Special Episode with Gary Vee

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Charlie Kirk was born in 1993 and passed away yesterday, September 10th, 2025, when he was shot during an open-air event at a college in Utah.

Charlie was a right-wing political activist.

He was an author, and he was a media personality.

He co-founded the conservative organization Turning Point USA.

And if you've paid any attention to politics over the last 10 years, then you will know that Charlie had an outsized influence on young conservative minds.

I was not a fan of Charlie's work.

I did not agree with most of Charlie's politics, and I probably would not have been attending yesterday's event for any reason.

But he was a fellow podcaster and creator, and on an occasion or two, I actually happened to be in the same room with him for that reason.

We were creators.

Charlie was a human being.

He was a dad.

He had a young son and daughter.

He had a wife that he had been married to for just a few years, I believe.

I was sitting in the studio doing some work with the news on in the background when the story broke that Charlie had been shot.

I quickly turned to social media as most of us do, and I can never unsee what I saw when I viewed an actual video of the incident.

It physically made me ill.

I've never experienced uncontrollable shaking.

I did yesterday, not only because it is shocking to watch that happen to a human being, but because as a father, it is easy to let your mind drift to all the recent school shootings and to make comparisons between how an adult body reacts to a gunshot and a child's body might.

I am sickened, like most people, at the level of violence in this country and around the world, I suppose, universally and energetically, it's just where we're at.

The answers aren't easy, and I don't have any of them.

I'm a comedy podcaster, but sometimes the universe puts you in a place to have a conversation that makes you feel just a little bit more optimistic about the world.

It just so happens that lifelong entrepreneur, CEO, and media personality Gary Vee was scheduled to be our guest just an hour after this news broke about Charlie.

This interview was a rescheduled interview, and unfortunately, Chrissy was unable to make it into the studio.

I reluctantly jumped on to the telepodcasting machine here in the studio because I really wanted to interview Gary.

I just didn't know if I could get through an interview with Gary with all the thoughts racing in my head.

Gary and I spent a very brief amount of time with salutations.

We then shared our shock and disgust at what we had seen regarding Charlie's shooting, and Gary kindly and empathetically asked me if I was okay to continue talking, half out of embarrassment and half out of curiosity as to why the universe put Gary in front of me in this moment.

I said, sure, but if we're going to do this, I don't think I can ignore what just happened.

He agreed.

We pressed record.

And while we do not usually broadcast interviews on a Thursday, I feel the conversation is prescient.

And so after a short break, you'll hear that conversation that Gary and I had.

I know the nature of the commercial break is usually not this serious or subdued, but I'm feeling, let's call it an intuition, to run this conversation unedited and share it with you on what might be considered a special episode of the commercial break.

You make this rather snappy, won't you?

Somebody can be thinking to do it before 10 o'clock.

Hi, cats and kittens.

Rachel here.

Do you ever get the urge to speak endlessly into the void like Brian?

Well, I've got just the place for you to do that.

212-433-3TCB.

That's 212-433-3822.

Feel free to call and yell all you want.

Tell Brian I need a race.

Compliment Chrissy's innate ability to put up with all his shenanigans.

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The juicier, the better, by the way.

We'd love to hear your voice because Lord knows we're done listening to ourselves.

Also, give us a follow on your favorite socials at the Commercial Break on Insta, TCB Podcast on tick tock and for those of you who like to watch oh that came out wrong we put all the episodes out on video youtube.com slash the commercial break and tcbpodcast.com for all the info on the show your free sticker or just to see how pretty we look okay i gotta go now i've got a date with my dog no seriously axel needs food today is pork chop day

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And so here I am without Chrissy today due to a scheduling conflict and I had Gary V

scheduled and just an hour before our interview time, Charlie Kirk was shot at an event in Utah and I think both of us are trying to comport ourselves and wrap our heads around what we've seen and what we've heard and so let's just go right into it, Gary.

There's this, I don't even know, I don't know any other way to describe it than a sickness in this country specifically, because that's where we are, that seems to be a devaluing of life because we don't agree with someone else's values or their stated values.

And it's shocking the lengths that people are going to to exact their feelings out on someone else.

It's, it's insane violence.

And I don't know any other way to put it.

You know,

over the last 15 years, where it started to get more obvious that we were collectively getting away from purple and getting more and more entrenched in our red and blueness,

you know, I'm very, I mean, I really, I was a terrible student, brother,

but I was really good at history, like A's and B's, and literally D's and F's and everything else.

My report card that's hanging in my office right now, it's a ludicrous, it like makes no sense in some ways.

And then later in life, I figured out why it made sense.

But

I remember in 2000,

you know, 8 to 10 to 12, even before the Trump election, the first one, it became very clear to me that we were pulling more and more and more apart.

And over intellectual dinners and talking about society,

I just really started to reference my concern that we would go into an era that looked more like the 60s,

where, you know,

So much of what, how old are you, bro?

I'm in my late 40s.

Great, me too.

So I'm 49.

So, so much of what we grew up with, where, like, you don't talk about politics and religion in the workplace or public settings, if you really understand it, it was a reaction to the sheer volume, violence of the 60s.

You know, we had so many assassinations, and then people forget that, you know, Ford had an assassination attempt on John.

True, true.

You know,

obviously, just so many devastating moments on college campuses, Kenn State, all this.

