It was while training for this race that Rich read Crush It!
I was already starting to see the results of what these social-media tools could do for me, and although I didn’t know how they would translate into some kind of tangible career, I believed in their power. And I had faith that by continuing to double down on my devotion to them, at some point it would somehow pay a dividend. [The book] validated everything that was percolating in my mind and gave me a very practical and ultimately very doable road map to move forward. Perhaps even more important, I really took to heart something that Gary made very clear in that book and continues to make clear to this day, which is that you have to have the long view.
I wasn’t trying to cash in on a Twitter following to do a brand deal or anything like that. I didn’t care about making money on social media. All I wanted to do was deliver valuable content—entertainment, information—that would be helpful to them, without ever looking for anything in return. Because I knew at some point—and that might be years down the line—I would be able to call upon them to come back around for me. In the meantime, all I cared about was trying to cultivate and tend to this flock.
[I wasn’t] trying to grow it as big as possible but to make sure that the people who were paying attention to me and had taken the time to follow what I was doing received something of value that would be beneficial in their lives. Approaching it from a professional point of view and shifting my mind-set to that of a practitioner was very powerful and empowering at the same time.
He became more purposeful.
Instead of just being lighthearted and fun about it, I really did think, “OK, what is the purpose of this tweet or this video or this Facebook post? What am I delivering that’s gonna be of value?—whether it’s a smoothie recipe, a certain sort of strategy about training, . . . [or advice on] how to be a parent and train for a crazy race like this and not get divorced.”
The following year, in 2010, Rich completed the EPIC5 Challenge, five Ironman-distance triathlons on five Hawaiian islands in seven days.
He doubled down on blogging and engaging with followers, earning plenty of rebukes from those close to him for being “distracted” and “not present.”
Rich’s first chance to monetize came about in a way that 100 percent supports my theory that the number of our social-media followers is secondary to the quality of those followers. Rich had been blogging for about four years when he got a call from Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent of CNN. Turns out Gupta had been reading the blog, and he wanted to come to the house for an interview. Rich suddenly realized that his days of anonymity might be over. “I thought, Oh my God! Millions of people are going see me on CNN. I should have something available on my website for people to buy if they’re interested in learning more about how I’ve done what I’ve done. So I literally pulled an all-nighter and created an online cookbook with my wife’s amazing vegan recipes.” In eighteen hours, he had used his rudimentary Photoshop skills to pull together some photographs and recipes and created an e-book, listing it on his website for nine dollars.
The interview went viral, and the blog post he wrote for CNN was number one on the network’s home page for three days straight. That little nine-dollar e-cookbook that Rich edited overnight paid the family mortgage for about two years.
Shortly afterward, Rich was offered a $150,000 contract for his first book, Finding Ultra.
I realized that that book was going to be the fulcrum that could leverage my new life completely. So not only did I work incredibly hard to make that the best book possible, but also I worked doubly hard on marketing it once it was done, because I realized, if I didn’t put everything that I had into getting that book out there, it would just come and go like so many books. And then I would have to go back to being a lawyer, which was the last thing I wanted to do.
Rich was relentless, writing blog posts for anyone who would let him contribute, appearing on any podcast that would give him a slot, accepting every single interview he could get, and speaking in front of any and every group, even if his audience was only four or five people. He also recruited his social-media community. “I did call upon my audience to say, ‘OK, here’s this book. Help me get this out. Be my foot soldiers. You guys know how much content I’ve delivered for you. If you’ve gotten anything out of anything that I’ve delivered to you, I’d really appreciate it if you could help me get the word out about this.’”
The day Finding Ultra hit the bookstores in 2012 was the day Rich decided he was done practicing law. Sure that he was now positioned to command sizable fees for his appearances, he let his bar membership lapse. Despite his popularity, however, the demand still wasn’t there. Without his earnings from the law practice or other consistent revenue streams, even with the money he earned from the book and his speaking engagements, the couple wasn’t bringing in enough to support the family long term. The following years were scary and lean.
Because I have a law degree from Cornell and a college degree from Stanford, it’d be very easy for me to backpedal into a cushy, well-paying job. So for me the most difficult part was to say no to that and to stay the course even when we were forty-eight hours away from our home being foreclosed on, even when I couldn’t put food on the table, even when my car got repossessed. I made a lot of mistakes, and it could be argued that I was imprudent in some of the decisions that I made; 2013 was a very hard year. There were some dark times when everybody I knew was telling me that I was crazy and that I was being irresponsible.
