Polish Anything You Want
host: Krzysztof E. Socha-Zalewski
Polish publisher of Anything You Want, about success, opportunity, timing, journaling, neuroplasticity, minimalism, musicians and programmers, Poland.
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Transcript:
Krzysztof
Okay. Hello. We are together with Derek Sivers here at the interview. I hope that Derek will help me and will be today a co-host of this interview because this is the first interview of mine. So, hello, Derek.
Derek Sivers
Hey, and this is fun. We've emailed and you are the publisher of my book, but we have never spoken until just a few minutes ago before we hit record.
Krzysztof
Exactly. And you were like, really right on time. So I appreciate that. So everything was really precise. But to those who don't know you, I would like to say a couple of words. So Derek Sivers isn't just an author. He's a sculptor of thought. His books are slim, deliberate and precise. Often feeling like crystallized moments of insights rather than their narratives. For Derek, writing isn't a way to build a career or brand. It's a form of thinking, of refining and offering clarity to others without clutter. So let's explore. Hello, Derek. Nice to have you here.
Derek Sivers
That was a really great intro. Thank you.
Krzysztof
Thank you, too. You know me. I'm Krzysztof. I'm also the co publisher of your book in Poland, which is called Anything You Want. I have sent you some pack shots and layout of the book. Have you seen it?
Derek Sivers
Yes, I'm so curious why you chose the Game Boy design.
Krzysztof
This is part of my story. I will try to refer to that. We have chosen this design because when I read your book, one thing came to my mind. there was a game i'm not a gamer i'm like in it for the whole life but i'm not a gamer there was there was some game which was called incredible machine and that was the game that you needed to put the puzzles that something will happen and it was like you know pushing you to think creatively that was like super simple game you know platform after after platform and when I read your book Anything You Want it was so precise so synthetic that this came to my mind this metaphor of playing a game and for me personally business is a kind of a game and only game that I like to be honest and I was inspired by that and I'm having like a personal story about that you can discover something. In 1997 probably my grandmother, she was like working in the States in Chicago, she returned from the States and she brought me a brand new Game Boy and I haven't knew what it is. I was like having it for about two years before the Polish premiere and then my friends started to you know, recognizing, oh, you have this. And I was not interested even in that. And for me, that was the metaphor that you are consciously choosing your game. And my game was a business. Your game at the beginning was doing music. Do you think that musicians are a good programmers?
Derek Sivers
Well, before we switch to musicians being good programmers, I think it's really healthy and smart to think of business as a game. It separates your identity from it a little bit. When we say something is a game, we think of it as something that we can start playing and stop playing instead of thinking of it as our whole identity. So I think that's actually a problem with people who want to be an entrepreneur. They might tie it together so much with their identity that they think that if they do an idea and it fails, that it means that they are a failed person. But it just means you didn't win the game the first time you played. It's fine. It's beautiful to think of it as a game. I think that's really smart.
Krzysztof
This is true. I think that in any game persistence is a key and probably it's easier to be persistent if you are training something.
Krzysztof
But people are having really emotional connotations to the business because we are living in this narrative of success.
Krzysztof
You were talking about that in your interviews with many people that there is like a social pressure and a narrative of being successful. And my feeling after reading your story and getting to know with what you are advocating is that this is completely wrong. That if you would like to be successful, you should create the rules of the success for yourself. And people are really deluded today regarding the success. Do you think so?
Derek Sivers
Ultimately you have to choose the perspective that works for you. So some people might think of success as a game, like your comparison, to look at it like, okay, I'm going to play this game. What are the rules of this game? How do I get points in this game? How can I get to the next level in this game? How can I win at this game? Somebody could look at business success as if it's somebody else's game, and they could just learn how to play it instead of trying to change the rules. Or you could think of it like Lego blocks or a more creative game where, yes, you're going to make the rules of your game. Neither way is right or wrong, but you have to choose which way inspires you to action more. Which way makes you feel tired and which makes you feel stuck versus which way fills you full of excitement and makes you go take the actions you need to take. That's how you should judge whether this way is working for you or not. Does it make you jump into action or does it drain your energy? That's the best compass.
Krzysztof
I was wondering about this because you're saying that many times. And I'm wondering if it's possible nowadays to replicate this environment that you had when creating that and going into your journey as an entrepreneur, as a musician, as an explorer, because you said that you switch from being a leader to an explorer after selling your company. And I'm wondering if it's still. Actual today that it's only a mindset to choose that you can act like that and still being successful.
Derek Sivers
I think so, because. Success does not mean you become a millionaire or a billionaire. Success is you feeling satisfied that you achieved what you set out to do. So maybe your idea of being a successful dancer is that you're going to enter a tango competition even if you don't win. Just the fact that you can enter a tango competition and they will let you dance on the dance floor, that means you have successfully become a dancer. There's no money involved. There's no number of customers. It's just achieving a skill. Or you could be very successful in learning a language. You could be very successful in building a web app that you think should exist, even if it means you spend a thousand hours doing it and you put it out into the world for free, if people use it and like it and say thank you, that could be a success. You could say, I did it. I made a web app that people like. It's open source. It's free. I made it because it made me happy. I got to learn a new programming language to do it. That's success. It doesn't have to be an amount of money or customers. There are so many different definitions of success.
