Anything You Want

A manifesto about living life, appreciating enough, and doing what matters. It's most of what fabled entrepreneur Derek Sivers learned in ten years of starting and growing a small business.

You can follow the beaten path and call yourself an entrepreneur or you can blaze your own trail and really be one. When Derek Sivers started CD Baby, he wasn’t planning on building a major business. He was a successful independent musician who just wanted to sell his CDs online. When no one would help him do it, he set out on his own and built an online store from scratch. He started in 1998 by helping his friends sell their CDs. In 2000, he hired his first employee. Eight years later, he sold CD Baby for $22 million. Sivers didn’t need a business plan, and neither do you. You don’t need to think big; in fact, it’s better if you don’t. Start with what you have, care about your customers more than yourself, and run your business like you don’t need the money.

Unlock your creativity. An inspiring guide to creativity in the digital age, Steal Like an Artist presents ten transformative principles that will help readers discover their artistic side and build a more creative life. Nothing is original, so embrace influence, school yourself through the work of others, remix and reimagine to discover your own path. Follow interests wherever they take you - what feels like a hobby may turn into you life's work. Forget the old cliché about writing what you know: instead, write the book you want to read, make the movie you want to watch. And finally, stay smart, stay out of debt, and risk being boring in the everyday world so that you have the space to be wild and daring in your imagination and your work..

What do Mrs H., Rachel, Edwina, Ida, Sarah, Dot, Chrissie have in common? They're all women, but they're fat, thin, old, young, married or single - and appear as diverse as human nature can be. But they are all survivors. This enthralling novel follows the ripples that go out into ordinary lives that have been changed by a shared experience, all connected by the same hospital clinic in a small Northern town. This is a novel about what it means to live in the shadow of disease, and with scars, whether mental or physical. From the marvellous ambivalence of the title question, it leaves us with a whole lot more to consider about life and its infinite variety.

"Hattie Hoffman has spent her whole life playing many parts: the good student, the good daughter, the good girlfriend. When she's found brutally stabbed to death, the tragedy rips right through the fabric of her small-town community. Full of twists and turns, Everything You Want Me to Be reconstructs a year in the life of a dangerously mesmerizing young woman, during which a small town's darkest secrets come to the forefront, and she inches closer and closer to her death."--

Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of prac­ticing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct com­plex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By complet­ing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the meth­ods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard key­board, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the sim­ple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Fig­ure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcompo­nents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accu­rate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chain­saws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.

Have you ever thought about what you want to be when you grow up? Did you know that you can do absolutely anything you put your mind to? No matter who you are or where you live, you can achieve anything. The sky is the limit! Now, perhaps more than ever, it is important to be proactive in encouraging your children to work hard to reach their full potential in life. Each child is a fresh start with infinite potential. However, success doesn’t just happen. Throughout history, the heights of success have been attained by those with the courage to stand out. These influential individuals came from various age groups, cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds of all kinds. But they all have one thing in common: nothing held them back. You Can Be Anything You Want to Be is an inspiring collection of short summaries of the lives of some of history’s most successful and influential people. Author and early childhood development instructor Bridget Turner uses these stories to empower children to take the course of their lives into their own hands, reminding them that they are capable of anything they put their minds to.

Regardless of who you are or what you want, you can negotiate anything promises Herb Cohen, the world’s best negotiator. From mergers to marriages, from loans to lovemaking, the #1 bestseller You Can Negotiate Anything proves that “money, justice, prestige, love—it’s all negotiable.” Hailed by such publications as Time, People, and Newsweek, Cohen has advised presidents on everything from domestic policy to hostage crises to combating internal terrorism. His advice: “Be patient, be personal, be informed—and you can bargain successfully for anything.” Inside, you’ll learn the keys to using Herb Cohen’s proven strategy for dealing with your mate, your boss, your credit card company, your children, your lawyer, your best friends, and even yourself: •The three crucial steps to success • Identifying the other side’s negotiating style—and how to deal with it • The win-win technique • Using time to your advantage • The power of persistence, persuasion, and attitude • The art of the telephone negotiation, and much more “Power is based upon perception—if you think you’ve got it then you’ve got it!” affirms Herb Cohen, the world’s expert. And with this book, you’ve got the power to get what you really want right in your hands.