When I first met you in October of 2018 I was 85 pounds overweight, 104K in debt, newly single after a 7 year engagement and fresh off writing 2 goodbye letters.
I wasn’t doing all that well.
This was my first real rock bottom in life and I felt more alone than the first day of school. A friend/colleague sent me one of your “Flip Challenge” videos with the hopes of inspiring me to begin cutting my mountain of debt.
At first, I’m like who the fuck is this guy? Half “fuck this guy”, half “is he a genius?”. I hated you because that was the day you began to take my excuses away.
You took my excuses away for everything. For not “doing”, for being out shape, for spending money trying to impress other people, for having “yes-men” around me and more. You took away all of the excuses I used to shield my insecurities, shortcomings and failures. I hated you for that.
Soon after consuming the flip challenge video though, I came across another one of your videos. This one “hit different”, as the kids might say.
In about 30 seconds and with 3 words, my life changed forever. In this video, when one of your fans approached you on the street asking for “3 inspirational words she could use whenever she was feeling down”, your reply was the moment my old life ended my new one started. You said “you’re gonna die”.
“You’re gonna die”
3 words to put everything back into perspective; as if I was some out of focus pair of binoculars. That’s all it took for me to feel something I hadn’t felt in a long time…accountability. Accountability for life’s decisions, behaviours and mistakes. It’s as if this entire time I wasn’t aware of the FACT that this life, is going to end. You know that moment during an episode of “House” when Dr.House suddenly has that “Come to Jesus” moment and he solves the mystery illness? Yeah, that happened to me.
From that day forward death became the most inspiring reality of my life. I was going to die! Whether people like me, judge me or criticize me…I was going to die. Whether I made money, lost money, ate ramen or ate caviar…I was going to die. Whether I made myself happy or miserable… I was still going to die.
So, why not go for it? Why not do everything you can to get to the end of your life knowing you hedged against regret? I took your advice and went to visit an old folk’s home near my parents house. I looked regret in the eyes and it scared the actual fuck out of me. I looked at a 91 year old man named Gus who for 2 hours told me about all the things he wishes he had done while he still had the chance, and ability. But it was too late…he realized this when it too late and I SAW that regret Gary, I fucking SAW it I tell you. IT WAS FUCKING TERRIFYING.
Soon after, I began to DRENCH myself in your content. I listened to your podcasts on walks, I watched your videos on the toilet and I even watched the 7.5 hour “vlog” from Dubai. I pounded your message into my head like Mike Tyson in the final round of a championship fight; relentlessly.
It worked.
I finally began to find the perspective I needed to WANT to go humble. I sold my car and all the other expensive shit I bought trying to impress people I didn’t even like in the first place. I invested in my mindset, in myself. I flipped the shit out of everything in my house (I made around $67K which went to pay off my debts).
Growing up, my relationship to my parents wasn’t like the one you had with your parents. They were loving, hard working and generous but they didn’t have the capacity to give me the things I needed to be autonomous and accountable for my own actions. I don’t blame them (anymore), they did the best they could with what they had and knew. I grew up privileged as fuck; I have 0 complaints. Their mistakes were that they coddled me, over emphasized my “successes” and made my “losses” more palatable by buying me things and consolations. I was soft. I blamed everyone but myself. I was a victim of my circumstances and the world was always acting in unfavourable towards me. I felt life was happening TO me versus FOR me. I love my parents now — I love them for everything they DID for me and were able to do for me. They are superheroes in every sense of the word, I just didn’t see it before.
You showed me something I hadn’t seen in an alpha-male before. You spoke about kindness, empathy and accountability. You said words I simply had not heard other men say before. You were vulnerable and said things I would have never admitted to. You were the #InternetDad I needed.
Gary, you are the first person I can proudly call my idol. My mentor. The guy I point to when people ask me who my inspirations are.
Today, I have lost the 85 pounds, I have only $12K in debts left and I’ve offered apologies to all the people I wronged during my douchebag era.
And this all started with you, Gary Vee. Your contribution to the world was “all-time”. There should absolutely be statues of you erected! You did something no one else did for me, you made it okay to be a young man and to be human. You made it okay for me to say sorry, learn from my mistakes and then change my behaviour. You made it okay for me to “do me” — I felt comfortable sharing the REAL me for the first time ever.
I dropped the cool guy act who was always trying to show people how I “successful” I was by flaunting things. I learned to lead with kindness and I thought that was cool.
Gary, you helped me change my life. For that, I am grateful.
I learned to make gratitude my fuel and it saved me. It saved me from hurting more people, my wallet, my waistline and myself.
When I wrote those suicide letters, I wrote that I was sorry I didn’t live up to what others expected me. I wrote that I felt the burden of my worthlessness was too much for me to bear and I thought the world would be a better place if I wasn’t in it. I remember you telling someone in an interview that you felt “some kind of way” about the people who reached out to you saying your message/words walked them off the ledge so to speak. That it was maybe too heavy of a concept for you to grasp/accept. I understand that. But, I am here to tell you that it maybe wasn’t because of you that I walked off the ledge, but it was because of you that I decided to never go back on it. I found my zest for life again. I learned about perspective and gratitude when you taught me about the statistical chances of me being a human being (400 trillion to 1!!). You taught me that kindness was the ultimate strength and I learned that I should want to value the human relationships in my life more than anything else.
Your messages showed me how beautiful life could be if we kept perspective, were fueled by gratitude and kind to others (& ourselves).
Gary, I love you. I mean that as much as anything I’ve ever declared to anyone, ever.
It is because of you that I am the man I am today. I stand tall, with my shoulders back and my head held high. I handled all my “shit” and got my mind right. I built strong meaningful relationships with other humans I learned to be myself, unapologetically. I turned my mess into a message and now I am helping other people (men in particular), find their light the same way you helped me find mine. After all, we are all meant to shine, as children do.
My name is Omid and my name directly translates to the word Hope. Thank you for helping me find myself, Gary.
