Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur by Derek Sivers (Wealth Creation Book Review)

Andrew -
"You can’t live someone else’s expectation of a traditional business. You have to just do whatever you love the most, or you’ll lose interest in the whole thing."

In Anything You Want, Mr. Sivers offers 40 bite-sized chunks of entrepreneurial wisdom to help you build a business you’ll love. It might not be the type of advice you need to build the next billion-dollar startup, but that’s the point – business does not need to just be about dollars; it can be a creative endeavor in the pursuit of happiness.

Key Takeaways

  1. Focus on the customer and having fun, not the money.
  2. Don’t be a boring business – put the human touch into what you do to make yourself memorable.
  3. Improve and innovate your products rather than focusing on marketing something that doesn’t work well.
  4. A business owner should: 1. Systematize the business so she can remove herself from it; and 2. Choose what she loves to do and delegate everything else (or she’ll lose interest in the business).
  5. Delegate, not abdicate. And trust, but verify.
  6. Once you’re busy and successful, whenever you’re considering a new idea or proposal, say “No” unless you feel like saying “Hell yeah!”

Book Highlights

"Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what’s not working."
"Even if you want to be big someday, remember that you never need to act like a big boring company. Over ten years, it seemed like every time someone raved about how much he loved CD Baby, it was because of one of these little fun human touches."
"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."
"Never forget that you can make your role anything you want it to be. Anything you hate to do, someone else loves. So find that person and let her do it."
"You can’t live someone else’s expectation of a traditional business. You have to just do whatever you love the most, or you’ll lose interest in the whole thing."