Coming up next on passion struck.

I don't like generalizing, but yes, I do think we need to talk to kids about emotions. But I actually think the place we need to go with them is to make them more accountable, is to let them lose a little bit more. I think we've over coddled a generation of individuals, and I think that the emotional intelligence we need to talk to kids about, believe it or not, is less about kindness and compassion, and it's more about tenacity, accountability, competitiveness.

Welcome to passion struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles, and on the show we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions. On Friday. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEO's, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now let's go out there and become passion struck.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to episode 481 of Passion Struck, consistently ranked one of the top five most inspirational podcasts worldwide. A heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you who return the show every week, eager to listen, learn, and discover new ways to live better, to be better, and to make a meaningful impact in the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, and we so appreciate it when you do that. We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans favorite episodes that we organize into playlists that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com starter.

Packs to get started.

I am thrilled to announce that my new book, Passion Struck, was selected as a winner of the 2024 Reader's twist contest by Connections e magazine. It also won the best nonfiction fiction book at the International Book Awards, the Eric Hoffer Book Awards, the best business Minds Book awards, and won a gold medal at the Nonfiction Book Awards. It was also a must read for the next big Idea club. You can purchase it on Amazon or go to passionstruck.com to learn more about it. In case you missed my interviews from last week, they featured Finian Kelly and doctor Mary Murphy. Finian is a speaker and executive coach who reveals the transformative power of intentionality, a feelings first approach to living in leadership. In our episode, you will learn how prioritizing feelings over outcomes can help you reconnect with yourself, reclaim your power, and unlock infinite possibilities in both your personal and professional life. Mary is a Stanford trained psychologist, CEO of the equity accelerator, and a distinguished protege of Carol Dweck. In our interview, Mary shared groundbreaking insights on how to identify your triggers, how to challenge your genius worship, embrace failures, and cultivate purposeful effort to promote the growth neural brain cells.

Please check them both out and I also wanted to say thank you for.

Your ratings and reviews.

And if you love today's episode or either of those others, we would so appreciate you giving it a five star review and sharing it with your friends and families. I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners and it helps so many people join, find out and learn about our community in today's episode of Passion struck. I am absolutely thrilled to have an extraordinary guest I have wanted to have on this show for years. Who needs little introduction? Joining us is Gary Vaynerchuk, also known as Gary V. A serial entrepreneur, chairman of Vaynerx, CEO of VFriends, and a six time New York Times bestselling author, Gary is a leading global mind on the future of culture, relevance and the Internet. Known for his uncanny ability to identify trends and patterns early, helping others understand the impact of these shifts on consumer behavior. His approach uniquely blends business and culture, consistently bringing brand relevance to the forefront. In todays episode were diving into Garys exciting role is the CEO of Vfriends, a contemporary entertainment company with a unique character universe thats designed to foster stronger connections and emotional intelligence. Well also explore his first childrens book, meet me in the middle which sets to release today when the episode airs.

This all original picture book featuring beloved v friends, characters, patient pig and eager Eagle, aims to teach young readers about empathy, problem solving and compromise through its innovative in one flipbook format. Vfriends, founded in 2021 by Gary, introduces the world to over 250 characters through collectibles, comics, events, games and technology. The mission is to scale these characters and their qualities to create a happier world emphasizing balance, accountability, positivity, creativity, self discovery and personal growth. Join me as we delve into the creative mind of Gary Vaynerchuk and learn more about the inspiration behind vfriends and his mission to make soft skills cool through engaging characters and stories. Get ready for an insightful and inspiring conversation on the passion struck podcast. Thank you for choosing passion struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to living an intentional life. Now let that journey begin.

I am incredibly honored and humbled to have Gary Vaynerchuk on passion struct today. Welcome, Gary.

Thanks for having me, Jim.

Gary, today we're going to be discussing a couple new things in your universe. One is a brand new book, which I have right here. Meet me in the middle, which is a flip book. So I'll show both sides of it, which premieres the day this episode goes live. And we're also going to be talking about the friends. And before we get into them, though, I always like to start with an origin question. And something that I talk about a lot on the show is the importance of values. I wanted to understand because my parents were really influential in shaping mine. How did your parents shape yours?

