I Spent a Week Living Like Gary Vaynerchuk
Credit to Author: Ted Fraser| Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2018 19:08:58 +0000
Gary Vaynerchuk is Don Draper meets Tony Robbins meets Ritalin. The wily, hard-talking entrepreneur is the chairman of VaynerX, a “modern-day media and communications holding company,” and the acting CEO of VaynerMedia, a “full-service advertising agency servicing Fortune 100 clients.” Renowned for his rants, advice, and energy, Vaynerchuk’s also a motivational speaker, author, and influencer, with millions of disciples scattered across Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
The guy’s schedule is more of an algorithm. There are no warm ups or cool downs. Everything is preplanned and precise. He’s been known to schedule three-minute-long meetings, and doesn’t eat during the day to save time.
His chaotic schedule varies day-by-day, but the template stays the same. He launches out of bed at 5 AM, exercises, and then works from 7 AM to 11 PM. During the week, Gary Vee, as he’s known online, doesn’t touch fun with a 100-foot pole. He has no appetite for booze, chillin’ out, naps, TV, sports, procrastination, or aimless Facebook scrolling. Anyone or anything stopping him from becoming the Greatest, Most Admired Entrepreneur of All Time is put in the crosshairs of a rant, tweet, Snapchat story, or blog post. It’s this type of intensity that’s turned him into the king of hustle culture.
I admired Vaynerchuk’s message. His lifestyle was cool and exciting and edgy. He got whisked around in Ubers, wore tight shirts, starred in daily vlogs, and said stuff like “reverse-engineer,” and “predicated on.” As an experiment, I tried to keep pace with him. Every day for one week, I pledged to work 16-odd hours, sleep five, and exercise for one. (Vaynerchuk says 30% of his time is spent travelling, so I allotted an hour or so to commuting).
I don’t advise for huge companies or give speeches, so I superimposed The Gary Doctrine onto my own student schedule. I’d follow His Commandments as closely as possible: I vowed not to relax, drink, chill with friends, go on social media, procrastinate, nap, fire-up Netflix or watch hockey. In other words, a Complete and Total Embargo on Fun. Every second would be filled with writing, university work, meetings, or exercising.
To get into character, I got the same short, aerodynamic haircut as Vaynerchuk, copied his outfit, filmed a Daily Vee-inspired vlog, recorded a podcast Q&A, walked really fast, and swore a shit ton. I even started to learn Russian on Duolingo, Vaynerchuk’s mother tongue.
I attempted, as best I could, to get inside his head. Here’s what happened.
Monday
“I eat perfectly and workout everyday.”
Vaynerchuk claims he’s “not a morning person at all,” but he rolls out of bed at 5 AM. He skims through news, hits the gym, transitions into Work Mode, and then bulls on until 11 PM.
As I slipped into character, I felt the last scraps of my sanity melting away. I had gotten Vaynerchuk’s short prison haircut on the Friday prior, which, along with my tired, ocean eyes, made me look like the understudy to Justin Bieber’s 2014 mugshot.
After polishing off an article, I headed to the gym to confront Vaynerchuk’s morning workout: a super-quick, super-intense stir-fry of chin-ups, curls, and stretching. His Spotify playlist reminded me why, exactly, I was in an empty gym doing quadruped thoracic twists at 7:30 AM on a Monday morning.
In addition to “eating perfectly,” Vaynerchuk apparently fasts all day because he “doesn’t get hungry.” I tried a 20-hour fast but my willpower had been stretched to its limit by the pre-dawn workout, the elaborate staging of a Vaynerchuk-styled photo-op, and 17 hours of work.
- Naps: 2
- Final essays finished: 2.5
- Pages of university readings completed: 400
- Time spent in class: 12 hours
- Articles on Medium published: 12
- Workouts: 6
- Meetings: 11
- Three-minute meetings: 1
- Ubers/Lyfts taken: 10. $40.11
- Times I deeply regretted this assignment: 100+
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