Rhodium Weekend
host: Chris Yates
starting with the end in mind, constraints and creativity, scaling a business, delegation versus abdication, work-life balance
listen: (download)
Transcript:
Chris
All right, Derek. So we’re going to do essentially an ask me anything discussion here. And this is all information that came from the intake form of Rhodium weekend members. What I did is went through around 100 of the questions, the challenges people have had, and kind of condensed it and distilled it into a few themes that we’re going to go through today. One of those themes today with in regards to Rhodium we’ve talked about is starting with the end in mind. And what I think is interesting for you is that money probably wasn’t the end for you given that you gave all the money away. So after your exit, what did you expect your end to be and how is that evolved after kind of living life in retirement over the last dozen or so years?
Derek Sivers
Okay, I’ll separate those into two parts. So what did I expect my end to be? Well, my first thought was when I was selling the company, like, now I’m dangerous in a good way because I can create services for musicians and I don’t need any money from it. So in other words, if there’s something that I think people need, like something that should exist, then I can create it and run it for many years. Even if it’s losing like $100,000 a year. I don’t need to monetize it because I don’t need money ever again. So I don’t know if this makes sense, but I’ll use a concrete example is around the time I sold CD Baby, there was this popular songwriting contest where thousands of musicians would pay like $100 to have their song entered into a competition, and then the winner would get like $10,000. Right? But I hated this. It was really popular, but it was a big scam because what it meant is that thousands of musicians would lose 100 bucks and one person would win. So I just kind of thought this company was evil and I wanted to put them out of business. So that was one of my first thoughts, is like, I can recreate that model for free and then run it at a small loss as a service to the world because this is something that maybe should exist. People like entering their song and all that kind of stuff, but I can get rid of $100, do it for free, and even if it costs me some money to do this, I could destroy the greedy competition.
Derek Sivers
Right? So that was just one little concrete example that comes to mind. But the real point is this I just wanted to keep doing what I was doing, but now I could do it for free, like charitable service since I didn’t need the money and that was the end I was expecting. But the second part of your question is like, how is that evolved after living in retirement for the last dozen years? Is that what really happened is after a few months of following that plan and almost starting my next company, I realized that I wanted to make a real change in my life because I’ve been running CD baby for ten years. And I realized. If I do what I’m planning. It’s just going to be like another ten or 20 years with no real change in my life. I’m going to keep doing the same thing, but just change the company name over my head, right? So instead, I wanted to try different approaches to living that I hadn’t tried before. So, for example, I had never really traveled. So I wanted to try living around the world like not just tourist thing, but becoming a legal resident of many countries. I wanted to be a world citizen, and I had never really been that much of an intellectual like I had just been doing, doing, doing for ten years without a lot of thinking. So I wanted to try reading a lot, learning a lot, and sharing what I’ve learned by writing a lot.
Derek Sivers
I wanted to speak at the TEDx conference. I wanted TEDx to invite me to speak, but this was back in 2009, before TEDx, when it was still super prestigious to speak at TEDx. So and then I think just like in tiny ways, every day, I wanted to try doing the opposite of what I’d done before. And so yeah, that’s what I ended up doing. I ended up not doing the exact same thing I’d been doing, which is not what I’d planned and ended up changing everything. But I do need to clear up one. Definition. It’s still funny. Like when you said retirement. I’m not used to that yet. So about retirement, I want to clear up this idea that I never, ever considered myself retired and I never would have. Until a visa controlled border guard was quizzing me, asking me why I was coming into his country like I was entering one of those borders. And you hand him your passport and usually on your immigration form, you fill in your occupation. So I wrote Programmer because that was just kind of like the thing I would say when people say, What do you do as a programmer? So he started asking me, Well, who do you work for and what work do you do? And so I said, Well, I’m a programmer since that’s why I spend most of my time doing but I don’t work for anyone. And he said he kept asking me and he said, Your answers sound fishy and I think I’m not going to let you into the country.
Derek Sivers
So finally I said, All right, look, I was like embarrassed. I said, You can search the web for my name. I sold my company for 22 million and I’ll never be working for anyone again, don’t worry. And he instantly lit up and said, Oh, why didn’t you tell me? He said, Look, from now on, just make it easier on all of us and just admit you’re retired. And this really surprised me. Retired? No way. A retired means doing nothing for the rest of my life. Right? But no, In that border control moment, I realized that retired just means that you’re not working for anyone. And maybe more specifically, you’re not working for money anymore. So that’s all it really means. So I realized, right, technically, thanks to Border Guy, I’ll admit I’m retired, but I work just as hard as ever. But now everything I do is just for intrinsic motivation, just doing whatever seems interesting to me or whatever seems like the right thing to do, which you can even say today is a perfect example, right? Like I woke up at 4:30 in the morning today to do this 5:00 AM interview because I’m in New Zealand. That’s why it’s dark. Probably while we’re talking it’s going to get light behind me. But last night I spent 3 hours reading through your questions and thinking about them in advance. So yeah, retirement by this definition is wonderful and I highly recommend it. If you can make a ton of money, do so. It’s awesome.
