We can learn a lot from reading.
Authors take their life experiences over the course of many years and condense them in just a few pages that can be easily consumed by readers.
This happens to be the case with a book I just finished reading:
Anything You Want: 40 lessons for a new kind of Entrepreneur by Derek Sivers
To say it’s a short book is an understatement; the entire book can be read in about an hour!
However, it is jam-packed with interesting and insightful lessons that he gained over the course of 10 years of running a business, not just about entrepreneurship, but about life in general that we can certainly apply in our own lives.
In today’s blog, we are not going to dive into all 40 lessons (you’ll probably be glad to hear) but talk about my favourite 4 lessons from the book that really resonated with me.
However, I encourage you to read the other 36 lessons that he talks about in his book.
And when you do, let me know which lessons resonated with you the most.
Lesson 1: Business is all about Helping People
When we think of starting a business, we usually have one goal in mind:
“I want to be rich and make a lot of money.”
This is usually a selfish approach where the purpose of this business is to benefit ourselves.
However, when Sivers started his company, it was for the sole purpose of helping his friends:
“CD Baby was started for the purpose of helping my friends, that is all.”
This compliments everything I have heard in the past regarding starting a business:
“A business or business idea should be the answer to a question or a solution to a problem.”
If you’re trying to start a business where it’s primary goal is to make a lot of money, you’re going to get frustrated very quickly when it takes a while before you start making any money.
However, when your primary goal is to help as many people as you can with a specific problem, this will drive you especially when you feel unmotivated or progress seems slow.
Inevitably, you will end up making a lot of money the more people you help out.
So let that be the main reason you start a business: to help as many people as you possibly can.
Lesson 2: It’s about Being, not Having
When Sivers wanted to be a singer, it took him over 14 years to be a good singer, but he finally did it, and it was totally worth it, even though everyone told him it would never work.
When he wanted to record his own album by learning recording studio engineering and production, everyone thought ‘what’s the point, you could just pay someone to do it for you.’
When he wanted to programme his own website, everyone told him ‘but you’re a musician, you don’t know anything about programming, you’d be starting all the way from scratch!’
The point Sivers is trying to make is that we seem to have forgotten the joy that one experiences when one learns a new skill, picks up a new hobby, or trains for a specific event.
People seem to think that the only reason we do anything these days is to ‘just get it done’.
Sure it may take a lot more time and money to do whatever it is you’re trying to do, but in the end, you would have learnt something new, and then you would be that person that people go to get that specific task done.
“When you sign up to run a marathon, you don’t want a taxi to take you to the finish line.”
You actually want to go through all the training because in the end it will be so rewarding.
Never forget that ‘being’ something is much more empowering than just ‘having’ something.
Lesson 3: Start Now. No Funding Needed
We all have big plans, big things that we want to achieve, like starting a business for example.
However, we end up not doing anything about it because we tell ourselves that we either need money or have to join a specific program in order to get started.
According to Sivers, that should not stop us from getting started:
“It usually means the person is more in love with the idea of being big-big-big than actually doing something useful.”
If you dream of being big one day, you have to start now, with just 1% of your grand vision.
For example, if you want to be a successful musician, playing to millions of people around the world, start by playing for a couple of people at your local venue or busking on your closest high street. After all, that’s how Ed Sheeran started.
Start now, with whatever you have.
If you need a certain amount of money for a specific purchase, then save up, while in the meantime working on the other tasks that don’t require money.
Don’t just dream big, do something about it, with whatever you have. The rest will come.
Lesson 4: Do what Makes you Happy
This is probably my biggest takeaway from this book.
As with most things in life, we always strive to be better:
Better in our careers, better in our personal lives, striving to make more money, etc.
While constant development can be good, if not careful, it can also get quite toxic.
For example, once we reach a specific goal, we immediately aim for the next one, without taking the time to celebrate the one we just accomplished.
Or perhaps we set ourselves a deadline to achieve a certain goal, miss out on that deadline, and then end up feeling upset and miserable for the fact we didn’t achieve our 2 year goal.
In his book, Sivers gives us a phrase that serves as a reminder of what’s really important:
“Never forget why you’re doing what you’re doing. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?”
You may not have achieved your goal – so what?
Are you still alive and well? Yes. Well then, there is always tomorrow!
Every now and then, let’s take a step back, look at the bigger picture, and be thankful.
Just remember that you can always go back and try again tomorrow.
Never forget to “Enjoy the journey, not just the destination.”
Conclusion
These were just a small sample of my favourite lessons from this book.
However, there are so many more insightful and valuable lessons in this book that I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of this book and check it out for yourselves.
What I like about Sivers is that he does things that just makes sense, not because it’s what everyone else does, which is a refreshing way of doing things.
This is just out of many gems out there that have some valuable lessons that we can apply to our own lives.
Every now and then, I hope to share my insights from the books I read, and hope that you too get some value out of them.
If you’ve read this book, what did you think of it? What were your key takeaways?
Have you read any other books lately? If so, share them in the comments below and let me know if you recommend them. I may just include it in my next book summary blog!