And so

I just got, I just remember telling friends, I'm like, you know, if this is where we're going, we're going to see famous people, public figures, politicians have assassination attempts again on them, which we were so fortunate to not have from Reagan,

you know, to Trump, the kind that we saw in the 60s.

Sure.

And obviously we had the, you know, the attempt on President Trump, which was super scary and ridiculously lucky that he just turned his head.

And now we have this.

And

we're in a place where people have really leaned into,

unfortunately, the fear that society has weaponized, all the way from parents imposing it on their children, all the way to politicians selling it at scale.

There is absolutely no one that peddles it on either side of the aisle that is exempt from being a contributor to it.

Agreed.

You were incredibly kind to me right before we pressed record about how you see me show up.

I have taken plenty of pressure from both sides of the fence from friends over the last decade because I've had a public platform for a very long time.

And I struggle because I don't know if you can notice here, there's a lot of purple in my offense.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, I do see that.

And this is, I mean, even my brand, Beat Friends, my Pokemon brand, purple.

True.

My latest book, Purple, I have become, green is my favorite color because I'm a big Jets fan.

But I will tell you that purple is closing the gap.

I do not understand how people don't understand that we all, all of us are actually purple to some degree.

Yes.

And unfortunately, the world, negativity, I don't even put it on people.

The ebbs and flow of the the human race, the bad side of us, insecurities and fear, have momentum right now.

And I'm sure, you know, given our ages, you have watched contemporaries and friends change their points of view on issues to be more either red or blue.

It wasn't what they actually thought.

Yes.

Change their minds to get into camps.

And let me take this a little out of politics for a minute.

When you and I were growing up, did you even know that we were Gen X until their article was written when we were in our late teens, early 20s, I think in Rolling Stone or Time magazine?

Like, now we have society where Gen Z is mad at boomers, men versus women is such a topic of content out there.

And so as if race and gender, excuse me, as if race and religion wasn't enough for us to be mad at each other, we've decided to go full battle the sexes, which has always obviously been around.

And now we're into, hey, let's find another thing to put us into these camps to hate each other.

Hey, Gen Z, you should hate boomers.

And hey, boomers, you should hate Gen Z.

Luckily, Gen X, me and you, we haven't caught astray yet on this debate.

Yes.

And it's incredibly disheartening.

It is so much easier to hate.

I am.

baffled by people's audacity to think that other people should see the world exactly how they see it.

And

this is a devastating moment, another devastating moment in humanity that happened to Charlie.

Yes.

Whether you agree fully, disagree fully, or like most I believe humans

have 80% you disagree or agree with, but 20% you agree with, but we can't even admit that anymore, right?

It's an affront to who we are.

I want to ask you a question because you're saying a lot of wise things, and I want to make sure I slow down and address a few of them.

When I was a child, tell me if this rings true for you, because we're the same age.

When I was a child, I did not even know who my parents voted for.

I had no clue.

As a matter of fact, when I asked my father, I got old enough and aware enough, who did you vote for?

He said, that's none of your business.

And it's none of anyone else's business either.

He said,

voting is for me, not for you.

That's my thing, not yours.

Don't worry about it.

You know, I was born in the Soviet Union, which is why I also have

questions about, you know, for all of America's shortcomings, including today's horrific, tragic moment, there is so much uncomfortable good here, still.

Yes.

And I,

the only, like, so first, it took us a long time to like green cards and citizenship.

And so growing up, my parents weren't voting.

Two, they would have definitely voted for Ronald Reagan because the 84 election, I remember vividly.

I mean, to remind everybody listening, Ronald won 49 of 50 states.

It was an incredible landslide.

He was one of the most popular figures, political figures ever.

I'm going to say it again.

I mean, when I tell young kids this, it's almost like you can't even wrap your head around such a thing.

Yes.

Good old Walter Mondale was only able to carry his state that he was the governor of Minnesota, big cap brother.

Like 18% or something.

So, but yes, brother, like it didn't even cross my mind going into the workforce when I started getting into the wine business.

It wouldn't even cross my mind to have the audacity to ask someone what their religious point of views were and who they voted for.

We've gotten to this place.

It's really unfortunate.

It's really scary.

It's really unsettling.

And the truth is, you know, you really pray that someone comes along that is a great connector.

Yes.

You know, there is going to be, I believe, and I'm optimistic, brother, and we're like literally filming in a moment of incredibly challenging backdrop.

Yes.

And so I often am razzed, criticized, or at least challenged respectfully on how optimistic I am.

And it's because the human race has proven it to be true.

That's why I am optimistic.

But

I am optimistic.

And I actually think there's an incredible window that I don't see anyone can walk through right now on either side.

But I hope that there's a young 16-year-old girl or guy that is really poised,

really poised, or maybe a current public figure who a moment like this sheds them to purpleness.

And somebody is going to come along, my man.

I promise you, I believe this.

I believe it too.

And be the great connector.

They may come from the red or the blue.

I genuinely don't know, but I believe they will be the connector.

But we are not there right now.

And that is.

No, we're not.

The tribalism that

permeates every bit of our lives, it's, you know, you're not safe at a football game.

You know, it's just that we're so divided.

We need somebody to dislike.

We have to be.

And I think it comes from a sense of us wanting a true sense of belonging in something.

I think that it feeds our need for security.

But then I also think it feeds our need for someone.

an evildoer.

It's like Greek mythology.

We need the evil and then we need the heroes, right?

