A Conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk's VP of Core Relationships, Nick Dio (J&B PODCAST)

In this episode of the J&B Body Works Podcast, host Mikey Izzo warmly welcomes the dynamic Nick Dio, the VP of Core Relationship for the influential Gary Vaynerchuk at VaynerMedia. Fascinating views from their office, insightful discussions about the significance of lasting impressions, the power of relationship building, and Nick's captivating story of managing Gary's personal and professional relationships await you in this episode.

Extending conversations to the multifaceted nature of individuals, the significant role of last impressions, and the thrill of turning hobbies into professions forms part of this enriching discussion. Experience the intriguing narrative of an 18-year-old transforming into an inspiring industry leader, while navigating the fearsome waters of imposter syndrome, and discovering the power of one's own voice amidst the noise of societal opinions.

Uncover the importance of trust, loyalty, and authenticity in business through the experiences and lessons learned from working with Gary Vaynerchuk. Narrating a series of anecdotes, Nick deep dives into fearlessly taking big swings, nurturing trust, managing fears and fostering a culture of openness. The conversation further extends to assess wealth in terms of personal relationships, goodwill, and the happiness one can bring to others.

Concluding this riveting episode is the narrative of a significant health scare in Nick's life. The emotional turmoil and an unforgettable interaction with a renowned neurosurgeon lead us to reflect on life's luxuries and the transformative power of positive affirmation. Tune in to this episode for a thought-provoking conversation that unravels life's complexities, advocates a mindful and enlightened approach to struggles, and celebrates triumphs of perseverance.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
People move to New York because they want to make a name for themselves.
And when you're sitting 25 floors up looking at the whole city,
you're like, I can't fucking do anything.
People are always like, first impressions really matter. But I just think last
impressions are so much more impactful.
Mickey Rourke came here to do a collab post because he had one of his cars serviced

(00:20):
here. Your dad would lose his shit.
Right. I'm Mikey Izzo, and welcome back to the J&B Body Works podcast,
a conversation show where we talk to guests about cars, life,
and everything in between.
Music.
Welcome back to the jmb bodyworks podcast today we
have a very special guest that i'm super excited about this is

(00:42):
nick dio he works with vayner x and vayner media and he's going to tell us a
little bit about his story how he started how he started working for gary thanks
for coming man bro walking into the actual body shop and like seeing everybody
running around and all these cars. And I was like, this is my shit.

(01:02):
I work at an office where you have to get in an elevator and go up to the 25th
floor. We have sweeping views of all of New York City.
It's wild, but like everybody's pretty fucking buttoned up.
Taking a leak inside of a body shop bathroom felt so at home.
I'm serious. Like so at home that I was like, this is my shit.

(01:25):
So thank you for having me. Do you use our bathroom anytime you want?
Just to like get out of your bathroom. Just to get out of like the corporate kind of world.
And we're like out of all of the businesses that are on the 25th floor of a
high rise New York's, like we're the least corporate of all of them.
But still i mean that it was

(01:46):
a real treat so thank you guys for having me we thank you thank
you does everyone lose their mind when they see the view yes i mean what
you just like you kind of because it's panoramic so it's
everything from like the hudson to madison square garden to world trade center
wow so it's what part of the city is it so it's it's hudson yards okay yeah
so it's 30th and 10th and it's just i mean like you watch storm systems come

(02:08):
in from jersey across the water You can see the Statue of Liberty on a clear day.
You can look up at the highest observation deck in the Northern Hemisphere,
which is that observation deck at the edge.
So I mean, people move to New York because they want to make a name for themselves.
And when you're sitting 25 floors up looking at the whole city,

(02:29):
you're like, I can fucking do anything.
Yeah, that's what's up. So tell us a little bit about how you got there.
How'd you start? What do you do?
Yeah. Yeah. So I've been working for Gary Vaynerchuk for a little over 10 years.
I manage his personal and professional relationships.
And over that 10-year journey of working for him, I've had probably a dozen
different jobs inside the same organization.

(02:51):
And at the end of the day, it all boils down to two things, loyalty and trust.
Every employee that works for you, that's it.
And Gary trusts me implicitly to accurately represent him out in the world.
And he's one one human being.
So I get to be this pulse check on everything in culture that.

(03:13):
He wants to have a pulse check on so even being here
you what you guys are doing is massively disruptive there's not
many people that own body shops that are creating regular youtube tiktok
instagram real content thank you but it's clearly having an
impact on our business please yeah listen i get pops doesn't
get it but i you know the best thing i
can do would be to sit him and sasha vayner chuck

(03:34):
down gary's father okay like set up a
dinner for the two of them don't tell tell them the other one's coming and then
have them bitch and complain about their sons and then
ultimately be like our sons are the fucking
best that's his that's his whole day it's it's it's and and probably cry before
the end of the dinner talking about how proud he is so you know about your father

(03:57):
can you go my my dad's the best he he actually you know how your dad knows what
you you guys do, but don't really know.
My dad knows exactly what I do. So my dad's been a sales guy his entire life.
And when I told him that the evolution of my career was going to take me in
a direction where I had to do nothing transactional, meaning there was no deal

(04:18):
to get done. There was no revenue goal to hit.
There was nothing attached in a transaction-oriented nature.
My goal was simply to be out in the world as an extension of this person,
building and cultivating relationships and putting
as much good karma as i could into them he was
like i understand that completely because i

(04:38):
wish that i could operate that way it's awesome but there's
always a revenue goal attached to what i'm doing in a similar capacity i guess
there kind of is with what you do but it's just not measurable immediately yeah
and i think like that is measurable if
you start from the place of measurement of how am i going to measure this you're going
to fail right and i think with all you
know even what you with what you guys are doing right now everybody wants to

(05:00):
like all right how do how does 50 000 followers on a social media platform translate
into us getting five more cars a week right and you're like i don't know dude
but it will and you it's probably a similar spot like where you're in where
no one knows exactly what.
Strides you've made what movement you've made but you and

(05:20):
you know it on such a small scale like you could feel every little step and
like it's not always the easiest to explain to someone or to translate that
or to prove that but like you know where you're at the momentum that you've
built you feel it people want you to be a completed sentence people want you to i own an auto,

(05:41):
i'm a lawyer a doctor i'm an
actor i'm a garbage man a content creator period
yeah i'm a father i'm a mother period and
when you start to add hyphens to the end of those sentences it fucks people
up yeah so when you say like for you for you too when you start to think about
how you explain who you are in the world you just like go to the most deliberate

(06:04):
immediate is the easiest way to explain you know what this period i'm a body
shop guy yeah that's it he fixed cars.
But when you really think about it, all of your interests and all of your passions
and all of your hobbies that you're currently itching and scratching simultaneously
as you venture out into creating content and doing different things,
all of those elements of your personality actually open up the amount of people

(06:27):
that enjoy watching you, spending time with you, hearing from you exponentially.
Exponentially because i'm not just a car guy
x yeah i am also a fan of this professional sports team
i also enjoy eating this type of food i
also and for me my entire world
is recognizing how vastly different

(06:48):
we all are but how eerily similar we
all are meaning i've never spent more than
an hour in a body shop in my entire life
but there are and that is your entire day
every day right but there are so many things that
actually make us like this yeah even though
we have vastly different lives so how do you do that how do you find yourself

(07:10):
doing that how do you make that connection with people the best you just common
ground it's insane you know it's the it's the easiest thing you look at somebody
and you say out of all the things like you can look at what they're wearing
the the signals that they're putting off in different ways the music that that they listen to.
For me, the way that I do it is I try to establish a mutual connection with

(07:33):
the person that goes beyond just physically what they're about.
So like the story about your dad, right? And I think about Sasha Vaynerchuk.
And I say to myself, okay, these are two guys that have grown up in a family
business their entire life that have probably the deepest relationship you could
have with a parent because of the amount of sheer time that they've spent with them yeah yeah.

