Twelve and a half
Firstly, let me tell you that I never heard of Gary Vaynerchuk, prior to getting a reference to this book. Neither did I follow him in social media or elsewhere, even after reading it.
So what you get is fresh & unbiased review - take it or leave it!
I would still appreciate your feedback :)
It is a strange book, if you allow me to say so.
Initially, it felt light, too light - even superficial if you would. And I did not think that I will like it.
But prior to the conviction, one needs to consider all the evidence :)
So naturally, I decided to give it a go, by reading it in smaller chunks, whenever my mood and willingness supported it.
As I have progressed through the material, I have gradually changed my opinion.
I started to like...
I started to like the simplicity or imposed lightness of the reading, but even more - authenticity of the lines written often as the first-person statements by the author. But most of all, I started to enjoy Gary's personal, human and honest life "cook-book" advice, where author actually showed how his twelve and a half ingredients can truly help you in getting the better outcomes!
This book is about first hand author's reflection of the life experience, business reasoning, personal values and development process that shaped up and solidified his persona and strong, unique entrepreneurship along the years. By attentive observation and putting things into the right context, Gary Vaynerchuk created an honest guidebook of the "daily spice" that could inspire you to think through, and possibly implement for some of them (much better in combination!), for the better outcomes across your life matters.
In the first part of the book, author describes his most valuable ingredients one by one and how they affected some of his life and business outcomes.
Second part contains Gary's "recipes" for various, mostly business related situations with proposals of the best way how to address them constructively and maximize their value for the parties involved.
Third part is interesting as it provides you a handful of exercises for getting better in each and every of the twelve ingredients, where Gary motivates and challenges you to be accountable and take action, while he is willing to support you in your endeavor (to be discovered how :))
Enclosed are some of my favorite extracts from Gary's book:
- When you can eliminate fear from your organization, very good things happen.
- The growth potential of most businesses is limited by the emotional intelligence of their leaders. That goes for sports teams, families, and sovereign nations.
- Every dish you make needs to be made in the context of the situation it’s being served in. These twelve traits have to be used in different mixtures in every business scenario. That’s all I’m ever doing.
- When you actually understand how unimportant business is in the grand scheme of your life, it allows you to enjoy it and potentially get better at it. As our life expectancies increase, shouldn’t our timelines for goals increase too?
Shouldn’t you be OK with not having everything figured out until later?
- If you’re truly grateful for what you have instead of being envious of what you don’t have, you’ll be a dominant force in business and, way more important, in life. What I care about is bringing value to every single person I interact with.
- Instead of pointing a finger, consider pointing a thumb back at yourself. I think of accountability as the brakes. It stops the momentum of pain that comes from blaming others.
- You don’t have full context on anybody else. You don’t have 100-percent insight into what’s going through their mind or the events in their childhood that molded them into who they are today. So how can you judge them? That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hold people accountable for their actions through kind candor, but it’s not smart to judge them for it.
- When you’ve put yourself in a position to base your happiness on outside validation and on material proxies of success, you will always, and I mean always, be on the cusp of burnout.
And here is a list of Gary's twelve and a half spices, ordered by my current point of relevance :) :
* Self-Awareness
* Humility
* Accountability
* Kindness
* Empathy
* Curiosity
* Gratitude
* Optimism
* Tenacity
* Conviction
* Patience
* Ambition
And to conclude, my proposal is that you take one spice at the time, to reflect your thoughts and inscribe them in the PKM of choice, so that they become active sparks of intention and major helpers when the moment for them arises.
Thank you Gary, your personal, honest and humane approach works for me, and it is so much more than I expected and initially thought of!
Until soon... ... keep Creating!
P.S. A short glimpse at Gary Vaynerchuk's biography, his achievements in business and sheer base of his social media following and one has to be eager to dive into the subject matter and learn a thing or two from the seasoned pro.
I know I have! :)
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