Nari Grey Tea and English
host: Nari Park
philanthropy, customer care, defining success
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Transcript:
Nari
We are going to talk about your first book. Anything you want. Do you remember this book?
Derek Sivers
A little bit, yes. Very much. Yes.
Nari
I read this book multiple times, and then I read it again. And while I was preparing for this interview. And every time I read it, it surprises me a lot. It is like a breath of fresh air. You know what I mean? Like a lot of people, they want to accumulate more wealth. They want to get richer. But you work really hard for, I guess, ten years or something to grow and nurture your CD Baby. And you sold it and you give all the money away to charity. That is a definitely a breath of fresh air. So let’s talk about that. Could you please tell us your company, the successful company CD Baby, how you get started?
Derek Sivers
I was just a musician selling my own music, but this was 1997, so Amazon was only a bookstore, and there were no businesses anywhere on the internet that would sell your music unless you were famous with a record deal. So they only dealt with big record companies, not with individual musicians. So I thought, well, how hard can it be to just build my own store. I’ll just build a little store to sell my CD. And it took me about three months of work. I was not a computer programmer, so I just had to copy paste code until something worked. And after three months of work, I had a buy now button on my website to buy my CD. And after I did that, my musician friends in New York City said, “Wow, can you sell my CD too?” And I said, “Okay, sure.” So I was only doing it as a favor for some of my musician friends. But then I started getting calls from their friends saying, “Hi, my friend said that you could sell my CD.” And I said, “Okay, well, if you’re a friend of a friend, okay, that’s fine, I’ll do it.” But this was just a free favor. I was not making any money from doing this. I was just doing it as a favor to my musician friends, but then complete strangers started sending me their music, and I thought, I need to start charging money for this.
Nari
And how long did it take for you to have 85 employees?
Derek Sivers
Oh, almost eight years. It grew as slowly as I could. I did not want it to get too big.
Nari
Why do you think your business grew so big, even though you didn’t actually want it that much?
Derek Sivers
I was just lucky with lucky timing. But then after I began, Amazon started selling music directly from musicians. So I thought, “Okay, well, now I’m going to go out of business because Amazon is competing with me.” But musicians chose me instead of Amazon because they could tell that they were in good hands. They could tell that I cared about them and understood them more than Amazon did. My business was just more friendly to the musicians. And therefore they felt better about telling their fans to buy from me.
Nari
You ended up having 200,000 musicians by 2007, and in 2008 you decided to sell your company, CD Baby. Would you mind telling us the reason for your decision?
Derek Sivers
Because it was a disaster. Because I was a failure. I was such a bad manager that the company had grown miserable. No, I was miserable at work. The employees were miserable and upset with me and I just wasn’t having fun anymore. I just realized I’m just not enjoying this. And so my first thought was to just shut down the company. But that was my first intention is just shut it down, say, “Okay, well, that was enough. Goodbye.” But then a good friend of mine said, “You know, you can sell the company.” I still didn’t want to sell the company. So then the next thing I did is I hired a new boss. So I was the owner, but I hired somebody else to be the CEO. But that didn’t go well either. So then I had three different companies offering to buy my company. So eventually I just said yes.
Nari
You sold it for $22 million. And then this is the part I can’t get my head around. Why did you give all the money away to charity?
Derek Sivers
I was profitable the whole time, so I had millions of dollars in the bank. I had already paid off all of my debts. I already had more money than I needed. So when we had this deal to sell my company for $22 million more dollars, my tax lawyer asked me, “What do you plan to do with the money?” And I said, “I’m just going to give it away. I don’t need it.” And he said, “Are you sure?” I said, “I’m sure.” He said, “Are you 100% positive? Sure. Like you will never change your mind.” And I said, “Yes. I’ve decided that this is the only smart thing to do with the money. I don’t need it, and if I were to spend it, I would have to be stupid. To what? Buy a Ferrari or a mansion or a boat? I don’t want a Ferrari or a mansion or a boat.” So there are people on earth who need this money more than I do. And it’s just the rational obvious decision. When we don’t have money we can think that money will make us happy. But after you have money, you realize that it helps a little bit. But only so much that having more and more and more doesn’t keep making you happier and happier and happier. So maybe if I had no money before selling the company. I might have just kept all the money like a regular person would.
