People are more motivated by love than they are fear. But most of the world sells fear, so stop selling fear to yourself. You're not going to work harder cuz you're saying you're a piece of fear and negativity is a shortterm motivator. Love and compassion is a forever game.

Attention is the number one asset. Look I got incredibly fortunate I I Think I have a world-class mother who you know I was born in the Soviet Union that was a very challenging place to live. My mom, unlike most the people from that part of the world, was an optimist. People really struggled in that Society from 1917 to the time it fell in 1989.

and I don't have to tell this audience Russia is not the easiest place to live even right now. Um, and so I'm incredibly grateful because I think a lot of us in this audience to succeed with emotional intelligence. We either have to get very fortunate and get the luck of the draw of DNA and parenting or we have to put in a lot of work in meditation, therapy, and living life. And so for me I You know a lot of times people say a lot of people that live the life that I lived which is worked a lot and worked really hard and worked hard.

Smart and people throw lucky at them right? They got lucky and a lot of people that in the audience and their parents and me that have put in the work you get triggered right. You're like man. I work so hard. this isn't luck, you, you're not working or you know you don't get it.

but I I will say I got lucky when we talk about emotional intelligence I do I did get great DNA I have two siblings who have different DNA than I do and not that mine's better or worse than theirs, it's just that I'm a default Optimist and I believe that if you're a default Optimist especially if you're built like me where you're also grounded in reality and it's not delusion that if you're a practical Optimist you're halfway home and then I've also had the luxury of like liking people spending a lot of time with people managing people since I was like 14 15. you know when I was 16 I was the son of the guy who owned the liquor store and so by de facto I was managing people at 16 and so here I am 31 years later, you know I have an organization with 2,000 employees I have a very public Persona and I interact with people at scale and you know life has become very obvious to me. I believe that plenty of people can make money and plenty of people are not good at it, but there's really no correlation when it comes to joy and happiness and being content to how much money one makes. and I love entrepreneurship and I love being a businessman and I love being a competitor and I love grinding and competing and tenacity and determination.

but I like being happier than all those things and uh, you know I guess from my standpoint I was self-aware at a young age I knew myself I was willing to be ridiculed cuz I had self-confidence and for everybody in the audience what I mean by ridiculed is I'm 47 So when you were getting D's and Fs in school in the 80s and '90s you were going to be a garbage man. You weren't going to be anything. It's not like it's not the world we live in now where entrepreneurship is a viable if not over Rock starred capacity and and occupation. When I was growing up, the word barely had any traction and so I got used to losing early on.

I was able to build very thick skin I'm empathetic to judgment instead of crippled by it I think it's powerful and you honestly I've become incredibly motivated over the last decade to talk about these things and you know, for the people in the audience that are aware of my content: I speak a lot about emotional stuff in the framework of marketing and tactics and business and I'm proud of it because I think it helps people and that feels good. When you think about, you know everything that you've been able to accomplish in your life that we have. a lot of entrepreneurs in the audience. a lot of people working on their own businesses and they often look to you and they look to people to think about what they want to do and kind of what that success will be like in the end.

So you lose sight of the process. How important do you think the process is? And do you think the current generation of entrepreneurs are a little too focused on the money that's going to come down the line? Yeah I mean you obviously have a good sense of like the things that are running through my mind. you know I'm obsessed with the process I I genuinely love entrepreneurship so much that I weirdly like to lose and I like to lose because I respect the game more than the stuff that the game can buy for me. So yeah, do I think But but you know it's interesting when you ask like the thing that I hear there is I think entrepreneurship became cool and I'm the beneficiary of that.

But I think 20 years ago a lot of the people in the audience would have not been entrepreneurs but I would have been and I don't say that as a Raz or a dig to the audience. I Just think that what I really want for everyone in the audience is not to be an entrepreneur and I do have fear that some of the people in the audience are doing the entrepreneur thing cuz it's cool cuz it looks good on paper. It's cool to say you are and why I fear that is not because they won't be successful though. that stinks and it's stinks to lose.

