Just Work Harder / 04.10.08
Yesterday I read fascinating entry at Signal vs. Noise that explained exactly what makes Gary Vaynerchuk such a beast on the web today. If you haven’t heard of him by now I would be quite surprised because the guy has made a huge name for himself the past 2 years by simply being in your face.
His videos are about wine. I’m not a wine fan, but I have no problem watching him because he has a personality. You don’t watch for the wine (or maybe you do), you watch to watch him. There is nothing fancy about the videos. No crazy editing. No crazy effects. Just Gary in front of a camera being Gary. You would think that alone should make for a successful business, but it doesn’t. Gary goes beyond what people with his talents would do.
Gary is a hard worker. You can just see it.
This doesn’t mean that Gary works more hours than you. Hell, he probably works less. When he posts a video with him just talking you are lucky if it goes beyond five minutes and again it is just him talking. You know how long it takes to record a five minute video with no editing or extra takes? Five minutes. I call him a hard worker because when it is time to get the job done he seems to put all of his effort into getting that job done.
You go to work and work your eight hours, but how many of those eight are work? You hear of companies reducing work weeks for employees and you might think it is revolutionary, but it only makes sense. If you give someone a task and tell them they have eight hours to do it, most of us will extend that task to fill up the eight hours because we know we have to do eight hours. What if you got paid by the tasks completed and not the hours spent? I bet you would complete more tasks and that is how Gary works.
That is how my dad works. That is how Darren Rowse works. That is how Tyme White works. That is how Scoble works (I have my doubts now though). Jerry Rice was infamous for being a hard worker on the practice field and the offseason. Hell, even Mike Arrington is a hard worker (almost to a fault in his case).
I’m not at that level. If I go into a spurt where I am busting out entries or code then I burn out after a while. Maybe I’m not spacing it out properly or try to do too much at once. I don’t think the idea is to continuously do stuff just because you can think of more stuff to do. In the span that I have been up I have written Learning CSS for Beginners, submitted it to the proper social media sites, commented in a few places and wrote Gapingvoid: why I deleted my Twitter account. All of that took about 90 minutes and in doing so I think I did a good job of getting me out there and strengthening what I am involved in. But now I might feel like my day is accomplished and relax some. That is the problem.
If I was consistent with doing such tasks daily I would probably be in a better place than I am now (I am in a good place now, don’t get it twisted), but it’s those people that can work hard when the time is right that we look up to. It’s not the ones that work insane hours and live unhealthy lifestyles. Maybe we like to use the phrase “work smarter, not harder” when it comes to these individuals. If you wish to make a comparison in sports I guess you can say that while some people run 2 miles in 10 minutes most of us run the same 2 miles in 30 minutes.
If you can get the job done in a shorter amount of time in a way that is just as brilliant if not more brilliant than the person that gets it done in a longer amount of time you will find you have the upperhand. Do that consistently and you will find that nobody can touch you. When it comes to business sometimes we look for the magic formula and it can be as simple as this, especially if you consider blogging to be your business.
When it is time to get the job done then get it done. Get it done right. Get it done well. Get it done better than anyone else. Just don’t slack when it is time to get it done.
One Response
Tyme // April 10th, 2008
Thank you :)
What many people do not realize it that consistency over time matters. That is why I advise people to do what they love because it’s not “work”. With online access being “free” it is easy to start a business online. Maintaining it and sustaining are always the challenging areas.