Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working.
Derek Sivers

I believe many of my readers have never heard of Derek Sivers. Derek is a musician and an entrepreneur who originally founded CD Baby, grew it into a successful company, sold it for 22 million dollars and created a charitable trust called the Independent Musicians Charitable Remainder Unitrust. CD Baby started as an online CD distributor for independent musicians. In fact, Derek just wanted to sell his CD online when there was no online outlet that sold indie CDs, so he put a huge effort into creating such a place for himself. His friends as well as friends of friends started asking him to sell their CDs as well. Eventually Derek’s creation became CD Baby.

I had known about Derek from Seth Godin’s TED talk, but it’s only recent that I started checking his articles and videos. I love lessons he shares with us through these articles and videos. He published a book recently – I got it, I read it, and I love it.

I highly recommend you to read Anything You Want by Derek Sivers. It’s a business book – so, why bother if you want to create your life as your art or want to live a romantic life? How is living a romantic life related to what Derek Sivers has to say about business?

In fact, what does he say about business?

He says:

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

And what’s the point of making dreams come true for others and for yourself, you may ask.

Derek has an answer for that as well:

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

If you learn to make yourself happy by making dreams come true for others and for yourself… that will surely make your life go better.

You can create your life as your art just by putting yourself in it, but it will be much, much better if you make deep connections with others and get their stories and visions on your artwork called life.

Whether you are interested in running a business or not, you can apply Derek’s lessons to how you interact with amazing people around you and creating a life you want to live. So, check out Anything You Want from here, read it and learn from it.

Or you can learn more about Derek and what he has to say from the videos below as well as articles on his site.