If you’ve managed to escape Gary Vaynerchuks existence you really should check him out. He is one of the most charismatic and energetic speakers out there. He is best known for his colourful and passionate wine reviews over at Wine Library TV and has been featured on a number of television shows and magazines.

My first impression of his new book “Crush it!” was not very imposing. It was thin, the pages where ruff and the cover was kinda shrill, felt like the kind of book you buy from “life coach”-ranters.

The opening sounds like sales talk from TV-shop and got me really put off. At that point I was really disappointed and sceptic about the whole thing. I saw a comment somewhere saying that “the book was dictated and that shows” while the first part is very true the latter I do not agree with at all. As you continue reading the salesy tonality dims down and you can almost hear his creaky voice through the pages.

For a 15 year old the obvious way to make you’re self heard is through what “old people” call social media. They don’t care what banners say, they care what their peers say. Media agencies seem to ignore that fact and continue to pump out flash banners untargeted and in every direction they can. What they need to realize is that that market is dying as the “young generation” turn in to a more mature one. Even if this book is not intended to be a “social marketing guide” this is exactly what it is and a lot more. Gary is not one of those self proclaimed Social Media gurus. Ok, maybe he is, but he knows what he is talking about and makes some very good points even though his honesty and straightforwardness can come across a little harsh and salesy. This takes a little while to get used to.

The book is stuffed with exemples on how to turn your interest and passion into your living. Many of them real life exemples and some very fictional but the bottom line is that, as Gary would’ve put it:
“There is no reason in this day and age to do shit you hate. You can lose as much money being happy as hell.”

He talks a lot about honesty and transparency on which I agree very much but there are also parts I don’t agree on. For example, he says “do what you’re DNA say you’re good at”, in my opinion you need to do stuff you’re not good at in order to figure out what you are good at.

All in all I think this was a very good book with a little bit of a wake up punch in it. Read it with a bit of scepticism (as you should with everything!) and take only what you felt was good from it.

Gary really understands that dialogue is > than monologue even though he is a master of both. When I tweeted out I was reading the book I got an enthusiastic “yes!!!!” back from him.

// Johan