Get rich.
Here’s how to live: Get rich.
Suspend judgment.
Making money isn’t evil, greedy, shallow, or vain.
Money isn’t your worth as a human being, or a substitute for love.
But don’t pretend it doesn’t matter.
Money can represent freedom, safety, experience, generosity, attractiveness, power, or whatever you want.
But really, money is as neutral as math.
Because it’s neutral, people have projected all kinds of meaning onto it.
Your biggest obstacle to getting rich is the harmful meaning you’ve attached to it.
Your biggest advantage can be projecting a helpful meaning onto it.
Make it mean you’re on the right path.
Make it a game.
Make it mean you’re free.
Or consider this:
Money is nothing more than a neutral exchange of value.
Making money is proof you’re adding value to people’s lives.
Aiming to get rich is aiming to be useful to the world.
It’s striving to do more for others.
Serving more.
Sharing more.
Contributing more.
The world rewards you for creating value.
Pursue wealth because it’s moral, good, and unlimited.
Money is social.
It was invented to transfer value between people.
One job pays way more than another because it has more social value.
To get rich, don’t think about what’s valuable to you.
Think about what’s valuable to others.
To do the opposite is the cliché of the starving artist: creating something that’s valuable to you, but not to others.
Money doesn’t care about your race, gender, education, physique, family, or nationality.
Anyone can be rich.
Someone always will, so it might as well be you.
Making money is a skill like any other.
Learn it and practice it as you would anything else.
Money is a great motivator.
It works better than force, rules, punishment, or appealing to generosity.
Great art has been created in pursuit of profit.
Numbers reveal truth and opportunity.
With every business idea you have or hear, do the math to run the projections and implications.
Study profitable companies the way an artist studies great art.
Apply their best techniques to your own pursuit.
Doing the math helps you think critically, be realistic, and make better decisions.
The world is full of money.
There’s no shortage.
So capture the value you create.
Charge for what you do.
It’s unsustainable to create value without asking anything in return.
Remember that many people like to pay.
The more something costs, the more people value it.
By charging more, you’re actually helping them use it and appreciate it.
Charge more than is comfortable to your current self-image.
Value yourself higher, then rise to fit this valuation.
Be fully committed to getting rich, or it won’t happen.
Adjust your self-image so that you congruently feel that you should and will be rich.
If you subconsciously don’t feel you deserve it, you’ll sabotage your pursuit.
But if you truly feel you deserve it, you’ll do whatever it takes.
So adjust your self-image first.
Don’t aim to just be comfortable.
You don’t make the world a better place by just getting by.
If you aim to be comfortable, you won’t get rich.
But if you aim to be rich, you’ll also be comfortable.
Aiming to be rich makes you think bigger, which is more exciting, more fun, and less conventional since most people don’t think big.
The world needs more boldness.
Refuse the comfortable addiction of a steady paycheck.
Boldly jump on opportunities.
Take risky action.
Create your own business.
Come up with a brand name that can be attached to any business.
(Perhaps it’s your name.)
Use it for the rest of your life on everything of quality.
A recognized brand can charge a premium price, earning more than unrecognized names.
Instead of thinking of customers as leading to a sale, think of each sale as leading to a life-long relationship with a customer.
Use other people’s ideas.
Ideas are worth almost nothing.
Execution is everything.
The world is filled with ideas, yet so few take action and make them happen.
Better to be filled with action than ideas.
Best of all to be the owner.
Own and control 100% of whatever you create.
Boring industries have little competition, since most people are seeking status in glamorous new fields.
Find an old industry and solve an old problem in a new way.
Your innovation might be behind the scenes, like owning the entire supply chain.
Avoid difficult business problems.
Your time is more profitably spent doing what comes easily to you.
Avoid competition.
Never be another contender in the crowd, fighting for scraps.
It doesn’t pay to do something anyone can do.
Be separate — in a category of your own.
Invent something completely new.
Instead of fighting to split an existing dollar, inventing creates a dollar out of thin air.