Oh, I mean, in an exceptionally deep way. I was born in the former Soviet Union, so we had a very immigrant story. I came to the US when I was three, and we grew up very poor. I lived in a studio apartment with multiple family members, and so we lived very humbly and in Queens. And I have an all world mother. She instilled very good attributes into me. Very much of what be friends is about has a lot to do with her parenting style. And I would argue that keeping your word and work ethic and being competitive comes from my father. Being kind and empathetic and selfless and compassionate and really just a good human being and a leader comes from my mom. Hard work ethic and accountability comes from both of them. So I would say, besides growing up in New Jersey, my parents, both from a DNA standpoint and being very parented, is the foundation of my life.

Yes. And I know with v friends, part of the origin of this is that you're trying to teach the next generation of kids who are coming up values and other things like that. Can you give the origin story? Yeah.

There was a concept I had back in 2017 called Workplace Warriors. I wanted to make these little toys and put them on people's tables to remind them that patience and kindness and empathy mattered in the workplace. And even if your boss is being a jerk, maybe she or he is dealing with something at home that you don't know about. Or there's these different things. I really believe in compassion, curiosity, competitiveness, accountability, patience. And so it's been hovering for a while that I wanted to do something for all the people that were emailing me and dming me that they were struggling at work or they didn't like their job. It felt like a real issue in the world that I wanted to attack that kind of dragged along as a project. I didn't get around to it because I was busy. And then Covid hit. During COVID digital collectibles became a big thing, and I wanted to get involved. And I resurfaced this concept of workplace warriors, this time rebranded as be friends. And I started drawing these characters and making them alliterations and alert ape and gratitude gorilla and the heart trooper and all these different kind of passionate parrot and gracious grizzly, and dialed in dog and perfect persian cat.

All these different characters I drew out and I launched them as digital collectibles. And now they come in the animal trading card. I mean, I think a lot of people listening here, if they went to eBay right now on their laptop or phone and typed in vee friends, they'd be shocked on how much of the Pokemon aspect of this iP is growing very collectible. And now the Sesame street part is a big focus of mine. And what I mean by that is really teaching parents and kids of all ages that positivity and kindness and warmth and good attributes has not been a lost art, even in this complicated world we live in with technology and politics and all the things that I'm sure everyone who's listening thinks about. Staying true to historically wonderful principles of humanity is a great way, but also a contemporary way. I think, for example, the big reason I made competition a big part of this universe is I do think modern parenting demonized competition a little bit and focused on 8th place trophies too much and I would say veer too far to one side. And so finding the middle has been a big part of this.

And so I'm excited about growing these characters. And so the kids book comes out today. Meet me in the middle. You can find that anywhere, but predominantly, probably on Amazon for people listening. And then this fall, we have a bunch of cartoons coming out with candle media, moon bug, the people who make Coco melon. And I'm excited about these cartoons hitting YouTube kids and that, putting out content in book form and audio form and video form, in cartoon form and podcast form. This is the next chapter to expand this intellectual property, and I'm excited about building this for the rest of my life. Similar to a marvel or a Pokemon, or a Disney or a Sesame street. I'm looking forward to it.

Thanks for sharing that background. And a couple things jumped out for me while you were talking. The first was, I'm not sure if you know who Dacre Keltner is. He's a professor at UC Berkeley, but he wrote this great book on awe, awe. And what he discovered is that we typically think of awe when we see things like the Grand Canyon or a masterpiece or the birth of our children, etcetera. But he said that we find it the most in our lives when we see others perform acts of kindness onto another, or we ourselves perform acts of kindness. And I think this whole area of kindness is underrated, and youve highlighted it now two or three times. Why is this such a focus area for you?

I think this concept of awe that youre describing intuitively comes natural to me. I think this goes back to the earlier question of parenting. Ive always been a sweet person. Ive always viewed kindness as a strength. As a matter of fact, I remember having a visceral reaction the first time it settled on me. Why this saying, nice guys finish last was so accepted, felt so wrong to me. Ive been able to navigate my life. Im 48 years old, turned 49 in November, where ive been in the competitive field of business my whole life, where sharp elbows and stepping on other people is commonplace. And I've watched myself and others that I admire have successful careers and be kind people, be mensches, be wonderful. And I think it's a misunderstanding. I think the answer to your question is, it's just come so natural to me. In fact, I struggle in the reverse. Some things that I've had to worry, work on, excuse me, and worry about is not running away from negativity or being comfortable in those situations, because I have a visceral reaction to darkness and negativity and anger, and just, I cherish warmth and kindness.

And now what I'm hearing, aw. And I put pressure on the people around me, my father, my grandmother, may she rest in peace, and many others around me that I feel, look for negativity, deploy. Negativity comes from a place of fear. I really struggle with fear. I think fear has been weaponized at scale in our society. It's in me, it's in my soul to be a champion for the alternative. Trey.

