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.
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00:00What is the best business or career advice you have ever received?
00:05Here's the best, which was actually given by that man up there, my father.
00:09You know, I'm comfortable saying what I'm about to say.
00:12I think I taught my dad more than he taught me.
00:20The fact that now at 48 years old, there is a substantial amount of human beings
00:26that walk around the earth that are asked,
00:30what's it really like to work for Gary?
00:32Or what's he really like?
00:34And that I know that 93.7% of them have incredibly good things to say.
00:40And that is by far my biggest accomplished profession.
00:47I think I decided I was a success probably when I was 10.
00:51I played it reverse, I think, in hindsight.
00:53I kind of had this really early framework of,
00:56I think I figured out that school doesn't matter,
00:59and that being nice and being good at something does.
01:02Like, I don't think today, like, I'm a success.
01:05I think the luck of the draw of humility is a DNA tree.
01:08Not to be in conflict to conviction and competitiveness,
01:12and I think I'm, you know, it's a funny mix.
01:15But honestly, I've never thought that I've made it or I've made it.
01:19I've never thought in the terms of success.
01:24Actually, you know, it's funny.
01:25I'm going to go run and ask them right now.
01:27Actually, I'm not even kidding.
01:28I don't think I've ever asked them, like, what was the moment?
01:30And they may say when I did the Conan O'Brien show, that was wild.
01:33I was running a wine store in New Jersey, started this YouTube thing,
01:36and then six months later, I'm on the Conan O'Brien show.
01:39Or maybe right away, because I built the family business pretty big.
01:43But, yeah, I mean, as someone who has a 15- and 11-year-old now, I get it.
01:48Like, I think, you know, all the little things my kids do well,
01:51I'm like, everyone, you know, like, it's what we do.
01:54It's a very fun thing.
01:56I'm enjoying getting to an age where my kids are a little bit older,
02:00where I can even appreciate more why my parents are proud.
02:04Like, I get it.
02:05You just, when you love your child so much,
02:07anything they do makes you kind of weirdly proud.
02:13No one, and that's not an audacious bad statement,
02:15I just didn't look at it that way.
02:18Richard Salzman owned a liquor distributorship.
02:21I have no clue how big or not good it was.
02:23I love that his people adored him.
02:25And ironically, the reason I probably just brought him up is he just passed away.
02:30And my father texted me from the wake.
02:32I was traveling, and he said,
02:33you will not believe how many people were there.
02:35And I smiled like a mother, because I'm like, that's the life.
02:39Forget about the accolades or that.
02:42And, you know, it was people like that,
02:45the Richard Salzman's of the world,
02:47more than the Bill Gates or the Steve Jobs or the, you know, J.P. Morgan's.
02:53I just, I was inspired that you could be rich, successful, but nice.
03:00I hated nice guys finish last from my earliest of age.
03:04And I think now that I'm getting into my middle part of my life,
03:08I hate it even more.
03:09And so I was always inspired by kindness that didn't compromise financial success.
03:15Do you know how many very rich people have poor people show up to their funeral?
03:20I think that's life.
03:27Humility.
03:29And on the other side, blind, audacious, optimistic conviction.
03:36Polar opposites.
03:38Hard work, like real hard work,
03:41but so much self-awareness that you know when you need to rest.
03:45Competitiveness, but you understand it's a game, so you don't actually hate.
03:51That's the framework I live in.
03:52Very opposite traits that create that strength of accomplishment.
03:59Yeah, I have a framework of like aggressive perspective.
04:06Every day that something bad is going on,
04:08which is every day when you're at the scale I'm at,
04:10I just remind myself that if everything was going great
04:14and someone in my family was sick, that I wouldn't care.
04:19And so what has made me very capable
04:25is I am completely detached from my public persona and my professional success.
04:33I don't get my validation or affirmation from it.
04:36And so I would say aggressive perspective.
04:46Is the best, which was actually given by that man up there, my father.
04:50You know, I'm comfortable in saying what I'm about to say.
04:53I think I taught my dad more than he taught me.
04:55I know that's like, it's just real life.
04:57I feel that to be true.
04:58But that mother taught me that my word was bond
05:01and that you needed to honor your word.
05:03And I believe with my personality of gift of gab
05:07that there was a worse version of myself that was in the cards.
05:11Had I not been parented well, and he tweaked me in a way of like old school.