Derek Sivers
I would have just said, “Wow, oh my God, I’m a millionaire now. Cool. It’s going to be great to get a nice house and a nice car.” But try to understand that for 4 or 5 years before I sold the company. I already had a nice car and I already had a nice house. Not huge, but you know, and not a Ferrari. I think I had an Infiniti G37. It was a decent car and I felt like that was enough. And I did daydream, and I thought very deeply about what could I do if I had $22 million. I thought very hard and I couldn’t come up with anything. There was just literally nothing I wanted. Anything I would have spent it on would have felt like something that I thought I should do, you know, like, “Well, I guess I could get another house.” You know? Why? There’s just no reason. And so I’m very aware that there are other people on earth that actually need it. And if I’m sitting here trying to think hard about how I could spend the money, then it just seems like that’s just stupid. Just give it to people who really need it. So I was not doing it to try to impress anybody. It was just, to me, the only rational, smart choice.
Nari
I’m going to ask you another question. Are you happier now than when you were running CD Baby, which was a successful company?
Derek Sivers
Much, much happier. Life is much simpler. I did not like having 85 employees. I hope to never, ever have 85 employees again. I hope to never have more than 3 or 4 employees. I think the first 3 or 4 employees, maybe even up to ten. Those were happy times because we were like a little tiny team. That was fun. But I remember after about 50 employees. It just changed the gravity. And gravity is the metaphor I think of because when we were a small team, it felt like the customers had the gravity that all of our attention was focused on the customers. But after 50 employees, it was almost like the company became the bigger gravity. And suddenly everybody’s attention was focused on the internal workings of the company. You know, “What is my title? I want a different office. What is our medical dental plan? When do we get the raise reviews?” The attention changed and so the the internal running of the company had too much gravity. And the customers were not getting as much attention. And the job became much less fun.
Nari
Your book emphasizes caring for customers over profits. Do you think this is a key to success?
Derek Sivers
Usually, there are probably some businesses that have done well by only focusing on the profits. But for the kind of business that anybody listening to this is going to be creating. I believe that the money should be secondary. You need to make sure that you’re not losing money because then you couldn’t continue to do what you’re doing.
Derek Sivers
But as long as you’re not losing money, then I think number one is focusing on the happiness of your customers. And then just trusting that if they’re happy they will tell their friends about it. They will be happy to buy more from you. They will be happy to tell people about you. And as long as you’re not losing money, it’s just a better way to live your day. That every day you go into work making people happy, every interaction with the customers they’re saying, “Thank you. Thank you so much. You’ve made my life better. Thank you.” What a better way to spend your day than say, not answering phones or emails because they’re full of complaints. But you’re getting rich and people are upset. But you don’t care. You’re gonna raise your profits as much as possible. I just think that that’s like losing the point of life.
Nari
You know I love this part of your book, and I’m going to read it aloud. It says, “If you set up your business like you don’t need the money, people are happier to pay you. When someone’s doing something for the money, people can sense it like they sense a desperate lover.” I love this part. I think I read it 100 times, probably.
Derek Sivers
Thank you.
Nari
What advice would you give to people who want to start business?
Derek Sivers
Oh, start small. Start very small. Don’t think in terms of having hundreds or thousands or even millions of customers. Start by helping one person do something or making a solution for one person. And get feedback from that one person to have them tell you how you could do it better. And make sure it’s something that they’re happy to pay for. Do not start a business doing something that people don’t want to pay you to do. Too many people make that mistake. So even if only one person is happy to pay you to do something or make something for them, then help them first, and then find one more person that will pay you to do this thing. And after you have helped 2 or 3 people. And they’ve actually paid you, then you should consider starting a business until then don’t start a business until people are asking you to. Until then, just find a way to help people, to be useful, to be helpful. And only afterwards then you’ll know what business is needed.
Nari
This wonderful advice. And I remember that you said something like, I think probably even in this book, you said something like, “Without execution, great ideas remains as daydreams.” I love that part.
Derek Sivers
My plan changed a lot. I originally thought when my musician friends asked me if I would sell their CD, I thought I was just going to be like PayPal, because remember, there was no PayPal then either. I thought I was just going to be a credit card processing company, but then only two weeks after I started processing credit card transactions for my friends, a man in Netherlands who had bought one CD from my friend and I processed the credit card and I mailed it. He came back and he said, “Where can I find more new music from you, more new releases?” And I said, “I don’t understand.” And he said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were a record store. I thought you were a music store.” And I went, “Oh, I never thought about that, a music store, I could do that.” So it was my paying customer that told me what he wanted from me. Do you see what I mean? The the business idea that I thought was needed was not what my customers actually wanted. So that’s why I say my best advice is to first just start helping people before you give your business a name. Before you daydream about big, big plans, first, just help individual people and they will tell you what they need you to be.
