00:00What is the best business or career advice you have ever received?
00:05Here's the best, which was actually given by that man up there, my father.
00:09You know, I'm comfortable saying what I'm about to say.
00:12I think I taught my dad more than he taught me.
00:20The fact that now at 48 years old, there is a substantial amount of human beings
00:26that walk around the earth that are asked,
00:30what's it really like to work for Gary?
00:32Or what's he really like?
00:34And that I know that 93.7% of them have incredibly good things to say.
00:40And that is by far my biggest accomplished profession.
00:47I think I decided I was a success probably when I was 10.
00:51I played it reverse, I think, in hindsight.
00:53I kind of had this really early framework of,
00:56I think I figured out that school doesn't matter,
00:59and that being nice and being good at something does.
01:02Like, I don't think today, like, I'm a success.
01:05I think the luck of the draw of humility is a DNA tree.
01:08Not to be in conflict to conviction and competitiveness,
01:12and I think I'm, you know, it's a funny mix.
01:15But honestly, I've never thought that I've made it or I've made it.
01:19I've never thought in the terms of success.
01:24Actually, you know, it's funny.
01:25I'm going to go run and ask them right now.
01:27Actually, I'm not even kidding.
01:28I don't think I've ever asked them, like, what was the moment?
01:30And they may say when I did the Conan O'Brien show, that was wild.
01:33I was running a wine store in New Jersey, started this YouTube thing,
01:36and then six months later, I'm on the Conan O'Brien show.
01:39Or maybe right away, because I built the family business pretty big.
01:43But, yeah, I mean, as someone who has a 15- and 11-year-old now, I get it.
01:48Like, I think, you know, all the little things my kids do well,
01:51I'm like, everyone, you know, like, it's what we do.
01:54It's a very fun thing.
01:56I'm enjoying getting to an age where my kids are a little bit older,
02:00where I can even appreciate more why my parents are proud.
02:04Like, I get it.
02:05You just, when you love your child so much,
02:07anything they do makes you kind of weirdly proud.
02:13No one, and that's not an audacious bad statement,
02:15I just didn't look at it that way.
02:18Richard Salzman owned a liquor distributorship.
02:21I have no clue how big or not good it was.
02:23I love that his people adored him.
02:25And ironically, the reason I probably just brought him up is he just passed away.
02:30And my father texted me from the wake.
02:32I was traveling, and he said,
02:33you will not believe how many people were there.
02:35And I smiled like a mother, because I'm like, that's the life.
02:39Forget about the accolades or that.
02:42And, you know, it was people like that,
02:45the Richard Salzman's of the world,
02:47more than the Bill Gates or the Steve Jobs or the, you know, J.P. Morgan's.
02:53I just, I was inspired that you could be rich, successful, but nice.
03:00I hated nice guys finish last from my earliest of age.
03:04And I think now that I'm getting into my middle part of my life,
03:08I hate it even more.
03:09And so I was always inspired by kindness that didn't compromise financial success.
03:15Do you know how many very rich people have poor people show up to their funeral?
03:20I think that's life.
03:27Humility.
03:29And on the other side, blind, audacious, optimistic conviction.
03:36Polar opposites.
03:38Hard work, like real hard work,
03:41but so much self-awareness that you know when you need to rest.
03:45Competitiveness, but you understand it's a game, so you don't actually hate.
03:51That's the framework I live in.
03:52Very opposite traits that create that strength of accomplishment.
03:59Yeah, I have a framework of like aggressive perspective.
04:06Every day that something bad is going on,
04:08which is every day when you're at the scale I'm at,
04:10I just remind myself that if everything was going great
04:14and someone in my family was sick, that I wouldn't care.
04:19And so what has made me very capable
04:25is I am completely detached from my public persona and my professional success.
04:33I don't get my validation or affirmation from it.
04:36And so I would say aggressive perspective.
04:46Is the best, which was actually given by that man up there, my father.
04:50You know, I'm comfortable in saying what I'm about to say.
04:53I think I taught my dad more than he taught me.
04:55I know that's like, it's just real life.
04:57I feel that to be true.
04:58But that mother taught me that my word was bond
05:01and that you needed to honor your word.
05:03And I believe with my personality of gift of gab
05:07that there was a worse version of myself that was in the cards.
05:11Had I not been parented well, and he tweaked me in a way of like old school.
05:16My dad literally thinks a slight embellishment is like an aggressive lie.
