digitally so that they could have it inside their digital world in their game.

This doesn't take into account even this, which is going to be the next conversation. You know once people understand what this looks like and what this is gon na be like. We have a very big advancement and the reason the reason i get such a lovely intro from you saying, forward, thinking innovative. You know when i invested in coin base in 2014, cryptocurrency investing and trading wasn't as obvious seven years ago as it is today.

So what is an nft? It is a digital asset that is verified that you own it, based on the blockchain proof of stake. Proof of work, mainly today, built on ethereum there's other blockchains wax flow, there's good ones. I believe that, one day in the next decade, everybody will have a public wallet. Just like a social media account.

You me maha and everybody who's watching will have a digital wallet with an address that everybody can see and when people open click it in there, they will see all of our nfts. Some of our nfts are going to just be collectibles and art, and things like on the back look look at the look over your shoulder. Look at all those things. People people have things it's what humans do they collect things? They have things it's what we do.

We're animals we hoard go watch an animal, they take a little. They take a little chestnut a leaf this we co hoard. We collect things, but many of our nfts will be functional. For example, in my wallet you will see a jets nft, which will be my which will represent my season tickets, so it'll be functional, but it will also show you that i'm a committed season ticket holder to my team, it may show a ticket a digital ticket To a concert i went to for jay-z or the weekend it, it will be a representation of our lives digitally at scale.

The same way that for a teenager, the posters and ticket stubs in their room and for the same way a grown-up, has art or cars or ju. Why do you wear jewelry? Why do i wear this hat humans communicate our world is going more digital and when people say to me, let's not what i don't get it, i always say to them. Do you get a blue check mark on instagram? Does that matter to you and very quickly? They start understanding that we've been living digital. How many followers you have on social media today is as big, if not bigger status symbol than how much money you have true, and that is purely digital.

So let me ask you this. I get that i get the idea. I've been following me, friends and um i mean i love the way: you're positioning it and v-con, and that's a much bigger conversation that i'd love to get to at another time. But the question is: how do you create your own nfc, so you can buy, but how do you create your own currency and basically well so creating an nft versus creating a currency are a little bit different.

Creating an nft, a non-fungible token is as simple as making a piece of digital content and going to a platform and uploading it and minting it, whether it's on open c or wearable, or many platforms that are out there. So literally, that's a that's. A google search away i'll literally, do it right now, while i'm with you, how do i make an nft, literally i'm putting this into google and sure enough? I googled that. But that's not my question.

The question is like what do i, for example, i want to trade into nfc and i want to have you have the friends you create your own original art, so i'm i'm talking from a product perspective. I you know from a product perspective, you're now asking a question similar to the late 90s. When i was asked well, how do i build a website? Well, i'm like. Well, you go this and and then you would say no, no.

I know that part but and then i'm like well, i don't know what do you want to do? You know i wanted to build a website in 1996 to sell wine for my dad's liquor store today. You know v friends, you know if you listen to my content over the last decade, i've been very consistent around my fascination around intellectual property. My belief, the whole time was, i, was gon na, go and buy it that i was gon na, buy nostalgic intellectual property right, whether it was smurfs or scooby-doo, or a brand like a like a peanut butter or a sneaker. That's why i did the k-swiss deal years ago.

It was a nostalgic intellectual property. Once i saw what nfps really were, i said: wait a minute. I don't need to go, spend millions of dollars buying something i can create something. Two years ago i even have the filming of this, which is great i'll, show it soon.

I went down a very aggressive path of building out toys to put on people's desks called workplace warriors, which was me responding to the hundreds of thousands of dms that i get a month from people having a bad day at work, and i said you know a Lot of people like to put you know, i walked around my office and many offices through the years, and people have all sorts of little toys, cha-chas things at their desk. I said you know if all these things i'm passionate about empathy, kindness, patience, accountability, all these characteristics, maybe i'll, create these little characters. Empathy, elephant, patient, panda and i'll make uh it'll be a fun business. I can do my own transformers, my own gi, joe, my own.

My little ponies cabbage patch kids power rangers, so i was very excited about it and i went down the path and then i got sidetracked and then coveted hit and and then and then here you are so when i in december and january february, when i was Like wait, a minute nfts are really here very on the press. For this i said the only way i know how to learn when i thought the internet was big. I launched a website when i thought social, media and content were going to be big. I launched wine library tv and became a personality.