Invent for a very small niche of people who need something that doesn’t exist.
Instead of making a key, then looking for a lock, find something locked, then make its key.
Follow the rising tides of where profits are going.
Get in early on an industry that’s developing quickly.
More risk, more opportunity, more investors, more rewards.
Once your business is successful, stay paranoid.
Technology is improving faster, so a successful business model doesn’t last as long as it used to.
You’ll be disrupted by others if you don’t keep improving or disrupting yourself.
Sell your business before you have to.
Sell before it peaks.
The fun is in creating a business, not maintaining it.
As soon as you have extra money, invest it.
Investing is counter-intuitive.
You need to ignore your gut and heart.
Follow dispassionate reason.
Be disciplined, not clever.
It’s a matter of math, not mood.
Emotions are the enemy of investing.
Investing is easy unless you try to beat the market.
Settle for average.
Be happy with a good-enough return from passive index funds that represent the entire world economy.
Just take a few minutes per year to rebalance.
Don’t over-think it.
It’s better to do nothing than something.
Keep it simple and manage it yourself.
Avoid exciting investments.
Speculating is not investing.
Never speculate.
Never predict.
Be humble, not arrogant.
Never think for one second that you know the future.
Remind yourself over and over again that nobody knows the future.
Ignore anyone that says they do.
Money is your servant, not your master.
Don’t act rich.
Don’t lose touch with regular people.
Stay frugal.
Reducing your expenses is so much easier than increasing your income.
You don’t need to tell anyone you have money.
You don’t even need to spend it.
Don’t buy too many things, too big of a house, or hire too many people.
Rich people who do this feel trapped and miserable.
The less you buy, the more you’re in control.
Forget lifestyle.
Forget yourself.
Stay 100% focused on creating value.
Everything else is a corrupting distraction.
Nothing destroys money faster than seeking status.
Don’t show off.
Don’t invest in a business you don’t control.
Don’t loan money to a friend, or you’ll lose your money and your friend.
You’d be better off just giving them the money.
The return is the same ($0), but you’d skip the bad feelings.
Don’t convince yourself your home is an asset.
Your home is an expense, not an investment, because it doesn’t put money in your pocket each month.
When you’re rich, everything feels free.
A $5000 expense feels like it costs a dollar.
It doesn’t dent your bank account.
Money will be like tap water.
It’s always there.
You don’t need to think about it.
One downside is you don’t get excited about money anymore.
It used to feel so exciting to make $5000.
Now you don’t even notice it.
Someone could give you another million dollars, and it wouldn’t change a thing.
You don’t need it, since there’s nothing you want to buy.
The extra millions won’t make you extra happy.
You’ll work harder to keep your money than you will to make more.
As with sex, the fascination fades when you have plenty.
Say no to more stuff.
Say yes to more choices.
Then you’ll get philosophical, since you’ll have all the options in the world.
You’ll find your riches are worthless, and maybe even an obstacle, when it comes to friendship and love.
Money makes problems go away, but amplifies personality traits.
Money won’t change you, but it will amplify who you are.
You only need to get rich once.
When you win a game, you stop playing.
Don’t be the dragon in the mountain, just sitting on your gold.
Don’t lose momentum in life.
Once you’ve done it, take it with you and do something else.
That's too much American way of thinking!!
In your first bestseller "Anything You Want" , which I liked very much, you didn't put any emphasis on making money to get rich, on the contrary, it seemed pretty clear that the big amount of money you got when you sold CD Baby was just the result of your intrinsic motivation and laser focus on what really mattered for you, in fact, on page 3 of that wonderful book you had written, you wrote:
Business is not about money. It's about making dreams come true for others.
Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself.
When you make a company, you make a utopia. It's where you design your perfect world.
Never do anything just for the money.
Don't pursue business just for your own gain. Only answer the calls for help.
.........
Starting with no money is an advantage. You don't need money to start helping people.
.........
The real point of doing anything is to be happy, so do only what makes you happy.
