← The $100 MBA Show
The $100 MBA Show
MBA2509 Extended Interview: Derek Sivers - How to Build a Business in Your Unique Way
01:18:32
How do some entrepreneurs manage to build successful businesses their own unique way, without being driven solely by the pursuit of money? What if everything you thought you had to do in business was actually optional? And how can belief and imagination transform your entrepreneurial journey? These are just some of the questions we explore in today's inspiring episode, as we sit down with the legendary Derek Sivers.
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- [00:00]
Derek Sivers
With HubSpot's suite of AI powered tools, you can get more done way faster, speed up your lead generation and create attention grabbing, lead driving, quota crushing campaigns in an instant. Get started today@HubSpot.com AI Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.
- [00:18]
Omar Zenhom
I don't know if you knew this but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities.
- [00:26]
Derek Sivers
So do like I did and have.
- [00:28]
Omar Zenhom
One of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com.
- [00:34]
Derek Sivers
Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.
- [00:45]
Omar Zenhom
See full terms@mintmobile.com hey listeners, we got some exciting updates for you. First thing is that we've improved our podcast format. So you'll notice that the podcast format in the next episodes are going to be different. We're going to get into the lessons even faster so you can get the value you need without any delays. This is also because every episode is now going to be available on video. You could check out our new YouTube channel over@100mba.net YouTube and if you want to show us some love, go ahead and subscribe to our new YouTube channel over there. Also, to celebrate 10amazing years of the Hundred MBA, we've launched a brand new website with a fresh look. You're going to love all the amazing features and freebies over on that website. Go to 100 MBA net to explore. Thanks for being a part of our journey. Welcome to the $100 MBA show, the podcast where we bring you practical business lessons three times a week. I'm your host Omar Zenholm and in today's lesson you will learn how to be your own entrepreneur in your own way with our incredible special guest, Derek Sivers. Derek is someone who is not only an entrepreneur but also a musician, an author, and someone who really embodies the idea of doing things differently. Derek Sivers is the founder of CD Baby, which revolutionized the way independent musicians distributed their music. This is way ahead of its time. It was in the 90s, this is before Spotify and he really helped musicians get their music out there. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Derek is a truly deep thinker, a modern day philosopher in the world of business and his insights, I find are both profound but also refreshingly practical. In our chat we dive into all Kinds of topics, from entrepreneurship to life to travel to the importance of staying true to who you are as a person in your path as an entrepreneur. Derek has this way of making you rethink everything you know and everything you thought of when it comes to success and what it means to be a successful creator in this ever changing world. Trust me, you don't want to miss a second of this conversation. Let's jump into that conversation right now with Derek Sivers. Derek, so awesome to have you on the show. I think the world is incredible because I started my full time entrepreneurial journey about in 2012. So like 12 years ago. And your book Anything youg Want was kind of one of the first books that changed my mind about entrepreneurship. I was side hustling for 10 years before that. But before we dig into all your amazing books, some perspectives I want to get from you. I want to learn a little bit more about the context of the early days of Derek. What are some things I need to know about you that shape who Derek Sivers is?
