Crushing It!: How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence—and How You Can, Too

by Gary Vaynerchuk

If you’re earning what you need to live the life you want and loving every day of it, you’re crushing it.

If there’s anything this book should teach you, it’s that the only thing stopping you from achieving lasting career and life happiness is you.

It’s a matter of survival to think beyond your current successes and constantly look for ways to create new ones so that you’re never limited to any one platform or even one topic. How do you do that? By creating a personal brand so powerful that it transcends platforms, products, and even your passion.

A strong personal brand is your ticket to complete personal and professional freedom.

You just have to make the choice to actually do it. I am so tired of excuses. Why not try something new? Be optimistic, exhibit patience, shut your mouth, and execute.

And what really matters is a pretty short list: intent, authenticity, passion, patience, speed, work, and attention.

A commitment to service A desire to provide value A love of teaching

We’re on this earth for only a short time, and the bulk of our adult days are spent at work. It’s worth taking the steps necessary to make sure those hours are as rewarding, productive, and enjoyable as possible.

Passion is your backup generator when all your other energy sources start to sputter.

A thousand views and a hundred comments are much better than ten thousand views and one comment.”

Remember, you’re only crushing it if you’re living entirely on your own terms.

Being unafraid of making mistakes makes everything easy for me. Not worrying about what people think frees you to do things, and doing things allows you to win or learn from your loss—which means you win either way. Hear me now: you are better off being wrong ten times and being right three than you are if you try only three times and always get it right.

If enough of us start to document, we could completely destroy the myth of the overnight success.

Align all eight of the essentials—intent, authenticity, passion, patience, speed, work ethic, ability to track consumer attention and master social platforms, and content—and you have the closest thing to a formula for crushing it that I can offer.

You never know what is going to take off in life. Definitely nothing is going to take off if you are not consistently working hard and trying different things forever. I never thought that I’d be cutting things open, but if I didn’t try and fail at all these other things for all those years, this would never have come about.