If you're here and you want something to happen the fastest and most significant way to grow a business in 2023 and 24 besides the operational part to grow a business, it's called social media. I I Don't know if you heard it's free, everyone's always mad at it. The thing is free attention is the number one asset. Thank you thank you thank you.

That's some real love. San Diego I appreciate you how you doing all right Let's get into it so much to talk about. um when when I think about talks on the way to them I try to think about like what today as I'm sure actually by by some noise how many of you consume some of my content. So you can imagine the thing I think a lot about when I speak is if I'm putting out so much and I'm putting it out every day, what can I actually bring in value? That might be a little bit different and so it's why I really love Q&A But what is also interesting about what I do for a living is like the sign said earlier I think a lot about day trading attention because I think when I look at a room like this, the reality is is that no matter what you do in here, whether that's B2B B Toc If you're an entrepreneur, if you're an employee Fitness industry, wine, industry, sneakers.

it really is not any difference to me because the reality is if I talk about attention, it is relevant to everyone in here including people that are running for local office, for people that are trying to raise money for their favorite charity for people that are trying to impact their school. The thing that I've been obsessed with since I was selling lemonade at seven years old and on a stage like this maybe 10 years ago I realized man I don't even really remember pouring the lemonade and I had an epiphany that when I had lemonade stands, my friends would hold down the lemonade stand and I would walk around the streets of New Jersey and try to figure out where to put my signs. I've been chasing attention my whole life and so baseball cards went well for me because I gave thought to how my table looked at the show. My dad's liquor store was real easy for me.

I would watch people walk in the store and I would pay attention to how they would move and I changed the way our setup was and I made sure the stuff we wanted to sell was in front of them instead of somewhere they couldn't find. As you can imagine, when I launched Wine Library.com a website. It's crazy the fact that I launched Wine Library.com in 199. How many people here were not born in 1997? Make Some Noise Getting old.

Getting old up here. The fact that I launched a website in 1997 actually I'm writing a new book called Day Trading Attention that will come out next year and on the flight here for 5 hours. I we were editing it and there was something about YouTube we were talking about YouTube in it and I made a reference in there of when I started and in the reference it said that I started Wine Library TV Five months after YouTube came out and I thought that was too soon. so we looked it up and it was actually wrong.

but the other direction Youtube came out I think December 15 2005 I launched Wine Library TV February 21st 2006 And it's probably the thing that what I'm setting up here for you is it's kind of scary how big the opportunity is for everybody in this room regardless of where you're at. If you actually make a commitment to what I now recognize is the commitment that I've made my whole life and very aggressively for the last 20 years. which is if you actually understand where people's attention is and then you actually figure out how to storytelling those platforms whether in the written word, in video or in audio. And most of all which I think up most people, you stay patient and try to actually bring value, not extract value.

When you know it takes me two seconds when I go to the airport, somebody rolls up. they're like Gary ve I'm not growing like it takes me 100th of a second to know why. Because they're only about themselves, They care about how many followers they get. They care about how many likes they get.

They care about how many things they sell. There's just like, literally no relationship with the audience. I Know I Get to stand up here I Know I get this love for you. It matters to me to provide value I'm not scared to be a businessman I got sneakers to sell and books to sell and wine to sell and be friends to like I'm not scared.

but I don't understand how people don't understand what's happening The Whole World's competing now. Every single person's competing with every single person. every business. And how are you going to break through? You're not going to break through by so showing the same a billion people are posting a flexy watch.

That shit's not going to break through. I I Think that most of us in general need to understand the the, the science behind the game and the game is attention on this device. There's eight or nine platforms that dominate this thing And the question to me that I always think about when I look around the by the way, that lime sweatshirt you're wearing is Fire fire. Can we clap it up for can you stand up? It's nice.

Atten listen caught my eye. Look listen, it's the same for the last 20 years. Like marketing is how you grow a business, right? Obviously the product has to be good, but you have to get out there and create demand for your business right? You could do it through Word of Mouth You could be great at what you do and people talk about that's great. But if you want to accelerate and I have no idea I mean there's no reason anyone's in this Auditorium right now you know on this Thursday unless they're trying to grow.

So I'm just defaulting into thinking everybody here has ambition and hunger and trying to do so I Know everyone here is trying to do something. What I'm always confused by is why we keep looking for some sort of shortcut. My famous my favorite entrepreneurs are: Fitness Entrepreneurs Fitness Entrepreneurs make me laugh so much because unless they cheat which I know a lot of people do, they know the way to do it is the discipline. Like you got to do the exercise properly.

