Gary, I'm on my way. Today on the Mel Robbins podcast, Gary, a conversation that's 12 years in the making.
Do you understand who you consume? What you consume is who you become.
Gary Vee is the person who inspired me to start putting myself out there and online. My personal mentor, Gary Vaynerchuk, is here. It's time to stop making excuses.
I promise you whatever that you're scared of is far less scary than 30 years from now telling some random stranger... and change your life right now.
Kudos to everyone who's listening. You chose to consume some positivity. This is very important, everyone. I feel like I'm on to one here. So lock in.
Please help me welcome the one, the only Gary Vaynerchuk to the Mel Robbins podcast.
I'm so happy to be here, Mel. Thank you.
You have been an inspiration to me for 12 years. I would not be where I am today without you. And so where I want to start, because I'm so thrilled that the person that's with us right now is going to get to be infused with your wisdom, your energy, the lessons from your life, the way you think about life. How might the person who's listening's life change if they take to heart everything that we're about to talk about today?
They'll become dramatically lighter. We are incredibly capable of making mountains out of molehills, and we focus on dumb [__] until real [__] happens, and then we recalibrate. I prefer the person that's listening right now enjoy life or understand life before something bad happens in it. And I'm very focused on that, and that's a lot of what my content and my life is about.
Well, we're going to get into how you actually do that. But before we get into that, I want the person listening to understand a little bit about how your life has shaped you.
You know what's interesting is I said before you were coming into the team, I said, 'I've heard you for a decade say, I'm going to buy the Jets. I'm going to buy the Jets.' And I said to my team of almost 50 people, 'How many people here think he's going to do it?' Every hand went up. And what's interesting is that I don't know if you will or won't, but what is powerful is that your belief that you might is something that other people can catch.
What's even more interesting on a personal level is the joy of chasing it is dramatically more delicious than achieving it.
You know, somewhere around my early 20s, I think I realized, oh shoot, I like the chase more than the getting it. I like the practice more than the trophy. I don't live for outside validation. I didn't use that term, but I realized very early in my life, oh, I'm different. By the time I was 25, I had gone through being an immigrant that couldn't speak English, misunderstood, being a ridiculously bad student, being misunderstood by parents of your friends and teachers, innovating in my dad's liquor store, things that people told my dad would ruin his business if he let me do it. By the time I was 25, I was told by the world that I was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. And everything was right, right, right, right, right. And that made it very easy to live the last 25 years because I had it figured out early. And I say that from a place of gratitude, not audacity. Like I hate the word luck because I believe the world likes to weaponize it as an excuse to why they're not doing their thing. But it is not lost on me the serendipity that got me out of the Soviet Union, got me to the US, gave me the mother that I had, gave me competitive spirit, but also just pure love in my heart. You know, I'm 50 now. I've watched many young children, nephews, children, nieces, friends' children. Like, some kids are just born with some [__]. And then if they're fortunate enough that those ingredients are cooked properly in the proper restaurant, well then [__] gets crazy. But here's what I'm intoxicated by.
That if the person watching right now did not have all the best ingredients DNA. Yeah. Did not have the greatest chef and sous chef, parents were not served in the best restaurant, the neighborhoods and environments they grew up in. What I'm intoxicated by, why I exist in public, is my belief is that people are obnoxiously more capable of changing than they realize. And it's actually shockingly simple and the hardest thing in the world.
Shockingly simple and the hardest thing in the world. There were so many things that you just said that I want to make sure as you're listening you really heard it, because when you started to do the cadence of misunderstood, misunderstood, misunderstood, misunderstood, the majority of people who feel misunderstood start to withdraw.
And start to say something's wrong.
So for the person who's listening right now that feels like I suck at school, I just got fired from a job, I want to be, I'm so different from my family, I can't find somebody to date that's interested in me or that like I'm misunderstood, misunderstood. And it is like dragging around a lead weight. How do you flip that sense that the world doesn't get you into something that propels you?
By not wanting the world to get you.