It's that if you're not an entrepreneur, like really, actually like a pure bread, losing in front of your family relatives will probably be scary because really, one of the telltale signs of a true entrepreneur is their incredible capacity to fail at least in the micro. And so you know I think I do think you know? look I mean one of the biggest reasons I Never show, you know I I Fly private. Sometimes my time's valuable, but the reason I like desper desperately never want to show. that is because I don't understand the glamorization of jewelry or cars or flights because I don't think that that is the healthy part of the game I actually think when entrepreneurs post that stuff I don't think that's entrepre that that's aspirational I Really don't I Actually think if you look carefully, it's making a lot of people in this audience and in the world feel bad about themselves.

right? They see all these people like they fomo, They it triggers their insecurity and so I do worry about you know, as such a capitalist I do worry about the over capitalization of the content, but that's always been the case long before social media people bought Mercedes and Chanel bags and moved to 90210 just for the validation. There are people in the world you know this who send their kids to certain schools for their own selfworth. and I I worry about that I Don't like that I think you should be doing things for yourself and your family out of the process. not the stuff because I think you'll be happier mentally and you won't burn out.

and I think that's important I I think a big theme of what you were just describing is when we live our lives trying to prove something to others or show that we're feeling a certain way or we're living this life so that other people think we're successful and we did it. And I think a lot of people in this room would be afraid of posting that video that their friends might make fun of or their aunts might think is silly and they should get a quote. Real job. So how have you kind of blocked out the noise of other people's opinions when you fail or you lose? Because I think a lot of people myself included you know need that advice I got fortunate I um I lived in a cocoon of an immigrant family where like having a roof over your head and having clothes was like and food was like a huge win.

Both of my parents did not care about other people's opinions, they didn't flash, they didn't need to go buy something expensive so that became a framework I Also got very lucky that I was so loved and my happy my house was so happy. because of my mom when we were super poor when we came to America So I learned at a very young age that money and stuff did not bring happiness. so I never I I was built for it I was trained for it and then I practiced it. you know I think in high school instead of going to the cool party on a Friday night I decided to do a baseball card show and sell cards because I was an entrepreneur I love the process more than you know playing spin the bottle though that was cool and I wanted to do that at 15.

I really just wanted to be an entrepreneur and so I've always I've always had a cocoon and it just has. Cons: continued to accelerate and this is why I talk a lot about this I It's crazy when you realize the prettiest girls in your high school the richest guys in the world right now, how insecure they are, right? how like how much everything they do is to impress others that they don't even know. Um, and I get it like your parent. You know your dad never loved you the the way you want it and you want to stick it to them or the girl broke your heart and you want to make a ton of money to prove to her.

you know like I get it and you don't Why? I get it and you'll laugh given our connection I actually understand the rest of the world predominantly through the lens of being a football fan and I mean this the only place I envy like I genuinely hate New England Patriot fans and I mean that and I know like I heard the laughs and I appreciate it. but I'm but I'm I'm I'm going to be incredibly transparent and like give you an Insight So much of what makes me understand the balanced world is my complete irrational of being a New York Jets fan and knowing what envy and jealousy and I'm hurt so I want you hurt I'm completely inappropriate at football games. You should have seen me yelling at Taylor Swift from the seats last. Have to talk about that as a Swifty I mean like I get it like it's incredibly challenging to be jealous and hurt and not feel in control.

All things I feel is a jet band None of the things I feel in life so I love everyone from a race and gender and religion and income level and part of the world standpoint in real life cuz I'm fulfilled I'm happy I'm at peace. It's simple I don't and I do you know how excited I get when people outperform me in my own industries? Of course I'm competitive and I'd like to win but I don't hate I don't tear down others but in football I do in football I'm and and and because I feel that to the core of my soul. it makes me realize oh my. God I do this in this silly Arena known as the NFL This is how the world is living their lives.

There are people who actually hate hate other people because they see politics differently. that blows my mind or for the people in the room, they hate people that are successful in a business that they're in cuz they're better than them at it I don't I don't want that for anybody here because I only have to be angry for 4 hours every Sunday for four months. a Year everybody else here is doing that 365 days a year for their life and I don't like that. So I think there is a lot there and I feel like where I'd love to take it is.

When we think about those people who it's not just you know their favorite NFL team it's year round. it's the Envy it's the not good enough. the victim mentality. Something you talk a lot about is gratitude.

How you're so rooted in gratitude you so grateful and that gives you that default optimistic lens. But I think all of us here we know right? Three things you're grateful for in the morning. This is what gratitude is. We try but then after 3 days we stop doing it right.