I would remember. I was 30 years old before i ever put out a single thing on the internet, so i didn't grow up aspiring to have a notoriety or fame or be known, i'm a businessman, but i knew that if i wanted to be great at it the only way I know how to learn is by doing i don't read about push-ups, i do push-ups, i don't read about rock climbing i rock club. I don't read about you, know wine, i taste it and so i said i have to do my own nft. Otherwise, i won't fully understand and when it came time for me to think about what i wanted to do, which is different than anybody else, there was two things that emerged: one.

I've always wanted to make these characters around empathy, kindness, i i don't want gary vee to be the only vehicle and vessel for me to talk about the things that i believe in in the world, and i thought that i could build an intellectual property and number Two, i have always wanted to throw my own south by southwest my own major conference, and so i tied the two together, because i knew that the nft projects that were coming out were only the art, and i wanted to show people that nfts were much bigger Than that, because smart contracts could do things, so i decided to attach a three-year conference v con to the nft. So not only do you get the collectible asset and if i the way i plan on over the next 45 years, build this intellectual property. If it's mickey mouse or if it's bart simpson or if it's transformers well that nft be, has tremendous value but number two, it's an asset that people can come to the conference and then i layered a third level bless you baja. I i added a third level, which was access, which i really think is quite scalable for everybody who's watching.

You know i it's only a very small percentage of my project, but there's also the ability to play ping pong with me or go to dinner with me or have a group dinner with me or or do face times with me. I wanted to expand on what we've been seeing from cameo what you know, and i also know that what roger federer or what mo salah or what you know the greatest pianist in the world. What she can do is she would see that and say: oh wait! A minute my nft, i can make 100 nfts beautiful piece of art, but maybe two of them are special and those two come with a one-hour lesson on with me, and i i think, nfts for every expert. Every influencer.

Every personality is an incredible revolution that once they understand what it really is is going to create fascinating economics. Honestly, i love the twist and it was brilliant man. Do you have anything to add, or do i had a feeling you wanted to say something or do i i was sneezing no. I was sneezing, but i think i just think in the middle east too gary like about because we talked about this when we talked about launching your project like if people were to think about investing in an nft or why should a brand think about an nft Strategy and when should they think about it, there's two ways to think about it from the when i'll go to the second part, one, you could be an early mover right now and you know be a brand in the region and ride the wave of being one Of the first or one of the earliest that are strong and get a huge level of press, and that's one absolutely viable option.

We're a progressive brand. Don't forget that kind of press, whether you're a soda or a car brand or whatever, that level of press is often going to lead to maybe not a sale of more soda or a car. But what definitely will do is lead to a lot of people that have interest to work in your organization. I often find that being first or innovative on new technology.

His biggest strategy is more about recruitment of talent than it is even about selling products. So that's one way to look at it number two: what should they do? I think they need to focus on the the real life. What i call off-chain so on-chain the blockchain is the physical art. So if you're, bmw or if you are you know, uh a fast food company, you can do some beautiful art interpretation of your products and it can be very cool neat.

What have you? What i think is far more interesting is: if dunkin donuts decides to do it in egypt market. You know they could put out 10 000 cups of coffee or doughnut nfts very, very inexpensively, but there could be five that are gold, the gold cup of coffee and, if you buy, that you get free coffee for your life. So now, all of a sudden. That token is special, but now here's where i want everyone to pay very close attention.

So let's say you decide to pay a thousand dollars in what's equivalent to a thousand dollars a half, an ethereum for a golden dunkin donuts, because you know you drink coffee. Every day and you're like ah in the course of a year after you use it, let's say a year goes by and you decide you no longer like drunken donuts you're a starbucks person that token is an asset. So it's not like a membership. It's actually something! You own so after you spend a year taking advantage of it, you then can sell it on the open marketplace to somebody else.

So what you could really do, if you really pay attention to what i'm saying is you could experience things and then turn a profit. For example, there's a token in v, friends where you can come and play tennis with me for an hour and a half, but the token is valid for two years. My hope and why i did that was whoever bought that she or he can play tennis with me. We can have time we can talk business, but then she, when they're done with that, can decide.