You've got to do it every day or often and you've got to eat properly like people know how to get into better shape. There's no secret I mean there's no benic or whatever the that is now, but you know, like the right way to do. It is pretty simple with the gym and with your fork and spoon but it's hard to do. but Fitness entrepreneurs are always like rolling up.

they're like yo but yeah but how how do I do it fast and I'm like you spend your day every day teaching people that there is no fast physically but you're looking for fast business-wise The reason I pound patients and I know I watch the data I Know how many of you are tired and have no interest in me telling you it takes time I Get why everybody wants it fast. Everybody wants it fast because the world's insecure. Everybody wants to win fast because they want to show everybody else that they won I Understand you want to prove it to the girl that didn't with you in high school. I Get that you want to prove it to your dad who never said you had it I Understand all this all this business stuff.

it's all this. It's always this I Understand fake it to you, make it I understand I'm watching it all. it's all I do all I do for life is watch people Nothing confused me about people I understand you all I Get it. The problem is, it's the same every time.

For example, the thing that breaks my heart is that people actually think money makes you happy I Know what people say when they don't have it. they're like cool. Give it to me and I'll figure it out I Get it. How many people here have rich friends? Make Some noise of the people that just made noise.

How many you have rich friends that you know right now are super up super unhappy. Drugs, alcohol, all sorts of Make some noise that all of them. all of them. You're right bro bro.

Honestly, on some real one of the advantages of growing up in the dirt and coming up a certain way is you have lots of friends and a lot of family that you know live not in a millionaire lifestyle and you watch I Wish some of my millionaire friends could have the lifestyle of some of my high school friends that are deeply happy. but don't make the same level of paper. Money doesn't make you happier. Money exposes you, money and fame exposed.

They don't change. He changed, He didn't change, You didn't know him. Now you know him, You understand. So that's a whole separate thing, but on this business front I'll give you you know, Maybe I had it right with my first book, my first book subtitle of crush.

it was cashing in on your passion. Maybe what was clear to me in my early 30s has become again very clear to me as I get closer to 50 I Don't know how you can work hard enough to beat your comp competition if you don't like the thing you're doing I Watch every day for the last 20 years people chase whatever current Trend they think they can make money in real estate every eight years. Crypto cannabis like social media influencer like I've watched people's profile on Twitter over the last 15 years. change nine times of what expert they are.

You can't win if you don't like it because somebody else likes it and they're going to outwork you. you can't. It's not sustainable unless you love the process. It's too hard to be an entrepreneur I Know it got cool cuz I'm 47 I Remember when it wasn't cool I'm a direct beneficiary of it becoming cool.

This is like a different. This is not the life I expected. Businessmen were just behind the scenes and you lived. and you built businesses I Understand understand that it's pop culture now I understand that people aspire to it.

But if I could wish anything for everybody in this room as I look corner to corner besides health I would wish you self-awareness There's a lot of people sitting in here wanting or are delusional that they're a great entrepreneur and what they really are is a great number two and a great number three. The number four at Facebook and Tesla made a lot more money than 99.9% of the number ones that started companies. Thanks Mom Self-awareness Everybody's so focused on what they wish they could be that they're not paying attention to who they are. So I thank you I Seriously, let me tell you why I understand all my Spiel to be true because I've been putting out and millions of other people have been putting out the direct black and white content to make it work.

There's unlimited content on how to build a business. What the right tactics are, how to use Shopify How to use WordPress How to use eBay How to use Tik Tok There's unlimited content The reason I started to overtime evolve into like I Got to figure this out because why hasn't everyone figured it out? You start realizing it has nothing to do with the tactics. literally. Literally, there's nothing from a knowledge standpoint when it comes to business that isn't available for free.

I Don't know if you've heard about Google or chat GPT or YouTube Use those three free products and you can get the direct answer. I Don't know what the you're doing with your notebooks out here. There's nothing to write down. It's all here.

It's not the tactics, right? Look, there's a lot to the tactics. Let me segue to the tactics for a second. Do I believe and I look at. like a lot of times when I come out to a talk I'll look on social to see who's here, what you're talking about.

Then I'll look at the profiles, try to get a sense of the feel. Do I believe that most people here don't understand the science of social media? The answer is yes. Do I believe when I look at all of the accounts I looked at over the last couple days hyped for this event or here Or what have you that when I I look at your profile I'm like oh, they don't understand that the thumbnail has no shot or oh, they're one of those people that think on Instagram you just it's all about the picture of the video and they put no effort into the copy which is why it's not happening for them. Do do I look at Tik Tok and be like oh, they just posted their Instagram reel on Tic Tac or vice versa.