- [03:48]
Derek Sivers
Ooh, first held on. I gotta say, it's so nice to finally talk with you live audience. Omar and I have been emailing since 2016, and I almost met him and his wife for dinner at south by Southwest Sydney. And then just at the last minute, I canceled because I was so close to finishing my new book. So we've almost met and this is our first time actually talking live like this. So my background, it helps to know that all I really wanted was to be a musician. Like, I wasn't trying to be an entrepreneur. So if some of the things I've done seem strange that we're going to be talking about today, if it seems like I was making strange decisions, it's because I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. I never wanted to start a business. I just wanted to make music. So from the age of 14 to 29, I was absolutely laser focused on that one. I was doing music and nothing else. I didn't care about anything else in the whole world but just making music. At the age of 29, I set up a little website to sell my CD at a time when there was no business anywhere on the Internet that would sell your music unless you were a major label signed to a major record label. So I made my own little web shop on my website. And it was hard at the time, right? Like there was no PayPal. Amazon was just a bookstore. If you wanted to have a credit merchant account, it was like three months of paperwork and $1,000 in setup fees and for three months of hard. They actually had to send an inspector out to your location to make sure you were a valid business. And after three months of hard work, I had a buy now button on my website. And so my friends in the New York music scene said, whoa, dude, can you sell my CD through that thing, too? And I went, yeah, all right. So as, like, as a favor to my fellow musician friends, I started selling other people's CDs on my website. And then word got out, and I had to make it its own thing. So I made CD Baby dot com. And to set the scene at the time, I mean, this was 1997. If you were an independent musician and you wanted to sell your music online, the only way to do it was some guy named Derek in New York that could do it for you. You know, so maybe we call this the Blue Ocean strategy. But it was. I was just doing something that nobody else was doing, and that's why it took off. It wasn't because I was savvy or smart at all. I was just really lucky to be doing something that nobody else was doing. And so quickly, this little hobby I started became the largest seller of independent music on the web, with a quarter million albums from 150,000 musicians that I had direct relationships with and ran it for 10 years. It grew and grew and grew. I had 85 employees in a big warehouse, actually three warehouses, and hated it. And so, I mean, it made a lot of money, but that was never the point. And after 10 years, I just felt done. So I thought about just shutting down the company. And then a friend of mine said, you know, you can sell. I went, oh, right, forgot I could sell a company. Yeah, maybe I'll do that. So I naively sold the company and walked away. And that was 2008. And, yeah, I've just been writing books since. So we'll stop it there for now.
- [07:23]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah, and we're gonna definitely talk about a lot of this stuff. But I want to touch on something that you mentioned kind of in passing, but I think is really important. Your friend asked, hey, can you sell my cd? Can you get it out there? And you said, yeah, sure, I'll figure that out. That moment is so subtle, but so significant. One, my question to you is, were you just somebody who's just happy to say yes to things, or you just wanted to. You were curious? And then two, did you have, like, a good feeling about it? Was it like, I know this is gonna work, or was it like, you know, let me just try this out? And see what happens.
- [07:58]
Derek Sivers
It was a distraction. It was almost like the way that people would play video games at the end of a day of work. My real work was playing on stage with my band and touring and booking gigs and recording albums. That was my real job. And at night, for fun, I was learning HTML and making a website and figuring out the intellectual challenge of how to make a buy now button on my website with CGI Bin Pearl scripts and all that kind of stuff. And it was just fun. It was just intellectually interesting and kind of exciting in the self promotional sense. Like I was trying to get my music out there. So the making a better website to get my music out there was benefiting my music in a way. So I was really just doing that. But I had learned a lot in the process of doing it, you know, of figuring out how to make a buy now button and figuring out how to make a website. So when, by the way, the year, yeah, I think I mentioned it earlier, was like 1994, when I made my first website. 1997, when I was doing CD Baby and selling my CD. So the Internet was still this new thing that only a couple early adopters were doing. So a lot of my musician friends knew nothing about it. They had no website. And it was just like, dude, can you. Here's a stack of CDs, could you sell these for me? And I was like, yeah, right, yeah. So you're asking questions that were assuming that I wanted this thing to happen, but it was really just a nighttime hobby. What I really wanted to happen was my music. And then as a favor to friends, I didn't even charge any money for it for months. I just did this for free. It was not a business. It was like, you know what? Sure, I already know how to do this for you. I'll set up a page on my band's website so we can sell your CDs too. I charged no money for it, just for friends. And it wasn't till friends of friends, like my good friend Rachel told her friend Jeff, and then Jeff's friend from Ohio called. And you know, at that point I was like, all right, now it's not even favors for friends. I think I should start charging something. Yeah, so. But until then, it wasn't a business. I wasn't trying to make it big.