You know, I'm just confused why you need your spouse to fully understand you. Why you need your mother to fully understand you? Why you need your [__] coworker to fully understand you? The answer to your question, Mel, is being comfortable with being misunderstood by realizing someone's subjective opinion of you, who is not you, can never fully know you, not even the people that are closest to you. So, how could a stranger in the comments of an Instagram post have a prayer of knowing who the [__] you are? By the way, Mel Mafia, that's what I call you guys. I apologize for the cursing. I'm a little bit of a Jersey boy. I'll try to rein it in because I know occasionally it allows someone not to hear me.
I appreciate you saying that because there are a lot of people that listen to the car with littles. However, however, it is important that you also acknowledge that that is just who you are.
I'm incredibly empathetic to the people that have historically not consumed my content or not followed me because if they in their life genuinely believe that cursing is atrocious and a sign of lack of intelligence or whatever they may think it is. I have the humility and the empathy and compassion to understand that. It's funny that I called it out. I tend not to.
But I think it comes out of just the respect I have for you and what you're building and kind of like I know I'm different and you have incredible people on here and I know just like you are the exact human that was built to break through for someone. I know that I'm the exact human to break through for a lot of people right now. And I worry about the seven or nine that won't go much further because of the cursing. Yet, I'm the human on earth that is about to say the sentence or two that fundamentally changes their perspective. And the only thing life is is how you see it. There is no life. There is no real world. There's just your perception. There's just what you bring to the table. You were either cynical because you were deeply insecure or you were deeply optimistic because you're incredibly purely confident. You have your life experiences. You have the things you were told. Most people that are listening right now, Mel, are scared.
This is something we need to talk about.
So, when somebody who is listening to you say that the biggest problem right now is that people are scared. There is so much fear. Yes. And there are plenty of reasons in life to be afraid. But allowing it to dominate what you do next is really the skill that somebody can learn to flip from cynicism, there's nothing I can do, to there's always something I can do.
Well, there's unlimited reasons to be optimistic.
Talk to the person who's cynical right now and who wants to be more optimistic, who wants to have courage.
Stop listening to politicians.
Thanks for having me, everyone. Like that's it, Mel. Like there is nothing else. Like do you understand who you consume? What you consume is who you become. One of the reasons I schlepped here is because I want to honor you being a human being who I know has fundamentally made it better for people. Like I do not understand how people continue to be confused. There are two ways to build the biggest building in town. One is to just be talented enough to build the biggest building in town and you admire everyone else's buildings, even the ones that are even bigger than yours.
The choice that most people take, which is they build a crappy little building and they spend 100% of their time trying to tear down everybody else's building. This is shockingly hard and wildly easy. Algorithms. Ready?
Gary, you don't get it. You always talk about social media. I'm so mad at you. It's my algorithm. Watch this. Everyone, you want a task at home right now? Open your Instagram or TikTok. And when you get a piece of content, politics, politics, negativity, manscaping, whatever, you know, whatever you got, literally click the buttons on the top right corner on Instagram or the bottom right corner on TikTok and say not interested. And keep doing that for one day. And then go to search and type in joy. Enter. And then like five or six things that pop up and then go back to search and type in happy and get some content and like and follow a couple things and this is very important. Then go to search and put in Garyvee and follow that account. And on and on, my friends, the algorithm did not change you, the algorithm exposed you.
For somebody who's listening, because I do think that you're right, and most people are in their heads spending all kinds of time either tearing themselves down and coming up with reasons why they can't.
Or looking around at other people and using it as evidence to see why they can't.
Or spending a lot of time tearing other people down instead of like spending the same amount of time lifting themselves up. How if somebody who's listening starts to have a moment of reckoning where you're like, you know, I'm kind of sick of this version of myself. I'm kind of sick of feeling like I'm stuck. I'm sick of being jealous of everyone else.
I am living in a lot of fear. Nobody's going to do this for me, but nobody's stopping me from doing what I'm capable of doing. I'm the one in my own way and I'm using excuses at scale. And I continuously go back to my mom [__] up when I was eight. No [__], Sally. And like you're grown now. You're 34. And the answer is action.