That's why they don't get it. Do I think that there's extraordinary science behind the art I Do the thumbnail matters? The first three seconds matter. The style matters if you if you're still doing what you did for like how many people here are stagnant in their growth on Instagram and don't be full of raise your hand because I want everybody to see this actually stand up. Please on some real what's a question, are you stagnant on your growth on Instagram put on the lights no no no no this is good By the way, I'm standing I'm standing so thank you everybody I Wanted everybody to visualize it.

Actually, if you can keep those lights on, that'd be epic because the dark freaks me out. It really it doesn't I Just like seeing the faces for reaction. Listen to me. the reason everybody stood up is all that social media is is supply and demand.

My favorite thing is like Gary you need to help me I've been Shadow banned. No, you haven't Don you just suck. Nobody here is Shadow banned. You're not Shadow banned.

You just haven't changed up your game in the last three years and there's more people posting on the platform than ever and some of the attention is now fully just on. Tik Tok It's called supply and Demand. You remember when I was yelling and going crazy 5 years ago telling you, get on Tik Tok and you're like nah that that's girls that dance that are 14 you up This game is simple but hard just like getting into better shape. There are core platforms that have the world's attention.

Almost everybody here does not post three times a day on. LinkedIn Everybody here should post three times a day on. LinkedIn I Don't care if you sell t-shirts I Don't care if you sell peach ice cream LinkedIn is not what it was when we all came out the gate. It's no longer a recruiting tool.

It is a social network that has crazy organic reach that has very high value customers that are usually at work when they're in it. so they're paying attention even more because they don't want to work. And so you know I can go around the world and speak and I can put out the content. But when I was thinking about this I'm like look, I can go into the tactics you know I can tell you right now that on Instagram if you post an image first and a second Carousel video instead of just a reals video like we've all been doing, it will do better.

There you go. Go good, Go write that down on your Pad But what I know is that when you do it seven times or 12 times and it doesn't go cuz the quality of the content wasn't good enough that you stop and so I guess for me at this point I'm just trying to figure out what are people worried about what's stopping people and it's all the same cliche. Some people don't like the way they look on camera, but you don't like the way you look on camera because for some reason you've decided to value a strangers comment on you coming from their own hurt instead of the way you feel about your own self. Like the thought of how many people here don't want someone from their high school or college, or a neighbor or coworker.

or even worse, The thing that kills me that you literally are not building your future because you're worried about Johnny pants 67 coming on your account and on you do you understand how sad of a life it is to spend your time at night laying in your bed, going around your feed, seeing someone's bright light and you're in such a bad place that you want to say you suck or you're wrong or you, you shouldn't be feeling bad for yourself. You need to feel bad for these people. We need more empathy Like this is someone who's hurt anyone. I The thought of spending a second of my time to hurt someone else's feelings is insane to me.

Beautiful. So I'm just going to, you know I'm trying to systematically think about like why won't you post 33 Like if you're here and you want something to happen the fastest and most significant way to grow a business in 2023 and 24 Besides the operational part, besides the fact that it has to be able to operate to grow a business, it's called social Media I I Don't know if you heard it's free, everyone's always mad at at it. The thing is free I built my Daddy's Liquor Store Not with social media I Built it with newspaper ads cost money television commercials that were local. We didn't have that kind of money that cost money Billboards Those took my money Google AdWords Killed for me but it was still money.

This shit's free and I don't know if you paid mention what happened the last two years in. Social It changed Social for the first 10 years was based on the social graph. Now it's based on the interest graph. Let me explain.

the first 10 12 years of Social Media was more like email marketing. You amassed people to follow you. you post and a percentage of them opened right. They saw it.

Now the algorithms are taking over and it's around interest. There are people in this room who've never been on. Tik Tok Who can leave this conference and say it? I'll F Gary Got me? I'll do it. Let me go.

And their first post with zero followers can get 8,000 20,000, 100,000 A million views. That's real. That happens every day. That's insane.

Not only is it free, it actually is being seen. Unlike all my clients who continue to buy TV commercials who here seen a TV commercial ever. Besides the Super Bowl we we don't even watch regular TV and cable TV anymore. Every one of you have four subscri.

You complain about money, but you have six subscriptions to every streaming service you haven't been on. HBO Max in a 100 Years YouTube social streaming. We don't even watch those things. So look, there's such an outrageous level of opportunity right now.

