- I can't even understand.
It's just crazy.
(ambient music)
What's up, socials, welcome back to Amy TV,
your space to discover the life that you want
the way that you make it.
Today is a very special day.
Today, January 31st.
Do you remember what video you watched last year
on this channel on January 31st?
That's right, you watched ridiculosity in action.
♪ I know you got the talent ♪
♪ I know you got the game ♪
♪ Post an upload to YouTube ♪
♪ And maybe you could be famous ♪
♪ Well, it's not that easy ♪
♪ Fears start to kick in ♪
♪ Think your content is cheesy ♪
♪ Well, hello, I'm Amy but I'm known as the Vlog Boss ♪
♪ I'm here to make it happen ♪
♪ Step your game up at all costs ♪
♪ At all costs ♪
♪ You can put your trust in me ♪
♪ I'm pretty good ♪
♪ You can ask Gary Vee ♪
It was for my book.
I did a music video for Vlog Like a Boss.
That day was the launch day for my first book,
and that makes today the one-year anniversary.
(applauding) You know.
It's fine. (cheering)
I'm just like an author or something.
(laughs) What?
If you're not aware, if you're brand new to this channel,
the book is called Vlog Like a Boss:
How to Kill It Online with Video Blogging.
And I am very proud of myself, very, very proud.
I'm probably confusing some people
who maybe are just meeting me for the first time
because I have so many last names.
I am Amy Schmittauer and I'm Amy Landino.
Multiple personalities, I hear it's really healthy.
Anyway, I thought it'd be appropriate today
instead of being like, wow, it's been a year.
Lot of things have happened with my book,
but I also think there have been a lot of books
that have changed my life,
and I wanted to kinda talk through what those books are.
There's also something else super bonkers cool
that happened this week that I wanna tell you about,
but it all-encompassing, it's all-encompassing.
I wanna tell you everything.
So we're gonna talk about the books that changed my life,
the ones that motivated me, that taught me a lot of things,
the ones that really at the basic level
allowed me to surround myself with people
who were not only like-minded,
but who were way smarter than me and great influences on me.
And in a world where we are so particular
about who we spend our time with
or at least wish we were particular
and maybe feel like we can't control it,
books are a great way to do that,
a really great way to do that.
If you wanna inject a certain type of expertise
or flair or personality or anything you can think of
from another human, if you want more of it in your life,
read their book.
They put a lot of effort into it and a lot of them into it.
If you're ever wondering what books I recommend
or what books I have read before or anything like that,
any books I talk about here on the show, I have read them.
I'm not gonna talk about something
that I have no experience with.
You can always find out what those books are
with the link in the description
that's gonna take you to The Bookshelf Shop page.
So it's on my website.
It's a full list of every book that I've read,
at least in my professional career.
You can go check that out
and pick up a copy of something that piques your interest.
These are the books that changed my life for the better.
This first one is going to kick off the feels,
all the feels that are gonna happen in this video,
and that is Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk.
If you're new to me, I'm a big fan of Gary Vaynerchuk.
If you're not new to me,
well, what were you expecting? (laughs)
This is the first book that I actually read by Gary,
but I wanna give you a little bit more backstory than that.
Back in 2009 and 2010, I was side hustling.
I was starting to figure out
what I wanted to do as my passion,
and I was picking up clients
on the side of my full-time job.
One of the first people that I actually met
that was in this industry, I guess you could say,
was Lewis Howes, who is extremely well-known
for his insanely popular podcast, School of Greatness.
He's been on this show.
You guys know Lewis probably very well.
If you don't, go check him out.
Lewis is also from Columbus.
At the time, he was building his business
just down the street in downtown Columbus, Ohio.
So we met up for burgers,
and basically I just wanted to pick his brain
about everything he had learned
about what he was doing with internet marketing
and all these kinds of things.
And he gave me two pieces of advice,
and one of them was to read Gary Vaynerchuk's Crush It!.
So that was how I found out about Gary
in the first place was through Lewis.