(07:56):
But it's so textured and colorful. But in terms of really knowing and feeling
universally connected to somebody, these guys probably have the closest relationship
you could have with a parent.
Because most people turn 18, go to college, go out into the world on their own,
and then they live hundreds or thousands of miles from their parents.

(08:18):
So I think about all of the things that make somebody unique,
and then I try to establish some commonality between those two things.
And like, it could be something all of us need to be better at is being curious about the other person.
So it's like, it's more than just like, what do you do? Where are you from?
You ever get into a, like in any type of networking situation where you're meeting

(08:40):
new people, it's always, what do you do? Where are you from?
What do you, it's like a song. What do you do? Where are you from?
What do you do? Where are you from?
And, and I try not to go in that direction. Yeah.
One of the questions I've been asking when I get into a situation like that
as recently, and it's helped a
lot, is as soon as you ask that first question, you got to get to the why.
Like, what do you do? Okay, you're a coach. Why do you do it?

(09:03):
And it can be weird to make that transition because it seems a little bit less
casual, but that's always where the meat and potatoes is.
When you think about the amount of people you interact with in a single day,
people are always like, first impressions really matter.
And I agree, first impressions matter. or you meet somebody?
Are they present? Do they shake your hand appropriately?

(09:23):
Do they look you in the eye? But I just think last impressions are so much more impactful.
Meaning you meet somebody, let's say out at a dinner, and then you go the entire
night, you have amazing conversation.
You feel like you've actually gotten somewhere with somebody.
And then before the end of the conversation, how do you cement that relationship?
How do you actually tell them that you enjoyed spending time with them

(09:45):
that you would do this again how do you follow up after that
and i think for a lot of us especially you guys you're meeting
so many people so often and what you're doing really well
is you're taking care of people people come in
their shit is fucked up their whole
life might be upside down they're having a bad bad day
and you guys make people feel taken care

(10:06):
of secure hopefully most of the time right you're
giving them a solution people leaving us you know half million dollar
cars they want to feel comfortable and they want to know
that at the end we're going to give them what they want and then when they
come back and things have made a 180 and
their life is back together they're not as emotionally charged and
you guys are giving them the keys back to their vehicle that has been restored

(10:28):
to what they know it as so it's an incredible lasting impression where they're
like how can i create that again and again and again and again you guys get
to do that and you're just inherently doing it because it's part of of your
business and how it's set up.
But I just think a lot of people even listening to this in different ways could
apply that same thinking to anything that they do professionally or personally.

(10:51):
Can we get a little more into how you got here and the evolution of what you've
been doing to get here? Yeah, for sure.
I think who you spend your time
with is critically important to the person that you ultimately become.
So I was a kid that grew up at the Jersey Shore, and I had Point Pleasant Beach.

(11:11):
I was a Jersey Shore kid, right?
I grew up lifeguarding, and it was amazing. i was
the first kid in my family to go to college and where
was that rider university okay so my best
friends from high school were like yo we're gonna go to
college and i was like that's awesome never thought
about it before right now where are you guys going they're like we're gonna

(11:34):
go to rider university i was like great me too be there i'll see you there my
sat scores were good my regular grades sucked ass i got into college and my
surrounding went from my my best high high school friends to now my best high
school friends being my best college friends.
And something happened in the first 48 hours of me being at college.
I rolled up thinking that college was this massive party.

(11:57):
And I literally brought like, I think it was like an ounce of pre-rolled joints. Nice.
Because I was like, I'm going to make friends with everyone.
That's a great way to do it.
You get a joint, you get a joint, you get a joint. First night,
went out to a party, got back to campus, walked around campus with a bag full
of joints, handing them out to people.
Literally i swear to god there's there's how much did that cost there's a video evidence of this.

(12:21):
And walking around giving and taking a couple tokes going to the next group
just and not even in the i am now the local drug dealer in the way of i just
want to be on everyone's friend correct let's connect and it's funny you know
just how this kind of plays out like an hour into this this like escapade,
campus police walk over and bust me.

(12:43):
The next day I'm in the dean's office. What year was this? 2010.
The next day, I'm in the dean's office, and they're like, hey,
we have a zero tolerance policy.
We are kicking you off campus. You can never enter a dormitory on campus ever again. Wow.
But you can continue going to school here. So they gave me the money to go and

(13:06):
find off-campus housing.
Basically, what I was going to pay for on-campus housing, they gave it back to me.
So it was his money. me. I went on Facebook, and this is a pretty pivotal reflection
of why I am the way I am today.
I went on Facebook, and I reached out, and I was like, yo, I need a place to live.
And I got connected. I was 18 at the time.

(13:27):
I got connected with a bunch of guys that were 21, 22, and 23 that went to the
college a couple miles down the road that were graduating,
either getting their master's or working professionally in the area, but had real jobs. Okay.
So I went from an 18 year old fucking around with my 18 year old friends to
an 18 year old fucking around with guys that were pretty much adults.

(13:49):
Yeah. Starting their life in a real way.
And I would watch them get up at six 30 in the morning, drive their Mercedes
to the train station, get on the train, go to Jersey city, work at Goldman Sachs. Right.
I would watch them get into their scrubs to go to the hospital because they
were in their residency.
And I was like, huh this is what

(14:10):
it's supposed to be like this is this is
real world correct and it just just like that by
the people that i was hanging around completely changed the
way that i thought about my own my own trajectory and what i wanted to be in
the world just by simply hanging around the right people and my guys from high
school still my boys godfather their kids like i love them forever you know

(14:31):
but like it was really important that i changed my surroundings and i was able to to do that.
And in that process, Gary, I read one of his books.
I saw a video of him online talking about you could turn your passions into your profession.
And he was talking about if you've got a real energy for the Smurfs that you

(14:51):
could start a blog and advertise against it and you could Smurf it up.
I think Smurf it up was the famous line.
On stage, him screaming at people, you could Smurf it up.
And I was like, this dude is out of his fucking mind. This is my guy.
But there's something here.
And I tweeted at him. I said, hey, I want to come work for you for free.
And he essentially was like, I will take you if you'd never go back to college.

(15:15):
And as the first kid in my family, I was like, for mom, for dad, I got to finish college.
So I finished college, resurfaced tweet. And through a couple of ways,
different ways, I finally got the job as an unpaid intern.
And then over a decade, climbed the ranks. And what I realized in that process
that's more important than anything is, if you're curious enough to seek out

(15:37):
experiences that go beyond the realms of what you're comfortable with,
you'll end up in a place that's better than you could have ever imagined. 100%.
So like, I didn't know how to produce and direct television commercials,
but like I was the kid that knew how to use Snapchat and they were like,
this Jake Paul kid wants to shoot a Snapchat commercial today for Sour Patch Kids.