Well, let's discuss this alternative path a little bit, because you mentioned vfriends being the next iteration of a company like Disney. And when I think of Disney's core mission statement, it is to create the happiest place on earth through the different mediums that they use. If you had a tagline for v friends similar to that, what would it.

Be to help the world find the middle? I think the thing that I'm really struggling with is humans and parenting have become incredibly left to right, blue or red. And I think all the magic is in the middle. I think all the magic is purple. And I think having the capacity to having different thoughts and pulling from opposite directions is healthy. And so I'm trying to help the world find the middle because I think balance leads to peace of mind and eliminates anxiety. And I think I wish more content on the world.

Yeah, I love that answer when I get asked the question, who are your favorite guests on passion struck. Obviously I love having people like you, but what I try to aim to do is to have everyday heroes on the show or people that I look at as everyday heroes, because I think we live in a society where we're trying to emulate people that are almost impossible to emulate or show a false projection of themselves that the world sees instead of these true, authentic people who are doing amazing things in the world, even if they're only touching one or two people, but they're making a huge difference.

And to me, I saw a lot.

Of parallels between what you're trying to do with v friends and trying to make people emulate the everyday hero aspect of the characters that you're trying to bring to life. Is that a good way to think about it?

It's an incredible articulation, John. I would argue that as my Internet fame started to grow as an entrepreneur, my beatrum of kindness and accountability and compassion, sympathy and being the bigger person and the capacity to see other people's opinions, even if it's at your own expense, it grew and it continues to grow. I could tell that 15 to 25 year old men wanted to emulate me because of my professional business entrepreneur success. And it became more important for me to show them about my emotional intelligence and humanity and management style. That really is a big part of where Gary Vee is. That being said, I'm also very self aware, meaning I curse a lot on stage and in my videos. I'm a Jersey boy, so I'm hyper, I'm competitive. There's definitely an edge to my communication style. It's aggressive. And I knew that meant that I wasn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. And I also knew that getting people when they were 1617 and 18 into thinking about some of these things that I was looking to champion, similar to what you just talked about, might be even too late or later than I would like.

And so the youth space became more and more attractive. A. I knew that patient panda and countable ant and competitive clown kind could do and compassionate catfish might be able to reach certain people in a way that I couldn't because they were more lovable and softer, calmer, potentially, and that I was going to get to people a little bit younger. This kids book is going to teach the balance of being. Patience is great, but overly patient, can be indecisive and non action oriented, and eagerness is amazing, but not if it's sloppy. And so I think you nailed it on the head. And not only do I see it that way, I also became passionate about reaching as many people as possible, which is really became the seed of why reference exists.

I completely get it because as I was going down, my own strategy for creating passion struck. I could either go down the path of reaching one individual, which there's only so many people I could touch, or I could try to start reaching people at scale to really show them that their lives matter and that you were put here for a reason if you exploit the unique gifts that you've been given. So I completely hear where you're coming from.

Yeah, I think for both you and I, and this probably resonates with thousands that are listening right now, you can't even help it. You just feel when I hear people want to serve, whether they're religious, leader, or a politician with good intent, or even ones that just want to be apparent to three people, you can't even really articulate it. Like, I always use this analogy, John, this might make sense to you. I feel like I'm a bug that's just going directly into that light that's going to zap me. But I can't help it. Like I'm too attracted to the light. Even though I even might know that I'm about to get zapped. I can't stop it. I don't know how to live without communicating positivity. I think negativity is very good at being loud. And I feel a sense of responsibility and a deep yearning to go towards the light of being an aggressively loud and scaled communicator of positivity. Practical positivity. I'm not delusional. I don't know if this one resonates with you, Jen. A lot of people say, gary, I'm just keeping it real. I'm like, yeah, you're keeping it real. Negative cynicism, I think, is lazy and dangerous.

And I choose practical optimism. Practical. I'm not delusional. Out here. I don't think you could just wish for a rainbow and it shows up. You've got to work. That's where work ethic. Hard working. Wombat is probably one of my favorite v friends. I think hard work matters. I think a countable ant. I've mentioned him now four times in this interview. He might be my favorite character. I actually think, Jon, for the majority of the people that are listening right now that are not as happy as they wish they were, they would be shocked how happiness is a road paved with accountability.