05:22And that was a jolt to me because I grew up as a sales kid
05:25and I would tell Harry, it would be like, where's this from?
05:27I'd be like, oh, it was found in a rare attic.
05:30It's like, I would do anything to get her to buy this spell.
05:34And that my father changed the course.
05:37So that's the best advice.
05:38Your word is bond.
05:39Like that matters.
05:41I mean, the worst advice was from equally from the liquor business.
05:44The gentleman once told me, Gary, in retail,
05:47you can do price selection and service.
05:50You've got to pick two out of those.
05:52And that's how you build a business.
05:54And I sat there as a 22 year old.
05:55I'm like, you, I'm doing all three.
05:57And I built the biggest wine store in the country or one of them.
06:01And it was because I didn't take that advice.
06:04And it was bad advice.
06:05I think when you operate something,
06:07you should do everything you can for a customer.
06:15I would say the three mentors are my father, my mother, for sure.
06:19My mom completely shaped me completely, completely.
06:23Molded me from a piece of clay.
06:26And then I'm going to give you a weird one that I really believe to be true.
06:29And I think it is my core strength.
06:31I believe that the market has been my mentor.
06:35Customers, they've taught me the most.
06:38When they didn't buy my lemonade, they taught me.
06:41When they bought it, they taught me.
06:42When they didn't buy my sports cards.
06:44You know, I've had a really long career.
06:46Six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years old.
06:48Lemonade.
06:49Washing cars.
06:50Shoveling snow.
06:51I always did it.
06:5212, 13, 14, 15.
06:54Baseball cards.
06:55People coming to your table, not buying, buying.
06:58And then 16 to 34.
07:00Liquor store. Store.
07:01Customers coming in.
07:03The market has been my mentor.
07:06She taught me.
07:07The market taught me.
07:08It taught me what it liked.
07:10It taught me what it didn't like.
07:11And most of all, it taught me that it never stays the same.
07:19One, humility that I've touched on it.
07:22Do you think that you work for them?
07:24I think I work for Harriet and Dustin.
07:27Not that they work for me.
07:28I understand I pay their salary.
07:30I work for them.
07:31Then, in return, they can work for it.
07:34Not me.
07:35It.
07:36The logo.
07:37So I think that's a big one.
07:39I think lead by example.
07:41I think hypocrisy destroys people.
07:43When your boss tells you to do something that she or he doesn't do,
07:46it fucking hurts.
07:53My kryptonite.
07:54The greatest thing that I did wrong for 20 years
07:57was I didn't have good enough candor.
08:00Which is wild because I'm so candorous in public settings.
08:03In this interview, on stage, my candor is my superpower.
08:07But one-on-one, even today, I would say I'm a 5 out of 10
08:10if I had to tell Harriet and Dustin something I really needed them to fix
08:14because I like them too much.
08:15It's too family business.
08:16And honestly, I used to think of it as my superpower and it's my vulnerability.
08:21It's not fair to them if I'm not able to articulate
08:23because then they don't have the ability to fix.
08:26So I would say that I wish somebody grabbed me at 25 and said to me
08:30and my dad, in aversion, he did part of it,
08:33but he didn't really have the inner people skills.
08:37And so I really regret, and I don't use that word lightly.
08:42It's not a word that I have a lot of,
08:43but I did not manage everybody to the best of my abilities at 25, 30, 35, 40
08:49because I didn't have candor yet.
08:50It was the missing piece.
08:52And now I call it kind candor.
08:54Dustin, I love you, brother, but if you don't do this,
08:57I'm going to lose the fort because everyone knows that I'm letting you get away with it.
09:01These are conversations I'm starting to,
09:03and again, I gave myself a 5, which probably means it's a 4.
09:06And so, candor.
09:09You must cut out the most negative person in your life.
09:12Now, if that is your mother,
09:15I'm not advocating for never speaking to your mother again.
09:18If it's your mother, I would say that you need to limit the exposure.
09:23So if you're talking to your mom who's extremely negative three times a day,
09:27it might need to go to three times a week.
09:30But if it is not your mother or your ex-wife,
09:34three times a week.
09:36But if it is not your mother or your best relatives or your best friends,
09:40and it is an acquaintance, a boyfriend that you haven't married yet,
09:45an employee, an employer,
09:48you must cut out that cancer.
09:50It will have the greatest impact on your life.
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