So because I didn't really wanna buy the book,
I went to the library and I borrowed it.
When I read Crush It!,
what changed for me was really that I found someone
that I felt I could connect with,
that I felt like we had a similar mindset,
but who had already had so much more experience
and was so risky in the way that he tried things
that he was actually able to say from experience,
"Amy, you're on the right track,"
without actually having to say to me directly,
"Amy, you're on the right track."
I was reading this book and I just felt so inspired
that I had figured a couple of things out,
but I should lean even further into them
because they truly were going to be the coming years
of success for business and marketing and my passion overall
and being able to go after the life that I want,
doing the thing that I loved.
Because at the time I'm thinking, is this a real thing?
Am I really gonna leave my job?
Am I really gonna change gears here?
And being able to read a book like that,
that was a very positive influence on me trying
to figure out who I truly was.
At the end of it all, truly at the end of the day,
what Crush It! was for me was finding out
that I could have a mentor
and have them affect me so much
but not actually have to go knocking on someone's door
and say, hey, hi, will you be my mentor?
(laughs) You don't actually have to do that.
Learn everything anyone's ever wanted to teach
by simply absorbing the things that they've created.
That's what's amazing by this world in 2018,
in 2009, in 2010, this book.
Being able to read people's books,
it's a great way to absorb what they would teach you
if you talked to them in person.
Everyone's problems, at the end of the day,
are all the same.
If we're not trying to figure out how to do something,
we're trying to figure out why
and if we actually have the drive to do it
and if we can put away all of our feelings and fears
in order to make it happen,
in order to be able to make a test
and see if we're gonna freak out when we fail.
So a lot of things happened to me
in the moment of reading Crush It!.
Most of all was the first moment I realized
I could give myself permission.
The next book I read that changed my life
was Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port.
One of the hardest things ever, ever, ever, ever, ever
when you finally decide to take the jump
to start your own business is to learn how to sell yourself.
And when you're in a services based business
and you really need clients,
I needed somebody to teach me how to do that.
So actually my very dear friend Matthew Kimberley told me
about Michael Port and the book Book Yourself Solid,
and I just loved that title.
I mean, listen to that title.
That is just music to my ears.
Book Yourself Solid.
I would like to be booked solid.
I mean, it sounds like a lot of work,
but work means I'm making money, ideally,
so I need to know that that's true,
and, also, I need to be booked solid.
Man, it was so practical.
I absolutely love Michael's take
on going out and finding business.
And going out and finding business is important,
even if we live in this world now where inbound is great,
but you can always have more.
You can always make sure that your funnel,
your leads are full,
and you always have someone you can work with
or always work toward more business so that you can grow.
Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki.
I was really surprised I wanted to read this book.
I actually look at that book and I'm like,
eh, what in the heck is that gonna be about?
It had been recommended by so many people that I know now
or had been following at the time.
When I started reading this book,
I was actually very grateful that I started,
because there were some things in there
that I should have known and should have thought about
and also opened my mind to the possibilities.
The biggest take away with this one is
just the mindset of abundance,
that we're not all scraping for the same small amounts
of money or opportunity that are out there.
If we really approach things in the right way,
there's enough to go around across the board.
But not just that; when you're very financially literate
and you start to understand how these things work,
you become even more aware
of how much opportunity there actually is.
The stories that were being told
and the way that it was taught here in this book,
I just love Rich Dad Poor Dad,
and I don't think I've ever looked at money the same.
Ooh, Gilbert, girl.
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.
If you are a lady who has not read this book,
come on.
This one was just so liberating.
I know it was kind of all the rage when I did read it.
Everyone was talking about Eat Pray Love
and being able to have an Eat Pray Love opportunity
in their life.
But I think what Elizabeth did for me here
was make me realize,
I had already been traveling from an early age in my 20s,
just on my own, but I think I started to understand,
I don't have to wait for others to want to do stuff.
I could go visit a country
and not necessarily see a friend or family member there
and just go and check it out
and feel good about that and be confident in that.