Krzysztof
OK I think you're right. I'm also a person who was like growing up on the IT scene when there was like probably only open source and and doing something for fun and sharing knowledge was super important and to be honest everything almost everything that i know about the it about entrepreneurship i have learned by myself from the internet and from the people who were sharing the knowledge for free, which was great and still is. Now we are having even too much information and we need to choose wisely how we are programming or reprogramming ourselves. But back in the days, that was like super huge source of knowledge. And I wanted to explore for you what what really means to write with the purpose and to share knowledge, not only for the applause, but for the alignment. You have said that you write books not to teach, but to think.
Derek Sivers
Oh, yeah. Well, first. Forget books for a minute. The big challenge is if you've learned something that made your life better, that improved the way you think or act, you want to share that with somebody because maybe you had to learn it the hard way and you want to share it with somebody so that it can benefit them too. So whether you share that through tweets or blog posts or, I don't know, paintings on Instagram or just telling friends or talking on a podcast or putting it into a book, These are all just different ways to get the thought from your head to somebody else's head, which is actually hard to do. If you take too long to describe it, they'll lose focus and they won't listen to you. But if you're too short and too cryptic, it might not have the desired effect. It might not change the person that's hearing your message. If you're too vague, if you're too specific, if you use a specific example, it can be distracting, and somebody can think you're only talking about that example instead of thinking about how it can apply to them. It's a difficult challenge to try to get a good idea from your head into somebody else's head. So that's, I think, the hardest part of writing, and that's the main challenge. But sometimes, yes, I have a foggy idea in my head, and I want to make it sharper. And so then writing about that idea helps make it sharper because I know I'm going to have to try to get it into somebody else's head. And so to get an idea into somebody else's head, it has to be sharp. It can't be foggy. So that helps me sharpen my ideas by figuring out how to communicate them into somebody else's head.
Krzysztof
This is great. Is journaling helping you to be more synthetic with your thoughts? Because I know that you're journaling how long you're doing that or are you doing that like every day or this is like only for yourself or this is, I don't know, helping you shape your thoughts. I know that, I don't know if you know, probably yes. And if you like or don't like, but Jordan Peterson, Jordan B. Peterson is saying that there is no better way to become a master in life than start journaling and then working on your thoughts. So I'm wondering how this is working for you.
Derek Sivers
I didn't know he said that. First, what do you mean synthetic? You've used that word twice. I don't actually know what you mean, synthetic.
Krzysztof
Okay, maybe my English is not precise. I'm sorry. Your books are remarkably short and dense, almost like a distillate essence. So they are like precise and you are having this incredible talent to tell exactly the essence of what somebody should hear. When I was listening to your book that you're reading, audiobook, it was like huge pleasure that you are getting to the point and you are thinking that it will be something more and then it's over. But it is done. It is complete. This is what I mean.
Derek Sivers
Okay. Thank you. I like that. I like the idea that if the audience wishes you would say a little bit more, then you've said just the right amount. You should always leave them wanting a little bit more because then their own brains try to fill in the gaps. So that's why I love writing so succinctly, is because I'm not trying to be a guru. I'm not trying to have the final word on this subject. I don't want to tell you everything there is to say on this subject. I want to introduce an idea and maybe give you one example from my story, but then you get to think about it some more yourself and mix it with your own story and make it your own.
Derek Sivers
Okay, now to answer your question about journaling, I do it just for me. Nobody else ever sees it. I do it, yes, to sort out my own thoughts, but also now to record my life for my future self or maybe some future AI. Who knows? But I wish I would have started doing this when I was a teenager. I wish I would have been journaling my life every day to say, I went to school today. I'm mad at this boy. I am in love with this girl. My teacher got me in trouble. It would have been so interesting to have a record of my daily thoughts when I was 14 or 18 or 22. But unfortunately, I did not really start journaling until I was, I think, 34. So that's how far back now. My journals go back till I was 34. But it wasn't until I was 42 that I really started writing every single day. So now I'm really logging my life every single day. I never miss a day. I take even five minutes to just say what I did today. Because it seems unimportant today. But I think your future self, 20 years from now, will be fascinated to see what you were doing 20 years ago. What was I thinking? What was my life like? It helps you see patterns in your thought. It helps you see what part of your identity is changing versus staying the same. It helps you see what you have continued to desire for many years. And maybe it's time to act on this thing that you have wanted for many years. For example, I've been wanting to learn Chinese for almost 20 years now. And I'm finally doing it. Whereas there are some desires that come and go. I used to want to play drums. I don't want to play drums anymore. I used to want a dog. I don't want a dog anymore. It's a good thing I didn't get a dog because a dog lasts a long time. So there are things in my past that are passing, and it's interesting to look back at your past self to see what's gone away, and it's interesting to look at your past self to see what remains.
Derek Sivers
So, yes, I also try to sort out my thoughts by using my journal as a way to consider other perspectives. Sometimes it feels like the only solution is this. You're in a situation and you think the only way I can get out of this situation is this. But if you write that in a journal, you can look at those words and realize that's not true. That's not the only way. What's another way? And you can force yourself to find another way to think of this, another way to look at the situation. Ideally, you can find many ways to think of this situation. and then pick the one that works the best for you. Journaling is so good for all of this. It doesn't have to be a paper journal. It could be you're talking to your best friend. It could be speaking into a microphone recorder. It could be a daily YouTube video if you're that kind of person. It can be any format, but it's really useful, yes.
