Unlocking Kindness: The Key to Self-Awareness and Happiness
00:00:00.000 | Kindness, it's funny, we always think about kindness as like I'm kind to people,
00:00:03.440 | but it sounds like the like unlock is realizing you need to be kind to yourself
00:00:06.960 | and you need to understand yourself. You've said I think
00:00:09.600 | self-awareness is like a superpower most people don't realize.
00:00:12.560 | In a way that really matters, brother. Like, in a way that's like, man, if I could wish anything
00:00:20.880 | for people on earth besides good health, for everyone who's listening in this great community,
00:00:24.800 | because I know the kind that you would cultivate, I just think to myself, like,
00:00:28.400 | who's a listener of this based on, I know a good amount about you, and like,
00:00:32.560 | I've been watching you for a long time, like, you know, there's like a really high standard of
00:00:37.760 | human on here, but I think a lot of them are blind to certain aspects.
00:00:42.560 | And I think the biggest one is like, just be like, easier on yourself, like the extreme level
00:00:49.040 | of judgment people put on themselves, because they play the game of comparison. Like, I got
00:00:55.040 | the enjoyment I get to see Kev or Tim Ferriss or, or, or, I mean, anybody like I get thrilled when
00:01:04.640 | I see people are winning, as if that's coming out of mine. I've always been baffled by people's
00:01:12.400 | inability to understand that the world is abundant, and nobody, nobody is taking out of yours.
00:01:19.280 | If 50 people showed up tomorrow that are incredible public speakers,
00:01:22.800 | not, not a dollar is taken out of my pocket. There's plenty of speaking gigs I could do.
00:01:28.080 | I really wish people understood that. And I think understanding who you're trying to accomplish
00:01:33.920 | for is also very important. A lot of people listening here who are still trying to make
00:01:37.600 | their parents proud, even though their parents are not capable of ever giving that, you know,
00:01:43.200 | cosign to their child, because they themselves never got it from their parents. So a lot of
00:01:47.280 | people blame their parents, and haven't done the work of figuring out that they should actually be
00:01:51.920 | blaming their grandparents, which then leads them to actually realize they should be blaming their
00:01:56.240 | great grandparents. And it becomes this game where you can give your parents a lot more leeway,
00:02:01.280 | which actually, a lot of times for people is an unlock. And it's kind of like a,
00:02:05.280 | you know, you can get it off your chest. And, you know, I think, yeah, I'm very
00:02:10.080 | passionate about this subject matter. Are there things people can that are
00:02:13.360 | listening can do to start to build better self-awareness? Is there like a training
00:02:17.040 | regimen or some activity that you've seen be helpful? I think one is to really start
00:02:22.560 | to make the people closer to them feel comfortable with giving them truth and candor.
00:02:26.320 | So like finding that best friend, where like, if you can go to that one place where you think you,
00:02:32.080 | whether it's your mom or dad or best friend or spouse, we're like, Hey, I'm actually starting
00:02:36.880 | a journey of self-awareness. And I know that I've always been the kind of person that can get very
00:02:40.560 | defensive, or it can lead to a fight, or you just love me so much, you don't want to hurt my
00:02:44.800 | feelings, but no bullshit. Can you just, you know, like answer a couple of questions for me? Like,
00:02:49.520 | you know, how everybody says, like, I have all this talent. Like, am I lazy? Like, if you can
00:02:54.240 | get a person that loves you to a place where they'll tell you the truth, you can really start
00:02:58.800 | to unlock some conversations that can give you some affirmation on something you've been fighting
00:03:02.720 | off. It's funny you say this. I remember, I hope he's okay with me talking about this. Kevin had
00:03:08.880 | this went through this process and actually hired someone to call a bunch of his friends and have
00:03:13.280 | that kind of like performance review conversation and be like, you know, I'm going to keep this
00:03:17.200 | anonymous. I'm not going to sign it to you. But like, Kevin wants to know, like, what can he
00:03:20.560 | improve in? Like, where is he letting his friends down? What would you tell him if you know, you
00:03:25.840 | knew he wouldn't be able to know it was you. And it sounds like, you know, not everyone needs to
00:03:29.840 | hire someone to do that. You could, you know, it's hard. Sometimes your friends don't want to be
00:03:33.040 | honest. No, I think I think what you just said is a viable and maybe even a clear, cleaner data set
00:03:37.760 | than what I'm referring to. And you know, I'm just very aware that most people can't afford to hire
00:03:42.640 | someone to do that, right? Or even think of it. But like, like, even a friend, like, ask a friend,
00:03:47.600 | can you just call these five people and I like it, I like it. To your point, in my version, I'm