Do i want to do that again with gary next year or do i want to sell this, and my hope is that when that tennis match is on my vlog and everybody sees the fomo and oh my god, why didn't i buy that when befriends was there That that gives leverage to the person that bought the token and when that person resells the token they resell it for a profit. So they've literally made money and by the way, that's how i dream of it. I dream of playing tennis with novak djokovic, but then reselling the token and like this is a very different thing than winning a charity event or having a membership card. This is owning something and i think that's how i think about it.

So it's a very long. A very long answer, but what i would say is this: what or how or what should i be thinking about when i make an nft? The answer is a lot i'll. Give you a different answer for a brand. A brand can come out and say: i'm gon na make an nft, that's actually five dollars .000 ethereum.

Why? Because i want millions of people to buy it so that in three years, when everybody has a public wallet, everybody has a burger king nft in it, which is going to be good branding no different than somebody wearing a shirt with your logo on it. No different than being so, you know something that works for me is when people when you're followed as much as i am there's a effect. People find new people, they click them, they see who they follow and they're like who's. The person there's a viral loop.

If you're able to get five fifteen, a hundred million people to put an nft into their wallet and then in a three years, everyone's doing that and looking at each other's wallet, if you happen to be a brand or a personality at that point, there's something very Valuable there very, very, very um, i mean i listen to you all the time, but this really has opened up many things. This is why i do it longer interviews because, as you know, you know the short clips on social can only go so deep. Having the time to go a little bit more in depth here allows for that. So thank you for that.

No, and thank you it it. It helped open up some some thoughts for me for my brand. So thank you so much. I want to move a little bit to entrepreneurship, so the entrepreneurship scene in egypt is growing exponentially um and so as a very successful entrepreneur.

I wanted to ask you this: it's a simple question, but it might have been asked many times, but i really want to know how you see it or what you think of it. But what are the businesses that you believe would have great potential for growth in the next five years? So i think the number one thing that i would do if i was talking to let's say: uh, my imaginary third sibling, my youngest sister and she was 18 and she said what what do you think and i would say: look if you have a creative bone In your body becoming someone who can create content, written audio or video for the internet, contextually is the most interesting journey to go down, because there will not be a human nor a business on earth in a decade that isn't in need of a substantial creative department Of making not thinking which will always be needed, making actually the practitioners you know there was this incredible run a decade ago of getting all your children to learn how to code. Remember that everyone's, like teach, your kids, how to code code, academies code, schools, which was true. However, 80 of those kids didn't want to code.

Weren't good at coding didn't care about coding their parents made them. What i loved look look at me. I am a human and i have 30 full-time employees in my creative department and i'm just one person, so you know a lot of people. Talk about.

You know all the jobs that are going to be lost when we have. You know driverless cars right, which makes sense. Transportation is still the biggest employer in america, for example, literally people who drive things, but i remind people that this is what everybody said about farming. When machines came that that tractors were going to ruin society, because all these people that worked on farms were going to be out of jobs because the tractors were going to put them out of business, and i always laugh that people don't look at history.

For everybody who drives a truck or is destined to drive a truck a 19 year old, where she or he wants to drive a truck across the country, one out of every three of those people like to draw like to write like to edit video. If you know what's amazing - and i don't think people are seeing it right now - we have an entire generation of 12 to 20 year olds, whose entire dream in life is to be an influencer literally. It is astonishing. The number one global dream job for people under 20 in the world forget about america.

Egypt in the world is to be an influencer. So what what does that mean? That means you have a lot of 9. 10. 11.

12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 year olds, trying to learn how to make content. Many of them will realize they themselves are not destined to be famous. However, many of them will learn strategy and creative capabilities to make a video or picture on a tick tock on a linkedin on a face written copy in a facebook group how to make a youtube video. I actually think this is the most prepared in the history, since vocational skills were were at their peak 100 years ago.

I believe we are actually now currently sitting on the most prepared for their future that we've ever seen with children, because many of them will find themselves in creative roles, doing that work for businesses or other human beings, and i think that's amazing. So that's what i would say to everybody like in the production of making things. What but again when people hear production they think video, i don't. I think, production in written word audio video, memes, right um ar vr.

