Self help book written by Derek Sivers - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Book written by Derek Sivers.
- Started : 14th March, 2025 - Finished : 03rd April, 2025
Notable lines
Notes
Be Independent
- Be Independent
- "The only way to be deeply happy is to break all dependenies." - We should not be dependent on income, people, technology to be completely free.
- "Cut ties with Society" - Don't engage/rebel(even rebel means you are reacting). Instead do what you have to do if you were the only person on earth.
- "Don't be part of any Group"- Don't take part in any group, don't take sides on any fight, don't align with any religion, philosophy or political stance. "Stay unlabelled and unbound"
- Don't follow Norms of the society. Norms were created to protect the privileges of the Upper class.
- Dogs bark. People speak. It doesn't mean a thing. What they say has nothing to do with you, even if it seems directed your way. When you are indifferent to people's word and actions, nothing can affect you.
- Don't believe anything anyone says. Listen if you want, but always decide for yourself. Never agree with anything the same day you hear it, because some ideas are persuasively hypnotic. Wait a few days to decide what you really think.
- Decide everything is your fault. Don't blame others. Whoever you blame has power over you, so blame only yourself.
- Everyone has their own lives to manage. Nobody is responsible for you, and you aren't responsible for anyone. You don't owe anyone anything.
- Commit
- No choice is inherently the best. Seeking best is the problem. Pick one and irreversibly commit. Then it becomes the best choice for you. When a decision is irreversible, you feel good about it.
- Focus your attention on the few things you're committed to, and nothing else. Let go of every unnecessary obligation.
- Find a community of like minded people. Make friends, borrow and lend, Invite your neighbors over for a meal. Trust and show you can be trusted.
- New habits are what you're trying. Old habits are who you are.
- Commit to one career path. Build your expertise and reputation over time. Even if it takes you years longer than expected, it's no failure until you give up.
- Even for technical choices, software/hardware, pick one and commit to it. This is much more rewarding than always switching and searching for the best.
Pg.10 Marriage is for getting through the times when you're not in love.
Pg.10 Once you decide something, never change your mind. It's so much easier to decide just once.
Fill your senses
Pg.12 Be systematic. Follow guides. "Top places you must visit", "Greatest movies of all time". Go through them all. That's the optimized way to experience the most, without repetition.
Do Nothing
Pg.15 People always think they need to do something. You don't need to act or react. You don't have to do anything.
Pg.15 Expressing your anger doesn't relieve it. It makes you angrier.
Pg.16 Say nothing unless it must be said.
Pg.17 When someone asks you to decide just refuse.
Pg.17 Just because someone asked you a question doesn't mean you have to answer it.
Pg.19 If an action feels necessary, and you can't let it go, just write it down for later. Everything seems more important while you're thinking of it. Later, you'll realize it's not.
Pg.20 The actions are obvious. Put money in an investment account and never withdraw. Eat mostly vegetables. Excercise always. Get preventative health checkups. Make time for your relationships.
Pg.21 We overestimate what we can do in one year. We underestimate what we can do in ten years.
Pg.22 Be extra careful of habits that seem harmless. Imagine each choice continuing forever. Eat a cookie, and eventually you're obese. Shop for fun, and eventually you're deep in debt. When you choose a behaviour, you choose its future consequences.
Pg.23 Short-term thinking is the root of most of our problems.
Interwine with the world
Pg.24 Those who shout, "my country is the best!", are those who have never left. In Icelandic, the word for "Idiot" means "one who has never left home to journey abroad".
Make memories
Pg.29 Journal everyday. Write down your activities, thoughts, and feelings for future reference. Video everything. Compile and edit them, so they're appealing to watch.
Pg.30 Making memories is the most important thing you can do with your life. The more memories you create, the longer and richer your life feels.
Master something
Pg.31 Mastery is the best goal because the rich can't buy it, the impatient can't rush it, the privileged can't inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it thorough hard work. Mastery is the ultimate status.
