I’m the type who must read a book in detail, word for word. I’m not a skimmer nor a chapter skipper. When I read a book, I want to take it all in and see what it’s about to understand the message the author is sending out plus the sub-messages and the sub-sub messages.
A Glimpse Behind the Curtain
There have been books that I start reading and can’t wait to pick back up. There are others that I am counting the pages to the end of the chapter so I can put it down for a while.
There are even still other books that I begin reading and do the very uncharacteristic chapter skip. When this starts happening, you know the book is about to be closed.
Lately, the books I’ve come across have been problematic in terms of holding my attention. From the start, I can tell the tone of the author just doesn’t jive with my mindset. You may think, that could be a good thing to present an opposite point of view. However that’s not what I particularly mean. It often seems to hurt my mindset which up until that point, was feeling positive.
Do I Follow Gary Vaynerchuk?
Fast forward to today, I’m an avid consumer of the GaryVee experience. I follow him on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook etc. I’ve watched the Daily Vee, not religiously but I do catch episodes that resonate with current situations as they become available.
I heard about his newest book which would be dropping in January 2018. Crushing It! You must understand, Gary started this set off with Crush It! a book written 9 years ago speaking about the power of a number of social media platforms.
This book, Crushing It! is apropros as it now documents the 9 years which have gone by, the good and the bad and the impact Crush It’s message had on many different individuals. The title is actually a description of the stories of these individual success stories inside.
Are all the success stories about people making millions on social media? No.
Are all the success stories about people who struggled, found Crush It and suddenly saw the proverbial lightbulb? Maybe.
How Long is Crushing It! ?
This book is a relatively longer book by the standards of the “self-help/business” industry at over 250 pages. Aside from the speed readers (how do they do that??) most would probably agree this book would be read over a couple days as time permits or broken up into segments.
As mentioned earlier I haven’t found a book in quite a while, probably not since Rich Dad Poor Dad that kept my attention where I couldn’t put it down. I like to read but sometimes these much longer books can appear to be a daunting task to complete. I opened up the book and began to take it in. I read and read until I actually fell asleep. It was 3 am after all. I picked it back up early the next morning and continued my reading binge to completion. Yes, it was one of those books I couldn’t put down.
The stories moved along at a quick pace and the book is filled with a ton of information, knowledge, anecdotal and substantial concrete advice.
Check Out My Reaction to Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crushing It Video
Gary’s Formula
Gary outlines his 8 essentials for being an entrepreneur in this age of social media power. He talks about the fact that more hours of YouTube videos are consumed per day than hours of actual television.
He brings up the fact that personal branding is the key to entrepreneurial success.
That many are following the wrong rabbit down the proverbial rabbit hole looking for the overnight success and get rich quick methods. He goes so far as to tell people to actually close the book if they are looking for that get rich quick method.
To close the book. Gary is serious and as an entrepreneur who has studied many wealthy and successful businesspeople, I wholeheartedly agree.
Gary subscribes to the ideology of finding your passion. However, unlike most people who decide to leave it at that “pie in the sky” thought of being passionate about your work, Gary goes into detail instead. He works tirelessly as always, to get his point across of the way to utilize your passion with the winning combination of social media to make business work for you.
You need to be in it for more than the money, you need to do it because you want to help people, teach people, reach out to people. You are actually excited about the topic, you know a lot about it without even needing much motivation to research more about it all on your own.
That, my friends, is the passion you carry. It may be hidden under years of being told no, or being stuck in a situation you are unhappy with. Some have to dig deep to find it, while others are lucky enough to recognize it quickly.
Age doesn’t matter, what your passion is doesn’t matter, what does matter is consistency, what does matter is going at it day in and day out, sharing, documenting, and utilizing the power of a very special tool at our disposal, social media.
The Stories
The stories shared in Crushing It! come from many people, there’s the story of a dentist who jumped on Snapchat and actually had children requesting to go to the dentist!
There’s the story of the father who was trying many different YouTube video ideas that didn’t result in anything. He didn’t see success until his son was involved in a science experiment.
Another story involved a guy who I actually discovered in his early stages of starting the famed smartpassiveincome.com. His story of losing his job and how this website was discovered lead Pat Flynn to six figure months, yes months.
The common denominator of all these stories? All the people involved read “Crush It!” at one point or another in their journey which helped turn their plans around or give them a better direction towards success.
The Problems with Crushing It!
Up until now I’ve presented the positive aspects of Crushing It! I do believe this book is filled with incredible information which can be both motivating, uplifting, and make you ready to start tomorrow, or today.
There are some issues. The subtitle of the book calls out to entrepreneurs/business owners and just about everyone. Gary talks about the teens with their love of apps like Musical.ly and Snapchat, the millennials and Gen Z’s takeover of the social space plus the Gen X/ Baby boomers move into places like Facebook.
A lot of people who eat, sleep, and breathe social media will take this information as though it is second nature. It will resonate with them.
Then there are the people who maybe use social media only on a personal/light level and there are others who don’t use it much at all. (These people exist, we have talked to them.)
If we even tried to tell them about these stories from Crushing It!, they would be overwhelmed and most likely want to walk away from the idea.
There are people in the state of New York who have a tough time understanding the need to update an old website or why they even need a website. There are business owners who say they don’t want to waste time on social media because they’re not interested in sharing what they had for lunch.
In my opinion, there is a strong learning curve needed here. It would be highly necessary to start on a much more elementary level to a lower grade of difficulty than presented in Crushing It! This group of people which could possibly be those in the Generation X / Baby Boomers (always exceptions though!) need a pre-book to Crushing It!, maybe it’s not even a book but actually just experiencing social platforms on their own.
The Huge Golden Gem
In one of the stories on John Lee Dumas, he mentions how people told him he was lucky to find the “landgrab” at the right time
by jumping on the podcast bandwagon before it was “too big” and that now others would be too late and “missed the boat” so to speak.
The answer to this complaint? There is a new land grab, a new opportunity, one that will also be the “podcast of 2018” in about 5 or so years time. It is “voice-activation.”
Gary talks about voice-activation in terms of Flash Briefings and Alexa skills. As you might have guessed this has to do with Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google Home and a few more that are probably on the way. He talks about some very exciting opportunities, real opportunities you can jump on when it comes to Voice Activations.
You want to find out about this new land grab, to do so, you will need to read Crushing It!
Do we recommend Crushing It! or not?
Hands down, this reading experience, one I couldn’t put down, one I went on a complete reading binge for, is a definite recommendation from us.
