Life in Half A Second – by Matthew Michalewicz

Background:

Matthew Michalewicz was born in Poland and lived there until his parents decided to escape the Communist regime. Matthew, now residing in Australia, went on to become a technology and software entrepreuener, creating the companies NuTech Solutions in 1999, SolveIT Software in 2004 and Complexica in 2014. Life In Half A Second is Matthew’s latest book, first published in 2013, and details a 5-step plan to achieving ‘success’, whatever that may mean for you.

 

Quick Summary:

Planet Earth is over 4.5 billion years old. Homo Sapiens are 200,000 years old. If we scaled down the existence of Planet Earth to 1 year, homo sapiens have been around for all of 23 minutes. On that timeline, our life only measures half a second. When we’re kids, time seems unlimited and seems to pass so slowly. But when we reach adulthood, we realise that “we’ll be spending the vast majority of our “freedom” at work, paying bills, surviving, often in jobs we don’t like or don’t care about”. Matthew lays out a 5 step plan of Clarity, Desire, Belief, Knowledge and Action. He says that these are the 5 ingredients we need to start achieving more in our short lives.

“The tragedy of life isn’t that we only have half a second. The tragedy is that we waste it.”

 

Who should read this:

This is one for everyone. Certainly not limited to those with business aspirations, these principles can be applied to what ‘success’ you want to achieve. Be that in entrepreneurship, health and weight loss, relationships, projects, or ticking things off your bucket list (which Matthew says we should all write down and complete each year!). It’s not a very long book but it has a big impact. Matthew tells some funny stories and uses some great analogies. Well worth the read.

 

Favourite Chapters:

The book is set out in 5 chapters, one chapter form each of the steps. They’re all important, so I’ll summarise the main points from each step. Matthew calls these the 5 “Doors to Success”, and each door has a key that opens it.

 

The First Door: CLARITY

“Successful people get what they want out of life because they know what they want”. The first Door to Success is achieving a sense of Clarity – working out exactly what you want to achieve in life. Matthew argues that you need to set goals, and you achieve success when you attain those goals. Your success is linked to what goals you set. You can set either small goals or big goals, and in turn, your success can either be small or big (small isn’t a bad thing, it’s all relative, as long as you know that you want to aim small and achieve small).

He also points out the differences between ‘success’ and ‘financial success’. Most people immediately think of money when they think of success, but this shouldn’t be your only focus. Of course, everyone needs money to live though, so ‘financial success’ must form some part of your consideration.

Part of the power of setting goals is the mental focus it brings – “once you have a clear goal, you begin thinking about it, and by thinking about it, you narrow your attention and efforts to activities related to the goal”. By having goals in place, you mind can focus and you can begin moving towards your goals.

The key to the Door of Clarity: Set precise goals.

Matthew talks a lot about Visualisation, something I’ve never personally got into but it seems to work for a lot of people! Maybe it’s something worth trying out. Matthew also says that less 1% of the population has goals, writes them down and reviews them (having goals is a lot better than not having them, but it’s even better to write them down and regularly review them to ensure that you’re on track to achieving them). Another thing Matthew advocates is spreading your goals around your trusted circle of friends and family to create some public commitment and gives you a team of people to keep encouraging you towards achieving your goals.

 

The Second Door: DESIRE

“Desire is the reason you do what you do”. If you don’t enjoy your job or you don’t enjoy exercising, you may do them anyway out of your desire to earn a pay check and buy food or your desire to be healthy and look good. Desire influences every decision we make. It’s therefore important to align your goals with things you desire. This will help strengthen your commitment, “help you overcome obstacles, recover from setbacks, and push through adversity and disappointment”. Low desire equals low effort – you will work a lot harder towards goals that you truly desire.

“The key to the Door of Desire is to align you goals with desire”.

I really interesting way to approach this is to list the things that you HATE. We all have things that we think we want in life and we can set goals to go about achieving those things, bu Matthew suggests it may be easier to identify the things we DON’T want in our lives. This is because we know exactly what the things we don’t want are because they already exist, and we don’t have to try and imagine what they might be. So, Matthew suggests we identify the most negative thing in our life right now, and set goals that will go about eliminating those things.

