A Conundrum: Shall We “Kill it” or “Crush it?”

At Cambrick Yard we have faced some serious dilemmas in trying to develop a new kind of media company, but this one really vexes us: Should we be trying to kill it or crush it?

We’ve always been in the market for a term to describe what we want CY team members to do. If you’re invested, excited, and feeling like you want to strut around triumphantly after you’re done doing some work, you’re probably “killing it” … or maybe “crushing it?” That’s the part we can’t figure out.

The Case For “Killing It”

We naturally gravitated towards this term. We’d be chatting and say "so-and-so is totally killing it out there today." Moreover while we would sometimes use “crush it,” we knew that we had appropriated this from Gary V, so we preferred the "killing it" version because it was more ours.

The Case for “Crushing It”

Unfortunately “killing it” has a bit of a violent tone to it. When you tell someone “we need you to crush it” if they don’t understand what you mean they will generally ask what you’re talking about. When you say “we need you to kill it” they often back away slowly and call their District Attorney to explain that they had nothing to do with whatever criminal activity we’re involved in and to express their willingness to turn state’s evidence.

So obviously we’re faced with a serious problem: Should we “kill it” and risk looking like psychopaths, or “crush it” and risk having to cut a huge royalty check to Gary V? Either way we’d just like everyone who works with us to know we’re speaking figuratively and just want you to be invested in what you’re doing. We need you to be doing awesome work, but don’t actually kill or crush anything.