(bouncy music)

You ask questions, and I answer them.

This is The #AskGaryVee Show.

Hey everybody, this is Gary Vay-ner-chuk,

and this is episode 72 of The #AskGaryVee Show.

Or should I say, The Ask Gary and Casey Show.

That's right, for the first time ever,

you know 72 is such a symbolic number

that I figured we would use that to break out

the multiple person #AskGaryVee Show.

So, Case, thanks for you being the first person ever.

- Happy to be here, happy to be here,

ready for some questions.

- Why don't you tell the VaynerNation a little bit,

you know, let's call it a 72 second version

of who you are for the few who don't know,

and then we'll just get right into the questions.

- Okay, who I am for those who don't know.

I live in New York City, I work in New York City,

this is one of my offices, one of my companies.

I'm mostly known as a film maker,

I love making movies on the internet,

but I also do a lot of advertising work

for companies like J.Crew, and Nike, and Mercedes Benz,

and I also work with other companies

like The New York Times, making films for them.

How was that, was that good?

- That's great.

- I'm the father of two, I like to skateboard,

and yeah, that's...

- I mean the bottom line is, let's put it this way,

DRock is so excited right now that I can barely

deal with the tension in the room.

- Just try to hold the camera still.

- And so, you know, please go down the rabbit hole

that is Casey, he's an incredible storyteller,

and for me a lot of you know that I love talking

about market in the year that you actually live in,

this is a filmmaker, storyteller

in the year that we actually live in,

while a lot of his contemporaries,

and people of his talent have not recognized

the world we actually live in.

You've been one of the few that has in my opinion,

and for whatever that's worth, so that's how I see it.

- I'll take it Gary.

- Cool, let's get into the show.

- [Voiceover] Joe asks, "What advice would you give

"a high school senior in America

"trying to decide whether to go to college,

"and if so, which one?"

- Joe I'm gonna let Casey answer this first,

just cause I think it'd be fun to have

you start off the show.

- Yeah no, I've got a strong feeling

about further education, which is that

I think in life you should only be doing two things ever,

and one is like discovering what your passion is,

and then two is realizing it.

So Joe, if you know what you want to do,

and you're convicted that's where you want to be in life,

and that trajectory does not necessitate

a college education, then skip it.

Chances are you don't know what you want to do,

otherwise you wouldn't be asking us this question,

and if you don't know what you want to do

your responsibility is to figure that out,

and college is one of the best places,

one of the best atmospheres, environments

you can be in to figure out what your calling is in life,

to figure out what your passion is, what your purpose is.

- Joe, I'm gonna jump in here,

as the cars are racing outside,

and say this, I agree with a ton of what Casey said,

I'll also add that if you're taking $200,000 in debt

to find your passion, that might be a practical kind of,

by the way, debt that you can't even

declare bankruptcy against, which complete,

I mean, I can't even, I'm suffocated

by the game, the AK racket that is student loans,

and today in today's environment,

things that you and I didn't have.

There are other places where young people congregate,

and pound into each other in the serendipity

of finding those mentors, or contemporaries

that allow people to discover.

So look, I think one thing for sure,

it's fun, entrepreneur, I look at you

as an entrepreneurial artist, but I look at you

way more artistic than I me.

So, call it entrepreneur, artist,

boy there's a lot of rationale in the 2015 world

where college is not the right answer,

and I think, you know what's really been unique to me, Joe,

is I'm gonna give you a weird answer.

I acctually find that there's an enormous amount of kids,

and I'm spending a lot of time on this topic

since I was a shit student, and have made

something of myself, that a lot of kids

are still just going to college,

just making that decision on not wanting

to disappoint their parents, and that to me

is maybe the most fascinating thing goin' on

is that father of five and a two year old

living on the Upper East Side with elite private schools

where I'm paying college tuition for kindergarten already,

it's been funny to me, cause I'm really poking

and prodding the parents that are

my new contemporaries to see how much pressure,

and they have not switched yet.

The reason I keep talking about college

in a world where a lot of my friends talk about its demise

as more of a 20 year thing than a 10 year thing

is cause I still think parents of my generation

still value it too much for their own self esteem.

