Aditya Sheth

Derek Sivers is (perhaps) my favourite human being.

Out of all his books, Hell Yeah or No, is hands down my favourite. So much so, I read it for the third time today.

Here are my Kindle highlights:

• What would you do if you didn’t need the money and attention?
• A business can focus on growing their local market or international. Neither is right or wrong. Choose the local or global balance that works best for you.
• No matter what you tell the world or yourself, your actions reveal your real values. Your actions show you what you want. There are two reactions to this:
  • Stop lying to yourself, and admit your real priorities. 
  • Start doing what you say you want to do, and see if it’s really true.
• Holding on to an old title gives you satisfaction without action. But success comes from doing, not declaring. Be honest about what’s past and present. Retiring outdated titles lets you admit what you’re really doing now.
• Whatever you decide, optimise for that goal, and let go of the others. You can’t diffuse your energy, trying to do everything, or you’ll always be in conflict with yourself.
• Know why you’re doing what you’re doing. Use it as a compass and optimize your life around it. Let other goals be secondary so that when those decision moments come, you already chose what matters most to you.
• You have to know your preferences well because no matter what you do, someone will tell you you’re wrong.
• So look around at those existing ideas in the world. You can imitate them and still be offering something valuable and unique.
• We shouldn’t preserve our first opinions as if they reflect our pure, untarnished, true nature. They’re often just the result of inexperience or a temporary phase. Old opinions shouldn’t define who we are in the future.
• Public comments are just feedback on something you made. They’re worth reading to see how this thing has been perceived. You can even take it as feedback on your public image. All people know is what you’ve chosen to show them. So if your public persona is coming across wrong, tweak it. Never forget that the public you is not you.
• How you do anything is how you do everything. It all matters.
• Your actions are completely under your control, and seem to be the best indicator of future success.
• Fish don’t know they’re in water. If you try to explain it, they’d say, “Water? What’s water?” They’re surrounded by it. They can’t see it until they jump outside. This is how I feel about culture.
• If I’m acting too undisciplined, it’s because I’ve stopped vividly seeing my future. I can only see the present. If I’m acting too disconnected, it’s because I’m obsessed with my goals. I can see only the future.
• You won’t act differently until you think of yourself differently. Start by taking one small action that will change your self-identity.
• Say no to almost everything. This starts to free your time and mind. When you find something you’re excited about, you’ll give it your full attention. You’ll be able to take massive action, because you cleared away clutter in advance. Saying no makes your yes more powerful.
• Refuse almost everything. Do almost nothing. But the things you do, do them all the way.
• “Hell yeah or no” is a filter you can use to decide what’s worth doing. This is a decision to stop deciding. It’s one decision, in advance, that the answer to all future distractions is “no” until you finish what you started. It’s saying yes to one thing, and no to everything else.
• People say that your first reaction is the most honest, I disagree. Your first reaction is usually outdated. Either it’s an answer you came up with long ago and now use instead of thinking, or it’s a knee-jerk emotional response to something in your past.
• When you’re less impulsive and more deliberate like this, it can be inconvenient for other people, but that’s OK. Someone asks you a question. You don’t need to answer. You can say, “I don’t know,” and take your time to answer after thinking.
• When something is affecting your motivation, find a way to adjust your environment, even if it’s a little inconvenient for others.
• Personal change needs some space to happen. To bring something new into your life, you need somewhere to put it. If your current habits are filling your day, where are these new habits supposed to go?
• Before you start something, think of the ways it could end. Sometimes the smart choice is to say no to the whole game.
• When I’m feeling cloudy, my decisions and actions will be cloudy too. So I wait a few days before acting on anything. I watch the emotions pass by like a thunderstorm. And the longer I wait, the smarter I get.
• When I’m down, I avoid anyone who doesn’t rejuvenate me. They’re not allowed in my life right now, not even for a minute. No big explanation needed. No compromise. No favors.
• All that exhausting, red-faced, push I had been doing had gave me only a 4 percent boost. I could just take it easy and get 96 percent of results.
• Silence is a great canvas for your thoughts. That vacuum helps turn all of your inputs into output. That lack of interruption helps you flow.
• People often ask me what they can do to be more successful. I say disconnect. Even if just for a few hours. Unplug. Turn off your phone and Wi-Fi. Focus. Write. Create. That’s what’s rare and valuable these days.
• You get no competitive edge from consuming the same stuff everyone else is consuming. It’s rare, now, to focus. And it gives such better rewards.
