How do you think about creating those moments for your kids? right? In a world where they can probably have everything. Meet everyone. have any experience they want. They're not going to be built on the hard times and making it in.

America Every story I Just told You isn't a story about the struggle even though they are, They're a story about love, the love of my mom, the love of my sister I can replicate that for my children. It might be a fancier scene. my son might sit Courtside instead of last row, but it's still love what's going on. everybody.

welcome back to my social life! I'm your host Jacob Kelly Today on the podcast we are joined by Gary Vaynerchuk. Some of you know him as Garyvee, some of you might know him as Gina no matter what you know him as I'm very excited to have him on the podcast today. Gary Welcome to the show! thank you for having me! I'm excited to have you what I want to talk to you about today is a lot of nostalgic things and so before we kind of get into that I want you to describes me what Nostalgia feels like to you but I want to know about in a very specific context I know every every few years I don't know when the last time you did this, but you used to drive by your childhood home and just kind of soak in the Nostalgia Yeah so when you're staring at the car window at 53 Teaberry Drive I believe it was in a Triplex the one on the left. yeah um, what's that feeling when you're looking at your childhood home? I think Nostalgia Overall, and then specifically when I go to my childhood home.

and ironically you brought that up because I haven't done it a long time. I've been thinking about doing it recently and when I go garage selling this spring to do a couple trash talks I'm going to try to get to Edison and look at the home. It makes you think about simpler, better times, right? Like the reason you love your Gremlin or your Spider-Man or your house that you grew up in is it makes you think of simpler, better times. It's as simple as that.

uh, at its best. That's what Nostalgia does, um, or like. It might even be simpler. It's just good times, right? It might it might be high school might have been complex, but it was when you got your first kiss and maybe like, so it's just it invokes emotion that makes you smile.

I've heard you say that 82 to 88 89 is some of the fondest years of your life. So I Kind of want to stick in that pocket for this interview. Um I Know you used to set up signs down Oak Tree Road and tingly Lane for Lemonade Stand I Know you're used to specifically set them at a certain height so the drivers would see them I'm curious what was actually on those signs that attracted the drivers. You know it was very smartly intuitive about marketing even as a young kid.

I Remember taking note when my mom would drive me to the supermarket or just drive when I would be in the car I would pay attention to other people's lemonade stand and garage sale signs looking out the window and I quickly at like seven or eight knew that like you couldn't read them most the time items I still take note of this by the way. So what the sign would say is it would say 10 cents as big as you could imagine like literally the entire sign was like lemonade 10 cents and I would use black marker like multiple times like I knew how to make it thick and big and simple and at eye level like and I didn't need to put like what time it would be I would take down a sign I didn't waste that I just knew what I was doing and so like it's wow. That's a really fun question for me because I haven't I haven't answered anything about that ever in my life so it's a great job on you Jacob trying to bring out some different stuff. The signs on my lemonade were very inspired by me.

This is me as a theme I watched as a five and six and seven year old it took note and then when it was time for me to make my signs I'm like I'm not gonna make those same mistakes I'm going to be able to. My people are gonna be able to read it. and then I brought that skill to the wine store before we got a computer with a printer. We used to make the signs on the displays by hand and so when I was at the register when there be downtime I would make the sign regularly 8.99 on sale for 5.99 and I remember like how different my signs were when I first got to the liquor store versus what my dad had like they would take a regular Sharpie and put 5.99 Mine would be like three times the size of the sign.

The 599 was like bigger than the previous sign itself. like it was all that out. I'm curious. Another place that you kind of look and watch and then replicate yourself or do better on is with with baseball cards I Know you got into baseball cards at John Adams Middle School right in the Baseball Card Club that's exactly right.

John Adams had a baseball card Club I think I was our science teacher I Can't remember exactly what the teacher was, but it was a huge huge thing for me. Um, sixth and Seventh grade. I I Would say sixth and seventh grade is when I became like that's when you you know I Talk a lot about lemonade I talk a lot about washing cars, shoveling snow. But that's when there was a maturity to my my like that was a step.

And that baseball card Club was huge because you know that's what. That's what communities and that's what a school can really do is like brought people together. There's multiple kids in that club that I didn't know from other classes, other grades and I very quickly understood that I was like I remember very quickly saying like I know more than these guys I know more about baseball I know more about I've memorized the prices and the price guide I and then that's what I'm starting to learn like oh I can talk my way into like I could convince them to buy this. give me that card for this car that I learned a lot during that era.

So when you're at your first baseball card show at The JCC on Oak Tree Road how do you set your table up there versus how you would set your table up? now, you know I I don't vividly remember the table design I remember vividly pretty early and it gets a little blurry right? because this is 40 years ago. But like or or so like. um, I remember quickly and I don't think it was that show but I think quickly I learned how I I definitely am always watching. It's what I do for a living.

