In “Crush It! Why now is the time to cash in on your passion”, Gary Vaynerchuk sets up an ambitious 12-item to-do list to accomplish within less than 200 pages. Last week, we talked about “What real hustle looks like”, but this week I want to talk about a different theme: Personal Branding.

Branding

Personal branding is a topic of interest to New Pros especially as we try to gather the quality and quantity of experience that will help us achieve our career goals. But, as Vaynerchuk indicates, personal branding is not just appearances and image.

Vaynerchuk argues “personal branding”=”content generation”, and he recommends blogging as the means towards personal branding. In our brave new world of microblogging and mini-messaging, the idea that long-form blogs hold the key toward establishing you and your personal brand seems nearly old school. After all, weren’t blogs so 2003?

Now let’s tie this back to last week’s post on Time. Vaynerchuk says to expect working your butt off both at work and at home for years before you start to see the payoff. At this point, you could reasonably assume that you’ll blog strong for about a year, but that the technology will change and you’ll need to pioneer a new medium.

What do you think?

How would you define personal branding?

Do you agree that Vaynerchuk’s arguing that content generation is the means toward achieving a personal brand?

Do you attribute your personal branding progress to blogging?

You voted, and we responded! For the last selection of our summer book club, we’re talking about “Crush It! Why now is the time to cash in on your passion” by Gary Vaynerchuk.

Vaynerchuk’s claim to fame lies in the fact that he used social media and the internet to turn his family’s <$10 million liquor store into a $50 million business in 8 years, and  he did it all during those years immediately after college.

If you’ve ever seen Vaynerchuk speak (he’s been speaking at countless events as well as TED), you know the guy has a deep, well-expressed passion. That passion explodes through “Crush It!”, making the book an entertaining, motivating, and quick read.

In the book, Vaynerchuk sets us up with a game plan toward embracing our passion and developing a business through the use of social media and the Internet. There’s a lot to like about this book, but in our two blog posts, I’m going to talk about the two themes that really struck me. This post, we’ll talk about Time, and next week, we’ll talk about Branding.

Time

How much time do you think you need to spend on building your business before you can monetize?

Vaynerchuk makes no attempt to hide his opinion: You need 40 hours each week and several years.

If you have a full-time job already, get ready for long nights in front of the computer. Because Vaynerchuk lives by three rules (1) love your family, (2) work superhard, (3) live your passion, he factors in family time into your after work schedule and suggests crushing it from 7pm to 2am every evening, with slightly altered hours if you have kids. “…assuming you’re doing this right, you’re going to be bleeding out of your eyeballs,” he writes, or rather dictates as he confides later in the book.

I like to sleep, and hearing this time commitment had me more than a bit apprehensive, but Vaynerchuk assures me:

“You’re not going to be stressed or tired. You’re going to be relaxed and invigorated… The passion and love for what you do will enable you to work the hours necessary to succeed.”

Well, Vaynerchuk’s enthusiasm had me all amped up at near-midnight on a Tuesday, and I thought, “What the heck! I’ll try it out tonight.” The next day, after 4 hours of sleep, relaxed and invigorated I was not. Although I am still laying the groundwork to crush it, I’m skeptical of how well I can meet this, or even a slightly abbreviated, time commitment.

What do you think?

If you’ve read the book, are you inspired to take on this time challenge? What are your apprehensions?

Are you crushing it now? Tell us what you’re crushing and drop any pointers you may have!