Name: Gary Vaynerchuk Reveals the Biggest Mistake He Made for 20 Years
Uploaded: 2024-09-25
Duration: 9 min 53 s

Gary Vaynerchuk, the serial entrepreneur, best-selling author and public speaker, has built his VaynerMedia empire on straight talk and savvy sales instincts, but reveals he didn't always use his "superpower" in the most effective way. In an interview with Fortune for Champion Mindset, Vaynerchuk revealed his biggest professional regret: not practicing enough "candor" in managing his employees during the early years of his career.

Gary Vaynerchuk Reveals the Biggest Mistake He Made for 20 Years

Leadership

Gary Vaynerchuk, the serial entrepreneur, best-selling author and public speaker, has built his VaynerMedia empire on straight talk and savvy sales instincts, but reveals he didn't always use his "superpower" in the most effective way. 

Gary Vaynerchuk has built his VaynerMedia empire on straight talk and savvy sales instincts, but reveals he didn't always use his "superpower" in the most effective way.

What is the best business or career advice you have ever received is the best, which was actually given by that man up there. My father, you know, I, I'm comfortable saying what I'm about to say. I think I taught my dad more than he taught me. The fact that now at 48 years old, there is a substantial amount of human beings that walk around the earth that are asked, what's it really like to work for Gary or what's he really like? And that I know that 93.7% of them have incredibly good things to say. And that is by far my biggest accomplished profession. I think I decided I was a success. Probably when I was 10. I played a reverse. I think in hindsight, I kind of had this really early framework of, I think I figured out that school doesn't matter. And that being nice and being good at something does like, I don't think today, like I'm a success. I think the luck of the draw of humility as a DNA tree not to be in conflict to conviction and competitiveness. And I think I'm, you know, it's a funny mix. But honestly, I've never thought that I've made it or I've made it. I've never thought in the terms of success. Actually, you know, it's funny, I'm gonna go run and ask them right now. Actually, I'm not even kidding. I don't think I've ever asked them. Like, what was the moment? Let me say when I did the Conan o'brien Show? That was wild. I was running a wine store. New Jersey started this youtube thing and six months later I'm on the Conan o'brien Show or maybe right away because I built the family business pretty big. Um But yeah, I mean, as someone who has a 15 and 11 year old now, I get it like, I think, you know, all the little things my kids do. Well, I'm like, you know, like it's what we do. It's a very fun thing. It's, I'm enjoying getting to an age where my kids are a little bit older where I can even appreciate more. Why my parents are proud. Like I get it. You just when you love your child so much anything they do makes you kind of weirdly proud. No one. And that's not an audacious bad statement. I just didn't look at it that way. Richard Salzman owned a liquor distributorship. I have no clue how big or not good it was. I love that his people adored him. And ironically the reason I probably just brought him up is he just passed away and my father texted me from the wake I was traveling and he said you will not believe how many people were there. And I smiled like a mother because I'm like, that's the life. Forget about the accolade sort of that. And you know, it was people like that. The Richard Salzman of the world more than the Bill Gates or the Steve Jobs or the, you know, JP Morgans. I, I just, I was inspired that you could be rich, successful but nice. I hated nice guys. Finish last from my earliest of age. And I think now that I'm getting into my middle part of my life, I hate it even more. And so I was always inspired by kindness that didn't compromise financial success. Do you mean very rich people have poor people show up for their funeral? I think that's life humility, belief and, and on the other side, blind audacious optimistic conviction, polar opposites, hard work, like real hard work, but so much self awareness that you know, when you need to rest competitiveness, but you understand it's a game so you don't actually hate. That's the framework I live in very opposite traits that create the strength of accomplishment. Yeah, I, I have a framework of like aggressive perspective every day that something bad is going on, which is every day when you have to scale them that I just remind myself that if everything was going great and someone in my family was sick that I wouldn't care. And so what has made me very capable is I am completely detached from my public persona and my professional success. I don't get my validation or affirmation from it. And so I would say aggressive perspective is the best, which was actually given by that man up there. My father, you know, I, I'm comfortable saying what I'm about to say. I think I taught my dad more than he taught me. I know that's like, it's just real life. I feel that to be true. But that mother taught me that my word was Bond and that you needed to honor your word. And I believe with my personality of gift of gab that there was a worse version of myself that was in the carts. Had I not been parented well, and he tweaked me in a way of like old school. My dad, my dad literally thinks a slight embellishment is like an aggressive lie. And that was a jolt to me because I grew up as a sales kid and I would tell Harry would be like, where's this from? I'd be like, oh, it was found in a rare attic. It's like I would do anything to get her to buy this bell. And, and that is that my father changed the course. So that's the best advice. Your word is Bond like that matters. I mean, the worst advice was from equally from the liquor business. A gentleman once told me, Gary in retail, you can do price selection and service. You've got to pick two out of those. And that's how you build a business. And I sat there as a 22 year old and I'm like you, I'm doing all three and I built the biggest wine store in the country, uh or one of them. And uh it was because I didn't take that advice and it was bad advice. I think when you operate something you should do everything you can for a customer. I would say the three mentors are my father, my mother, for sure. My mom completely shaped me, completely, completely molded me from a piece of clay. And then I'm gonna give you a weird one that I really believe to be true. And I think it is my core strength. I believe that the market has been my mentor. Customers. They taught me the most when they didn't buy my lemonade. They taught me when they bought it. They taught me when they didn't buy my sports cards. You know, I've had a really long career. 6789, 10 years old lemonade, washing cars, shoveling snow. I always did it. 1213, 1415 baseball cards, people coming to your table not buying bikes. And then 16 to 34 liquor store store customers coming in the market has been my mentor. She taught me the market, taught me, it taught me what it liked. It taught me what it didn't like and most of all it taught me that it never stays the same one. Humility that I've touched on it. Do you think that you work for them? I think I work for Harriet and Dustin. Not that they work for me. I understand I pay their salary. I work for them. Then in return they can work for it. Not me. It, the logo. Uh So I think that's a big one. I think lead by example, I think hypocrisy destroys people when your boss tells you to do something that she or he doesn't do, it hurts my kryptonite. The greatest thing that I did wrong for 20 years was I didn't have good enough candor, which is wild because I'm so candor in public settings in this interview on stage, my candor is my superpower but one on one even today, I would say I'm a five out of 10. If I had to tell Harriet and Dustin something I really needed them to fix because I like them too much. It's too family business like it's and it's, and honestly, I used to think of it as my superpower and it's my vulnerability. It's not fair to that if I'm not able to articulate because then they don't have the ability to fix. So I would say that I wish somebody grabbed me at 25 and said to me and my dad in a version he did part of it but he didn't do, he didn't really have the inner people skills. And so I really regret and I don't use that word lightly. It's not a word that I have a lot of, but I did not manage everybody to my best of my abilities at 25 30 35 40 because I didn't have candor yet. It was a missing piece and now I call it kind candor that I love you brother. But if you don't do this, like I don't like it's, you know, I'm going to lose the fork because everyone knows that I'm letting you get away with like these are conversations. I'm starting to and again, I gave myself a five which is probably means it's a four, you know. And so, uh Kim, you must cut out the most negative person in your life. Now, if that is your mother, I'm not advocating for never speaking to your mother again. If it's your mother, I would say that you need to limit the exposure. So if you're talking to your mom who's extremely negative three times a day, it might need to go to three times a week. But if it is not your mother or your best relatives or your best friends, and it is an acquaintance, a boyfriend that you haven't married yet, an employee, an employer, you must cut out that cancer. It will have the greatest impact on your life