Therapy is a good one. Instead of buying dumb [__] to cover up your hurt, why don't you go invest it into therapy? Do you know how many people have BMWs that actually needed to go buy therapy sessions with that money?
Please do not use materialistic things to show the world you're good when we all know you're not. Right, Mel? Yeah. You know, do you know why there's such a big consumer world? Like people buy stuff? It's because we use it as proxies to disguise behind the makeup of our materialistic things to not allow you to see what's actually happening. We have a pandemic of keeping up with the Joneses, not because of social media and we see other people with stuff, but because modern parenting left accountability out of the ingredients of the last 30, 40 years.
Let's talk about that. You have two kids.
And you're also, for as public as you are, I really respect the fact that you're very private about your personal life.
Outrageously. And I would love to have you talk about this in the lane of accountability because there is a lot of blaming your parents, blaming the circumstances and there are very real circumstances that are very unfair.
There's horrible things that happen to people.
I do not believe everything happens for a reason. I believe [__] happens. A lot of it's unfair. But you have to find a reason to move on and to grow because other people who've also been in that situation have found a way. And so the question becomes it is not impossible.
Like that's important. Like to your point there are a lot of atrocious things. What about the fact that 800 million people, roughly 10% of the world right now, cannot get a glass of clean water as we sit here in this room? Like perspective is confused out there. There are people that have real alcoholic parents, abandoned by parents, foster home, other scary stuff. The problem is it's like it is. I mean, my mother is the most optimistic, joyful, warm human on earth. Here's my mother's story in a nutshell. She lost her mother at 5. Her mother died when she was 5 years old. Her father went to jail for 10 years when she was 9, 10 because the Soviet Union is a really [__] up place for the things that I get put on Mel's podcast for, my grandfather went to jail for. Like real [__], right? I mean, that's a tough [__] hand, you know, and yet incredible capacity to choose optimism and is more joyful and optimistic than anyone in our extended families who all quote unquote had it better. And by the way, as atrocious as that was for my mom, there are thousands listening now that had it even worse. I get that.
The question becomes when is it not your parents' fault anymore? Let's start with that one.
Mel, I'm actually asking you. Let's flip it. This is the guaranteed audio experience. At what age? Roughly, you're just one woman. You just have one subjective opinion. There's no right or wrong answer to this, but let's talk sister, talk to me like we're just walking in the backyard.
Just for fun, a general number. This is just the world obviously incredibly circumstantial. Everyone's life, but for fun. At what age, Mel, do you believe that it is no longer fun or interesting to just keep blaming your parents? At what age are you able to stand on your own two feet and choose who you surround yourself with, what you actually believe, how you limit your interactions with those parents or any other person that pushes negative propaganda 24/7? At what age are you a big girl now?
Well, I wouldn't say it's an age. I say it's the moment you decide to pay for your life.
There is a point of view that has been very helpful to me, which is understanding that people can only give you what they have to give. And people can only provide you with the parenting experience largely based on what was done to them.
That's right. And a lot of the there's some real evil people out there, but there's also a lot of people that do bad things that don't know what they're doing.
And we've got to get into a place of what's an inconvenience or a darn it versus a catastrophe.
I mean, what people now deem as my parent [__] me up only 40 years ago was like a skinned knee. I mean, there are people who blame their parents for things that were inconceivable. I mean, like missing one football game. Well, you missed the big game where I threw three touchdowns.
Well, here's the thing. Like, your parents did the job that they did. And at some point, you have to take that as a fact and decide what are you going to do next. That's it. And are you gonna look back with judgment or are you gonna look back with understanding and a bit of compassion and then be an adult and either forgive and have a conversation about it or have some boundaries around it?
Do you know what my opening line was to VCON 3, my big conference? Literally walked on stage, 10,000 people. Opening line, f your grandparents.
What do you mean f your grandparents?
That was my opening line.
