If you’ve never heard of Gary Vaynerchuk (Gary Vee), look him up now. He’s one of the leading entrepreneurs on social media, has a podcast that’s on the iTunes Global Top 100 chart, and is overall a badass person.
Now, Alec, why would you promote someone else’s social media when you’re trying to build your writing based on YOUR ideas?
Well, audience member, there’s a key point to be made that I heard from an episode of his podcast titled “Chasing Happiness vs. Chasing Money.”
He found the moments where he buys items at garage sales for $1 and flips them for $17 as more thrilling than closing on a $6 million account for his company.
“It’s unbelievable how much I don’t like money. I like the game. I like building shit. To me, the best part is the beginning; it’s the thrill of the chase.” — Gary Vee
His love for building from the ground up has given me a new vision, inspiration and pride in what I’m currently doing. Writing was just one of the ways I was able to go from a shy kid in middle school to an award-winning broadcaster within a few years. Building great things from small twigs has been my method of operation, and starting from scratch should not be an excuse or obstacle from someone creating what they want to.
Rather, making something great from practically scratch is the most rewarding part of the process. How have I done that?
Before I get to that, let me (re)-introduce myself.
I’m Alec Rome, content creator, broadcaster, game show fanatic and much more. A student of life, “the game,” and a sports media and broadcasting production major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Omaha has always been and will forever be home to me, even if I’m away from it. I grew up in the Dundee area and went to Omaha Central High School.
From my perspective, I was a unique kid through elementary and middle school that had lots of ideas and things to say but not a ton of confidence to speak them. An abundance of factors led to that: fear of failure, fear of judgment, perfectionism, expectation and more.
Luckily, I’m blessed to have had family, friends and mentors along the way to help me. Despite that, it was a class in my sophomore year of high school that changed everything. With the broad interest of sports in my heart, I asked my digital video production teacher if I could get involved with the sports broadcasting stuff the OPS Career Center did.
To spare a longer backstory, I went from a mere interest and love for sports and turned it, through on-camera work, writing practice, some editing and a pinch of luck into my entire future.
The opportunities I built gave me new friendships, great memories, scholarships and my current girlfriend. Podcasting is a real chick magnet.
Nothing that we’ve done in college has been in a fancy studio. In fact, our sports/culture podcast The 502 is recorded and edited in my dorm room. We streamed live on the internet… from our dorm room. Look at how excited I got when we got the stream to work for the first time.
Not many people can stream and make it look clean from a dorm room. We built it from the ground up, using equipment that I was able to get because of scholarships. Started from the bottom, now we’re here, in a dorm room!
If you thought that was it, we also did a photo shoot with two LED lights. I’ve been practicing my photography skills, and for around $200 and with a decent pro-sumer DSLR, you can get this:
ALEC, we get it. You play with electronics and cameras and lights in your room. What’s your point?
Okay, imaginary third-person skeptic, here it is.
If you set no expectations and do not succumb to the pressure of outside forces, any of the cool things you do and accomplish is on the house’s money.
Build something from scratch, something that people will have doubts about, something that seems impossible, then take that doubt and use it to create something great. Big fires have to start with some small tinder and a little kindling.
That’s precisely what we are going to do with Medium and this wonderful platform, along with our other content. At least once a week, I’ll hope to create a meaningful discussion on relevant topics, interesting finds, philosophical ideas or just plain random thoughts.
I PROMISE that I’ll try to make you laugh while gaining a bit of knowledge, wisdom or insight in the same read.
In the meantime, feel free to follow me on Medium, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube. I hope you enjoyed this read and I’ll see you very soon as we begin this new branch of the journey together!
BTW: Go out and vote on Election Day! Make change in the world!