Nari
Okay. And looking back, what advice would you give to your younger self to starting the business journey?
Derek Sivers
That question assumes that I would do something different than I did, and I don’t regret anything. I’m not saying I did everything right, but every mistake I made taught me very good lessons, and I would not want to avoid those mistakes because then I would avoid those lessons.
Nari
Does money buy happiness?
Derek Sivers
A little bit. It helps reduce the downside. I think of the upsides and the downsides for everything. Money doesn’t make your happiness go up, up, up, up, up, but it does help to take care of the things that otherwise would annoy you. Like, if you’re currently living in a house that has no heat because you can’t afford good insulation, money can fix that problem. Money can fix a lot of problems that would make you unhappy without it. So I think to me, that’s the best use of money is to fix the problems that make you unhappy. Which then does make you a little bit happier. Yes.
Nari
Now let’s talk about the Korean version of your book. This one, have you seen this book?
Derek Sivers
Yes.
Derek Sivers
I’m glad that you told me that-- I didn’t know the translation. You just told me two days ago with the translated title means that was news to me.
Nari
Okay.
Nari
You have published four books and one of them has been translated into Korean. This is the book. And the original title is “Hell Yeah or No. What’s Worth Doing.” And can you explain the meaning behind it?
Derek Sivers
Most of us fill our time with little things we’ve said yes to. But because of that, we don’t have enough time to make a big impact on one thing. But I believe that most of our best success in life can come from having a big impact on one thing. We don’t get successful from doing lots of little things. We get successful from doing one big thing very well. And nobody really cares about the rest. Nobody cares about the things that you are not good at. So, I originally was trying to make a decision about whether to attend a conference in Australia while I was living in New York City. I was feeling like if I go, I will make some people in Australia happy. But if I don’t go, that means I’m going to have a lot more time. And that’s when I realized that if I say no to most things, then I’m going to have a lot more free time. And when you have a lot of free time, then if one thing comes up that somebody asks you to do or an opportunity comes up. Then you’ll have the time to throw yourself into one thing completely, to go make a big impact and give it your full life’s energy. Because you’ve said no to all the little things. You can say a big yes to one thing. And I just felt that’s a better recipe for success. So I wrote a little article saying, if it’s not a hell yeah, which means if you’re not saying, wow, absolutely big, yes, then you should just say no. So say no to almost everything unless it’s a big wow, yes.
Nari
So the Korean title translates into English as “How to live by only doing what you really love”. How can people achieve that?
Derek Sivers
First, like we just said say no to almost everything. Some people will be disappointed. People will ask you to attend an event or to help them with something. And you just have to ask yourself first, “Am I really excited about that?” And if not, then you just very kindly say, “I’m sorry, I need to stay focused on my existing work. I’m sorry. I can’t do that.” And it really helps by the way, if you are doing this, usually over writing, whether it’s texting on a phone or on a computer, if you have some kind of like a form letter that you’ve written in advance so that any time somebody asks you to do something, you can just copy paste.
Nari
Yeah. I’m going to ask you another question. What advice do you have for people who can’t decide between a job they love and one that pays well?
Derek Sivers
Ahh. Good question. Think long term. You might not love a job right now but if doing that job can help you learn for the future or get you closer to where you want to be. It can be worth doing even if you don’t love it now. Often this requires a change of mindset. So when I was younger, I did a few bad jobs that nobody else wanted. In particular doing sales on the telephone, selling magazine subscriptions by telephone. And nobody wanted to do it. But I did it because I thought, this is going to be good practice for me for talking to strangers on the phone. It’s going to be good practice for sales. And so even though it didn’t pay very well and it was not a happy job. I did it because I felt that I was practicing. I was preparing for my future. And I got an email once from somebody who worked in a warehouse for DHL, the shipping company, and he said he hates his job. And I felt, “Oh my gosh. You work inside one of the most amazing, complex systems in the world. If I were you, I would be so curious to learn more. I would be reading books about logistics systems, and I would be trying to understand that company more and asking my manager if I could work overtime to sit in and listen to meetings and learn more about how that system is run.” There are so many ways that you could look at any job through a new lens and find a way to make it work for you better. I think that’s more important than choosing just present happiness, is to think of the long term benefit.
Nari
Great answer. I love that. How can we find out what we are truly passionate about?