Because I am so tired of people being so mad at their mom and dad without taking a good look at what their grandparents did to mom and dad. We love little granny because she gives you cookies and gave you five bucks, but meanwhile Grammy screwed up your mom so good that you've spent your whole life blaming your mom. Like at what point are you able to understand it's not their fault either? And now Mel, let's transition the bigger question.
What are you doing by verbalizing to everyone in your world that this happened? You're keeping it alive. Yeah. What are you asking for? You're asking for pity. You're asking for compassion. You're asking for enablement. You're creating a framework of entitlement. You're using it as a weapon to justify why not. Instead of going all in on I'm just not motivated enough right now and I've got to do this or that. Like once you go fully accountable, when you love yourself all the way, but you also have the humility to understand you're a human being and you just might suck at a lot of things. And that's super duper okay. Once you go there, it gets real light.
I think what you're saying, if I give it back to you, is that what you see in what's holding a lot of people back is so much time and energy spent looking backwards and blaming versus standing in the present moment going this happened, it had this impact on me, and what am I going to do next? What am I going to take responsibility for moving forward now that I've acknowledged what's happened? I get it, but I am an adult now and it is time for me to figure out what do I want with my life.
And that's why I get so excited, you know, people make fun of me about how I think about age. Yeah. As you see, people probably razz me on the internet like, Gary, I'm 90. And I'm like, you have time. They like these skits. Like what excites me about that is I do believe people somewhere between 25 and 45 in that kind of window can get to this place where they're exhausted of pointing fingers.
Well, actually it was 41 when I woke up and realized nobody is coming to save my ass from this mess that I'm in. Not my husband, not my parents. It is nobody else's responsibility. We're in a gigantic hole. And since I don't see anybody else coming with a ladder, I better stop bitching and feeling sorry for myself and get to work.
And when you go from even we, and I assume you're bringing your husband into that, right?
Like we is good because that's only two. That's better than. But when you go to I.
But I need all you know all the people I'm talking to right now on the camera. I'm like, even if your spouse is the one who's like, 'Let's make this invest.' Like, what are you going to blame him or her forever?
Well, I think that's a problem in a lot of relationships.
No [__]. Why do you think I'm bringing it up? I'm going to say it again. If your husband made you buy that third home in South Carolina and it was a flop, or if your wife made you invest in a stock that what are you going to just razz her in perpetuity? What are you going to tell Johnny for the rest of your life? Our life would be better if you didn't make us buy that [__] house in Miami. That's not real. Mel, it's not real.
So, what do you do? Because what you're basically saying is you have no idea how much time and energy you spend blaming other people for the state you're in in your life. Whether it's people who have what you want or people that had a lot more privilege and had a better start than you did or it's your parents for the things that they didn't do or that they did do or it's your spouse because they're not showing up a certain way. And you're missing the single most important factor in your life that changes everything, which is you.
Instead of like like envy and jealousy is driving me crazy. Why have you chosen friends to look at the three people on earth that are in their 20s that are trillionaires or who've spent a million dollars on plastic surgery to look incredible? Why are you choosing to shape yourself up to them? Don't you know there's 8.3 billion other people that you could shape yourself up to? And I'm going to say something nice and slow. If you are capable to be listening to the Mel Robbins podcast, if you are right now capable of having the time, whether you're on a treadmill walking the damn dog at driving to work, if you are a human, by the way, that is maybe potentially doing it on a phone that cost several hundred dollars. If you are even a human that is hearing these words, you have it much better than most of the entire world. So, how about that? How about not w I'm not Timothy Chalamet. Like, how about 8.3 billion people? How about 800 million people can't get clean water? How about all the truth of the world? How about you do have it better than your grandma had it? How about real [__]? How about gratitude? Enough of this envy. There's been so much envy, so much jealousy as if anyone else's life has anything to do with you. And you know anything about their actual real life.
We put all these people on a pedestal and meanwhile that person is drinking a bottle of bourbon tonight because they can't deal with the pressure of the world's judgment because their emotional foundation isn't good enough. When are we going to lead into gratitude?
Do you think gratitude is the way you flip from blame? Because I think a lot of people are probably leaning in going, 'Boy, okay.' Like, if you were to just calculate, okay, what are all the things I'm blaming on my childhood?
