I had the honor of attending a special summit with Gary Vaynerchuck at his Vayner X headquarters in New York City. The summit was made up of entrepreneurs and business owners like me. We were able to discuss and get advice from Gary.

People are chasing cash, not happiness. When you chase money, you're going to lose. You're just going to. Even if you get the money, you're not going to be happy.

This “culture” concept hasn’t always been the talk of the business world. For years when I tried to convince people of the importance, I was thought to be naïve and unlearned.

 

This clip above is special because it validates my opinion that was challenged for so long. Maybe you have a ‘gut’ feeling… something that you know to be true that hasn’t been validated in the court of public opinion. The beauty with our current society is that it’s impossible to hide from it… people are watching and sooner or later (hopefully sooner) the truth will spill out.

 

If you’re not familiar with Gary Vaynerchuck, you can check him out here. Gary is one of the most influential business leaders of our day and it was an honor to be able to swap ideas with him.

 

When I arrived at the Vayner headquarters, I was escorted to a ‘green room’ where I had a special welcome kit full of custom apparel, custom business tools, custom… everything. This was another validation that the culture phenomenon is 100% real. As I watched the other people in my group go on-and-on about how ‘cool’ the custom swag was and how special I could tell it made them feel, once again… validation that all these ‘intangibles’ matter.

 

As I toured the office and met with many of Gary’s top executives, I did all the ‘Freud’ observing I could (without being a total creeper). I noticed that the people working at Vayner Media were not playing on the first 2 levels of Maslow’s pyramid, these folks had tapped into the power of relationship and some, self-actualization.

Saying, "hello" doesn't have an ROI. It's about building relationships.

The intangibles could truly be the difference maker in many people’s lives.