Krzysztof
So I have still a chance because i started journaling like a couple of years ago but i'm not doing that daily. Maybe i will try it try it more. This is great what you are sharing. What is really curious for me regarding changing your patterns in your thinking because I learned that that you're using opposite things in thinking to force yourself to be better to try something new - to expand your vision to expand your experience and so on. I can relate a bit to that because i was always searching things which were like counterintuitive like i'm brushing my um i'm brushing my mouth with the right hand and suddenly i i decided i will start doing that with the left hand to for the neuroplasticity um or i don't know i'm choosing like a different paths when i'm when i'm biking the the same the same path or you know going to the office i'm also choosing something there is a trigger in me that I'm like too long doing the same thing in the same way.
Krzysztof
And I'm having a need to change something. And I think that this is something which is really embedded in you. You're saying about that many times. And I'm wondering how have you found that peace in yourself? Is it that you had it or you forced yourself or you teach yourself to do it? What was the thought behind that to act like that?
Derek Sivers
I love that you used this example of brushing your teeth or going a different way to work. It's a beautiful, simple example. I wish I would have said that earlier. I don't mean earlier today. I mean earlier publicly. That's a beautiful example that it doesn't have to be a giant life-sized choice to move across the world. It can just be taking a different way to work. Or you usually drive, so today you're going to walk, even if that means you have to leave an hour earlier. I love that you said neuroplasticity. That's a good word. So to answer your question, I think I just value personal growth so much. I want to be the fullest version of me I can be. I'm always trying to expand myself to grow my perspective. And so if that means brushing my teeth different, for example, let's stay with your simple example of brushing your teeth. It's interesting to notice when you have a prejudice against something, you think, I'm only going to use a manual toothbrush, never those electric toothbrushes. I hate those electric toothbrushes. It's so stupid. But if you catch yourself thinking an electric toothbrush is stupid, to me, that's a good reason to go force yourself to use an electric toothbrush in order to stop hating something and find the benefit of it. I think of this with computer programming. I do everything in the terminal in Vim. I'm so hardcore with Vim. I do everything in Vim in the terminal. And just last night, I noticed that somebody was raving about this code editor called Zed that I have no interest in. I do not like big IDEs. But so many people have raved about this that last night I caught myself, like the toothbrush, thinking, no, I'm never going to use that. I don't like IDEs. I do everything in the terminal. So just last night, I downloaded Zed because I'm prejudiced against it. So I'm going to make myself try to use Zed for a while to see how it goes. Same thing with making myself go to China, even though I was prejudiced against China. And I went and I ended up loving it so much. I ended up going back three times in one year because I loved it so much. It's a very peaceful, happy, easy, beautiful place. I just love being there. It's so pleasant. It's so nice. I'm just happy when I'm there every day. I just love being there. And the language is so interesting. Same thing with the Middle East. Whenever I would hear about Dubai, I'd think, yuck, that sounds terrible. What an awful place. I never want to go there. And so I caught myself thinking that. So I made myself go to Dubai. And now I also love Dubai. It's constantly expanding your identity. It's learning to love what you used to hate. And you only get that from forcing yourself to break out of your identity.
Krzysztof
This is great. For me, personally, you are mainly philosopher. I don't want to insult you, but when I'm hearing you, your way of thinking and your thoughts are super beautiful and really inspiring. I'm wondering how this huge need of self-growth and self-improvement lead you to such minimalism in life that you are advocating and presenting. I know that you were living in many places, you were a digital nomad before, it was even called a digital nomad. You have successfully exited your company, you have been a successful music producer and singer. Now you're a dad, you're a parent. How those all of those rich paths crossed to, I don't know, returning to the to the source, to the things which are having the most matter for you.
Derek Sivers
Minimalism, for me, is about strength. You could lift that heavy object by using a machine, but instead you challenge yourself to lift the heavy object with your own muscles. You could buy some hundred dollar piece of software that will write the code for you, But you challenge yourself to use a blank terminal with no special tools, a raw text editor to challenge yourself to write that code with no extra machine to help you. You could be happy by buying a bunch of fancy things for your home, a bunch of gadgets for your kitchen, a big screen full of entertainment and a comfortable sofa, or you could challenge yourself to be happy even without any of that. So to me, it's about strength. It's about challenging yourself to see if you can do this without assistance. To me, that's the essence of minimalism. I catch myself thinking that I need some other thing to be happier, to make my life easier. And then luckily, before I buy it, I stop and I ask myself if I'm just trying to cheat and take the easy way out by buying that thing. Can I be happy without that thing? Can I achieve what I want to achieve without that thing? Maybe would achieving what I want to achieve without that thing make me a more talented, knowledgeable, skilled person because I didn't use the thing, because I memorized the programming language instead of letting the IDE fill in my code, Yeah, that to me is the essence of minimalism. Can I go on a trip across the world with a tiny pack without needing many suitcases of things to make me happy?
Krzysztof
So I understand that as acquiring the capabilities of being independent. This is also something which is probably important for you as a person.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, self-reliant is a good word. I learned that one more recently. Self-reliant, so to be able to rely on yourself to do whatever you need to do.
Krzysztof
Okay, cool. We are deep in the conversation.
Derek Sivers
Actually, wait, if you don't mind, before we change a subject, I just realized it's about, yeah, you're right. Independent has a more important word inside of it, which is dependent. If you are dependent on some tool or dependent on some item, to me, that makes you weaker. It's like you can't do what you need to do without that thing. There is a Pixar movie called Wall E set a few hundred years in the future where robots have taken care of everything. And so the people are so fat they don't even know how to walk anymore. They just have chairs, take them around everywhere and do everything for them and they just press a few buttons and they just watch screens all day and they don't ever have to do anything but sit in their chairs. But what that means is they are completely dependent on their chairs. They can't do anything without them. They don't know how to walk. They don't know how to plant a garden. They don't know how to get their own food. So that's the plot of the movie is at the very end, they go back to Earth and they have to figure out how to walk and have to plant.
