At SXSW, I saw this cat running around slipping wristbands on people. He and his brother were high energy and attracted a crowd. I had no idea who this person was, until he and his brother, sat down next to me in the Blog Haus.

“Hi,” I said, “Im Micah.” Quick to respond, the dude said “Im Gary, and this is my brother AJ.”

And just like that, I was introducted into the world of GaryVee. Owner of the Wine Library, and apparent Social Media Prodigy, Gary Vaynerchuk has taken the marketing of his wine company, and himself, online is a big way. With thousands of Twitter followers, Faccebook friends, blog readers, video watchers and the like, Gary has found himself an audience, and rather than just use that audience to market his wine company, he has begun to talk about his Succeeding Through Failing. And lately, he has been on fire.

I put Gary’s recent videos in the same class as Chris Brogan’s Social Media 100 project. both have the same message in many ways, in this world of greater connection, those connections mean more than anything. The management and respect of those connections, in a truthful, real way, is the only path to success.

This morning, I got around to watching Gary’s latest video from him personal site, Legacy is Greater Than Currency:

Take a moment to watch it. The general jist of the video is that deferred gratification is preferable to immediate gratification. That what you build in the long term is more important than what you own in the short term.

And, for some reason, watching this video bummed me out.

I have had roaring successes and roaring failures, but never in my history did I experience a collision of both like I did while running Current Wisdom. Professionally, things were exploding. We were doing gangbusters, making money hand over fist, and the good times rolled.

Then, like the Modest Mouse song, The Good Times Are Killing Me, my personal life began to unravel. I made poor choices as to what do with my money; with how to properly manage my new found wealth.

When presented with two options, one that was right, and one that was fun, I chose fun.

Every single time.

After all, I had just turned on a firehose that had no apparent end.

So I had fun. Rock Star fun. Fun like you only see in the movies….boy, and was it fun.

But, it was painful too. My work slipped, which I could deal with (or at least justify away), but my relationships began to fall apart. My phone stopped ringing, my email stopped pinging, my IM went dead silent.

And in an attempt to prove to the world that I was RIGHT; I convinced myself that “Being Right,” was so much more important than “Doing Right.”

And then, one day, April 1, 2006 to be exact, I woke up and realized a few things:

1. The Good Times Were Killing Me;
2. That I was dead WRONG in my choices;
3. That I chose WRONG because I was afraid of RIGHT;
4. That the only way to change was to ALWAYS DO RIGHT, and most importantly…
5. That the only thing of value I had was my relationships; and
6. Relationships only exist in a space filled with Trust, Reliability and Consistency. Which lead to…
7. Learning “Doing Right” is different than “Being Right”;
8. Being Honest wasnt a 99% of the time thing;
9. Being Real wasnt inherent or a predefined set of actions; which meant…
10. I always know what the Right Thing is and its my choice to do or not do Right.

The sadness I felt in watching Gary’s video was that I wished that I had watched that video 5 years ago, and listened to it…really listened to it…because all the excitement and good times I had were really smoke and mirrors. It was my actions and my relationships during that time and afterwards that will be my mark.

Each person that touches my life, and each person’s life I touch will be my legacy. And, as much as I tried, that is not something one can buy.

Your Legacy is Greater Than Currency. Thanks for the reminder, Gary.

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Just to get the self-promotion out of the way. Follow me on Twitter.

Today, I experienced three different aspects of Twitter, each one that I absolutely enjoy. Lets call it Shout Outs, Props and the Dozens.

The Shout Outs:

Our community is highly intelligent and giving.

Darren Rowse, who I met at SXSW, and runs a pretty popular blog called ProBlogger, tweeted that he was under the weather, and asked for submissions. In about 20 minutes he had 73. They are all posted here:

@CleverUserName - A tale of resurrection
@jdevalk - PageRank sculpting - Siloing and more
@ajvchuk - Yep these are my Twitter friends….
@frankmartin - Focus Groups - Part 4
@mjkeliher - The Shankman FTW: Facebook failing as favorite Web hub
@ninjapoodles - Life In The Slow Lane–WITH CHICKENS
@travelrants - Tips for a healthy and Safe holiday
@johnhood - Cats, Jelly Babies, FeedBurner and an iPhone wallpaper!
@spyjournal - Windows Home Server and SBS2003
@eMom - Facing the Empty Nest of My Blog and My Brand
@jdrohn74 - Ways To Knock Your Competitors Cold
@joetech - How to Replace a Broken Screen on a Casio Exilim Z60 Camera
@ColinWalker - Social media - when real life gets in the way
@Vultoor - Gata, Blogovat s-a incheiat (Romanian)
@45n5 - Affiliate Rapping
@markcoruk - We are on Reuters
@myrnaweinreich - Breath With Eckhark & Oprah On ‘A New Earth’ Chapter 4
@cmiddlebrook - 6 Months in Business - How Am I Doing?
@theunguru - What Tool Do You Use For Reading Newsgroups?
@ianternet - I dont do any sort of video blogging
@MartyJ - Query Types - Figuring out Keyword Intent
@sduffyphotos - How To: Multi-Shot Panoramic HDR Photos
@Wingnut - SEO helps everyone
@splitbrain - My Photography Equipment
@mrscrumley - Highlight Number 2: Atlanta Children’s Museum
@radix33 - Being Reciprocal
@deege - 15 beer factoids that will make you look smart
@shaicoggins - Sigma EX 30mm f1.4 DC HSM
@cdhinton - Mac vs PC
@PSPrint_Trish - Let Sleeping Husbands and Cats Lie
@CaseStevens - How To Write Great Email Follow Up Series
@micah - #1 Rule of Running From Zombies…Dont Look Back
@moneycoach - Good Friday: economics and cruxifixions
@deborahcarraro - The Everything Outside Nature Challenge
@megfowler - nine things
@DebNg - 35 Accessories Made from Recycled Materials
@remarkablogger - What Twitter Does for Me
@chris24 - Why Turning Off Comments Would Suck
@TwisterMc - Ubuntu is one Geeky OS
@MWGblog - Podcasting - It’s a Community Not an Industry
@sorenj - Even at the risk of being heroes….
@ikaronet - How To Replace Cable Television With Internet TV For Free: A Real Evidence
@trib - Real commitment or lipstick on a pig?
@amypalko - 4×4 Sources of Writing Inspiration: Unpopulated Places
@TomRoyce - Why Banks Need To Work Hard Communicating With Potential Foreclosures to Avoid Serious Damage To Homes
@uberaffiliate - The Mindset Of A Millionaire
@theotherdrummer - How to manage less by reducing more
@blantonious - Successful Social Media Marketing Requires Personal Involvement
@jenniferchait - 60 Eco-Friendly Ways to Celebrate Spring
@EverywhereTrip - The Great Ocean Road
@digitalfilipino - Creating Valuable Free Prizes to Boost Success Chances
@andrea_r - 25 New and different ways to use WordPressMU
@idesignstudios - 6 Phases of the Web Design & Development Process
@GrantGriffiths - The Pros and Cons of Working from Home — Revisited
@soultravelers3 - Kid’s View of Florence!
@waltw - Pairing Coffee and Cigars: Science or Serendipity?
@cashflowco - Are You Ready, World Math Day is Coming?
@GorillaSushi - New Media Attention Whore
@queenofkaos - Are You a Perpetual Student? WHAM Podcast #6
@sijt - Be the Jerry Springer of Blogging!
@aroberts - Best broadband deals in the UK Market
@fsechzer - How To Buy A Home Without A Real Estate Agent
@AGoodHusband - When a Husband Gets Praise and Compliments
@MenwithPens - 13.2 Easy Ways to Build a Thriving Blog Community
@mrinal_desai - Who is Your Chauffeur?
@Rachelskirts - Best Egg Hunt Ever
@tomjohnson1492 - 10 Alternate Tests for Evaluating Technical Writing Job Candidates — A List for Hiring Managers
@daveatkins - Marketing and Politics
@rachelpulido01 - Talk about Tuesday - Goals
@ScrapNancy - Why did you loan me money if you think I’m that dumb?
@RoadHog - Earthlings — A Discourse on Compassion
@palinode - five years and two months
@carterfsmith - Dear John, Where’s the Beef?

If you dont follow Darren on Twitter, please do. If you dont read his blog, you are missing one of the great blogs out there.

The Props:

Our community is teaching, learning, sharing and respecting.

Two people that I respect greatly, Chris Brogan and Gary Vaynerchuk, both had inspiring posts today. Each blew me away in different ways. The coolest thing? At the end of the day, Chris gave Gary props on his blog, and Gary returned the favor via Twitter.

If you dont follow Chris or Gary, please do. If you dont read Chris’ blog, or watch Gary’s videos (here or here), you are missing out on two of the nicest, smartest people out there.

The Dozens:

Our community is funny, witty, biting and silly.

Growing up, we played the Dozens. Basically a put down game, the idea was to “one up” the put down you received, by dropping a smarter, funnier, wittier put down. Its been called many things: Capping, Snaps, Getting Clowned, etc. but its the Dozens, dammit.

After another tweet from Jason Calacanis about his attempt to have the most followers on twitter, I finally was annoyed enough to tweet that I would donate $1 for each follower Jason lost to his favorite charity. Man, did I hit a hot button! There was a flurry of tweets, and retweets flying around. Some were really funny. Some were kinda silly.

What was the end result? Jason added about 75 new followers. Makes it even more funny.

If you havent unfollowed Jason, please do. If you do read Jason’s blog or watch him on qik or ustream, you are a lucky, lucky person. And, finally, my dogs are soooo much cuter than his.

(I do have a lot of respect for Jason and what he has accomplished. I just wish he understood the importance of community a bit more. Of course, if you tell him that I said something nice, I promise to send you links to the Tummyblr over and over.)

Twitter is an amazing reflection on people and human nature. You get what you give, and the biggest lesson that I have learned is this:

“Give And You Will Get; Take and You will Get Blogged and Tweeted about.”

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For those that didnt know, I spent the weekend at Startup Weekend Boulder 2, and really enjoyed myself. Check out Ronald Lewis’ livestream of the event when he was there, and the many video interviews at Pulver.tv.

On to the posts:

Happy 70th Birthday Dad - There is probably nothing more important to me than family, and nothing more impressive than somoeone who is unfraid to be open and public about the importance of their family. Brad is no exception.

She Said YES! - Congratulations to my good friend Eric. ‘Nuff said.

nine things - The great thing about the social media is the ability to meet people you would never meet otherwise. After reading her blog for awhile, Meg and I have had several conversation around multiple topics, and in each case, she challenges my ability to express myself with the written word. Read this post, its just a good exampl of good, solid writing.

Help a Reporter Out - Ryan is another person I met through social media. Peter Shankman is someone I have become friends with, and who’s ability to generate buzz and personal interaction between many people has always inspired me. Both are really interested in the transition of Old Media to New Media. I introduced them on Twitter, and now Ryan’s project ReportingOn.com and Peter’s project HelpAReporter.com are now connected. How will be fun to watch.

The Power of Personal Leadership - So, this week seems to be the week of calling out people that inspire me. Metal Head Chris Brogan is no exception. What is personal leadership? Read this.

How United  Saved My Air - Ryan, its great that they saved your Air. They did the same with my iphone flip phone…

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