(15:57):
Do you want to direct it? I'm like, fuck yeah, I do. Wow. I've got the craziest
photos of, you know, a young Jake Paul and I, like, you know, 2015, 2016.
Wow. Yeah. And it's, and it's, it's always been. Is he still on Disney Channel?
Yeah. He must've been. He must've been. I think the falling out might've just been happening.
But like it's been that repetition of
putting myself in situations where other people

(16:19):
would have been like no i don't fuck with that it's it's unknown
it's foreign i'm uncomfortable get me out of here i mean i've just said i'll
just i'm gonna i'm gonna go instead of dipping the toe cannonball all in and
see where i end up what was it like what was the feeling like when you got that
that tweet back from gary like do you remember that feeling of getting that back Yeah,

(16:40):
what's really cool about it is you go through a series of emotions.
You go, holy shit, I can't believe this person acknowledged my presence on this
earth to that's a regular fucking person.
And I think for you guys, as you're, you know, I mean, you guys are blowing up.
There's got to be this wave of like crazy of I can't believe so and so is in

(17:01):
our DMs or I can't believe we're servicing so and so's vehicle to like,
no, that's like now my homie and we're friends.
So that was actually a question that I wanted to ask you because since things
have been in an upward trajectory, I've been like a little anxious because I
think it's what the influencers call like imposter syndrome a little bit.

(17:22):
Like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. And so as things are starting to
pick up, you know, we have a video that's got 1.8 million views.
Yeah. I mean, it's 1.8 million people have had to see my ugly mug and it's like shit.
So how do you, did you ever feel like that? and and if you have how do you deal
with that anxiety i've got a really good remedy for this.

(17:43):
Nobody knows what the fuck they're doing and the
cool thing about what you guys do is you have one area
of your life where you know exactly what the fuck you're doing like
it it would be very hard for anybody to come in here and challenge you guys
on the thing that you know the most about right very hard what's really cool
about that is that you guys actually have interests and passions that you're

(18:07):
pursuing outside of the thing that you know remarkably well.
Now, where people get fucked up is they focus all of their energy on one thing,
and then they wake up one day and they realize that I am completely inept and
incompetent in a lot of other areas of life,
and I am not an interesting human being that people actually want to be around.

(18:28):
I am a specialist that cares deeply about one thing, and people respect me for
for that, but I have no understanding of the way all of these other things in the world work.
And I think what you two are doing right now is you're saying we are remarkably
good at one thing, but we have all of these other interests,
hobbies, areas of cultural overlap that we enjoy spending our time doing.

(18:48):
And we're going to show those things, even if we're not categorically experts
in that given thing. Right.
So I think, I think your, you know, whatever insecurity there is actually your
biggest strength and your biggest asset.
And you got to lean, you got to lean way, way, way, way into that.
But like everybody thought tiger woods was
like the guy right right

(19:09):
he's been on camera since he was like
three years old as like the guy and then we all watched his world fall apart
because the only thing he needed knew how to do remarkably well was swing a
golf club and we're like oh shit so i just think you guys should lean in as
much as possible to culture whatever things kind kind of interests you,

(19:31):
continue scratching those itches, continue going outside because more and more
people are going to connect with you guys in different ways because of all of
the things you like, whether it's art or cars or music, whatever it is that
make you guys uniquely you, just lean into that.
I think what you said a minute ago was like one of the most powerful things
I've thought of it before.
Like if you just say, all right, I'm doing this, it's something I've never done

(19:53):
before, but I'm going to go all in. I'm giving it everything I have.
That's when when you realize that you can do things well beyond what you thought
you could, you just like push the boundaries.
And like you're in a world that's completely unique and you're like,
I cannot believe I just did this and I did it well.
And I think that's like you said with the commercial, like that's,
I've been in that situation before and you're like, wow, if you really give

(20:13):
it your all, you can get a lot of shit done.
When did you guys like stop being afraid of shit?
Meaning even- Afraid of stuff every day, you know? Yeah. But like to do what-
I think that's it, right?
It's like not allowing fear to cripple different parts of your own ambition.
Jump in. You gotta get it done. Yeah.
And for me, people have a lot of opinions about like how you should do this

(20:38):
or how you should build Y or the next sequential step in doing this part of your life.
I'm sure you just got married recently. something
like people even have opinions about how you should get married and
what what the invitations should look like and you know
i there's a lot of those that's for
sure mom we love you but like you know there's a lot of opinions about

(20:58):
the way you should do specific things and i
think for a lot of people that are listening or watching
those voices get so loud that they drowned
out their own voice and like at
the end of the day the voice that you need to listen to and amplify the
most is your own yeah what yeah
you know the uh the whole car industry the whole electric thing everyone that's

(21:19):
been in the car industry for 100 years whatever cannot
compete with like the newest innovators because they're doing everything ground
up they don't have the resources they don't have the money they don't have all
the r&d but they're you know reinventing the wheel and through that process
no one can touch you know lucid tesla like their technologies are just so beyond
these these companies that are just the world's biggest conglomerates.

(21:41):
And that's because they're not listening to everyone saying, no, you cannot do that.
You have to do this. And I think that's also listening to yourself and.
Look around, there's some other stuff out there, you know? There's like a,
so one of the coolest parts of working for Gary Vaynerchuk is that I get to meet everybody.
Meaning like there's pretty much like, with a few exceptions,
there's nobody that we can't get to in some way, shape or form,

(22:03):
just circles, interests overlap at some point.
And you find yourself in a room with Ashton Kutcher.
And he was, when he was doing the biopic on Steve Jobs, he said one of the favorite
things that he learned about Steve is one of the things he said was everything
that was, I'm going to paraphrase,
but everything that was created around you was created with somebody that didn't
have the same resources or as much intelligence as you have the ability to have today.

(22:26):
And I think about that all the time. It was like every single thing that was
constructed around us today was created by somebody that didn't have the amount
of resources that we have today.
So even though you built that company 60 or 100 years ago and it was badass,
ass like i've actually got more access to things
than they have today and it's i

(22:47):
mean when you think about the evolution of technologies in
a lot of ways i think that's a really liberating thing yeah
and a lot of people unfortunately that go out of business they they often they
rest on their laurels they get stuck and i think those are some of the louder
voices too where they don't want things to change but the only thing consistent
in life is change yeah that's That's one thing that I give dad so much credit for is he's,

(23:12):
I feel like he's never been the guy to be like, I'm not doing it that way.
He is trying to constantly innovate.
If a new technology comes out, he wants somebody to come in and give us a demo. He wants to try it.
And I kind of think that in some way, shape or form, that's a little bit of
what's going on in his head with this social media stuff.