I love that. And I think what people don't realize, and you were talking about self sabotage earlier and getting in our own ways is one of my favorite phrases that I heard, is this concept of we become our own visionary arsonist. We arson the very things in our life that we want to attain because we do these things that get in our way. It's the same thing that happens in work when projects go wrong. We do the same thing in our personal lives. And a lot of it goes down the rabbit hole that you're talking about of being unaccountable or being constantly negative and not seeing the positives that we have in life because we tend to gravitate towards the negative things.

I was walking out of a supermarket this weekend. I was very busy because it was 4 July weekend in a busy little town. And this woman was saying to herself, as I was walking out, she was walking in, she goes, this is just terrible. And she delivered it with real passion because it was chaotic. I was just like, man, I don't know why it struck me. And there's no judgment. I'm sure she wasn't delivering it as the worst thing in her life, but it's funny you say that. I really do believe in life. You find what you're looking for. And by the way, this is a very bougie, high net worth town on a 4 July weekend. She's living a blessed life that she can go in to the supermarket and pay three times the price for a common good that others can. And yet she chooses to be upset about how busy it is. And again, I don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill, but it is interesting that it struck me and I took note and it just goes to this point. I genuinely believe humans find what they're looking for.

If you're looking for positivity, social media is filled with. My feed is filled with it. And if you're looking for negativity, I'm sure this will resonate with everyone. Cause this is how most people see it. Well, social media and mainstream media is 100% allocated on negativity. And so yeah, we report murders and burglaries. And it's pretty sad that we live in a world that doesn't report kind gestures and charitable donations and good warmth.

Yeah, people might actually tune into the news instead of so many of us being disengaged by, I think to the.

News credit, they sell negativity. Cause people tune into it's rubber neck. We do tune in, unfortunately. But I do believe that there, whether it was Oprah during her prime, I can tell you right now, pretty sure most of my half my audience tunes into me because it's a burst of optimism. I mean, there's a lot of business advice going on with my channel, so I have to be aware that's part of it. But yeah, I think people would tune in to positivity, but we definitely tune into negativity. And that is something I'd like to come back.

So speaking of your business world, I wanted to ask you a question in that realm and then jump back into vfriends because it deals with emotional intelligence. As you're aware, I had one of your right hand people on the show a while back, Claude Silver. And I was really intrigued because myself, being a Fortune 50 senior executive, I always thought that at the core of the disengagement that we're seeing around so many companies is really that we don't treat the employees as individuals, we treat them in the micro chasm of the job that we see them doing, not what they've done in the past, not the life that they have outside of work, not their long term aspirations. And so it really intrigued me, and that's the reason I wanted to interview Claude was she was the first person I'd ever heard called a chief heart officer. How did that role in emotional intelligence come together?

I needed to scale how I was operating as a CEO. Claude is an extension of how I built all my companies. It was very HR driven. But Im the CEO. I am a lot of duties and I got lucky. Claude worked on the client partnership side of the agency. She was an account person, but I just saw the light inside of her, that humanity, who she is. And it really became obvious to me that there was a bigger purpose and a bigger role. But I knew that it wasnt HR. I learned enough about corporate and knew that marketing and positioning and communications mattered. And I just knew that I couldn't make her the head of HR. I came up with a different title and I thought that we needed a separate role that was a partner and the boss of HR. That came from a humanity lens, not a financial PML lens. And it worked because gentlemen like yourself being captivated by that title, what does that mean? It makes people think. And I think that's an important thing to do. Curiosity, thinking, processing. The world moves in positive and negative directions based on people processing and looking at things from different angles and then communicating it at scale.

I wanted to leave my mark on the business world and I thought there'd be a lot of ways I could do that. And I feel like the chief heart officer role, which now I've seen pop up in other places, is going to be a little footnote in my career that I'm extremely proud of. And it's really helped. More importantly, forget about the external validation or the fun of looking back at your career or feeling good about your deposit externally. Internally. For our 2000 plus employees, it's been remarkable because they understand that there's a different energy to that human being versus what they would accustom look at from ahead of HR, which I came to learn, which you learned at your the dells and the lows. Like I didn't know that HR was viewed by employees as a negative. When I was growing up in my dad's liquor store, I thought HR was there for the employees. That was the good division. So yeah, I needed to make my point and I felt one of the ways I could do that was with a different title. And it's been very effective.

Gary, my experiences, I've really found that they're two different types of HR professionals. And I hate to boil it down to this, but it's been the track record that I've seen there. Those who are really tuned in to the company, to the employees, and have a vested interest in trying to do what's best. And then I see another set that are really just following textbooks and using this guidance that has no emotional heal for what is actually going on in the organization. And when I meet someone who's in that ladder group, it was always a complete disconnect between what we were trying to do in the organization and the guidance that they were trying to give compared to the other person who was just trying to make the culture the best that it possibly could be.