Pg.31 Mastery needs your full focused attention.
Pg.32 Decisions are easy when you have only one priority. Your destination is a huge mountain peak on the horizon. You can see it from everywhere. Yes to that mountain, and no to everything else. You'll always know where you're going, and what you're doing next. All paths go either towards that mountain or away from it.
Pg.32 Make your choice, then make a lifetime commitment to constant improvement.
Pg.33 Once you get momentum, never stop. It's easy to continue, but if you stop, it's hard to start again. Never miss a day.
Pg.35 Nobody cares what you're bad at, and neither should you. Amplify your strengths. Nobody will see the rest.
Pg.35 Keep the rest of your life boring. Drama is a distraction. Your personal life can shrink to almost nothing. Focus everything on your work. Mastery is not about doing many things. It's doing one thing insanely well. The more you take on, the less you'll achieve.
Pg.35 You can do anything, but not everything.
Pg.36 How long will it take you to become a master? It doesn't matter. Imagine getting to a mountaintop after a long hike thorough a gorgeous forest. Achieving your goal would feel like taking off your backpack. That's all. You do it for the journey, not the destination.
Let randomness rule
Pg.38 When talking with people, ask deep open-ended questions- like "What's your biggest regret?"- that will lead to unexpected stories.
Pursue pain
Pg.42 Socially, try to get rejected. Learn about "rejection therapy". Make audacious requests that you think will be denies. This removes the pain of rejection. And you'll be surprised how often they say yes.
Do whatever you want now
Pg.45 Forget the whole notion of the future. There is only today. If you want to do something, do it now. If you don't want to do it now, then you don't want to do it at all, so let it go.
Be a famous pioneer
Chase the future
Value only what has endured
Learn
Follow the great book
Pg.64 You don't lack direction. You have too many directions.
Pg.64 Bring your book with you everywhere as a constant reminder and reference. Refer to its rules in every situation, everyday. Memorize its crucial sentences. Keep them at the forefront of your mind.
Pg.64 "Follow your passion" is a terrible advice. Fleeting interests are a bad compass. Passions pass so quickly that to follow them would have you dashing around like a dog chasing bubbles.
Pg.65 Discipline turns intentions into action.
Laugh at life
Pg.67 Humor is the spirit of life- a sign of healthy, vibrant mind and soul.
Pg.67 Humor means using your mind beyond necessity, beyond reality, for both noticing and imagining. That's why we admire a quick wit. It shows you quickly looked at something from many angles, found the one that amused you the most, and considerately expressed it to someone else. Observation, creativity, and empathy, all in an instant. What could be a better sign of a healthy mind?
Pg.68 To laugh at something is to be superior to it. Humor shows internal control.
Pg.68 You can make light of anything. Respond to life's events however you want. Nothing has to get you down.
Prepare for the worst
Pg.73 When something happens, don't interpret. No story, no "should have", no judgement, not even an opinion. This is seeing clearly. Your goal is grateful indifference. Win the lottery? Go to jail? Get famous? Go blind in an accident? It doesn't matter because you're fine either way. Detach from the outcome and be OK no matter what happens.
Pg.74 All of this appreciation is the practice of death. When death comes, you'll treat it with the same indifference as everything else. You've been preparing for it all along.
Live for Others
Pg.76 People with strong social ties life longer, healthier, happier lives. The most miserable people are self-absorbed. So aim to be the opposite.
Pg.76 After age twenty, you need deliberate effort to make new friends. Friends are made, not found. If you sincerely appreciate someone, and really engage with their interests, you will become friends.
Pg.77 Appreciate differences. A conversation with a clone of yourself would be boring. Whenever you're thinking something nice about someone, tell them. A sincere compliment can put a lot of fuel in someone's tank. People don't hear enough compliments.
Pg.77 Imagine if you found out someone was going to die tomorrow. Imagine how much attention, compassion, and generosity you'd give them. Imagine how you'd forgive their faults. Imagine what you'd do to make their last day on earth the best it could be. Not treat everyone like that, everyday.