- [10:07]
Omar Zenhom
That's very interesting because I had a similar experience. One of my earlier businesses was a custom clothing line. And I used to just get custom clothing because I was living in Dubai at the time. I was teaching English. That was My former life. And I would just get this clothing tailored because I'm 6 5, and I'm long and lanky and whatever. And my friends would just say to me, that's a nice shirt. Where'd you get that from? So I just got it made, like, oh, can you make me one? And that's kind of how. And I just started doing it. I was like, well, this is a lot of work. Three, four, five, ten friends. And I was like, maybe I should start charging for it. And that's kind of how I built Zen designs. But I think the reason why I've followed you for so long, read your books, love your just overall philosophy on things, is because you're so different from me. And, like, when you just said, I really didn't try to build a business. And, you know, and I don't know if I like this about myself or maybe I'm a little bit uncomfortable even admitting this, but, like, I have a problem where I want to win so bad, you know, And I want to. I want to succeed. I think there's something inside me that feels that I'm yearning for significance. And you are not like that. You're just trying things. You're just figuring things out. You're following things that you're passionate about, you love. I want to get into, like, why do you trust yourself to the point where it's just like, okay, it's gonna be all right, because, like, you've done some really interesting jobs. You were, you know, a circus performer, you're a clown, you're a musician, a telemarketer, all, you know, like, you never kind of chased money, but you also, you know, kind of figured it out at the end. I want to know, is this intentional? What is going on your mind when you're going through these phases in life?
- [11:49]
Derek Sivers
I think there are a couple Hollywood actors. Tommy Lee Jones comes to mind that I think we're not really pursuing acting, but, like, somebody just kind of met them and said, hey, you should be in this thing. Like, they were pursuing other things. And then somebody said, hey, you'd be good for this. I think Matthew McConaughey was like that. At first they were doing other things, that acting was not their main pursuit. But since somebody just said, I think you'd be good for this, I feel a bit like that. So it's not like I have no ambition. It's just that my ambition was focused on making music.
- [12:22]
Omar Zenhom
Yes.
- [12:23]
Derek Sivers
And then it's like somebody just kind of grabbed me and said, hey, we need you to sell some CDs for these musicians. I am ambitious in non monetary ways. It might also just be a lifestyle. When Tim Ferriss was here a year ago, he very publicly teased me on his podcast. Cause he said, all right, let me just go get a drink from the kitchen. He went in there, he's like, dude, where are your glasses? I only see this one. I said, well, that's the only one. I. And he's like, wait, you only have one. You have two glasses and I'm holding one and he's got the other. I said, well, I just. I don't have people over. Why would I? Anyway, I live a pretty simple life. So I've considered many times, should I be pursuing money more? But then I just kind of ask myself, for what? What would I do with it? What's the point? There's nothing I want to buy. You could literally put a billion dollars into my bank account and I would not do anything differently. In fact, I'd probably just go, like, great, now I have to give that away too, you know?
- [13:27]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah.
- [13:29]
Derek Sivers
So why pursue something you don't need?
- [13:34]
Omar Zenhom
It's a bit of an addiction.
- [13:36]
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Yeah. I actually worry about people that seem addicted to it, unless it's just a game, you know, this helped me understand a bit when I read Richard Branson's autobiography. And it seems like he just has fun doing it. He doesn't need the money, but he just enjoys it. It's not done out of stress or pressure, but just seems to be fun for him. So, hey, if somebody just finds it fun, great. But I do worry about the people that stress themselves out thinking, like, all right, great, I made my first million. Now I need 10 million. All right, I made 10 million. Now I gotta get 100 million. Oh, man, I only got 100 million. Where I'm like, hanging with these people that have 500 million. I'm feeling like a loser. What can I do to get to 500 million and just think, are you. Are you all right? Do you need a hug? You okay?
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Omar Zenhom
Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good point. I think in entrepreneurship, especially with the rise of social media, it's really hard to always check in with yourself and say, like, what do I want? You know, what do I need? What is going to make me and my family happy? Instead of, you know, chasing what I see out there, you know, whether it's the homes, the luxury cars, whatever, but also just the, you know, this image of success that makes anybody feel like, oh, you know, even if I have some success, it's not good enough. You know, I know you're not huge on social media. Is that part of it?