And all of us have this in us where we need to demonize somebody and we need to idolize somebody else.

It's been that way forever, but I think you're right about something energetically.

The world right now is polarized.

There is no great communicator.

There is no, especially in the United States, there's no great,

a friend of mine said this over the weekend.

There's no calming waters, right?

There's no one to calm the waters down to say, we don't need all this jazz.

There's so much more that makes us

something that I think might land for you.

There was something I heard not too long ago that really shook me.

It was profoundly impactful.

I was born very fortunate.

I have very luck of the draw DNA of emotional intelligence.

And then I had a supernova of a mother who took my raw ingredients and cooked a fucking beautiful meal.

And the reason I'm completely detached from all of my success, and I genuinely believe that humility is the gateway drug to true happiness.

And I, all these great things, it's circumstance, Soviet to America, real immigrant stuff, had nothing, but had pure love in the household, a remarkable mother, was able to be hungry because I wasn't fed, worked hard, accountability, you know, lack of entitlement.

kindness over everything.

My great dream in life is to destroy the term nice guys finish last.

You know, like all these things, right?

That's why I like you.

That's very kind.

Thank you.

Someone said something that I completely never saw, and they were talking about parenting, and

they were talking about the concept of,

you know, couples get together and sometimes they're deeply in love, but they just come from different places and

they parent differently.

And one parent, let's just, let's use the cliche thing.

One parent, is over-coddling the child because they came from better financial circumstances.

It's it's just the evolution right we all understand what i'm saying and the other parent is not overly angry about this but is like

i don't want my husband or wife to create entitled you know kids and i think it's a vulnerability and it leads to unhappiness let me go all the way over here

and that's going to get my kids in the middle yes and what this psychiatrist said to me was they were talking to like eight of us we're just having dinner it was just a natural talk it wasn't too me it was just a general talk they said what that parent needs to do is not go all the way to the left or right to get to get the kid to the middle.

They themselves need to go all the way to the middle.

Interesting.

And then that has a better chance.

And I was like, wow.

Because again, with the luck of the draw and the way I lived life and how I love psychology and all this stuff, there's just not a lot of things that have happened in the last 15 years where I was like, oh, that's profound.

But this one was, which is, if you and your spouse see it completely different and you really want to help your kids and you're concerned that your

one parent is taking a two, just let's use left or right, blue or red, whatever you want to do.

Your natural instinct is to go to the other side like a seesaw and create a weighted balance.

But what you actually have to do is go to the actual middle.

You have to be purple, not the counter red or blue.

And that actually has a higher chance of creating your child to get to that place.

That stuck with me so goddamn hard.

Interesting.

It's as a business operator, as a public figure, as a parent, as a partner, as a sibling, as a son.

It's completely had a great effect because I naturally was doing that already.

It gave me context to even tighten myself in places where I wasn't.

Yes.

And by the way, I understand the radical nature of not being able to compose yourself.

And this may sound silly.

I am unable to compose myself when I am a fan at a New York Jets game.

You just can't control it.

Brother, I'm going to say something.

I want to say this because maybe I'm trying to lighten the atmosphere a little bit.

I,

truthfully, this is like honestly embarrassing, but I, but I want to be vulnerable and explain why I understand people not being able to compose themselves in politics.

I, in something that matters much left, less than societal norms,

am at this Jet Steelers game this Sunday, and the Steeler fans, I don't know if you know anything about American football, but they travel well.

They take over your whole stadium.

Yeah, yeah.

So half my stadium at this home game was Steeler fans.

And when they are cheering in my face and making fun of me because my team's not as good as theirs, I am enraged.

Yeah.

It gets you.

I am the worst version of myself.

I actually have unparalleled composure in a political debate, in business, when I am wronged, when I am cheated, I deploy immediate empathy, sympathy, and compassion to that person must be in a bad place versus worried about what's hurting me.

In a sporting event, I do lose control.

I am my worst self.

It hurts me deeply.

I am radicalized, tribal, and so it makes me understand.

But I think that's like silly and this is escapism and entertainment.

And it's like, ah, you Boston fans, I I don't like you, rah, rah, rah.

But then, in real life, for example, if God forbid, and this has happened, things get actually a little bit heated.

I will always be the person that takes the steam out of me.

Like, oh, come on, this is just sports.

Yeah, we're just bullshit in our life.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

But you need that in real life, brother.

But let me ask you this.

Just let's.

By the way, I don't think this goes unsaid, and you're listening to this probably the next day after it happens, if I can flip it around quick enough.

I really hope, upon all hope, and I don't know that this will happen, but I hope that Charlie and his family will find a way to see through this.

We're praying, if you pray, for Charlie.

There's a difference here, I think, with you, though.

You are identifying.

You are self-aware.

You are emotionally intelligent.

You have the ability to see in the mirror, which I think that a lot of people just don't have.

And I don't know if that's genetics.

I'm sure it's genetic.

I'm sure it's nature and nurture, both kind of of mixed together.

But that's a powerful,

it's a superpower.

A superpower, in my opinion, is the ability to have self-awareness.

And something I've noticed about you as I've followed your career, there are so many inauthentic people doing the same thing that you do.

And they jump on the bandwagon and they yell and scream and they jump up and down and they get people all riled up and rah, rah, sis, boom, bah.

And

at the end of the day, I think it's just a lot of empty promises

and a lot of words.

