How to Build Confidence and Self-Esteem: The Truth About Ego and Entitlement

The GaryVee Audio Experience

Gary Vaynerchuk

Business, Marketing

4.8 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2026

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of the GaryVee Audio Experience, I sit down with Aubrey Marcus to discuss confidence, happiness, and the power of accountability. We dive deep into why I believe ego is nothing more than insecurity with makeup on and why shifting your perspective is the key to happiness. I open up about my personal framework in life, which is to give more value than I take and never ask for anything in return, and how a lack of entitlement is a foundational element to my success. We also explore the cultural conversation around social media, judgment, and the pressure on young people to "figure it out."

Why I believe ego is insecurity, not confidence.
Why a lack of entitlement is killer and how it relates to giving without expectation
How to make happiness your "true north star" instead of chasing money or material possessions.
Why social media validation is a human problem and not solely a platform issue.
How taking accountability for bad outcomes can be empowering.
The dangerous trap of "figuring it out" and the financial handcuffs of buying things you can't afford.

You’ll learn:

Transcript

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0:00.0	Do not fucking confuse confidence with ego.
0:03.5	Ego is fucking insecurity.
0:05.3	It is not confidence.
0:06.7	You got your perspective.
0:13.8	I just want to be happy.
0:14.6	Don't you want to be happy?
0:19.9	Gary, what's up, my man? Life is good, brother. It is good, isn't that? Yeah. That's one of the fucking things that, you know, I've had the opportunity to get to know you not only in the professional context, but also just as a homie. And people always ask me like, what's he like? What's he like? And I have to say, man say man you're fucking happy like there's no doubt about
0:39.2	that yeah you know you were like one of the busiest and happiest people like if you would turn
0:43.8	the dials of both of those things up a lot of times those things don't coincide but for you they do
0:48.5	and I think the thing that I'm conscious of is off the screen, I'm real happy too, right?
0:55.0	Like, you know, I think, so one thing that's really been interesting is
0:59.0	as awareness around an individual grows,
1:03.0	a level of responsibility comes along with it.
1:06.0	I'm definitely going to point right now where I'm really am
1:10.0	being thoughtful of like,
1:11.6	look, there's a lot of eyes on me and a lot of people who are not happy
1:15.6	are putting their eyes on me and I'm helping them through that.
1:19.6	And I need to be hyper sensitive in my own self of
1:24.6	articulating things that I'm unhappy about.
1:28.8	And, but what's been really interesting
1:31.1	is I've been really on this kick for six or nine months.
1:33.7	I'm struggling to be unhappy
	...

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