- [14:58]
Derek Sivers
Yeah. You know, you might have just touched on something. I don't mean to lay on the psychiatrist's couch right now, but because I knew at the age of 14 that I just wanted to be a musician. But I was in high school in a posh neighborhood outside of Chicago where everybody was preparing to get into Ivy League schools. I think I started seeing the world from this early teenage time of I'm not like you people. I'm not pursuing the same thing you're pursuing. You go try to get into an Ivy League school. I just want to be a great songwriter. I just want to be a great guitarist. You guys just have different goals than me. We're pursuing very different things. I think I just started to see the whole world that way. Like, most people in the world seem to be chasing this, I'm chasing that or vice versa. So therefore, what other people are doing just doesn't apply to me. So, no, I've never been into social media. I mean, I've never had a social media app on my phone ever. I used to, back in 2007, go to Facebook a bit when it first came out. And after, by 2009, I was done. So I don't look at what other people are doing. I don't care what other people are doing because I just assume they're pursuing something different than I am. So maybe that's why I never compare myself to others and why when I'm starting something new, whether it's a business selling music or publishing books or whatever, I don't look to what other people are doing. I just kind of start from a blank slate. Like, all right, in a perfect world, how would this go? I don't care what anybody else is doing. How should it be In a perfect world? And I start from there.
- [16:50]
Omar Zenhom
I think what we have in common is that moment when we were younger. I remember vividly when I was like, 11 years old, I was in school. My parents are Egyptian immigrants, came to America, and they did well enough for me to go to a, you know, good all white school and be the poorest kid in school and. And I just remember vividly at like, 11, maybe 12, where I, up to that point was trying so hard to fit in and be liked and, you know, be like everybody else and, you know, get the attention of the girls in the class and whatever, and it just never worked. And I just. I think I just, like, almost like I don't Know snapped is the right word, but I just kind of woke up. I was like, I'm never going to be like them. I'm just going to stop caring. And I think that really has helped me in my life in a lot of ways, like you said, because I just know inside me that I'm not the same as everybody else. And I'm sure we have similarities, everybody. But trying to fit in is just never works. And I think that's really good advice that you just shared. It's just like, sometimes you just need to have a blank slate and just say, like, hey, what do I want in this situation? What is something that I want to do? Forget about what the, you know, the best of the best is doing and all that kind of stuff. Because I do feel like when you look at that stuff, it influences your work in a lot of ways.
- [18:09]
Derek Sivers
Yeah, definitely. You know, Richard Feynman, the physicist, has a famous saying. I think it turned into one of his book titles called what Do I Care what Other People Think? And I love that because it wasn't even said defiantly. It was just almost in the sense of, like, why would I care what somebody else's underwear is? Like, that's none of my business what somebody else thinks. And if you think that through for one second, it's because he was dealing with physics where all that mattered was the physical world that he was trying to figure out. What somebody else thinks is just none of his business, none of his concern. And I think of that a lot. I've got myself into a position where I don't need public approval. I don't care if people don't like what I'm doing. I do it to please myself first. And if there are, you know, a thousand true fans out there worldwide somewhere, then I'm good. Everything after that is just frosting, you know? So I really don't care what other people think or what other people do. So maybe I'd be like that anyway. But it definitely helps that I'm in New Zealand. It might be different if I was living in Union Square, Manhattan, or if I was living in Hollywood. I might be influenced by the people around me. I might go to my friend's houses going, man, my little apartment is starting to depress me because all my friends have these really posh big houses, man. Maybe I kind of want a posh, big house, too. But luckily here in New Zealand, I don't know anybody with posh houses. So my little place here is fine.
- [19:37]
Omar Zenhom
That's interesting that you say that, because you mentioned you started See the Baby in New York. I'm a native New Yorker myself and I started my full time entrepreneurial journey in New York. But you also lived many places in the world. I've traveled and lived in several countries as well. How much did being in New York impact you starting CD Baby? Like, is the environment you're in, the place you live have any impact on what you can produce?