He managed to secure a short-term job helping a friend launch a media platform for a new eco-business venture in Hawaii and moved the family there. A big podcast fan, Rich launched his own, The Rich Roll Podcast, another platform where he shares his personal insights and gives his audience a chance to hear him discuss issues and ideas with interesting guests. It would become hugely popular and retain a consistent spot in the iTunes podcast Top 10, yet it would be more than two years before it would grow to the point where he could monetize it with ad revenue. All the while, he continued to put out content on his blog and YouTube channel. Rich admits that when he suffered self-doubt and started to question his judgment, it was his wife, Julie, who kept him going. “She kept telling me that I had to do this, urging me not to lose sight of the bigger picture. When I had my dark night of the soul and thought, This is insane. What am I doing? she was the one who said, ‘You gotta keep going.’ We were sleeping in a yurt in Hawaii, and still she’d say, ‘We’ll work it out.’”
The family moved back to Los Angeles, and things started to turn around. The bank allowed them to renegotiate their mortgage. Rich’s audience continued to grow, and he started getting invited to appear on more prominent podcasts. He booked more prestigious speaking engagements for companies like Goldman Sachs. He secured a second book deal, and The Plantpower Way was published in the spring of 2015. His reach and popularity has spread so wide, he’s now considered “an influencer’s influencer.”3
Rich’s story has a fairy-tale happy ending, but he’s quick to reiterate that the only reason he is where he is today is because he went all in and had a spouse who was willing to go all in with him. He is deeply aware of the sacrifices and hardship his family endured while they waited for him to find his way.
I had to work my butt off for many years to get to this point. I had to be willing to lose the house to pursue this dream, and reconfigure my relationship to material things. And I could not have done it without Julie; she always held the belief that it was going to work out. We risked everything to be here. Everything. And it was all worth it, but it wasn’t easy. To this day, my thirteen-year-old daughter doesn’t want to go back to Hawaii because she associates it with trauma. I have two boys, now twenty-one and twenty-two. It was rough, but they were also able to see their parents pursuing what they loved, navigating hardship together. I think something like this could break up marriages and families. In our case, it brought us closer together, and it actually taught the boys
an important lesson. Like, look, life is difficult. You just don’t get what you want when you want it. The fact that we were able to get through it, and get through it together, was an invaluable lesson to them. And I think that has allowed them to value what we have a little bit more in the longer view. They’ve said as much to us. I’m wracked with guilt that my daughter associates Hawaii with trauma, but I’m a better parent now than I would be if I had had to go back to being a lawyer just so that I could hold on to a house, so that my daughter won’t be upset. What kind of example is that?
I did this because I loved it. I was desperate to find a new way to live. I love doing the podcast. I love writing these books. And now every single day, I get e-mails saying, “You changed my life. You have no idea how much you’ve influenced me.” And I’m sure Gary gets e-mails like that up the wazoo, but to me, the idea that that’s where I am now from where I was not that long ago is absolutely shocking and stunning. And it’s really entirely attributable to really trying to understand how to become the best practitioner of these incredibly powerful social-media tools that have given me this life that I never thought that I could have.
My advocacy and my message are about the power of transformation. It’s about owning your story. It’s about the courage to be vulnerable. It’s about the innate capacity that we all have to not only change but to tap into reservoirs of potential that are lying dormant. And it’s about performance. The fact that I was able to do five Ironmans on five Hawaiian islands in under a week at age forty-four on a plant-based diet speaks to this sort of untapped reservoir of potential that I think we’re all sitting on top of, because I don’t consider myself to be anything special. And that feat is really just a metaphor for the sorts of things that we all overlook in our own lives that perhaps we should pay more attention to.
In September 2017, Rich completed the ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Championship, considered one of the most difficult endurance events in the world. During the ÖTILLÖ, which means “island to island” in Swedish, competitors swim and run forty-six miles across twenty-six islands in the Stockholm Archipelago. It took Rich and his teammate almost eleven hours to finish, three hours behind the winning team. In an interview with the New York Times, he confessed the race was the hardest thing he had ever done. But he also added that the experience validated one of the important messages he frequently shares with his followers: “The main thing is realizing that even if you feel terrible for a while, that’s not how you’re going to feel the whole time. . . . Things change if you just keep moving.” 4
4
What’s Stopping You?
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. Yet I know that even a so-called formula won’t be enough to get some of you into do mode. Every day I meet people who swear they are going to start their own “thing.” Most won’t. I asked my team to give me a list of the most common reasons they’ve heard, whether in the comments sections of our content or in their interactions with other aspiring entrepreneurs, for failing to crush it. Here’s what they came up with:
I have a full-time job.
I don’t have any money.
I have kids.
I don’t have time.
My industry has too many strict rules.
I have an idea for an app, but I don’t know how to code.
My parents don’t get it.
My family is holding me back.
I’m afraid my friends will get ahead of me.
I still haven’t finished the books assigned by my life coach.
No one was watching.
Only a few people were reading.
I don’t know which idea to pursue.
I don’t have the right equipment.
I don’t know where to start.
I’m too old.
I’m an artist, not a businessperson.
I’m not into anything monetizable.
I’m afraid I’ll get hate comments.