Chris
And I think that it can be a wonderful means to whatever end that you choose. And yeah. Isn’t there a Japanese word for sort of like retirement, but you’re doing a craft into retirement. It might be gardening or something like that, but they never really retire. They just do their I can’t remember the Japanese word. Oh ikigai. Thank you. So the intake form, one of the questions that I asked was what are people’s constraints to growth within their companies? We got answers like not enough, not enough capital, not enough talent, not enough deals, not enough traffic, not enough time, not enough focus, things like that, etc., etc., etc.. Right. How do you think about constraints just in general?
Derek Sivers
I love this quote by Leonard Bernstein, the composer and conductor. He said, “To achieve great things, two things are needed a plan and not quite enough time.” And I love that. And a few times I’ve met super famous like rock stars or authors and famous musicians, and I’ve noticed a common thread in my conversations with them that. A lot of them have said that they wouldn’t get anything done if it weren’t for deadlines. So I think that you should be thankful for constraints like restrictions to work within, give you creative limitations. So I think that some of the best inventions of all time or the creations have come from limitations. And if you think about some of the worst things ever created, the most awful movies or companies or whatever, they usually were awful because they were wasteful, which I think came from a lack of constraints. People who have too much time, too much money. So I think constraints make you decide what’s really important.
Chris
Wasn’t Waterworld like the poster child for this?
Derek Sivers
Exactly. Yeah. And I’m sure there are new I mean, apparently the new Mulan or whatever. I just. I’ve heard that. Yeah. The common thread, I think of even people’s lives. When you think of these ridiculous lives, people with ridiculous mansions and whatnot, it comes from people who have too much money. Bad work comes from people who have too much time. Yeah. Personalities get wrecked if you have too much attention. So yeah, if you’re thinking that you have not enough of things, maybe be thankful that you don’t have too much.
Chris
So on this topic of constraints, do you have a process for identifying what the true constraint actually is and so that you can then solve it?
Derek Sivers
And no, I mean, I disagree with the question because I don’t want to solve it. Do you know what I mean? I just appreciate the constraint and just work with it.
Chris
So this is the thing I love about Derek is every time you ask him something, he’ll he’ll do the opposite. And so the questions themselves, I don’t want to accept an idea in Derek’s mind, and you’re so good at identifying when somebody is asking you sort of a leading question. So I really appreciate that of you. Is there anything else you would want to mention about identifying constraints? I’m sure in your company you didn’t always have all the money you needed. You didn’t always have all the time you needed. Was there a process of identifying something that might be holding you back?
Derek Sivers
Hmm. No, I don’t think things hold you back. Sorry. I guess it’s just a mindset difference. I can’t think of any example where I felt held back by any constraints. I just always appreciated the. You know, I was a musician, like a full time musician for 15 years. That was my whole life before I started my company. And so in. The creative world of music. If somebody says, Hey, write me a piece of music, anything at all, go well, then that’s daunting, right? That’s the blank page syndrome. You just don’t know where to begin. But if somebody says you can only use these three notes and only these two instruments and it has to start quiet and get loud, if they get the more constraints they give you, the better, because they’re. Their creative stuff to work with, like restrictions will set you free. So I’ve never wanted to get rid of the restrictions I’m working within. I’ve always just appreciated using them to make the music of business or whatever you want to call it.
Chris
Love it. Yeah. I mean, this is what happened for my in-person events wasn’t an option this year, and I could have looked at it and bitched and decided, Hey, I’m giving up. We’re just cancelling the whole thing. Instead, I’m like, okay, this is a unique opportunity to do something online, to bring people together and connect in a whole different way. Like let’s use this as a as an innovative approach. It’s a constraint. We can’t travel. What can we do? And so, yeah, that’s, that’s how we ended up here with you on the line. So I love the mindset. Or one of your quotes that I always remember is don’t start a business until people are asking you to and CD baby. My understanding was you started it because your band friends asked you to. Essentially. Let’s talk about how that idea might apply to expanding an existing business. So not starting something from new that doesn’t exist in the world necessarily, but taking a business that has customers, has revenue, etc., and expanding to a new product line or in other other methods of expansion. And I think the question here would be one of our members asked, I need to expand my market beyond my original niche into other related markets. What’s the best way to find positioning in a new industry?