So how do you really live and breathe gratitude every day? And how can we do the same? do you know that I never write down three things I'm grateful for I Don't meditate on it I do nothing like that I just do it every second of my life. Do you know that multiple times a day I will think about things that are challenging that I Hope don't happen. like getting a phone call that someone I Love had a stroke that someone I Love is diagnosed with a disease that someone I Love suddenly died in a car accident because these are real things that happen to real people I Also struggle with complete delusion. Do you understand that everyone in this audience lives a remarkable life in comparison to the 8 billion people on? Earth Do you know that 735 million people on earth? almost 10% do not have access to clean water Clean water like I don't know there's some water like do you like like like the jacket you're wearing the Hat this a $40 hat.

well it's from Express it's not. but but no. But you know what's so amazing about that, right? Like think about this. like the fact that you want a Friday evening afternoon are able to watch this or be in the audience like I don't think people understand and I don't expect people to understand I know I Got lucky in being born in one of the most horrible places in the world I Know I Got lucky by living with eight family members in a studio apartment for multiple years.

I Know I Got lucky that my parents basically didn't buy me toys because that's not what we spent our money on I know that I'm hungry because I wasn't fed I know that I'm not entitled I know but for everyone who's listening, you have to go through the work. On the flip side, I grew up not eating healthy, not being told that that's important, not working out and at 38 years old I changed that and for the last 10 years I put in the work for something that didn't come natural. I also grew up with a mom that's the sweetest but she lacked cander which meant I lacked cander and cander has been disproportionally My Kryptonite in my professional and personal career and that I can go backwards and tell you everything that has not worked for me in the last 25 years and I can tell you immediately that the seed of that not working out was my inability to deliver Cander to somebody which led to resentment on my end or me being sloppy and them not respecting me for my lack of cander. So and I know I've worked on that the last four or five years after a lot of pain, professionally and personally so.

I would argue though I can understand that people in the audience can't do gratitude the way I can that I've worked very hard I know that people have put in the work to work on their, alcoholism, they've put in the work to work on their depression. and I just challenge everybody here to not just say well, it doesn't come natural to me like work on gratitude. And the way you work on gratitude is if writing it down three times in the morning works well, then actually do it every day, not for two weeks January 1st to the 13th and then give up like work is work And and if and if you're unhappy and you've got some money, go go to therapy. And if you don't have money, go start listening to more positivity.

Go take a walk, work on your head like you are accountable. You are capable. Don't blame the president, Don't blame your grandma, Don't blame your mom. Don't blame the mayor.

Blame yourself and don't blame yourself like I suck and and beat yourself up. Have compassion to you that this is my circumstance. but I can fix it and all of this stuff bringing it B to the ground instead of the clouds that I'm in right now. All of this stuff has a direct correlation of you being a good founder and CEO cuz it's hard and the real issue is who you are.

When it's hard is the whole game because your team doesn't need a leader. That is nice when it's good, but then when you lose a big account or something goes bad, you're yelling and screaming and scaring everyone. A real leader is best when it's worse. I Love that.

Recognizing privilege having perspective. yeah also important I Heard some claps. It's amazing. That's why G's the best.

He's straight to the point. But listen I Want to also show compassion I Hate that we've weaponized words Privilege I Promise you, everyone in America is privileged at some level. Like you can look at privilege from a lot of angles. Do you know that I Believe that if you were born into extreme wealth, you're less privileged I I've heard you say this.

Will you expand on it to the audience I Think it's super fascinating? Yes. I Think people have weaponized privilege and I don't want people to feel bad that are sitting in the audience who happen to be fortunate enough that their parents or grandparents have done well like. I Don't view that as privilege I Believe that if you are second or third generation wealthy and you're a purebred entrepreneur, you're in a very curious spot because no one's ever going to give you credit cuz everyone's always going to say mommy and daddy put you on that stinks I Think we we need to stop weaponizing things. stop judging everybody like everybody's got something.

I Promise you, everybody's got something instead of judgment and envy and jealousy. why don't we all lean into compassion, sympathy, and empathy and understand that everybody's got something. The amount of people that come up to me and just assume my life is good cuz I have a blue check mark and some followers and a couple of dollars Get the out of here. So I Love that you're bringing up self-compassion Sometimes with entrepreneurship, there can be this m mentality.