Derek Sivers
Steve Jobs, when Apple computer started. His passion was yoga. He had no interest in computers, but his friend knew of an opportunity at this computer store that wanted somebody to build 1000 computers. And his friend that was Steve Wozniak, the co-founder, said, “I’m just a tech guy. Do you want to do this with me? You can handle all the business sales stuff and I’ll do the tech stuff.” And that was not his passion. His passion was yoga. But he said, “Okay, this looks like a good opportunity.” So they created Apple Computer and the passion came later after the work got really interesting. He got more passionate about it. So the author named Cal Newport wrote a book. The English title is “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” is all about this subject. And I think it’s a great example that the feeling of passion usually doesn’t come until after you’ve started doing the work, and then you get better and then you get more rewarded. And then you get better again and more rewarded again and eventually this process feels like passion. That’s when you get more excited about it because you’re getting more rewarded now. That’s passion. So at first the answer to your question is don’t worry about passion. Just find something that feels like the smart, right thing to do. That feels like a good opportunity. Like Steve Jobs’ friend asking him if he wants to help make computers. And then the feeling of passion will come later.
Nari
In your book, you stress the importance of continuous learning and self-improvement. Why is that so important?
Derek Sivers
The greatest joys to me in life besides, the obvious of being with my son and playing with him are self-improvement. Self-improvement, and the version of that I think of is self growth, like expanding my sense of self.
Derek Sivers
Last year I went to the Middle East for the first time and maybe because I grew up in a time where it seemed like the only time the Middle East was on the news is because there were wars and terrorists or whatever. And so I had a bad mental association. A bad image of the Middle East. And in 2023 I went for the first time and I loved it. I loved it so much and I met some amazing people and I read 3 well, now 7 or 8 books about Middle Eastern culture and Arab cultures, and I’m fascinated. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. In fact, I think it’s basically the top of my list for where I would like to live next and all of that just changed in one year. A big thing that made last year one of my favorite years of my life is because I expanded my self-identity to include something that was previously excluded. That’s a really nice feeling to get past a prejudice, to reverse a prejudice. And so I think it’s the same thing with learning a new skill, reading books and learning. Not just new information, but new ways of thinking that your brain has never tried before. New ways of looking at your life. To me, these are just the greatest joys in life.
Nari
You know, your philosophy seems to revolve around the idea of stepping out of your comfort zone, and you even conclude your book with the powerful message, “Whatever scares you, go do it.” It’s brilliant advice. Could you offer your personal guideline to those who wish to leave their comfort zone but struggle to find the courage to do so.
Derek Sivers
The go do it part of that statement can be as small as sending one email. Or signing up for a class or booking a plane ticket. They’re very little actions that begin it. And once you’ve begun then you can say, “Wow. Okay, I did it, I started, I signed up for that class or I booked that plane ticket.” So don’t think that you have to do everything all at once. You can just take one small step towards whatever scares you. If you feel like it is a good growing opportunity for you.
Nari
One step at a time. I love that. You know, my favorite chapter from your book is “Everything is my fault”. You said in the book, “This is way better than forgiving. When you forgive, you’re still assuming that they’re wrong and you are the victim.” So basically, you are saying that if you take full responsibility for whatever happened to you, there is always room to grow. But if you blame others, you will miss the great opportunity to learn from it. I absolutely love it.
Derek Sivers
Thank you. If you find that you were often blaming other people for everything, “That person is a jerk. And that person was mean to me. And that situation was unfair and nothing is ever my fault. It’s always everybody else’s fault.” If you catch yourself thinking that way, then perhaps try considering that maybe everything is your fault. And see how that feels to consider. Maybe it works for you, maybe it doesn’t. But it works for me. I like it a lot.
Nari
The more I talk to you, the more I believe you must have been a saint or a monk in your previous life.
Derek Sivers
I just have a lot of time to reflect since I sold my company. Literally the next day, I started my next company and thought that I was going to put all of my energy into the next company immediately. But after three months, I realized that would not make a real change in my life. That it would keep me on the same path I was already on, and I wanted to change my path in life. I wanted to try something new. So I deliberately spend a lot of time learning, reading books, writing in my private diary, thinking of other ways to think of things, and then adopting the thought or the belief that seems to help the most. And then lastly, I feel it’s almost my job to share what I’ve learned with other people. Even I’m happy to do it for free. Obviously, you know, the conversations like this I’m not making any money doing this, but I’m happy to talk about ideas because it’s interesting and I learned so much in my past from other people doing this, sharing what they’ve learned in life. So no, thank you, but I think there’s nothing I’m doing that anybody couldn’t do if they were in the same situation. I have a lot of time, a lot of free time to think about these things, and I think that anybody would. Somebody may be watching this interview now, and the things we’re talking about today might not be the right. A philosophy or approach for you now, but maybe in five years it is. And you will go find this interview again or maybe I’m describing things that worked for me 20 years ago and are not the right thing for me now. I would not want to start another business right now. I’m really happy just writing my books. So yeah it’s good to remember that no one thought is the right answer. It’s just for now.
