Derek Sivers Quotes

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.

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.

If more information was the answer, then we'd all be billionaires with perfect abs.

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.

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?

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

In the end, it's about what you want to be, not what you want to have.

Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it.

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.

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.

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.

When you sign up to run a marathon, you don’t want a taxi to take you to the finish line.

Trust, but verify. Remember it when delegating. You have to do both.

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.

To me, 'busy' implies that the person is out of control of their life.

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.

Make sure you know what makes you happy, and don’t forget it.

The first follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader." - Quoting Derek Sivers

In a piece called “No More Yes. It’s Either HELL YEAH! Or No,” the popular TED speaker Derek Sivers describes a simple technique for becoming more selective in the choices we make. The key is to put the decision to an extreme test: if we feel total and utter conviction to do something, then we say yes, Derek-style. Anything less gets a thumbs down.

No business plan survives first contact with customers.

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.

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.

It was the first follower that transformed the lone nut into a leader.

A bad goal makes you say, “I want to do that some day.” A great goal makes you take action immediately.

Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it.” —Derek Sivers There’s

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

When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia.

Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working.

Derek Sivers, one of my favorite thinkers, says he’s a slow thinker: “It’s a common belief that your first reaction is the most honest, but I disagree. Your first reaction is usually outdated. Either it’s an answer you came up with long ago and now use instead of thinking, or it’s triggering a knee-jerk emotional response to something that happened long ago.

any business that’s in business to sell you a cure is motivated not to focus on prevention

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.

In the end, it’s about what you want to be, not what you want to have.

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, in his TED talk, says that psychology tests have proved that the good feeling spreading in you when you tell your plans to someone will make you less likely to complete them.

We shouldn’t preserve our first opinions as if they reflect our pure, untarnished, true nature. They’re often just the result of inexperience or a temporary phase. Old opinions shouldn’t define who we are in the future.

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

Success in business comes from helping people — bringing the most happiness to the most people.

Information doesn’t stick without emotion. You learn better when you’re having fun.

Busy is what happens when you’re at the mercy of someone else’s schedule.

It’s so important to separate the real goal from the old mental associations. We have old dreams. We have images we want to re-create. They’re hard to untangle from the result we really want. They become excuses, and reasons to procrastinate.

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.

Delegate but don't abdicate

Life is determined not by causes, but by randomness and odds.

Since you can’t avoid problems, just find good problems. Happiness isn’t everlasting tranquility. Happiness is solving good problems.

The biggest obstacle to learning is assuming you already know. Confidence is usually ignorance.

We’re clearly bad judges of our own creations. We should just put them out there and let the world decide.

no matter what you tell the world or yourself your actions reveal your real values. your actions show you what you really want

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

As entrepreneur Derek Sivers put it, “The first follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader.” If

Things are going to get harder. The future will test your strength. So far, you’ve lived in a time of prosperity. You haven’t experienced massive devastation, but you probably will.

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.)

We want to see the world clearly and know what’s what. But once we’re past the first stage of wisdom, the next stage involves adapting to new changes. We don’t get wise just by adding and adding. We also need to subtract.

Go make memories. Do memorable things. Experience the unusual. Pursue novelty. Replace your routines. Live in different places. Change your career every few years. These unique events will become anchors for your memories.

a big difference between being self-employed and being a business owner. Being self-employed feels like freedom until you realize that if you take time off, your business crumbles. To be a true business owner, make it so that you could leave for a year, and when you came back, your business would be doing better than when you left.

If you find even the smallest way to make people smile, they’ll remember you more for that smile than for all your other fancy business-model stuff

I had to make myself unnecessary to the running of my company.

I spent only $500 to start CD Baby. The first month, I earned back $300. But the second month I made $700, and it’s been profitable every month since.

When you make a company, you make a utopia. It’s where you design your perfect world. Never

Starting small puts 100 percent of your energy into actually solving real problems for real people.

do what you’d do if you were the only person on Earth.

any business that’s in business to sell you a cure is motivated not to focus on prevention.)

Your whole experience of life is in your mind. Focus on your internal world, not external world.

Most of eating healthy is just avoiding bad food. Most of being right is just not being wrong. To have good people in your life, just cut out the bad ones.

Ask open-ended questions, asking people’s thoughts. Ask them to elaborate on whatever they’ve said. Show that you’re interested. Allow silence.

Pain’s power relies on surprise. If you expect it, it’s weaker. If you choose it, it’s gone.

All bad things in life come from extremes. Too much of this. Too little of that.

A famous pioneer does more for human progress than a billion others who live a normal life.

So if you want to help humanity while having the most exciting life, then the way to live is to be a famous pioneer.

Every year, visit Singapore, Jakarta, Addis Ababa, Lagos, Mumbai, Ho Chi Minh City, and Silicon Valley. Each is creating the future in very different ways.

Avoid Europe and anywhere that lives in the past. Places that resist change have no vision, only memories. Yesterday is gone for good.

Here’s how to live: Value only what has endured.

Here’s how to live: Prepare for the worst.

