#88 Derek Sivers: Innovation Versus Imitation

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways  People like to stay busy so they often say yes to everythingInstead, say no to almost anything. Use the Hell Yeah rule: If an activity doesn’t feel like a hell yes for you, then don’t take it.“Strategically, it’s better to do 5 bigs things with your life instead of 500 half-assed things” – Derek SiversHowever, don’t use the Hell Yes rule when you’re just starting out in your career. In the beginning, try to say yes to every opportunity.“I don’t think that Hell Yeah or No is something that should be applied to everything in life. You have to know when you’re drowning in opportunity or starving for opportunity.” – Derek SiversAlthough training someone to help you out with work may take a lot of time and energy, if you try to do everything yourself you’ll become overwhelmed and eventually reach a breaking pointWhen Derek was running CD Baby, he was working from 7AM to midnight because he was so involved in the business and not delegating work“For work to turn into this constant state of every five minute an interruption just made it unbearable. I stopped going to the office. I started shutting off my phone until I realized that I was running from my problems instead of solving them. I realized this was a do or die moment, like I need to fix this or I’m toast.”“You know you’re a true business owner when you could leave your business for a year and come back a year later and find that it’s doing better than when you left. That’s when you’re no longer self-employed, you’re a business owner.” – Derek SiverIdeas multiplied by execution will tell you how much a company is worth. Imagine two columns (one of ideas and one for execution):Awful idea: -1Weak idea: 1Okay idea: 10Great idea: 20No execution: $1Weak execution: $1,000Okay execution: $100,000Great execution: $1,000,000To make a business, you need to multiple those two columns:Great idea X No execution = $20Okay idea X Okay execution = $1,000,000Great idea X Great execution = $20,000,000“I’m not really interested in hearing people’s ideas, it’s just not interesting without the execution.” – Derek Sivers“I feel like the reflection time is when you really learn. The moment when you read somebody else’s idea, that’s a wow moment, but you don’t really learn it until you’ve put aside the time to reflect on it.” – Derek Siver

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Musician, speaker, writer and entrepreneur, Derek Sivers chats about creating and running CD Baby, reading, mental models, living a meaningful life and that biggest mistake he’s ever made.

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