- [20:03]
Derek Sivers
It helped because I was in the New York music scene, so I wasn't a complete outsider in Finland or Bolivia trying to start this thing. I was in the middle of the New York City music scene. I knew a lot of people just from being in it and just I was a full time musician for 10 years, you know. I started CD Baby in a barn in Woodstock, New York, two hours north of New York City. I had just left the city and moved up to a barn in Woodstock and that's when friends were asking me to ship their CDs for them, sell their CDs. So the city wasn't to blame or to thank for me starting the business environment wise, but it was connections wise. You know, I think there was just a few months after I started CD Baby a competitor showed up. I think he was a nice guy. His business was called Earbuzz E A R B U Z Z dot com. I don't even know if it's still there. But he seemed to be a nice guy. But I think he was just like off in St. Louis or something and didn't have the connections I have. So I had a head start there that helped a lot. People like musicians like Woodstock. It has the famous affiliation with the Woodstock 1967 concert. So I remember just telling people I was in Woodstock, made people go, oh cool, yeah, a guy in Woodstock is selling my CDs for me, you know. Yeah, legit. Yeah, good word. So maybe that has something to do with it. I know we're in this all remote age, but there is something that comes from physically being in the place with a lot of other ambitious movers and shakers. There's a reason that there's so many businesses in Silicon Valley and so many movies being made in Los Angeles. There's this in person network that you can't just get by being on a zoom call from Luxembourg, that if you're physically there and hanging with these people and people do business with people they like and people want to work with their friends and there's a guy that you were just hanging with two days ago and you need a cameraman today, you're going to call that guy you met two days ago at the party.
- [22:06]
Omar Zenhom
That's such a good example. That's such a good example. The reason why it's such a good example is because one of the things I love about New York and the reason why I moved there when I became a full time entrepreneur is that no one moves to New York to have a relaxed lifestyle. Everybody is chasing their dream, everybody is going after it. And that's what they mean by there's an energy in the city. And one of the things I love about also is everybody is a weirdo, therefore nobody's a weirdo.
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Derek Sivers
Yeah.
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Omar Zenhom
So what about now you live in New Zealand. Does that environment help you write better books?
- [22:39]
Derek Sivers
Probably. I'm an outsider. Maybe I would be anyway, no matter where I lived. But I'm here for different reasons. I mean, I'm here to raise a kid.
- [22:46]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah.
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Derek Sivers
That's my sole reason for being here, really. I was living in Singapore, very ambitious and about to start my next company when, oops, we had a kid. And when he was about six months old, it became clear. I was like, I don't want to have this conflict of living in my super social place of Singapore. I love Singapore. I have hundreds of friends in Singapore. Okay. Hundreds of acquaintances and many dear friends in Singapore. I was super social there. But that was a problem with having a baby. There is. I saw. All right, this is going to be a real conflict. People are going to be inviting me to things every week and I should be with my kid. So I'm going to move to an island in the middle of the Pacific where I don't know anybody and raise my kid in nature there. So that's the only reason I'm here. I'm not here for some strategic reason for myself. Yeah.
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Omar Zenhom
It's good that you're finding the advantages of it as, as a writer.
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Derek Sivers
Yeah. By the way, where in New York did you grow up? I'm just curious now.
- [23:40]
Omar Zenhom
I grew up in Long island and then I moved to New Jersey, went to school at Rutgers and then after that I moved abroad. I was a teacher. I taught English in Dubai and I did 10 years in Dubai. Short story is the money was good and I would never get paid that much as a teacher. I learned a ton, you know, managed a group of teachers of, you know, twice my age at 25. And then when I moved to New York, I, I moved with Nicole, who's my co founder and wife, and we started our, you know, independent entrepreneur journey in New York. And that was so exciting for me because it was so exciting. But at the same time the most challenging time of my life. Like I had to change my whole life and it was so hard.
- [24:27]
Derek Sivers
What did you have to change?
- [24:28]
Omar Zenhom
Everything. I mean, my career. I invested all my life into becoming a teacher, a great teacher. I became a manager at a very young age and I led my department. I was the chair of my department at the university I was teaching at. I put so much work into it, but at the same time I was side hustling and building businesses on the Internet and experiencing the same thing with whole merchants accounts and all that stuff. But, but then I had a conversation with the dean, my, my, my supervisor and I asked her, why am I not getting the promotion? I was, I was acting chair. I was actually doing the job of somebody who left and I was doing it for like 18 months and I still didn't get officially the job. And I was like, hey, why am I not getting this promotion? Am I doing a great job? You're like, you're doing a fantastic job. It's like, okay, so what's going on? And she was just like, the director of the university wants to make an outside hire on this position. And at that moment I always say that my frustration outgrew my fear. And I just got so frustrated. I was like, anything's better than this. I need to, I need to change my life. And I, I, I moved to New York, I became a full time entrepreneur and started my, my, my first business like full time. I, I had like side hustles at the time. Basically everything changed. All new friends, all new locations, no car, living in a dungeon apartment on top of Mamoon Salafil on, you know, McDougal Street. Just new life completely. Like I don't even know who that person was back then.