But you seem to take

a much different approach where you're saying, let's not focus on the win.

Let's focus on how we get there, how we move through the world, and how we treat each other while we're doing it.

That is not a billionaire boys' club attitude.

And it's why I like you is because I think, is this just your superpower mom and your genetics kind of like your super mom just cooking you in a factory of empathy and love?

Yes.

I am complete.

When I tell you the utter detachment that I have for my professional successes and the vanity metrics of society,

it would, you've, I'm very humbled and grateful, mainly because it's an amazing compliment to my parents and my circumstances that you were able to see through this.

Because by the way, Some people are unable to see that through.

There are people who believe I am a different version of who I am because they're unable to see someone who curses or who's a white male who's made some money and they just, they, they do not give themselves.

They're in a bad place.

They're not able to do just, and I think I'm such an easy read.

Jesus Christ.

I think you kind of are too.

I mean, I'm like, did you just listen to a sentence that came out of my mouth?

I mean, you know, so, but, you know, people have agendas.

I mean, I remember a kid that actually had a great, this is actually a great, this is actually an interesting story that might bring value to everyone.

Had a kid write an article about me on Medium called Hustle Porn, where where he really lambasted me as being the person that was bad in the world because I was talking about hustle, hard work, right?

And he went like back to bad journalism.

He like made up 17 things.

It was wild.

Okay.

But it went bananas viral, right?

Medium was basically the sub stack of the day.

Yeah, the thing to do.

Right.

And, you know, I got beaten up and I had a lot of people that I thought were my friends really very quickly throw me under the bus.

And I was like, man, you really know.

And my thing that was wild the whole time was I'm like,

man, I'm getting destroyed on optics of what's going on from a political correctness standpoint.

Like, yes, I'm a dude.

I'm white.

I get it.

I know I've made some dumps, but like, did anyone listen to the word?

Like, literally, the opening chapter of my book, Crush It, is if literally, if you make $54,000 a year, but you are happy, you've crushed it.

That's it.

As good as it gets.

Yeah.

So for me, anyway, nonetheless, it was a little bit of a tangent.

Here's what I would say.

The answer is yes.

The reason I navigate the way I navigate is I don't think I'm special.

I also am very weird that I'm the product.

I feel good about the businesses I build, my children, those things.

I feel like I've had impact taking on what I was given, but me, the me, oh boy, that's Tamara and Vaynerchuk.

That's Tamara and Sasha Vaynerchuk's

medal.

That's what they're doing.

So that helps because when you don't think you're special, when you don't think you're fancy, you know, you become dramatically more palpable.

Now,

I am competitive.

I am ambitious.

I do want it, but you picked up on something important.

I, and this will land for a lot of people that are both selfless and honestly on the vulnerable side, enablers of bad behavior.

I get tremendous joy of being a contributor to someone else.

Yeah.

I feel good.

It's, it feels better for me when I, here's one.

This is just a real life story.

This was, I don't know, I didn't think I was a public figure when I was 10.

On my sister's seventh birthday, we went to Toys R Us to buy me toys with my 20 bucks because that's what we did in the 80s in New Jersey.

And

I don't know if you remember, but Cabbage Patch kits were impossible to find.

My mom went on a hunt for Cabbage Patch dolls, believing that my seven-year-old, eight-year-old self would be interested in it.

But she did it out of the love of her children.

You know, she was a little off.

But okay, I do remember how it was crazy back then.

Crazy.

It was impossible to find.

We go to Toys R Us and for whatever reason, miraculously, there's some there.

My sister, seven years old, loses her fucking mind.

And I, without a fucking pause, was like, mom, grandma, let's use my birthday money to buy Liz a cabbage patch kit.

that

is not me trying to figure out what the right like that's just in you that is yes i was parented it was in my dna and i am telling that story today not to be like hey everybody what i'm a great guy i'm a great guy going to explain that it felt better for me to do that as a human as an animal that felt better than me getting four GI Joes or a wrestling figure that day.

I'm not the, I'm not Mother Teresa.

I'm a human being.

I have selfish wants and needs, but some

are so fulfilled

that they are good,

thus rendering them wanting good for others.

It feels better for them.

I fall in that class.

What makes me weird, though, a little bit more unusual than some is, and I'm deeply entrepreneurial.

I love being a salesman.

I love commerce.

I love capitalism when it's, you know, balanced in purple.

Sure.

I like these.

I love the game.

I love winning and losing.

I think it's, I hate eighth place trophies.

I think it builds indifference and insecurities long term.

I, so it's this unique little mix

by today's standards, but I just think it's normal.

You know, this is interesting that you tell me this story.

So today there's the book fair at the kids' school, right?

And my son, he's seven years old and he's been, he has his piggy bank and he's very excited and he's wrote out his books and it's been there all week.

And dad, can you come shop with me?

Okay, buddy, I'll come shop with you.

You got a budget.

This is a budget.

He's got 50 books on this list that he wants, right?

And but I said, you got a budget.

So we're going to, we'll go through it.

You pick the books.

I'll keep track and we'll figure it out.

We'll keep track together.

And he get, he reaches his budget 15 seconds, right?

He's got 12 books in his hands.

And I said, Bud, that's the budget.

And he said, but what about my sisters?

And I, because he's got sisters.

And I said, what about your sisters?

And he said, well, I want to get them a book also.

And I said, well, that means you're going to have to put back some other books.