This is you know the creation of things. The appetite is going to be unprecedented, and every company in the world will triple and quadruple down on how much output, how much they want to put out into the world on a daily basis. And that creates enormous opportunity, which makes me jump to a question. That was like four questions down, but it makes me jump to it, which is the advantage for content creators, because the future is about content creation or production, as you would say, if i may code so peop, those this young generation, those young minds who are starting Their journey, be it someone who's starting a youtube channel or who is going to do a podcast or what any type of content, creation and production? What advice and what tools do they need to assess or harness in order to succeed and build the right audience? The number one tool of success is storytelling, which is purely a talent that one needs to work on.

There is no greater story, there is no greater talent that needs to be amassed and the ability to tell a story. Now. I am good at telling stories, through my words, but i'm incredibly incapable in writing and telling a story: i've, i'm a five-time new york times, best-selling author. You would laugh if you saw what i did this weekend this weekend.

I spent 10 hours over the weekend holiday weekend listening to ragav on my team, read back to me my own words that i audioed with him, which is my current book, because the only process i have is audio and verbal to actually communicate, and i think i've Actually written my best book, i really mean that i'm incredibly, it's crazy to be so deep in this nft thing right now, because quietly the whole time, i've also been refining. What is absolutely going to be my most successful book since crush it, because it's it's really a capture of all the emotional intelligence that i understand to be true in the world at the right time and i'm very excited about it. But i was laughing at myself. I said if anybody saw what i did to write a book and it's because i believe in what i just said to you the number one for my friends everybody's watching.

If you can't storytell, you can't win, it's not going to be interesting. Now that doesn't mean embellish or like over the top, it means storytelling and there's a million different ways to do it. You could be like me, high energy verbal. You could be like other people.

Some of the greatest storytellers of all time are introverted and write. It there's a storytelling, that's number one number, two, the biggest thing i tell creators the way the beginning of the question was structured is patience is almost always the missing ingredient from the people that don't succeed there is this incredible belief amongst many that you just start Producing and you go viral - and these amazing things happen, and in six months it's all amazing when in reality that happens to 500 people a year, 5 000 people a year for the rest of us me included 18 months in to five days a week on wine Library, tv, almost nobody was watching my show it takes time. It takes time it takes episodes, it takes effort, and i i what i would say is tenacity right that matches your ambition. One of the things that drives me crazy is everybody talks a big game.

Now i'm gon na be the biggest star on youtube and then, after two months of nobody watching, they give up and so tenacity, to match your ambition with patience with an understanding of storytelling, which means not only do you need to know how to storytell and be Self-Aware, how you storytell, you also have to be incredibly respectful to the platform you distribute on and need to understand that platform, because the storyteller on youtube is different than the storyteller and tick tock, which is different than a storyteller on linkedin, which is different than a Storyteller on twitter and on a podcast on a video show on a facebook live, and if you don't understand that you have no chance. Okay, one last question for our content creators and then i want to move to some of the questions we received because we received a lot of questions for you and we don't have a lot of time: content creators again, uh many that are starting up when they Get requests from brands; sometimes they need to pro. They accept to promote a brand or a product that doesn't work with their values or where they stand, and they take that so should again tenacity and patience. Should they wait for the long-term value or take the short-term win to get the audience and then maybe focus on their identity, compromising your soul is never the right strategy.

Thank you very much. Okay. One last question before i move to audience, because this is very important: digital agents, okay - and you have a very, very strong one. What do they do today? More than ever, it is harder to run a digital agency than it has ever been to run an advertising or a cons agency.

So running a modern day agent, quoting you on that. So what does it take to run the right model of a modern day agency and really retain clients and build the right relation, because it's hard very hard um? I think um, two things stand out to me. One self-awareness i'm blown away by how many people start things within their company that they're not capable of doing they're doing it, because they think that's what they should be doing. You like that answer.

I love that we were just talking about that right before the interview you you have to know you have to know what you're good at. I think one uh, you know i'll give you a great example. I believe that vayner x, vaynermedia would probably be doing double its revenue double half a billion. If i was willing to sell television and programmatic banner ads, i just don't like him and then i'm not passionate and that's being self-aware, not on the skill set, but on the passion.

When you do something for money, it is not sustainable. When you do something that you really are good at or love and enjoy, there's the potential that money starts to trickle and so self-awareness number one around your skill set for sure, but that what's amazing about that is selflessness has to be balanced. So two things on that front. Why? I think selflessness is the key to building a great agency.

