Anything You Want – By Derek Sivers

Background:

Derek Sivers was a musician and circus ringleader before ‘accidentally’ forming a company that he later sold for $22m. He then donated that $22m to charity. In 1998, Derek wanted to try and sell his band’s albums online, but unless you were already signed to a major record label, there was no avenue for this. So, he created one. Then one of his friends wanted him to sell their album. Word spread, and CD Baby became the largest online seller of independent music, selling over $100m worth of CDs from over 150,000 independent artists. Since selling CD Baby in 2008, Derek has gone on to publish 34 books, including Anything You Want, and has attracted over 5 million views to his TED talks.

 

Quick Summary:

Anything You Want is a great read. It’s quick, simple, and to the point. Subtitled “40 lessons for a new kind of entrepreneur”, the book consists of 40 different one or two page anecdotes with a clear purpose or takeaway. This book could easily be padded out to 300+ pages with anecdotes and studies and facts and figures, but I really appreciate the fact that it’s simple and straight to the point. Derek uses just the right amount of personal story to set the scene, then delivers his key message in a concise sentence or two at the bottom of the page.

He talks about a different way of thinking about business. I’ve always thought that every company should be trying to become as big as they can, make as much money as they can, and basically try to take over the world. But this is a story of a company that wanted to stay small and DIDN’T want to grow. Well worth the read – it’ll seriously only take you an hour or so to get through. I’m a pretty slow reader and even I could read it in one sitting.

 

Who should read this:

This book is mainly targeted at entrepreneurs/wantrepreneurs. I think it’s a great read for anyone with big plans and big visions, because this offers a different way of looking at life. Derek focuses on being small and being happy, but most importantly, about satisfying customers. That might sound obvious, but after reading this book, you’ll realise that whilst most companies say they’re focusing on customer satisfaction, very few actually are. Most companies are all about being big-big-big, as big as can be, about growth, about profit maximisation, but are any of these really in the customer’s best interest?

 

Favourite Chapters:

 

What’s your compass?

Derek says that “most people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing”. He says that by imitating others and going with the flow, people spend decades in pursuit of things that other people convinced them that they should want. Instead, WE need to determine what WE want and to make our own paths, rather than following others.

 

If it’s not a hit, switch.

“Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working”. So true. You’ll always hear people saying “don’t give up”, or “just keep pushing through”, or “quitting is for losers”, or something along those lines. The key here is that persistence alone won’t get you to your goals. Of course you need to be resilient and you don’t just give up at every hurdle, but at the same time, you need to realise when something truly isn’t going to work and be prepared to try something completely different. Rather than continuing to ram your head against a brick wall, why not try something else entirely?

 

No “yes”. Either “Hell yeah!” or “no”.

One of the more well-known and often repeated phrases is Derek’s “Hell yeah or no”. Derek says that early on you should be saying yes to every opportunity that comes up, but once things become a bit more serious, you need to become a lot more selective. Time is our most valuable resource, so you shouldn’t waste it on things that aren’t contributing to your goals or aren’t making people (or yourself) happy. If something sounds interesting but doesn’t captivate you, say no. If something sounds intriguing but you aren’t super super enthusiastic about it, say no. It has to rank as a “hell yeah” for you to do it. By saying no, you leave yourself the freedom and flexibility to fully commit to the “hell yeah” moments.

“We’re all busy. We’ve all taken on too much. Saying ‘yes’ to less is the way out”

 

Start now. No funding needed.

“Watch out for anyone that says he wants to do something big, but can’t until he raises money. It usually means the person is more in love with the idea of being big-big-big than actually doing something useful”. I think you can even extrapolate that out even further to include not just funding, but a whole range of other scenarios. If you keep putting it off until ‘tomorrow’, it will never get done. If you keep waiting for funding, or waiting for the free time to start, or waiting to find the perfect partner, or waiting for the ‘perfect’ opportunity to start, it will never get done. There is no perfect time to do anything. There will also be something wrong, so it’s up to you to DECIDE to do it, then DO IT! NOW!!

 

Ideas are just a multiplier of execution

It’s funny how people are so protective of their ideas. Wanting you to sign a non-disclosure agreement or waiting until you hire them or give them a chunk of your company. Ideas are essentially worthless if they are just ideas. Ideas have to be executed for them to mean something. Derek has a little table of the value of an idea versus the value of execution, but as an example, an absolutely brilliant idea with zero execution is worth about $20, but a good idea with great execution is more like $10,000,000.

