How GaryVee’s Twelve And A Half Ingredients Helped Create VaynerMissions

9 min readJan 9, 2022

Back in August 2021, I pre-ordered 24 📚’s of Gary Vaynerchuk’s new 📚, Twelve And A Half: Leveraging The Emotional Ingredients Necessary for Business Success. This article explains how these ingredients helped me create VaynerMissions

In December when the 📚’s arrived, I started gifting 🎁 the other 23 copies to family, friends and colleagues (pictures at bottom), but I also decided to document Part 1 by tweeting the entire chapter and then posting recaps on my personal Instagram account while I read the 📚

Here are how the Twelve And A Half Emotional Ingredients Gary Vaynerchuk talks about in his incredible 📚 helped me create VaynerMissions

Gratitude

Definition: The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness

How Gratitude helped me create VaynerMissions

I’m forever grateful for Andrea Sullivan and Claude Silver for taking time out of their insanely busy schedules with all of their existing priorities to build a relationship with me throughout 2021 and for listening to me and giving me an opportunity to share what VaynerMissions is and why it will help VaynerMedia continue to build the best human empire in the history of time by scaling ❤️ for company culture in 2022 as Storygiving becomes the new normal by 2030. The state of where VaynerMissions is today would NOT be possible without either of these incredible leaders ❤️

VaynerMedia’s “Scaling ❤️ for company culture” article

My favorite quote(s) about Gratitude from Gary Vaynerchuk’s 📚

As you’ll see in a minute, this example is close to my 💛

Self-Awareness

Definition: Conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives and desires

How Self-Awareness helped me created VaynerMissions

Since meeting Scott Harrison — the founder of charity: water 💛 — in December of 2019, I’ve become self-aware that my audacious vision of Storygiving would never happen until I partnered with the right company that truly believes in empowering and supporting their employees ❤️

Scott gave me three pieces of advice when I met him in December 2019

The 🌎 needs your vision of Storygiving
What you’re trying to do is going to be incredibly difficult, but it’ll be impactful and you’ll make a difference in people’s lives if you stay the course
To reinvent corporate philanthropy start with one company; others will eventually follow. So I thought I’d try and start with VaynerMedia

Check out the short 4 minute video below to see how else Scott impacted me on my journey

This is Scott Harrison’s advice to me in December 2019

My favorite quote about Self-Awareness from Gary Vaynerchuk’s 📚

Accountability

Definition: The fact or condition of being accountable, responsibility

How Accountability helped me created VaynerMissions

Without going into all the details publicly, I got me (and my parents) into a bad business partnership. In 2018/2019 I met someone who I thought was a friend, who I could trust and who said could help take my idea to the next level. He lied to me, used me, stole a bunch of money from me (and my parents) and it’s nobody’s fault but mine. My parents are incredible people that have supported me, my brother and sister in different ways throughout our lives. They personally invested in me to support my idea because I didn’t have enough money at the time. Unfortunately, I didn’t do enough research on the guy I got (us) into business with and I completely misjudged his intentions. It was a tough learning experience that I wish nobody ever has to go through, but as I reflect and connect the dots looking backwards — famous Steve Jobs quote — I’ve turned that tough and negative situation into a positive experience moving forward because I decided to take accountability 💪

My favorite quote about Accountability from Gary Vaynerchuk’s 📚

Optimism

Definition: Hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something

How Optimism helped me created VaynerMissions

Even though I was selected to move on to the video application round for the VeeFriends NFT Sorcerer 🔮 🧙‍♂️ Scholarship token, I ultimately wasn’t chosen as one of the 5 winners to earn the NFT scholarship. Despite not being awarded that very rare and exclusive NFT, I’m optimistic that my experience applying for the scholarship, my story and my persistent, relentless and resilient nature will ultimately still bring VaynerMissions to life in 2022 🙏

My favorite quote about Optimism from Gary Vaynerchuk’s 📚

Empathy

Definition: The ability to understand and share the feelings of another

How Empathy helped me created VaynerMissions

By being a true practitioner just like Gary Vaynerchuk, I’ve learned why people behave the way that they do.
I listened to why thousands of Facebook friends did — or did not — donate their birthdays and I documented my case study from 2019 with supporting testimonials.
I listened to why Zach (below) and hundreds of other colleagues of mine would love to have a chance to share their missions at DoorDash.
I listened to why Jessica believes VaynerMissions fits the Vayner culture and why she thinks Gary Vaynerchuk would love it.
Empathy is my intuitive feeling that Storygiving will be a big part of your life in the future because it’ll enhance company culture, create community and it’s ultimately what people want ❤️

My favorite quote about Empathy from Gary Vaynerchuk’s 📚

Kindness

Definition: The quality of being friendly, generous and considerate

How Kindness helped me created VaynerMissions

It’s cool to be kind. VaynerMissions embodies kindness because of how it was designed. Each employee has 1 mission per year — on their Vaynerversary — BUT they can support as many other colleagues on their Vaynerversaries as they’d like by building out their VaynerLegacy. VaynerMissions gamifies and tokenizes how Vayner colleagues can support one another. At scale, Storygiving will empower employees to share their missions on their work anniversaries, but it’ll also empower people that work at different companies to support one another too ❤️

My favorite quote about Kindness from Gary Vaynerchuk’s 📚

Tenacity

Definition: The quality or fact of being very determined, determination

How Tenacity helped me created VaynerMissions

Since June 8th, 2020 I’ve reminded myself every single day that…

Talk about tenacity!