They want to say their kids went to Stanford,

and Harvard, and things of that nature.

So look, you've got to make your own decision,

but I'm with you, like discovering it,

and then I'd be curious, now I'm like mixing up the show,

what do you think about this based on your answer.

Because your answer is my answer,

and there's one other part that I'm trying to figure out.

I'm a big fan of practicality.

I think you and I got lucky that not only

were we able to figure out our passion,

but we actually had some level of talent within it.

There's a lot of people, a lot of the people

that go and try out for American Idol,

or the wannabe NBA players.

What's your point of view on Joe

figuring out his passion is to paint,

but he sucks shit at it?

- Well, you know, I think that

anyone's life, your world always shrinks

and expands in proportion to your willingness

to take risk, or try new things.

And that's why I think that like an academic environment

is a great place for trying new things

and experimenting with new things.

So, if your passion is painting,

and you're a terrible painter,

then maybe being in an environment like college

will open your eyes to something like graphic design

which doesn't involve a paint brush,

but you can make a great living at it,

and you're realizing an artistic passion

that is certainly inline with painting.

- Do you think that then one needs

to be challenged to make sure they go

into the funnel of college to recognize

they're not there to check those boxes?

Because the way you play the game

actually has as much to do with the game, right.

If you hack college in the way that you're talking about it,

you know, now you're starting to think about,

you know, course selection, you're talking about

the kind of group of friends that you're spending time with.

- Yeah, but I think college is,

can be a total waste of time and money

if not approached carefully, and I think a lot of kids today

go there for a lot of the wrong reasons

like what you're suggesting, and certainly if there

are better, other opportunities

that feel better to you than college,

I think now today, those opportunities are...

- Way more practical.

- Are as practical as an academic education.

I can tell you that a big falsehood

is that by going to college, you will get something else.

You will find success.

And one thing that's becoming more and more true,

especially as technology is opening up

all new means of transmission of information,

is that if there were a defined path to success,

especially in any sort of creative endeavor,

everyone would just follow that defined path.

There is no defined path.

And college can be a great way

to help you find one of those paths,

but it is certainly not the only way,

and it's certainly not a guarantee

that you'll find that trajectory.

- Yep, let's move on.

- [Voiceover] Andrzej asks, "How do you keep aim

"on your goals, and separate yourself from

"the demands of the external world?"

- Andrzej, I'll take this one first.

You know, I don't know what to tell you

other than it's unbelievable for me

how much the external world has not factored

into my decision making, I've talked about,

if you've been watching this show long enough

that first F on a test in fourth grade

and literally making that transition

to I'm gonna fight the market,

and I've been fighting the market my whole life.

I think for me, it was the level of self esteem

that my mom instilled in me, plus some level

of my own DNA, I think that's the friction at hand.

Heck, a lot of the themes of our last question were on this,

right, like what does the market want you to do,

whether that's your parents or society,

versus what you want to do.

For me, it has a lot to do with intestinal fortitude.

A Gorilla Monsoon WWF reference.

You know, I think it's surrounding yourself with people

that give you permission to take that risk.

That to me is the most practical version

of what I'm giving you,

other than you've got to be born with it.

It's finding those like minded people

who are taking those similar risks,

and give you, through their own actions,

a little more umph, or if you're amazingly lucky

to have that parental, or mentor infrastructure above you

that created that context.

Case.

- I think focus is everything.

I think that you can do 10 things poorly,

or one thing well, and saying, "No,"

is something that I only learned late in my career.

- I still suck at it.

I still suck at it right now.

- Saying, "No," is so hard, but the truth is

like we're surrounded by leeches,

blood suckers, and vampires, and those are people

that want to take, take, take, and they don't give back,

and learning to say, "No," to those people,

learning to say, "No," to all those distractions

is the only way to get anywhere.

Cause time is finite, life is short.

Quickly you find things in life that are really incredible,

like family, things that you love,

things that you're passionate about

that might distract you in a positive way

from your career focus.

So, you have to learn to shed everything else.

- I'm gonna throw a little bit of a curve ball.

I get so much happiness out of doing things for people

who would be, you know, categorized

as the way you just broke it down

because I have a weird gear inside of me