Derek Sivers is one of those guys who’s popped up all over the place but who I’ve never really followed. Until now.
I recently scanned and read through a pretty decent chunk of his archives. These were some of my favorites:
- Leadership lessons from dancing guy: You might have seen the video of this before, but his commentary is awesome. This is what I’m all about.
- There’s no speed limit. (The lessons that changed my life.): It’s about education, but it’s really about life. You don’t have to go the speed everyone expects you to.
- Japanese addresses: The opposite is also true: I don’t agree completely. But I’m a fan of opposites in general, so I had to include this one. Well, that and because the same is true for Korean addresses.
- The power of no reward: Sometimes, it’s better not to get a reward, or give one. I want to live in that space.
- Advice for a 19-year-0ld guitarist who wants to be a session musician: This is about getting into anything, not just music. It’s easier if you’re 19, though.
- Call the destination, and ask for directions: This one seems super obvious, but with all the email asking I’ve been doing, it hit me harder.
- Whatever scares or excites you, go do it: This is something I could have written (actually, I might have written something pretty similar – I’m not sure).
- Mystery: Are people asking themselves questions about you?: If you want to get people interested in something, get them to ask questions about it. People can’t stand not knowing the answers. They’ll stay intrigued.
- Small actions changing self-identity: Sounds a lot like the ol’ “We are what repeatedly do” mantra. Maybe there’s some truth to that.
- Eliminating the time between thinking and doing it: If you’re never doing it now, you’re never doing it.
- Goals shape the present, not the future: Similar to #10, except more practical for when you actually make goals.
- Early drafts of great work are encouraging: I need to remember this when I start projects, not to forget to document where I’ve been. And then take the important, and scary, step of releasing them to the world.
- Imagining lots of tedious steps? Or one fun step?: If it’s something you don’t want to do, you’re probably imagining all the tedious steps, not the one fun step.