Thank you, brother. I think what really struck me was like, oh my God, HR is just a weapon of the CFO. That broke my heart, John. When I had that. Aha. In my late thirties, when I started getting bigger and my company felt more corporate than I think I've been involved in before. That's it, brother. I'm with you on that. I never saw hr as like the KGB for the CFO. I had no idea that was a cold shower when I had that epiphany. That, aha. That was something I was not in awe of. It was the reverse. That was a gut punch of, oh, man, that's so for me, HR is the weapon of me, the CEO who is willing to leave a lot of profit on the table year in and year out to have a culture that feels better.

I completely agree with you, and I hate when HR gets weaponized. But it's one of the easiest things to do if you want to cut your Ebitda. So I understand why it happens.

I understand, too. And look, I'll be honest with you. Let me share with everybody here the other side of the pillow. My issue has not been a negative workplace. My issue has been overcorrect. This is back to why I care about the middle. I've had to also realize that one of the issues in the companies that I've run is I create entitlement because we don't hold people accountable enough to the work. Sometimes we go a little bit to fantasyland. And businesses, unlike corporations, unlike universities, unlike parenting, unlike government, like if you don't make payroll. I was on a board meeting the other day and someone said, nobody's going to care about our HR and our de and I if we're out of business. And it was well said. She was making a very valid point. And I've definitely had to adjust towards the middle a little bit because there was a little bit of a fantasy land that I was creating which led to entitlement and delusion. And what that really did was it really hurt the a and b players that were putting in the efforts and the works because we were letting DNF players get by.

And that creates resentment and unhappiness for the people that are lugging, that, quote, unquote, not as good weight around. I would say to people that are really passionate about the good. The one unfortunate thing about business is it's based on merit much more than other things. It's the best thing, but it's also not as fun if you want. I live in a little bit of a nirvana fantasy world. And when I think that chapter in my forties really helped me reconcile, I think has a lot to do with this. Meet me in the middle. Like, I love patience. I'm obsessed with it, John. But a lot of people hide behind. Actually, I'm curious if this. I'm starting to go on a tangent. Everybody's listening, but I'm jamming out here. Perfectionism, always fascinating me. I feel like people weaponize the word perfect. I'm a perfectionist. No, you're not. You're insecure and you're using a fancy title of perfectionism to not do, to not put out into the world, to not be judged or based on merit. So these are the things I think about when trying to figure out the middle.

I want to talk a little bit about patience because I remember when I first started listening to you, maybe eight, nine years ago. It's been a long time. At first you weren't really using the word patient, and then something switched maybe five or six years ago, and all of a sudden you were doubling down on it. What caused the change?

I talked about it earlier. Once I realized that I was getting, quote unquote, famous, I was like, wait a minute, I need to really show all these kids the good stuff. I'm showing everyone the tactic. So, John, if you've been following for nine years, there was two things that I focused on, especially given post the 2009 2008 financial crisis. One was work ethic was a viable energy that could help you if you were in a pickle. And two was tactics like social media. Do this, do that. And I realized a lot of people weren't doing it. And as I dug deeper and spoke to many more people and read a lot more emails, I realized it was emotional stuff. It was insecurity. This was a game of self esteem versus insecurity. This was accountability versus blame. This was patience was easy for me because I wasn't worried about judgment of the outside. It was hard for others because they wanted to get rich quickly, to be able to flex in front of others, to get outside validation. So it was a reaction to sense of responsibility and understanding of the ingredients that were missing in my message that actually allowed me to achieve not only the financial success, but the success of peace of mind.

And so it captivated me and it really encouraged me, and I got excited about and invigorated about communicating soft skills and emotional intelligence as much as I was talking about tactical marketing and business intelligence.

I want to jump on this point, and I'll just tell a little bit a short story of me. It's a momentous here. When I was at Lowe's, Lord knows why they did this, but they brought in corn Ferry to analyze our executive team so that corn Ferry could do executive searches and redo our charts. All that aside, they brought in this team who were psychologists, and I remember I had been picked as one of these people in the high achiever must promote type of section. So I go into my final meeting with the person whos the lead evaluator. And she said, john, youve had this brilliant career, but in the words of Marshall Goldsmith, what got you here isnt going to get you to where you need to go. I have to tell you, Gary, I was totally ticked off at her because im like, what the hell are you talking about? But what she was really talking about was the more senior I was getting, the more emotional intelligence was going to be a superpower that I needed to grow into that I didnt have. And I look back at my life and when I think about the Naval Academy and my time in the service, I was taught a lot of things about leadership, but I wasn't really groomed in emotional intelligence.

