Anything You Want – by Derek Sivers

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.

Derek 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. I thought we should try to make as much money as we can. 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.

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If you’d prefer to read instead of listen, you can check out Adam Ashton’s blog. There’s a full summary of Anything You Want here.

Anything You Want Summary

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

This was the first ever episode of the What You Will Learn podcast. This book was short and sweet. Subtitled ’40 lessons for a new kind of entrepreneur’, it was short enough for us to read in a week but enough juice there to turn into an episode. Derek Sivers thinks about life and business in a great way – he often questions the ‘default’ and tries to go against the grain by finding ways in which ‘the way we’ve always done it’ is wrong. This book kickstarted the podcast on June 4th 2016 and it got us started on our trajectory, so this couldn’t NOT make the ‘top 100’ list.

Derek Sivers uses the book to explain how we ‘accidentally’ started a new business that he later sold for $22million. Sivers was a musician. In 1997 he wanted a way to sell his music on the internet, so he set up the cdbaby website. As a hobby, he began seeling music of friends and other musicians. More and more artists wanted to tap into the internet and began using CD Baby to get their music online and start distributing it internationally. In August 2008, Sivers sold CD Baby to Disc Makers for $22m after over selling $100m in revenue for 150,000 independent musicians. Home to 650,000 artists and 9m+ tracks, it is still the largest online distributor of independent music in the world. 

No Funding Needed.

Starting small lets you put 100% of your focus into your customers. Be careful of anyone that tells you they’ve got a great idea that’s going to change the world… but they can’t start yet until they get funding. This is an excuse. This is not true. These people are probably more obsessed with the idea of building a massive business and getting status, rather than building something truly valuable and actually helping people by making a positive difference. You CAN start your business with nothing – rather than trying to go from zero to one hundred, you can start with just 1% of your grand vision and build as you grow. Necessity is a great teacher, and by starting small and lean you’ll only do what is truly important and you won’t waste money on things that don’t need to be done. “If you don’t have money to waste, then you won’t waste money”.

Maybe your grand vision is to build an international chain of education centres that will revolutionise the way children are taught new ideas. Whilst it’s a worthy cause, this is not the best place to start. Start with just 1% of this vision. Start by trying to find someone willing to pay you to teach them something new for one hour on a weekend. Whatever massive vision you have in mind, break it down to the smallest possible step in the right direction and go out there and do it.

The ‘Perfect” Time To Start?

When thinking about starting a business, there are plenty of reasons NOT to. Often it boils down to it not being the ‘perfect’ time to start. Of course, there will NEVER be a perfect time to start. You can’t wait until things quiet down at work, or until the kids move out of home, or until you get a promotion so that you have more money coming in. Even if you overcome your current excuse for not starting now, I can guarantee you’ll find another excuse. 

It’s like waiting at home until every traffic light turns green before you go to work. Waiting for the perfect time where everything lines up means that you won’t ever get to work again! The perfect time to start a business will never arrive, so you’re just going to have to get started.

Ideas are a multiplier of execution

People say that they don’t have a good idea for a business. This is just another excuse. Ideas aren’t as important as you think. Execution is what really matters – turning an idea into reality. Of course if you start with a better idea it will end up as a better business. But a 10/10 idea with a 1/10 execution is nowhere near as good as a 4/10 idea with an 8/10 execution. 

Hell Yeah or No

This is the PG-rated version of Sivers’s original quote, but the concept remains the same. This is one of his most-quoted ideas, and he’s even spinning it into its own standalone book. 

At the start, you should say ‘yes’ to everything. Say yes to writing a guest blog post, say yes to appearing on a friends podcast, say yes to speaking at the local community event, say yes to trying a new business idea with a friend, say yes to any opportunity that comes your way. You never know what an opportunity may lead to, so in the begin you should be saying ‘yes’ to absolutely everything.

As you get a little bit of success, you’ll have more and more obligations so you’ll get more and more busy. There will be things you HAVE to do, so you’ll start needing to make sacrifices and tough decisions about what you DON’T do. One valuable filter for this stage of life is ‘hell yeah or no’. If someone asks you to do something and you instant reaction is ‘hell yeah’, then definitely go and do it! If someone asks you to do something and there is initial hesitation, or you think it might be worthwhile, or you think you should do it… this is a good indicator that you should say ‘no’. 

(To reiterate, say YES early and often – say yes to everything at the start. Once you’re as busy as Derek Sivers and once you’re busy enough to sell your company for $22m, then you’ll start needing to prioritise the things that come your way). 

Enough?

There’s a story of two famous authors, Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller, going to a party at a billionaire’s house. Walking into the mansion, Kurt said, “Wow! Look at this place! This guy has everything!”. To which Joseph replied, “Yes, but I have something he’ll never have… enough”. 

Revolution?

Sivers said that if you’re onto something great it won’t feel like a revolution, just uncommon sense. In the moment, you’re not going to know that it’s working. When you’re building it, there’s no guarantee that anyone else will agree with you. Looking back at history, all the great people that changed the world weren’t always seen in a favourable light. Arthur Shopenhauer said that all great ideas go through three stages: “first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, third it is accepted as being self-evident”. Along a similar vein, Sivers says that “revolution” is a term reserved only for people who are successful, before that you’re just a quirky oddball who does things differently.