- [25:48]
Derek Sivers
With a home equity investment from home tab you get access to your home equity in cash without monthly payments to use for whatever you'd like from paying off debt to making renovations or handling emergency expenses. Receive your funds in just a few weeks, start pursuing your financial goals and start getting more out of life. See if you pre qualify for an investment@hometap.com subject to eligibility. Terms and conditions apply. That's hometap.com Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.
- [26:21]
Omar Zenhom
I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities.
- [26:29]
Derek Sivers
So do like I did and have.
- [26:30]
Omar Zenhom
One of your assistant's assistants switch you To Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com.
- [26:37]
Derek Sivers
Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required intro rate first, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com.
- [26:51]
Omar Zenhom
What was like the most challenging time for you in your life?
- [26:53]
Derek Sivers
I didn't have any.
- [26:56]
Omar Zenhom
Come on, Derek.
- [26:57]
Derek Sivers
No, sorry. I feel like such a jerk for telling the truth on this, but, you know, again, to go way, way back. Part of deciding at 14 that I was going to be a musician meant that I knew from the age of 14 I'm never going to have a job. I'm never going to have a salary, I'll never have a paycheck. I'll never have insurance. My only security will be my ability to hustle for another gig. And that's it. So that was my outlook on life from the age of 14. So I never had that, like courage to quit a day job because I never had a day job, really. I mean, you know, I had for two years I worked in the tape room at Warner Brothers, you know, so I never had any hardships because I wasn't striving really. I mean, yes, I was constantly pushing my music, but that's how it goes, you know, it's like again, like trying to be an actor in Hollywood and trying to get noticed. You're just constantly kind of banging on doors and doing the thing. And I did pretty well, you know. I mean, I made enough money as a musician to buy a house in Woodstock. So I did all right. I didn't get famous, but I mean, I guess the closest thing to hardship would have been me just trying to get my music out there, which is just. It's a little humiliating to constantly be begging for gatekeepers to let you in the gate. But that's it, you know.
- [28:25]
Omar Zenhom
All right, let me. Let me try to get into something here. So you sell cd, baby. You say goodbye to that business. What I find so fascinating, the world is crazy, you know, I read your book, anything you want. When I started my journey in New York. And I remember learning all about, you know, creating SOPs with my team and this whole idea of, like, your business could be your utopia. It doesn't have to be this stuffy thing. And I started my journey. I started webinar Ninja in 2014. I grew that business after 10 years. I just recently sold it six months ago. So I'm like, where you were when you sold cd maybe today? What was that, like, you do something for so long, you put so much into it, and now it's somebody else's baby. And now what's next? Like, how did. What were those. That. Next year after CD Baby, what was that for you?
- [29:13]
Derek Sivers
I wouldn't say depressed, but I was lost. It was seemingly evident that CD Baby would be the biggest thing I ever do. And that everything now, from now on, you know, I was in my 30s. Everything from now on will be, you know, a slow denouement into the grave. And I was having to adapt to that. And I was thinking what to do about that also. Okay, maybe the greatest hardship I've had in my life was my last year of CD Baby. It sucked so bad. I had 85 employees that I cared about. A lot of them were my friends. A lot of them had slept on my couch or stayed in my guest bedroom until they found a place to live. We would hang out together, we'd go out drinking together. I'd cook. Everybody. I head over to my house on New Year's morning breakfast. You know, like after New Year's Eve, hey, come over to Derek's house hungover. I'll make you pancakes. I had been with these people for years, and then something got into the water where everybody just decided that I was the problem in their life. And they just, like, started basically, like, a mutiny. Even though I was the 100% owner of the company, there were no investors. It was just me. But they were, like, trying to get me to walk the plank. You know, it's like, get off our ship. We run this ship. We don't want you around. And they would say really nasty things about me behind my back. And it was unfortunately recorded, so I could hear it because all the weekly meetings are recorded. So I got to hear some of my favorite people talk about me behind my back. And it was devastating. It was really devastating. This thing that I cared about so much. The hard part wasn't selling. The hard part was the year before, which is why I sold. And so I'm mentioning all this to say that when I sold, I just wanted no responsibility. I was like, man, I just had 85 people dumping their problems on me or saying that I'm the problem with their life. I want none of that. I want no employees. I want no responsibilities. I