Derek Sivers Quotes

Don’t worship your heroes.
Surpass them.

Mistakes are the fountain of youth.
The old and successful get fragile.

skip the art career and just do the art.

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

When we lack balance, we’re upset.
Over-worked, under-loved, over-eating, under-sleeping.
Focused on wealth, but ignoring health.
Focused on the present, but ignoring the future.

a big difference between being self-employed and being a business owner. Being self-employed feels like freedom until you realize that if you take time off, your business crumbles. 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.

Today’s discomfort brings future rewards.
When you have a clear view of the future, you won’t mind the small sacrifice.
You never regret not indulging.

Focusing on yourself seems smarter and easier, but it’s short-sighted.
It’s ignoring the huge benefit of cooperation.

People talk about pessimism and optimism by saying, “Glass half-empty or glass half-full?”
But a caveman would say, “Oh my god! A glass! What a great invention! I can see what I’m about to drink! This is amazing! A blanket! A chair! A bed! Food, ready and waiting? This is heaven!”
You don’t have to be a caveman to look around you and appreciate your comforts by imagining life without them.

Communicate knowledge to others to make sure you understand.
Don’t quote.
Put it in your own words without looking up or referencing what others said.
If you can’t explain it yourself, you don’t know it.

Starting small puts 100 percent of your energy into actually solving real problems for real people.

We’ve all heard about the importance of persistence. But I had misunderstood. Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working.

Every time you're making a choice, one choice is the safe/comfortable choice - and one choice is the risky/uncomfortable choice. the risky/uncomfortable choice is the one that will teach you the most and make you grow the most, so that's the one you should choose.

The most valuable real estate in the world is the graveyard.
There lie millions of half-written books, ideas never launched, and talents never developed.
Most people die with everything still inside of them. The way to live is to create.
Die empty.
Get every idea out of your head and into reality.

He taught me that “the standard pace is for chumps” — that the system is designed so anyone can keep up. If you’re more driven than most people, you can do way more than anyone expects. And this principle applies to all of life, not just school.