 

The Third Door: BELIEF

After a few funny annecdotes, Matthew tells us that whilst we don’t need to believe everything we read in his book or everything we see and hear in the world, we do need to believe 100% in OURSELVES. He informs us of some crazy medical stories about controlled trials where placebos have worked just as effectively as the actual treatments. Even as extreme as sham knee replacements that led to real recovery! By the same token, there are also nocebos that have the exact opposite effect; a harmless substance that will negatively impact us if we think that it will. Whilst this isn’t a book on medical advice, it really is amazing what can happen if we truly believe.

Matthew asks us “what’s the point of trying if success is impossible?”. If we believe that we would never be able to achieve success, of course, we would never actually take action and therefore we would never accomplish it. Matthew also tells some great historical triumphs where people broke the “belief barrier” and it led to a flood of record breakers.

The key to the Door of Belief is changing your environment. This is because our beliefs are formed as a direct result of our environment. If no one in our family has started a business before, we probably wouldn’t have the belief that we could do it. If all our friends are earning $60,000 a year, we wouldn’t believe that earning $1,000,000 a year is possible.

He references Jim Rohn’s famous quote that “you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with”. By spending time with people who are achieving more than you are currently achieving, your beliefs will shift and you will start achieving more. Keep in mind that a good way to easily change your environment is to start ‘spending time’ will successful people by reading their biographies, reading their books and blogs, listening to their podcasts and watching their documentaries. You may not be able to meet face to face with ultra-successfully people right now. But reading, watching and listening is a great place to start.

 

The Fourth Door: KNOWLEDGE

“Studies have shown it’s easier to achieve success if you know how to achieve it”. Seems pretty obvious doesn’t it. Matthew argues that someone has already achieved pretty much anything we want to achieve; so all we need to do is learn how they did it and repeat. Matthew reiterates here that there are many different paths to success, and generally the faster the path the more risky it becomes. By learning exactly how people have achieved success in the past, our path becomes a whole lot easier.

A major part of achieving success is setting a ‘goal pyramid’. Well worth having a look at this section. It’s a great way of mapping our goals and gives you a clear path of action to achieve them. By the way, you’ll see a free little bonus at the bottom of this post! Hint – Matthew has done a short video series about his book that you can access for free through this link! By setting a goal pyramid, you know exactly what steps you need to take on the way to your goals and you give yourself some obvious milestones you can celebrate along the way.

Invest in Yourself

YOU are your own greatest asset, and the key to the Door of Knowledge is to invest in yourself. There is a massive difference between knowing ‘what’ and knowing ‘how’ – know what you want is a major step in itself, but it is useless unless you know exactly how you can going about attaining it.

An important element Matthew mentions here is the exchange rate between life and cash. It’s a great concept and he also touches on how important it is to OWN something, rather than just being a worker (this may be a business, real estate, stocks, but also the right to a song or book you’ve created). This is where you can really earn money. He doesn’t spend a lot of time on it though, so if this little section intrigues you, I recommend reading something like Rich Dad, Poor Dad or The Richest Man in Babylon to get you even more fired up.

 

The Fifth Door: ACTION

At the end of the day, nothing is going to happen unless you actually take ACTION. You have to get out the and DO STUFF. So go. Now! Go do it.

The reason Matthew decided to take action was because he wasn’t content with living on the median wage of $33,000 at the time for the rest of his life. He had bigger dreams and bigger goals, so he needed to commit and start taking action. He says that whilst many people read self-help books and go to seminars, they still don’t achieve success. The reason? “People aren’t looking for the ‘secrets’ to success, they’re looking for the ‘shortcuts’ to success”. He argues that people want success, but most aren’t willing to put in the hours. Most don’t put in the effort and take the necessary calculated risks to get there.

And what is the major reason we don’t take action? Fear. Fear of failure, fear of success, rejection, embarrassment, change, criticism, commitment… We fear so much that is tranquilizes us and we don’t take action. In the past, our ancestors had fear of war and famine and disease, things that are far more tangible and dangerous than our fears of failure or embarrassment. Ultimately, we are going to regret the things that we never tried a lot more than the things we failed at. So get out there and start trying new things and taking action.

 

Favourite Quotes:

“We’ll be spending the vast majority of our ‘freedom’ at work, paying bills, surviving, often in jobs we don’t like or don’t care about”

“The tragedy of life isn’t that we only have half a second. The tragedy is that we waste it.”

“Can we only live when we’re dying?”