That's and it's holding me back because you're dragging it with you. If you're still looking backward or blaming your spouse or blaming your boss or blaming your daughter who's living the life you wish you were living and you feel like you're doing it for her and no one did it for you. Blame, blame, blame, blame, blame, blame.
Gratitude. And here's a big one. How about some humility?
Can we get humility back into the game? Like.
Why do people think humility is weak?
I don't know. I think people think kindness is weak. I don't get that.
No [__]. Neither do I. Like in this nanosecond, like taking myself out of the podcast, I'm so happy right now because I'm happy people listen to you. I'm happy people listen to me. I'm happy, you know, people are focusing on all the bad that's out there. There are so many outlets to get good now.
There's so many. And this is the point. First of all, kudos to everyone who's listening. You chose to consume some positivity. You chose to consume some accountability. You may not know why you like Mel, but I do.
Because they're on the cusp of change. They're in the pregame. I'm excited. Like, literally, I don't know if you can see these. I'm pumped for them. They're close, right?
They're consuming you because they're close.
Yes. And you listen because you sense something that Gary and I know is true that you are capable of bananas extraordinary things.
And let me say that real quick.
You can shift your mindset.
But let me say something about that for extraordinary things. Not tens of millions of listeners to your podcast or 33 businesses that you're juggling. The number one thing I have is not all the things you think I have. The number one thing I have is peace of mind. Do you know what I want for everyone? I don't want them to have a blue check mark, Mel. I don't want them to have a million [__] followers. I don't need them to have a top five podcast or big businesses. I need them to have peace of mind. Do you know how many people listening right now should make a lot less money? They're making 240, but they don't like their job. They're living above their means. So, they need their job to continue to pay for their lifestyle of things that bring them no actual joy. And you know what they need to do? They need to simplify their life. We must get out of this materialistic keeping up with the Joneses. Now, listen. I need action. Like, there's plenty people listening right now that don't need simplicity. I need action. I need people because I love them too much. I need the game. I'm too creative. It's like too fun. I'm a city boy. I'm a people person. I love everyone regardless of what their intent is towards me. I need it. Right. But if I didn't, no one on earth would know me. I would live in the middle of absolutely nowhere and I would do simple things because I'm comfortable in being who I actually am.
That is the secret to life.
Are you comfortable with yourself? Are you proud of yourself? Peace of mind means you're not questioning who am I? What should I be doing today? What does this person think of me? That you know who you are. You know your intention. And I think this is really really important because you chase the material thing because you think that if you have the right purse or the right car or the right outfit on or the right house in the right neighborhood or you belong to the right club or you have your nails done the right way that other people are going to think you are a certain person and that is going to give you the confidence and peace of mind. It doesn't. It anchors your self-worth in someone else's opinion which you will never control which means you will always be chasing other people's opinions in order to get the validation that you can give to yourself.
Yes. Do you know what my great hope is for 2050 to 2060 is that the advancements of technology actually bring us back to simplicity. I believe this by the way. This is one of my thesis of how it could go. And yeah, you might not have the same car. Your friend's husband might be just much more attractive than yours or whatever it might be. You might be a director and not an SVP in your company. But I can tell you about me, Mel. The way I view people is 100% based on their humanity. The way I view do I like someone, do I not? Or Mel, this may interest you. This you may not know about me. I am wildly unimpressed, including myself, in people's business accomplishments.
I really truly believe, and I'm glad we're lasering in on this, that the measure of a person is not what they have, it's how they treat other people.
The only thing I actually live my life for is my funeral.
Let's go here because one of my most favorite things that I have ever seen you do or say. It is a video. You're going to know exactly which one it is as I start to speak. You are in a cab, I believe, and the window is down and you're at a stoplight and a woman runs over and is like, 'Gary, Gary, oh my god, Gary, I love you. Um, you know, I need some motivation today. Give me some motivation.' And you look out the window and you look at her and you say, 'You're going to die.' And she's kind of startled and I don't remember the exact words, but it was, 'You're going to die. We're all going to die. What really matters is how do you want to live? How do you want to live? And while you're here, and while you're still on this side of the dirt, and while people that you still love can still walk into the room, how are you going to live?' Because you do not want to get to your funeral and go, 'God, I wish I had.'
