Derek Sivers Quotes

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.

To me, 'busy' implies that the person is out of control of their life.

The standard pace is for chumps. The system is designed so anyone can keep up. If you’re more driven than ‘just anyone’ — you can do so much more than anyone expects. And this applies to ALL of life — not just school.

If you keep experiencing the same things, your mind keeps its same patterns. Same inputs, same responses. Your brain, which was once curious and growing, gets fixed into
deep habits. Your values and opinions harden and resist change.

You really learn only when you’re surprised. If you’re not surprised, then everything is fitting into your existing thought patterns. So to get smarter, you need to get surprised, think in new ways, and deeply understand different perspectives.

With effort, you could do this from the comfort of home. But the most effective way to shake things up is to move across the world. Pick a place that’s most unlike what you
know, and go. This keeps you in a learning mindset. Previously mindless
habits, like buying groceries, now keep your mind open, alert, and noticing new things. New arrivals in a culture often notice what the locals don’t. (Fish don’t know they’re in water.)

No business plan survives first contact with customers.

Make sure you know what makes you happy, and don’t forget it.

It was the first follower that transformed the lone nut into a leader.

Most people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. They imitate others, go with the flow, and follow paths without making their own. They spend decades in pursuit of something that someone convinced them they should want, without realizing that it won’t make them happy.

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

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

any business that’s in business to sell you a cure is motivated not to focus on prevention

A bad goal makes you say, “I want to do that some day.” A great goal makes you take action immediately.

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

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

Striving makes you happy.
Pursuit is the opposite of depression.
People at the end of their life, who said they were the happiest with their life, were the ones who had spent the most time in the flow of fascinating work.