--- title: 'Tea with Gary Vee: Live Q&A on Career, Community, and Fear' source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=d8V7_DZi_0A' video_id: 'd8V7_DZi_0A' date: 2026-07-14 duration_sec: 0 --- # Tea with Gary Vee: Live Q&A on Career, Community, and Fear > Source: [Tea with Gary Vee: Live Q&A on Career, Community, and Fear](https://youtube.com/watch?v=d8V7_DZi_0A) ## Summary Gary Vaynerchuk hosts a live Q&A session on Whatnot, offering career and business advice to a 22-year-old earning $70k who lacks passion, a content creator struggling to convert views into book sales, and a 28-year-old unsure how to build a personal brand with diverse interests. He emphasizes saving money, building community through genuine engagement, and overcoming fear. ### Key Points - **Advice for a 22-year-old with a $70k job lacking passion** [00:00] — Gary advises either grinding it out and saving money, or quitting to pursue a dream while living frugally. He stresses the importance of saving and being uncomfortable. - **Views vs. community engagement** [04:00] — Gary explains that high views don't equal sales; community is built through one-on-one interactions in DMs and comments. He cites his own success from 2007-2011 engaging with people. - **Building a personal brand with multiple interests** [08:00] — Gary tells a 28-year-old not to worry about picking one lane; just post about what you love. The outcome could be new friends and memories, even if you don't become famous. - **AI's impact and the need to learn it** [12:00] — Gary predicts AI will change the world like the internet, leading to government regulation. He urges everyone to spend one hour a day researching and using AI. - **Overcoming fear and introversion** [15:00] — Gary says the only way to defeat fear is to face it. He calls fear the biggest issue in society and encourages taking dramatic action. - **Advice for a 62-year-old starting a business** [20:00] — Gary says 62 is young and fully supports starting a business at that age. - **Proving the value of a personal brand** [22:00] — Gary refuses to convince skeptics; he believes in having conviction, not convincing. He notes that many CEOs succeed without personal brands. - **Business scaling advice for a meal prep entrepreneur** [25:00] — Gary advises running Facebook ads to the local area, hiring more people, and not being afraid to work 65-75 hours a week while building. - **Nothing matters – a liberating perspective** [30:00] — Gary says nothing actually matters because everything is fixable. He urges people to stop fearing the opinions of strangers. - **Interview with Pat Flynn on pivoting to Pokémon content** [35:00] — Pat Flynn shares how he pivoted from business content to Pokémon, emphasizing storytelling and community. He notes that entertainment content has a much larger audience. - **Building V Friends IP and long-term vision** [40:00] — Gary discusses building V Friends through comics, cards, and storytelling, aiming for a long-term play like Pokémon. He stresses patience and disciplined execution. ### Conclusion Gary Vaynerchuk's session underscores the importance of saving, genuine community engagement, and overcoming fear. He encourages pursuing passions and building personal brands through consistent, authentic interaction. ## Transcript Everybody, we're going to get it up here. Um, great to see everybody. Good morning. Welcome to another episode of Tea with Gary B. I am Gary B. Uh, whose, uh, first show is this? Good morning, MKish 9 Blazef. First show for the real life FG. Very nice. First show for Jay. Very good. Surprising most of you. Alice, first time from DC. I love it. First show for a show. Morning, Daddy. Good to see you. Um, MVZ. Great. Aaron, you got questions? All right. Um, hi, Gary. I'm a 22-year-old man who makes about 70,000 a year in a profession I like, but I don't have the same energy and passion um that I had when I was running my own business. What would you do? Um, I would uh you know, I I guess the question is should he quit? I mean, the the question stopped a little early there. Like if if he doesn't have the same passion, do you do you assume that that's where he's going with that question? Yeah. Just that he doesn't have the same he likes it, but he doesn't have the same passion as if he was running his own company. He's also 22. Yeah. No [ __ ] Like of like I really like little kids like like there, you know, we like children. Like they're the future. We you know, you see one, they make you smile. But I don't like them as much as my kids. of course you're not going to have the same passion for a job that you would for your own business, right? And so I I couldn't comprehend being confused by this question. What I would say to this person is either a grin it for a while and you know deal with it. Give me can you just fix this for a second? Uh you know and deal with it because you obviously took this job for a reason. and you needed the money or um you know quit cuz you're 22 and you know look 70k at 22 is remarkable you know I think one of the things I've been thinking about a lot over the last week is people are delusional out here and think like everybody needs to be making millions of dollars and you know that that is a tremendous accomplishment I'm sure there's plenty of people right now actually in the chat on whatnot how many of you would be thrilled to be making 70k in your job right Now say thrilled in the chat and then actually say how old you are. Thrilled dash and how old you know and so I want I want people to see this. This is you know context for people to wake up like you know that that we've really gotten delusional with price. So I you know with salaries excuse me. Um yeah I mean like half the chat is saying thrilled. So you know uh somebody just said I didn't earn that after 22 years of teaching let alone being 22 years old. So, you know what's my advice? My advice is if it's burning a hole in your heart, then go and start something again. Cuz at 22, you can literally live for $500 a month. You can literally actually do that. Um, and uh or stack some savings. I think one of the biggest mistakes that a lot This is a real good call out for a lot of you. A big mistake you're making is not saving money while you're eating [ __ ] Like a lot of people like I got this $70,000 job at 22 cuz I I want to do something in the future, but while they're 22, 23, 24, they're living a $70,000 life instead of a $50,000 life. Please pay attention to what you're saving everyone. That's a really important variable in this whole game. We're not saving enough money to create the thing we want. And then people are like, "You don't get it. Inflation cost." I do get it. I I'm very comfortable in sitting and looking at anybody's credit card bills and looking at what they're spending. Like humans are so deep in their delusion on saving, they they've just completely lost their way. And I always pick on five streaming services, coffee at Starbucks, Ubers, you know, uh this weekend people that complain about money will spend thousands of dollars on this Memorial Day weekend, you know, and so, you know, we we've lost our way to be uncomfortable. And so this 22-year-old either needs to be very uncomfortable and and for three years be okay with not doing the dream or be uncomfortable a different way. Quit really live humbly, roommates, inexpensive food and and chase your dream that makes you excited. That's it. Those are the options. Everybody, this is T with Gary Vee. Thank you so much for being on everybody in my other socials. I see you all. Daniel B on LinkedIn shirts. Gwen Wilcox on um on on uh LinkedIn. I see all of you. You probably see on the screen. Go to garyve.com/wnot. I see all of you on Instagram. I appreciate all of you. Vicrin the forge Lewis. I see you. Jessica B. I see you. Katak yao4. I see you. The Mason Dean. All of you. Please come over to garyve.com whatnot. Same with you all on Tik Tok. JG1027, Brian P....................Nes. Knicks Nation, I love you. You know that. Big game tonight. Uh, where is it? There it is. There it is. Um, all right. Let's go. Next question. I'll take another one from you, Erin. And then I'll go to the screen. Okay. Um, I believe I delivered a jab, jab, jab, followed by a hook, but it's not working. I'm selling a book about people with autism that have gone on to live extraordinary lives, but I have zero sales so far in the past 3 months. My average view count on IG is 10K per video with one video getting almost a million views. I'm paying for ads and driving traffic to my website. Viewers are there, purchases are not. What am I doing wrong? This is clearly something like that's crazy to me to hear that many views with that few sales at for something that's so inexpensive. So, friends, I'm going to teach everybody one of the great lessons of business right now. Oh, look at Sid perked up. The number one reason I am sitting here today is because I spent all of 2007 to 2011 interacting with people in comments. The reason V friends has had a very good launch just now, if you talk to Shep and Kirby and some of the kids on the V friends team, they will tell you the one-on-one DMs and the content, excuse me, the community uh engagement, replying to comments in our posts has been everything. I will tell you that what I'm doing right now in this nancond is deepening the relationship I have with this audience. 