Michael Schechter’s Posterous

These days, many of us consume more content than ever before.  Between Google Reader, Podcast Subscriptions, Books and Social Media sites, we are inundated with new and interesting articles, videos and audio on an insane amount of topics.  Once you get to the point that you are consuming this much content, thinking about creating it becomes inevitable.  It is a natural progression, as you can only be a spectator for so long.  When you finally start building up the desire to put yourself out there, you want to go big or go home... Finding personalities that connect with you goes a long way towards helping you figure out exactly what you want to say.  Lately two voices have been consistently rising above the rest and I wanted to make sure you were listening to what they both had to say.  Both are huge personalities, exceptionally sharp and quick, and both think outside the box.  They tend to say exactly what they are thinking and what they say is always intriguing. The first is the vision behind "The Thunder Show," Gary Vaynerchuk (aka, Gary Vee, aka Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk, aka the future owner of the New York Jets).  Gary is at the forefront of Social Media.  He utilized these tools to take his family business, Wine Library TV (WLT), from a four-million-dollar company to a company that earns over 55 million every year.  His daily WLT episodes are one of the best places to find candid reviews of wine on the net.  Over the past few years he has expanded into Social Media, consulting for some of the largest companies around.  Gary is a HUGE personality (he recently was picked up by the agency that represents Oprah!) and has been a major inspiration to many of us who live even a little bit of our lives online.  He not only talks about how the web is changing our lives and businesses, but he focuses on how we can and should profit based on those changes.  If you haven't heard of Gary yet, let me introduce you.  This video is a great look into what Gary Vee is all about.

(warning: strong language, but the content is solid gold)

On October 13th, Gary is putting "Crush It!: Why NOW Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion," the first in a series of three books.  Gary recently reached out to his entire network asking for people to help him spread the word.  He gives plenty of great content on his personal website to us, so as with Chris Brogan's recent request, I was more than happy to help spread the word.  Make sure you get your hands on this book.  In fact, order it here (not an affiliate link) and help Gary reach his goal of getting this book at the top of Amazon's Pre-Order list.  I am yet to read a word of it, but I am anxious for the package from Amazon to arrive on my desk.  As with everything Gary does, I expect this to be a series of game-changing books from a game-changing personality. Next up, we have Adam Carolla, one of the two men behind The Man Show.  If you aren't listening to Adam's podcast, start now-- right now. Seriously, go here and start listening.   You can come back and finish reading this later.  This is probably one of my biggest time sucks these days, but this hour-a-day show offers insightful, amusing and yes, occasionally offensive conversations with Adam and a guest.  This a must for anyone who enjoyed the longer format radio shows that no longer exist.  The Ace Man always has several opinions on almost any subject and will continually force you to think while you are laughing your ass off.  Be warned, some of Adam's opinions can be offensive to many, but name me anything that is really intriguing without being a little polarizing.  Love Carolla or hate him, this podcast is to the digital age what Howard Stern used to be to the radio generation. Originally this was going to be two separate posts.  Gary is a leader in the world of tech and Adam can barely seem to turn on a computer, but the more you look at the two of them the more the similarities stand out.  Both come from humble beginnings are are not afraid of hard work, both shoot straight and have clear opinions on their areas of expertise (or in Carolla's case, an opinion on everything) and most important, both have leveraged the power of the web 2.0 to create an exceptionally strong presence.  If you aren't looking at what these two are doing, start now and begin getting some solid ideas for when you finally start creating content of your own.