Krzysztof
I really like it.
Derek Sivers
So I think about that example with the things that we say we need to make us happy. I need my big TV. I need a PlayStation. I need this new thing. I need new clothes every year. I need this. I need that to be happy. To me, those sound like the people in the chairs in that movie. It's dependent, which to me then means weak. So that's, I'm not trying to be a minimalist to be cool. I'm trying to challenge myself to be strong. and self-reliant.
Krzysztof
Okay, this self-reliant. This is a bold statement. I really like it. What is coming to my mind while you're speaking is Aldous Huxley, the Brave New World. And I'm like, I'm a hater of the word entertainment, to be honest. I don't like that people entertaining themselves. This is awful for me. I know that maybe this is like super strict statement, but this is coming to my mind when people are, you know, trying to be dependent on the pleasure, which is like everywhere and they are not putting the work into their lives. so I don't like it but everything in my opinion not maybe everything and not maybe everywhere but in in the western world I think that many things are going into the direction of pleasuring yourself to the death and this is something that I don't like because this is stopping the creativity of people and I'm wondering this is also a huge topic of of mine that I wanted to ask you in the very popular now like in the era of Gen AI and that we can produce basically anything based on text with LLMs what is the role of the human creator how to use those tools or maybe how to return to your inner cave to still be an author and creator, not supplement yourself with this only for pressure for entertainment and so on. This is something huge for me. And I'm still wondering where it will lead us as a humanity and if it's needed or not necessarily.
Derek Sivers
Okay, here's an idea. This is not an answer. It's just an idea. Consider that Gen.AI is not doing anything that another human couldn't do. We think it's novel and fascinating because it's a machine doing it. But from your point of view as a creator, you always could have just paid somebody else to write code for you. You always could have just paid somebody else to write a song for you or pay somebody else to make a painting for you. But you didn't ask yourself, well, then what is the role of me as a painter if I can just pay somebody else to paint for me? That was never the question because the point of it is the doing it. It's the discovery inside yourself to find where this idea goes. I have an idea for a painting. I want to see where this goes. I want to see if I can make this happen. I want to explore this idea. Let me see if I can write a song as good as I think it could be. I have an idea for a heavy metal song about an apple. Sorry, let's use a different example. A heavy metal song about a carrot. I think I can make a heavy metal song about a carrot, but with a funny sound effect in the middle and a good melody. I want to see if I can do this. Now, you always could have just posted on the Internet, hey, I'll pay somebody else to write a heavy metal song about a carrot. And somebody else could have written a heavy metal song about a carrot for you. But that wasn't the point. You didn't want somebody else to do it. You wanted to see if you could do it. It was a challenge to yourself. It was personal. And if you do it, you get a sense of pride and achievement. I wrote a great heavy metal song about a carrot. I did it. So the fact that we can now use a computer to make a picture or make a video or write paragraphs of text, it's interesting, but I don't think it really changes things if you think of the fact that you could always do this. You could always have somebody else do the work for you now that somebody can also be a computer. That's kind of cool, but that doesn't necessarily change everything.
Krzysztof
Okay, so this is about the act of creation and putting the emotions into the act of creation and being a creator and seeing how this is influencing you and your experience and what you are feeling and what you are experiencing. This is a huge topic of mine since like five years because I was like for the whole life in my head and then I started to having problems with breathing that was like a psychosomatic. My body was telling me, please hear me, hear me, hear me. And I was like, not hearing at all. I went to the Chinese doctor because no one could help me. And he said that, okay, everything is okay with you. But when you came here, you were like a balloon. And I was like, what does it mean even? You are like a balloon, like a huge balloon and serpent. And I was like, hmm, okay. I was like pissed off for two days. But he said, you are an intelligent guy. You will figure it out. And I was thinking for two days. And after two days, I realized that there is a huge head. And only small body because I'm not connected. And then I started returning to the body and as a man, which was not very easy for me, I started to having feelings and connecting my body with my mind. And before I thought that only my mind is existing and only my thoughts. And now I know that the emotions is the language of my body and we need to be coherent together. And that was like a huge new chapter of mine in my life.
Krzysztof
And I'm wondering, because you seem so be like really empathic and an emotional person. And how is with you when you are creating something with those emotions? What emotions are like important for you?
Derek Sivers
When I'm creating, it's not usually about the emotions as much as exploring an idea or challenging myself to see if I can create this thing. So let's go back even to music. I said a heavy metal song about a carrot, and that was cute and silly, but it's not so different from the way it really is making music. You often have a lyric. Either you have some words that you want to say, and maybe you figure out a melody that goes well with those words, but then you have to figure out the other parts, the verse and the bridge, to support that chorus that you keep singing in your head. Or sometimes you have a beat or a melody in your head, and you want to put out this music that maybe you'll put it out just as a beat or just as a melody, but maybe you want to combine it to put interesting words to that melody. So there's a challenge to yourself. Let's see if I can do this. And maybe I heard this kind of music last week for the first time that was fascinating. Let me see if I can use aspects of that music in my own music this week. That's a challenge to myself. Same thing with writing. I have a rough idea in my head of... Let's say that example I just said, that AI is interesting but not that new because we could always hire somebody else to do it. How can I sculpt my words into a powerful way that that idea will get into people's heads and be short enough that they will read it instead of procrastinating and be memorable enough that they will go tell their friends about it at dinner tonight without a phone in their hand? They'll say, earlier today I heard an interesting idea, and it will be memorable enough that they'll be able to repeat it without reading it, or that they think it was so well written and interesting that they will forward it to all of their friends, post it on their social media feed. That's a challenge to see if I can do that. So all of these things are more, do you see the intersection of exploring, like let me go there and see, and the challenge of let me see if I can do this. It's a personal challenge to see if your skills are strong enough to make this idea happen.