 

Proudly exclude people

Most businesses start out wanting to be all things to all people. But you can’t. “You need to proudly exclude people, and say what you’re not”. If you become really clear on exactly what you offer and exactly what you don’t offer, you can really focus on your targeted market. It’s a hard thing to do at first, but as Derek says, “It’s a big world. You can loudly leave out 99 per cent of it”.

 

Note: This is pretty well aligned with the ideas of “use a sniper, not a shot gun” in Becoming a Key Person of Influence, as well as the article 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly.

 

You don’t need a plan or a vision

A really interesting chapter about how Derek never really had a big vision. He tells some funny stories about how he set goals and surpassed them really early and never really re-calibrated. I’m definitely the goal setting type and like to have a vision to work towards. But I really liked this quote from the end of the chapter that really reinforces Derek’s outlook: “Don’t think you need a huge vision. Just stay focused on helping people today”.

 

How do you grade yourself?

Really important for everyone and really relevant to me right now. You need to determine what will make us feel like we are a ‘success’. That’s different for everyone. It might be our bank balance, the number of famous people we know, the number of city buildings with our name on them, the strength of our relationships with friends and family, or a whole range of other criteria. I personally need to work this out for myself soon, so I can stay focused on what’s honestly important to me, rather then always being guided by what other people think I should be doing.

 

Little things make all the difference

Derek tells a few stories about how CD Baby always went the extra mile to make people happy and be useful. By touching the days and lives of individuals, they were able to become a very large company but never became a “big boring company” in the process (Banks? Insurance companies? Energy companies? I’m sure you can think of hundreds more big boring companies that you’d never fall in love with…).

 

It’s OK to be casual

Basically – don’t take yourself too seriously. No matter how big you think your company gets or how important you think you are, you don’t have to act that way. “Don’t try to impress an invisible jury of MBA professors”.

 

Favourite Quotes:

“Most people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing”

“Don’t be on your deathbed some day, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams”

“Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for yourself and others”

“The real point of doing anything is to be happy, so do only what makes you happy”

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

“When you make a dream come true for yourself, it’ll be a dream come true for someone else, too”

“A business plan should never take more than a few hours of work – hopefully no more than a few minutes. The best plans start simple. A quick glance and common sense should tell you if the numbers work. The rest are details.”

“Revolution is a term people use only when you’re successful. Before that, you’re just a quirky person who does things differently.”

“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”

“When you’re onto something great, it won’t feel like a revolution. It’ll feel like uncommon sense”

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

“We’re all busy. We’ve all taken on too much. Saying ‘yes’ to less is the way out”

“Any time you think you know what your new business will be doing, remember this quote from serial entrepreneur Steve Bank: ‘No business plan survives first contact with customers’.”

“By not having money to waste, you never waste money”

“Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers”

“Watch out for anyone that says he wants to do something big, but can’t until he raises money. It usually means the person is more in love with the idea of being big-big-big than actually doing something useful”

“Start now… You’ll always be ahead of the rest, because you actually started, while others are waiting for the finish line to magically appear at the starting line”

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

“Ideas are just a multiplier of execution”

“You need to confidently exclude people, and proudly say what you’re not. By doing so, you will win the hearts of the people you want”

“You can’t pretend there’s only one way to do it. Your first idea is just one of many options. No business goes as planned, so make ten radically different plans”

“Don’t think you need a huge vision. Just stay focused on helping people today”

“Never forget why you’re really doing what you’re doing”

“How do you grade yourself? It’s important to know this from the start, to make sure you’re staying focused on what’s honestly important to you, instead of doing what others think you should”

“Care more about your customers than you do yourself, and you’ll do well”

“Set up your business like you don’t need the money, and it’ll likely come your way”

“When you’re thinking of how to make your business bigger, it’s tempting to think all the big thoughts and come up with world-changing massive-action plans. But please know that it’s often the tiny details that really thrill people enough to tell all their friends about you”

“Even if you want to be big someday, remember that you never need to act like a big boring company”

“Don’t try to impress an invisible jury of MBA professors. It’s OK to be casual”

“There’s a benefit to being naïve about the norms of the world – deciding from scratch what seems to be the right thing to do, instead of just doing what others do”

“It’s about what you want to be, not what you want to have”

“There’s a big different between being self-employed and being a business owner. Being self-employed feels like freedom until you realise 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”

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

“No matter which goal you choose, there will be lots of people telling you you’re wrong”