want no customers. I want nothing. So I really looked into changing my name, like legally changing my name, and just moving off to Europe somewhere to be an open source programmer under a different name. And everybody would just be like, hey, whatever happened to Derek Sivers. Never heard from him again. He's gone. That was my plan because I just wanted no responsibility at all. So for about a year, a year and a half after selling the company, I was adrift in that mindset of just wanting to disappear. Mostly because of the trauma, I guess we could call it, of that final year. By the way, I have to give a sweet little PS here, one guy of those 85, about three or four years later, moved to Idaho and was a guitar teacher and started a business, like a guitar teaching business, where he had to have employees for the first time. And in having to work with employees, he suddenly went, oh, my God, this is really hard. This sucks. Oh, my God, I was such a dick to Derek. And he found me after like, three or four years. And he said, dude, I don't know if you remember me. I was one of your team at CD Bab. Well, I'm living in Idaho now. And he told me his thing, and he said, man, I'm so sorry. He said, I don't know why we were so mean to you. He said, I look back and it's like we just collectively all just decided that you were the problem, even though you'd done nothing wrong. He said, I'm so sorry we were so mean to you. And I usually say that, like, apologies don't matter much to me. Like, we often say, like, oh, don't worry about it. You know, when somebody apologizes and you say, okay, well, thank you, but that's fine. You don't have to apologize. But I'll admit that's probably the apology that has meant most to me in my life. Was that because that was such a hard time for me, and to have even one person acknowledge that I hadn't actually done anything wrong and that they just collectively decided that was really touching.
- [33:12]
Omar Zenhom
What you're saying resonates so much because if anybody's run any kind of business with any significant team, they understand exactly where you're coming from. There's so much that happens when you deal with people that no one talks about in business. You know, we love to help people, motivate people, see the silver lining of this hard work of creating a business. But we also have to show the reality. And the reality is, is that when you deal with people, there's problems. And that's just how it is, you know, with. With my software company. You know, people getting poached. Like, my close friends are poaching my employees. People just leaving, ghosting you, and you got to pick up the pieces. And figure it out. And the stories you're sharing, I mean, the people that are talking behind your back, you're paying them a salary. Like, you are the reason why they are eating every night. And they are, like, biting the hand that feeds them, so to speak. But at the same time, it's just so ironic. And it's also just so frustrating because you want to be a leader, and you want to, you know, turn the other cheek, and you want to be, you know, do the right thing, but at the same time, it's kind of frustrating because it's just like, I don't know what you want from me. Like, I'm. I'm. I'm trying my best here, you know?
- [34:23]
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
- [34:23]
Omar Zenhom
So I love. Thank you so much for sharing that. That means so much to.
- [34:27]
Derek Sivers
On that note, it looks like we're riffing on this now. Why not? On that note, you said you're trying to be a leader. It's funny. I wasn't even trying to be a leader. I was just trying to help musicians. Like, the goal had not changed. There were musicians that needed to get their music out, and I was trying to help these musicians get their music out. That's all it was. I wasn't trying to make money. I wasn't trying to be a leader. I wasn't trying to build a business. I was just trying to help these musicians get their music out. That's it. At first, I was doing it all myself. Then after a year, I hired one person. Then after two years, I hired another person. And then it just. It grew as slowly as I could grow it. And I'm saying all this to say it was so frustrating when a company grows to a certain size that it starts to have its own gravity. And I like this metaphor, right, because a marble doesn't have a lot of gravity, but the earth does. And there's a certain point where it's like when the business was small and had four people, 10 people, even 20 people, the focus was entirely on our clients. Every one of these people that worked with me were all into this mission of helping the musicians. Everybody came into work every day to help musicians, and after a certain point, about 50 employees or so, it's like the gravity turned from our clients to the company itself. And suddenly the tone of conversation changed. People were coming in every day saying, well, what's my title? And I want to paint the walls of my office, And I think we need different kinds of lighting in here, and what's our dental plan going to be? What about our vision? Plan. I want vision insurance because something, something. And when are we going to get employee reviews and when are we going to have this and all of this?