Krzysztof
Wow, this is great. So it is important to be able to influence people through your ideas and thoughts, I think, in life, because people who are doing so, they are changing their life and our environment. For me you are a person who is an innovator and the form of your books are really innovative and because of that we are publishing one of your books and hopefully not only this one. You are also a precursor of many things before they were even invented in my opinion. I want to switch a bit a topic. What you did in the CD Baby, that was like the best customer experience as a discipline before it even existed. You had this huge talent thinking in the usability engineering manner about putting the user into center and being user centric. And before anybody was saying that there is a customer experience, you did it. And for me, this is incredible that you were so ahead before the era of e-commerce and everything connected to that. How you are doing that, Derek? This is incredible.
Derek Sivers
Thank you. But I don't think I was doing something very new. I think I was just doing it in a different place. Meaning, there had been businesses for decades that gave you incredible service. There were hotels that would keep a file on you so that next time you came back to the hotel, they would say, "Welcome, Mr. Johnson. Welcome back. Would you like your favorite orange juice and toast like you did last time? Would you still like the New York Times delivered in the morning like you had last time? Welcome back." So that idea was already there, the idea of a club or a business that knows your preferences and remembers them for you. But then, yes, in the early days of the Internet, it was pretty rare to do that on a website, to say, "Welcome back, Jeffrey. Here are your favorite news items of the day." People were starting to do that. It took a few years for people to start to do that in a website, even though physical businesses had been doing that for years. There had been fun, cute magazines and punk rock record labels that were doing things in a snarky, super casual, independent, fun way. But they were doing it in physical record labels or physical magazines. And when I started CD Baby, I just decided to keep that same spirit. Like, this is not very serious. It's just a music store. This is not a bank. This is not an insurance company. We don't need to be so serious. We can take that silly element of fun and being un-formal. Not just informal, un-formal, anti-formal. rebellious, we can bring that into a website. So maybe if it seems like I was doing something new, I don't think I was. I wish I could take that wonderful compliment, but I think I was just taking this spirit that had already been done well by others and I was just putting it in a new place.
Krzysztof
Nice. I have a different question. Since you are in New Zealand, have you tried to dance haka?
Derek Sivers
No, but it is required learning at the schools. So my boy has grown up here and he is required at school to learn the haka and speak Maori and to do the dance with the tongue out.
Krzysztof
This is incredible. I really love New Zealand. When I was thinking about going abroad, I was considering going to New Zealand or to Australia. This is still on my bucket list. I will try to do so. Also, New Zealand is having one of the best exports goods that I love regarding the music. I don't know if you know the band Fat Freddy's Drop.
Derek Sivers
I love Fat Freddy's Drop, yes.
Krzysztof
They are from New Zealand. Yes. They are like, this is my favorite band.
Derek Sivers
Fat Freddy's Drop is everywhere here.
Krzysztof
They made my life. I'm like jealous about living in New Zealand, that you can go to the concert of Fat Freddy's Drop as often as you like.
Derek Sivers
Nice. Yeah, Fat Freddy's Drop is very local. When I call the electric company or I call the bank and they put me on hold, the hold music is usually Fat Freddy's Drop. New Zealand companies are very proud of Fat Freddy's Drop. And when you're on an Air New Zealand plane, and when the plane is taking off, they put on Fat Freddy's Drop on the speakers. So yeah, you'll hear Fat Freddy's Drop everywhere. Yeah, it's very popular. Yeah, it is a good place to live. And if you come here to visit, I will hook you up. And if anybody listening to this is going to come all the way to New Zealand, you should email me and I will try to hook you up with the secret places that I have learned. I've been living here for 13 years now, and I know a lot of secret, wonderful places, especially around Wellington, the capital where I live.
Krzysztof
This is incredible. Thank you for this. I hope that our listeners and watchers will be glad for this offer. I'm also glad. Maybe I will use your offer. This is great. Regarding finishing the topic about the Fat Freddy's drop, one song, "10 Feet Tall" saved my life, to be honest. Because when I was having a really bad period of my life, I was constantly listening to it and singing. And I was so good at singing it, that I returned to singing. Now I'm taking the singing lessons since almost three years and I'm trying to return for singing because I was doing that when I was young and after growing up I was having problems with going into the belt as usual probably because there is a lot of emotions there but now I'm returning to that Because of that, there was this story about connecting with the body, because for me singing is the language of the body. And I'm trying to orchestrate that, which is leading me to the next question, because I have sent you a really curious article. We were talking about that before we have started our conversation.
Krzysztof
Why the musicians are good programmers? For those who didn't read, I will try to put that article and maybe this magazine into the links of the video. But back in the days when the IT companies in the 70s and 80s were searching for the programmers, there was no huge pool of people who knew to program. And they were thinking, who is able to start programming very well? and they figure it out that they will start hiring musicians for that. This is like great insight, which inspired me very, very much. What is your take on that? Because you are a programmer, philosopher, thinker, musician. How this is resonating with you, this idea of orchestrating music, orchestrating programming, orchestrating your thoughts?