I think when you're brought up,
travel feels like a very family thing.
It's an event.
It's this big deal.
You don't do it very often.
It costs a lot of money,
and you really need other people's help in order to do it.
I didn't like the idea of that, and Eat Pray Love,
in addition to a lot of other feeling things,
showed me how amazing it would be
to just go and do it on my own
and believe that a female could travel internationally
and be just fine.
Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love
gave me a lot of confidence,
and that helped me a ton,
considering how much my business is dependent
on that confidence.
Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, I've told you guys,
is the networking bible.
I recommend this book to everyone.
I am an introvert.
I'm not great at networking.
I have learned how to be an extroverted introvert
and to turn it on when I need to.
But Never Eat Alone was a huge eye-opening experience
for me to be able to start thinking about
how I could get creative with talking to other people.
There's always been something in me
that has made me want to hack human communication,
because when you're introverted and you never felt
like you were good at it in the first place,
you really just start to question you wanna do it at all,
and also you're like, is there a secret to this?
Overall, the tactics, the tips
for growing and nurturing your network,
just absolutely priceless.
Let's go back to a familiar author,
and the next book that changed my life
was Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.
Probably not gonna sound like a book that changed my life,
but there's way more to this story.
I tell it in the book.
I'm gonna summarize it very quickly,
but you can actually go watch the video
that made this book change my life.
Actually, let's be fair, let's be fair.
I didn't just make that video for no reason.
I read Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, and I was blown away.
I was blown away.
I had already met Gary prior to this,
and you can read about that, like I said, in my book,
but when I read Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook,
I wasn't expecting it
to be the most amazing thing in the world.
I don't know why.
I just thought Crush It! was so good
that we can just stop there.
Crush It!'s amazing.
You're good.
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is probably gonna be fine.
It was so good.
I felt like every one of my clients should have that book
on their desk as the manual for social media marketing.
And I loved it.
I loved it so much I made a music video about it.
♪ I don't need to hang my stocking ♪
♪ There upon the fireplace ♪
♪ Because this book has all the answers ♪
♪ To do good biz in the social space ♪
Well, at the time people were not making
some crazy musical book reviews.
So, Gary loved it, and he shared it,
and that started to grow
sort of a fun digital mentor distant relationship
with me and Gary.
Everybody thinks that I'm like
Gary Vaynerchuk's best friend.
I have emails right now saying,
"Hey, Amy, can you get me the hookup with Gary?"
Let's be real here.
He appreciates the work that I have done,
and we'll talk more about that later,
and I appreciate him on an absolutely incredible level
because I take his advice
and I actually do something with it.
It was cool, because now I was on his radar.
And there are things you can do to get on people's radar
that are necessarily like I have to be able
to walk into his office
and have him make time for me every single time.
I don't expect that.
I don't expect that of anyone.
I don't even expect that of my mom.
Mom, you're in the middle of teaching class,
and I walk in and I'm like,
hey, I'm your daughter, your firstborn.
You better stop class for me.
That's not gonna happen.
No, you're totally disrespectful of time.
I hate when people just assume,
oh, well, you must be super in with them,
so they should be able to drop everything for you.
What, tell me all about this expectation island
that you live on,
because I don't even think I'd wanna move there.
But anyway, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook got me on his radar,
and he shared the video.
Lots of people discovered me.
I got clients from that video.
I got new subscribers for that video.
Lots of things happened.
It's not like it went viral.
It went Gary viral, (laughs) which is good, so good.
Targeted, targeted people.
Hi, Gary people.
The fact that you came here from that video
and you're still here, ugh.
Words.
Okay, so the second to last book that changed my life,
let's be honest, is my own.
I mean, when you write a book,
that changes your life in a lot of ways.
I put off writing this thing for so long.
I think it was just because I felt like
there were so many other things I could do.
But because of the world we live in,
because there's self-publishing options,
because I could do this on my terms,
because I could take whatever photo I wanted,
make whatever cover I wanted,
I didn't have to ask permission from anyone,
it was kinda cool to be able to do it.