(23:32):
I think he, to an extent, I mean, he himself is, my mom's like,
let's watch a movie. He's like, I'm good.
Scrolling through he secretly loves instagram yeah i
think he sees the power of it to a certain extent he gets stuck in a deep scroll
hole every night oh yeah it's you know it's it's funny because it's just they
had the same 12 television networks that were feeding them stuff right and that's

(23:54):
that was just it was just a different version of it you know and yeah i think what's when you can.
Contextualize what you do for your in a way that your parents can explain it
right like that there's There's a little bit of an aha moment that happens at
that point, meaning pops in a sports.
No just work what's work work work work work literally the

(24:15):
rihanna song okay and the grandkids now he's obsessed with his favorite movies
he got a favorite movie the pope of greenwich village the pope
of greenwich village okay who's the lead actor in
that it's mickey rourke yeah amazing yeah if mickey rourke came here to do a
collab post because he had one of his cars serviced here your dad would lose

(24:36):
his shit right lose his shit and i think like there's when you think about it
through that lens of we're creating, we have a business,
we have a service-based business, but we've also adopted a media company mentality.
And because we've done that, it's now attracted the people in our lives that
we've looked up to or appreciated for the way that they roll or the expertise

(24:59):
that they have. It's pretty fucking cool.
And I think for a lot of my friends that have built family businesses.
That's when things change is when the parents can can contextualize what they
do in a way that really makes sense to them. Right.
Yeah. And that's, it seems like that's a lot of what Gary's story is about.
It seems like he had a similar situation to us and he went into his dad's wine

(25:23):
company and tried to do something different and spice it up.
So for people that don't know, his dad owned a liquor store called Shopper's
Discount Liquors in North Jersey.
He, out of college, came into the business after working an insane amount of
hours as a kid growing up in the business and understood it well enough that

(25:45):
when the advent of the internet happened,
he quickly understood the utility of being able to sell things on the internet.
So in its simplest form
when you type into google wine or
buy wine he was bidding on those
keywords within google before anybody else

(26:06):
was for like five cents a click and he
grew that business from a business doing three million dollars
a year to a business doing 60 million dollars a year how quickly did you do
that i think it was over a span of like four years wow but like insane to be
a localized liquor store called Shopper's Discount Liquors to a place rebranded

(26:27):
called the Wine Library where you're now- Is that still his?
It's his father's. Okay. 100%. Wow.
And he built that business on behalf of his family and his father,
but didn't walk away with the money. Right.
And that's like the- That's badass. I mean, it's the...
Think about what's badass is probably, he would say, is the lessons he learned

(26:50):
in that process and, you know, like the chip on his shoulder that he had,
or maybe like the feeling of accomplishment of being able to give that to his
family. But I just, you know, I think.
The big one for me there, like the big takeaway is when it comes to building
trust and loyalty with people,
there's few forums like Business or Sports where you can take as big of swings

(27:14):
like that, where you really need the trust and loyalty of people.
And when he was like, yo, Pops, I think we should buy a half-page ad in the
New York Times for like 25 grand, or like the back page of Wine Spectator magazine for 40 Gs.
Those were big- Scary. Those were big swings. of huge numbers, you know, big numbers.

(27:35):
Yeah. And one of the things that I like love about family businesses is you go through that.
And if you build real trust and real loyalty, you know, you're able to take
those swings with people. Right. Yeah.
I'm sure there's a lot of answers to this question, but if you had to boil it
down to maybe one, two or three things, what's the most important thing you've
learned from working with Gary V?
After a decade of working with Gary, the ability to make people feel safe,

(28:02):
heard, and taken care of trumps everything else.
Meaning, people do uncharacteristic things when they feel like they are painted
into a corner or their security or safety is compromised.
When you make people feel safe, heard, and respected, they're pretty fucking consistent.

(28:28):
He has 2,000 employees globally, 14 offices globally.
And when you think about the length of time people stay at our business versus
other agencies in the mix, it's like 10x.
How often do you talk to him? Every day.
So you talk a lot about loyalty and trust. What do you do or why do you think

(28:51):
he has this loyalty and trust in you?
I think track record's important. And I think in business a lot,
we measure people on quarterly or annual, yes.
Like, what have you done for me recently?
And I think what's great about Gary and the way that he views relationships
and what's kind of bled into me is it's not, what have you done for me lately?

(29:11):
But over a year, three-year, five-year period, how consistent have you been?
How reliable have you been?
And then over that time, recognize the body of somebody's work as opposed to,
what have have you done for me in the last three months?
And I think that loyalty over time can reinforce trust. That consistency over
time can reinforce trust.

(29:32):
And then finally, the most important thing to him, and this is something that
he reinforces me in all the time, isn't some type of economic outcome.
It's the way people perceive us publicly, the way that we're represented publicly.
The brand is the only thing that matters. If somebody comes in here and brings

(29:53):
you something and you say you can fix it, and you end up not being able to fix
it, and you do an ass job, and you cover it up with some duct tape, what happens?
You look like a schmuck. You don't have any loyalty, you don't have any trust. Nothing.
You have nothing to stand by. And if you give them back that same product,
and you say, I couldn't fix it.
It didn't work. You've got to go somewhere else. They might be disappointed,

(30:16):
but at least they know that you're an honest person.
Stand up guy. What does he do that lets him keep your loyalty and trust in him? Removes all fear.
There's no fear. He lets you move. Let's me move. But if I fuck up or I do something
wrong, I'm not afraid to say I fucked up and I did something wrong. You won't get shot.
Yeah. And a lot of people, they operate from a place of fear of,

(30:38):
oh shit, I missed a meeting.
Oh shit. I didn't follow up about something.
Oh shit. They decided not to bring us their business back to,
Oh wait, how can I cover it up?
You don't feel painted in a corner. You feel safe. Yeah.
And then I can go to him and say, I'll give a, this is a fun story.
So earlier in my career, we have a lot of people that come into the office.

(31:00):
Sometimes we do background checks. If we have no idea who the person is,
there was a time where there was 10 people coming in the the office i did
background checks on everybody except for two two slipped and
then i did a little bit of digging and like the only videos
on the internet of this person were like them wielding a knife and
like doing knife tricks on the internet and no real backstory on this person

(31:23):
a bit of a ghost and i call gary at six o'clock in the morning and i'm like
gee i fucked up like hashling slasher is coming yeah some dude that loves knives
is walking into our office today.
And six o'clock in the morning this guy hasn't even had a sip of coffee yet
he's barely has his eyes open and he goes okay give me three minutes and i'll

(31:45):
call you back calls me back in three minutes he goes i'm not worried about anybody
hurting me people are not coming to hurt of hurt us the only thing i'm worried
about is our reputation period,
This guy comes in the office and we're all sitting down in a meeting and- He
pulls out the biggest knife.
Gary says the funniest thing ever to disarm the entire situation,

(32:09):
which went along the lines of, I bet you love slicing liberals' throats.
We all erupted and it was hilarious, but he removed all fear from the situation
from me, from somebody else. Diffused the bomb. Completely.
And he's remarkably good at doing that time and time and time and time and time again.

(32:31):
So I just think, you know, even for the people running around here that are,
you know, they might fuck up something and then they're afraid to tell the boss
because I scratched something that's going to cost us more money.
I'm sure that probably happens a lot. We deal with that a lot.
Yeah. And I try to tell people like when they first start working for us,
I tell people, people don't get fired for scratching cars.
They get fired if we find out later that they scratched it and didn't tell us. That's it.

