Anything You Want
Derek Sivers
Summary
Derek is one of my favourite authors because of his conciseness and how simple he makes life lessons seem. Has one of the more interesting entrepreneurial stories in creating CD baby, the first online marketplace for CDs, and now spends his time out in New Zealand responding to every email he receives (seriously, he responds to every email you send him)
Rating: 4/5
Notes
Know your personal philosophy of what makes you happy
Never start a business just for money
Make yourself unnecessary to the running of your business
Success comes from persistently improving and inventing
If you present an idea to the market and it doesn’t work, get back to improving and inventing
Don’t say ‘yes’. Say ‘Hell Yeah’ or ‘No’
Make every decision according to your customers
Stay focused on helping people today
‘How do you grade yourself’
Little things make all the difference
Make sure you know what makes you happy and don’t forget it
Second time reading it
You cant please everyone so proudly exclude people
The best business plans are simple
Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what is not working
Don’t say yes, either it’s ‘hell yeah’ or no
Absolutely everything you do is about your customers
To grow a business, focus entirely on existing customers
Start by sharing what you know
Formalities like terms and conditions play on fears. Bravely refuse
Stay focused on helping people today
All great service comes from this feeling of generosity and abundance
Set up your business like you don’t need th emoney and it’ll come your way
Customer service is everything!
Imagine every customer that contacts you was your favourite rockstar and give them all the time in the world
It’s the tiny details that thrill people enough to make them tell their friends about you
If you find the smallest way to make people smile, they’ll remember you for that smile more than anything else
Once you become the boss, your opinion is dangerous because your opinion can hurt morale
Prepare to double
Make sure you know what makes you happy and don’t forget it
A business is a reflection of its creator. Be as unconvenitional, unique and quirky as you want
Pay close attention to what excites you and what drains you
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Make Something Wonderful
Steve Jobs
Summary
The life of Steve Jobs in his own words
Rating: 5/5
Notes
Make something wonderful and put it out there
‘You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear’
When you’re a stranger in a place, you notice thing you don’t otherwise (Jobs after India trip)
Whenever you start with nothing, always shoot for the moon. You have nothing to lose.
You never achieve what you want without falling on your face a few times
Never be afraid to fail. You never achieve what you want without falling flat on your face a few times
We are never taught to listen to our intuitions, to develop and nurture them. But if you do pay attention to these subtle insights, you can make them come true
Creativity equals connecting previously unrelated experiences and insights others don’t see
Believe that some of what you follow with your heart will come back and make your life richer. And it will. And you will gain even firmer trust on your instincts and intuitions
Make your avocation your vocation. Make what you love your work.
The journey is the reward. The reward isn’t in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it’s in crossing the rainbow
To find A+ talent, if experienced, look at their track record and results
The world we know is a human creation and we can push it forward
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do (read whole ad ‘here’s to the crazy ones)
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit - Aristotle
Hire people better than you are
You can’t plan to meet the people who will change your life
It’s impossible to connect the dots looking forward, but they make sense looking backwards so you have to trust the dots will somehow connect in your future
Everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you
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Buy the book here
Free E-book download here