And it's a game of the Hales and Have Nots meaning either you see it AKA Either you decide the world sucks and everything's hard and there's a lot going on I Get it or you decide Not like sometimes when someone's complaining and as my homie I give them my phone and I'm like look at my stream My Stream is like kittens kissing each other like the sun coming out. My stream's positive as because I protect my sanity. No, you're going to be upset if you only consume negativity. No, you're going to be upset if the core people in your life spend 100% of their time complaining and it's hard.

Almost all of us have either a negative mom or dad that's already hard and that shit's hard. But I Remind my friends: I'm like you're 40. You're going to still complain and blame Mommy and Daddy for everything instead of buying a Maserati Go get therapy Dick and I get Not everybody can afford therapy but exercise free meditation apps like just genuinely putting positivity in your ears instead of negativity. The number one thing the world lost was accountability.

We've gotten so good at telling everybody else in the world what they should be doing. We we love pointing fingers right? How about thumbs? Where the have thumbs gone? Let me give you the biggest indication that you're a loser entrepreneur. G To give it to you right now, you blame the current president for your I love that I'm an entrepreneur I'm an entrepreneur and then you're blaming the president. You suck as if I've made plenty of money as an entrepreneur with Republicans and plenty with Democrats Give me an independent and I'll Crush I Don't give a That's right People make me laugh, People talk real.

but then we just aren't accountable. Here's another one. How many people have more than 10 employees Raise your hands Good. Let me tell you, the funniest thing about running a company.

100% of the that's wrong is your fault. It's crazy I Sat like I sit with my homies I read all the DMS I'm in it. You guys know you get responses sometimes like I'm in it Gary you don't get it. My CFO sucks I'm like no, you don't get it.

Fire him. You hired him. Every single thing in your business that is broken is 100% your fault. You don't like the taxes in California Move to Texas We found we found the Texas dude.

Like people, people are just so interesting. We're just such. We're in a really challenging spot. You know who? I blame eighth place trophies.

Can somebody ask AI who the invented that cuz I want to kick them in the dick. Eighth place trophies Everything up. We taught kids that losing was bad. We need to teach kids that losing is good.

This is the mistake because what happens is. listen I have 2,000 employees now at Vaynerx globally and a lot of them are under 28 about 10 seven years ago before this even became obvious and kind of talked about. even before the whole like. And by the way, enough of bashing Gen Z The people that bash Gen Z made them bash yourself like you're mad at your TW like I get all these conversations like Gary my son he's a real messy I'm like H old 25 I'm like we start talking because I this is interesting to me and I care and I want to help and then you find out that their parents paying for their 25y olds life I'm like you want and they're complaining that their kids not on like like It's impossible.

It's impossible to be hungry when you're fed you know and listen. everyone's got different circumstances I'm talking General and everybody's got their own I Get that. But the Eth place trophy thing killed us. We made people scared I don't know if you're paying attention.

that's all that's going on here in business and life. It's just one game of fear versus love and fears got a lot of momentum. How many people here are happy? make noise I Definitely do not believe that by the way, that was some loud ass like not everyone's happy but I'll take it. so let me given that everyone here is happy I don't know why the you're here then but are you thank you I love you back for that.

But listen if you're happy. one thing I' one thing, if you're following of what I'm doing and I think this is an issue and I'd like to actually challenge it especially because I feel the Vib and I'm happy. So many people are happy. If you're happy you have a responsibility.

What's happening is negativity is so loud and so on. The offense and happiness is content. Happiness is chilling with their eight friends and staying away from it. The reason I'm so in and willing to deal with the ridicule and the judgment and all the that comes along with being out there like that is because I feel like I have a sense of responsibility.

My mom really built me like that and I feel guilt even sometimes, let alone gratitude. And that's why I take on the responsibility to put out the I do. If there's that many people in this room that are so happy, please change up your content a little bit and add a post about happiness, how to find it, how you found it, how you see other things start posted, more happy you into that. seriously cuz cuz since this whole room's happy we're getting drained, the out out we're drowned out and so we.

We really really like if it's so good to contribute to society and there's so many ways people have different resources. Some people use money and they do that. That's amazing. Some people do it through service, but like if you're happy, start showing more people that you could be successful and happy.

There's so much that me up like nice guys finish last. Do you know how up that is? That's another person we need to find who invented that we taught an entire generation multiple Generations that you can't be successful and nice. Do you know how crazy that is? That's insane. The Negativity: Because it goes 10 times more.

They want a paent. It's horrible I'm not worried about other people I'm not talking about other people I Understand what people are doing I Focus on you what everyone else is doing I know what everyone's doing I'm asking y'all what are you doing? What do you want to do To me? It's Re. If you want to grow, there is a incredible, obvious historical framework to this. The only way you can grow is you have to have energy.

If for example, if you spend one minute of energy on envy and jealousy of someone who's winning in your space, you're losing when I See other people in my space win I'm happy for them. The world is abundant. They're not my friends. Nobody's taking yours.

No one. Yeah, you might lose a deal to someone. Somebody else might sell a shirt to someone You sell shirts. Listen to me.

no one is taking yours. You're taking yours I will cuz there's plenty in the back. You're taking yours. This goes back to accountability.

You want to grow It's Just Energy Go into your cocoon, make it flowery and sunshiny and happy. Start limiting your negativity. Listen I Have a family. Listen.

My family is from the USSR The majority of my family is fairly negative and and that's because that was the world we lived in. we lived in a 70-year jail. It was a bad place. People: No, of course Russians drink Vodka to the face it was horrible.

All my f most of my family died before I met them I very small family. it was up I started looking at Family Photos when I was a kid at like 13 I finally realized like we didn't have that many pictures but we look, you know, family gathers I was like wait a minute there's not one person smiling in any of these pictures. it was that up. I Got real lucky because out of that whole crew, the most important one was the reverse my mind.

pure positivity but not the eighth place trophy. When I got out of line, she punched me in the face. That's another thing. I Think kids should be fighting again when I think about what, you know why everyone's so nasty to each other on social media because not enough people have been punched in the Mount the N cuz I promise you I don't talk mainly because of the neighborhoods I grew up in and if you went too far you got a punch in the face.

These eth Place trophies These C everyone's a zoo animal. we're over coddling. Of course people have anxiety by the time they go to the real world. they're like What's this my friends? That's us.

Maybe not an everything, but all of us have a vulnerability too. I had a real re real relevation about 5 seven years ago. Everything that's been bad in my life personal and professional was because I didn't have cander I wasn't able Gary ve on stage What? I just did. That's cander I can talk cander when I'm talking wide I can talk about parenting when I'm wide I would never talk to any of you one-on-one about parenting.

That's you and your family. you know your Dynamics I'm talking generalities up here and the more I liked you the more it was unlikely for me to give you cander. I didn't care about the money enough so it wasn't about like me paying someone who sucked right? and it me up was a huge gash. It was in a world where I think I got very fortunate with DNA and Circumstance it was my kryptonite and I work on it and I'm a four right now and it's made a huge impact on my business the last three years and my personal life.

and I'm a four and most things I'm at eight, nine or 10 for real if I'm scoring my own homework, you know and I'm a four. but going from one to four has Chang CH my life. and for a lot of you it is patience. But that patience is grounded in insecurity.

You need to figure out who you're trying to impress, who you understand. Once you understand who you're trying to impress, your life will change. And the problem is, for half of us, we're trying to impress someone who isn't emotionally strong enough to give us the flowers we're looking for. You know, and a lot of us have been conditioned.

I've been conditioned as the oldest son of an immigrant family whose dad worked every minute. that I got to take care of everything, but that leads to resentment. Everything's always on my back so I've had to work on that. Nobody's got it great or everyone has it great.

730 million people on Earth do not have access to clean water I'm on the board of Charity water we build Wells in Africa in parts of India It's insane to me. 730 million people almost 10% of the humans on this Earth cannot get to a glass of clean water in 24 hours and and it's 2023 and you're complaining. Get your Wi-Fi is a little slow today. you know, like what are we doing? Accountability.

Somebody saw me the other day in the off in the airport with like a Starbucks C like an expensive coffee and they were razing me because I used to put out a lot of content of like don't buy $7 coffees but he misheard it. Then I I broke it down. We had a nice little chat. he's like Gary V what the and I was like bro no no no remember the videos I said if you complain about not having money I don't complain about not having money I'm like if you complain about not having money and you're buying $7 coffees, you're up.

If you complain about not having money and you're taking Uber four times a day, you're up. If you complain about not having money and you got an $800 belt, that's a problem. But I know why people do that. It's their little moments of Joy I Get it right.

it's how they want to project I get it. But this goes back to the biggest theme that I hope you didn't gloss over. If I could get all of you to leave this and ask yourself who are you trying to impress I got real lucky I just want wanted to impress my mom and the only thing she thought was cool is if you were nice so I got real lucky I know not everyone has that but I promise you you need to figure that out because most of you are making almost every decision based on that and the second you decode that and break that down and reframe it, it will change your life and then you can worry about the free tactics you can find in the internet to build your business. You don't need to buy any course or go anywhere you don't need.

None of that you need this and the free on the internet but this is the problem. Thank you.