(32:52):
And I think that's huge. And yeah, just putting confidence in people,
letting them know that you're approachable and you can have a conversation about things.
And I find like with my own personal anxiety, if I address it right away,
even with a person, address the
elephant in the room, it immediately alleviates so much of that anxiety.
Like, I just want to let you know I'm going through this thing or I'm feeling

(33:15):
a little anxious right now. It helps a lot. I have a question for you too.
How do you, you know, like auto body shops, blue collar?
Like how do you create a culture internally with
everybody who works here where they want to
they they want to show up every day and
they're excited to be here you gotta get down in the trenches with them
yeah they gotta know you're one of them yeah you know you're on that level you

(33:36):
know what you're talking about and again you want them to feel comfortable you
want them to feel like they can come to you they feel safe you know these are
all you know things that don't just work in one world they work everywhere and
that's like you said common ground that everyone has yeah yeah one of of the
things that I tried to do a few years into working here was hop in the paint booth.
So I throw a mask on from time to time and I grab a paint gun and I'm out there spraying.

(34:01):
And I think stuff like that, you know, like everybody's had that soccer coach
or football coach that tells you run laps and you're like, why don't you get out there and do it?
And I had a coach once who ran laps with us. And I think that's kind of a good
analogy for this. Like you said, just get in the trenches.
That's huge. And then one thing my dad has always done is.

(34:24):
You know if guys need help he's there to help yeah
whether it be an emergency surgery that somebody might need
you know anonymously he doesn't you know
boast about this but he'll help somebody out or you know somebody's having car
trouble yeah we'll help you out bring it in a saturday you know we'll try to
get a starter or something like that i think that stuff really helps too people
don't forget you know right i just i think it's overlooked a little bit but

(34:47):
you know good deeds people don't forget.
And the biggest one for me is not to keep count. You guys are selfless people
by nature. You want to be helpful.
It's a service-based industry, but a lot of people keep count.
They're like, well, I did that
thing for you, or I picked up the bill for that, or I treated you to that.
And for me on the relationship side of things, one of the most impactful things

(35:09):
that I've been able to do that's changed my relationship and dynamic with everybody
is just, I don't keep count anymore.
I make an introduction where you both make money. I don't keep count.
I take people out to dinner.
I had a great time. I paid for the bill. I don't keep count.
And a lot of people, what's stunting them from meeting more people or going
deeper in their relationships is they build, internally, they build resentment

(35:31):
because they're keeping a tally of all of the good deeds they've done for someone over time.
And when it's not reciprocated on a timeline that they think is appropriate,
they become resentful of that person.
Yeah. It's huge in romantic relationships too. A quick little story too.
I went to a doctor friend friend of mine walked in for my wife. She had an issue.
I had some pain too. He took a look a few weeks later, gets a nice car,

(35:54):
asked me to do some work to it, bring the car in.
He calls me and he goes, you know, we didn't talk about price,
but you know, after what happened a few weeks ago, I know you're going to take care of me. Right.
And that just like, I was like, dude, I was like, yeah, of course.
But you know, it's better to, to get that taste in your mouth is brutal.
It's It's just, it's so bad. I'm in your pocket. Yeah. It makes me not even. I'm alive.

(36:18):
Or like when we. Can't get out. We have this joke all the time when people are
like, you get a guy who comes in and he's like, I'm just trying to get my beak wet, man.
I'm trying to get the weeds out. Get the fuck out of here.
Yes. It's, it's, you know, it's, and it's.
It feels like a foreign concept because when I tell people what I do,
they're like, what's in it for you?
And I think so many people are so consumed with what's in it for them.

(36:42):
And you can't imagine the amount of abundance and the amount that's coming your
way when you switch from thinking of what's in it for me and how can I create
as much value for other people without any expectation of anything in return.
And people get this twisted a little bit. They think that value is only related to money.

(37:05):
But you cannot pay to get in some restaurants. You cannot pay for people actually
to be excited when you enter a room.
There is no amount of money that you can give people, and I mean this,
to when you walk in a room, people be genuinely fucking excited that you're there.
You could pay everybody, put everybody on payroll,

(37:26):
role but if you are a dick human they are talking shit about you behind your
back 100 they're not actually loyal they don't actually love you and when you
walk in the room the energetic exchange between those two parties is not the
same so i just think you know for for me as i think about.
Like the the kind of like wealth i've amassed amassed over time it's it's not

(37:48):
by it's not a monetary figure it's when i go to a different city do i know five
people that i could call to say do do you want to grab dinner tonight?
And like when I go somewhere and I get the ability to learn about somebody else's
business, does that make me more equipped for conversations that I have later on down the road?
Because I want to be the person that people call and say, do you have a guy or a gal for X?

(38:13):
I got a guy. It's the best. That's the best. It's the best.
100%. And then to be able to connect those two parties with no expectation of
anything coming around in return and not getting your beak wet,
it's the best. I'll get my peak.
What's your end goal? Like what's your, or not end goal, but what, where do you.
Where do you see yourself? Like, where do you want to be? What do you want to
do? Like, what's your big, what are your big plans? And I appreciate this question.

(38:37):
There's people that have come before me that do what I do today.
And those people typically end up in roles where they are executive producers
at Hollywood Studios, or they're the head of music labels, or they're board
members for publicly traded companies.
And they sit at the intersection of culture and economic opportunities.

(38:59):
And they understand how to bring those people together.
So I'll give a very specific example. And there's a few of them.
There's a guy named Shep Gordon, who there's a documentary made about his life.
Yeah, I watched it. That was good. I liked that guy. What was the documentary?
Super Mensch. Yes, that was really good. It's a great doc. And it basically
paints this picture of this very affable human being that wanders around the

(39:20):
earth and- Giving out joints to Jimi Hendrix.
And uniquely understands how to set a table and bring people together,
right? And then there's another, there's a book written about a guy named Jerry Weintraub.
It's called, I think it's called, You'll Know I'm Dead When I Stop Talking.
And he came up in the Hollywood ranks and he was the manager for Frank Sinatra

(39:42):
and I think Neil Young and spotted some really early talent and figured out
how to make everybody money.
And he was the one that figured out how to get Clooney and Pitt for the remake of Ocean's Eleven. in?
What casino? And I have dozens of these examples of people that I've studied over time.

(40:04):
And I've played out my life in sequential order of,
okay, I am going to get to a stage in life where the biggest names in sports,
business, Hollywood, when they need something, they are going to think to call me.
And I played it out on the craziest level. I said, okay, you're going to be at Abu Dhabi F1.

(40:27):
You're going to be in that white kind of like silk rope. You're going to have
a fucking falcon on your arm.
You're going to be driving a Bugatti 200 miles an hour around hairpin fucking
turns next to the fucking chic of the whole fucking thing.
And you're going to be living life at that level.
Master of the universe. and i don't

(40:51):
feel any different than i feel today all right
i feel zero difference interesting and
i think if you continue if you play out your life in sequential order like that
and think about what like the highest level of success public adoration accolade
what that looks like and you you truly think do i feel any different than i
do today it tells you whether or not that's ultimately what what you want.