And he said, well, then I'll put back some other books.

And I see it in him.

Right.

And it's the same thing that that's in me.

I have the same thing that you do, which is I am deep, deeply, deeply entrepreneurial.

I do like to win.

I do like the game, but I just, there's something so

I don't know.

There's something that I can't get from getting that I get from giving.

There's just something

there's something.

I don't know what it is.

It just fills me up.

I struggle with people not realizing that everybody

should be selfish for themselves, for their family.

And I struggle with people that don't understand that everyone should aspire

to get to a place where being selfless is an objective and an enjoyment because it means that you're full.

You share your food because you're full.

Yes.

And, you know,

I have spent the last 15 years trying to educate people on marketing and business variables.

But to your point, and I'm humbled by your observation, I've also deeply tried to get people to understand, and that's over here.

And then over here, if you get emotionally strong, not just business and marketing strong, well, then none of it actually matters and you've won.

That's it.

And I think that we might have just underlined something that could maybe help the world out

in the backdrop of everything that's going on today and over the last couple of years, 10 years, is that if everybody looked at the other person that they were demonizing or lionizing or whatever, and they looked at them and they said, they're a human being just like me, and they need the same goddamn things that I need.

They need love, they need empathy, they need compassion, they need a break, and it doesn't matter what their opinion on, you know, this bill or that right or this thing.

At the end of the day, they go home and they panic just like me and they have anxieties just like me.

And maybe I can give them something.

And what is that?

I don't know.

A smile, a hug, a dollar at the grocery store.

I don't know what it is.

Or even just some grace.

Exactly.

I do not understand.

Like when people,

I mean,

I met with an employee not too long ago who told me to their face that they stole from me recently.

And

it didn't even take me a second to be capable of giving that person grace.

Interesting.

Like, and listen, my father's celebrating his 72nd birthday today.

I love him with all my heart.

But I learned a lot to be a man by watching what he would not do.

I don't want to razz my dad on his birthday.

My father would have fired that person, not because my father, not because I'm better than my father, but because for my father, he put the ideology of stealing in such a place emotionally that it is the cardinal sin, that it is the scarlet letter.

In fact, one of the quintessential moments of my life was the first time I went to work for my father's liquor store when I was 14 years old, brother.

We drove for 45 minutes.

My father's the opposite of me in a lot of ways.

Okay.

Including I have the gift of gab and talk all the time.

And my father did not say one word to me in a 45-minute drive to work on the path.

There's nothing to say.

And we, we literally drove 45 minutes because we lived for my parents, still live 45 minutes from my dad's store.

Wow.

And we drove down Route 78 in New Jersey.

He did not say one word to me.

We pull into the parking lot.

I'm 14 years old.

I'm much closer to fucking

nine than I am to 21.

And he looks at me and he goes, literally, keep an eye on the employees.

I want to make sure they don't steal.

And

it was, you know, I think, why can't we give each other grace?

When someone is nasty to you at the airport, right?

This is a good setting.

I watch people for a living, and I really watch when I'm in the physical world, and there's a lot of them.

I really, and my antenna is very up when I'm at an airport.

I'm just watching human behavior.

When someone

cuts you in line and bumps into you with their bag,

my question, and that, you know, I travel all the time.

It happens every third person, yeah.

Watching someone then react and want to get into a very aggressive altercation,

it exposes that that person's not in a good place.

Yes.

And I ask people,

and I'm not going where you think I'm going.

I'm not talking about that person not doing something.

I'm actually talking about the person that bumped and cut.

When that person comes and confronts you,

please let it run through your mind that they might be anxious.

A lot of people fear to fly.

They might be flying to something like a funeral or having to fire 50 people.

Like, I just go deeply into what's this person dealing with.

I love this.

And we are in the ultimate era of what am I dealing with?

We have become incredibly good at I,

and we have become wildly bad at we.

Yes.

I have this saying.

I tell my friends, you know, that, oh, you know, you and Astrid and my wife seem so happy together.

What's the, you know, and we haven't, and we've been good together for a decade, right?

But I've seen a lot of other marriages that come and go in that decade.

And

you and Astrid seem happy together.

What is it?

I said, and this may be another way of just framing the same things that you're saying.

I said, I've learned which hills to die on.

Because, I mean, you just sometimes you just have to look at the other person and say, it's okay.

It's okay.

And, but i'm sorry to interrupt you said something profound there i'm gonna say something i'm gonna add to this in the overall combo we're having yeah

and what and if you really understand the game

gosh there's only a maybe a hill or two i agree like your moral compass right yeah you know like what what i mean the

Like, I'm not even talking about your beloved spouse, everyone who's listening.

I'm talking about a perfect stranger.

Like, what

battle on what hill over what?

And what has happened is we've done such a bad job for the last 20 years,

right?

That we've got, like, we've really, and this goes, I mean, people are so naive that they think it goes back to Trump or Obama.

You start going back to Gingrich and Clinton.

Like, we've, this has been a steady climb.

You go back to Florida, Gore versus Bush.

I don't know why people have not been paying attention.

This has been a steady climb of us not learning the lessons of the 60s.

And here we are.

And it's going to take a lot of work and unfortunately more tragedy.

Yes.

More tragedy, unfortunately, for us to get to the place.

And I will tell you that

I am devastated to know what I know because I know human history, that more blood will be shed.

that more pain and tears will be had until we hit that empty point where it converts from scaled fear

to scaled understanding and compromise and compassion and grace.