I think that there is a growing gap, especially for kids right now, with learning emotional intelligence.

Yes, but I think you'll agree with me on this, Jon. We talk more about emotions with kids than we ever had before. I would argue that much of what was a challenge to me through the first 40 years of my life is the current challenge with children, which is, it's crazy. I was raised, in a way to be incredibly accountable. I almost went too far in the other direction, and I had to find the middle. I think we talk to children more about emotions than ever, but we've lost our way. And obviously, there's a million different parents out there, billions of different parents out there. So everyone does it different. I don't like generalizing, but yes, I do think we need to talk to kids about emotions, but I actually think the place we need to go with them is to make them more accountable, is to let them lose a little bit more. I think we've over coddled a generation of individuals, and I think that the emotional intelligence we need to talk to kids about, believe it or not, is less about kindness and compassion and it's more about tenacity, accountability, competitiveness. I think we've actually gone weirdly in reverse of where corporations need to do a better job of talking about compassion and caring and things of that nature.

I think youth needs a little bit more tough love. We've got away from grounding. We're a million years away from spanking youth. Sports parents are trying to manipulate outcomes. We're just over protecting. We've created bubble babies. And I think the emotional intelligence we need to talk to kids about is thick skinned self esteem, tenacity. And I think that comes through really letting them live life versus cracking them on their phone. I mean, it's unbelievable what we've done with children and we need to look at.

I wholeheartedly agree with you there. I mean, you and I, the way we grew up is so far different than the unfortunate way our kids are being forced to grow up. We had so much more freedom to.

Make, so much more. And it's on us as adult, and we have to. And it's about conversations like, John, why are we giving kids 8th place trophies? There's no rationale. They came in 8th place. It's okay. Like, I stink a lot of stuff. Creating celebratory for effort is lovely. Like, effort matters, but to manipulate it as an outcome of success has really confused people, and it leads to so much of what everyone's struggling with. People want to blame social media for a million things, but in reality, that's just a mirror of our actual society. Social media is an empty vessel. Humans fill all the content that goes into social. We've really got to have this conversation in a real way. And what I'm sad about is that people think it's. Or I think that people think you've got to be competitive or hardworking or it's winner takes all. It's not. It's not an or thing. You can have merit and kindness, sit at the same dinner table.

And speaking of it, dinner table. How do you hope vfriends will impact families and the way parents and children interact going forward?

John, you're gonna like this. The cartoons. Cause I've been very involved in those right now, which will come out in the fall. Every episode has a moment where I'm really poking at the parent more than the kid. It's a little disguise to the kid in the comedy and the entertainment. But my hope is that when a parent reads this new book, which comes out today, that while they're reading it, they have a little bit of an aha themselves, either for their own life or in how they think about having conversations with kids. I'm just trying to contribute now. I think it's very dangerous to tell an individual person how to parent their kids because there's so many things you don't know. But I think there's room to have overall macro conversations, and that's a contribution I want bids to have.

Gary. I have actually written a children's book on the. It hasn't been published because my team keeps on telling me the timing isn't right. It was so much harder to write than I ever expected it to be. What was your thoughts when you wrote this book, was it harder for you to do than you expected?

I don't want to fib. I wouldn't say harder, John. I would say that I feel like I've been thinking about this stuff every day for 50 that explode. I'll tell you what was hard. I really wanted this story to be about optimistic otter and cynical cat, two characters can be friends. And HarperCollins, my publisher said that for the five to eight year old demo that the book is written for, that the concept of cynicism was too complicated. And so I was a little heartbroken that I couldn't go with the first two meet me in the middle characters I wanted. But once I settled into being content and excited about patience versus eagerness as a meet me in the middle framework, the story flew pretty easily. I was very fortunate, and maybe this is what your challenge was. I already have this world so envisioned in my mind. We have these v friends who need each other to help each other, to help kids and parents around the world find the middle, and they do it through competition. That competition can create the change that the challenge of competition, pure merit. So, as you can imagine, because I had that all very thought out, once I had patient pig and eager Eagle figured out it wasn't hard for me to think about basketball as being the framework of where they played, and then it just flew.