Derek Sivers
I think you always have to move sideways. Like, don’t start from zero. So first it’s a mindset. First, you have to realize that you’re not starting from zero, you’re not starting from scratch. Even if it’s a new industry, you have existing value. You’ve built up a reputation, you’ve built up a network of connections both in your current business and your life. So you have to use the existing value that you’ve created, right? So, for example, call on your existing connections and just ask for help. Ask for introductions to people who are higher up in the new industry that you want to get into and also think backwards. Think of who in this new industry could benefit from having a connection, meaning you in your existing industry. So you have to know that you’re of value to them. And it’s also when you’re making a switch like that, it’s a really good time to flaunt your existing success. Like, don’t be humble, don’t be shy. In those moments. You have to show your success in your existing industry so that you can make this sideways leap into the new industry. My little example I can think of is when I switched from being the CD baby guy who was just running a record store music distributor and I wanted to become a TEDx speaker. I think the only reason the TED conference asked me to speak. And the only reason that people read my first book is because I have this success story behind me. So even though it was a completely different field. I could show that I was a success. So people paid attention. I showed that I was a person of value. So when going into a new industry, yeah, always move sideways. Don’t start from zero.
Chris
Love it. So one of your articles at sive.rs/delegate and I just have to say his actual domain now is s i v e. r s. Very clever. I love it. V.org was extraneous, right? So it went from $1 million to $20 million in four years and from 8 to 85 employees. The intake form, the most common issue was people, issues that people referenced. Can you walk us through what went right, what went wrong, and the lessons that you learned along that journey of kind of hiring and delegating?
Derek Sivers
I’m sorry. My answer might be kind of disappointing. I’m not sure my experience will be that much help because. CD Baby was a basically just a mail order record store, Right. So I had, yes, 85 employees at the end, but almost everybody was minimum wage. It was 53 people packing CD’s in the warehouse, 28 people in customer service, mostly just answering emails. I was the sole programmer. I did all the programming myself, so I was the only tech guy. And then I just had one manager who was the VP of the company and even him, he was just a guy that was painting my house and asked if I had any extra work for him. He needed more money. So he said, You got any extra work? I said, Well, I could use some help packing CD’s and he became my VP, so my business didn’t need any special skills. Right? So if you’re talking about like hiring your executive team and building a team of ten programmers and all that, I don’t have any good advice. I’m sorry. The only lesson I think that I could share that would apply is that if someone is hurting the internal culture of your company, like spreading a toxic attitude, if there’s just that one super jerk on the team.
Derek Sivers
Even if that person is good at their job, you got to cut that off early. Having one toxic person in the group who starts kind of spewing a bad attitude it. It really does spoil the other apples. What is that? What does that say? The rotten apple spoils the barrel. That was the biggest mistake I made looking back. It ended up pretty much completely destroying my company culture internally with all 85 employees. I look back and it was really just like one person, maybe two. It was just like a toxic bile spewing kind of person, but was good at their job. So I, like, you know, rolled my eyes and left them there. But in hindsight, I shouldn’t have done that. I think their poisons spread through the whole team. So I heard this, I think it was one of those famous execs like Jack Welch or somebody said, nobody ever said I wish I would have waited longer before firing that guy. So if if somebody is hurting your team, you’ve got to let him go sooner instead of later. That’s my only real wisdom to share. Sorry.
Chris
That’s great. I think there are probably some people who really hold on tight to control within our community and to some degree, they may micromanage, they may they may be worried that they’re going to be giving up control if they delegate and have other people in the process. You had a great article around delegation versus what was the other one delegation versus.
Derek Sivers
I think, delegate, delegate or die.
Chris
Oh, abdication, delegate versus abdication. Can you speak to that really quick?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I didn’t learn this until afterwards when I was looking back at what I did wrong. I learned the word abdicate, which is usually used in terms of like the royalty abdicates the crown to give to somebody else. It means handing over power, whereas delegating means distributing what needs to be done, assigning tasks. So when you delegate, somebody else is doing it, but you still ultimately are mostly in control of what’s getting done. When you abdicate, you hand over your power to somebody else. Like it’s a, do you call that a zero sum? Yeah. Maybe that’s the difference. It’s like sharing the power versus giving away the power. So I think in a couple of cases, I abdicated. I walked away in the name of freedom. Thinking it was helping my delegation. But no, in hindsight, I abdicated. Which was my biggest mistake. But everybody in my I could tell some little story about my case. But I think it. It’s going to be unique to everybody’s situation. You just have to ask yourself, am I abdicating the power so that I don’t have it any longer or am I just sharing it?