(41:14):
So that's not what I want.
And I think I look at my life more so now in these kind of decade-long increments.
So if I was to completely change what my life looked like, what would it look like?
And not just for the sake of changing it, but if I was to pursue things that
I'm genuinely interested in and I see a future in.

(41:35):
So for me, quite frankly, I...
I've always known this about myself. I love people coming to me when they need
a real change of surrounding and scenery.
Okay. So I moved down to Miami and now people come and they spend a weekend
with me when they got to get away from New York City or they got to get away from LA.

(41:57):
And I think if we catch up in five years from today, I have a farm in Hawaii on like five to 10 acres.
Like the Supermatch. yeah man i think i
think people are calling me because they need to get away from
everything that their world currently represents

(42:17):
and i think i'm writing on a regular basis rehab
for the soul yeah man and i think i'm doing that for
an extended period of time and i'm having a family and i'm you know like i'm
growing the food that i fucking eat every day awesome and then i'm figuring
out what comes after that after i go through that 10-year process but the reason
i I say that is because we get caught in these professional cycles where you're

(42:41):
just chasing the next big thing.
You go from, how can I go from the nosebleeds to the 50 yard line to how can
I be on the fucking field to how can I sing the national anthem?
And then how can I own the team?
And that chase is healthy if it's truly what you want. Gary truly wants to own the New York Jets.
He loves the journey of trying to own the New York Jets.

(43:03):
And I think my journey is very in the sense of I'm probably gonna change it
up pretty significantly. You gotta love the journey. Yeah.
One question and story, if you feel comfortable sharing it, that I wanted to talk to you about.
Recently you had a medical scare. Yeah. And you got to meet some pretty interesting
people through that. Can you walk us through what happened?
Yeah, I also wanna, right after this, can I ask you a question first? Yeah, absolutely.

(43:26):
For you two, what's, you know, like not the end goal, right,
but like what's the evolution of this? What's your answer?
I love what I do. I want to do this for as long as I could possibly do it.
I think like I see my dad and I don't really think he ever wants to stop because
he has that passion for it.
I think every single Sunday, like I remember like right after college,

(43:49):
like we'd be whatever on a beach or on a boat or wherever I am with all my boys
and we're heading back and the sun is setting and everyone's got their hair over their eyes.
I'm like, I cannot believe I have to go to work.
And I've never once had a Sunday like that. I've
never ended a day where I'm like I have to get out of this place
and I want that to be the way

(44:10):
I feel for as long as possible because
I love every day of what I do and everyone that I
do it with but I'd like it to get bigger and just kind of encompass everything
that we do I'd like us to be the one stop shop I don't want to call anyone for
anything I want to just have it all in house and I just you know want everything

(44:32):
coming at me me all day, like the chaos.
I like, you know, just hitting it all day as hard as I can. So that's kind of what I want.
I just, I want to make it as big as we can. I want to be able to pull from ourselves
for as much as we can. What's your.
Fuck. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good. I love what I do, man.
I just want to make it as much of what I do as I can. Yeah. Yeah.
I think for me that the, like the more existential answer is,

(44:56):
I think you, we have a similar thread here.
I find passion through my relationships with people and the
shop allows me to meet some really awesome people and one
of the things that we were talking about before we recorded is burnout and i'm
lucky enough to work in my passion i'm super passionate about cars
but like just because you like to cook doesn't mean you're going to want to
be a chef right is the old saying and so i think whatever i can do and this

(45:21):
podcast and jumping into trying to emulate a media company i've been able to
meet meet some amazing people like yourself.
And I feel this way about travel. I feel this way about relationships.
Anytime I get the opportunity to meet somebody and hear their perspective on
something, it just expands my perspective on things and allows me to learn and be a better person.

(45:43):
At the shop and with this, I really want to provide value to people.
I think I love what I do, not as much as you do, but I love what I do.
And I want people to watch our videos or hear our podcast and get like a,
you know, a salt pinch of that feeling.
So whatever I can do to get this out to as many people as possible is what I'd like to do.

(46:09):
So in the short term, I'm really focused on trying to get the coolest people
in that seat because I want to connect through that passion.
You have passion for things. I have passion for things. And that's going to
be the common thread that keeps us connected and starts and builds a relationship.
I mean, much like food, I think cars are a big time unifier and people's love

(46:31):
for cars are a big time unifier.
I think I said it to you before. He's got nothing in there.
Cars are almost like a living, breathing organism.
You know, I was with a crew and I'll introduce him when he comes into the city next time.
But shout out to my friend josh weissman he he's

(46:52):
amazing and i went on a sunday cruise
in austin with him and his buddies and they're all from different
walks and talks of life they've all had a level of
success that's pretty ridiculous and they're all unified by
cars like they were he was at a gas station that he met
the one guy then he was like i don't know anybody from around here
do you know anybody that also likes fucking mclaren's great
like and now they've got these is like six guys and

(47:15):
they roll around on the weekends and they're from like age 65
to josh's like late 20s and they're
all unified by this passion for cars and
automobiles and it's fucking awesome to watch
and i think that's where people get a little bit tripped up again
and in terms of wanting you to be a finished sentence they're like those are
the body shop guys like you know like what and then all of

(47:36):
a sudden we start having a conversation like this and all of the other
other things open up it's just find out that i love big clam there
we go i love oh my god that's
it you know brothers for life actually we've
got we have a restaurant called little maven i think
on 18th and 6th some of the best big clams you'll have okay we gotta check it
out we will see you there we will do dinner see you there so i i did have a

(48:00):
health scare about a year ago today i did a full body mri scan i'm somebody
who likes to know what's going on i like to be be prevented in nature.
Completely unprovoked.
I was just like, this is cool technology.
I'm interested to see what the heck's going on.
So I get a full body scan, every organ, your bone, skeletal structure, everything.
And it takes 10 days to come back right after the holidays. I get the results.

(48:24):
And it reveals that there's four small, what they called, not nodes, but- Legions?
Legions, bingo. Four small legions on my cerebellum, and then a few more on
my fourth ventricle in my brain.
And I got a phone call from a doctor that said, hey, not to alarm you,
but what I'm seeing on your scans isn't supposed to be there.

(48:48):
And the way that we look at this is it's cancer until it's not.
So i get a phone call from a doctor randomly
at home telling me that there's a
high likely there's a high probability that i have i
have brain cancer jesus and in that moment you
kind of like you know everything everything strips away nothing matters right
like next meeting fuck it like you know every every other every other thing

(49:13):
that was consuming my life just completely and i and i remember falling on the
floor and just kind of being super alone my girl was out of town traveling and
i kind of just like soaked it all in and interestingly enough like.
Before i went into solutions mode i was
just like i have to sit with myself for a little bit and i
i got my car and like windows

(49:36):
down and it was sunset in miami and
i drove along the water and over a couple of
bridges listening to music and just
like air flowing through the fucking
windows like sun setting over
the biscayne bay and i was like this is fucking beautiful nothing's better this

(49:56):
is unreal got the right music going dude it was i mean it was very sad music
i think i was bawling crying but it's like fucking cold play or something you know my sleep dog,
that's it that's it and and you know i think what it's taught me is that all
of the luxuries in life that we're working for, we already have them today.

