Why I stopped reading books in 2015.

In 2015, I met a guy called Gary Vaynerchuk in Las Vegas.

I was there for a business conference with my mastermind group, and he was our keynote.

The meeting changed my life, here’s why … 

To date, I was at a point in my gym business where we were almost ready to throw in the towel. Debts had piled up, and we received a $300K bill for unpaid taxes.

I joined the business mastermind group in a desperate attempt to figure out how to stay afloat. It wasn’t the first either!

One of the historic breakthroughs I had from a previous mentor was that he (finally) convinced me that what I didn’t know about business, I didn’t know. Which was a lot. And the only way I’d get through the tough times ahead was to get educated. Fast!

There was no time for a BA of business studies at University or college.

I needed to hit the books. 

And I did, reading one business book after another, then finance, then economics, then leadership and personal development, and finally a thorough analysis into human psychology.

By the end of my first year, I had read two dozen best-selling books. By the end of my second year, I was over 50! Until I had a library of hundreds of the best personal development books available.

I became a proponent of the notion that your ability to generate wealth and freedom will seldom surpass your level of education.

Which is only half true!

There was a lot of excitement among my mastermind group traveling to Vegas. Not for the reasons you’d think; they were all pumped to meet Gary Vee!

Initially, I had to research who he was.

We knew Gary as the $400,000,000 man. An early investor in multiple unicorn social media companies, who’d taken his dad's small liquor business to $60,000,000 annually through a YouTube channel called Wine Library TV (initially knowing nothing about wine!)

He was THE social media guy. 

And he’d since launched VaynerMedia, a digital ad agency among other companies.

A proud bookworm, when I had time to ask Gery a question, guess what it was?

“How many books have you read?”

Surely anyone with a net-worth over $400M USD would have the Stanton library in his house!

His answer (can you believe it) … None!

In fact, he joked ‌he hadn’t even read one of his own best-selling books. He had three!

He wasn’t rich because of his education. Gary was successful because he understood people. He was a natural born leader who could motivate and get the best out of his team.

But most importantly, Gary was a master implementer. He could execute an idea in record time. 

That’s when the penny dropped for me.

I had read enough books. Enough research had been done. I’d had enough mentors, done enough seminars and seen enough content on YouTube to run 10 successful businesses.

My problem was that I lacked the skill of implementation.

I didn’t read another book for five years. 

And our business took off!

I had learned the most important lesson of all that day. There’s not a book, course, mentor or Youtube video on the planet that will do the work for you.

Only YOU have the power to execute!