Derek Sivers > Quotes

“Steve Jobs gave a small private presentation about the iTunes Music Store to some independent record label people. My favorite line of the day was when people kept raising their hand saying, "Does it do [x]?", "Do you plan to add [y]?". Finally Jobs said, "Wait wait — put your hands down. Listen: I know you have a thousand ideas for all the cool features iTunes could have. So do we. But we don't want a thousand features. That would be ugly. Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It's about saying NO to all but the most crucial features.”
― Derek Sivers

“Most people don't know why they're doing what they're doing. They imitate others, go with the flow, and follow paths without making their own.”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want

“Don't be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams.”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want

“If more information was the answer, then we'd all be billionaires with perfect abs.”
― Derek Sivers

“Never forget why you’re really doing what you’re doing. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur

“In the end, it's about what you want to be, not what you want to have.”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want

“Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it.”
― Derek Sivers

“The first follower is actually an underestimated form of leadership in itself. … The first follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader.”
― Derek Sivers

“People often ask me what they can do to be moresuccessful. I say disconnect. Even if just for a few hours. Unplug. Turn off your phone and Wi-Fi. Focus. Write. Practice. Create. That’s what’s rare and valuable these
days.

You get no competitive edge from consuming the same stuff everyone else is consuming.”
― Derek Sivers, Hell Yeah or No: What's Worth Doing

“If you think your life's purpose needs to hit you like a lightning bolt, you'll overlook the little day-to-day things that fascinate you.”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want

“Just pay close attention to what excites you and what drains you. Pay close attention to when you're being the real you and when you're trying to impress an invisible jury.”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want

“Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers. Make every decision—even decisions about whether to expand the business, raise money, or promote someone—according to what's best for your customers.”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want

“When you sign up to run a marathon, you don’t want a taxi to take you to the finish line.”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want

“Learning without doing is wasted. If I don’t use what I learn, then it was pointless! How horrible to waste those hundreds of hours I spent learning, and not turn it into action.”
― Derek Sivers, Hell Yeah or No: What's Worth Doing

“Trust, but verify. Remember it when delegating. You have to do both.”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want

“Every time you're making a choice, one choice is the safe/comfortable choice - and one choice is the risky/uncomfortable choice. the risky/uncomfortable choice is the one that will teach you the most and make you grow the most, so that's the one you should choose.”
― Derek Sivers

“To me, 'busy' implies that the person is out of control of their life.”
― Derek Sivers

“If you keep experiencing the same things, your mind keeps its same patterns. Same inputs, same responses. Your brain, which was once curious and growing, gets fixed into
deep habits. Your values and opinions harden and resist change.

You really learn only when you’re surprised. If you’re not surprised, then everything is fitting into your existing thought patterns. So to get smarter, you need to get surprised, think in new ways, and deeply understand different perspectives.

With effort, you could do this from the comfort of home. But the most effective way to shake things up is to move across the world. Pick a place that’s most unlike what you
know, and go. This keeps you in a learning mindset. Previously mindless
habits, like buying groceries, now keep your mind open, alert, and noticing new things. New arrivals in a culture often notice what the locals don’t. (Fish don’t know they’re in water.)”
― Derek Sivers, Hell Yeah or No: What's Worth Doing

“Make sure you know what makes you happy, and don’t forget it.”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want

“The standard pace is for chumps. The system is designed so anyone can keep up. If you’re more driven than ‘just anyone’ — you can do so much more than anyone expects. And this applies to ALL of life — not just school.”
― Derek Sivers

“No business plan survives first contact with customers.”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur

“A bad goal makes you say, “I want to do that some day.” A great goal makes you take action immediately.”
― Derek Sivers, Hell Yeah or No: What's Worth Doing

“It was the first follower that transformed the lone nut into a leader.”
― Derek Sivers

“Mastery is the best goal because the rich can't buy it, the impatient can't rush it, the privileged can't inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it through hard work.”
― Derek Sivers, How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion

“any business that’s in business to sell you a cure is motivated not to focus on prevention”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want

“You grow (and thrive!) by doing what excites
you and what scares you everyday, not by
trying to find your passion.”
― Derek Sivers

“Striving makes you happy.
Pursuit is the opposite of depression.
People at the end of their life, who said they were the happiest with their life, were the ones who had spent the most time in the flow of fascinating work.”
― Derek Sivers, How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion

“When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia.”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur

“Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working.”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur

“Most people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. They imitate others, go with the flow, and follow paths without making their own. They spend decades in pursuit of something that someone convinced them they should want, without realizing that it won’t make them happy. Don’t”
― Derek Sivers, Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur