#AskGaryVee is a condensed version of Gary Vaynerchuk’s Youtube show #AskGaryVee. The book presents Gary’s philosophy and beliefs through a string of questions and answers.
Contents
Bullet Summary
- Be self-aware to understand your limits and what you should pursue
- Invest in your strengths and work hard
- Set big goals to keep you focused and motivated
Full Summary
Hustle
A major tenet of Gary, in all his communication, is the need to hustle (ie.: working hard). Gary proposes to remove some time from television and invest it in anything else that moves you closer to your goals.
Your question is:
Are you working as hard as you could?
Self Awareness
Self-awareness from an entrepreneurial perspective means knowing a few key things:
- What excites you (so you can set motivating goals)
- What you’re good at (to focus on)
- What you’re not good at (to outsource it)
- How you’re doing
Gary seems to be in the realistic camp. Like Ray Dalio he stresses the importance of staying grounded on reality. He says it’s important, especially for people in a position of power, to have people around telling you what you’re doing well or wrong. If you don’t, you’re likely to build your own reality, which might not work well.
Gary also recommends you ask the people around for feedback on what you’re good at.
And once you know the overlap between what excited you and what you’re good at, you can draft your goals:
Big Goals
Peter Diamandis in Bold calls your big goals “moonshots”.
However you call them, your goals are important for two things:
- Drive you
- Keep you focused on the long game
Also read:
Drive
Don’t worry if your goal doesn’t sound worthy, your goal is to motivate you, not to make you look good or cool. Gary for example wants to own the New York Jets, which to me sounds silly.
But it doesn’t have to sound good to me, that’s what motivates Gary to keep going. Indeed it’s not what a goal is, it’s what a goal does (to you).
Long Game
When you have a big north star lighting your path, you will worry less about the pebbles on the way. A big goal not only will keep you focused on what matters, but it will also increase your grit and resilience, which are key to success (also read Grit by Angela Duckworth).
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Love it All
Another great takeaway from #AskGaryVee for me was to learn to love everything you’re doing. Gary says he loves the calls with angry customers, the HR headaches, and the daily grind.
Tying it back to his big goal, he says that it’s easy to love it all when you know everything is inching you closer to your big goal.
Invest On Strengths
The next use of self-awareness is knowing your strengths.
Gary espouses an idea common today in self-development circles, which is to work on your strengths. Your weaknesses should receive your attention only as long as they are holding you back. Otherwise, focus on what you’re good at: that’s where the biggest bang for the buck comes from.
Clouds VS Dirt
Clouds are your overarching vision and values.
Dirt is the tactical, day-to-day grind to execute on that vision.
Real Life Applications
Love it All
I really liked the idea of loving it all, struggles included. When you can reach a place where you really love what you’re doing, including the difficulties, you’re golden.
Pursue What You’re Good and Passionate About
Analyze what you’re good at and what you’re passionate about. That’s probably what you should put your efforts into.
CONS
Longish
Could have been a bit shorter.
Black & White
I believe that to give good answers, one should also draw from the data. Gary’s answers are more based on his views and opinions, which tend to be rather black and white.
Review
As of 2018, #AskGaryVee is possibly my favorite Gary’s book (and it’s likely to stay that way because I think I got most of his great business philosophy and wisdom not planning to absorb more from Vaynerchuk’s personality).
Watching the show to get Gary’s philosophy can be long and time-consuming.
With #AskGaryVee you get all his wisdom in a condensed form (and you can skip the show if you don’t have time).
You will like it if you’re a fan of Gary.
Or if you’re a fan of “hustle culture”.
Otherwise, this website believes you can prioritize other folks to learn from.