Is it comes in two folds one? You have to be self-aware, know what you do, but, for example, if you know that you love print like you are incredible, a copy for print only not even for the internet, that's great that you're self-aware. But if you lack the selflessness to know what the clients want and what the world wants and realize look print copywriting is a vulnerable business because the consumer's evolving, if you don't have that selflessness and it's selflessness because you're fighting against your own passion and enjoyment, you Will lose because your product and service will be outdated. Selflessness is even more important on the next part, which is uh. Yesterday we had a client uh fire us.

This is real. Those clients yeah this client's been with us for almost a decade. It's one of our longest clients. It was very emotional, but she was incredibly.

She sent me a very beautiful text because i didn't make it hard on her. You know when you have this long of a relationship in business and especially when you've got to deliver that. To me, i had the selflessness and the empathy and the compassion to know that wasn't probably a fun conversation for her. She was probably worried about the long-term ramifications, all the things that people think about, and for me, i just recognize that you know agency life is casting the reason we were in that unfortunate situation is the person that she brought in recently to run her department is Not aligned with the way that we see the world, and and after about a year that became incredibly obvious and she, the person i spoke to had to make a decision in the last three months.

Was it going to be about the person she decided to hire to help her scale her business, or was it going to be around this long-term relationship with an agency and, unfortunately for us? In this scenario, she chose the employee, which i incredibly love and respect, because that's what i do you know, and so you have to be compassionate to the client every agency struggles. In my opinion, i watch a lot because they're selfish they're worried about their business and what that oftentimes does is. It makes them worry too much about their own margin, which makes them sell things to clients that aren't as good for their business. So much of vayner's success has been complete.

It's a very subtle, very subtle aspect of our business, but - and i i you know, i'm wondering what maha is thinking, because i was just thinking about some of the combos we've had through the year like. I am obsessed with what's in it for them and then i'll figure out me, and i think i think that's a huge factor very refreshing man tell me because gary i'm thinking about like how to bring context to everyone who's in egypt and, like you know, bridging The gap between what gary's saying and bringing a little bit of more context to egypt, because it's hard because in egypt, you really want to like serve your clients and do what they want. And sometimes you have to take clients that you don't want to take, because either it's a big name, it'll help you get other clients that type of thing, so just in terms of like running the digital agency. To that point, the earlier question correct me: if i'm wrong the taking on brands that are there's a very big difference between taking on something you're, not overtly passionate about or excited about versus, taking on something that goes against your belief, system, 100 right, you know, and So to your point i mean you know i'll, be incredibly transparent outside of the new york jets and a couple of projects we did for wwe.

You know i don't know if there's many things vayner's worked on in 13 years that i'm incredibly passionate about, but but i also think about the five or seven very large checks that we passed on because it compromised my moral compass or what i believed in um. But almost everything else fell in between and i think for all of us that are watching right. What and by the way you know. I really believe this statement, whether egypt or america or china.

You know it's always hard yeah. You know business is hard. You know this this fantasy land that we created in culture over the last decade around entrepreneurship. It's been crazy.

I i i am completely impacted as a human being in a positive way, 99 of time of the rise of the entrepreneur when i see actual celebrities think that i'm a celebrity in their eyes. I laugh every time because i'm like my god, if you told me 20 years ago, that businessmen were going to be cool. It was the most foreign thought in my mind, however, what the reason i've been so aggressive over the last five years around not everybody should be an entrepreneur. There are many people watching right now who want to start their own agencies who should not yeah, who should become number threes or sevens or twelves it's a very different year to be an entrepreneur versus not, and i and i see it both ways.

You know, i i think about my i think of maha is a true entrepreneur. Right like like some people should be. You know, i see it all the time i mean i remember seven or eight years ago, there's an employee that worked for me. They were there for two days and i pulled them aside and like you should be an entrepreneur and they thought that i was already trying to push them out and i was like no, no i'm telling you.

You should be an entrepreneur on the flip side. Right now, this is the greatest era ever of fake entrepreneurs. Everybody wants to put entrepreneur in their tik, tok or instagram, but most people are playing entrepreneur on social media they're, not actually entrepreneurs uh. One thing i was going to say: may it just and also to the audience too like when you think about your agency and what you know what you're doing to you know really be valuable in a market.

