The Keys To Trusting Your Gut
In this video, I interview Gary Vaynerchuk about his family roots and how his upbringing contributed to his current success. Vaynerchuk, often known as Gary Vee, is a prominent entrepreneur, author, speaker, and internet personality.
He’s best known for his work in digital marketing and social media, leading his own company VaynerMedia, a digital agency focused on social media-first approaches. He first gained prominence by revolutionizing his family’s wine business through innovative online marketing, which included creating one of the first e-commerce platforms for alcohol and hosting a daily webcast called “Wine Library TV.”
His efforts dramatically increased the business’s annual revenue from $3 million to $60 million. Vaynerchuk has also authored several books, including “Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion” and “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World,” which provide insights into leveraging social media to build personal brands and businesses.
He is also involved in venture capital, having invested in companies like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Uber early on. Through his personal brand and his company, he’s become a leading influencer among marketing professionals and entrepreneurs.
Family, Faith and Health
Vaynerchuk was born in Babruysk, Belarus, which was part of the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. His family emigrated to the United States when he was 3 years old. His father opened a liquor store and Gary, even as a young boy, would help out, because that’s how families in Belarus work. They work together.
Eastern Europeans also tend to have deep spiritual family values, which is relatively rare in the U.S. these days. I heard him on a few other podcasts and was intrigued by the fact that he was so tuned into the spiritual aspect of reality.
I’m not as interested in WHAT he does, as HOW he does it. Where does the passion come from? I’m also intrigued by how the love of one’s parents can contribute to a person’s success in life. Are the two connected? I believe so.
Natural Healing — Your Body Knows What to Do
Eastern Europeans also tend to be far savvier about natural health than many Americans. Vaynerchuk recounts the story of how his great grandmother would wake him and his sister up when she came to visit and make them go outside and walk on the grass in their bare feet. Today, this is known as “grounding” or “earthing.”
“I’m very affected by my upbringing,” he says. “It’s my framework. I was also taught to never go to the doctor, ever, for my whole life. And also, no foreign chemicals. If I take two Advil right now, I’m unconscious.
Whether it’s the foods, or the things you put into your body, or how you interact with nature. I also remember my family being weird — or so I thought as a kid in the 80s in America.
We’d go to Sandy Hook, the beach, and my family would immediately run in and grab sand from the bottom of the ocean and scrub their faces with it. The other thing, literally anytime I wasn’t feeling well, for the first 15 years of my life, my mom or my grandma would say ‘Drink some tea and go to sleep …’
If you asked 18-year-old me in 1993, ‘Talk about medicine,’ my initial answers would be ‘ginger, cinnamon, mint, red beets.’ When I used to have a chest cold, my mom would put vodka on a rack and heat it up and put it on my chest. Not Vicks VapoRub. Just real ancient, historical ways of doing stuff …
I just remembered something I haven’t thought about 30 years. I used to think of my body like a superhero. If the superhero character got their thumb cut off, the thumb would just grow back in. I literally grew up thinking that if I did nothing, that it would fix itself.
Three weeks ago, I jammed my thumb playing basketball very badly. My friends were like, ‘Let’s put some ice on it.’ It swelled up. I didn’t do it.
A week later, my trainer said, ‘You know, it’s interesting that you didn’t do the ice thing, because I’ve been reading a lot about how the body naturally does it. It swells up to protect you. It’s a natural cast.’ It was just interesting the way he was talking about it. And he said, ‘Some people are now debating that you’re actually better off not icing it.’”
Healthy Body, Healthy Mind
Indeed, your body is designed to stay healthy. It’s not designed to get diseased. That only happens because you’re not providing the foundational elements required for self-healing. If you have a healthy metabolism, you will not have chronic pain anywhere, and energy to spare.
Metabolically healthy people also tend to be perpetually curious. You
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LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.