And I take on a very, you know, honestly, I feel as someone who has been

awake to this truth.

I feel like so much of my content over the last decade has been grounded in this.

And honestly, I go young.

The reason I try to go after teenagers and young 20s is I'm trying to build up their self-esteem.

Because if their self-esteem is right, they become the strong ones that can deal with being the bigger person when someone wants to fight on the hill.

Interesting.

I saw the most fascinating reel.

I think you'll get a kick out of this.

And you may have seen it.

A child psychiatrist talking, and she said, Do you know what the number one indicator of a child being popular is?

The number one, she'd studied child psychology from kindergarten all the way up through high school.

And she said, The number one indicator that a child is popular is whether or not they feel

like they have friends.

Like little moments during the day when they say hello to people, little confidence, self-confidence, and empathy, right?

Confidence and empathy is what she built it down to.

It doesn't matter if they really are truly popular.

Do they know everybody in school?

They feel popular because they have confidence and empathy.

When you, you do deal with a lot of young folks, right?

You're out there.

Not only that, I have a almost 3,000-person organization with a stunning percentage under the age of 30.

Yeah.

What is the what?

Do you sense that they are taking on this tribalism also?

I mean, not the people you work with directly because they have a great example.

No, no, no, no.

Listen, I'm not their Lord and Savior.

No, I agree.

I get it.

I think I'm admired.

And especially once the kids, you know, it's funny, now that my popularity is at the scale it's at, you know, when we first started this company, 20-year-olds would come in, have no idea who I was.

It's now rare for a 22-year-old coming into this organization, not knowing who I am.

To your point, thank God, big shout out to my parents.

I tend to gain more momentum with a lot of them.

I'm proud that I represent the opposite of don't meet your heroes.

I say that with all humility and back to the

all to my parents.

And, but even with all that leverage, you know, I, even the cocoon that I try to create within my organizations, I am not able to protect them from an outside world that is far more at scale, powerful, you know, maybe for my children, but very hard for even my inner circle of employees to have that impact.

Plus, they're grown at this point.

Of course they're in that tribalism.

It is what is being pushed at scale.

For every person that looks like me that is trying to push love,

you know, there's 5,500,000, at least 50,000 that are pushing separation because in separation comes power for the person that pushes separation.

Yeah.

Do you fear for the younger folks?

I think it was you.

I saw a reel.

I don't think it was done by you.

I think it was put out by you.

It was somebody else videotaping you at a conference where a mother came to you with some concerns about her child with social media.

And I'm thinking, you probably know the one that I'm talking about.

That's a couple months that I saw ago.

Do you?

What is your advice?

to the to the parents out there, guys like me, right, who have young kids that are coming up about

the evolution of social media?

I actually don't fear it, nor do I fear AI.

I fear that modern parenting is less accountable, less interested in creating consequences for their children, and don't have a very strong playbook

using a coaching reference.

And I'm very empathetic to how we got there.

This goes back to what I talked about earlier.

There's a lot of men and women in their 30s and 40s and 50s who are over-correcting for what they think their parents did wrong and are not finding the middle.

And I believe that the over-coddling and entitlement and lack of accountability is actually,

if I had, if you actually put a quote-unquote, put me in a corner and said, I have to pick one, I do believe entitlement and lack of accountability leads to more unhappiness than having a parent that rode you too hard and things of that nature, though I don't think either are healthy and have their own different traumas.

But I do believe we've gotten.

So I will tell you what's happened with the youth.

And by the way, I'm a pretty substantial fan of Gen Z and Gen Alpha in comparison to my contemporaries because I think all my contemporaries have forgotten that we knew unlimited lazy boomers and Xers as well.

You know what I mean?

It's like as if everybody, I mean, the reason I rose was all my friends were lazier and entitled than I was, and I won, blah, blah, blah.

Right.

Yeah.

I would say that what has happened is you and I, when we were 20, did not believe that the system and the government and politicians and bosses and corporations completely controlled everything, thus rendering us into woe is me, no matter what I do, I can't get it done.

I believe, unfortunately, a shocking percentage of youth believes that to be true.

And that is stunning because in their face, they are watching unlimited 20-year-olds make it on social media at a level that we have never seen before.

Holy crap.

If I had this world, brother, I would have been a trillionaire on 19.

Me too.

Yes, me too.

It's endless opportunities.

So, what's crazy is we're living in the greatest era of opportunity for an 18 to 30-year-old.

At a time where they've been sold such bullshit that all this propaganda, like, you have it worse than your parents.

This and that, you'll never own a house.

Inflation, a Big Mac is three times more expensive.

More shit, but guess what else?

You can make a million dollars in an hour as a 19-year-old.

Alex Earl, Alex Lilly, Logan Paul, like there's unlimited, and I'm talking about the biggest ones, Mr.

Mees.

There's 8 trillion people on Substack.

I mean, fuck OnlyFans.

If you were lucky and you were born gorgeous,

I don't understand what people are missing.

You have brand deals, ad revenue, flipping, live social shopping, Shopify.

Like, if you put in work, whatever work is defined,

Drewski put in work to refine his comedic skills.

Yes.

He is like, I don't understand how people don't see this.

The world,

aka

the collective of humans that are pessimistic and cynical are telling all these kids, you've never had it worse.