100% of why people are getting caught in this question is they think views means community. Views do not mean community. effort in talking to people on DM and in the comments and going live and interacting with people is community and G3 Fitness said mic drop. I think this I think this was a really really important moment everybody please open doors with Kobe please. Rom, please. MCR, DK art, all of you that I see in the chats and my other social media, I want all of you and everybody on whatnot. Joe Tang, I see you. T R A5H, I see you. These little interactions, when I mention names, when I engage, when I reply to people on text, when I took that flight last night and reply to four to five DMs, this is depth. This is depth. And I think the reason they haven't sold any books is no one gives a [ __ ] about them. And that's because getting views does not mean people care. Getting engagement is where all of you have to get up. You have to get that up. You have to go back and forth. On Twitter in ' 07 89, it wasn't even just one reply or a heart or a thumbs up. Somebody would say something about wine, I would reply. They would reply. I would reply. This was four, five, six, seven hours a night of engaging with 13, 15, 23 people. Rips will tell you, other people, Ross will tell you, people, you know, Zach will tell you, like in the chat, I keep saying one person at a time. One person at a time, one person at a time. This is a one person at a time thing. There's no way you should have 10,000 views on average and some with millions and zero book sales. It means that the community can sense that you're not in it with them. the end. Yesterday I was in Nashville. I went to two different card stores. 30 40 people, not 5,000. 30, 40 people. Hey, shake a hand. Kiss a baby. Hug it out. Answer a question. It is scaling the unscalable that will lead to the leverage you're looking for. Everybody, scale the unscalable. Yeah, let's do a giveaway. Uh oh. What just uh what do we got? What do you want to put up? Let's put up a pack of series 2 actually and chrome. Pack of each pack of series 2 and Chrome going up giveaway. You will not be able to get this if you're on my social media. You can only get this if you're on whatnot. Go to garyve.com/whatnot. Uh Dylan Y says, "What does scale the unscalable mean?" Dylan, it means to reply to people one by one in DM and comments on every piece of social media that you post and going live for an hour a day and just answering people's questions. That is the firm definition. I expect everybody from Twitter and Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn to all leave right now and go to garyve.com/whatnot and tell me tell me that you just came over from one of the places. All right. Do we have anybody on screen? If you want to ask a question and be on this show right now, come to garyb.com/whatnot and on whatnot right here, just like this gentleman did. Ask your question and you will be up. What's up, bro? Hey, Gary. How you doing? Good, man. What's your name? Uh, Kefir. Kefir, where you from? Utah, my man. Yeah. Um, so, so my question is, I mean, I know I need to build a personal brand. Okay. just by I mean, but I'm also not blind to the fact that I'm super blessed. Like, I have a really good life. I'm I'm 28 28 years old on Saturday. Happy birthday, bro. And like my my life by all any measure is good. I have a good job, great wife, everything. So, like yeah, I'm interested in a lot of things like barbecuing, camping. Um I decided to go back to school for software engineering. Um, and so my question is like how do I build a brand around that when I have so many interests but I'm not like super deep in any one thing by not overing worrying about that thesis? Like why is that bad? Why is it bad that you're into barbecuing, outdooring, software, you know, engineering, the Utah Jazz, uh, you know, beer, video games? Like I talk about a hundred different things. That That's my I guess I guess my thing is like who am I and why would people even want to follow what I do? What's your full what's your what's your full name? Kefir Cox. You're [ __ ] Kefir Fox Cox. That's who you are. What do you mean? Who am I? Value. Like how how do I bring value to people to like say, "Oh, hey, I'm just this this guy from Utah doing what I think is fun." What? By talking about [ __ ] you're interested in and seeing if people find what you're talking about interesting. Okay. So, it's not like cuz I thought like, oh, do I just pick a lane and and go deep into that lane or do I keep doing what I like to do, what makes me happy? Number two. Okay. Yeah. I guess I guess my my main thing is just like who who would want to see what I do? Um, people. Have you noticed what the [ __ ] is going on out here, Kefir? People just follow people. That's true. That's true. Like, like I'm not interested in your insecurity around this issue. Okay. Like, and by the way, the answer might be nobody. There's million there's billions of people putting out content that nobody gives a [ __ ] about because they are not bringing anything interesting. They don't have passion. They they don't have knowledge. Like, I don't know. Like, but but to but for you to decide that nobody gives a [ __ ] before you tried for a full year posting every day to see if people gave a [ __ ] and and let me and let me play this out for you. Would it be so horrible for this great life that you have that if you did this for a year and the outcome was that you didn't become [ __ ] Gary Vee and you didn't make millions selling barbecue sauce, but the outcome was you made seven new really good friends in Utah cuz they also liked your [ __ ] and you just became friends through the process cuz they also barbecue with you and and they rock climb with you and like the outcome of this whole thing was that you made seven great new friends and you had videos on the internet that one day your grandchildren will get to watch and will be able to say, "Oh [ __ ] I was like grandpappy. I also had a red beard. I have a red beard like he did." And oh [ __ ] he was into rock climbing like me. So you would have content on the internet that your grandkids would get incredible value out of and have great memories. You would find six to seven new friends. You might get a random barbecue company sending you some free barbecue sauce out of it. It sounds like there's a lot of winning even if you don't go on to become the most famous [ __ ] person on earth around [ __ ] outdoors. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you. Yeah. I guess it's just it's just weird coming from such a place of like my life's good. Like I don't need I I feel like I don't need to build a brand, but I'm also sold like I need to build a brand. Yeah. I I It sounds like you want to build a brand. I do. So, build a brand. Try. And if it doesn't work, it didn't work. Who gives a [ __ ] Lots of things didn't work. Like, my jumper didn't work this morning. [ __ ] happens. Like, I don't know. Like, things don't work all the time. What's that? Well, yeah. I mean, I had a couple lucky shots, but like, you know, I didn't play well. You know, I'm working on new form. Got to go through it. Plus, [ __ ] trying to guard Mason. He's 14 times my size. You know, it didn't work out. What do you want? You know, like it is what it is. Like [ __ ] doesn't work out sometimes. Make sense? Makes sense. Thank you so much. Love you, brother. Happy birthday, Saturday. Thank you. Welcome. All right. So, what do we got? We got uh if this is your first time on Whatnot. There's a little yellow button right here. Okay. It's a little yellow button. Click that. If you've never bought anything on Whatnot in your life, leave something in the chat right now, WhatNot, and say never bought. I'm about to show you how I'm going to send you something free. You're going to click this little yellow button. in there is a little white button within the little yellow note. You're going to click that. That just put a $15 code into your shopping cart. This sticker pack is pinned right now at $15. You can get this for free. Are you going to put up the mug? Cuz everybody wants the mug. But these are 20 bucks, right? So, they can get this for five bucks. So, the Y2K mug that everyone's been talking about that I'm drinking from. These are 20. This is [ __ ] fresh. Look at the confident cobra. Decisive duck. the black hat. The Y2K mug looks incredible. Um, this is 20 bucks, but you can get it for five literally if you click this little button, this little notepad, and then click the little white button in there. Um, that will be in the shop right there. In the shop right there, somewhere in the shop right there. Um, and uh, let's keep going. Go ahead, Eric. Um, what do you think the second and third wave reactions to the aification of life will be? That's a very profound question, Erin. Thank you. Um, I have no idea, man. Meaning, I do have an idea, but people don't like my ideas. I don't know if you saw that post we posted yesterday about the grandkids being AI. The [ __ ] people had all sorts of feelings of me. I've never had so many people tell me I needed Jesus in my life. I uh I uh look, I think it's big. I think it's [ __ ] big. I think that this is going to completely change the world in the same way that the internet did. And that we are going to have a lot more time on our hands cuz a lot more is going to be done for us by machines. That's going to open up for creativity, for love, for health and wellness. I'm excited about that. There'll be some economic changes, but I think that the governments are going to play a huge role in this. My prediction as of right now, and this is a full guess, is that you're going to be looking at Russia, China, America, Saudi, India actually creating a unified global kind of almost like nuclear the way nuclear was so big and was so profound and could change the world. The only way we're here is that there's been a lot of global government alliance. I think there'll be a lot of government alliance. I think China, Russia, America, they're going to be scared of what this is all going to lead to. I think you'll see some uh heavy regulation, some heavy-handed government stuff on this. That's how big I think this is. That's my prediction for wave two and three. Governments are going to have a lot of burden to figure things out because it's that big big. Are we going to subsidize workers? Are people going to get paid to just be alive? These are things that we've not had to think about. That's going to bother people. You're talking to somebody who doesn't like lazy. Imagine someone like me who like thinks we're like we're too lazy to begin with. Now [ __ ] are just going to sit at home and get paid. Like but but when you're talking about such profound technology shifts, everything's in play. And I think it's too early to start guessing. But I can tell you that I'll say this to make this a productive question. Every person watching this show right now must spend one hour a day researching and using AI. Everybody, all of you kids, I'm telling you, 1 hour a day. 1 hour a day. No matter what. 1 hour a day. 1 hour a day. 1 hour a day. Everybody, if you're on my other channels, you must come over to garyve.comnot. Garyve.comnot. Looks like I froze on Instagram. Um, and uh, get over here right now because it matters. Get on the show. Tyler, you played well today, man. Your baby jumper was strong. All right, little Male Bridge is like, "All right, let's keep it going." Aaron, what do you got? How do I build connections? I grew up really shy. I'm a flight attendant and I feel like it's a great stepping stone. I just need to take advantage. All of life is based on the following thing. We are scared of things and the only way to cure that fear is to do it. I was scared to swim. The only way I learned how to swim was to jump in and finally learn how to swim. I was scared to ride a bike. Did not want to. There are very few kids on earth that were more scared to skin their knee than me. That's how much I did not want to skin my knee. Right. How could I get over it? I just had to eventually be a big boy and [ __ ] go and had to take my lumps and hurt my elbow and hurt my knee and finally got there. There is no way to break out of being an introvert until you start going up to people and saying hello and dealing with the thing that you feared, which is rejection. For so many guys, so many guys that are watching this, they missed out on the greatest moments of their dating life and their hooking up life out of the fear of even asking in the first place. Looking at all these dudes behind you, Aaron, they all missed out on some of their greatest stories in their that that they would have lived with forever out of just the fear of going up and saying hello cuz they feared getting rejected. That's life, you You know, it's it's not super complicated. There's only one way to [ __ ] defeat fear. Punch it in the [ __ ] face because whatever you're fearing is always less scary than you think. I I watched my sister get out of line from a water slide a couple weekends ago. Just got out of line. I also watched my brother's daughter who's six do it and then my do my sister got out of line and left. Walked right back down. Beer. She decided in her head that she was going to be the first person ever to fall off the slide and die. She just decided that fear is the most fake thing in the world. Yet, it feels the most real. Fear is what politicians, parents, and bosses weaponize against all of you. Fear is what spouses and boyfriends and girlfriends weaponize against you. Fear is what society weaponizes against you. Fear is the biggest issue in our society. And right now, fear is having a moment. People are more scared today than they were 20 years ago. It's really too bad. I feel bad for all of you. But I'm not going to cuddle you. You're a bunch of [ __ ] You Let me say it slow. Y'all are a bunch of [ __ ] And that's the truth. Like that's it. You're a [ __ ] [ __ ] And and why I say that is you have to understand that's true. Like you're a [ __ ] And and as soon as you realize, wait, I'm the [ __ ] not not other things, that's when you can actually address this issue. Like you complaining about other people, like that's you. And so it's really really liberating once you realize you're the [ __ ] Because once you realize you're the [ __ ] you can actually do something about it. When you think that the world's in control, the systems rigged, other people are lucky. Luck is a [ __ ] I need everybody in this world to get the word luck out of their mouth. Does luck exist? Of course no. That's how everything that's the whole thing. It's called serendipity. But if you weaponize luck, if you say, "Oh, Mike's lucky. Dustin's lucky." If you're the person that's using luck on someone to justify why they're doing something well, and you're not, you're a [ __ ] Did we establish it this morning? You're a [ __ ] That's right, Dustin. Very I'm proud of you. It was enjoyable. Next. Another gibby. Yeah, let's give it away. A chrome pack. Nice. There's a chrome pack being given away here. Literally free money. There's like 50 bucks. Just click this up here. Click this. Who got a mug? Mugs are in the store right now. You can get them for five bucks if you click this note. If you've never bought anything, plus be friends OG's. Time to get your YT mug. This is [ __ ] fresh. By the way, who in the chat just realized through that little two-minute rant that they are a [ __ ] Say [ __ ] in the chat, please. Um, that's okay. I can see it. They're all blocked, but I can I just I can see it. Good. Yeah, it's like once you realize it, it's really good. It's really good. Let's uh let's go to the next question. Um, if your content hits consistently on Tik Tok and YouTube, um, so I don't think the content is outright bad, but it's not hitting on IG or