And after these very meaningful notes you had written in the first pages of your first besteseller "Anything You Want" , anyone keeps on reading the following pages , cannot notice that all the rest of this book is based on the same kind of life philosophy, which was pretty creative and holistic and for these special features I liked it very much!!
But now, with "How To Live" , it seems pretty clear that making money far beyond your essential needs is a must according to your new life philosophy.
Hence, who is the real Derek Sivers, the first one of "Anything You Want", the other one of "How To Live"? Is the real Derek Sivers just in the middle? Or what else?
All The Best!
Fabrice, greetings from Italy.
Read the next chapter — Derek
@ Derek Sivers
Premise
I had already read that next chapter before I wrote the post, and I've just read it again, in case I had missed something particularly important, and I must say that I can't change my final questions of the previous post because when a person speaks about making money to get rich, he/she must be a person who walks the walk ( reference, the English idiom: "You can talk the talk but can you walk the walk?" ) and in your case you walk the walk, but before becoming financially rich you had walked another kind of walk according to what you wrote in your previous bestseller "Anything You Want", unless it was just only a "Storytelling" about your personal experience with CD Baby, in other words, unless it was just a mean to promote your personal brand very well after you had sold CD Baby for a lot of money.
In my opinion, as far as that wonderful book "Anything You Want" , you wrote it inspired by sincere feelings related with your personal experience with CD Baby as a founder and manager, hence, maybe that after you had sold CD Baby for a lot of money, you started to attend well-off people for most of your time and you still attend them for most of your time and so now you think about money like them, which could also be a good thing, it depends on the different perspectives, more or less materialistic, about the meaning of life, that's it!
All The Best!
Fabrice, greetings from Italy.
@Fabrice, recommend you read the conclusion too (sive.rs/htl28), not just the next chapter.
Don't want to spoil for others, but I think the style of this book is meant to be similar to the book Sum - "The framework is inspiring for anyone: coming up with 40 different answers to any one question.", sive.rs/book/Sum
@Aryan
Thank you very much for your feedback,that's very kind of you!
Anyway, here are the top positive and critical reviews!
"Excellent Read! Highly recommend!", Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2023, by RMac
"Sometimes reading books in the self-help genre can feel like smelling your own farts; not this book! A fantastic conclusion that respects its reader, this book is a hundred-page aptitude test! Great read!"
VS
"Superficial, oblivious, absolutely tone deaf to realistic situations.", Only One Star
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2023, by D. W. Balcom
"The presentation and the first page may distract you.
The facts are, once you get past the first page you realize that this is absolutely unrealistic in that it's suggesting physical life changes that are completely arbitrary and inaccessible to the majority of the population.
I can only assume that this was written as reaffirmation for those that are already financially stable and outside the parameters of what the average human experiences, day to day.
Absolutely absurd to approach as a work that would elicit genuine introspection and mindfulness without great preconceived notions and conditions.
Likely the most disappointing book I have ever experienced, going into it by previous reviews."
Reference:
www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2F2W708GI8D0Y/r
In conclusion, I won't buy his last book, not for these two top reviews on Amazon which are very contradictory, it has been reviewed very positively by Tim Ferriss and I don't enjoy any of Tim Ferriss ( I'm not the only one: www.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/164isw4/do_you_think_tim_ferriss_would_be_a_good/ ), but I'm going to read another time his true masterpiece "Anything You Want", one of the best book on entreprenuership and wisdom in life ever written in the last 20 years!
I really enjoy this chapter.
I started reading another chapter and found myself recoiling from some of the directives and questioning what I thought of Derek!
Then I remembered the book is an exploration of a bunch of conflicting approaches to life, not Derek trying to tell people what to do. And so each chapter by itself is a distillation; a pure and therefore extreme and radical approach to life.
I think the book does what I think it is supposed to do supremely well, and that is to capture some essential truths and convey them in the most sparse succinct way. I think it's beautiful. And this chapter really resonates with me. I find it inspiring and reassuring and thought provoking and I am deeply grateful to Derek for putting in the monumental effort to create it.