So I remember I remember not knowing what the I was doing and I remember knowing what I was doing at the end of that weekend. so I came in super raw had no idea. Price tag sticker I I don't I remember actually now this is a fun interview. Thank you for being so prepared.

um I remember not having sticker pricing on my cards and I remember looking at the other table like I only got price tags on there like you know like I was like and like like you know just like like this is where like not being scared in business like I just went to a dealer and you remember these are like 40 or 30 year old men and I'm like 11. I'm like can I get some stickers thank you like you know like stickering my stuff. um it was you know I I re but but what? that all evolved to it back to the liquor store I'm a merchandiser I think about end caps I think about what product goes at the register versus the Shelf versus the first sign cap versus what do you see when you first walk in All of that I learned that baseball card tables and shows and by year two by eighth grade I had a meticulous plan of like profit margin. What? I wanted to sell I knew people bought from the middle, not the bottom and the top that I needed one big thing to catch people's attention because they would have a hundred tables and they're just gonna walk by yours if you just have display cases.

So I'd always have something crazy like you know like I'd buy like a stuffed animal and just put it on my table. anything to stop you from walking by and that's that I Recall So you learned a lot from the lemonade stands. You learned a lot from the baseball card shows. I'm curious what you learned from the pig farm because if I'm not mistaken, your dad bought a pig form when you're in the eighth grade and you were shoveling pig your eighth grade summer.

yeah it wasn't a pig farm, it was my dad bought like we moved to the woods and there was a farm on like it wasn't like an active Farm but it was like run down Farm stuff and my dad you know this is 1989 so my dad is only he's 36. and so he's and he came to America so that's 89 and came to America in 78. it's only 11 years removed from him being in Russia in 1970. USSR like everybody had roosters and pigs and you went to like the bazaar to like like it was clean eating and old school eating the stuff that's now trendy and expensive like you know, farm to table for real real.

so he was into that. He thought that was cool I was like this is the worst I like lost all my friends, we're in the middle of nowhere and then he gets a pig and then he tells me I have to clean up the pig and I'm like what the that was like real hard manual labor like every three days I'd have to go in there to be a ton of hay it would all be infested I'd have like some boots on that were like fourth generation Pass Downs I'd rake it once in a while like you'd go in and like the would hit your lip and I'd be like I'm eating pig what is my life and like you know and but these are all the things that I look back on of like of course I outwork everybody I Work my whole life. Everything was work work work work. that's what my parents knew.

They still good values and hard work and like Nothing that is going on with me is confusing. It was all built from the scratch. Can you tell about your family trip to Disney World that you took with your mom and your sister, me and my sister and my mom. My dad didn't go because he was working.

took our first family vacation in 85 86 I was like fifth. my sister was second grade. Something like that. This was like us winning the lottery and getting a private plane in a mansion and meeting every select like going to Disney World Like you have to say, McDonald's was like going to like Aspen for a month for our immigrant family.

So for Disney World we stayed in the Holiday Inn my family didn't have credit cards back then. my mom ran out of cash by the third day because the Disney tickets were more expensive than she thought. she didn't eat for four days I eat like a half a sandwich I remember playing punch out in the arcade I remember being scared to swim so I was like in the kiddie pool with like two-year-olds I remember it I remember singing Phil Collins One More Night the night before we went and I remember it's like that's my, that's my crew right? That's 82-89 it was me, my mom, my sister AJ was AJ was born in 87 so he he wasn't there for the majority in him when he was he was one and two. my dad worked every minute I barely saw him and so my life was my mom and sister.

My childhood is my mom and sister and that was the Crown Jewel moment of our childhood. We went somewhere and first time I was on a plane that I remembered obviously when I immigrated I was on a plane but I didn't recall and like it was just a big deal and I'm just grateful for it like I again I Had dinner with my sister last night I had a really nice bottle of wine. We were in a fancy place here in Hudson yards and I looked at the bill and I was like this is more money than me and this girl my sister who like were spent on for eating out to dinner in our childhood like Red Lobster is only so expensive and that was about as fancy as we got during those times and so it's really cool. I'm really grateful for my Hubble beginnings and I'm really grateful for you to make this interview be about those Early times.

I appreciate that. I'll ask you one last question Now we're about to see over time here. How do you think about creating those moments for your kids? right? In a world where they can probably have everything, Meet everyone, have any experience they want I Don't want them. They're not going to be built on the hard times and making it in America Every story I Just told you isn't a story about the struggle and the appreciation and the humility even though they are, they're a story about love, the love of my mom, the love of my sister, right? the love we had for each other.

I can replicate that for my children. It might be a fancier scene, my son might sit Courtside instead of last row, but it's still love. Um, and so I think that parents that go through or people that go through generational changes if you I feel like too many of my friends from that era that came up with nothing, hold on too much and try to create fake environments for their kids but you can't replicate it. Things change, but you can hold the True Values and that's what I focus on I saw the head.

Now there is someone waiting for you. Yeah, they're here I'll let you go Gary Thank you very much. Thank you Pleasure! Real pleasure. Wish you well take care.