Facebook, even with trying different types of content throughout different platforms. What do you recommend? Been posting consistently every day everywhere, but no traction on Facebook or Instagram. That's unusual. So, I'd love to understand, you know, when I it's hitting on what? Tik Tok and what? Tik Tok and YouTube. It might skew young or very very specific. you know, I'm trying to figure it out. Like, look, Facebook and Instagram is harder to break out on because of the supply and demand of attention, but really it's, you know, this is where I sometimes need to be able to follow up because it's like how long and what, you know, again, for a lot, sometimes you don't break out for 18 to 24 months, you know, like I I just don't know how long they've been at it, but it sounds like they're doing the right things. And I think, you know, I kind of think about it like chest muscles for me. Like I did all the right things for like 7 years and still had not one chest muscle. Like my literal body was just not, you know, built in a way that that's going to show. And then literally out of nowhere, I just did a different kind of version of a push-up for literally 9 weeks. And all the groundwork, it just showed up. It's nothing special, but at least I can see it. And I felt I felt really accomplished, but it took [ __ ] 9 years. It was plenty frustrating like you know like and so I think for a lot of people like I don't think he's or she's been trying for nine years and it sounds like they're doing the right thing and just keep it going you know let's ask another question anybody on the screen what's good to see all of you keep asking your questions there uh yes I can show the mug again Burge here is the mug everybody this is the Y2K mug the whimsical wolf the beetle per mantis This vibe and vampire the black cat really crushes it. Decice of duck makawa cobra mugs are in the store right now. They're 20 bucks, but you can get it for five bucks. If you're new and you've never bought anything on whatnot the platform ever, you just hit this little yellow notepad. Inside there is a VF-15 little white button. Click that. That sends it into your wallet and then you could just buy it for five bucks. What? Over 250 people have not entered the giveaway. Everybody, we are literally giving away a free pack. All you have to do is hit this little button that says giveaway right here. Just click it. Literally, just click it. It's [ __ ] free money, you [ __ ] All right, let's go to the next question. Okay. Um, thoughts on starting and growing a business at 62. I just don't want to retire. Thank you. Yes. I mean, what are my thoughts? My thoughts is it's a very good idea. 62 is a [ __ ] child. 62 is a [ __ ] child. Like, I don't know. Like, I don't know what else to say. Like, I know people think it's funny, but like all you 20-year-olds, no [ __ ] you guys don't think 62 is young. You're going to be 62 and you're going to realize how [ __ ] young it is. Mike, how old are you now? Do you think at 18 that you thought 27 was like grown? Right. Do you realize now that 27 you're basically the same [ __ ] kid you were at 18? Yeah, that's it. Yeah. And like you know what's my answer to that question? Answer is yes. Next turn. Um okay. Uh let's see. Uh how do you prove out the value of a personal brand in building or boosting a business brand? Uh intuitively and anecdotally we know it's invaluable and yet so many CEOs fail or refuse to invest in their personal brand. So what was the upfront part? How do you what? Um how do you prove the value of a personal brand? I mean, I think based on what I just heard, whether this is an employee or somebody who's running an agency that does that work for people, you don't I'm not in the business of convincing people. I just want everybody who's watching Tea with Gary Vee right now this morning to know I don't give a [ __ ] if you do anything about the stuff I talk about. I mean, you're not my children. I mean, I I'm trying to help. Like I'm out here pushing. I mean, forget gunonna. I'm the [ __ ] pushing pee guy. Like, I'm doing it, right? I'm doing it. But what do you want from me? Like, I can't [ __ ] What am I supposed to do? Like, I'm pushing every day. Every day in my content, I have a full-fledged team all [ __ ] employing all of you for us to push positivity, practicality, tactics, and mindset to have a better life. But what do you want from me? And that's how I feel about this. You know, obviously Vayner Media does that work. When a CEO is like, "Gary, I don't think this works." I'm like, "That's nice." Like, what do you want from me? No [ __ ] Of course it [ __ ] works, you idiot. There's a billion examples of it. Like, but I'm not here to [ __ ] convince you. I have conviction. I say this all the time. Have conviction. Don't [Music] convince. Like, if you don't want to buy what I'm putting down, don't buy it. I I do not care if anybody who's watching right now collects V friends. I'm just going to make sure all of them regret not collecting V friends. I don't know what else like what else? What the [ __ ] else? I don't need to convince anyone about anything. These are my opinions. These are my observations. These are my passions. I think it's crazy not to build a personal brand. But oh, by the way, CEOs don't have to. Like, do you know how many people have huge companies that don't have personal brands? I don't think the only way to win is to have a personal brand. I think it's one of the ways. So, that's how I answer that question here. All right, let's get somebody back up here. Actually, before you do anything, uh, thoughts on being 17? Charlie asked on Instagram. My thoughts are, you're [ __ ] lucky. My thoughts are I envy you. And I don't like using the word envy much, but I would pay a whole lot of money to rack off 32 years of my life right now. Uh, everybody who is on Instagram and Tik Tok, YouTube, and other channels, please go to garyve.com/wennot right now and tell me in the chat if you came over. If you're in the chat here on Whatnot and this is your first time, say first time and then tell me where you just came from. JWW Sports Cards, good to see you. TC, good to see you. Zezy, good to see you. Oh, we got somebody on the screen. Yo, holy [ __ ] Yes, sir. This is insanity. I'm driving. I'm about to pull off the uh pull off the road real fast. Yeah, please don't drive and and talk. Well, let's just uh get straight to it. I've literally done everything you've ever put out. Um started my own business. You definitely definitely 100% changed my life. Uh, I was in the military. Uh, 2021 I got out. I had already started the business. Um, I just pulled over, so give me one second. [Music] First of all, first of all, what's your name, my man? Uh, Mike. Mike. Second of all, nice, Mike. Second of all, I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for serving this country and protecting us. And so, thank you very much. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Um, so I'll get straight to it. Um, I was just driving. I'm in the Virginia Beach, Norfolk area. Um, Newport News um, in uh, Virginia. Uh, have a meal prep business. So, it's about four or five um, employees right now. Last month or last year, we did about $450,000 in sales. Um, this year we're about to double, so we're about 750,000 um, on pace this year. um Facebook, Instagram, doing everything that you can to the best of my ability. You know what I'm saying? Like once once a day is, you know, hitting there for me, you know what I'm saying? So adding adding people to the team. Um got a videographer. Um so my brand is um three pets. I'll just go ahead and plug it real quick. So I got Go ahead. Got the jacket. I had your I had yours on real real fast. So we're 3 PDs. Um so we're based out of like I said the Virginia Beach area, but we're expanding right now. So, right now the demographic that we deliver to and do pickup orders for um is just about 500,000 um like demographic wise that we're like customer base. Um we're trying to expand to like the other side of the water which is um Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, that area um which is about a million um customers. So, we're already doing you know on pace like I said this year for $750,000 in sale which I'm super grateful for. It's like it's amazing. Like it's huge. How how I mean the Facebook ads should crush for this business. Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So everything uhoh lost. I don't know. Seems like phone. I lost it. I lost the phone. Yeah, I know. Cuz I'm gone. I'm gone. No, no. What? Uh what? What? No. No. You wanna you wanna Hey everybody on all my other channels. You guys can see me, right? You guys can see me on all the other channels. On all my other social. Yes or no? What happened with this? I don't [Music] What's that? Um, you have to have to for your audio. Okay. Plug that in. Make sure it actually connects. It It It did. It wasn't charging. Press other device. Um, it wasn't charging. Whatever it is, whatever's going on with these two, it's not charging. That's what happened. Everyone's Everyone's with me. All right, everybody is here. Can you guys figure out how to charge that? That's why that happened. It wasn't charging one of these. Got it. All right, we're back. Are we back? What about my social? Social's fine. My social's fine. Can you guys see me? You guys, are they sure? I just want to make sure my social's fine. Everybody, you guys see, can you guys see me on Instagram? Can you see me on uh Instagram? Tik Tok. Can you guys confirm that you see me? Yes. All right. Thank you. Yes. Instagram, can you guys confirm? You never left. Good. Okay. All right. What's happening here? You're on your Yeah. No, I know. Everybody, great to see you. Um, this is not I can't see this. What's this? Yeah, that's it's We're here right now. We're going to restart the show. Okay. You're going to raid. All right. Hey guys, I need your help a little bit here. Yeah. Am I reading to this? Not right now. All right. So, can you guys throw me up here so I can see it? Click that. I'll I'll type it. All right, there we go. Good. All right, everybody, you are now on my account on whatnot, which means I need every one of you following me. Please uh follow me real quick cuz most of you don't. You follow on V friends, you don't follow on me. Um let's Yeah. So, what what's happening here is that this is not charging. Yeah, we're going to get into All right, let's Aaron, are you uh you back? Mike, let them worry about that. you're me and like you've got many other people can do that. All right, Aaron, let's get back to the show. Uh, for the gentleman who's just on, um, first of all, I'm really proud of you. Second of all, I want you to quadruple down on Facebook ads. Quadruple down. All right, Mike, we're going to quadruple down on Facebook ads, Mike. And you've got to make a lot more content. Oh, there you are, Mike. What's up? You're back. That was you for a second getting literally doing the whole thing, bro. I saw, bro, you were you were holding it down. I was watching. What the heck? So, Mike, listen. You need to run You can get your What's your customer acquisition cost on your ads? Um, we haven't really run a ton of ads. We do we run them like on um sale weekends like March Madness, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, things like that. Everything else has been social uh organic for now. Um, and so trying to That's a huge mistake. You can't be doing $750,000 a year and not running ads of your best social organic content to the five and 10 mile radius around your business cuz you haven't even you haven't even come you have an addressable market of a million customers and you haven't even come close to starting to maximize that area. You're talking about expanding. You haven't done dick [ __ ] yet in the general area you're in. Yeah. Yeah. So like when you were this is my this is my question about scaling and me being the C like the the head the number one being the leader like how do you go from doubling year-over-year and still trying to like you know I want to keep balance obviously too like my me it's me and my wife so we're a part um a husband wife duo so we're full-time in the business and we have three other full-time employees but how do we kind of keep scaling and keep pushing but not like overexerting if that makes sense like doubling year over year and then to even think about doing that again. Um cuz right now um we're in the area of Norfick State where Michael Big is um become the coach at the um college for football. So that's kind of like a partnership and something that I've been working on and that's where I'm actually coming back from delivering meals from right now. So um that's kind of like something else like doing the more uh B2B basically the meals and stuff. You're hiring people. That's how you hire people faster. Yes. And then you got to fire fast or promote faster depending on what happens with those hirings. How many hours a week are you guys working? Don't [ __ ] me. Tell me the honest truth. Uh the honest truth. The last 5 years I've been 6 days a week only off on Tuesdays. Um pretty much 65 to 75 hours. Yeah. I mean you're building a business like for yourself and you want to live on your own two feet. 6570 feels like a bare minimum. So, I think you're fine. Yes, sir. You know what I mean? You know, we're doing the I'm taking the advice of like scaling back. So, um one of our other full-time employees, my sister-in-law, so she's actually moving in with us to cut back on our expenses and our costs for the next 16 months or so. Yeah, you're you're [ __ ] doing it, man. I think you're doing it right. I think you I think you should hire a little more. Okay? You know, more hiring. More more hire, but you also have to run ads because you'll get customers faster. Gotcha. All right. All right, man. Love you. I appreciate you everything that you do. Thank you, brother. Thank you so much. Wish you well. All right. What are we doing here? We got Pat Flynn. We're Are we going to raid back to be friends? We're going to need one more second back. No worries. All right, Aaron, fire away with another question. All right, Pablo. Sean asks, "What advice would you give to a 21-year-old in college trying to balance work and school? I feel like missing out on school because I'm way too offbalance and putting so much time on my work. I think it's fine. I mean, I I don't like these questions make me laugh. Like yeah, like like I don't know. Like neither one of them are going to matter in 5 years. How about that? Like real talk, 21 years old, school and work. I have a funny prediction. At 26, it's not going to [ __ ] matter. the the mindset you're learning, the habits you're getting are going to matter, but the school work or the [ __ ] current job doesn't mean dick. I got a secret for all you [ __ ] on this show today. Nothing matters. Yeah, court. You like that? Like, how about that [ __ ] You guys want a real brain [ __ ] You want real brain [ __ ] this morning? Nothing actually matters. Like it's all chill out here. It's all good. You like that shot? Like like everything you are capable of fixing everything. Everything is fixable. Everything is [ __ ] fixable. Like and because you could take dramatic action. This is what everyone's scared of. People are scared of dramatic action. I said to my trainer yesterday working out, I will move to Peru in the middle of nowhere and eat carrots and read books that were printed 500 years ago and be fine. Nothing scares me. I am not scared. The [ __ ] am I scared of? What are you scared about, y'all? What do you actually fear? The [ __ ] are you scared of? It better not be opinions of [ __ ] strangers. It is dust. That's what [ __ ] kills me. I'm dying on this hill. I'm not scared of the opinions of my most precious loved ones. The [ __ ] am I going to worry about? Let me pick a random name here. The guy seeker on whatnot right now or Quazo or [ __ ] Salvatore. I don't give a [ __ ] Salvatore, [ __ ] you. Like, what do you want? What are you all scared of? The [ __ ] are we worried about? We can read back. [ __ ] who was with me yesterday? Uh oh. Jason, do you know four people four people in line yesterday in Nashville? Four people in line. No, no, not overall. Four I'm not I'm getting to the punch line. Four people in line yesterday came up to me emotional and hugged. Thank you. with the next line saying, "I was homeless when I discovered you." Who's homeless that's watching right now? And don't be like funny and troll. Just tell me you're homeless. Like, tell me right now you're actually homeless. You sleep outside, right? Like, what are you scared of? Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Okay, you can send it. Send it. Going back to V friends. Salvador, I'm not I'm not not feared. I love you, bro. I'm not mad. I'm not mad. I'm mad. I'm I'm hopeful. Hopeful. I'm I'm desperate. I'm desperate. I'm desperate for people for people to get into that good place where it's chill, you know? That's where I'm at. Like, I'm I'm I'm desperate. [ __ ] desperate you know? Desperate. Desperate. That's what I want for you, you know. So, I don't know what's going on with the screen. All right. What? We're now back. What are we doing? We got Pat. What's the plan? What's the plan? Deep is going to join me now on this stream. Okay. Deeper is ready and he's joining me on this here. He's right here. And what are we doing? We are You want to keep this going? Yeah, keep it going. All right, everybody. Thank you for being on with TE with Gary Vee. We're about to transition into what are we doing? He's just going to talk. His YouTube channel has a wonderful rate build. He's awesome Pokemon enthusiast and he is just going to chat with you about Tops Chrome. Awesome. Let me see if I can uh answer some questions while we're waiting. This year I went from 41 14K followers to Thank you. You're very welcome. Still being paid until September teacher. A lot of questions coming through. Everybody, if you got a question for me that I'm not going to be able to get to right now, go to 212931-5731. Adrien, could you put up the 212? There we go. Everybody, I just pinned Morning. Morning. Morning. Great to see everybody. Yeah, let's open a quick pack. All right. What's happening? I got nothing. I never get anything. [ __ ] get anything. What's up, brother? Good to see you, man. It's been a while. Been good. It's been good. I love what you're doing. Be friends, man. Thank you, man. I'm so proud of you, man. journey. I you've been on for the last several years. You've been watching from the sidelines. Always. Always. This is what I do. Ah, thank you. What's up? Yeah, man. This is exciting. It's very exciting. It's been uh any good polls yet? I can't pull [ __ ] There's been plenty of polls online, but I've not been able to pull anything. Uh Pat, why don't you tell everybody uh let's just get us ourselves organized here in a second. I don't know which camera. There's like 10. There's 10 cameras. You just Yeah. You just go wherever. Yeah. Uh Pat Flynn, originally Smart Passive Income and YouTuber, podcaster, but more recently, you might know me from Deep Pocket Monster Pokemon YouTube channel. And also, if you've ever heard the jingle, should I open it or should I keep it sealed? That that's me. And uh that's kind of blown up. 1.1 billion views on YouTube in less than 300 days. What um let's let's actually get the context of this journey. You and I met years and years ago. And um you know I always give you Lewis Others Flowers as very early really allin uh JLD others OG podcasters who it was very obvious to me I'm like because I remember when ODO came out like even before you guys six five six years I was like oh this podcast thing it's kind of like many things it it didn't fully take off then and then in your era it did and then obviously it's a whole different animal now. Um, my question is when did you start making the pivot to going deeper into Pokemon content versus general business and marketing content? And what was that? How long did you debate making that move before you actually did it? I'll give you the rundown, please. 2020, the kids got me. I got two kids. Yep. They got me into Pokemon. Whatever they get into, I want to get into as well. Before Pokémon, it was Fortnite. Yep. And I hired a person on Fiverr to teach me how to play Fortnite. He's a 14-year-old kid. That's awesome. The best investment I made because then my kids and I had a common language. Of course, they moved on like most kids do into Pokémon. So, I moved along with them and they eventually outgrew it and I have not. Um before How old are the kids now? 15 and 12. And they've moved on. They've moved on and they come back and you know, my kids actually work in my business now. That's awesome. Uh but after they moved out, I dove into the communities. Really love what I was seeing. You remember Pokey Rev? right? He was on your show once and uh he had once listened to my podcast too. So anyway, it was just like full circle moments. Became a moderator for his channel. Love the community and noticed that most of the people in that space were kind of doing the same thing, opening packs on their webcams at home. And I said, "Okay, well, I think I could bring something new to this space. I don't know what it is, but I I'm excited about this. I'm going to show up." And that's all I wanted to do. And then eventually after a few months, the videos started to pop off when I started to go out into the wild and actually do trades in person and kind of show the community aspect of uh of Pokémon. And uh one video I did where I try to complete a set in 24 hours, brilliant stars. Finished it in 24 hours. And I didn't know if that was going to do well or not. Popped off I think 3 4 million views in a week or something like that or a month. How long was the video? 24 minutes. Now our videos are 45 minutes to an hour and a half. bigger challenges, uh, bigger sets, and more community, more just just good vibes. Uh, we even run a live event now called Car Party, uh, which you know about. We're running that at the end of June, and we're going to have 6,000 people there, 750 vendors, and, uh, I'm just a grown 42-y old man like you, uh, playing with cardboard. That's shiny. That's awesome, brother. That's awesome. Um, what's been the biggest surprise? The biggest surprise is number one uh the reach of entertainment content versus my more entrepreneurial kind of how-to content, right? The general audience is much bigger. I'm playing I'm not even here but I'm playing in the realm of you know Mr. Beast versus just kind of the top level ceiling of of an entrepreneur, right? And so by even though it's Pokémon, you can tell stories and bring humanness into it like real challenges, real ups, real downs. People are people no matter what space they're in. 100%. And when you can bring that into the content that you have, it doesn't matter if they like Pokémon or not. They're going to enjoy the story. In fact, many of the people who comment on my videos are people who say, "I don't even know what this guy's doing. I don't even know. All I know is Pikachu and that's it, but I can't stop watching these videos." So, we've been diving into storytelling. My team and I were studying it, uh, reading about it, taking workshops and stuff cuz I feel like in the future, the number one skill any person can have with AI coming and everything being level playing field is going to be storytelling. I think that's I think that's the number one skill. I could not agree more. I could not agree more. Creativity and strategy, prompt engineering around the creative thoughts and the strategic thoughts are going to be massive. Massive. Yeah. It's so good to see you again. Yeah, you see, man. I'm I'm like itching to rip some stuff. Let's rip some stuff. Yeah. So, this, you know, for a long time I thought that I would buy intellectual property when I was building Vayner, if you remember. Um, I I always thought this whole thing was going that I was going to build a private equity firm on top of it and go out and buy nostalgic brands. And so I thought about buying Gumby or or, you know, Scooby-Doo or the Smurfs. And then and then when the NFT thing happened, I was like, you know what, I can use this platform to build out my own world. And so in a lot of ways, what Vfriend Friends is for me is the extension of the things that I'm passionate about. the the attributes, the mindset, all those things that I want to push into the universe. And so, um, uh, it's been a really cool journey and this TOPS Chrome launch has been an absolute monster. I mean, I I can only imagine. I mean, this is a physical product. There's printing involved. There's a lot of math and all this other stuff like as opposed to, you know, staying in the digital world. How's it been to actually like create a set of cards? I mean, I know a few people who've created their own TCGs and some have come come and gone. What are you going to do to make sure this stays around? You know, I think it's effort of storytelling. Back to what we talked about, you know, like you've got to really really find a a way to get people to fall in love with the characters. So, actually, ironically, I don't