05:16My dad literally thinks a slight embellishment is like an aggressive lie.
05:22And that was a jolt to me because I grew up as a sales kid
05:25and I would tell Harry, it would be like, where's this from?
05:27I'd be like, oh, it was found in a rare attic.
05:30It's like, I would do anything to get her to buy this spell.
05:34And that my father changed the course.
05:37So that's the best advice.
05:38Your word is bond.
05:39Like that matters.
05:41I mean, the worst advice was from equally from the liquor business.
05:44The gentleman once told me, Gary, in retail,
05:47you can do price selection and service.
05:50You've got to pick two out of those.
05:52And that's how you build a business.
05:54And I sat there as a 22 year old.
05:55I'm like, you, I'm doing all three.
05:57And I built the biggest wine store in the country or one of them.
06:01And it was because I didn't take that advice.
06:04And it was bad advice.
06:05I think when you operate something,
06:07you should do everything you can for a customer.
06:15I would say the three mentors are my father, my mother, for sure.
06:19My mom completely shaped me completely, completely.
06:23Molded me from a piece of clay.
06:26And then I'm going to give you a weird one that I really believe to be true.
06:29And I think it is my core strength.
06:31I believe that the market has been my mentor.
06:35Customers, they've taught me the most.
06:38When they didn't buy my lemonade, they taught me.
06:41When they bought it, they taught me.
06:42When they didn't buy my sports cards.
06:44You know, I've had a really long career.
06:46Six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years old.
06:48Lemonade.
06:49Washing cars.
06:50Shoveling snow.
06:51I always did it.
06:5212, 13, 14, 15.
06:54Baseball cards.
06:55People coming to your table, not buying, buying.
06:58And then 16 to 34.
07:00Liquor store. Store.
07:01Customers coming in.
07:03The market has been my mentor.
07:06She taught me.
07:07The market taught me.
07:08It taught me what it liked.
07:10It taught me what it didn't like.
07:11And most of all, it taught me that it never stays the same.
07:19One, humility that I've touched on it.
07:22Do you think that you work for them?
07:24I think I work for Harriet and Dustin.
07:27Not that they work for me.
07:28I understand I pay their salary.
07:30I work for them.
07:31Then, in return, they can work for it.
07:34Not me.
07:35It.
07:36The logo.
07:37So I think that's a big one.
07:39I think lead by example.
07:41I think hypocrisy destroys people.
07:43When your boss tells you to do something that she or he doesn't do,
07:46it fucking hurts.
07:53My kryptonite.
07:54The greatest thing that I did wrong for 20 years
07:57was I didn't have good enough candor.
08:00Which is wild because I'm so candorous in public settings.
08:03In this interview, on stage, my candor is my superpower.
08:07But one-on-one, even today, I would say I'm a 5 out of 10
08:10if I had to tell Harriet and Dustin something I really needed them to fix
08:14because I like them too much.
08:15It's too family business.
08:16And honestly, I used to think of it as my superpower and it's my vulnerability.
08:21It's not fair to them if I'm not able to articulate
08:23because then they don't have the ability to fix.
08:26So I would say that I wish somebody grabbed me at 25 and said to me
08:30and my dad, in aversion, he did part of it,
08:33but he didn't really have the inner people skills.
08:37And so I really regret, and I don't use that word lightly.
08:42It's not a word that I have a lot of,
08:43but I did not manage everybody to the best of my abilities at 25, 30, 35, 40
08:49because I didn't have candor yet.
08:50It was the missing piece.
08:52And now I call it kind candor.
08:54Dustin, I love you, brother, but if you don't do this,
08:57I'm going to lose the fort because everyone knows that I'm letting you get away with it.
09:01These are conversations I'm starting to,
09:03and again, I gave myself a 5, which probably means it's a 4.
09:06And so, candor.
09:09You must cut out the most negative person in your life.
09:12Now, if that is your mother,
09:15I'm not advocating for never speaking to your mother again.
09:18If it's your mother, I would say that you need to limit the exposure.
09:23So if you're talking to your mom who's extremely negative three times a day,
09:27it might need to go to three times a week.
09:30But if it is not your mother or your ex-wife,
09:34three times a week.
09:36But if it is not your mother or your best relatives or your best friends,
09:40and it is an acquaintance, a boyfriend that you haven't married yet,
09:45an employee, an employer,
09:48you must cut out that cancer.
09:50It will have the greatest impact on your life.