The future is unpredictable and uncontrollable. Picture all the things that could go wrong. Prepare for each, so they won’t surprise or hurt you.

Your biggest obstacle to getting rich is the harmful meaning you’ve attached to it. Your biggest advantage can be projecting a helpful meaning onto it.

See it all. Touch it all. Hear it all. Taste it all. Do it all. Appreciate this wonderful physical world.

Nothing twice. Never eat the same food twice. Never go to the same place twice. Never hear the same thing twice. Everything only once.

We overestimate what we can do in one year. We underestimate what we can do in ten years.

Here’s how to live: Make memories.

If you set up your business like you don’t need the money, people are happier to pay you. When someone’s doing something for the money, people can sense it, like they sense a desperate lover. It’s a turnoff. When someone’s doing something for love, being generous instead of stingy, trusting instead of fearful, it triggers this law: We want to give to those who give.

You have different sides to your personality, with conflicting needs. Instead of ignoring one, make sure you balance them. Balance time with others and time alone. Balance your need for stability with your need for surprise. Balance input and output, consumption and creation, stability and adventure, body and spirit. Your opposing needs become each other’s remedy.

When you say you want more freedom from the world, you may just need freedom from your past self. You don’t see things as they are. You see them as you are. Change yourself and you change the world.

Those who shout, “my country is the best!” are those who have never left. In Icelandic, the word for “idiot” means “one who has never left home to journey abroad”. Only idiots think they’re always right.

Communicate knowledge to others to make sure you understand. Don’t quote. Put it in your own words without looking up or referencing what others said. If you can’t explain it yourself, you don’t know it.

Socially, try to get rejected. Learn about “rejection therapy”. Make audacious requests that you think will be denied. This removes the pain of rejection. And you’ll be surprised how often they say yes.

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. Mastery is the ultimate status.

When you keep all options open, you’re conflicted and miserable. Your thoughts are divided. Your power is diluted. Your time is thinly spread. Indecision keeps you shallow. Get the deeper pleasure of diving into one choice.

Let the random generator decide what you do, where you go, and who you meet. It’ll scramble your habits. It’ll break the myth of causality. It’ll guide you to see places you’d never ordinarily see, and do what you never would have done.

The longer something lasts, the longer it will probably last. Something that’s been around for a year will probably be around for another year. Something that’s been around for fifty years will probably be around for another fifty years.

To appreciate something fully, picture losing it. Imagine losing your freedom, reputation, money, and home. Imagine losing your ability to see, hear, walk, or talk. Imagine the people you love dying tomorrow. Never take them for granted.

If you go through life without changing anything, what have you done? Just observed?! The world doesn’t need more audience. The world needs changing. What’s broken needs fixing. What’s OK needs improving. What’s harmful needs destroying.

He taught me that “the standard pace is for chumps” — that the system is designed so anyone can keep up. If you’re more driven than most people, you can do way more than anyone expects. And this principle applies to all of life, not just school.

The past? That’s what we call our memories. The future? That’s what we call our imagination. Neither exists outside of your mind. The only real time is this moment. So live accordingly. Whatever benefits you right now is the right choice.

Schedule quality time with dear friends. Schedule preventative health checkups. Schedule focused time to learn. Schedule each aspect of your life, ignoring none. List what makes you happy and fulfilled, then schedule those things into your year.

So try to be wrong. Try to disprove your beliefs. Never believe something on faith. Prove it or disprove it. While other people have one idea that they think might work, you will have thousands you can prove didn’t work, and one you couldn’t make fail.

Because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs! That's why we act like everything that happens to us is such a big deal. We're trying to make our life into a fairy tale.

When a problem is bothering you, it feels like you need to do something about it. Instead, identify what belief is really the source of your trouble. Replace that belief with one that doesn’t bother you. Then the problem is solved. Most problems are really just situations.

Everything good comes from some kind of pain. Muscle fatigue makes you healthy and strong. The pain of practice leads to mastery. Difficult conversations save your relationships. But if you avoid pain, you avoid improvement. Avoid embarrassment, and you avoid success. Avoid risk, and you avoid reward.

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. If you’re ever unsure what to prioritize, just ask your customers the open-ended question, “How can I best help you now?” Then focus on satisfying those requests.

Listen if you want, but always decide for yourself. Never agree with anything the same day you hear it, because some ideas are persuasively hypnotic. Wait a few days to decide what you really think. Don’t let ideas into your head or heart without your permission. Being independent means you can’t blame others. Decide everything is your fault. Whoever you blame has power over you, so blame only yourself. When you blame your location, culture, race, or history, you’re abdicating your autonomy.

Making money is proof you’re adding value to people’s lives. Aiming to get rich is aiming to be useful to the world. It’s striving to do more for others. Serving more. Sharing more. Contributing more. The world rewards you for creating value. Pursue wealth because it’s moral, good, and unlimited. Money is social. It was invented to transfer value between people. One job pays way more than another because it has more social value. To get rich, don’t think about what’s valuable to you. Think about what’s valuable to others.