I'm going to push myself I'm going to tell myself I suck to motivate myself to achieve what's the balance. How do you be nice to yourself but also be the best at your craft? Love yourself is a default that everybody should work on every minute there. it should be non-negotiable and then as far as you know, motivating yourself. Look, this goes back to what I touched on earlier.

people. people are more motivated by love than they are fear. But most of the world sells fear, so stop selling fear to yourself. You're not going to work harder because you're saying you're a piece of.

if you're sitting there and I suck, you're not going to I Promise you fear and negativity is a shortterm motivator. Love and compassion is a forever game and you can either believe me or not. But I promise you that you know what I Love You know what? I Love Somebody said something to me the other day and said they said Gary that's toxic positivity and I sat there and I I laughed I said man, the world is so infatuated in pushing negativity, they've created this term just to demonize positive people And I laughed and and we had this discussion. It was a very civil I I you know I actually genuinely enjoy people that don't agree with me meaning because I don't default into thinking I'm right, you want to be really happy, fall in love with the humble side of your life.

No matter how much success you have, it keeps you in check and I enjoy the humble part of myself just as much as I enjoy my competitive conviction side. So we had this nice discussion and we it was really a mental chess game. Very bright person. we were going back and forth and finally I said to this individual I said you know what's funny I said we can have this incredibly interesting conversation for the next 50 years of our life I said but there's one problem and the person said what's that I said I've already won and of course you know that was like the point of like this mental chess we were playing and the person said what do you mean with a smirk trying to see what point I was trying to make I said well life is how you see it.

You've already decided to be a cynic and I've already decided to be an optimist. You've already lost. Absolutely love it Gary just fact fact? no but but to the point right? for the audience. like to like go a little further cuz I know I left it on a little bit of like Simplicity If you decide that the world sucks, the world sucks.

If you decideed, you suck. You suck in the same way that if you decide the world is good, it's good. I wish all of you could see my uh Instagram feed and Tik Tok feed. It's like kittens kissing each other.

It's like sunshine touching your Grandma's Soul It's like like like it's positive and everyone's like the Algorith like the algorithm is exposing you I wish I could take everybody's Instagram explore page and open it right now I could tell you everything about you. Lastly, Gary you mentioned your love of the Jets Would you share the reason that you fell in love with the Jets in the beginning? Oh, you're trying to go there for me. Um, it's a very special story I was an immigrant like I said I moved to Edison New Jersey I was 6 going on 7 I was outside. You know what's the makeup of the crowd? What's the age group? What's the range? We've got a great mix.

we've got. We've got college students. We've got young adults, old adults. We're rocking in here all right, so can can the 40 and older Make Some Noise All right.

So for all these Ogs, you guys know this for the kids in there. First of all, I love you I'm a big proponent of the kids I hate all this jenzy bashing I want to bash the Boomers um but for the 40-year-olds that just made noise the kids in here won't understand. In the80s we went outside and played and so in 1982 right before I started first grade I went outside to play and this is how we played kids in the room. you'd actually go outside and you had no idea what was going to happen.

So I went outside and I looked for kids like literally looked for kids and I and I saw some kids playing football with a Nerf football and I walked over I just started really speaking English even right and these kids took me in as a crew. they're like What's your name and like they were very warm to me which really meant a lot to me. As you can imagine just moving to a new town and they're like you know who do you like in football I was like they're like well we're jet bands you're a jet band which to be honest the more I think about this story if those would just said giant I had four Super Bowls and be's so happy. but anyway Eric Godfrey Robbie turnick that crew.

They're like you're a Jets fan. That was 1982 the Jets had one of their best seasons ever. They got to the game before the Super Bowl I thought I hit I'm like oh this is good and little did I know but nonetheless they all had Jets jerseys and I wanted one and I asked my mom for one and she's like no way Jose like that's not what we do in immigrant life. We don't buy $20 shirts like your whole wardrobe is like $6 from Kmart and so I was sad and wanted one and at night my mom spent the next 3 weeks knitting me a Jets Jersey which is my prize possession I still have it and it has the number five on how many people here consume my content.