“Because you measure time in ‘years lived’ rather than ‘days left’, the future seems unlimited, so you defer and wait”

“[We] do very little of what [we] ‘have to’ and very little of what [we] ‘want to’”

“There’s a countdown on my life. And guess what… There’s a countdown on yours as well”

“It’s not a disgrace to not reach for the stars, but it’s a disgrace to have no stars to reach for” Benjamin Mayes

“There is no question that life is but a moment, a snap of the fingers. The real question is: what are you going to do with that moment?”

“Successful people get what they want out of life because they know what they want”

“Success is defined by what you aim for – by what goals you set”

“Once you have a clear goal, you being thinking about it, and by thinking about it, you narrow your attention and efforts to activities related to the goal”

“Only one person in a hundred has goals, writes them down, and regularly reviews them”

“People abandon their dreams because of the risks and the consequences of failure”

“Do or do not… There is no try” Yoda

“What the point of trying if success is impossible?”

“Your environment has influenced you since the day you were born”

“A positive environment will feed your self-belief like oxygen feeds a flame”

“Go to the library, borrow books, subscribe to blogs, download podcasts, discover the world, get inspired”

“Anyone can change their environment if they want to, if their desire is strong enough, and when they change their environment, their self-belief will change with it”

“Studies have shown that it’s easier to achieve success if you know how to achieve it”

“Ignorance is the most expensive thing in the world ”

“Knowing the path – knowing what to do – is only half the equation. The other half is knowing how to do it.”

“You will never become wealthy unless you own something”

“People aren’t looking for the ‘secrets’ to success, they’re looking for the ‘shortcuts’ to success”

“In the same way that fears are learned, they can also be unlearned”

“Whenever you say ‘I can’t’, what you’re really saying is ‘I don’t want to’”

“The greatest failure you can experience in life is not trying”

“The only person responsible for you success is you”

“Make the most of your days left, do everything you want to do, and do it now, before it’s too late”

 

Bonus

As promised, you can get free access to Matthew’s Life In Half A Second video series. Take the challenge today by taking action on what you’ve learnt form the book. Sign up here to get free access. Send us your success stories when you’ve achieved your success.

Become a Key Person of Influence – by Daniel Priestley

Background:

Daniel Priestly and Glen Carlson created the Key Person of Influence program in Australia in 2010. It has now expanded and they offer their 40 week “Growth Accelerator” program in the UK, USA, Australia and Singapore. They take entrepreneurs through their 5 step sequence of Pitch, Publish, Product, Profile and Partner to help their businesses succeed. In 2014, they were awarded Australia’s 9^th fastest growing company. With a strong track record and over 2,000 alumni success stories, it’s pretty safe to say that becoming a Key Person of Influence can work for you too.

 

Quick Summary:

Become a Key Person of Influence is a really good read for anyone who wants to grow their personal brand. If you have a business, or plan to create one, I would definitely recommend reading this book as a starting point. I like the fact that it’s quite prescriptive and they tell you exactly what you need to do. I see this and really benefiting smaller operations and people providing a personalised service, but it would also be a really clever tool to use if you wanted to climb the corporate ladder because you could really differentiate yourself from your peers quickly.

From their website, they say the book “gives you an overview of how to become more visible, valuable and connected”. The book starts off by shedding light on how we’ve progressed well past the industrial age and we are sitting firmly in the Ideas Economy. Then they show you exactly how you can use their 5 Ps method to help you achieve more.

 

Who should read this:

People looking to progress, succeed and achieve a lot more. It gets you to move away from your current ‘functional’ thinking of being good at your tasks and moves you towards becoming ‘vital’ so people feel they can’t do thing as well without you. Functional people are replaceable, so if you’re an employee, you’d better start taking action and become Vital. If you’re a business owner, following the 5 steps could really accelerate your growth. Overall though, I’d suggest that this book is most applicable to entrepreneurs/wantrepreneurs who are looking to grow and make the path to success a lot shorter and smother

 

Favourite Sections:

 

Your Best Thinking Five Years Ago Is Your Baggage Today

Dan begins his book by showing us that “many people are great at what they do, but aren’t fulfilled”. He explains that all of the decisions you made years ago about your career, technology, friends and thought leaders were all based upon the world BACK THEN, and that’s a world that no longer exists. Thing that we used to have to drive to the shopping centre to buy are now freely available online.