Boy, I wish I was a better person. See, I am like you. I constantly think about that moment. I want to reflect back and go, 'I was a good mom. I was like a good friend. I gave it a good run. I gave more than I took. I scratched the itches.' You know, I'm very passionate about what I'm about to say. I think we've lost our way with the elderly. I think the last 30, 40 years of technology advancements have made us make fun of grandparents because they don't know how to use OpenClaw or, you know, Instant Messenger or Snapchat. And I think we've really done a disservice to ourselves by misunderstanding what true wisdom is. A hundred years ago, the thought of disrespecting an elder was as foreign as you can imagine.
Um, I like tactics sometimes. I got a weird one, everyone. This is a big one, actually. It's a very left field one. I promise you, I've literally never heard anyone else get hot on this one, so I like bringing it up. If you can volunteer five hours to a retirement home in your general area, like literally call them, email them, be like, 'Hey, was listening to Mel's podcast.' Like super weird, you might think, but like is there any way for me to like give 5 hours? So much good will happen in that 5 hours. First of all, a lot of people in those places are quite lonely, unfortunately.
And really, you're right. You like I see like even saying it like coming out of my mouth I was like and then you're and I know a lot of people just went right it's just the way it is. It's really tough.
So that breaks my heart and you would be doing a real mitzvah, a real gift, a real nice thing like talking to a 91-year-old woman about her life will bring her incredible joy of just companionship. But here's a little secret. It's going to do a lot more for you. And let me tell you, as someone who has gone out of his way to sit with people in their 80s on planes and at airports and in random moments in my life, the number one thing everyone listening to this podcast wants to avoid is regret. If anything comes out of this podcast, if one person, if one of you, if one of you decide to do something tomorrow, jump out of a plane skydiving, quit your job and become a dog walker and live more humbly, get out of a toxic relationship, yeah, get out of regret. Do something tomorrow. Tomorrow. Do something tomorrow. This is probably you're probably consuming this right as the fall, you know, the seasons change right everyone in your life and in real life we're coming out of summer like we're in the go time it's September energy it's football season tomorrow tomorrow do something that's been sitting in your tummy for a day a year and most likely a decade Mel and just do it actually I promise you whatever that you're scared of is far less scary than 30 years from now telling some random stranger that looks like Gary that you the worst sentence Mel is three words I wish I dot dot dot dot dot and my great joy is that I don't live that way 400 trillion to one Mel 400 trillion to one my friends the current scientific I'm no scientist. I got Fs inside. So here goes. But what I've been able to consume modern scientists that are way above my pay grade currently have the likelihood of becoming a human being at 400 trillion to one that you are you that you are born. Mom could have went for another glass of wine before it went down and the whole game would have been different and you would not be you. Like it is a it is for miracle is disrespectful to how impossible it is to have a life. So you're going to mope around your whole life. Let me get this straight. You've won the ultimate lottery of the universe of the actual universe. And we've decided we're going to mope and cry about dumb [__]. And here's the best part. You don't like it? Go change the room. Right? You don't like it? Change the room. You don't like a relationship? Change the house. You don't like your boss, change the office.
You don't like your mindset, change it.
Yeah. You don't like what's showing up on social media? Change what you follow.
The algorithm is exposing who you actually are.
And you know, listen, friends, the number one thing that's holding so many of you back is your lack of humility. I'm telling you, my friends, I'm begging you. I'm like nose to mic. I'm begging you. Lean into these old school values. Humility, civility, like kindness towards strangers, like open the door for someone. Smile. Do you know how many people I smile at, Mel?