Chris
Thank you. We had several questions on strategy for scaling a company. And as we’ve heard, your company did scale. It’s kind of a funny word, but let’s start with a question that’s kind of I sort of distilled several members questions into one. So do with it what you will. What are the milestones, the inflection points, the moments where you should be seeing a signal to stop right now in another moment where it’s like, go right now, What are the things we might be we should be anticipating as we go through this process of scaling.
Derek Sivers
Hmm. Again, kind of like my hiring thing because I had a different kind of business. I also had a different kind of situation where I think because of this, my scaling advice might not be much help. I was really in the right place at the right time, Right? It was 1997. The like my first couple of years were spent convincing people it was okay to use your credit card on the Internet. You know, it was a different time. And I was the only company doing what I was doing. Like if you were a musician in 1997, 98, 99 that wanted to sell your music on the Internet, there was only one way to do it. There was a guy named Derek in New York that could do it for you, and that was it. So I did almost nothing but respond to customer demand, meaning my scaling strategy was just managing this whomp of attention and business that was coming my way. I never tried to scale, in fact. The opposite. I actually tried to keep the business smaller, but it kept doubling in size every year. No matter what. So I actually didn’t like how fast it was growing, so I did absolutely nothing to grow it.
Derek Sivers
I did no marketing. I did no sales. So much business was coming my way that I just did nothing but try to keep up with the demand and just serve my existing clients well. So maybe the only thing I have to share here is you need to ask yourself why you want to grow and who it serves right. Are you just growing for your own ego? Are you just doing it for the money? Or does growing actually serve your existing clients? Or like it often happens with, will your growth actually mean that the quality of your service will get worse for your existing clients? Like that’s what usually happens, right, when a business is medium small. Your clients are getting great customer service because you’re more focused on them. It’s more one on one, you know, people’s names, all that stuff. And as a business grows, it becomes more impersonal and service actually gets worse for your existing clients. So ask yourself why you want to grow. You might actually be making your business worse for your existing clients in the name of scaling.
Chris
And I’ll just share a personal anecdote on this, which is I’ve intentionally kept Rhodium events to 125 people, partly because of Dunbar’s number. But it allows me to do things with events that are impossible. Once you get to 1000, like seating charts, personal introductions, you know, just things that make. And talking to everybody before I even invited him in the community makes no sense if you’re going for scale to do what I’m doing, but I’m building a craft with what I’m doing. And to me, it is a craft. It’s not something I’m trying to scale to the moon. So I really appreciate that perspective and resonate with it in terms of what I’m doing here. So the next theme that came up a lot was focus and effectiveness. One of the things I really admire about you, Derek, is that you have the ability to focus very deeply for extended periods of time. One of our members mentioned I chase squirrels, so to speak, because I enjoy learning new things instead of hammering the same nail that, you know, that maybe they technically may should be they should be working on right now. So what do you believe needs to be true for someone to deeply focus on one thing for an extended period of time?
Derek Sivers
Hmm. Well, I think we need to split between onn a personal level and on a business level, right? So on a personal level, if you’re being a squirrel. Read the book Mastery by George Leonard. It’s like a 20 or 30 year old book. It’s a masterpiece. So George Leonard is the author of the book. Title is Just Mastery. And in fact, if you want a little preview of it, my notes for this book are on my website. So I do this thing everybody, if you don’t know, if you go to my personal website, it’s s-i-v-e.-r-s. And every book I’ve read since 2007 I take detailed notes on. I underline my favorite ideas. I circled them and I typed them into a text file afterwards, just for my own later reflection. But after a couple of years of doing this, I realized I could share my notes on my website as long as the publishers didn’t mind and they don’t seem to mind. So if you go to s-i-v-e.-r-s/book/Mastery with a capital M, I already know that that’s the URL where you can find my book notes for the book Mastery. The ebook Mastery will tell you on a personal level that the path to mastery at anything is to stick with it. And what you’re talking about the squirrel, he calls it the dabbler. The dabbler is somebody who enjoys going from zero knowledge to say like one degree of knowledge on a bunch of subjects, because that’s exciting to go from 0 to 1. And yet you could do that on a bunch of stuff. You take a day and you learn how to do a Rubik’s Cube, and then you take a day and you learn a little bit of Esperanto and then you take a day and you learn a little bit of the Ruby programming language.