Get Rich
Pg.85 Reducing your expenses is so much easier than increasing your income.
Pg.85 The less you buy, the more you're in control. Forget lifestyle. Forget yourself. Stay 100% focused on creating value. Everything else is a corrupting distraction.
Pg.85 Don't loan money to a friend, or you'll lose your money and your friend. You'd be better off just giving them the money. The return is the same ($0), but you'd skip the bad feelings.
Pg.86 Then you'll get philosophical, since you'll have all the options in the world. You'll find your riches are worthless, and maybe even an obstacle, when it comes to friendship and love. Money won't change you, but it will amplify who you are.
Reinvent yourself regularly
Pg.89 Let go of your expertise. You built that boat to cross that river, so leave it there. Don't drag it along with you.
Pg.89 Never stay too long. Knowing something is going to end gives you more appreciation for it.
Love
Pg.90 Many times a day, you have the opportunity to connect. You can dash through a place, or stop to appreciate it. You can do an activity absent-mindedly, or pay full attention to every detail of it. (Work is love in action.) You can make shallow small-talk, or really get to know someone. Choose to connect every time.
Pg.91 People aren't used to someone being sincerely interested, so they'll need some coaxing to continue. But never try to fix them. When someone tells you what's broken ,they want you to love the brokenness, not try to eliminate it.
Pg.91 We think walls protect us from enemies, but walls are what create enemies in the first place.
Pg.91 The hardest part of connecting with someone is being honest. If you say what you think someone wants to hear, you're preventing a real connection. Manners are shallow. Honest is deep. Always tell the real truth, or they'll never know the real you, so you'll never really feel loved.
Pg.92 If you have feelings for someone, and you don't let that person know, you're lying with your silence. Be direct. It saves so much trouble and regret.
Pg.92 You could live with others, pleasing only them. You could live in solitude, pleasing only yourself. But ideally, when with others, be the same person you'd be when alone.
Pg.93 If the relationship isn't going to work, it's better to know early, instead of hiding your true self and putting up a facade for a long time before finding out.
Pg.93 Don't try to change someone, or teach them a lesson, unless they ask you to.
Pg.93 When one of you is being childish, the other needs to be the adult. Like a dance, you can't both dip at the same time. One of you has to stay upright to keep the other from collapsing.
Pg.93 Unless you are drops of liquid, one plus one never equals one. You must both be free and able to live without each other. Be together by choice, not necessity or dependence. Love your partner, but don't need your partner. Need is insatiable. Need destroys love.
Pg.94 Be wary of marriage. Don't make a life-long commitment based on an emotional state. It's illegal to sign contracts when drunk, so you shouldn't sign a marriage contract when drunk on infatuation.
Create
Pg.95 The way to live is to create. Die empty. Get every idea out of your head and into reality.
Pg.95 Which would you rather be? Someone who hasn't created anything in years because you're so busy consuming? Or someone who hasn't consumed anything in years because you're so busy creating.
Pg.95 Suspend all judgment when creating the first draft. Just get to the end. It's better to create something bad than nothing at all. You can improve something bad. You can't improve nothing.
Pg.96 Your imitation of anything will be unrecognizably warped by your own twisted perspective. Most creations are new combinations of existing ideas. Originality just means hiding your sources.
Don't die
Pg.100 Don't try to be more right. Just be less wrong.
Pg.100 Avoiding failure leads to success. The winner is usually the one who makes the least mistakes. This is true in investing, extreme skiing, business, flying, and many other fields. Win by not losing.
Make a million mistakes
Pg.102 Ignore every warning so you can find out for yourself. Once you have make all the mistakes in a field, you're considered an expert.
Make change
Balance everything
Pg.111 Set an alarm to start and stop on time. Obey your schedule, no matter how you feel. Schedule every hour of your day. Distraction steals what's not locked down.
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