Gary Vee is human, too

I am a long time student of Gary Vaynerchuk and felt compelled to comment. On a recent live stream, Gary told a caller to stop overthinking the name she was planning for her LLC. The advice is sound, but Gary missed some important context.

If you are a student of GV, you know one of the main things he teaches is the importance of branding. And because branding can be so valuable, it is completely understandable that people overthink what to name their LLC. The solution is two fold, and the first solution Gary did explain on the live stream.

The first part of the solution is to understand something called DBA, or "Doing Business As." If you aren't familiar with DBA, it means you can operate a business under a name that has nothing to do with the name of the LLC which owns said business. Gary gave a personal example where one of his LLCs is named "Attention At Scale," which isn't the name of any of the companies he runs.

But, unfortunately Gary overlooked a second and more important lesson. Before I explain, I will note this oversight is completely understandable in light of the fact that his live stream interactions are necessarily short. Had Gary had a more lengthy conversation with the lady, he surely would have explained the second part of the solution. The second part is very simply this, as a general rule, less developed entrepreneurs wildly overestimate the importance of their company's name.

Again, this mistake is perfectly understandable because of the importance of brand. I look back with amusement (and a bit of embarrassment) at the way I too overthought the name of a company. And again, Gary's story sheds some useful light on the subject. Apparently, Gary's dad's (Sasha) small business was doing about $4M in annual sales when Gary joined. Doing $4M in sales certainly qualifies Sasha's business as a success, and yet the name of the company wasn't great for branding. The name was "Shoppers Discount Liquors."

Here is the moral of the story, today that same company is called "Wine Library" and is doing on the order of $60M per year. But don't get it twisted, the name of the company wasn't the main cause of its increased success. The real cause of success was delivering long-term value to its customers. For example, Gary has never sold Kendall Jackson chardonnay nor Santa Margherita pinot grigio. The reason isn't because Wine Library doesn't carry those labels, the reason is because Gary knows better chardonnays and pinot grigios, usually at lower prices. The point being, as an entrepreneur your focus (indeed your obsession) should be delivering real value to your customers. That is what will determine the success of your company, much more than its name. And at any time, if necessary YOU CAN CHANGE THE NAME OF YOUR COMPANY. So don't overthink it!

Again, I am a serious student of GV. In fact, I am enough of a student to know one of his blind spots. As a recent Instagram post about "Just Do" indicates, Gary learns by doing. But, believe it or not, lots of people aren't like that. Lots of people learn by listening to people like Gary! My point is this, if you were fortunate enough to spend ten years working in your parent's successful small business, you too would probably do most of your learning through doing. But, if you never had that sort of role model (and few people do) give yourself some grace and understand successful entrepreneurship takes a lot longer than you imagine.

I have lots of love for you, Gary. So much so, I felt compelled to write this lengthy post to help some of your students. OF COURSE you have to take action to succeed as an entrepreneur. But at the same time, learning by doing isn't always the fastest path. I end with advice I think GV would agree with: Go as fast as you sustainably can, while remaining patient with however long it takes to arrive at your promised land.

Truth > Positivity

Believe it or not, I actually like Gary Vaynerchuk. Haha! Last time, I disagreed with Gary’s insistence on the importance of humility. And this week, I will disagree with Gary’s insistence that we be positive.

Unlike the humility thing, I didn’t talk with Gary about positivity. But perhaps I should. Because, again, I think truth is more important than either humility or positivity. In reality, there are probably few things more important than truth. As the Bible famously says, the truth will set you free. So, please allow me to derive the importance of positivity by explaining its relationship to truth.

A core truth is that life is fundamentally about growth. And, while every other animal basically only grows physically, humans have another dimension called consciousness. And consciousness is open to unlimited growth. Whether you call it mind, soul or spirit, the most miserable people I know have stopped growing.

Now, let me bring in the work of Barbara Fredrickson (pictured below) who is a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina. Top among her many accomplishments, Fredrickson is best known for her broaden-and-build theory. More thoroughly, it is called the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.

Psychology has long identified and addressed negative emotions, so back in the 1990s Professor Fredrickson began asking “What is the point of positive emotions?” And while the question may seem rhetorical, the answer is worth knowing.

Fredrickson has rather conclusively demonstrated that positive emotions facilitate growth. More specifically, positive emotions broaden our mind and build our resources (aka grow us). Perhaps you can start to see why I believe truth is more important than positivity.

As stated, I think there is no question humans must grow. And as Fredrickson has shown, positivity is a precondition for growth. Now, perhaps you think I have argued in a circle and disproven myself. Nope. Watch this.

Just because positivity is a precondition of growth, doesn’t mean people utilize positivity to grow. In fact, a lot of people turn into what I call “inspiration junkies.” There is no question inspiration (and positive emotions generally) feels good. And a lot of people stop there, which is understandable because growth hurts. In other words, growing pains are a real thing, which often causes avoidance.

Given the choice being painful growth and remaining in delightful positivity, many people, understandably, choose the latter. This is essentially what it means to remain in your comfort zone, and it easily creates inspiration junkies who keep coming back for another hit.

So, am I just a Negative Nancy? Of course not. As stated, positivity is required for growth. And while positivity is pleasurable, growth is enjoyable. If you aren’t familiar, the difference between pleasure and enjoyment is growth. Delightful experiences such as a wonderful meal are pleasurable, but they don't cause our soul to grow. Conversely, life’s enjoyable experiences do involve psychological growth, but they aren’t usually pleasurable while they are occurring.

That last paragraph is a synopsis of one of the main takeaways from Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi's legendary book Flow. The subtitle of the book is “The psychology of optimal experiences,” and Csikszentmihalyi does a great job of explaining the important difference between pleasure and enjoyment. But, we shall have to save a deeper dive into Flow for another day.

For today, I simply hope to make it clear that I love positivity. The thing is, I just love growth more. And if you have had flow experiences, I trust you would agree.

P.S. It is also rather clear that the best way to ignite positivity at work is through progress. More on that will be coming in another post.