☺ Thank you. — Derek
Just two final notes!
The first one.
“It’s about being, not having”, by Derek Sivers, 2011-07-21
Since I was 14, I was determined to be a great singer. But my pitch was bad, my tone was bad, and everyone said I was just not a singer.
For 11 years, I took voice lessons, and practiced at least an hour a day. I was always the lead singer of my band, doing a few shows a week, getting as much real-world experience as possible. The whole time, people kept telling me I was just not a singer — that I should give it up and find a real singer.
When I was 25, I recorded my first album. My mentor heard it and said, “Derek, you’re just not a singer. You really need to stop trying. Admit you’re a songwriter, and find a real singer.” But I was unfazed. I knew I just had more work to do.
At 28, I started noticing that my voice was getting good! I recorded a few new songs, and for the first time, I really liked the vocals!
At 29, I had done it. After 15 years of practice, and about a thousand live shows, I was finally a very good singer, at least by my own standards. (Someone who heard me for the first time then said, “Singing is a gift you’re either born with or you’re not. You’re lucky. You were born with it!”)
Point is: It’s not that I wanted to get it done and have good vocals. It’s that I wanted to be a great singer.
Continuation on:
sive.rs/being
In particulare, the final lines:
In the end, it’s about what you want to be, not what you want to have.
To have something (a finished recording, a business, or millions of dollars) is the means, not the end.
To be something (a good singer, a skilled entrepreneur, or just plain happy) is the real point.
When you sign up to run a marathon, you don’t want a taxi to take you to the finish line.
Comment
I accidentally found the link to this article from this other article that is pretty recent:
“AI usage” by Derek Sivers
As of today, March 12, 2024, here is how I’ve used generative AI/LLM tools.
sive.rs/ai
However, I had already read it (“It’s about being, not having” ) in his true masterpiece “Anything You Want”and I must admit I found it and I still find it a super brilliant piece for being written by an American musician and entrepreneur, who instead are usually obsessed with material success.
The second and final note
“Everybody wants to be famous and success is always measured in money. If you are not making money out of what you are doing, you are no good. On the other hand if you are making money even from not so moral activities, you are treated as a king. Having a small cigarette kiosk on the street is considered a low life, while being the CEO of Philip Morris is highly respected, even though in both cases the money comes from the same place."
Comment
Similarly, a sports star who uses doping and is packed with money is considered a God on earth, while an honest professional sportsman who earns money just to lead a decent life without spending and splurging is considered just one of many professional sportsmen who have not made it big, a mainstream famous journalist who earns a lot of money but never tells the public uncomfortable truths about the skeletons in the closets of rich and powerful people is considered a great example of journalism, on the other hand, the independent investigative journalist who tells uncomfortable truths about the skeletons in the closets of rich and powerful people earns only the essentials to live ( and sometimes he/she doesn’t even make ends meet !) and is totally unknown to the general mainstream public (who knows why....!), the plastic surgeon of celebrities earns a lot of money, while family doctors who during the "pandemic" have treated a lot of people with effective home therapies based on normal drugs earn just the right amount to make a decent life and have even been heavily ostracized by the mainstream media, and so on.....!!
A couple of very useful integrations to my two final notes written in my last post, here they are!
1. Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life – November 14, 2023
by Seamus Bruner (Author), Peter Schweizer (Foreword)
"Controligarchs peers into the future and provides a haunting and revelatory exposé of the globalist elite’s playbook for the next five years.”
- Peter Schweizer, author of Red-Handed, Clinton Cash, and Profiles in Corruption
Imagine a world in which you own nothing and rent everything. Most of the protein in your diet comes from bugs. You are not allowed to have more than one child, and your financial and medical data are instantly transferred to a centralized government database via a subdermal microchip.
Controligarchs warns that this will be our existence if the supranational elites of the World Economic Forum get their way.
