This short read by Derek Sivers touched me deeply.
The book chronicles Sivers’ adventures founding CD Baby, a company which he eventually sold for $22 million. It took about 2 1/2 hours to read, and focused on the many lessons he learned through his work with his company.
Many of his lessons dealt with doing the work that we want to do. His lessons are applicable to everyday life as well as to the new entrepreneur. One that stuck out in particular is the lesson of saying “no” to most new projects.
Since everyone is overworked by taking on too many new endeavors, the only way to lessen the load is to start saying “no”. So from now on the filter to accepting new work is to only take it on if the personal response to the project is “hell yes!”. I loved the lesson, and it’s since helped me focus on those things that I love doing, rather than trying, and failing, to do everything.
Here’s a link to the video of that lesson (explore Youtube to find the other videos): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ehWlVeMrqwg
It’s a great book filled with great memorable and actionable lessons. Enjoy!
