BR 126: Anything you want by Derek Sivers

Category: 2 – BUY it! (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)

Comments: Really simple, quick and breezy read. Again, my rating is likely biased by the fact that I am fully aligned with Derek’s way of looking at the world. He’s another one of those who walks his talk and I find him very inspirational.

Top 3 learnings:

1. REALLY understand what you want. It’s very easy to get caught up in a rat race where you end up chasing things you don’t really want. In Derek’s case, he made many decisions – to give up a large portion of what he made to charity, to not own a house or car.. He realized he’s very happy where is and doesn’t “need” too much more. And, he wanted to stay that way..

My sense here is that we often lose touch with our soul as we grow/progress. Keep checking in with very simple questions – is this what I want? Am I really happy?

2. Small can be brilliant. Derek made CDBaby class by attempting to always keep it small, but world class. The funny paradox – the less you need or aim for money, the more of it comes. (true of many things in life)

3. The best way to delegate is to share your thought process with your team. They need to always know the answer to “What will ___ do?” – not by just cataloguing answers to every possible question but by understanding the principles behind a decision.

Derek did this at CDBaby by getting all his employees together every time they had a question and then answering it by describing the principles and thought process to all. He then made sure they documented the answer.. Over time, the number of questions reduced and new employees had a “hand book” to understand the CDBaby.

A note of caution – delegate but do not abdicate/ delegate but keep control. Derek’s abdication resulted in his employees instituting a profit sharing scheme that went against his principles. A chain of events followed leading to Derek selling CDBaby.