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12.5: The Emotional Ingredients for Business Success


This was a wonderful read, and my first proper interaction with Gary Vee. It feels like a book that was written in an afternoon, but it really worked for it too. It’s not a work of art, but it’s a great work of mindset.

If I would take one thing from this book, it’s that approaching things with kind candour is the best way and should be the first step in every conversation, especially difficult ones.


And because I can’t ever just take one thing from a book, the second one is to not judge people just based on the impression you have on them. You can be humble and curious while still having conviction in your beliefs. On the outside you might be a know-it-all, on the inside, you might have a lot of humility.


A favourite quote from the book:

Why accept a job where your performance is just based on how much you can improve on your weakness?

🪄 Actionable takeaways, the 12 ingredients:

1. Gratitude: where do your rank in terms of happiness compared to the rest of the world?

  • Women in Africa spend 200 million hours a day collecting water.

  • “I’ve had major losses, and I haven’t dwelled on them for more than a day” - Explain why you dwell, what value that brings to you. It shouldn’t be done at all.

  • Positive emotions fuel more than negative emotions, you will find the short bursts of anger and insecurity aren’t as effective as you think it is.

  • There is value in mourning, but it should be saved for people who pass away, not for bad business decisions.

2. Self awareness: helps one embrace self confidence, not avoid it.

  • Confidence makes self awareness easier

  • If you triple down on your strengths, you will be better than trying to just fix all your issues

3. Accountability: taking accountability will make you happier. Stop being a victim.

  • Don’t point a finger towards others, point a thumb towards yourself.

  • When you don’t overvalue your own opinion, you are better at not overvaluing other people’s opinions - so you will have more self confidence.

4. Optimism: fill yourself with positivity, an easily way to do this is from podcasts 24/7 if you must.

  • It makes the journey so much more fun.

  • “I’m comfortable if I don’t win at something, but I’m not comfortable with not trying”.

5. Empathy: you can handle every situation if you can consider the feelings of the people involved.

6. Kindness: is about being kind to those who are not kind to you.

  • It can put you apart from others.

  • Kindness is not being a pushover: you can be kind and hold your ground.

  • You need to balance kindness with candour, because otherwise you will end up being resentful later in life.

  • How you deliver the medicine matters: people choose doctors based on how they communicate with them.

7. Tenacity: (determination) it should never equal burnout.

8. Curiosity: it feels fluffy, childish but we don’t give it enough attention.

  • Curiosity + empathy = intuition

  • This is what making predictions is in it’s core

  • Strong + learn = curiosity

  • Thinking “wow, I’m only 45, what am I going to do with the rest of my life”

  • Curiosity + humility > conviction + tenacity

9. Patience: insecurity fosters with a fertiliser of lack of patience.

  • It can give you the permission to dream bigger.

10. Conviction: you don’t let people’s opinions change yours, you let evidence with time.

  • If you follow your convictions against what society says, two things can happen: either you’ll be right, or you’ll be happy you saw things through.

  • “I hold onto convictions until the market shows me differently, then I change my path with conviction too.”

11. Humility: think of all the famous people that die. We think about them for a while, then we forget.

  • Would you rather have people who don’t know you think you’re the best, and the people who know you the best think you’re the worst?

  • Humility makes you able to put yourself out there online when other people can’t.

  • You can change your opinions in 2 seconds, and you can do that all the time.

12. Ambition: a strong desire to do something that typically requires hard work.

  • People have an unhealthy relationship with ambition because they use it to cover up insecurities

  • Winning at all costs has consequences

🧝‍♀️ Fave Quotes:

When you understand how unimportant business is in the grand scheme of your life, you can get better at it.
The world is based on energy, you should spend your life with optimistic people.
People you meet on the way up, are the people you see on the way down.
You don’t want what other people want, so why do you care about what they have?
Doing the work for someone else without them being involved is always wrong.
If you get paid for something and you accept the fee, act as though you’re being paid double.
You will accomplish 0.00 if you stay and sulk for not getting the raise.
Why accept a job where your performance is just based on how much you can improve on your weakness?
There’s not a person I don’t want to beat in business, and there’s also not a person I won’t cheer for in real life
People who are judging others are not using the whole deck of information

Bonus: How to approach difficult conversations productively

  1. “Hey, can you give me some more clarity on your feedback?”

  2. “I’m a high energy dude, so sometimes I forget to dot the i-s and cross the t-s. Is this going to be a dealbreaker for you if I book in a meeting at a wrong time? I want to just be honest with you.”

  3. Just apply first candour as the first step to every situation and you’ll be much better off.

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