know if I have it here, but the comic books are probably the biggest the comic books and the cartoons are probably the biggest um aspects of this play. If I can't get people to fall in love with Decisive Duck or Fearless Ferry, I have no shot. And so it's it's truly good old-fashioned. We'll just rip one here. Um it's it's seriously good old-fashioned storytelling. So in in this comic, for example, you know, you find out that two of the characters, Fearless Ferry and Bad Intentions are actually brother and sister. That's fun. Yeah. And so I think so I think you know so I think for the people that really understand how universes are built they're built through these stories through these you know endeavors and executions and um you know I think that uh that's how and then even on the trading cards when you look on the back you know we're we're telling people what their what their competitive advantage is and their quote and so it's really serious storytelling. And so through video games, through comic books, trading cards, we're going to build this world. I love that. Yeah. And the the world building is important to us, too. I mean, even in our videos, we have certain characters that pop up and some of these characters aren't even human, right? We our time sometimes and we bought a kitchen timer. I put googly eyes on it and I called it Steve. Yep. And now we have like people who want Steve merch because this is a character which represents time and the villain of the story and like people know him as Steve. It's just a kitchen timer, right? Hey, we have it. Let me just uh let me Greg Greg Gillard, good news. Not tired and definitely not unhappy. The Knicks are playing for a huge game tonight. What I think you're responding to is the gray hairs are coming in the European brown, you know, bags under the eye. Like, good news, Greg. I'm [ __ ] I'm super pumped, but I appreciate the concern. But yeah, storytelling is everything in that. Even the the googly eyes. Finish that through. Yeah. So, Steve and we have other characters and even card shops that we visit around San Diego, which is my hometown. These these card shop owners and workers have become now mini celebrities and people go and get their autographs because they see it in my videos, too, which is cool. And we're starting attention, attention, attention. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we're trading here. That's the game. All right. Open a pack. Let's go through it. Let's go. What's the chase? Like, what is the chase? I mean, there's like one of ones and things like that. The the character in our world is definitely the very very very lucky black cat. That is our Pikachu. That is our Charizard. That is our Mickey Mouse. So, dialed in dog. Dialed in dog. Okay. It looks like my dog. What's up? I'll show it to the screen. Dialed in dog. All right. Considerate cowboy. Big character in our world. Uh I I like making the cowboy considerate. What's been huge for these cards is giving it the opportunity to allow parents to talk about what being considerate means. And that's been a real huge positive. Like how considerate it is for you to have me on your show. Thank you for that. Uh Mike Cesario. Yeah. So, this is an insert that entrepreneur elf's favorite entrepreneurs, Mike created, liquid death. This is a really fun insert in the set. Benevolent Barn Owl. Are these still all your artwork or So, not not these the original artwork that I sketched. So, these are the ones I sketched originally. Um, and then obviously we're now forming them into uh a bigger thing. So, all right, let's do another one. Let's do another one. I also have some Pokémon packs if you want to rip, too. Hell yeah. Okay. Yeah. And you got your book here. I do. Let's talk about this for a second coming out June 3rd. Lean learning. How to achieve more by learning less cuz uh information isn't as valuable as it once was cuz we all have access to it now. And if that were the answer, we'd all be where we want to be. So it's determining what is the right information at the right time for what you need. the difference between just in case learning which is what we're all doing you know people who are subscribed to 20 podcasts and learning so much in the car and just kind of getting distracted versus what's the thing I need right now which is just in time learning so just in case learning is what I want to teach people how to get away from I mean information is not slowing down that's for sure no it's only revving up stunned son su n this is uh my brother AJ's single favorite character stunned son to the Moon Mircat. Ooh. Oh, you got a Ooh, you got a very big card, Pat. I can't wait for you to show this next one to the Moon Mircat. All right, I'll go one behind it so we can finish off. Yep. And that's going to be legit llama. The legit llama. Not in pajamas. Mhm. And then we got Decisive Duck color match, the yellow insert. This is uh this is one of the most soughtafter cards. The yellow refractors are only available in the blasters and decisive duck is a super big character as you can see he's on the packaging and the yellow and yellow color match. So people have been really really chasing that. Nice. Uh I'm going to let uh everybody on whatnot ask your Pokemon questions to Pat. I'm going to let him pull out his packs as well. Um and so uh uh it's not Brad. It's not necessarily a nod to the TCG. It was just uh the color refractor we wanted uh to have in the uh blaster. Oh my goodness. Yeah, we got some basic packs. Big boys from 1999. These are coming in from a a store nearby here actually. Poke cord. Pleasure. Oh my god. So, you don't have to agree to this, but I have a challenge. Okay. Uh we have two packs. Yes. Same set. Do a little battle. Yep. And uh we can put we can have something at stake for I'm interested. All right. All right. What would you like the stakes to be? If if you win, you have the higher, more valuable card, I will buy a case of Tops Chrome V Friends and hand them out on one of my upcoming streams. That's a huge win for me. And if I lose, we stream every Monday to about 6 to 8,000 people. Incredible. Um, well, I have this book and uh we can do something where if you if I lose, you lose uh I buy, would you buy 100 copies and give them away? 100%. Deal. Deal. Okay. All right. Here we go. Big match. Let's go. Okay, you pick then. You pick. Again, these are coming in from Poke Court, which is a store nearby here, actually. All right, here we go. This big big battle. Do you want me to go first so I can swim? All right, here we go. When was the last time you opened a basic Pokemon? Probably last national. Two, three. Last national. Okay. Okay, we got a Kadabra. Nice card. That video is made by We have a Farfetched Revive. Gastly. I love Gastly, by the way. Caterpie. That's That's a good one. That's a little bit of a problem for me. No. No. It's the hit at the end. I know. We were waiting for Hollywag. Energy removal. All right. Two energies and then we'll see it. Energy. Energy. At least the hollow blaster waste. Let's go. [ __ ] I'm in deep. I'm in deep [ __ ] Let's go, dude. Uh, can you get me Can you get me uh can you get me finance? I need to buy a 100 bucks. [ __ ] Let's go. So, you need a Charizard. The Charizard. Charizard is the only one that you can pull. I'm very aware. So, three from the back if you want to do the card trick. The Pull the three up here. Flip it over. Yep. And then pull three out and bring it to the front. Yep. I cannot believe a blast. It was just Dude, let's go. That's wild, bro. I know. God damn it. The pack. I'm aware. Trainer. [Music] Growth. Nice. Grow's [Music] cute rad. I have no [ __ ] shot. No. Trainer. Bulbasaur. There's a starter. Bulbasaur is nice. Nice little bonus. Jordan says, "I'm not so sure about Gary." Squirtle. Squirtle. Nice little cards. Squirtle. I'm actually really nervous. Wow. It's a nice little pack. Still got a few more to go. Abra man. A lot of nice little hits. I have the right kind of pack here. There's I feel like he senses there's some juice in his back. Two energies. Two energies. Oh man. Oh, Gyarados. Still a hollow, but congrats. Nice win. Thank you so much. So remember, you chose the pack, right? I did. So, if you go to ibegaryvve.com, if you're one of the first 100 people to put your name and address in there, uh, we'll get we'll get Gary will will we'll will pay for those books and I'll send them to you directly. Um, us