Hell yeah! or No

Derek Sivers - American writer, musician, programmer and entrepreneur best known for being the founder of CD Baby, an online CD store for independent musicians.

Derek Sivers was a classically trained musician and graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Then he became a professional musician. Then he became an entrepreneur who started CD Baby, an online CD store for independent musicians.

Sivers didn’t go to business school. He didn’t have an internship in venture capital. And he didn’t intend to be an entrepreneur. He was a musician, and he started a website to sell his own music. His friends asked if they could sell CDs on his website too.

CD Baby became the largest distributor of independent music online, with over $100M in sales for 150,000 musicians.

Today, Sivers spends some of his time writing and speaking. In his book “Anything you Want”, he shares this rule of thumb…

If you’re busy. Oversubscribed. Over-scheduled. Don’t say yes to anything.

When we’re invited to an event. Asked to collaborate on a project. If we’re considering a big investment. We have two options, and neither is, “Yes.”

Our options are:

“Hell yeah!”

…or

“No”

If our answer isn’t Hell yeah!, it’s No.

When we say no more often, we make room for more Hell yeahs.

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

If we’re busy. Oversubscribed. Over-scheduled. We have two options.

Neither is Yes.