He says that we need to “let go of everything we currently think and do [so we don’t] fail to see the opportunities of tomorrow”. He uses a Steve Jobs example to illustrate this. When Steve return to Apple in 1997, one of his first decision was to get rid of the Apple Museum in the foyer, sayig he refused to be in a company that was living in the past. Rather than being affected by the best thinking of its history, he wanted to be living up to the best thinking for the future. Dan finishes this section by getting us to think about our own lives… “If I was starting completely fresh, in a world where anything is possible, what would I love to be doing?”

 

Vitality Is More Valuable Than Functionality

A big part of the introduction of the book is the comparison between Vitality and Functionality. Functional People may be great at what they do, but ultimately, their value comes from efficiency in completing the day-to-day tasks and they are replaceable. They are trying to get better at the current processes and they’re making marginal improvements and are worried that someone might come along that can do it better than them. On the other hand, Vital People see themselves as being key to the result, rather than just another part of the process. They can adapt quickly to changing situations and they can rapidly accelerate results and outcomes. Da talks through a few good comparisons between Functional People and Vital People to help illustrate the differences.

Note: If you haven’t realised already – you want to be a Vital Person.

 

The Eiffel Tower And The Parisian Landscape

A great analogy that is really appropriate later on in the “Product” stage. As a business, you need a “Product Ecosystem”. As Glen Carlson, the co-founder of Dent Global, says: “Products don’t make money – product ecosystems make money”. You can’t just have one product. You need an Eiffel Tower. This is your major drawcard that gets people talking. People come from all over the world to spend thirty bucks going up the Eiffel Tower and get a picture with it. But then… they spend thousands walking around Paris in accommodation, food, activities and everything else. So once you draw people in with your Eiffel Tower, they can spend more money walking around your Parisian Landscape.

 

The game has changed.

They do a good job of setting up WHY we should become a Key Person of Influence before they get in to HOW we can go about getting there. A few more points the share with us is that competitive advantage used to come from building up incremental improvements by working harder than everyone else around you. Now however, the new competitive advantage is more about “thinking expansively, connecting with the right people and spotting fresh opportunities”. They are also big on the belief that everyone already has everything they need to establish themselves as a KPI:

• “Your greatest asset is your existing passion, the skills you already ave and, most of all, your own personal story”
• “Your journey thus far has not been a waste of time; it’s been perfect.”
• “You are already standing on a mountain of value. Your story is valuable, your experience is unique, and you are worth your weight in gold… just as you are!”.

I just remembered another great analogy they used! Let’s place ourselves in a mountain range. As we’re climbing up the mountain, we climb and climb and climb. Then we eventually get to the top. (This is a metaphor for our life’s journey so far). If we look around, we just see the tops of the other mountains and can’t see that we’ve done anything special because we are just on the same level as the other peaks. But once we get some perspective, we can gain an understanding that we’ve truly accomplished something special and we are in fact “standing on a mountain of value”. Everyone’s story is different – we need to leverage our own stories, connections and experiences to position ourselves as an authority in our micro-niche.

 

PITCH

Step 1 of the KPI method. You need to be able to quickly and clearly convey an interesting answer to the question, ‘What do you do for a living?’. This section goes through a few good examples and a few aspects you should include in your pitch. Check out my review of the “3 Hour Brand Accelerator” event I went to that was hosted by these guys for another good structure you can use for introducing yourself to new people.

• You want an “emotionally-charged response” when you tell people what you do. You want them to either love it or hate it. The WORST outcome is that you get a “polite response”. If the make a friendly remark but obviously aren’t enthralled by your response, you might want to rethink how you delivered your personal pitch. If people emphatically tell you, “that won’t work!”, you’re probably onto something good…
• You need to think about your “big game”. This must be something that is fun, has rules, has distinct, players, has a prize, has a way to win, and has a way to lose.
• The 6 Ps of Pitching: Position, Problem, Projection, Proposal, Proof, Project.

 

PUBLISH

Step 2. I’m a big believer in this one. “It’s no coincidence that the word ‘authority’ has the word ‘author’ in it”. They emphasise the fact that have a book, a physical hard-copy book, can really set you apart from your competition. Check out some of Gerry Robert’s stuff too for more info on book publishing. By actually writing and publishing a book, you prove to people that you can actually stick to a mammoth task and see it through to completion. It positions you as a serious expert, it has a massive perceived value to other people, and it can open A LOT of doors. Just thinking and talking about writing a book has opened so many doors for me.