Derek Sivers
And you could just keep doing that over and over again. And it’s fun, but you will just eternally be the dabbler, you’ll never master anything on that path. So but. I guess the subject of this get together is small business. So on a business level, it’s a very different answer because your clients don’t want you to dash and dart and dabble and change course, right? Like on a personal level, it’s fine if you want to do that. It can be fun. But on a business level, it’s horrible. Your clients don’t want you to do that. And neither does your team. Clients, customers and your team all want your company and its leadership to be reliable, steady, headed one direction, predictable and most importantly, easy to follow. Your team especially. You need as a leader to be easy to follow. And just think of it in the physical world, if somebody is easy to follow, if you know that they’re heading one direction. If you personally have squirrel tendencies, well, then just entertain your short attention span. After work in your personal life. You learn a new thing every day if you want. But when working, I think it’s really important to teach your impatient inner child to just do what’s needed and remember that, the people who follow you, whether it’s your team or your clients, really want you to be predictable and easy to follow.
Chris
So as we get better at focusing and reading after reading the book Mastery and taking on some of these other tips. There’s a difference between being efficient and being effective, right? So when one of our members asked, How do you ensure that you’re working on the most impactful task at each moment?
Derek Sivers
Hmm. Well, sorry for the stupid answer, but just ask yourself, what’s the most important thing you could be doing right now? I think the problem is not knowing what to do. I think probably everybody here knows what you should be doing. It’s just a matter of biting the bullet and doing it whether you feel like it or not. We all know what we should be doing. But do include emotions in the equation. Like, for example, it can be a huge load off your mind and free up mental space to finish something you already started before you start something new. So you have to include that in the equation. Like if starting something new is actually the most impactful thing you could be doing right now, but you’re just a day or two away from finishing something you already started. Then include your emotions in the equation and just finish what you started first. To clear up space in your mind to throw yourself in fully to the next thing. Yeah, that’s all I have to share on that.
Chris
Well, one of our members mentioned self limiting beliefs, and they’re struggling with one in particular, which is a belief in themselves that they can actually run a multimillion dollar business. I think this is the goal that they’re wanting to achieve, but perhaps don’t believe maybe that they’re quite ready to do it. So I picked a question from another member which may be helpful in kind of attacking this topic. What self limiting belief do you have or did you have I should say that when removed, allowed you to massively change your growth trajectory and you can take that on a personal or business or both, whatever is most appropriate for you.
Derek Sivers
At first I think don’t get ahead of yourself. So the world doesn’t care about your beliefs. Just serve your clients and focus on the work. Like crossing a tightrope. You don’t look down to see how far is the river below you. And you don’t look around at the mountains to see where you might want to go after you’re crossing the tightrope. You focus on the next step. And when I say that the world doesn’t care about your beliefs, like. It doesn’t apply to just doing the work you need to do today. You can actually keep your goals to yourself. When I started CD Baby I didn’t have big beliefs at all. I was just helping my friends. My musician friends came to me saying, Dude, can you help me sell my CD? It was not about a long term goal. It was just a matter of this week. I put their CD up for sale and then more showed up in the mail and they said, Can you help me sell my CD? And I put it, I built a little thing for it and friends told friends. And within a few years I had a multi million dollar company.
Derek Sivers
But my beliefs had nothing to do with it. In fact, there’s kind of a cute story. I told you that it was just like a guy that was painting my house asked if I had any more work, so he became my first employee and later became the VP. So there was a letter I wrote to him when we had been doing this for like six months. Where one night I was really thinking, big man. And I wrote in this letter and I said, you know, someday this thing might get huge. Like, we might need to hire a third person. We might have like a thousand musicians selling their music through this little thing I made. We might have so many CD’s that I’m going to have to start keeping them in the garage. That’s how big this could get. Right. So to be clear, I ended up having like a quarter million musicians and three huge warehouses and 85 people. So yeah, clearly my beliefs had nothing to do with the success of the company, and I think yours won’t either. Yeah. Don’t worry about your beliefs. Just do the work. Focus on that.
Chris
So lifestyle was another thing that came up here. And I think that there is something to be said about, you know, we are not our work necessarily. We are an entire human right with families and all the things that go along with being a human. So we had a few questions here on kind of balancing that like work life balance. So let’s do a couple of those. This is a question from a member. Is it better to try to build a hugely successful business or try to build a business that meets your needs while allowing flexibility and free time?
Derek Sivers
Hmm. Yeah. Better for who? Only you know your set point for happiness, right? Like, maybe you’d be happy to be a millionaire. Or maybe you wouldn’t be happy until you’re a billionaire. Maybe you need to feel famous to feel loved. It’s interesting. I think that it’s not that much harder to make a huge company than it is to make a small one. Like, it’s just a different approach. But it’s not harder. So if you would like to be big. Then just know that about yourself and make a plan that will make you big, like bringing on investors instead of bootstrapping everything and just making decisions along the way that will lead to a big company. But most importantly, you need to know what excites you. So does the idea of building a hugely successful business excite you or does it drain you? Because, for example, I think it excites Richard Branson, but it drains me. I don’t want a hugely successful business. That’s sound like a drag. That doesn’t sound like a lot of freedom. But then on the other hand, the life that I’ve chosen drains many of my friends, who just want a steady job and a house in the suburbs. Right. So I think it’s all a spectrum between black and white is every color ever. You get to make your own mix.