(50:18):
They're already here. What difference does it make? None of it.
It makes no difference. Zero.
And after that kind of like not even 24-hour period, I started to think,
okay, now I've got to address this. How do I address this?
And the way that my brain works is I just, I went, okay, who's the best doctor
like everybody else? Who's the best doctor I can get to tomorrow?

(50:41):
And I was able to get a recommendation for literally the best neurosurgeon in all of Miami.
And the only mutual connection that I had to him was through Deepak Chopra.
And who's that Deepak Chopra is besides the guy with the world's best name.
Your what he means to spirituality

(51:04):
to like our parents generation our generation okay is on par with like the pope
wow yeah meaning in terms of like a public facing persona in terms of what his
message on spirituality means to people, it's on that level. Yeah.
Probably just gotta have to talk to you and explain this to you.
Pretty incredible. In that time, yeah.

(51:26):
So I was lucky enough to have spent some time with Deepak, actually like four
consecutive hours one day, pretty much just him and I, just serendipity.
He was waiting to go do something.
I was kind of his handler in that time and just got to be attentive and kind
of take care of him him in a way.
And luckily his business partner and I cultivated a relationship.

(51:48):
And in my moment of really needing something, I was able to reach out to him
and I was able to say, Hey, I don't know if there's anything you can do,
but I'd really like to go see this doctor.
And within 24 hours, I had an appointment and I walked into that doctor's office.
And one of the most impactful impactful messages that has ever been delivered to me.

(52:12):
And I recognize the power of doctors well beyond just their scholastic and scholarly
kind of education is he looked at me dead in the eyes with the utmost confidence
and he said, it's nothing, go home. Wow.
That's exactly what I want to hear every time I go to a doctor. Wow.
And I think that there's actually a lot of merit to that. He was like,

(52:34):
listen, we're going to send you for a second set of scans to get something very
specific done, but you're young, you're healthy,
you're a good person, there's nothing wrong with you, go home.
You're friends with Deepak Chopra.
What did that feel like? Do you remember that feeling as soon as,
like after 48 hours of just panic, what did it feel like to get that news?

(52:54):
Well, I think we all have somebody in our family or somebody in our circle that
when something bad happens to them, they immediately resort to the worst.
Meaning something bad happens to them and they immediately go into the cycle
of, of course, it would happen to me. Bad things happen to me.
This is the end. It's all over from here.

(53:15):
And we all know who those people are. And they're abundant in our life.
And what it did for me was it gave me permission because he was somebody that
I respected and had authority to say, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm going to be fine.
It gave me permission to do that. And I, you know, like a degree of skepticism

(53:36):
still because I felt myself being like, but there could be something wrong, right?
Almost like self-sabotaging, like, but come on, like we've got to,
and I realized the power in that moment of being like,
imagine what you can do to your own kind of like your body by just saying there's

(53:56):
nothing wrong with me, I'm fine. Go home. Yeah.
You create a lot of problems doing the opposite. Correct. Yeah.
Stress yourself sick. A lot more stress. Yeah, like I say, some people think
that you could stress yourself into cancer.
A lot more of an emotional toll. It's a tool that I've used for a lot of people
when I get a phone call now about something.
And I don't say it as in a way of dismissing the feelings they might have attached

(54:18):
to that thing. But Gary did this to me as well.
We met, I talked to him the same day that I got the phone call.
He, I saw him that following weekend and he sat me down, very busy space.
We were like out at a very public function and event.
And he sat me down for like 10 minutes and worked me through it.
And he looked at me and he said, you need to make the mental switch right now

(54:41):
and tell yourself that it's nothing and you're going to be okay.
And I just, you know, I go for another scan in a few weeks from now and I've
made that mental switch that it's nothing and I'm going to be okay.
And of course, you can't say I'm fine, it's going to be okay,
and then smoke, drink, eat cheeseburgers every day and expect everything to be okay.

(55:04):
But I've done everything in my power to make sure that that's the case.
So honestly, for anybody that's gone through maybe a car accident or a near-death
experience or has has been delivered
a message from a doctor or a medical professional that wasn't favorable,
it gives you a tremendous moment of clarity in terms of what matters and what doesn't matter.

(55:28):
And sometimes we allow that moment to dissipate too quickly.
We don't sit with it long enough to realize what a gift it actually is.
But when you allow yourself to kind of sit with it and and realize how trivial
most of the things that we do are, it puts a lot into perspective and helps
you recalibrate in a meaningful way. Yeah, that's huge. It's huge for people to understand.

(55:51):
I just wish it didn't take a cancer scare for us to deal with things like that
and appreciate the things that are probably most important. Sometimes we need it to be that.
Sometimes we need to be shook that hard.
Yeah. What's your favorite car?
I knew I was going to get fucking asked this question. Shit.
I did. You don't know any cars. My name.

(56:12):
Growing up, my mom had a Chevy Lumina.
I've never heard of that. It's a shitty car, man. And after that, she had a Ford Escort.
But that's like, we weren't raised with much money.
We didn't have nice cars. And I remember the feeling of being in the front seat

(56:34):
before they made kids sit in the back seat and my feet like dangling off of
the carpet, like not being able to touch the ground in the front seat.
And I would press my head to the glass as she was driving.
And I would be able to tell you almost like I, with probably like a 95% accuracy,
what any car was just by the taillights alone.

(56:57):
Wow. like very like really really sharp
with anything from like 1996 to like
probably like 2003 that's awesome just by taillights alone and i remember my
dad when he got a pontiac grand am okay this is like a 2002 pontiac grand am

(57:17):
and i remember the feeling because it was my dad what year 2002 2002? Yeah.
What color was that? It was like a charcoal, like almost like purple.
Those are pretty sporty. Those are cool. They were.
Yeah, those are dope. Here's the big aha moment for me, which I watched on display
for the first time, was my dad went from like very, very blue collar work,

(57:41):
like fixing printers to selling printers to working for IBM to being a vice
president at IBM to- Wow.
He's the model in our family. He showed me what's possible with conviction,
pursuit, ambition, and hard work.
And when he bought that Pontiac Grand Am...

(58:01):
I remember him walking up the stairs to his brother's house in Cheltenham,
Philadelphia, and everybody being like, oh, holy shit, that's a cool car.
And I remember him flipping the keys to his older brother at the time.
Savage move. Like, go take it for a spin around the block. I love that.
And I just remember the feeling of how cool that was and the way it made people feel.

(58:26):
And I think that's why I have an incredible appreciation for cars,
because of the emotional connection people people have to them but i i haven't
i i don't have necessarily a favorite car okay who had the coolest car in high school and what was it,
coolest my buddy donnie miller had an
h2 hummer yes pretty ridiculous for high school it was jacked up too it was

(58:50):
like and you know we would like we would we would sneak out of school to go
like get lunch and uh it might have been fucking yellow yeah it might have been
fucking yellow That's the flagship color. Scoop Steve.
And I mean, it was a badass truck. And we would sneak out of school to go get lunch.
And I was like, you know, a 15-year-old kid. And I was like,
this is the fucking coolest. This is the tits. Yeah, yeah. It was amazing.