Note: I’m currently “writing a book” myself. I have been for a little while now, but I’m going to finish it! I’m also going to be starting up a book publishing company soon, so keep an eye out for that too.

Types of books:

They present 5 different types of books and talk about the pros and cons of each type.

• Your take on things (pro: positions you well as an expert, con: you need to be able to write 30,000+ words on your own)
• A compilation of interviews (pro: shows that you’re well connected, con: if not done right, it doesn’t really demonstrate your own personal skill, knowledge or expertise)
• A book of tips (pro: it can be easier to write 500 words each on 60 quick tips and you could write two short articles a day and be finished writing in a month, con: can show breadth of knowledge but you can’t really delve too deep)
• Book of pictures (pro: highlight your artistic skills if you’re a painter/sculture/photographer etc, con: very expensive to print high quality colour images in a book)
• Creative piece, like The Richest Man in Babylon or Who Moved My Cheese (pro: shows your skill and creativity, con: hard to do, really hard to do well)

They talk a bit more about planning, choosing a title, finding a ‘writing coach’, publishing your book and promoting you book. I’ll expand on this later when I can give my own personal views from my book too! You can email me at adam@adamashton.com.au if you want to know about these now.

I’d strongly, strongly recommend going to Gerry Robert’s bootcamp the next time he comes to your city. Genuinely the best two days and BEST $97 I’VE EVER EVER SPENT.

 

PRODUCT

Step 3. You need to have some way of productising your business. This way, people can buy these at any time. You don’t need to personally deliver the content yourself. They can buy from anywhere in the world. Obviously, your product has to give some kind of value to the people that buy it. Having products means you have better avenues to positively influence others. Check out my review of the “3 Hour Brand Accelerator” that these guys ran for a good overview of their “Ascending Transaction Model” that you should apply to your Product Ecosystem.

 

PROFILE

Step 4. These days, you are who Google says you are… So you need to boost your profile so people can find you and verify that you’re the real deal. Dan also talks about using social media marketing instead of mass media marketing like newspaper, television or radio because you can hone in o your targets so that you’re only advertising to the people you want to see your stuff. As a quick hint, content that’s on youtube, facebook, twitter, linkedin, slideshare and wordpress get rated very highly by Google’s tools, so if you want to climb up those rankings, you have to publish content here.

 

PARTNERSHIP

Step 5. This is where it all comes together and where you start making MONEY. This is where it starts to become a lot easier and you’ll feel like you’re getting a lot better results from less work. The catch is, you can’t just skip to here. You HAVE to go through the first four steps so that you’re established. Only then can you find the right partners that will provide you with the right opportunities.

The type of Partnership deals Dan mentions include affiliate systems, mail swaps, product teaming, packing up and free bundles. The key to any of these efforts working out is that you have to be providing VALUE. These can be serious win/win/win arrangements – you win by getting in front of a new audience, your partner wins by getting exposure to your audience or from providing their audience with good value, and the customers win by getting great value.

 

Don’t Let ILR Ruin Your Life

After showing you HOW you can execute the 5 steps, the final section is “Making it happen”. But most people seem to suffer from the “Illusion of Limited Resources”. The issue is not that we don’t have enough resources, it’s just that we aren’t resourceful enough to be able to use them to their fullest capacity. Dan uses the analogy that oil was just a dark sludge until we worked out how to use it to create energy. You need to become more resourceful so that you don’t see limited time or money or relationships as holding you back.

 

Stretching Into the Unknown

Right at the end of the book, Dan drops the unfortunate truth. Even though he’s talked us through WHY we need to become a Key Person of Influence and even shown us HOW to become one, most people won’t actually DO it. The main issue is that most people are waiting for the ‘perfect opportunity’, which really will never come. If you’re waiting until you have more money or more free time or you meet one more big customer… It’s like waiting for all of the traffic lights to turn green before you leave your house to go to work – it just won’t happen. Similar to Derek Siver’s thoughts on the topic – just START NOW.

 

Favourite Quotes:

“At the centre of every industry you will find an inner circle of people who are the most well-known and valued people”

“Many people are great at what they do, but aren’t fulfilled”

“Your best thinking from five years ago is your baggage today”

“Unless we can let go of everything we currently think and do, we will fail to see the opportunities of tomorrow”

“If I was starting completely fresh, in a world where anything is possible, what would I love to be doing?”