Derek Sivers
Number two, I think it's two different kinds of code that music is a language and programming uses a language or many languages to do the programming. So you could, in theory, just use your native spoken language to say, I want some more swelling of emotion here, and I want a sudden burst here, but I want a steady pulse here, but a steady pulse that feels sad, and now it feels happy. But in order to do that, you have to learn the language of music. You have to learn arranging to make a swell of music here, You have to learn how to make a minor chord to make it sound sad like you want here, and how to switch to a major chord to make it sound happy there, or what note should be pulsing at the bottom in order to fit with the other notes you've made. All of that is a language of music that you have to learn in order to turn your ideas into reality. And programming, in the same way, uses an in-between language to take your intentions and make them happen. You have to go learn Python or JavaScript or Go in order to turn your ideas into reality. So it probably comes naturally more that direction. I wonder, nobody ever talks about the other direction, about programmers learning music. That would be interesting to see, does it go just as easily the other direction? Yes, it's easy for somebody that's been trained as a child and as a teen to do music, and then they start doing programming and find it easy, what about the other way around? That would be more fun. People that didn't start learning music until after 10 years of programming, I wonder if they would find it just as easy. Okay, but all of that I think is number two.
Derek Sivers
Number one is the personality type. There is a type of personality that can sit in a room alone, fingers on an instrument for hours a day, practicing and learning and sticking with it when it doesn't work and spending hours to make something work, something that you couldn't do three hours ago and now you figured out how to do, just from sitting alone and working at it. That applies to both learning music and learning programming. Or programming itself is often a constant state of frustration, as you know. You start making a thing. It's not working. Why isn't this working? Why am I not getting the result I want? What's wrong with this? Wait a minute. I have a clue. Hold on. What about this? I can do this. Wait, it worked. Yes. It's like that with music, whether it's singing an arpeggio or a difficult finger placement on strings. It takes hours of work to figure out the problem and increase your abilities until you're able to do it. I think it's a personality type that is able to focus on both of these things. Many people can't. Many people are too distractible, too restless, or too social. They hate sitting alone for a single hour. Those kind of people will maybe be musicians if they are only ever playing in a band. But they would find it much harder to learn a programming language.
Krzysztof
Nice, nice answer. In fact, I had in a dormitory, when I was living in a dormitory, I had a friend of mine who is now a really successful start-upper. And he started to learn to play a guitar after he was a programmer. Exactly for that. to practice being patient and so on. And the fun fact was that he bought his guitar and the equipment for make it loud. Amplifier: he put it on the yeah he he put it he put it on the invoice and when the irs asked him why he did it he said that he is you know composing the songs for his websites and they needed to you know to approve that that was like that was really funny but he was like super creative So I think if you're persistent and patient enough, it's probably working both ways.
Krzysztof
I'm wondering if the story of CD Baby, which is like the story of the book that we are publishing now in Poland, if that story could happen again today in like 2025. Because like many people are trying to achieve success. There's like a huge stream of content, especially in shorts on Instagram, on social media. And I know that probably you're not using social media. Like that was like a conscious decision. And everything is bombarding you that you need to be successful. But the environment like really changed and the mindset. And I'm wondering if there is a possibility of the story again of the CD Baby in 2025 for people. Is it universal story enough to inspire people? Like, is environment in my mind only the excuse and times? Or something really changed and you had this, like in quote, of course, privilege to live in the era that you could do anything you want.
Derek Sivers
I had the privilege to live in the era where that specific thing could take off. A brand new e-commerce website for music that turned into a music distribution company. That was the right time for that. But there is always a right time for something else. Right now is the right time for another thing. So let's use a couple other different examples. Ten years ago, a guy named Vitalik had an idea for another kind of cryptocurrency that was not Bitcoin, that was going to use some of the ideas from the blockchain, but make a whole new cryptocurrency that would also have these smart contracts built into it. And he invented Ethereum, and that was 10 years ago or so. But you could say the same thing now. Like, well, that was 10 years ago. It was easy to invent a new cryptocurrency back then. Could we still really do that now? Well, no, but there's something else today. Like earlier I said something about the Zed code editing software that I just downloaded last night against my instincts. From what I understand, that's made by a tiny, tiny little team making a brand new text editor that seems to be getting very successful. There is a brand new programming language called Gleam that's doing some really interesting things on top of the Erlang virtual machine called BEAM. And from what I understand, this programming language is written by one person, and it's starting to get very successful. There are always opportunities to start something new that could get very successful, that's very undertapped.
Derek Sivers
But you have to understand that when I started CD Baby in 1997, it was as unpopular as, I don't know, if you were making a brand new blockchain for poets or something like that. Like imagine that right now in 2025, you said you're going to make a new blockchain for poetry. And people would look at you like you're crazy. Like what? There's no money in that. How could you ever make money from a blockchain for poetry? Ah, but then what if in 2026 and 2027, suddenly the thing you started in 2025 gets really popular? That's what it was like with me with CD Baby. I started CD Baby at a time when independent musicians were seen as just like a pathetic lot that are not good enough to be on a record label. Why would you do anything for them? They don't have any money and nobody's going to spend any money to get their music. So there's no money there. That's a waste of time. But I wasn't trying to make a big business. I was just trying to help my friends. I was selling my own music directly, and my other friends wanted to sell their music directly. My big rings of income were in the hundreds of dollars, not millions. I was thinking of making $500 doing this, not $500 million. It was very, very, very small. There was almost no money in it. It was just me in my house doing it a few hours a week. For the first two years, it wasn't until the second year I had one part-time person come help me. And it wasn't until the fourth year of doing it that I had two employees. It was very slow and very small. So yes, there are examples today where you could do something to serve a tiny niche of people. maybe have no money and there's no money in it, but you know that there's something that's not been done yet that could help them. And you do it because you're one of them and you know them and they know you and you make this little thing for your type of people. And maybe it gets successful, maybe it doesn't. But that's more out of your control. I did 12 other businesses in that decade that didn't get successful, and then CD Baby did. So it's out of your control.
