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secondhandlitterateur's review
adventurous
informative
reflective
fast-paced
3.5
"Hell Yeah or No", Derek Sivers
A collection of small thoughts from Derek Sivers. A lot of them are very good, some are awful. Some feel strangely self-centred while others are so wholesome that they could easily be picked up by everyone without any negative consequence. The good of the book easily outweighs the bad, and even though 3.5 is pretty harsh, it's more a scale of the book's good contents compared to the bad.
The name of the book, Hell Yeah or No, refers only to one single-page chapter; most of the book's chapters make up 1 to 3 pages at most. There is the recurring theme of saying 'no' to things in order to free up life and do what's important, but Sivers also talks a lot about creativity, action, perception and beliefs, and life in general.
It's a mixed bag of interesting ideas, and there's a lot of good to be found in it, so long as you can pass by the less good.
A few excerpts I particularly like:
p22 - "Character isn't fate or destiny. Character isn't DNA, decided before birth. Character is the result of your little choices and little actions. How you do anything is how you do everything. It all matters."
p70 - "Many people are so worried about looking good that they never do anything great. Many people are so worried about doing something great that they never do anything at all. You destroy that paralysis when you think of yourself as just a student, and your current actions as just practise."
p85 - "Are you holding back something that seems too obvious to share?"
p100 - "It's so easy to waste time doing stuff that's not important, not really fun, and not useful to anyone, not even yourself."
p106 - "Life can be improved by adding, or by subtracting. The world pushes us to add, because that benefits them. But the secret is to focus on subtracting. ... The adding mindset is deeply ingrained. It's easy to think I need something else. It's hard to look instead at what to remove."
adityam's review
4.0
A super-easy read, worth getting a variety of perspectives through short storytelling. Recommended for even beginners. It can be a good memory of a weekend evening read.
bitterpearl's review
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Short, sweet, and also familiar. Derek has the ability of pointing out nuggets of wisdom that go unnoticed by us busy, inexperienced folk. I will definitely re-read the highlights and bookmarks I made from this book. Perfect for those starting out, confused in making a major life decision, and creatives.