The First Time I Heard Gary Vee, He Was Right
I first heard Gary Vaynerchuk speak when I was in real estate.
He was touring.
Talking about the “gift economy.”
Preaching thank-you cards.
My broker made sure I went.
She believed in it.
So did he.
And he was right.
A handwritten thank-you card is worth more than a $50 gas card most days.
It tells someone:
“I saw you.”
“I noticed.”
“You mattered.”
Add a gift card, and now people don’t just feel compensated.
They feel respected.
That works.
That’s human.
Like Most People, I Half-Did It
I listened.
I nodded.
I tried.
Sometimes.
Then I didn’t.
Then I realized something else.
I wasn’t good at sales.
Not because I didn’t care.
Because I didn’t like optimizing myself into a product.
So I changed careers. A couple of times.
Building Things Nobody Asked For
I started publishing websites.
Mostly because I wanted to talk about the River Refugium Project — a big idea about cleaning polluted rivers with integrated greenhouse systems.
I didn’t have formal engineering training.
What I had was:
Curiosity.
Systems thinking.
A willingness to learn.
And a stubborn belief that problems should be worked in public.
So I built the Cernunnos Foundation website as a free nature education resource.
Photos of plants.
Profiles of animals.
Ecology notes.
All of it open.
All of it free.
All of it expensive in time and hosting.
Because the real goal was always the same:
Get eyes on the work.
Then talk about the river.
But here’s the thing.
That’s a lot of labor to pitch something that might get done without you if you don’t bring your own funding.
Which, spoiler, I didn’t.
The Accidental Renaissance Man Problem
I have too many interests.
Nature.
Engineering.
Cryptids.
Art.
Systems theory.
Photography.
But the 21st-century Renaissance Man.
Lazy.
Mostly ineffectual.
Chronically curious.
So I split things up.
Cernunnos Foundation.
Blue Ribbon Team.
Relevant Irreverence.
StepBastard.
Eventually, I realized I’d built a maze.
So I reorganized.
Blue Ribbon Team became the main hub.
Cernunnos stayed nature-focused.
Art stayed art.
Cleaner.
Better.
Still slow.
Still quiet.
Still not “taking off.”
Then I Ran Into Gary Vee Again
It is a decade since first hearing Gary and I’m cruising YouTube.
And there he is.
Still talking about gratitude.
Still talking about thank-you.
Just… deeper now.
More mature.
More grounded.
Still Gary.
And then he says the thing I needed to hear:
“Nobody fucking cares.
Fuck everybody.
Just do the thing.”
Not cruel.
Liberating.
Then:
“Post more.”
Because algorithms don’t care about quality in isolation.
They care about interaction.
No interaction?
No distribution.
So if you want people to see your work, you have to keep putting it out until someone bumps into it.
He talks about posting five times a day on LinkedIn of all places.
I’m not there yet.
But the evidence is… annoying.
He’s right.
So I Did It
I stopped waiting.
Stopped polishing forever.
Stopped worrying about tone.
Stopped imagining critics.
I posted.
Every day.
Sometimes multiple times.
Right now, I could post solid material for two months without repeating myself.
And the more I post, the more I think.
The more I think, the more ideas show up.
It’s a positive feedback loop.
My cup runneth over with concepts, essays, frameworks, and half-baked thoughts that get better by being shared.
The Real Lesson I Missed the First Time
Gary wasn’t telling people to be loud.
He was telling them to be present.
To participate.
To contribute.
To leave a trail.
He was saying:
Stop hoarding your unfinished work.
Stop waiting for permission.
Stop waiting to be “ready.”
Put it out.
Let it breathe.
Let others use it.
I Hope Everyone Gets Rich Off This
Seriously.
I hope people take these ideas and build better systems.
Better businesses.
Better tools.
Better communities.
Better infrastructure.
If someone makes money from something I published?
Good.
That means it worked.
That’s the gift economy he was talking about.
Fuck Gary Vee, Too
“Fuck Gary Vee” is not an insult.
It’s working-class gratitude.
It means:
“You pissed me off by being right.”
“You challenged my excuses.”
“You didn’t let me hide.”
So thank you.
I wish I’d listened earlier.
But you were still talking.
So I listened now.
Final Note
Gary, if you ever see this and want the original for printing, it is yours, you know where to find me.
Thank you for doing what you do every day.
Even when it’s annoying.
Especially when it’s annoying. (Traffic is 10x since, still small but…)
—
Blue Ribbon Team publishes field notes on work, systems, and stubborn optimism in an indifferent economy.
