Gary Vaynerchuk - Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion

H ow badly do you want to crush it? Is it an all-consuming feeling? Do you stay awake at night, your brain swimming with ideas and dreams? Are you willing to do whatever it takes for the chance to live entirely on your own terms? If so, youre lucky. Youre lucky because you live in an age of unmatched opportunity for anyone with enough hustle, patience, and big dreams. I should know, since thats all I had to work with.

Three years ago I was an anomaly, a guy with very limited technology skills who used social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr to build a highly fulfilling and profitable personal brand. Back then, a lot of people were unwilling to accept that the business worldthat societywas changing, and if I had tried to tell you that you could build a business that creates wealth and the most happiness youve ever known with nothing more than passion and a willingness to work your face off, you might not have believed me. Now, though, the opportunities are endlessI dont think enough people have yet grasped just how much society and business and even the Internet have changedand my story is about to become a lot less unusual. If you want it badly enough, it can become your story, in a lot less time and for a lot less money.

Heres how fast change has taken hold: I helped take my dads local liquor store, Shoppers Discount Liquors, and blew it up from four million dollars to fifty million dollars in eight years (19982005). Im proud of that. But aside from a ton of hard work, it took millions of dollars in advertising with the New York Times, Wine Spectator, and other publications as well as radio stations and local TV. Compare that with when I started building my personal brand in February 2006to this day it has cost me far less in money (less than $15,000) than in sweat, and Im having more fun than Ive ever had in my life. Youve got sweat, right? You may not have connections, or an education, or wealth, but with enough passion and sweat, you can make anything happen.

three rules

You may have picked up this book because you want to know the secret to my success. Well, my secret is that I live by three pretty simple rules:

Love your family.

Work superhard.

Live your passion.

Thats it. Notice that I dont mention the Internet, or social media tools, or even technology, even though they have been crucial to everything Ive accomplished in the last few years. Thats because I measure my success by how happy I am, not how big the business is or how much money Ive made. And thanks to following those three rules, Im 100 percent happy.

Dont believe me? Think its not possible? I promise you it is.

If you dont already live the first principle, get on it, because what Im going to tell you in this book is worthless if youre not taking care of your family. Your family always comes first. But if youve got that priority straight, and youre working hard, and youre still not 100 percent happy, its probably because youre not living your passion. And that, my friends, although it is only one-third of the secret to success, is the whole key to staking your claim in the new business world we live in today.

Live your passion. What does that mean, anyway? It means that when you get up for work every morning, every single morning, you are pumped because you get to talk about or work with or do the thing that interests you the most in the world. You dont live for vacations because you dont need a break from what youre doingworking, playing, and relaxing are one and the same. You dont even pay attention to how many hours youre working because to you, its not really work. Youre making money, but youd do whatever it is youre doing for free.

Does this sound like you? Are you living, or just earning a living? You spend so much time at work, why waste it doing anything other than what you love most? Life is too short for that. You owe it to yourself to make a massive change for the better, and all you have to do is go online and start using the tools waiting for you there.

what you need to know

In this book Ill explain step by step how to use all the social networking tools on the Internet to take whatever it is that rocks your worldthe activity that you would do every minute if you could, the topic that you just cant shut up about, the product that you would like to put in everyones handsand build it into not just a business but a powerful personal brand that makes you all the money and, more important, brings you all the happiness you could ever want. For those of you already living your passion but hungry to boost your business even further, youll find some fresh ideas on how to do that, as will anyone interested in developing a strong brand identity for an already existing product or service.