Derek Sivers

“Probably the most succinct way to communicate an idea is to focus on the action itself. Like, if you command the action, then the action, like a seed, I think there's like a nature metaphor in here somewhere, that the action has the seed of the idea in it, tha…”

“The best plan is the one that lets you change your plans. For example, renting a house is buying the option to move at any time without losing money in a changing market.”

“So I found someone to replace me. It was an old friend that I knew would be perfect for the job. I knew that she would do it really well. She had the right temperament. She was in the right stage of her life. I knew that she'd be psyched about it, and Really g…”

“Like people imitate others without questioning it enough, but I don't want to learn their ways. I don't want to be like them. So instead I just ignore it all and ask myself, What's the real point? Meaning, like, what am I really trying to do here? What's the r…”

“It was like, 2.5 megs of downloads, like, 33 CSS, JavaScript, and CSS files, just to display an article? No way. That's like a thousand times bigger than it needs to be.”

“Amber Rhubarth is actually the one that said, so basically you're not trying to decide between yes and no, you're deciding between fuck yeah and no. I just laughed and I loved it and I, So I blogged about it the next day. I changed the word to hell to soften i…”

“There are other times in your career when really the most strategic thing to do is to say yes to everything because it can be like lottery tickets, you know, like if you got nothing going on and somebody's offering you an infinite amount of lottery tickets for…”

“While I was away in California, my company grew from four million, sorry, sorry, no, it grew from one million To twenty million in four years. Like it grew from eight employees to 85 employees while I was away.”

“You have to have the longterm perspective. You have to know that's like, all right, this is going to be harder. Yeah, it's going to be harder at first for the long-term gain, right? Like, if you realize that you're at this breaking point, your time is already …”

“What I wrote is that I think of ideas as a multiplier of execution, right? So let's pretend that we have two columns of numbers here. So an awful idea, let's say that's a negative one, but a weak idea is a one. An okay idea is a 10, and a great idea is a 20, o…”

“I underline every surprising or interesting idea that I want to think more about later. And so then when I'm done, I take all of those underlying ideas and I put them into a text file. I usually just kind of put them into my own words. I remove They're unneces…”

“I'm tagging every single one of those ideas from every book I've read since 2007. I'm tagging them with keywords and loading them into a database.”

“The most succinct way to communicate an idea is to focus on the action itself. Like, if you command the action, then the action, like a seed, I think there's like a nature metaphor in here somewhere, that the action has the seed of the idea in it, that the act…”

“Choose opportunity, not loyalty. Have no loyalty to location, corporation, or your past public statements. Be an absolute opportunist, doing whatever's best for the future in the current situation, unbound by the past. Have loyalty for only your most important…”

“The best plan is the one that lets you change your plans. For example, renting a house is buying the option to move at any time without losing money in a changing market.”

“For maximum options, don't plan at all. Since you have no idea how the situation or your mood may change in the future, wait until the last possible moment to make each decision.”

“Whatever makes you take the necessary actions Is the perspective that helps you? I'm never aiming for reality. I'm trying to make decisions usually based on finding the perspective that helps me take actions.”

“My plan was to legally change my name and disappear into Europe and be an open source programmer.”

“I just don't find myself to be that kind of person that can do one thing for an hour and something else for two hours, and then this for an hour, and this for 30 minutes, that I just, I throw myself Completely into whatever I'm doing, almost to a fault. I love…”

“Wouldn't I have learned more about Turkey by reading three books about Turkey, maybe watching the top five most popular movies in Turkey, and maybe scheduling phone conversations with 20 people from Turkey? You know, that's the same number of hours invested, b…”

“Like if you were to give me a hundred million dollars, I just give it right away because I just won't use it for anything. I just don't want it. All the things that I love the most in life, just learning, thinking, and creating, it doesn't take any money. And …”

“I have five different driver's licenses from five different countries, and I have, like, Four different resident ID cards, and a few different passports from different countries, and yeah”

“I actually, I tried living in San Francisco for a little while. I had to leave after a few months. I hated it because everybody thinks like me. And so I'm happier living in a place like Singapore, where most people don't think like me.”

“I don't really believe the need for it. I don't have any need for it. Like I don't, I'm happy the way it is. I'm happy growing slow. I don't really want to blow up because I just enjoy my job right now. You know, I'm sure you're familiar with like Derek Sivers…”