Crush It! - Cover
Gary Vaynerchuk is the founder of the popular and long-running video blog at Wine Library TV, also known as the Thunder Show. He began to parlay his success with the show into speaking on the subject of business in today’s world, and now has a NY Times Best-selling book out called “Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion“.
I had heard of Gary about a year ago through Tim Ferriss’ blog. I watched a few minutes of his show but wasn’t very interested. I don’t drink wine, so I didn’t care about the topic (like he VERY obviously did). He seemed kind of funny, but I was too busy to watch a show about wine, and didn’t think much more about it.
A few months ago, I started to hear friends mention this wine guy, both online and in meatspace. I saw he had this book coming out and watched a short keynote speech he gave at a Web 2.0 event.
In the video he gave a passionate, cussword-laden speech about the nature of business and changing times. Everything he said was very spot-on, and got me digging into more of his thoughts on business.
“Crush It!” expands on his business keynotes, filling in details about the how and why of the changing business world. It’s embedded below if you don’t have children or nuns in the room with you.
In short, I loved the book. I bought a copy locally the week it came out, then ordered another through Amazon to pass along to someone else.
Reinventing the Rules of Business
Getting into business used to be a lot more difficult when the gatekeepers of the big media outlets were the only game in town (radio, tv and print). The little guy could perhaps compete on a very local level, but it took huge dollars to get seen by the masses in years past. With the largely free tools available to anyone with access to the internet, you can get your brand seen by more and more people every day.
This is in no way a “Get-Rich-Quick” book. The 3 major tenets in the first chapter of the “Crush It” method are:
Love your family.
Work superhard.
Live your passion.
Hardly a get-rich-quick strategy unless you skip all the parts where he talks about working until your eyeballs bleed instead of playing video games or watching tv.
Several times throughout the book, he talks about the realities of how hard you will have to work to make even a decent living like you may make at your current job. As he says, if you are even 1% unhappy with your job, you should work to change it. He does NOT suggest quitting your job to become a blogger. But if you want a change and do something you love, work your ass off after work until you can get to that place.
Hustle
Hard work and hustle is the theme of the book that he never lets the reader forget. He goes into more detail about starting out for the person who may be completely new to the “social media” scene. It is not a “one size fits all” approach to what specifically every person should do for a living, but a good starter.
There are several examples you could follow that will open your eyes and get you thinking. It’s not about selling chotchkies and passing that off as a living. It’s about working hard, becoming known as an expert in your field and doing something that will make your grandkids proud.
Passion
We all have something we are passionate about. Something we would be doing if we didn’t have to work (that job that makes you unhappy. If you’re already 100% happy this doesn’t apply). There are ways to do what we are passionate about, and make a decent living doing so.
You may not get filthy rich doing it, but there are so many ways to make a living, it only makes sense to use the tools you have nowadays. These tools have made it far simpler to get started and reach a greater audience than in the past.
It’s still a big deal for Gary to get on the Today Show and do a little sniffy-sniff with Matt Lauer, but advertisers are spending more and more money on internet platforms. The numbers of people watching each medium is changing daily. The little guys without the big budgets of the mainstream media channels are able to be competitive in this rapidly-changing world. Money follows the attention. More attention is on these internet tools every day.
Work your face off, and you can build a business that thrives, doing something you love to do. This book is a good starting place to start getting the ideas flowing. Get the book and give it a quick read. It is very short and you’ll get through it in a spare hour or two.
I don’t work for Gary, have never met him, and am not being paid to say any of this other than if people use my affiliate links above to order the book. In that case, I’ll make a couple pennies. I still don’t drink wine, but when it comes to business, I agree with what he says. As busy as he is, Gary answers emails and twitter comments. If there is anything you find unclear about the book, he tries to answer any questions. You can find him on WLTV or view his keynote speeches and other thoughts on business at GaryVaynerchuk.com.
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Thanks for introducing me to this guy – I love wine but had never heard of him before.
Really good stuff! Keep up the good work, I love your blog.
I’m glad you liked it. I had only heard his name and the wine reference before, but he’s tough to forget.
I’m glad you like the blog so far. I hope you find a way to turn your trip into a more permanent-ish experience. I’ll be featuring you here soon, I’m sure
I’m so glad you posted this – his energy is so inspiring alone, let alone his message. More people need to see this, and not only see it…but take his advice to heart! So many people unknowingly devalue themselves by living their lives doing things they absolutely hate every. single. day.
It’s just not right. There’s another way to do this!
Indeed they do. It’s very depressing to be doing it, but even more depressing when you realize you didn’t need to be all that time. Like that Matrix reference in your blog comments today: “Why didn’t I take the blue pill?”
It takes work, but living the default life is NOT required. Nobody should be doing stuff they hate.
If you don’t have time to read Gary’s new book you can get the cliff notes here http://cliffnotebooks.com/crush-gary-vaynerchuk-cliff-notes/
Tenet number 2, Work superhard! The internerd has made communications and a fair few tasks quite ‘easy’ but it’s not going to substitute working your arse off.
Cheers for the post James, I’m going to check out Gary’s book asap.
Okay James, I’m giving in…
Gary is motivational as hell. I watch the video you linked above probably once a month as a motivational tool. If that’s the only video you’ve seen and you want more, check out http://garyvaynerchuk.com/tagged/keynotes. His views on the use of modern, free tools for marketing are also spot on.
That being said, I’m not a member of the cult of Gary V. on a practical level. Here’s why:
*Gary has a serious goal to make enough money to buy the New York Jets. Fair enough, but his motivations and my motivations are way out of sync.
*In one of the keynotes in the link above, Gary admits that his business is the least scalable business in the world. Fair enough, but I’m not interested in that game.
*The assumption that hard work is a reliable path to success is false. The “Protestant work ethic” and related ideals are culturally reinforced myths. Hard work is often a side-effect of implementing an idea, but it is not a virtue. Hard work should have a negative growth curve.
*Hustle and hard work are not synonyms. I’m a fan of hustle, but they should not be confused.
*Taking over a multi-million dollar family business and growing it exponentially is not something that can be reliably duplicated.
*Engaging in conversations about your brand only works if you have a brand people are already talking about.
*All in all, the message seems like a roadmap to becoming a high-functioning workaholic. Workaholics like to surround themselves with people who tend to excuse their behavior relative to their level of success. The feel-good family and passion aspects may be included to excuse and/or rationalize the workaholism. I’m not saying he’s not passionate and doesn’t love his family, but loving one’s family is not a causative factor in business success… neither is passion really. Sure, they can be looked to for inspiration when you’re working 18 hour days. In this context though, their main purpose seems to be making the message more palatable. Not only that, but they are known psychological buttons that can be pushed to attract people to your message because they’re things people desperately want to be true.
Gary says a lot of good things, but I can’t swallow it hook, line, and sinker.
What about going the other way- smaller everything (home, car, expenses), no debt, less work impact & ego?
Living smaller does work for me at this point. I have had all that shiny stuff, and it never quite made me as happy as the advertisements told me it would. Gary is at the other end of the spectrum with wanting to buy the NY Jets. I just want to see places and people. Even if I have to walk.
(Will already knew that about me
I agree with ET. We are trained to want too many luxuries (turn off the TV for a week and see if you aren’t magically happier). Most people get stuck in a soul-sucking job to afford a lot of stuff they neither want nor need (or to impress a bunch of people who probably don’t care). When you factor in taxes, a penny saved is a lot more than a penny earned.