Derek Sivers Quotes

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

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

Never forget why you're really doing what you're doing.

If I’m not saying ‘Hell Yeah!’ to something, then I say no.

If you want to be useful, you can always start now. It will be a humble prototype of your grand vision, but you’ll be in the game. Start by teaching someone this week. Starting small puts 100% of your energy into solving real problems for real people.

Obvious to you is amazing to others.

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

There is no movement without the first follower. See, we are told that we all need to be leaders but that would be ineffective. The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.

How you do anything is how you do everything. Your "character" or "nature" just refers to how you handle all the day-to-day things in life, no matter how small.

Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn't that enough?

The single most important thing is to make people happy. If you are making people happy, as a side effect, they will be happy to open up their wallets and pay you.

Customer service is the new marketing.

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

Repeated psychology tests have proven that telling someone your goal makes it less likely to happen.

Everyone who became great at something has a similar story: For years, they worked on their craft every day, even if they weren’t in the mood. Always pushing, practicing, working, and improvingYes it takes thousands of hours of practice, but that’s good news! It’s a clear path and it’s under your control.

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.

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

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

Five years after I started CD Baby, when it was a big success, the media said I had revolutionized the music business. But 'revolution' is a term that people use only when you're successful. Before that, you're just a quirky person who does things differently.

Pay close attention to when you're being the real you & when you're trying to impress an invisible jury.

I realized why I need to start a new company. Not for the money. Not because I'm 'bored'. But because a company is a laboratory to try your ideas.

Learning. It's really the primary reason behind everything I do. Programming, entrepreneuring, writing.

You're free to do anything you want with your company. It's more like art. You don't have to follow any norms. It's an expression of how you feel the world should be. When you make a company, that's your little place to make your own little utopia.

The most important lesson is probably to spend less than you earn.

You can't please everyone, so proudly exclude people.