I always think about that value equation, like what am i doing to add value to them. What is it that i can do to add value to my audience or my client? Is it knowing what's the latest in esports, knowing about nfts, knowing about tick tock? You know bring that value to your customer or to your client or to your audience by just making sure you're on top of what's happening in culture and marketing, so that you can be really valuable to them. So i always think about that, like how can i bring the most value to gary gary's got all the followers in the world. He can pick up the phone and talk to anybody.

What is it that i'm going to bring to gary? That adds value to him, and i always think about that. I'm like i have to be able to add value in ways that he either doesn't have time for that he wasn't thinking about. So i want you guys to think like, even when i work with vips like nageeb or with gary, i'm always thinking what is the value i'm gon na bring to this relationship and what is unique to my skill set and experience that can help. Take us to the next level in ways that either he didn't know he needs or wants or didn't think about, or have time to pursue and and what's important about that i'll.

Give you a great example between our relationship. You also have to be a listener back to selflessness. One thing that maha probably recognized very early on with me, was: i don't like to ask for relationships so she's, so incredible at what she does, and so we started interacting, and i noticed that she was doing something that i would do, which was she would we'd. Be at an event, she would see somebody very vip and she would.

This is why i loved it so much. She would do what i would do, which she would go to that person be like gary, would love to meet. You she'd come to me and be like they would love to meet you and for me it was no but it, but it's the right thing to do. I'm a connector as well, so i understood it, but i had to communicate hey.

I don't want to do that. I just it's not what i want to do. I i i'm in a place where, for me it's imperative that it comes to me. I i really worked with myself for about a year on this.

I'm like is it because i want the leverage. Is it because, like i really thought it through, and it's mainly because i actually am generally uncomfortable with the ask, i just don't like it, i don't like the flavor of it it's kind of like not lighting. I love onions, but some people don't it's. I don't like the taste and what i appreciate about maha and what i appreciate about others and what i want everybody to listen to back to having clients or things that nature is.

You may have a set of skills that you know, but if you don't have the ability to listen and adjust to the reality of like how do you bring for me, the biggest value is, i don't need maha or anybody else to do a million things. I just need them to play within the frameworks that work for me because the second one doesn't it compromises everything i'm building, and then i don't even i don't need it. I'd rather not have the upside, because the downside is too great and i think for all of us i mean that's what i spend all my time. Thinking about with our clients, you know what's their pocket on the flip side.

This is where it's an incredible dance. If i did everything my clients wanted me to do, we wouldn't do things that really mattered. So you've got to find this incredible balance of compassion and empathy, while figuring out a way to storytell different ambitions. The other important thing too, gary in any relationship you want to give to the other person, so you always in the value equation like if you you don't want to ask you're like what can i do for them? That's your starting point, which is also super different.

A lot of other people are like i want i want, i want gary's like i don't want. I want to see what is it that i can help them with, and what can i do to add value to them? That's the first question is like what can i help you with and that's that's another flip of the equation on when we're approaching relationships or anything like that, gary isn't thinking about. What's in it, for him he's like how can i add value to that, and let me say something for everybody to hear this is imperative. Giving is a very different word than manipulating, which is why they're different words in the dictionary.

What i realized subconsciously, and probably in the last five or six years, consciously is oh, i'm actually really good at just giving like when i get in the way that maha is referring to, which is, if somebody's 10 times bigger than me, and my starting point is How can i help you, i'm actually completely, not even one percent completely in the mindset of i'm gon na do this and if nothing good happens for me, i have zero, literally zero expectations that this will lead to something good. I'm aware that i mean, i actually think karma is the most practical thing in the world. Why wouldn't, if you do nice things for somebody, why wouldn't that have the potential to be something that returns good to you, but a lot of people and they because a lot of people try to do this? For me, hey gary, i'm gon na do this! For you, but i can taste it. I can smell it from a million miles away that they're not trying to give me anything they're trying to give me something i don't want so that they can ask for something in an hour or a week.

Yeah! That's a nice instinct. Yes, it is okay, so we've got 13 minutes left. I wan na ask um. I mean i'm happy to continue if you have the time, but we've got 30 minutes left um.