Once you have the setting and the concept, I think I was fortunate that I've put in a lot of time and effort to thinking about the framework and the pillars of this universe. And then, to your credit, I may say all this, and as I start doing the next one, the story might not flow as easy. And I've been there. I mean, I've been writing a book called perfectly parented in my head, which is how I write my books probably for seven years now. I know what it's like when it doesn't flow, but this one's long.

Well, that's great. And the technique that you use to develop this is really unique. It's a two in one flipbook. So here's patient pig, and then I'll flip it over, and then you have eager eagle. Can you discuss the thought process behind that innovative design?

Manny Galana, creative director that has worked with me in the past, was with us for a while, worked for me at Vaynermedia. I don't recall if it was his wife or someone in his world had mentioned this concept when he was talking about what I was trying to accomplish. And the second he showed it to me, I was like, yes, this is in. And so the publisher is on board. It's a format that has been infrequently used over the last 1520 years, but fits perfectly for what I'm trying to say, which is find balance, find the middle, and let your friends and your circles help you. And you can help them round out or find the middle on their shortcomings. We all have strengths. We all have weaknesses. And together as a community, whether a family, whether an office, whether it's a neighborhood with a cul de sac, we can lean on each other to extract the strengths and the balance. And, yeah, the story being told from two opposite directions and finding the middle, I think parents are gonna have a lot of fun. We've been able to send out the book to some people, and the kids seem to love it, especially when a parent reads one side one night, the other side another night, and the third night for both sides.

So I'm excited about it. I'm really curious to see how it lands.

Well, I thought it was really interesting. My kids are now 20 and 26. When I was trying to go back myself and think about all the books that I've read to them and how this one, because it has the two different perspectives, it really does make it unique. In fact, you could have one parent read one section or do the other and then have them swap.

That's cool. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. That's really neat. Thank you. I will definitely put that into the.

From the education standpoint, how do you see educators using the book? Do you see it being the same way as parents?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a great question. I mean, obviously, I've thought a lot about first kindergarten, first grade preschoolers reading it in classroom environments. Yeah, I think so. I think a teacher has the advantage of not being the actual parent of that child, which in some instances, especially as people get older, gives them the latitude to actually land a message that maybe a parent otherwise couldn't. So I think a different voice. I've thought a lot about grandparents reading this, and it really landing. And I think teachers fall into that territory of someone that has care for a child that, but that isn't their child, and sometimes that's the voice needed in a certain circumstance.

Gary, I just had two questions outside of the book for you. This whole podcast is really focused on the concept of the importance of being intentional in the way we live our lives, because I think so many people today live their life almost like they're a pinball and they just bounce off of things instead of learning how to play the game instead of letting it play them. What's a great life lesson that you could give to listeners about the importance of living intentionally?

The fear of regret. That's a life lesson. Boy, can I give you all a tangible thing to do. Go donate a couple hours of your time to a senior citizen home. Retirement home. Donate your time. Literally, Google right now retirement home near me and drive up to it and be like, hey, I'm Johnny, I'm Susan. I'd like to donate some hours. Is that something that's possible here? Many don't find one. And when you do that, you're going to be amongst people who've lived full lab people in their eighties and nineties. And I think if you're in the right environment, if you get a little time to be able to speak with some of those individuals, you will find out what I know to be true, which is regret is the great poison of humanity and that you must mitigate it at all costs. And one of the ways to mitigate, if you feel regret the way I do, you will become intentional immediately. It will reshape the way you think about things, your relationship, your career. And it really will get you into a place where you'll say things like, for me, if I didn't do vfriends, I would have regretted it.

I've always would have wondered what if? And eliminating white it from your vocabulary is incredibly powerful and achievable. And so donating time to a retirement home to be a proxy to recalibrate your relationship with regret, I think will make you the most intentional.

I've got a great segue to that. There's a study that Tom Gilovich did, who's a professor at Cornell and he's been studying regret for decades. And he did this survey where he looked at people who were in their third trimester of life, the people that you're describing, and he asked them what was the biggest regret in their life. 76% of them gave the same answer. And what was interesting to me is it wasn't the mistakes that they had made. It was the what ifs, the should haves they didn't pursue, which goes directly to what you're saying to me.

I'd rather die on my own sword than someone else's. This is why I brought up 8th place trophies nine times. We must teach children that losing is good. John, this is a very big conversation. This is a great thing to add on. Losing is good once you realize losing is good when you just said that. I'm like, yeah. The reason I'm always doing things is if it's a complete and utter failure, I am so happy that I went for it that it rumped the fact that I lost a lot of money, time, reputation, it could be literally anything. All of that is better than me not doing it and always wondering why.