only unfortunately, but I beatgary v.com. Want to see it. Want to see it. Nice. I love that. I didn't have a domain if I lost. I was just hoping that I'd win. So, thank you. You are very welcome, Pat. I love being a very nice host. Hey, you know what? I'm also going to buy a case of these anyway and give them away on my stream. You're the best, brother. You're the best. Um, what what what have you most uh noticed on this journey in the skills you learned in marketing that you've been able to bring here? Yeah, there there's a lot. You know, in marketing, one thing I've understood is that you have to get the reps in to understand what's working. And most people want to learn all the things. This is I talk about this in my book. They want to learn all the things and then they get overwhelmed and don't even do anything versus like go out there, make mistakes, hit publish, go. The mistakes don't derail you. They become the guard rails that you can now work in between. That's what I like to say. And so, same thing, just getting those reps in like the shorts channel every day. Should I open it or should I keep it sealed? Sometimes they hit, sometimes they don't. I'm learning. I'm getting all this data and it just continues to stack and stack and now I'm getting opportunities like this. I got invited to the uh to Ford Field to open packs on on their field cuz they open. Um and UFC fighters, NBA players have reached out to me. We want to connect and other big big brands want to collab. Um and then of course on that the relationships that you bring along with you, the other people in the space that you can serve first. I just sleeved. Oh yeah, I got to leave. You can't do this alone. You have to have the right people around you, whether it's employees who are amazing or even just colleagues and friends. Um, getting support along the way is important because you cannot do this alone. You only know what you know, but there's so much more to know out there, but if you learn too much from too many sources, it's going to be confusing. So, find the right one or two mentors, follow them, and I've done that here, too, in this space. I love it. What can I answer for you, if anything? I mean, I'm more curious about V friends and kind of long-term visions. Where is it going to go after this series? and kind of how are you going to turn it into your version of what Pokémon is now, which is the biggest media franchise in the world. Yeah. You know, I think the blueprint's out there, you know, meaning whether it's Roblox, whether it's Minecraft, whether it's Lego, whether it's Tik Tok or Instagram, whether it's podcasting or live streaming, live social shopping on whatnot. you know, uh, what I know about you and what you know about me is that over the last almost two decades, knowing where the attention is, knowing the platforms, and so I have incredible confidence um, on being where I need to be to get parents and uh, grown-ups and and collectors and kids to know about V friends, right? I think how you fill those pipes with what becomes a huge variable. And so it's education shows, it's collab shows, and it's storytelling shows. And so I've been studying attention and commerce and collectibility and intellectual property basically my whole life. So it's it's about being incredibly patient. Like when I talk about the ambitions of building something as big as Pokémon or Marvel or DC or Disney, it's not lost on me that it's going to take me 30, you know, years to do that. Yeah, you know. Yeah. And and for me that's exciting. Like to me I want that grind. I want that game. And um I you know I think the plan is very simple. The animations, the cartoons, the books, the mangas. Like it you have to be aware of all the different variables, form factors that can get people to fall in love with things. And then you need to know to your point earlier, too many people are crippled by doing everything right and then they do nothing. I'm obsessed with getting befriends to matter on Roblox. Be friends is almost 5 years old and I haven't even started it yet. And that's okay because I've got to get the comics down. I got to get the cards down. I've got to get the content down. I got to do VCON and all that other stuff. So, you know, I think it's um you know, I think it's uh what's next is a very disciplined execution of getting these characters to meet something. You know, when when you rip and you show Blastoid, for a lot of people here, it was 15 years, 20 years of Pokémon meeting something for them that got them to feel something. Right now, it's impossible for me to get when I show decisive duck for the world to feel the same way they feel about blast, right? But for a small group, watch this in whatnot. Everybody in whatnot right now, if you've been on the befriends wagon for the last 4 years, list your favorite character and what it means to you, right? That's cool. And what will happen is you're going to start seeing people start to talk about, you know, they they can list it. Pokemon has hundreds of millions, tens of millions of people that can do that. 30 years by correct. I have dozens, hundreds at this point, thousands of people that can do it. So for me, it's just a it's a long long road of building this out. But I don't I I look at Disney, Marvel, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Care Bears, Pokémon as these incredible inspirations that I root for as well. I'm not there's no scen you know a lot I see people making comments about building these things where you know uh for example you as a podcaster and content creator you know this about me I was always there to root and build up not to think that I was competing with I I believe that there's enough room for 50 more new V friends to go and build huge things so my relationship with the other IPs is very healthy the new ones in NFT land, board a pudgy penguins, all that. And the OGs that are much further ahead, I root for everyone else, but I focus on my building, you know, and so that's what I'm that's where I'm at. I love that. I have once heard it spoken about like this. Yes, let's go. Yeah, keep talking while you're opening. That you know, we're not at a poker table where if you're winning, that means I'm losing, right? We can we can both win. There's more chips out there for all of us. I really wish the world knew how um how abundant success is. You know, I I feel that people have envy and jealousy and that eliminates them from having any opportunity to actually build cuz all their energy is paying attention to others. And so, you know, that's how you combat that. I mean, it's kind of a human natural thing to do. It's a it's a very human natural thing. I mean, I I think if you're a human on the other side of this, the way you combat it is by recognizing how not effective it's been and trying something different. Yeah. You know, yeah. Compare yourself to yourself last week, to yourself last month. And do you like it? like you know I think again you executed in culture the culture I watch personalities business you executed a pivot into this that fits my biggest thesis about crush it and what I believe which is so many people right now that are watching us have so many chapters in their life almost everyone right now that's watching will not be defined by what they're actually doing right Right. And and I feel like you're a huge inspiration for a lot of people. Um and I I cheer for you heavy because of that. We got another another yellow yellow. Let's see. OG Ox, which has gotten a lot more love than I anticipated during this set. OG Ox has been getting some love. Yes. OG. I have to go. Okay. Good. Methodical. Methodolical. Method. Methodical. Got you. Methodical. Matt. I can read. Ooh, the hustling hamster. I'm going to sign that for you cuz you are You know what? You are This one I'm sending you with. And Major Moth, I got to run to my next thing, but I'm sending this to you because you are truly a hustle. This to you, please. Yeah, for sure. And Gary, nobody has to go anywhere for free giveaways back to back. All right, everybody. Everybody stay here on OneNot. And everybody on all my social, get over to garyve.com/wenot cuz we're literally giving away free money right now. Free money. Thanks, G. Appreciate it. Thanks for the plug, too. Yeah, I'm buy I'm going to buy more than those 100 bucks, by the way. So, let's talk about that. Bye, everyone. I'll see you later. Thank you.