“In the future your most valuable asset is the number of people who know you, like you and trust you”

“In the future you will discover that what you do has changed, but that your passion has only become stronger”

“The competitive advantage is in thinking expansively, connecting with the right people and spotting fresh opportunities”

“Success isn’t about engaging in a struggle; it’s about getting into the flow”

“Every KPI needs an ‘Eiffel Tower’ – something impressive and unique that others can talk about with their friends”

“There is always a lag time between the release of a new technology, its uptake and the impact it has”

“Small if faster. Small is more dynamic. Small is cheaper. Small is more flexible. Small is more fun. And small can look big.”

“Your biggest asset is your existing passion, the skills you already have and, most of all, your own personal story”

“Your journey thus far hasn’t been a waste of time; it’s been perfect”

“THEIR thing might not be YOUR thing”

“All of your future learnings will come from the process of producing value”

“Until you are a Key Person of Influence on the inner circle of your industry, your full-time job is to become one.”

“The inner circle is rich with good opportunities shared between a small number of people. The outer circle is full of many people fighting over the poor opportunities.”

“It’s no coincidence that the word ‘authority’ has the word ‘author’ in it”

“When someone asks the quintessential networking question ‘What do you do?’, your enthralling answer will have the power to unlock all of their resources”

“When you know ‘what you are up to in the worl’ you become a magnet for opportunity”

“Choose a micro-niche that you identify with personally, with genuine concern and interest”

“Use a sniper rifle, not a shotgun”

“Some of your best insights will come from your critics, and success wil be that much sweeter when you prove them wrong”

“So many people say they are ‘working on a book’ but few actually get it published”

“Two hundred year ago the wealthiest people owned tracts of land and sprawling farms. One hundred years ago the wealthiest people owned massive factories and bustling production lines. Today the wealthiest people simply have big ideas that spread like wildfire.”

“If you create a product that helps solve a very real and specific challenge that people have, it will sell.”

“Before every boom in creativity comes a new way to connect”

“In-built into these five outcomes for becoming a KPI you will find that there is clarity, credibility, visibility, scalability and profitability”

“The most powerful way to save time, money and mistakes is to learn from others who have walked the path before you”

“A resources is only defined by our ability to use it… There are no resources without resourcefulness”

“No matter what you need in your business or your life, getting it will be a function of your resourcefulness rather than whether the resources are available”

“Make sure you know what makes you happy, and don’t forget it”

“You will never sustainably increase your wealth without first increasing you network”

“Given time, a strong network leads to more wealth, more fun and more success”

“Resist the temptation to chase the new thing and keep taking steps closer to the iner circle of the industry you love”

“Most people believe that when the conditions are right they will act. This attitude does NOT work. Ever.”

“If something comes along that you know you should do, the do it, and figure it out along the way”

“Resources show up AFTER resourcefulness… Resourcefulness shows up AFTER you make a commitment”

“Ask yourself what it is you actually want to do. Then go and do it.”

“Bite off more than you can chew and then figure it out along the way”

“Your ancestors would shake their head in disgust… The faced wars, plagues and disasters to create a better world and you’re not taking full advantage of all it has to offer”

“Most television is a waste of time, but the news is just a pitiful waste of time”

“You have virtually no downside in perfecting your pitch, writing your book, producing a product, using social media and talking to some people about a joint venture. The upside, however, is awesome.”

“The Law of Inertia – an object at rest will stay at rest, until acted upon by an outside force. The Law of Momentum – an object in motion will stay in motion, until it meets a resisting force”

“Inertia weighs you down and it takes more and more effort to get moving. Momentum is the feeling of being in flow. It’s a rush and it’s the domain of creativity.”

Anything You Want – By Derek Sivers

Background:

Derek Sivers was a musician and circus ringleader before ‘accidentally’ forming a company that he later sold for $22m. He then donated that $22m to charity. In 1998, Derek wanted to try and sell his band’s albums online, but unless you were already signed to a major record label, there was no avenue for this. So, he created one. Then one of his friends wanted him to sell their album. Word spread, and CD Baby became the largest online seller of independent music, selling over $100m worth of CDs from over 150,000 independent artists. Since selling CD Baby in 2008, Derek has gone on to publish 34 books, including Anything You Want, and has attracted over 5 million views to his TED talks.