(59:11):
What do you tell 16-year-old Nick?
What's a piece of advice you would tell him? Two things. Dream a lot bigger.
I just think for anybody listening, for anybody that is on the way up,
you don't realize how fast you'll catch your goals when you're young.
You're just like, holy shit, I can't believe I'm in this meeting or in this point in my life.

(59:32):
Just dream a lot fucking bigger. It's all in front of you.
And if you're willing to, of course, work hard and be dedicated to something
and just dream a whole, whole lot bigger.
And then the second part is things work out even when they don't.
I just think that every twist and turn in your life and your career is meant

(59:52):
to be part of your journey and part of your trajectory.
And you might architect that you think you're going to go down this path,
but if you're open to the fact that life's going to take you in a bunch of different
directions and they were all meant for you on your journey and not for any other
reason, you can't imagine how fruitful and how rich that human experience can be.
That's huge yeah now one of my last questions

(01:00:15):
for you is being the expert in growth social media and
things like that for us or for people in
our position how would you what would be the next steps that you if you were
us if you were in our position what would you do how would you how would you
frame growth how would you frame goals what's some what's some advice you can
lend us yeah i think there's a lot of cliche things that we could say about

(01:00:37):
social media growth we could You could be like,
all right, there's got to be a great three-second hook to every one of your
videos, or let's try to infuse as much celebrity talent as we possibly can.
And I think all of that is situationally appropriate and could make sense.
But I think the most important thing for you all is you guys are sitting on
such an insane wealth of knowledge when it comes to this stuff that you forgot

(01:01:01):
more than most people know.
And all of the things that
seem mundane and seem unimpressive to
you are holy shit moments for
everyone else watching and like of
course it's the new shiny thing that enters the shop that you think
people are going to care about but it's actually like this is

(01:01:22):
how paint actually fucking comes out of a gun and like that stuff is going to
blow people's minds and lead to growth growth that you could have never predicted
or forecasted and be one one hundredth of the actual effort than it would take
to get mickey rourke down here to do a q a session yeah.

(01:01:42):
That's a blow dad that's great that's why that's why yeah that's awesome man
yeah that's great anything else yeah i mean for for you guys when you,
And I mean this, like, how can I be helpful?
And for the people that are listening and watching, because you guys do this,
like, you're not getting, you don't get paid for this.
This doesn't, you know, it doesn't immediately equate to ad dollars that you guys are seeing.

(01:02:03):
How can I and how can other people be helpful as you guys are building out this media empire?
It's a good question. I'd have to really put some thought into that.
I've been focusing so much on how can I, how can he,
how can our guy here help us that i haven't really thought about tagging on
other people i think that's an important thing to to ask it's always okay to

(01:02:25):
ask for help yes i have like four very interesting people that are,
really into cars that i think follow you and you
might not even know because you're just so in the
weeds of it every day so i'd love to yeah it'd be great yeah yeah we'd love
to take those people on and then the second part of it which i think is important
is i know the car community is a full of of a bunch of really incredible people

(01:02:50):
that also are know-it-alls.
And what I see you guys putting out into the world is overwhelmingly positive,
optimistic, playful, educational, and is not kind of like know-it-all behavior.
And if I was going to ask of anything from the community and in the audience,

(01:03:12):
it would simply be to mirror the way in which you engage with people to other
people. That's a good one. That's really nice.
Because, and I mean this, what I see from Gary all the time is like,
you know, a lot of people are skeptical about the message he's putting out into
the world, but it's at a place now where he not only responds to those people

(01:03:32):
with a bit of optimism or humility,
but so do 15 other people.
So he doesn't have to fight those battles anymore. And I just think in a world
where there's probably a lot of ways, especially as we lead up to an election
cycle, there's a lot of tension that already exists online.
If there's a world in which, and I know this is just the nature of the internet,

(01:03:53):
so I don't want to sound too utopic when I talk about it like this or altruistic.
Like if the people that really, really appreciate what you guys are putting
out into the world could just mirror that a little bit more to maybe some of
the haters, the skeptics, and the trolls. That's huge. Yeah.
So I want you to take some time, plug and promote what you have going on.

(01:04:14):
Where can people find you? Yeah. What's something you want to talk about this
charity thing, this 15-year goal that you have going on?
Yeah, I mean, the most important thing to me is quite literally making Gary
Vaynerchuk the most relevant, accessible, relatable public figure in our country.

(01:04:36):
I got a good podcast. You can come on if you want. I guess. How many episodes are we at?
This is eight, nine. Oh, this is 10. Wow. He's a big 55 episode guy.
All right. So five is his favorite number, maybe episode 55.
All right. We got a goal. And by the way, most podcasts don't get past episode.
I think it's 21, like 90% of podcasts fail before episode 21.
So just push on. on. Yeah. Become an adult.

(01:05:00):
And honestly, that's the most important thing to me.
A lot of people are like, how can you be so deeply in service of another person?
And I think for me, it's important to realize that your dreams and ambitions
can fit as many or as little people as you want to inside of them.
So how many people work currently at JMB?

(01:05:22):
65, 67, something like that. It's insane.
65 people's dreams and ambitions fit within the dreams and ambitions that you have. Hopefully.
And that's what you're trying to architect. Yeah, exactly. And I think Gary's
got 2000 employees globally, 14 offices, and like all of our dreams and ambitions fit within that.
And some people's dreams and ambitions are security, a consistent paycheck, benefits.

(01:05:49):
Some people's ambitions are to break out and become a public figure of their own.
Some people's ambitions are to change divisions within the company.
And he's such a remarkable human being, having sat next to him for 10 years,
that the message he puts into the world is not one of, how do I acquire more wealth?
Or how do I sell a company for a billion dollars? But how do I practice humility in all situations?

(01:06:14):
How can I be more compassionate to the people that I engage with every day?
Which is just not a message that you're hearing from people that run a $300
million a year business.
Business so yeah i think that's it is his
handles are gary v g-a-r-y-v-e-e and
if i can ever be helpful to anybody listening in
any capacity my handle across everything is nick dio n-i-c-k-d-i-o huge is that

(01:06:40):
your full last name last name is diodato but irish name yeah i was gonna ask
you italian but that answered my question it's actually translated into god
given so dio means god Dotto means given.
I didn't learn that until I was in Italy.
I was signing in for a restaurant, giving them my name for a reservation.
And then Maider D looked at me and he was like, do you know what your last name

(01:07:02):
means? I was like, I actually don't.
And he told me, God given. D-O means God, Dotto means given.
And I remember calling my dad from Italy and being like, yo pops,
you're never going to guess what our last name means.
And he was like, of course I do. you i just
that's amazing i never told you how do you not know

(01:07:23):
moron i didn't i didn't want your head to get big
that's great i wanted to keep you humble for as long
as i found it on your own now you're like remarkable please yeah we
are the chosen family we are the chosen and then
i also control it's like it's like smith in italy you know like i love that
this was awesome guys thank you so much for having me yeah follow us at jb bodyworks

(01:07:43):
on all socials this is at who is joey he is joe is joe excuse me who is mike
he is thank you for joining us thank you so much and,
it's not slack that's all right follow us in the next one guys thank you so
much i love it very cool thank you man.