Meanwhile, the data, The math

is completely in the face in the other direction.

And unfortunately, the kids believe the negative.

And so, yes, I find them to be tribal.

And unlike a decade ago, when they were tribal to the left, they're now tribal to both the left and the right.

And oh, by the way, in the backtrack of what just happened, and here we are.

Yes.

Campus, a very young man with a young family who had a very strong point of view in one direction was literally shot.

and likely killed because likely likely i mean we'll find out when we get done here the

and here we are like what yeah

for what what did it what did it solve it what what it's going to do is open up Pandora's box it's yet more tribalism it's yet more division you can already see it I spent two minutes on social media and I wanted to throw it the weapon is and the people on the left and right are using that this is disgusting they're using the potential death of a young man as a proxy to dig their heels in, heels in to create more fear.

Because here's the crazy part about what you just said, to back up for one second.

The same people who are being spoon-fed the narrative, right?

That it's worse and you don't this and that and you'll never get ahead and all this other stuff.

They're being spoon-fed that by people who are run away killing it by creating that content.

Be careful.

That is ultimately, you know, I'm glad you touched on that.

This is interesting.

Again, all kudos to Tamara and Sasha, but I'm just self-analyzing myself.

I have plenty of shortcomings.

This is not one of them.

I

grew up in New Jersey in the 80s and 90s and

had all the charisma that I have now and had at least average looks, right?

Thus rendering me to be on the precipice of max popularity in high school.

And I chose consciously as a 16, 17 year old to not compromise my moral compass of what was required for me to take the final step in popularity, which was to make fun of non-popular kids.

Interesting.

And it came with pretty girls.

It came with fun memories.

It came with being in the cool club.

And I stayed firmly in upper middle class popularity

and was able to not compromise.

And I thought about that a lot my whole life when I was doing it in my 20s, in my 30s.

And I thought about it a lot.

I think about it a lot to today.

And I will tell you what I learned when I became culturally pop culturally popular and am navigating it the way I'm navigating it.

I realized no different than I wasn't willing to hurt someone's feelings to be able to make out with the prettiest girls in my high school, even though it was wildly tempting.

Yeah.

I am also not willing to do what many are doing right now, which is sell fear so that I can make more money to buy a Lamborghini.

And this wraps back to your almost first minute of conversation with me, which was you have many times been approached by friends, probably political operatives, probably people on both sides of the aisle, to buy your

uh to buy the attention that you gather online for their

purposes.

And you've said, listen, I'm just not, I don't need to go there.

I'm not going to go there.

Because I think at the end of the day, right, that is the one

thing that we, that's the one thing that we have, right, as creators is our word.

And when we start bastardizing it or selling it out to the highest bidder, then

you lose all authenticity.

And I think this is the thing that makes you different than all the other coaches, coaches, teachers, you know, life hacks, whatever category you happen to fall in.

Because you, honestly, I got 50,000 questions I could give you.

And it just turned out that this happened today.

But at the end of the day, what makes you different, in my opinion, is that you don't go there.

You speak your word.

It's the same largely from interview to interview, conversation to conversation, story to story.

It always begins and ends with self-awareness, empathy, and your word, not mine, grace.

And I appreciate it.

I do, because we're going to need a lot more of it.

And it's got to start, you know, I guess it starts with this old guy.

It's actually why I, thank you.

It's actually why I enjoy being professionally successful because it allows a young male, young women, I have plenty of young women entrepreneur brands, but, you know, I think it's important for people to see.

You know, the reason I believe in inclusion is I think it's important for someone to see someone like them winning so that it can become real.

Yeah.

You know, if you're Filipino and Manny Pacquiao is winning titles in the boxing ring, it just feels a certain way.

You're like, that's like, you know, oh, I'm like that.

Like, I always want everyone to just be binary team human, but it is not lost on me that we identify with our race and religion and gender and location.

Nonetheless, I

love being financially and professionally successful because

I think I hope it seduces other people that are also nice to realize you don't have to compromise it.

Nice guys do finish first.

You know, you don't have to have sharp elbows or be a jerk off.

You know, I remember when I was very critical of Steve Jobs' management style at the height of Steve Jobs and Silicon Valley like razzed me for it.

But I just, and I remember one friend being like, what are you trying to do here?

I'm like, what do you mean?

He thought it was like some sort of shtick that I was trying to use Steve to build myself up.

I'm like, no, I just, this all started with somebody asking me of interview if I thought he was the coolest.

And I was like, yeah, I mean, I love the innovation, but like, honestly, like, the whole like, everyone's a idiot and fuck you is just not my management style.

Yeah.

And by the way, and then I had to write a book where I made fun of my own management style that I overcoddled people because I didn't have can.

It's crazy.

Gary Vee's candor is remarkable as a public figure, a strength.

I shoot it like it is.

I talk about what I believe in.

I don't compromise.

But Gary Baynerchuck, the executive of

fuck, almost 100,000 employees now in my lifetime, his kryptonite

was I couldn't tell people I care about the truth of their shortcomings in my subjective opinion out of the fear that it would create fear to only then find out in my early 40s that that was creating fear because people weren't quite sure where they sat with me.

Yeah.

You, Gary, you, you've really had an amazing career.

I um

I honor your authenticity, brother.

That's that's that's how I'm gonna put that.

And I think that sometimes the universe puts people in front of you at the right time.

I believe it always happens.