Derek Sivers
So don’t forget that. Like the question, the way you ask the question was, I think accidentally a little binary. Like either I’m going to choose a humble little lifestyle business or a huge successful business. But don’t forget that you can get creative and make it anything you want. So look at Chuck Feeney. Right. So Chuck Feeney was the co founder of the duty free shops at airports. So he made billions and gave it all away. Look at Charlie Munger, who’s Warren Buffett’s partner, who avoids the spotlight and just prefers to keep his head buried in books. Or Steve Wozniak. Steve Wozniak, co founder of Apple. That dude seems really happy. There are many different ways that you can choose your own involvement and choose how you want your company to be. You could even get really creative and do something like make a holding company or a pseudonym so that you keep your name out of it and you keep anonymous, right? Like you could hire an assistant and remain anonymous, communicating all of your wishes through the assistant who executes your plans. And so nobody knows who you are. So you might decide that your ideal balance would be yes, to have a big company but personally remain anonymous. Or you might want the opposite.
Derek Sivers
You might decide that you’d happily trade more fame for less money. People who put their name on things, on buildings are the ones that have chosen more fame but less money, right? Like they could have sold the rights to put the name on the building to another company and made more money. But they choose more fame. So what? Here’s the important thing is that whatever you choose, someone is always going to tell you that you’re wrong. Like either you’re wrong for pursuing money or they’re going to tell you you’re wrong for not. Or they’re going to say you’re wrong for wanting to be small or you’re wrong for wanting to be big. So just know in advance that no matter what choice you make. Lots of people are always going to tell you you’re wrong. So that’s why you need to do this soul searching first, to know your real values. And don’t just try to predict. Actually look at your past actions. I think that’s a huge life lesson I’ve learned, is that your actions reveal your real values, not your words. You can say anything. People say all kinds of nonsense, but look at your past actions. Look at what you gravitate towards and look at what’s actually made you happiest in the past.
Chris
I love the idea of having our own Wizard of Oz business where we’re behind the curtain running the show. Yeah, that’s awesome.
Derek Sivers
Sorry. Pseudonyms on the internet, like, you might do this thing for certain number of years and a certain point you just want out. You just want to disappear. If you would have had a pseudonym in advance. It can be so handy because then just poof, you know, the pseudonym can just disappear and that character disappears and you can just do something else with a new name.
Chris
So you’re saying Derek Sivers is not your real name, then?
Derek Sivers
I wish. I wish that I would have made a pseudonym long ago. That would be kind of cool. There was definitely that was like, you know what? I’ve kind of forgot to mention that the very first question you asked me at the beginning of this call about what I had with the end in mind. I really at the time, because I had 85 employees and I hated all that responsibility and things had turned nasty. I just wanted to disappear. And I actually read two different books about how to disappear, like how to just vanish. I looked really seriously into legally changing my name and just taking the money and just disappearing off into another country. And nobody would hear from me ever again. Like maybe not even my family. I just wanted to get away from all responsibility. And I stayed in that mindset for a good year and a half of just wanting to disappear. I was just going to be an open source programmer under a pseudonym or whatever. But yeah, I wished that I would have had a pseudonym from the beginning, that I could have just made that disappear. Yeah. Anyway, sorry.
Chris
It kind of reminds me of the idea of strengths are not good or bad. Weaknesses are not good or bad, and they’re sort of like almost mirrors of one another can express in good ways or in negative ways. Like myself, I’d never really thought of myself as a leader or somebody who’s a performer on stage doing event. But what I’m great at, I think to some degree is connecting people and actually being an introvert. I actually like to get to people talking so that I don’t have to talk anymore. And so that’s what I do with Rhodium. I’ve kind of created an environment where what could be perceived as a weakness, which is, you know, shyness and some of those kinds of things has been turned into something that can be a strength. So I think with your rebel sort of tendencies and not wanting to be constrained, that’s shown up probably in different ways in your business and things like that. But it also has allowed you to create some pretty amazing things like CD Baby and other impacts that you made in the world, right?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, you’re right.