 

Quick Summary:

Anything You Want is a great read. It’s quick, simple, and to the point. Subtitled “40 lessons for a new kind of entrepreneur”, the book consists of 40 different one or two page anecdotes with a clear purpose or takeaway. This book could easily be padded out to 300+ pages with anecdotes and studies and facts and figures, but I really appreciate the fact that it’s simple and straight to the point. Derek uses just the right amount of personal story to set the scene, then delivers his key message in a concise sentence or two at the bottom of the page.

He talks about a different way of thinking about business. I’ve always thought that every company should be trying to become as big as they can, make as much money as they can, and basically try to take over the world. But this is a story of a company that wanted to stay small and DIDN’T want to grow. Well worth the read – it’ll seriously only take you an hour or so to get through. I’m a pretty slow reader and even I could read it in one sitting.

 

Who should read this:

This book is mainly targeted at entrepreneurs/wantrepreneurs. I think it’s a great read for anyone with big plans and big visions, because this offers a different way of looking at life. Derek focuses on being small and being happy, but most importantly, about satisfying customers. That might sound obvious, but after reading this book, you’ll realise that whilst most companies say they’re focusing on customer satisfaction, very few actually are. Most companies are all about being big-big-big, as big as can be, about growth, about profit maximisation, but are any of these really in the customer’s best interest?

 

Favourite Chapters:

 

What’s your compass?

Derek says that “most people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing”. He says that by imitating others and going with the flow, people spend decades in pursuit of things that other people convinced them that they should want. Instead, WE need to determine what WE want and to make our own paths, rather than following others.

 

If it’s not a hit, switch.

“Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working”. So true. You’ll always hear people saying “don’t give up”, or “just keep pushing through”, or “quitting is for losers”, or something along those lines. The key here is that persistence alone won’t get you to your goals. Of course you need to be resilient and you don’t just give up at every hurdle, but at the same time, you need to realise when something truly isn’t going to work and be prepared to try something completely different. Rather than continuing to ram your head against a brick wall, why not try something else entirely?

 

No “yes”. Either “Hell yeah!” or “no”.

One of the more well-known and often repeated phrases is Derek’s “Hell yeah or no”. Derek says that early on you should be saying yes to every opportunity that comes up, but once things become a bit more serious, you need to become a lot more selective. Time is our most valuable resource, so you shouldn’t waste it on things that aren’t contributing to your goals or aren’t making people (or yourself) happy. If something sounds interesting but doesn’t captivate you, say no. If something sounds intriguing but you aren’t super super enthusiastic about it, say no. It has to rank as a “hell yeah” for you to do it. By saying no, you leave yourself the freedom and flexibility to fully commit to the “hell yeah” moments.

“We’re all busy. We’ve all taken on too much. Saying ‘yes’ to less is the way out”

 

Start now. No funding needed.

“Watch out for anyone that says he wants to do something big, but can’t until he raises money. It usually means the person is more in love with the idea of being big-big-big than actually doing something useful”. I think you can even extrapolate that out even further to include not just funding, but a whole range of other scenarios. If you keep putting it off until ‘tomorrow’, it will never get done. If you keep waiting for funding, or waiting for the free time to start, or waiting to find the perfect partner, or waiting for the ‘perfect’ opportunity to start, it will never get done. There is no perfect time to do anything. There will also be something wrong, so it’s up to you to DECIDE to do it, then DO IT! NOW!!

 

Ideas are just a multiplier of execution

It’s funny how people are so protective of their ideas. Wanting you to sign a non-disclosure agreement or waiting until you hire them or give them a chunk of your company. Ideas are essentially worthless if they are just ideas. Ideas have to be executed for them to mean something. Derek has a little table of the value of an idea versus the value of execution, but as an example, an absolutely brilliant idea with zero execution is worth about $20, but a good idea with great execution is more like $10,000,000.

 

Proudly exclude people

Most businesses start out wanting to be all things to all people. But you can’t. “You need to proudly exclude people, and say what you’re not”. If you become really clear on exactly what you offer and exactly what you don’t offer, you can really focus on your targeted market. It’s a hard thing to do at first, but as Derek says, “It’s a big world. You can loudly leave out 99 per cent of it”.

 

Note: This is pretty well aligned with the ideas of “use a sniper, not a shot gun” in Becoming a Key Person of Influence, as well as the article 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly.