I believe in fate, and you know, and fate is like pregnancy.

You can't kind of be pregnant, you either are or you aren't, right?

That's good.

So, I will share this with you: that I imagine that we are together here today for a reason.

You have calmed my waters, my friend, from what has been a really shocking and crazy day as a fellow creator.

You know, from what I'm a fellow human being, right?

Like, obviously, fellow human being.

You and I obviously associate with Charlie, and I associate with Charlie as a creator and whether dad, a human,

and whether he was on the extreme far left, on the extreme far right, or right down the middle in purple like me, it doesn't really change the fact that this is like horrific.

The fact that I know unlimited 13 to 17 year old children are about to see this clip yeah

like it just is so not good I mean I will tell you I will never unsee that I I to this day know that the JFK assassination video was

incredibly ingrained into my soul me too JFK conspiracies popped up you know what I say

when JFK stuff kind of got yeah, when, when, uh, when that movie came out, JFK, when even a little bit before that,

you know, I just was very into it because, again, I love the last 80 years of history, and like, you know, like, and that video was grainy, there's a brutal, like, it had, like, but still, like, it's brutal, but it's, it's grainy, it's not in 8K.

What I just saw is not grainy, no, and though, and there's probably seven drillion versions of it, it's in every comment, and and we're desensitized to some level.

Like, you know, God forbid, if this happened 20 years ago,

we would have definitely not done this interview.

Everybody would have went home.

Yes.

Right?

There's school shootings all the time.

Columbine was a one-week coma for our country.

That's right.

Now it's a one-minute conversation on a trending topic.

We're in a very challenging place, and this is a time for grown-ups.

to stand up and become more civil with each other, teach their kids better values, teach them accountability, teach them love, grace, and all those things.

And

we can sit around and blame politicians.

We can blame Fox News and CNN.

We can blame Facebook and TikTok.

But until we blame ourselves on an individual basis, nothing will change.

I agree with you.

I think it's time that we all take a look in the mirror and we all take a little bit of that self-awareness that we were talking about and learn how to point the finger at ourselves.

It starts at the airport, the guy you cut off in

the car, the business partner you're pissed at, the person you don't give grace to, the guy that you call an idiot online because you don't like his particular brand of politics or ideology.

It all starts there, and we are all guilty of it, including myself.

I'll raise my hand.

I'm guilty of it too.

But this is quickly spiraling out of control.

That video will never be unseen.

And now imagine that's what's happening to our fucking children.

That's what they face when they go to school.

That's crazy.

It's insane.

I just got the text and so I'll say, unfortunately, Charlie's passed away.

Wow.

It's just, it's just fucking devastating.

And like, and I just pray to God that this horrific act

changes the course of American discourse.

I really do.

And that

his legacy and soul.

And as he's looking down at heaven from heaven right now, looks down, he could change everything.

And it was a life worth living, whether you fully disagreed and hated everything that came out of his mouth, or you fully blindly believed in it, we're just in a very bad place.

This is really upsetting, and

I really just honestly, brother, just wish you and your family nothing but health.

And thank you.

Me too.

And I pass that on to Charlie's wife and his very small children, one and three years old.

Charlie Kirk passed away.

And Gary Vee, I welcome you back on

our more positive settings.

We'll talk to you soon.

Thanks, Gary.

Okay.

bye-bye.

Wow.

Rachel here.

While Brian takes his old man Bladder to the little boys' room, let's talk turkey.

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I'm sure you heard there at the end of the interview, it was confirmed that Charlie had passed away.

I felt like it was a natural place to let the interview end.

I meant every word I said about Gary.

He moves through life with authenticity and empathy.

He rides the middle.

He's the opposite of a rabble rouser.

He is calming waters.

And while he's very energetic, there is something honest and wise behind those eyes.

I really appreciated that conversation in that moment.

And while it's fresh on my mind, we literally just got done with the interview.

I'm not sure any kind of life-altering wisdom was dropped.

Maybe for you there was, but I can share emphatically that I felt much better at the end of the conversation than I did at the beginning of the conversation.

My thanks to Gary Vee for being here in that moment and sitting with me and sharing with me.

Maybe that's what we need more of.

Just calm, rational conversation, not finding any huge answers or explanations.

Two human beings trying to make sense of senselessness.

Two human beings doing their best.

to navigate this extremely complicated world.

Two human beings just being human beings.

Calm, respectful communication is how we're going to get out of this, is how these things are going to change.

We're not always going to have the answers.

We're not always going to solve the problems.

We're not always going to agree on everything.

But if the conversation doesn't end with a gunshot to the neck, then we live to fight another day.

We didn't die on that hill.

I'm not a prayer.

That's not what I call it.

But tonight, when I go to bed, I will be thinking about those two children and that spouse that Charlie leaves here on earth.

They are, at the end of the day the ultimate victims of what happened at that Utah college.

And no matter how you feel about Charlie, his ideologies, or his opinions, I think we can all agree on that.

The ones he left behind are the ones who really lost the most.

So I'll make this quick.

If you want to get involved in the conversation, 212-433-3TCB, 212-433-3822.

You can text us or you can call us.

I'll be sure to get back to you just as soon as possible at the thecommercial break on Instagram, TCB Podcast on TikTok.

tcbpodcast.com is the website of course you can get your free sticker there and make sure to watch this episode youtube.com slash thecommercial break until next time i love you best to you and goodbye

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