Chris
One other question on this lifestyle topic. I think they’re looking for some just some practical stuff. What are 2 to 3 things that have had a significant impact on the quality of your life? Obviously, making a lot of money helped.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Ten years ago, there was this ambitious 22 year old girl I knew and she said, God, how are you always so happy? You’re like, the happiest person I’ve ever I have ever met. How are you so happy? And I went, Oh, well, first you make $1,000,000. So, yeah, let’s not pretend that doesn’t matter. Okay. I’ll do three things. So, number one. Yeah, money. We’ve talked about that a lot already. So it’s freedom. It’s worth pursuing. Fame. That’s my number two some amount of fame just means that really cool people reach out to you because of what you put out into the world. So a little fame is great. Also, don’t think of that as binary either. Like it’s not either your anonymous or superstar. There are these levels of fame which really just mean kind of building up a good reputation. But it’s a path you pursue. It’s choosing to put yourself out there instead of hiding. And it’s a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes. But it’s worth it, I think. I think the downsides are small and the upsides are great. I really like the amazing people I’ve connected with just because I’ve put myself out there. So a little bit of fame. So number three, actually, which is like, I should have done it in reverse order. I should have three money to fame, number one by far journaling. Asking myself questions and then questioning my answers.
Derek Sivers
So I spend hours a day just introspecting and reflecting on what I’ve learned. So my advice is, so for example, when you read books. Like I said earlier, copy the most interesting ideas you read in every book. Don’t try to summarize the book. This isn’t a book report. You’re not in school anymore. Just pluck out the ideas that make you go, Hmm I want to think about that more. Copy them into your journal and then put aside time to think more about everyone. Don’t just read a book and say, there, I’ve read a book or read 50 books to say, look at me. I’ve read 50 books. You don’t really learn until you reflect. So you have to put aside time after reading a book to take those ideas that hit you the hardest and put aside the hours to reflect on them and think of how you could apply them. So that means explore hypotheticals. So spend a lot of time asking yourself what if this, what if that. What if I were to stop doing this thing? What if I were to start doing this thing? Question your actions, consider doing things differently than you do. Take things that you might have just been doing for a long time and without questioning them and try to question everything about what you’re doing. Question where you’re living. Question how you’re running things. Question everything, including your beliefs. So challenge your beliefs. Things that you hold to be true.
Derek Sivers
Try arguing against them. Say, look, okay, I’ve believed this for a while. Is that really true? Could I believe the opposite? I’d say that almost everything I know has come from this process of journaling that I just described. Like books or conversations may have introduced an idea to me. But those little ideas never get internalized until I spend time reflecting on them in my journal. Yeah, that’s my number one biggest advice. That’s the biggest. What was your question? The impact on the quality of my life. By far, number one, and my only tech advice in case people are wondering like, don’t require the internet to journal, right? Like don’t use the cloud, don’t keep your journal in some cloud docs thing. So whether you’re going to use a paper notebook or just plain text files, make sure it’s something that you can do offline and something that you’ll be able to access in 50 years. So I’m even suspicious of when people say, Hey, look, somebody invented this new software, it’s going to help me journal. It’s like, okay, yeah, how old are you now? How old will you be eventually? Like, is that thing really going to be around in 50 years? So I highly recommend just if you’re happy typing all the time, just use plain text files, otherwise use a paper notebook or something. But yeah, that’s my number one best thing that had the biggest impact on my life.
Chris
Yeah. How’s everybody’s MySpace accounts doing these days, by the way?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. I’ve been around long enough that. Yeah, in 1999. No, actually, let’s say in 2001, if you would have told somebody that MySpace might be gone someday, that would be like telling somebody that Facebook will be gone some day. Now they’d be like, Whoa, it’s never going away. It’s here forever. You know, I put all my photos in Google photos or whatever it may be. All my stuff’s in iCloud. Right. These things do go away. So it helps. That’s what I like about being a little old, is I’ve been around long enough to see these things disappear, so I don’t trust them.
Chris
So we’re kind of landing the plane here a little bit and starting to work towards wrapping up. This is more of a question for me than the group. But there was a question on the Tim Ferriss show where he asked you what’s something you believe that other people think is crazy? And there are just so many little gems in there about various random things. And so I’d love, if you wouldn’t mind give us an updated version of that particular question.