• If you catch yourself burning with envy or resentment, think like the bronze medalist, not silver. Change your focus. Instead of comparing up to the next-higher situation, compare down to the next-lower one.
• Most times, you need to be more grateful for what you’ve got, for how much worse it could have been, and how nice it is to have anything at all. Ambition versus gratitude. Comparing up versus comparing down.
• If we hate doing something, we think of it as hard. We picture many annoying steps. If we love doing something, it’s simple. We think of it as one fun step.
• Early in your career, say yes to everything. The more things you try, the more people you meet, the better. Each one might lead to your lucky break. Then when something is extra-rewarding, switch strategies. Focus all on this one thing. Strike while it’s hot. Give it everything you’ve got.
• Don’t be a donkey. You can do everything you want to do. You just need foresight and patience. If you’re 30 now and have six different ideas you want to pursue, do each one for 10 years, and have done all of them by 90.
• To assume you’re below average is to admit you’re still learning. You focus on what you need to improve, not past accomplishments.
• Many people are so worried about looking good they never do anything great. Many people are so worried about doing something great they never do anything at all. You destroy that paralysis by being student, and treating current actions as practice.
• Everything is my fault. This is way better than forgiving. When you forgive, you’re still assuming that they’re wrong and you’re the victim. But to decide it’s your fault feels amazing! Now you weren’t wronged. People played  their part in a situation you helped create. 
• I love being wrong, even though it cracks my confidence, because that’s when I learn. I love being lost, even though it fuels fears, because that’s when I go someplace unexpected.
• I like to think that everything is a coincidence. Life feels more amazing to me if it has no meaning. No secret agenda. Beautifully random.
• “What are the odds this rare thing will happen to someone?” Almost 100%. That’s a nice reminder when the odds seem impossible. Amazingly rare things happen to people every day.
• We’re bad judges of our creations. We should just put them out there and let the world decide. Are you holding back something that seems too obvious to share?
• There are three things to consider when making life-size decisions:
  • What makes you happy
  • What’s smart (long-term good for you)
  • What’s useful to others
• If you have too much stability, you get bored. If you don’t have enough stability, you panic. So keep the balance.
• Do something for love and something for money. Don’t try to make one thing satisfy your entire life.
• What do you hate not doing? What makes you depressed or annoyed if you don’t do it enough? Answers to this question seem to be better indicators of what’s really worth doing.
• When should you make decisions? When you have the most information, when you’re at your smartest: as late as possible.
• Don’t choose a name. Don’t make a website or app. You need to be free to completely change or ditch your idea. Get your first paying customer. Provide a 1-1 service. Get  another paying customer. Prove a real demand. Then, as late as possible, officially start your business.
• We don’t get wise just by adding and adding. We also need to subtract.
• The most successful people I know have a narrow focus, protect themselves against time-wasters, say no to almost everything, and let go of old limiting beliefs.
• More people die from eating too much than too little. Most of us have too much baggage, commitments, priorities. Subtracting reminds me that what I need to change is already here, not out there.
• You really learn only when you’re surprised. If you’re not surprised, everything is fitting into your existing thought patterns. To get smarter, you need to get surprised, think in new ways, and understand different perspectives.
• To make a change, you have to be extreme. Go all the way the other way. It will feel like overcompensating, but you have to stack a huge pile of bricks on the other side.
• Nothing has inherent meaning. It is what it is and that’s it. We just choose to project meaning onto things. It feels good to make stories.
• The purpose of goals is not to improve the future. The future doesn’t exist. It’s only in our imagination. All that exists is the present moment and what you do in it. Judge a goal by how well it changes your actions in the present moment.
• Some goals seem great. They impress your friends, satisfy an old wish, or are good for you. But unless it changes your actions, right now, it’s not a great goal. Find another goal that excites you.
• Inspiration is not receiving information. Inspiration is applying what you’ve received.
• If you think you haven’t found your passion yet, you’re probably expecting it to be overwhelming. Instead, notice what excites you and scares you on a tiny moment-to-moment level.
• You grow by doing what excites you and what scares you.
• Rule of Thumb: Whatever scares you, go do it.
• Once you do something that scared you, you’re not scared of it anymore! As you go through life, doing everything that scares you, you fear less and less in the world.
• Abraham Maslow: “Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear) and risk (for progress and growth). Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.”

Get the book on Amazon or Sive.rs.