But I had no idea what it would actually do
to change my life.
And I think it's a testament to
how much we have moved forward
in this world that we live in
and technology and things like that,
but how much traditional media
and finishing something you start
still plays such a significant role in credibility.
So, I didn't have to wait for a publisher to let me do this,
but I started it and I finished it and people like it.
They're reading it.
They're taking the advice.
They're saying,
"Amy, this actually feels like you took your brain
"and put it on my pages,"
and I tried to do that as succinctly as possible.
I mean, you really only get so many pages to do that.
The fact that people are actually reading it
and it's making a difference to them,
that's further finishing and verifying what you did.
And that is a huge credibility play
that in some ways a Twitter profile
that has a checkmark on it
or a viral video on YouTube doesn't do.
I'm just very pleased to see
how much this book has completely changed my business.
It's increasing business, both in clients and in products.
The second business that Vincenzo and I started, Aftermarq,
is growing significantly.
And the book, being able to guide people
on how they might work with us is helping with that so much.
This, I have to say thank you to you,
because you bought the book, you read the book.
If you're not much of a reader, you like to listen,
you listened to the audiobook,
even when the audiobook was late.
It was so late.
You bought it, and then you read it,
instead of just watching videos.
Watching videos is so much easier than reading,
but you read it.
You were focused.
You cared.
And you took the advice and you ran with it,
or you took it, you absorbed it,
and you're excited about it,
and you told me, and you left reviews.
Thank you, because that is life-changing for someone.
That's cool.
That's pretty darn cool.
The last book that has completely changed my life,
which I'm saying this pretty early on,
but I have a feeling. (laughs)
I mean, it already kind of has.
Just came out this week,
and it is the follow-up to Gary's Crush It!.
Gary wrote a book called Crushing It!.
(chuckles)
Damn it, I don't wanna get emotional.
I'm in the book, (laughs) so that's kinda cool.
(snickers) I didn't think I was gonna cry about it,
but, I mean, it's cool. (laughs)
So, what's really amazing is that there are so many people
that read Crush It! by Gary, including me, and Lewis.
Lewis recommended Crush It! to me, and he's in the book.
It's just like, what?
This world is small, but it is big.
It's so cool.
Anyway, I read Crush It!.
I told Gary, I was like, I read Crush It! and I crushed it,
I'm doing things,
things are happening, and I wanna share that story with you.
And a lot of people did that.
I think like 22, 25 people or something
told Gary how Crush It! shaped their business
or shaped their lives in some way.
Their stories are in this book.
And I'm in this book.
Actually, I'm the first freaking story in this book.
We're talking about 300 pages here.
I'm on page 22!
Even if you get bored after that,
which I don't think you will,
'cause Gary's not a boring guy, you'll see me.
That's pretty life-changing.
A bestselling author, a five-time.
I mean, actually, that's only
how many business books he has.
A five-time business author
put me in his book.
This book is gonna be a New York Times bestseller.
That's...
That's cray-cray.
That's a thing.
That's a real thing.
So, to that,
I have to thank you,
because you make everything happen for me.
You get me going every single day.
You keep me focused on what I'm doing.
You make me cry sometimes. (laughs)
But thanks, Gary, 'cause...
He didn't have to.
He didn't have to do that.
And he didn't have to do a lot of things
that he's done for me.
(claps)
We're gonna end it there.
Question of the day, leave a comment down below.
I'm always looking for a new good read
that might change my life,
so give me a book that has impacted your life on some level.
It doesn't have to be nonfiction.
I know a lot of mine were businessy nonfiction.
That just tends to be my preference.
I remember back in the day
when I was reading fiction books as a kiddo, as a child.
Leave one of your favorites in the comments below.
That's all for today, socials.
Thank you so much for tuning in, I appreciate it.
As always, make sure you subscribe for good vibes,
and continue to go after the life that you want, cheers.