00:03:52.080 | asking that most in inner person to give it to you to your point, maybe that inner person is the one
00:03:57.280 | that cultivates the data. I think it's fascinating. Or an anonymous Google form. I think I think I
00:04:03.120 | like that, too. I like that, too. I think I think people have to be ready, right? I had to be ready
00:04:08.560 | at 30 for eight years, I knew health and fitness was something I wanted to be, but it was finally
00:04:12.720 | on a flight from Houston to New York, with my head against the window where I was like, it's time,
00:04:17.760 | you know, like, for a lot of people right now, they're hearing this, and they're pushing against
00:04:21.440 | it like now, because they're not ready. For another listener today, this was the moment,
00:04:27.200 | like in the last week or two, they just got ready of like, you know what, I just want my life to be
00:04:30.880 | happier. And this is part of the equation. Like, look, out of all the things, work ethic, passion,
00:04:37.680 | kindness, I will say that accountability, I would argue is probably the quickest indicator to how
00:04:44.080 | happy you are. If you are truly interested in being accountable to yourself, yet to the whole
00:04:51.440 | thing, to yourself, to everyone around you, to every situation, to every relationship to the
00:04:57.360 | to the truth. I'll give you a good example. In my 20s and 30s. I would struggle so much with
00:05:03.600 | firing people and giving them candorous feedback that almost every exit at Wine Library and early
00:05:09.360 | VaynerMedia was sloppy. They stayed a year longer because I wrestled with it. And then when I would
00:05:16.240 | do it, it would just be a shit show. Like, it would be, I'd ask my cousin Bobby to do it.
00:05:22.640 | Even though I was the one who interacted with the person every day, 500 days a year.
00:05:26.960 | I would, I would flub it, I would talk for three minutes about how they're the greatest and be
00:05:33.120 | like, but that being said, we're going to have to let you go and they'd be confused. And so
00:05:36.880 | there was two, 300 people over a 20 year period, back to what I said earlier, that were close to
00:05:42.960 | me and did actually know me who did not have a good taste towards me. What did I do in my 20s
00:05:47.280 | and early 30s? I would blame them. I'd be like, how could that person be mad at me? They were so,
00:05:52.960 | like, they were the worst. They were so incapable of their job. I was such a good guy for letting
00:05:57.680 | them even be in the company for another year or two. Look what's happened. They've not been
00:06:01.200 | successful in their last two places. And it took me getting into my late thirties and really
00:06:06.080 | actually into my mid forties. Fuck my late thirties, not my late thirties. It got into
00:06:10.960 | the last three or four or five years where I was like, you know what? My lack of candor is the
00:06:16.720 | only, is the kryptonite to the thing I said 15 minutes earlier, which is, I love that people
00:06:21.680 | that know me, like me a lot. Asterisk, people that have worked for me that were not good at their
00:06:28.480 | job in my subjective opinion, that I let sit around because I was too scared or was not interested in
00:06:35.520 | conflict. And I created so much resentment and passive aggressiveness that eventually it boiled
00:06:43.040 | over and then they were fired. That group of 100 to 200 people on earth don't have the same good
00:06:48.880 | taste towards me than the 10,000 that have been close to me in my life. That took me being
00:06:55.440 | accountable to like, that's on me. Cause I struggled with candor, which is why in the book,
00:07:00.480 | the last book that you're referencing, the reason I wrote 12 and a half was strictly at the end of
00:07:04.480 | the day to talk about kind candor. This concept that I rebranded it to myself and now I'm better
00:07:09.360 | at candor, but it took a lot of professional and personal losing for me to get to that point where
00:07:14.560 | I could be accountable and be like, Hey, okay, tough guy. Like you're good at a lot of shit.
00:07:20.400 | That's nice. Or a lot of people, this is something you stink at. And like, we'll continue to be a
00:07:25.120 | problem in your life unless you're able to build. And, uh, I'm, I'm proud of where I'm at with
00:07:31.040 | candor. Now I'm a five, I'm a 4.7. I'm a 5.2. That's a lot better than a one. And I got to
00:07:37.520 | tell you in the last two, three years at VaynerX, the holding company, VaynerMedia, the agency,
00:07:41.680 | the company's much stronger because of it. People are, you know, my greatest pride as a leader was
00:07:47.120 | eliminating fear. I got this, I got this, I got this, I got you, we got this. And I delivered for
00:07:53.760 | years. But what really was rock bottom for me was when I realized, wait a minute, there's a lot of
00:07:59.120 | people walking around scared because they don't know if out of nowhere, they're just going to get
00:08:02.960 | fired because I'm like, everything's great until it's not. And then I have to start giving more
00:08:07.280 | candor along the way. And my organization does it better because I do it better. And it's been