Krzysztof
Okay, this is inspiring, and this is great, this pursuit of happiness while doing meaningful things for you as a person, which is reminding me the story of the creator of Minecraft. I don't remember his name now, now I'm sorry. But when he sold the company, he was not happy at all. And I think that this is like really common if you are doing something with purpose and then there is no purpose anymore in what you are doing. So this is giving the hope. This is inspiring very, very much. that people should try to learn to search things which they are fulfilling them, I think. I think this is really, really important and maybe this is like, there's always a time that this is really actual and we should consider that. and for me and we also wrote that on the back side of the book that we'll be publishing that the path of the entrepreneur this is the path of the mastery to yourself as you're stating and you're doing this for yourself and there is no better way for being as you said, self-reliant for the self-development because you're holding all the decisions in your hand and all the paths. So you need only the courage, of course, some possibilities, but it's definitely worth to pursue.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. The passion and interest you said, let's not forget that what you're ideally doing is building something that specifically helps people that have a real problem. You're building the solution for something that people actually really need. Not a vague idea of something that they might need, but something that you know they need and you know specific people that need it. Probably underserved, like independent musicians were in 1997 when I started this. They were ignored. Nobody wanted them. if you were an independent musician in 1997 and you wanted to sell your music online, nobody would do it for you. Literally not a single business anywhere on the internet would take your music and sell it. So that's why I made CD Baby, because then by 1998, if you wanted to sell your music online, there was one guy in New York named Derek that would do it for you. That was it. Later in, later 1998, there were other companies, but when I first started it, I was the only one doing it. I was helping people that were not being helped and had a real problem they needed help with. So somewhere, right now, there are people that need help. And ideally, if you have lived any kind of interesting life or done any kind of interesting work or done anything outside of the normal, then you know these people because they are at your beekeepers meetup of Scottish bagpiping Dungeons and Dragons ballet dancers. That you know people that are not just normal. If you have never done anything unusual in your life and you don't know any unusual people, then never mind. You're going to have to get a job somewhere because you don't know any special people and you have no special abilities. So maybe the first step, if you want to become a good niche entrepreneur, is to stop living a normal life.
Krzysztof
This is a really good point. What interested me in what you were saying was how you are checking if the ideas are good, like the ideas for business, ideas for the song, but maybe more for the business, because you said that you need to identify a niche, a real problem to solve. Do you have any specific in mind, any methodology, anything which is helping you that you could share with the listeners how to approach to searching relevant problems to solve.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, it's a different question. You're not looking for a methodology or testing your ideas. You are literally just helping people that need help right now. That's it. It's the equivalent of an old lady carrying her groceries up the steps and it's too heavy. So you step up and you help her. You carry the bags for her. That was not a methodology to test an idea. That was directly, literally helping someone right now that needed help. That's all I did. I have never, I don't think, tested a methodology of ideas. I have only ever literally helped people today that needed help right now, and I would do whatever was needed today to help them today. Not to help some unknown people in a year, maybe, but like literally my friend Marco says, I need a way to sell my music online. Can you do that for me? And I said, sure, Marco, I'll do that for you. I'll build a thing so that you can sell your music online. Marco was my first customer at CD Baby. He was the one that made me start CD Baby because he said, hey, can you help me? I saw that you're selling your music on your website. Can you help me do that too? And then my friend Rachel said, hey, can you help me do that too? And then Marco's friend David called me, said, hey, Marco said you're selling his music. Can you do that for me too? So I was just literally helping people today. And then two years later, my friends said, my web hosting company sucks. They're overpriced. They're corporate. Dude, I wish it was just easier to have a website as a musician. And I said, dude, I can build you a website as a musician. That's easy. I could do that right now. They said, oh, man, thank you. That would help me so much. I'd say, what are you paying them? And they'd say $20 a month. And I'd say, OK, if I charge you $20 a month, then you're happy with me to do this for you? That would be amazing. Yes. OK, great. So I started a web hosting company that day because I was helping somebody that needed help today. So I disagree with this question of testing your ideas and instead just focus on literally helping someone today with something they really need help with today, right now, and just help them with that. And then you won't need to come up with ideas. You'll just be helping someone immediately, and that creates the idea. Because if one person needs help, probably other people do too.
Krzysztof
So this is about using opportunities to help people, which is like great and really, really great. And picking up the opportunities and building, like starting immediately. This is great. And this is also one of the thoughts of your book. I don't want to like prolong this very much, but I have maybe last not about the book question, which is important for me.
