Gary Vaynerchuk Optimistic Approach To Life

Do you have that friend where you tell them that an asteroid is about to hit our planet, and he's all smiling and optimistic? That's Gary Vaynerchuk as a human being.

Every day I am on reels, LinkedIn, or TikTok, I somehow come across a Gary clip of him being madly optimistic about the world. He has this weird contagious energy where he is constantly swearing, being 100% transparent, and trying to say nothing matters, take risks all the time, and there's nothing to worry about. Gary's philosophy is simple: stop worrying, who cares what people are saying, and go out there and prove people wrong. It's a lot of positive buzzwords that make you feel better, but does it actually hold value?

You are young even at 60

Gary has this weird philosophy that you are young no matter how old you seem. He says that "who cares if you are losing at 39, you're at halftime," and I guess I understand what he's saying, but it also takes my idea of Hidden Timelines, just in an extreme way. In my recent book Never Off, I talk about how there's a hidden timeline for every human. Graduate high school by 18, graduate college by 22, married by 26, kids by 30, etc. What happens if you deviate from that timeline? What realistically happens? I actually agree that you don't need to follow a societal timeline in order to accomplish goals and feel happy. I think if you graduated at 24 or got a girlfriend later in life, you aren't losing because you aren't a one-dimensional person, and there's a lot to life besides getting a luxurious job or the dream apartment.

However, the reason why I'm skeptical of his thinking is that he's going to extremes. I mean, at the age of 60, while you can still achieve many great things, the peak of your life is kind of gone. You aren't in your physical prime, your energy is lower, and your window for kids and other work accomplishments starts to fade.

I think my main issue with this is that Gary usually talks about business and sometimes doesn't take into account other types of goals. Like I can't get into my peak physical shape at 60. I can lose weight and look good, but I won't look as good as my 25-year-old version. So delaying my physical goals would be detrimental. I guess even with the job market, if you take too long not to work and try and fail a bunch of other ventures, you have to work up the corporate ladder from the start when other people are SWE II, Marketing Lead, or Head of Operations. So taking gaps in terms of your resume could impact your ability to get the role or position you want at a company. With business, there are a lot of successful business owners at older stages of their career, and I agree with Gary that starting a business later in life is easier because business doesn't require an immense amount of thinking, studying, or planning, but it requires execution. And execution isn't bound by age.

This is the time to be risk-oriented and not play it safe

This is more geared toward me and the other 22-year-olds. Gary keeps saying to keep taking massive risks, go and start that band, backpack through Europe, and take those three friends from college and start that business. He believes that there is a 5-year window where you have to be massively risk-free because you can't "lose." Once again, this is an extremely optimistic view, because in theory, while you might not be behind at 28, everyone who didn't take risks isn't behind either.

While you were starting that business, grinding, and working on yourself, your friends are getting married, your friends have high-paying finance and tech jobs in NY, and they are buying houses. You have a failed business, a small bank account, and you have to watch everyone else succeed while you took risks and didn't play it safe.

Gary always says who cares about what people think. However, to an extent, we do care what people think. We aren't robots. We want some form of validation. It's impossible to remove that part of you entirely because then you won't be human. It's not wrong to want people to see you win. It's not wrong to want to be like your friends.

It is wrong, however, to not pursue your goals for the sake of fitting in, and it is wrong to be a people pleaser. So that's the contradiction.

You only have one life, and even though your goal of becoming a trillionaire or being a point guard for the Lakers is one in a billion, is it worth it? Because there are people who have tons of money and aren't happy, and then there are poor people who are extremely happy.

I think most people don't have a problem with pursuing the goals. It's more of the catch-up conversations when you meet with high school, college, or lifelong friends. When you talk about what you have been up to and you have interesting hobbies and pursuits, but you don't have that tangible result yet. And they seem happy for you, but you can sense the deep-down pity they have for you. The only solution to being massively risk-free and not caring what other people think is being so comfortable in your own skin that nothing phases you. I believe you need that mentality before being risk-free from 22-27 years old, as Gary said.

You aren't supposed to have everything figured out at 18, 22, 30

Your parents didn't have everything figured out at 18, 22, and 30, so why do you have to? This philosophy is the one I resonate with the most. Whenever you reach a certain age, you need to feel more mature, you need to feel more ready. People don't allow natural progression to happen.

Everyone is uniquely different in an amazing way because if everyone was the same, then life would be boring. So with that in mind, some people will be ready at 22, 27, and then 47. That's life. People are different, and it doesn't indicate anything wrong. You can't force anything on a person. It has to come from within. That's why, in my humble opinion, I can't resonate or agree with parents who try to control their children's lives or install their views onto them. Because while the child might be similar to their parents, they are also their own person, making their own decisions. So they might not want to be a finance major, they might not want to play baseball, and they might not want to go to a certain school. That's not a messed-up kid. That's a different person.

There's always a right way and a wrong way to do things, but I don't understand why. The worst part is always having to defend this. If you genuinely want to do something that's not a natural progression of life, there's nothing you can do except be a black sheep and become Harvey Specter defending yourself all the time.

At 22, I have some things figured out but not a whole lot. That doesn't mean anything because even our parents didn't know what they wanted to do at 22. I'm excited that I have flaws because that means I have something to work for. Stability is great, but stability at 22 isn't valuable because you have so much life to live that stability doesn't feel as good as it does later in life, when you've tried a bunch of things and finally landed on a hard realization.

The main reason why I wanted to talk about Gary Vaynerchuk is because his philosophy is simple yet effective. Whether you agree with him or not, he is spreading immense positivity. Every time I watch a LinkedIn post or a TikTok of him, I just feel better. I think that's the main takeaway from Gary Vaynerchuk: just be a good person, and 99% of everything else is just noise.