Can you make some noise so some of you are probably aware. you see me do this all the time when I take a photo and I do that as a head nod to my mom who's my hero and who's the foundation of everything that I have that is good and it's because she knitted me a jersey and put the number five on it cuz that was my favorite number and that Jersey is the most near and dear thing to my heart. and somewhere around five or six or seven years later when I was 10, 11, 12 I decided that I wanted to buy the New York Jets when I got older and somewhere about 5 to six or seven years later, I realized how important that Jersey was to me and I have this great dream to buy the New York Jets and one day build a stadium and put that jersey in the front so that every single fan has to walk by it and I wanted the plaque to say from not being able to buy a Jersey to owning the whole damn team as a head nod to my mom who is the greatest person that walks Earth today and I think I think the world works on stories right? I'm very I'm I'm very passionate about the reason reason even is a Gary ve is I I want to be looked up to not because I'm trying to close a gap but because my mom created me to not have gaps and I want to close other people's gaps and so I think stories matter and I think a lot of us in the crowd that are fortunate and we feel good I think the people that are unhappy are very loud in the world and I feel like a lot lot of us that are happy like myself. we're not doing a good enough job of being louder and I think positivity needs to be louder and I I challenge the people in the audience who are in a good place to share more positivity on social we I feel like happy people like me tend to be quiet and be with ourselves and keep it in our cocoons.

and I think positivity needs to be more um more sharing I think we need to be louder. We all agree and thank you Gary One of the most special stories I know I've never forgotten it since I heard it and about your mom and actually I want to invite Dave Basco back on stage we have a gift. oh he's here Magic hey Gary How you doing man Dave how are you brother? It's good to see you I For anyone that knows uh Gary Came into my class unannounced in 2015 and gave the best 45-minute talk I have ever heard on entrepreneurship and mindset. it was a master class.

He challenged students in the audience. He's like who's really an entrepreneur who's like really ready to go and like six or seven people raise their hand he goes I think you should walk out right now I think you should drop out of college, walk out and I was just cheering I wanted someone so badly to just get up and leave and just like Gary ve told me but since then Gary you uh you shown up for us and when when I invited you there was no hesitation and he wrote back. we show up for our people and that is something that I will never forgive. we um we had so can't thank you enough for that.

Thank your mench um before you. a couple uh hours ago we had Pete Carol here and um, the story that you tell about your mother that you just shared is one of the most inspiring things I've ever heard. and so we were talking about it with coach and he said you know we Gary needs a West Coast team he he also said you know Pete was fired from the New York Jets at one by the way I got a story that you can share with Pete When Pete was the defensive coordinator for the New York Jets the jet Jets Played the Bills on a Monday night game in 1993 and it was ABC with air that game I was such a big PE Carol fan. he was a kid back then a real kid.

he's still a young dude now but he was a kid kid and I loved his energy and I snuck in a sign to the metal ANS that had ABC and the Jets coach that P Carroll was the defensive coordinator for. his name was Bruce klet and I had the letters ABC and it said ask Bruce klet promote Pete Carroll and Pete was promoted later that year. That was one of the great great moments of my life. I'm a huge Pete guy and uh but I will not be a Seahawks fan Well you you need a West Coast team and we're so inspired.

There's a gift coming your way. if you could show it on the screen I will not I will burn that Gary Can you please show the gift that's on that's very nice I will say this I will say this the Jets ripped off the Seahawks so bad in the Jamal Adams trade that I feel like I'll take the gift Gary that's very nice you're You're the perfect closing to this to start: True North and North On mindset. you're all about mindset. This is really what you preach.

It's your content and you and Pete are are two sides of the same Yeah, we are Yeah, we I love I Love By the way, by the way, on the record, I think I had one or two ation quickly with Coach through the years. I'm a big big big fan of Coach and there's a reason he's been continuously successful and by the way, he was successful with those Jets he was the coach when Dan Marino did the fake spike and we lost a bunch of games late and firing Pete was one of the great mistakes the Jets have ever made and I'm thrilled he was there I'm really thrilled to be with everybody in the audience I Hope one or two things hit today. and most of all, what? I'm really and it's so cool that you brought that up that moment. What I'm most most hopeful for is there's just one person in the crowd that will actually act I Know a lot of you, almost all of you heard something that hit cuz I know I'm speaking human truth I just hope one of you acts on it.

That's what it's about. It's only about practice. It's only about practice. Let's thank.

Gary Gary V The Best! Love you! Oh.