Every one of these is bullshit, and some belong in the category of “Are you fucking kidding me?” Of the hundred or so finalists we considered before winnowing the list of Crushing It! contributors down to the ones we included in this book, only a handful were bringing in more than a moderate income at the time they decided to go all in and crush it. Many were flat broke or barely making ends meet. Several had young children, and others were old enough to be grandparents. A number had already failed at previous attempts to build businesses. At least three had served jail time. You can write these examples off as anecdotal, but remember, we received so many responses that we couldn’t possibly include them all. If hundreds of thousands of people can figure out a way to crush it, isn’t it possible that you could, too? Isn’t it at least worth a try?
About the hate mail. Yes, there are hateful people out there who are pissed off because they’re not doing shit, and you will likely hear from them, especially, as photographer Jared Polin points out, if you succeed. Don’t let them keep you quiet, or as Polin also says, “Fuck the naysayers.” Sometimes it can be hard, and some people will get more hurtful or inappropriate feedback than others. Women will have a different experience on social media than most men will. Surely you already know that many, many dudes are scum buckets. Then there are the run-of-the-mill insults that can come from anyone: You’re ugly. You’re stupid. You’re not all that. Want to know how the best influencers handle that crap? They ignore it or they confront it. In fact, you probably haven’t made it big until you’ve read aloud your hate mail in a post. Hell, Taylor Swift wrote a number-one song about it. Misogyny, racism, and bigotry are very real problems, but they are not the reason why you’re not crushing it yet. You are the reason why you’re not crushing it yet. For real, when the haters come at you, just shake it the fuck off. You know they’re not crushing it because they’ve got time to waste spewing poison at you. You should pity them. If you really want to show what you’re made of, transform their ignorance into phenomenal content for your fans.
Social media and technology haven’t made the world any worse than it was before. They don’t change us; they expose us. And that’s not a bad thing. We’re always more effective against the demons we know and can identify than the ones hiding in the dark. All the reasons people throw out to justify why they’re not doing what they say they want to do boil down to one of three kinds of fear, each of which requires a different response.
Fear of Failure
Well, that’s what people say they’re afraid of, anyway. I think what they’re really afraid of is being judged by people whose opinions mean something to them.
I’m not going to minimize this. I know it well. I don’t give a crap what people think, and yet there are days when I will go to ridiculous lengths to turn around someone’s negative opinion of me because I care equally what everybody thinks about me. Believe me, I get it, especially if you’re worried about justifying yourself to your family. I have the most supportive family in the world, and even I occasionally get razzed when one of my investments fails or something doesn’t go the way I predict it will. So I can totally understand how devastating it would be to learn that you’ve disappointed your mom, earned the scorn of your siblings, or been dismissed by your closest friends. But you are just going to have to find a way to get over it. Get a shrink, start practicing yoga, find a hypnotist, do whatever it takes to settle your nerves, embrace the moment, and stop caring what other people think. Commit to ignoring every single voice that threatens to undermine you. If it’s your mom, find a respectful way to tell her you want her love but not her opinion. If it’s your friends, tell them you are grateful for their concern but they have to choose to support you or fuck off. The only person you can’t ignore is your spouse if you have one. The way around that is to work with your husband or wife to come up with a plan that you can both live with. There wil
l always be people around you to tell you not to do things. You have to let yourself be your sole judge and jury.
In my experience, good communication solves all things. I advise everyone in this predicament to confront the problem head-on. Sit down with the people you care most about and say, “I am going to do something I should have done ages ago. The only thing that stopped me was my fear of what you’d say, but you need to know that I’m over that now. I don’t need your blessing, but I do need to know that I will have your support when I fail. Because I will. Not spectacularly, I hope, but definitely in the short term. In the long term, though, I’m going to win, and it would mean the world to me to know you’ve got my back and are hoping for my success, not waiting for my failure.”
Then, no matter how they respond, start. Just like that. You’ll be amazed how quickly you can work when you’re no longer tethered by the tyranny of other people’s opinions. People who are afraid to fail will always set their goals far lower than they need to, much to the delight of their competitors.
No one who played it safe ever made it big. This is your life, and I promise you the chances of truly ruining it are slim. Short of self-destructive behavior or a complete lack of self-awareness, there is very, very little you can do that you cannot recover from. Be clear-eyed and strategic, be willing to work harder and longer than you ever have in your life, and you won’t disappoint anyone. In fact, I predict you’ll surprise everyone.
How I’m Crushing It
Rodrigo Tasca, Tasca Studios
IG: drigo_who
Rodrigo Tasca is not leading the glamorous life. The thirty-one-year-old moved back into his parents’ house in Florida to save on rent. He hired his sister to help with his videography business, and his studio was his bedroom. It’s a far cry from when he used to live in New York, where he was photographing models and shooting behind-the-scenes videos for magazines. Yet, he still thinks he’s got it better than some of his friends. In fact, he feels sorry for them.