Yeah, I mean, it really ties into Bronny Ware's work on the top five regrets, the dying, where that's the number one regret out of all the palliative care she did.

But I was going to say the other one that I have found, and I'm no researcher or scientist, but it comes intuitive to me what's been really fun to listen to 78 trolls, especially some of the ladies I've spoken to a lot of people in their eighties and nineties that are strangers to me before. The conversation I have with the amount of individuals that wish they married someone else is really fascinating. I don't know if that came up in either of the things you just talked about, but besides not being what they wish they were professionally or as a father or mother to their children, which comes up a lot, which has really shook me straight because I am a workaholic and I'm passionate about my career. But I fear answering the questions the way so many have answered to me, which is I wish I spent more time with my kids. The other big one was I wish I married Johnny Thompson or I wish I married Susan Smith.

Over the weekend, I happened to catch this video on Instagram where they had this women's retreat for people who were deeply disappointed in their spouse. And these people were hitting trees and screaming and cutting out all this angst.

Honey, it's one of the biggest decisions for everyone who's listening. Give them a little extra credit here. It's one of the great decisions of your life, right? Who you decide to spend your life with. And I think we demonize divorce and other things, and I think there's a lot of truth to it. But on the flip side, fighting for love and happiness is really what a human should be doing. I encourage everyone who's listening right now. As a final moment of this podcast, do not allow the judgment of your parents or your spouse, or even your children, and definitely not your siblings or closest friends, and definitely not strangers. There's people who don't do things because they're worried about someone saying something on a social media post. Please don't live your life for anybody but yourself. Be compassionate. Don't be selfish, be thoughtful, but mitigating regret is a great way to end this episode.

And on that note, Gary, it has been such an honor to have you. Thank you so much for joining us and congratulations on your brand new book.

Thanks, John. Thanks for having me.

What an incredible honor that was to interview Gary Vaynerchuk, an interview that I've wanted to do for so long. And I wanted to thank the folks at HarperCollins and Gary for coming and joining us on today's show. It was such an honor to have him links to all things Gary will be in the show. Notes@passionstruck.com dot please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show. And additionally, if you're interested in books that I recommend, you can go to the passion struck website under Passion struck podcast, where I have read and recommend over 200 different books. Videos are on YouTube at both our main channel at John R. Miles and our clips channel at Passion struck clips. Please go subscribe and join. Over a quarter million other subscribers, advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place@passionstruck.com. deals please consider supporting those who support the show. You can find me on all the social platforms at John R. Miles, where I post daily, and you can also find me on LinkedIn. Are you curious to find out where you stand on your journey to becoming passion struck?

Then head over to passionstruck.com and take our new passion struck quiz, where you can find out if you're an imitator or a vanquisher in the grand scheme of life. It consists of 20 questions and will take about ten minutes of your time. Head to passion struck.com and take the quiz today. If you want to know how I book amazing guests like Gary Vaynerchuk on my podcast, it's because of my network. Go out there and build your network today before you need it. Most of the guests that you hear on the show actually subscribe to the podcast and contribute ideas for topics and guests. Come join us. You will be in smart company. You're about to hear a preview of the passion struck podcast that I did with Doctor Chidi Parikh, a leading integrative medicine physician and the founder of integrative health and well being at Will Cornell Medicine, New York Presbyterian Hospital. Doctor Parikh shares her insights from her latest groundbreaking book, Intentional Detoxify, nourish and rejuvenate your body into balance with a forward from Deepak Chopra. Discover how Doctor Parikh's global experiences and her frontline battle with Covid-19 inspired her to create a comprehensive roadmap that balances ancient wisdom with cutting edge science.

The mind is the source of all disease and also source of healing. So that's why anytime we talk about health and wellness, we have to start the conversation of what our thoughts are doing because they're determining our destiny. Everything takes root in our thought, our intentions. So that's why we have to be so mindful of that. And for my patients, a lot of times we get focused on outward things that need to be fixed in the body. So we're saying, I'm going to change my diet, I'm going to take this supplement, this medication. So we're trying to bring in outside things to fix what's wrong here. And to be honest, John, from years of medical training and by seeing thousands of patients, one thing that I've learned, our body is incredibly intelligent. Everything we need to live a long, healthy life is right in here. The problem is we just get in the way.

The fee for this show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know someone who could use Gary Vee's inspiration, then definitely share today's episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give.

Us just to share the show with.

Those that you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. Until next time, go out there and become passion, structure.