In this book, investigative journalist Seamus Bruner—who led the teams whose findings sparked multiple FBI investigations and congressional probes into the Clintons and the Bidens—exposes the billionaires who control the levers of power that dominate every aspect of your life.
Inside this pathbreaking new book, you will discover:
• Bill Gates’s $11.7 billion food takeover scheme… and the real reason he’s snapping up America’s farmland
• Mark Zuckerberg’s $36 billion plot to reengineer society and force you into tech addiction
• Jeff Bezos’s taxpayer-funded electric vehicle ambitions, climate hypocrisy, and $1.2 billion plan to spy on you by overseeing your “smart” home
• The Soros family’s project to use its $25 billion empire to influence elections and society for the next 50 years
• How World Economic Forum (WEF) founder Klaus Schwab built an exclusive club in Davos where the top 25 WEF members—now worth more than $10 trillion—have more economic power than most world governments, and how these global oligarchs are seizing control over our future
Based on a mountain of financial filings, insider documents, and corporate records, Controligarchs rips back the curtain on never-before-published revelations about the life-altering schemes that globalist elites have in store for you. This book is a must-read for anyone who values American independence and personal freedom.
About the Author
Seamus Bruner is Director of Research at the Government Accountability Institute (GAI). He’s the author of Compromised and Fallout, and provided research & support for Peter Schweizer’s numerous New York Times bestsellers.
Continuation:
www.amazon.com/Controligarchs-Exposing-Billionaire-Globalist-Dominate/dp/0593541596/
2. Social Media Is a Tool of the CIA: “Facebook, Google and Other Social Media Used to Spy on People”, by Prof Michel Chossudovsky for Global Research, March 09, 2018
PS just type these key words to find the article
Brief final comment
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.", Malcom X
Integration to my last post:
bookoftheday.org/controligarchs-exposing-the-billionaire-class-their-secret-
deals-and-the-globalist-plot-to-dominate-your-life-seamus-bruner/
Hi Derek, your idea of social value proven thru higher payed jobs makes me stumble. Thinking of the care sector, the social value is given to me, however adequat slaries are missing.
Wonder what you thoughts are in this
Yes, it’s a strange thing about our current culture, that bankers are paid more than teachers or nurses. — Derek
You can also make money by crime
Wow, this a short concise read on being rich. Thank you!
Integration to my post N 8 (2024-04-25)
"CRISIS IN FABULA"
THE BOOK
The childish narrative through which “plutocracy” – i.e. the government of the richer – legitimates its power is “told” by means of formal, linguistic, psychological, narratological tools
web.archive.org/web/20190519083155/http://ilpedante.org/files/other/Il_Pedante_Bruxelles_06062018.pdf
PS summary on page 18
The author of this book is Stefano Mantegazza, a professional Italian jazz musician, writer and translator ( www.macrolibrarsi.it/autori/_stefano-mantegazza-il-pedante.php ), his interesting Blog:
ilpedante.info/post/the-musicians-know-what-is-good
Integration to my post N 7 (2024-04-21) . First part.
“Epstein’s Gates to Pandemonium”, by Jord Pigem for Brown Institute, Feb 8, 2026
We are going to have fun,” writes Jeffrey Epstein on December 7, 2009. This phrase is his reply to an email by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Science Advisor (and Scientific Advisor to Bill Gates), Boris Nikolic, who is making a list of “rising stars,” many of them scientists, that they “should visit together.”
By then, everyone must have known that Epstein was a notorious, convicted sex offender. He had been released from jail only a few months before, on July 22. He had been under investigation since 2005: federal officials had identified three dozen girls whom Epstein had allegedly sexually abused (after a controversial plea deal agreed by the US Department of Justice, he was only convicted of two crimes). Why would a high ranking official of Gates’ Foundation want to organize meetings between Epstein and prominent scientists? If it was about money, surely they could find better-looking investors. What, eventually, were they “going to have fun” with?