So i'm going to ask you a question that was asked by a student and then i want to go back to some questions and come back to if we have time. So it's a bit of a long question, but it's a favorite, hey gary i've been following you for a year now and you literally changed my life with your amazing advice and content. My question is: how do you handle extremely difficult times? Sometimes life goes really rough. On you and you just feel helpless, lonely weak.

How do you do? How do you, as garyvee, preserve through such hard times? Thank you so much and much love for you, man, the ed, a student kenzie. Thank you, um. I'm a very funny person i. If this cup had one drop in it, i would be excited, whereas i always said to my dad dad.

This cup could be completely full and i could take one drop and you would feel that it's empty and it's because my dad came from a very pessimistic point of view in a lot of business situations. Early on in my career - and i was fascinated by it because you know i was raised by more or less my mom, because my dad worked all the time and she i have her dna and then i was raised by her. So it became my framework. What i always do when life comes at me hard is, i always think about everything that could be worse.

I i just do i go to very extreme scenarios. I've said this a lot. Sometimes people get upset when i say this, but it's my truth. I go into children being sick.

I go into parents dying, i go into me dying. I just go into very dark places, perspective pigeon. You know, i really believe in that ma. Like you know, i really i don't know how not to because it feels very practical.

Okay, this horrible thing is happening right. I mean some of the most extreme things you know, like somebody hit me up and said, um they've been listening to me for a long time and they had a very tragic event. They had one of their parents die in a car accident. I mean you're, talking top tragic events and they it really choked me up.

The email said that um that this was earth-shattering shattering to their life. However, you know, after the initial shock and devastation, they started practicing a little bit of what i talk about and they basically started saying which was true: oh my god, my other parent could have been in the car. Oh, my god, my two other siblings could have been in the car as well and and - and i genuinely believe for many of us - maybe not for all of us - but for me it's always that it could have been worse. It can be worse and when you believe that, because it's true almost always all of a sudden you're grateful for what you have versus devastated for what you don't have, which, if you notice, i go into a very extreme family scenarios, which is why, in business i Laughed at the idea of issues you know, and i i could be disappointed.

You know yeah yesterday exactly you know, that's a long relationship to that. But you know five minute walk coffee back to work. You know, like you know, like you know, you just have to put things in perspective, otherwise otherwise you're very confused about what life's about and so professionally. I struggle with getting really depressed or there's there's angst, there's even anger, there's quick moments, but i can't recall the last time i was in a 48-hour funk over anything professionally.

It just won't happen. It just won't happen interesting. So it's perspective, you're right. Let me ask you a little bit about um your impressions of the middle east, the region.

I know you've been to dubai twice with maha. What was that like um? You know it's funny, one of the things that i always think about when i'm in the middle east is uh, how real the uh entrepreneurial spirit is. I i have a very weird perspective on american entrepreneurship. I think it's in a mature state right.

I think it's a country that has had the great luxury of entrepreneurship for a very, very, very long time and i feel like it's um because of that in a lot of ways. People take it for granted and i feel like a lot of reasons that immigrants tend to do extremely well in america. Is that americans that are in multi-generational situations take the game for granted, and so as soon as you started, asking the question and then once i understood what you're asking immediately the first thing, i thought what i actually said to myself: was they have fire in their Eyes, that's actually what i said and then i'm just giving you the cleaned up version or the specific version. I've i've i've been very um.

I've enjoyed the spirit of the individuals in the region on their sheer ambition, because i think what happens again what america is such a large market. You know when you go to other parts of the world and you're an american accomplished. Businessman 97 of the people say to me, but gary you don't get it. Sweden is small, but gary you don't get it.

You know we're cash and carry in this region, but gary you don't get it there's only 10 million people and what that means is for very ambitious entrepreneurs. It's a chip on a shoulder. My place is not big, so i can't build anything too too big, and i actually think that that's not true, i remind people that spotify was created in sweden. I remind people, you know that soundcloud was in germany.

I remind people i mean you think about the huge companies in the region, moon, many other. I can go on and on so i think that um, the fire uh and just the other thing that i you know just really thought about is uh. I really like the community, so i'm i was born in the soviet union right, so i come from a very hardcore eastern european kind of environment. I think that there is a family friendship dna that i'm very fond of in a lot of parts of the world and i think the middle east in general, obviously there's a million different subtleties within the middle east.