You should see me in an airport. I'm like it's like a joke. I don't even know like you know and now people know who I am. So it was a lot more fun back in the day because you know like no one you're just a goofy guy with a big smile, right? And like by the way a lot of people smile back and they need it. And then I would say this. I think people like myself, like you, I believe happiness has done a bad job. Let me explain. I think the last decade unhappiness has been amazing at marketing. That the people that are unhappy are doing a great job. They're taking time to go around the internet, look at people's clips, allow themselves to get triggered, and then leave nasty comments. They're working. It is a full-time job to leave negative comments.
I believe happiness is doing a bad job.
I believe there are not enough of us. And Mel, I'm going to say something right now that's really powerful. There's a lot of us, but they're quiet. They are quiet because they're not at the full place yet where they're willing to deal with the ridicule and the judgment for the bigger purpose. I didn't deal with any issues in high school or junior high around trying to fit in. Like I was incredibly well-liked because of how, you know, my personality is my personality. Peer pressure was non-existent. I never compromised my morals or who I was in junior high or high school. I'm definitely not going to [__] do it as an adult.
So, for somebody though who is crippled by other people's opinions and I remember when I first started putting myself out there online, I was absolutely terrified of what my friends were going to think.
I was I felt cringey as hell. And it is
human nature to post, then to check how many people, then to question what you post, then to go down and you've got a couple likes, and then see who's not liking it, and then look at the one comment that is the weird emoji, and then you wonder what they were actually thinking when they put the weird emoji, and then laser focus on the thing that's negative instead of focusing on the thing that's positive. And I think that habit and instinct to go to what's wrong keeps so many people from leaning in and experimenting because you say, Gary, life shrinks and expands in proportion to your willingness to take risks and try new things. And for most people, putting yourself out there, whether it's posting online or changing your career or starting to exercise or starting that Etsy shop, is freaking terrifying.
Yes, because their entire framework of how they see life is predicated on other people's opinions, everybody but their own selves.
So, how do you stop caring about what other people think?
By doing it. You're looking at a boy who literally was scared shitless to swim and ride a bike. Like there was a lot of things I was scared of that I think I just got it all out of the system by the time I was 15, 16, 17, 18, somewhere in that range.
Okay. So for the 57-year-old or the 27-year-old or the 37-year-old,
let me give you the big one. Parents, if you have a child that gets bad grades, I'm going to say something weird that I don't even know if I'm right, wrong, left, right, but I'm telling you, there's some real value. I see so many people, so many people now that are scared right now were too good of students. They drew too much in the line. They get validation from the outside every 90 days from a teacher. A+, B+, A minus. I think there's a lot there. And so to answer your question, practice. You've got to get used to get ridiculed so much, get judged so much, get pushed back so much that you can't hear it anymore.
What's interesting is that if you really think about the stepping up to the line, like I feel like you and I, our philosophy in life could be explained by the Nike tagline, just do it. And most people don't understand the most powerful word of those three words. It's just, because if their tagline had been do it, that's not that inspiring. The just is so powerful because it honors this very human and universal moment of hesitation. You said that the person that's listening right now is on the cusp
of something. You have gotten up out of the stands. You've been watching a game. You're now standing there on the sideline of the pickup basketball court and you are hesitating. That just is an acknowledgment that the hesitation is normal. The hesitation is what you feel right before you push through.
Can I use that analogy, please? This is very important, everyone. I feel like I'm on to one here. So lock in. If I went on a basketball court right now, yeah, I'm a decent little player, but let's say this was just a really high-level game and I sucked and the other nine people really went there of trying to make me feel bad about it. There's something in me that asks them in return a very simple question, which is like, you are correct. You nine are better at basketball than I am. But now I have a question for you. Are you a nicer boy than I am? Are you as good at making money as I am? Do you know how to make social media content as well as I do? Do you understand what live shopping is and how much that can change your nine people's lives today? Why have we gotten into a place where one or two or three things that you're not as good at are eating up all the oxygen? My friends, every one of you is great at something.
It's true. I have a great friend Nate who was my admin for a long time, my co-founder in Empathy Wines, now works in the golfing industry. He was my admin when I had my son and we got to play tennis a bunch because I had a couple weeks off.
I kind of see it in whites. Okay.