One of the revelations of the latest batch of Epstein files is his strong interest in viruses, vaccines, pandemics, and mRNA. Two months after getting out of jail, he is writing about viruses, infectious diseases, and something he calls “My BIG idea.”
Continuation with all the reference links:
brownstone.org/articles/epsteins-gates-to-pandemonium/
In particular, the following passages of the article:
In March 2017, two and a half years before Event 201, three years before Covid-19 was officially declared a pandemic by the WHO, an email thread involving Gates and bgC3 (Bill Gates Catalyst 3, now Gates Ventures) speaks of “pandemic simulation.”
A number of emails in the Epstein files speak of pandemic preparedness. One of them, from March 2015, explicitly invites to discuss “how to officially involve the WHO” for the sake of “co-branding” (it looks like the “product” to “co-brand” is a pandemic).
In 2017, an email from Boris Nikolic addressed to both Epstein and Gates (four years after the agreement letter about Epstein mediating the rupture between Nikolic and Gates) mentions “pandemic” as a key area for a Donor Advised Fund.
Integration to my post N 7 (2024-04-21). Second and last part.
“Shame of a nation: 338,000 reasons behind America’s silence after the Epstein files”, by South Front, March 9, 2026
In early 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice published millions of pages of archives related to financier Jeffrey Epstein’s case, confirming long-standing ties between the American political elite and the convicted criminal. Several months later, Congressman Tim Tebow presented new FBI data that shocked the public even more: approximately 338,000 unique IP addresses were recorded each month in the country downloading child pornography. This statistic suggests that nearly one out of every thousand U.S. residents could be involved in such illegal activity, raising questions about the depth and scale of a systemic crisis. The Epstein documents revealed how the highest echelons of power were connected to the island where, according to victims’ testimony, horrifying acts occurred. Interestingly, the disclosure of these shocking details did not cause significant public unrest, leading experts to speak of a phenomenon of social anesthesia. Together, these events paint a complex picture in which morality, politics, and global interests are intertwined. American society is in no hurry to untie this knot.
At the start of 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice began publishing millions of pages of documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case in order to implement a law passed by Congress. The documents confirmed longstanding conspiracy theories that representatives of the global elite had regularly visited Epstein’s private island. The documents revealed the names of not only foreign princes and business magnates, but also prominent American politicians from both parties.
Continuation:
southfront.press/shame-of-a-nation-338000-reasons-behind-americas-silence-after-the-epstein-files/
Final comment
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.", Malcom X
+
"You will never find truth unless you are willing to accept even what you do not expect", Heraclitus
Excuse me, I forgot this one that is very tranchant, here it is!!
In Photos: ‘Jeffrey Epstein Walk of Shame’ appears in public park near White House
by David Sun for Medill On The Hill, Mar 4, 2026
WASHINGTON — A “Jeffrey Epstein Walk of Shame” was installed last weekend in Farragut Square, a public park close to the White House, naming and shaming public figures associated with the late child sex offender and trafficker.
The display comes amid intense scrutiny of the Epstein files, following the Department of Justice’s release of more than 3 million pages on Jan. 30 detailing the activities of Epstein and his network of associates.
Sidewalk stickers posted at each corner of the park welcomed commuters and visitors to the exhibition. The installation, inspired by the Hollywood Walk of Fame, displayed stickers shaped like stars featuring prominent politicians, billionaires and celebrities tied to Epstein.
Continuation:
medillonthehill.medill.northwestern.edu/2026/03/in-photos-jeffrey-epstein-walk-of-shame-appears-in-public-park-near-white-house/
Final comment
To be carved in stone in large letters:
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.", Malcom X
1. Addendum to my fifth post (2024-04-21)
For any readers who would like to read the book " Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life – November 14, 2023
by Seamus Bruner (Author)", here is the PDF file so you can read it for free:
www.bibliotecapleyades.net/archivos_pdf2/controligarchs.pdf
Enjoy the read!
2. Final comment
To be carved in stone in large letters:
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.", Malcolm X, ( 1925-1965 ), African American activist from the United States.