“Doesn’t he see the value while “he writes books himself?” – Niels, I don’t read books,
because of a couple things. One, I’m very inefficient at reading so it takes me a long, long time, and the truth is I don’t
think I actually grasp what I read. As a matter of fact,
something very interesting has happened over the
last six to eight months here at VaynerMedia. When I see that something
comes in my inbox that’s a very important piece of business, and it’s a very long email,
AKA more than 18 words, I call a five minute meeting,
because in five minutes, and my staff will tell you. You won’t see the body language here, but I’m saying it for them it’s insane. In a meeting, I basically don’t even let people finish saying what they’re saying, because I’ve grasped it,
but if they sent me that same comment in four sentences I literally wouldn’t even
know what was going on. I don’t read, because I
don’t think it’s an efficient transaction of transforming information into my brain, I really don’t. Audio books is something I need to take very seriously, but the truth is I don’t read because the way I like to consume
information is living it. I know that sounds weird, but it’s just the truth. I really do think the reason that I’ve been able to be an anomaly is I know that that’s
probably not the norm. Most people do read books, like as a matter of fact, it’s crazy that the internet came along, because if the internet hadn’t come along, I wouldn’t have written
or read in my life. I was well on my way, if I was I’m sure there’s some 50 to 80 year olds who are watching the show right now, or listening to the show who are like me who realize, holy crap. They really didn’t write or read from 24 to 45, pre-internet stuff. I write books, because I know so many people do read. I know so many people do learn from highlighting the shit out of the books. I don’t, and so you can’t be religious or romantic about these things. Just cause I write them doesn’t mean I need to read them, and vice versa. The reason I don’t do it is ’cause I don’t find value in it for me, and I
highly recommend a lot of you start really auditing yourself
and understanding, are you doing stuff that actually
doesn’t bring any value to you just because that’s what society and the world and you have always done because the answer is yes.