My favorite quote about Tenacity from Gary Vaynerchuk’s 📚

Curiosity

Definition: A strong desire to know or learn something

How Curiosity helped me created VaynerMissions

My curiosity has led me to become obsessed with why we have broken, uninspiring, and low performing charity matching programs at the companies we all work at. Through a ton of research, I found out that more than 90% of corporate philanthropy dollars are decided by less than 1% of the workforce, typically the business leaders and executives. I’ve spent over 10,000 hours learning how these systems are broken and I’ve built a better system that focuses on supporting colleagues missions on their work anniversaries by focusing on engagement because it’s what people want. As we all continue adapting to and building Web 3.0, I’m determined to bring Storygiving to life because it’ll decentralize how we give back in the corporate world in the future 💯

Storygiving has 95% engagement compared to a typical charity matching program at 7% — **watch the video below to see how the VaynerMissions Pilot yielded 95% engagement**

My favorite quote(s) about Curiosity from Gary Vaynerchuk’s 📚

Patience

Definition: The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset

How Patience helped me created VaynerMissions

I created VaynerMissions Twitter and Instagram profile in November 2018. I’ve documented thousands of jabs over the last 3+ years gearing up for the right hook 🥊 on why I should be the first ever VaynerMissions Community Manager at VaynerX in 2022. Patience is my favorite ingredient and the Patient 🐼 is my favorite VeeFriend

My favorite quote about Patience from Gary Vaynerchuk’s 📚

Conviction

Definition: A firmly held belief or opinion

How Conviction helped me created VaynerMissions

I believe employees want to be included, contribute, have a voice, feel appreciated + valued, be recognized, find meaning + purpose, and experience community and VaynerMissions is one of many ways to do that at VaynerMedia. More importantly, I believe VaynerMissions will be the case study and set the foundation for what Storygiving will look like at other companies and corporations over the next decade too

I believe employees are worth supporting ❤️

Gary Vaynerchuk referenced in Twelve and a Half that if Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey or Jeff Bezos all walked into his room and told him NFT’s have no long term potential that he wouldn’t care about what they have to say. Despite me gearing up for that right hook 🥊 for almost 3 years now, I’d honestly feel the same way if Gary Vaynerchuk told me that Storygiving has no long term potential and he was uninterested to partner together. I’ve done enough research. I’m constantly watching what’s going on in society. There are TONS of employees needs not being met because the number of people quitting their jobs hit an all time high last November. I just assumed that with everything Gary Vaynerchuk preaches and stands for that if he understood what VaynerMissions was and we talked about what I believe Storygiving will be by 2030, that partnering together would be a no 🧠er for him. And because I believe that, before I try and partner elsewhere I’d love to see what Gary Vaynerchuk thinks of VaynerMissions

My favorite quote about Conviction from Gary Vaynerchuk’s 📚

Humility

Definition: A modest or low view of one’s own importance; humbleness

How Humility helped me created VaynerMissions

At the end of 2018, I thought I had a genius idea. Throughout 2019 — an entire year — I publicly documented me wearing a different 👕 with a different influencer on that shirt everyday, asking them to share their Birthday Mission. I thought I was obviously going to ‘go viral’ but I failed miserably. This experience humbled me like no other experience before it. In hindsight, I’m so glad that I did it because I learned a lot, it’s part of my story and it’s helped condition me to not be afraid to take chances and possibly fail in the future!

Of course Gary made the cut! Feel free to scroll through the Instagram handle I made in 2019: @thehumanbillboardforcharity

My favorite quote about Humility from Gary Vaynerchuk’s 📚

Ambition

Definition: A strong desire to do or achieve something; typically requiring determination and hard work

How Ambition helped me created VaynerMissions

Before I die someday, I’d like to help Scott Harrison solve our global 🌍 water 🚰 crisis. I’d also like to inspire Gary Vaynerchuk ☁️ 👟 to bring VaynerMissions 🥊 to life so we can inspire other business leaders to empower and support their employees by making Storygiving the new normal. I know it’s what people want, so I’d like to build it for them ❤️

My favorite quote about Ambition from Gary Vaynerchuk’s 📚