Krzysztof
What is your perspective on spirituality? Like why we are here? I'm having my own explorations, like philosophical ones. But I'm wondering what such smart guy who was like super successful and then like returned to the minimalism and being in the nature what is your take on spirituality and why we are here what is the construct of this universe and this matter this observed universe from what we are like you know built is this consciousness like transmitted somehow to this body or everything is an illusion. How you are perceiving that? Probably you were thinking about such things, but I wanted to ask.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Fun question. My answer might be upsetting because I find it very useful to to not do some things. Sorry, I'm going to get abstract for a minute. So you have a to-do list of things that need to be done. And ideally, you should also have a do-not-do list. Things that are hurdles that are stopping you from who you want to be or what you want to achieve. They're things, say, like distracting video games or getting drunk every night, that you should not do that if you want to achieve something else. You're going to have to start doing some things and stop doing some things. So same with thoughts. There are some thoughts that are useful to think them. I'm going to spend an extra five or ten minutes thinking about What are some other ways I can get out of this situation that makes me feel stuck? What are some other solutions for this? That's worth thinking about. But to me, there are some ideas like, what is the whole point of existence and why am I on Earth? Those ideas I find not useful, not helpful for me. They don't help me jump into action. They don't help me be who I want to be. And so those kinds of thoughts to me are on the stop thinking list. If I catch myself thinking that, I think, oh, no, that's not helping me. Solving that question will not help. Which then comes to my favorite word that I heard equated with the concept of God, which is, God is that which is unknowable. I went, ooh, I like that. Unknowable. If it's unknowable, then to me, I will put that on the don't think about it list. It's unknowable. There is no answer to that. So instead I get back to the here and now of what needs to be done today or needs to be thought today or needs to be created today or needs to be solved today. I keep my focus back on that. And these things that are unknowable, I will discover them all when I die.
Krzysztof
Nice. Maybe this is the answer is like a answer about that, that, you know, the reason of life is to be living and experiencing this life in a full. I have this crazy story in my head and this theory that we are self-observing universe and our existence is needed that God will be able to experience itself through us and our experiences. And because of that, we are having a free will to do wherever we like to simply go through life and, you know, produce more information for the for the universe and like the consciousness. But this is this is mine. I really taking taking your point that if it's not useful.
Derek Sivers
Yes, exactly. You just said it. If it's not useful, that if anybody listening is interested in this subject, it's actually the subject of my newest book. Sorry, not the one that Krzysztof is publishing yet, but the one that I just finished writing late last year. It's called Useful Not True, and it's when I finally realized, it was a new discovery for me, that writing this book was a process of thinking of this question that you're asking. And I realized that because there are conflicting answers to that question, you said, even what you just said 10 seconds ago about, you know, for me, it's this. I realized there is somebody else on the other side of the earth that says, no, no, no, no, no. For me, it's that. It's a different thing. And there's somebody over here on this part of the earth that says, no, no, no, both of you are wrong. This is the answer. And just by getting to know so many different perspectives, you realize that it's not that one of them is right and everybody else is wrong. It's that there is no one answer to this question. Everybody's perspective is just useful to them. It's not necessarily true, because for it to be true, that would have to mean that the others are false if they are different. And since that's not the case, and since the others are not false, that means that these are all just perspectives, and therefore we should not even bother asking if it's true, and just instead ask, is this useful? Does believing this help me be who I want to be, or do what I need to do, or feel at peace? If it helps me, then this is a useful belief for me. I will hold this belief because it works for me. Not because my belief is true and your belief is false, but because this belief creates the actions or emotions that I need.
Krzysztof
This is very good. I will take that to myself and I will think about it more. Thank you for that, Derek.
Krzysztof
I have a last question before I will try to advertise our book like your book. But we are publishing it. And maybe that will be interesting for our Polish listeners. What is coming to your mind when you are thinking Poland? What is Polish for you?
Derek Sivers
Underrated powerhouse. I am so interested in Poland and I have not yet been there. In 2020, I was living in England and planning to visit Poland, not just once, but multiple times. I wanted to get to know the different sides of Poland. I'm so interested in Poland. But then you know what happened in February 2020. Suddenly everything was shut down and the airports were closed and we couldn't travel. And I'm a citizen of New Zealand, which was one of the only COVID-free places on Earth back then. So I returned to New Zealand. And sadly, I have still never been to Poland. I have read books about Poland. I grew up in Chicago, surrounded by so many people with Polish grandparents and parents. Yeah, a lot of my friends in high school had Polish parents, but I've still never been there. I've been so interested. So I was really happy when I got your email asking about publishing anything you want in Polish. I was very excited about that, and I would love to come and get to know it more. I think it's this quiet, underrated powerhouse of a country that seems to just be getting better and better and better in a very humble, understated way. I think it's the most underrated country today. And I'm not just saying that because I'm talking to you. I would say the same if I was talking to somebody from Peru or Philippines right now.
Krzysztof
Nice. Thank you. Thank you very much for this answer. You are more than welcome to come to Poland. We are very welcoming people, I invite you to Wrocław, to my hometown. This is a meeting place, a really nice city. We have more than 100 bridges here. And a really nice river embankment. A really nice city with the old town and not only. So if you will be planning to visit to come to Poland, please let me know. And I will try to be your humble guide to show you the Polish culture and maybe contact you with some Polish people, if you are able to accept this invite, of course. And Derek, we are happy, like very much as a publishers, that we are able to publish your book. It will be very, very soon. We hope that people will like it. We hope that this is not like the last book that we'll be publishing of yours. And I hope that people will be so inspired as I was while reading it. And fun fact was that that I was new in queue before reading your book from the TED talks and also from your YouTube channel, especially for from how to start the movement, which was like super inspiring for me. So thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for your time. Thank you for having you here for this interview. I'm super glad that we had this opportunity.
Derek Sivers
I think that's my job. I say thank you for having me. I really appreciate you inviting me to come do this. I'm really looking forward to coming to visit you too.
Krzysztof
Thank you very much. Have a good day.
Derek Sivers
Thanks Krzysztof