 

You don’t need a plan or a vision

A really interesting chapter about how Derek never really had a big vision. He tells some funny stories about how he set goals and surpassed them really early and never really re-calibrated. I’m definitely the goal setting type and like to have a vision to work towards. But I really liked this quote from the end of the chapter that really reinforces Derek’s outlook: “Don’t think you need a huge vision. Just stay focused on helping people today”.

 

How do you grade yourself?

Really important for everyone and really relevant to me right now. You need to determine what will make us feel like we are a ‘success’. That’s different for everyone. It might be our bank balance, the number of famous people we know, the number of city buildings with our name on them, the strength of our relationships with friends and family, or a whole range of other criteria. I personally need to work this out for myself soon, so I can stay focused on what’s honestly important to me, rather then always being guided by what other people think I should be doing.

 

Little things make all the difference

Derek tells a few stories about how CD Baby always went the extra mile to make people happy and be useful. By touching the days and lives of individuals, they were able to become a very large company but never became a “big boring company” in the process (Banks? Insurance companies? Energy companies? I’m sure you can think of hundreds more big boring companies that you’d never fall in love with…).

 

It’s OK to be casual

Basically – don’t take yourself too seriously. No matter how big you think your company gets or how important you think you are, you don’t have to act that way. “Don’t try to impress an invisible jury of MBA professors”.

 

Favourite Quotes:

“Most people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing”

“Don’t be on your deathbed some day, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams”

“Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for yourself and others”

“The real point of doing anything is to be happy, so do only what makes you happy”

“When you make a business, you make a little universe where you control all the laws. This is your utopia”

“When you make a dream come true for yourself, it’ll be a dream come true for someone else, too”

“A business plan should never take more than a few hours of work – hopefully no more than a few minutes. The best plans start simple. A quick glance and common sense should tell you if the numbers work. The rest are details.”

“Revolution is a term people use only when you’re successful. Before that, you’re just a quirky person who does things differently.”

“If you think your life’s purpose needs to hit you like a lightning bolt, you’ll overlook the little day-to-day things that fascinate you”

“When you’re onto something great, it won’t feel like a revolution. It’ll feel like uncommon sense”

“Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working”

“We’re all busy. We’ve all taken on too much. Saying ‘yes’ to less is the way out”

“Any time you think you know what your new business will be doing, remember this quote from serial entrepreneur Steve Bank: ‘No business plan survives first contact with customers’.”

“By not having money to waste, you never waste money”

“Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers”

“Watch out for anyone that says he wants to do something big, but can’t until he raises money. It usually means the person is more in love with the idea of being big-big-big than actually doing something useful”

“Start now… You’ll always be ahead of the rest, because you actually started, while others are waiting for the finish line to magically appear at the starting line”

“Starting small puts 100 percent of your energy into actually solving real problems for real people”

“Ideas are just a multiplier of execution”

“You need to confidently exclude people, and proudly say what you’re not. By doing so, you will win the hearts of the people you want”

“You can’t pretend there’s only one way to do it. Your first idea is just one of many options. No business goes as planned, so make ten radically different plans”

“Don’t think you need a huge vision. Just stay focused on helping people today”

“Never forget why you’re really doing what you’re doing”

“How do you grade yourself? It’s important to know this from the start, to make sure you’re staying focused on what’s honestly important to you, instead of doing what others think you should”

“Care more about your customers than you do yourself, and you’ll do well”

“Set up your business like you don’t need the money, and it’ll likely come your way”

“When you’re thinking of how to make your business bigger, it’s tempting to think all the big thoughts and come up with world-changing massive-action plans. But please know that it’s often the tiny details that really thrill people enough to tell all their friends about you”

“Even if you want to be big someday, remember that you never need to act like a big boring company”

“Don’t try to impress an invisible jury of MBA professors. It’s OK to be casual”

“There’s a benefit to being naïve about the norms of the world – deciding from scratch what seems to be the right thing to do, instead of just doing what others do”

“It’s about what you want to be, not what you want to have”

“There’s a big different between being self-employed and being a business owner. Being self-employed feels like freedom until you realise that if you take time off, your business crumbles. To be a true business owner, make it so that you could leave for a year, and when you came back, your business would be doing better than when you left”

“Make sure you know what makes you happy, and don’t forget it”

“No matter which goal you choose, there will be lots of people telling you you’re wrong”