Nari
Now let’s move on to other questions. And so you were born in American, have lived in Singapore, the UK, specifically in London and are currently living in New Zealand. Are there any other countries you’ve lived in? But I didn’t mention.
Derek Sivers
No, just US, UK, Singapore, New Zealand.
Nari
So my research was accurate. Okay. I’m glad. So having lived in both Western and Asian cultures, what differences have you noticed?
Derek Sivers
I did not realize until after living in Singapore how weird Americans are. I thought growing up in America that I was normal. To use a visual metaphor, I think I thought of America as kind of in the middle of things, and there are things around it, but America is in the middle of things. And it wasn’t until I moved to Singapore, then I realized, “Oh no, no, no, America is on the edge, the far edge of personality traits and beliefs and behaviors. It’s weird.” So at first I got to Singapore and I felt like everybody was wrong, especially around the idea of entrepreneurship. Because at that time I had just sold my company. And everybody wanted me to talk about entrepreneurship. So I went to speak at Singapore Management University, a business school, and I spoke to a class about entrepreneurship, and it was a class of 30 people. And I said, “Raise your hand if you would like to start your own business someday.” And no hands went up. And I thought, “Wait, maybe they’re just shy.” Because in America, if I were to ask that question, all 30 hands would go up.
Derek Sivers
Every single person wants to start their own business. That’s just obvious. Everybody wants to do it. And so I started asking the Singaporeans, “Why didn’t you raise your hand? You right there. Why didn’t you raise your hand?” And they said, “Well, my parents had a hard life so that I could have an easier life. I don’t want hardship.” And I said, “Okay, you why don’t you want to start your own business?” And she said, “My parents want me to get a good, safe, secure job so I can help take care of them.” And at first, I had recently arrived from America. I thought, “No, no, you’re wrong. Everybody needs to start their own business. That’s what everybody with the skill and ambition should do.” And only later did I understand more that how extreme Americans can be and how the American approach to life is very weird. And it’s advantageous in some ways, but it is still weird. So yeah, I think the short answer to your question is it made me realize that I was not in the middle of things.
Nari
You know, while you’re talking to me, I remember the the sentences you used in your book. You said that, You were a product of your environment.” Or you say something like, “Fish don’t know they’re in water.”
Derek Sivers
Yes. That’s such a beautiful metaphor. I didn’t come up with it. I don’t know who did. It’s very quoted, but fish don’t know they are in water, that all of us are in a culture and we’re not really able to see our own culture. It’s only if a fish can jump out of the water momentarily and look down and go, “Oh, that’s water. I didn’t know otherwise.” So you have to jump out of your own culture in order to see it from outside. I think it’s very useful. I wish for almost anybody that they could do that, to see that the beliefs and norms that we were brought up with are not the only ones that the absolute opposite way of living or raising your children or living your daily life. The opposite can be true and it’s not wrong. It’s just there are multiple ways of being. My main reason I love travel now is it’s like cultural psychology. I love learning different mindsets. That the way that Brazilians approach life is different from the way that Koreans approach life is different from the way that people in Saudi Arabia approach life, which is different than the way that people in New Zealand approach life, and none of them are wrong. It’s so interesting to see conflicting approaches to life and understand that none of them are wrong, that they’re just all equally valid, different answers.
Nari
Mark Manson defined Korea as the most depressed country. Have you watched the video?
Derek Sivers
Not yet. I saw 10 seconds of it and I bookmarked it to watch later.
Nari
Korean society is highly competitive, and we have the highest suicide rate among OECD countries every day so many Koreans are under immense pressure to succeed. So I’m wondering what’s your definition of success.
Derek Sivers
My only definition of success is doing what you set out to do. That’s it. That if you set out to be a great chef and you succeed in being a great chef by your own measure, then you have succeeded. That’s it.
Nari
Would you like to say any advice, anything to the Korean readers?
Derek Sivers
I would encourage you to email me. Even if you have to use an online translation tool, go to my website, sive.rs and you will see the link to email me.