Derek Sivers
What do I believe that other people think is crazy? My minimalism runs deep. I don’t want anything I don’t need. I will actually go to great lengths to get rid of what I’m not using. You joked about my URL at the beginning. Yeah, but my URL for 20 years has been sivers.org and one day I just kind of went, “.org? I’m not an organization. Why do I have .org?” And then I just like couldn’t unthink that I had to get rid of this thing that was not necessary. So I shortened it to s-i-v-e.-r-s. When you hear one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done, I legally removed my middle name because I wasn’t using it. Same thing. It’s just minimalism. I’m like, I don’t need that. I’m not using it. I’m going to get rid of it. I went and filed forms, did all the legal stuff to get rid of what I’m not using. So yeah, that sounds crazy. I think if you are content with your life, you should make a change. I think it’s healthy to try the opposite of your nature. I think it can expand your self definition. I think many of us think like, Well, this is just who I am because this is who I have been. But if you try doing things that are the opposite of your nature, you might find that you are more than you thought you were. Concretely, that can mean living in a place that feels the opposite of home, the opposite of where you grew up, like aiming to be uncomfortable, steering towards the pain, whatever hurts.
Derek Sivers
Do more of that, not less of that. Here’s one my friends tease me about. I think that noise is pollution, that the sound waves of a diesel truck inside my home feels just as repulsive to me as if the exhaust fumes from that truck were piped right into my home. Like, I think that unwanted sound dumped into my ears is like somebody dumping garbage on me. And I believe that it’s not hard to answer all my email. There you go. That’s maybe the craziest thing. And hey, that’s my ask. I think you were going to get to that anyway, so. You know, I’m not getting paid to wake up at 4 a.m. and do this. Oh, look. And it is getting lighter as we’ve been talking. I’m not getting paid to be here. I’m doing this just because it seemed worth doing. So the only thing I ask is I really like the main reason I do interviews like this is because I like meeting the people that are here on this call. So if you listen to this whole thing, you should go to my website and there’s my contact button there and send me an email. It’s derek@sivers.org and it goes right to me and I answer every single email and I really enjoy it. It’s one of my favorite things I do, is meeting people from around the world. So send me a little hello and introduce yourself.
Chris
Yeah. Derek I was email number 36,322. I’m not sure if you remember, but actually I do have a quick anecdote to share with you, but I emailed you about Myers-Briggs types. You were talking about it somewhere and I was an INFJ, and so the subject line was INFJ, and I was asking you how to be sort of a manager, a leader of people while being an introvert. Like, I find it exhausting to manage people and you’re like, Hey, go read the book Quiet. And you know, granted I should have went and read the book Quiet before I ever asked you, but I didn’t even realize it was an option, right? So one little thing I got out of that has affected me in my life and the team that I have around me substantially since then. So one little anecdote in there said that for introverts, having people who take initiative in their work is the best way to have an effective team. And so all the hiring that I’ve done since then, that’s been something I’ve actually built into the whole interview and hiring process. Like I intentionally don’t follow up with the person to see if they take the initiative to ask, Hey, you know, what’s, what’s the deal? And some things like that. So, you know, thank you for for being the Dear Abby of the Internet. I really, really do appreciate it.
Chris
It’s impacted my life as well. So so one thing that, given that Derek was not paid to be here, he and I both care about something. We had a shared interest, which is how this all sparked. He just wrote a book called Hell Yeah or No, I bought it and I emailed him and I said, Hey, you actually know I bought it. And then he emailed everybody and said, Hey, guess what? I just donated all of my book proceeds. My book sale proceeds to charity to the givewell.org platform. It was about $225,000. I’m not sure what the number is now. And if you all remember all meaning all Rhodium, people remember I did a fundraiser last year with Give Well, kind of being the recommended one and we raised, I think, $80,000 over a few, couple of weeks or something like that. And I ended up shaving my head. Derek supports it all the time. I’ve kind of gone back to having hair, but so this is, I think, a shared value that we both have. And if you want to meet somebody “famous” as Derek said, he’s he’s lightly famous or, you know, in my world he’s famous. You know, having finding out what they care about can be a great way to develop a relationship. And that was something that that I sort of led with and introducing the idea here.
Chris
So what I’m going to do for the group and if somebody can put the link in to the chat that would be great is givewell.org. They essentially find out how to make your money actually make an impact in people’s lives. So you would get for instance, you would donate and they would provide mosquito netting and they’ve calculated that about $3 to $5000 saves one life. So what I’m going to do is, I’m going to match any donations that this group does up to $5000, you know, as part of this. And just as a if you got value today from from Derek, from myself, and even if you didn’t and you just want to support Rhodium for something that both of us care about, would really appreciate you guys donating there and just email me a receipt at support@rhodiumbooking.com and that’ll go into the matching. I’d love to kind of tally it up so I can tell Derek in a month or so where we ended up. So Derek just really want to appreciate all that you do in the world and you know, all the content you put out there, the information you’ve shared, and the fact that you did build a great business, that’s impact I’m sure a lot of musicians lives. And the charitable things that you’ve done. So So thank you so much.