But the other thing that comes to mind is um is no question: the the family environment. He nailed it number two sorry just when we were in dubai, gary in the car was like. This is a yes culture yeah. You know that people want to do different things.

People want to try things. People have that when he said that entrepreneurial spirit - it's like yes, yeah, yes, and let's do things so i just want. I just remember that so hopefully we'll see um we'll see gary in egypt we'll talk about the travel plans for q4 right, so uh, hopefully he'll do the next visit in the middle east in cairo and hopefully we'll be able to connect him. With i mean we didn't even come close to 10 of the questions that were sent to you.

Well, let's, let's, let's do we got five more minutes? Let's do rapid fire i'll, be very tight. Go okay. How far should i take it when you say, do not care about what other people say or think to a place that you couldn't imagine what? What what literally blocking out everything else, the only vulnerability to that is using it as a band-aid to be delusional and unkind. As long as you are not delusional and unkind, the answer is, you should listen to nobody, oh interesting.

What is the only thing i shouldn't come: uh! No forget it if i'm starting in my online marketing agency, what is the best thing to focus on to grow my agency to actually have a skill to actually have a skill and then scale off of that skill, whether that's search, whether that's pre-roll youtube, whether it's Video, whether that's copy like too many people, just want to start an online agency for the sake of starting an online agency. What are you actually good at, which brings me to a very important question? How do you jump to entrepreneurship when you don't have a pressing idea or any any innovation or anything to pursue? You just want to start a business. You don't i want to be. I want to be a professional football player.

You don't just jump into it, because you want you, you will now. If you want to have an experience, you want to just learn and taste fine, but do not do not expect to be successful when you do not have a plan, an innovation or an understanding like you know like why? Okay, what is your take on marketing? A local brand like music or food, etc, that is culturally specific in an appealing and in in in an exotic way to an international audience um. I would probably use tick tock when, when i hear that question you need to build awareness, because it's something people don't know and the only place. I know that there's huge virality without you having a big base right now is tick-tock, and so i would go tick-tock uh when i let me just that's distribution as far as content be authentic to the content.

Let the content find its audience. That's what tick-tock's very good at i'm, i'm gon na be selfish and ask a personal question and then go back to the people's questions. Um jets after you buy them. What do you plan to do with your life after i buy them? Yeah win a super bowl.

I like that, okay, so um, how can i start investment in a correct way? Um investments require actual knowledge. You know right now we're living through. Just like we lived through the greatest year of fake entrepreneurs we're living through the early stages of fake investors. There's people just buying things on cryptocurrency stocks, you know reddit, which is amazing.

I love that people are learning about this, because making money on your money is a very healthy, very smart strategy. The problem is it's being treated as cool not treated as thoughtful, and i think people need to do more homework. I've never put money into something. I don't fully understand.

That's a very good answer. As all your other answers. Okay, gary always does at least 50 hours of homework like you got ta study like don't be investing in something you don't understand, 100 and start from the bottom. I mean literally as of december january of this year.

I'm watching youtube videos of what is an nfp going through my own journey. You know for me, what has always worked is i understand the human psychology stronger than a lot of people which allows me to make assumptions, but you have got to get a basis of knowledge. First, okay, so not really hire the experts get to know it yourself. Everybody learns differently, i think a lot of times.

People pay experts as a fake way to make themselves feel good. Okay, um. This is for um school, kids, okay, they wanted um advice on self-realization and um. Finding passion, kids lose um joy in working on something very quickly.

I mean there was this really complicated question from a student in school who kept asking about? What do i do? How do i not lose interest, and how do i find my passion and how do i stay interested by being patient? I the reason i'm obsessed with patients is, i was incredibly not interested in school. I was a terrible student. You know. I just knew that by the time i was 18 or 22.

I would be done with it and that i would have 80 more years of my life too many kids at 14, 15, 16, 17 become so impatient because they have all these other interests. I keep telling them enjoy your vacation, because, if you're, really an entrepreneur or somebody that's ambitious, your school is your last vacation youtube bachelor. What's up it's garyvee! First of all, thank you so much. I hope, you're doing super well during these times uh.

I also want to ask you please subscribe, because my commitment and exploration of youtube is about to explode stories, polls, more content, more engagement, more surprise and delight. This is the time to subscribe. I hope you consider it, and i hope i see you soon. You.

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