- [36:14]
Omar Zenhom
This is not a world you live in.
- [36:16]
Derek Sivers
Right. It was all this me, me, me stuff, like, whatever, whatever. Can we get back to helping the musicians? All right, okay. Are you getting paid enough? Are you good? Okay, now back to the musicians. They're like, I want to bring my dog to work. We need dogs at work. We need a policy about dogs. And then somebody else would get mad that now there are dogs at work. And they'd say, derek, we need an anti dog policy at work. I can't work anymore. There are too many dogs here. Oh, God. Can we please just get back to helping musicians? That's all we're doing here. And that was the cultural shift that happened after a certain size. So sorry, I just had to interject when you said you're trying to be a leader, but it's like, no, I'm just trying to help musicians. That's all. I don't matter here. In fact, none of us matter. It isn't about us. Ideally, we don't matter. Here we are in service of these people. My needs don't matter. Your needs don't matter. All that matters right now are these musicians. When you get home at 5 o'clock, you go home, your needs can matter. But here it isn't about me and it isn't about us. It's about them.
- [37:16]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah. So if you are listening and you are starting out and you have a small team, know that that competition you're looking at that has a team of 100 or 200 or 500, they got problems that you don't have to deal with, you know, and that's how a lot of these small players are able to get a share of the market. And that's how I was able to do it in Webinar Ninja. I was early and I was also just nimble and I was able to make quicker decisions and I didn't have to worry about if the water cooler water was too cold or too hot. And that. That's. Yeah, that was really a relief. So that was. Anything you want. This is one of my favorite books. Love it. But I want to talk about this book, how to Live.
- [37:59]
Derek Sivers
All right.
- [38:00]
Omar Zenhom
How to Live is a book.
- [38:02]
Derek Sivers
That's my soul in there.
- [38:04]
Omar Zenhom
Okay. So when I read this book, there was so much I was feeling, forget about thinking I was feeling when I was reading this book. First of all, I'm coming from a very traditional Egyptian Muslim family, grew up in America as an outsider. People thought I couldn't speak English because my last name is Zenholm. And I'd go to Egypt back home every summer, and they would ask me, how was the camel ride and all that kind of stuff. And that environment growing up, it's so much about filial piety. It's so much about connection, so much about community, so much about obligation. There's so much of. Of one way of, like, this is the way to do things in life when I grew up. But when I read that book, I realized one it's not only a great book for life, but it's also a great book for business. Because sometimes there's one way to do things in a season in business, in a season in life, and sometimes it's. What you need to do now is totally different. And first of all, I want to talk about. Why did you write this book? It's a little bit different from what you've written before up to that point. Yeah, no, it was before that. And I just want to know, like, what was inside your mind and what was your goal with, like, hey. Because if anybody doesn't know, this book is just a lot of conflicting ideas, and it comes together at the end. Anybody I speak to who have read this book, they either love this book or they're like, they're really frustrated by it. And I'm like, you don't get it. That's the beauty of it.
- [39:34]
Derek Sivers
I love it when people don't like that book.
- [39:36]
Omar Zenhom
Yes.
- [39:37]
Derek Sivers
Why did you write Giddy Pleasure? When I was at Berklee School of Music, I had a poster on my wall of 20 circles that had been painted by 20 different artists, each one in a radically different style, different colors and textures and different insides. And they were just as different as could be, you know, hiring 20 painters saying, paint as different as you can. And then they put the 20 circles together into a poster. And I would look at that poster for inspiration. Whenever I was feeling stuck on my music. I'd kind of think, how would one of these circles apply metaphorically to where I'm at right now? Like, I've been making this really aggressive thing. But look at that one up there that looks like kind of soft and furry and grassy. Maybe I can pull that texture into what I'm doing right now. And I'd use it for creative inspiration. And then we've all read nonfiction books that conflict with other nonfiction books saying, this is the way. And then somebody else says, no, no, no, this is the way. And then another book says, no, no, no, no, no, this is the way. And we've all encountered people that have conflicting views about the goal in life is to get rich. No, no, no. The goal in life is to. Is sensory pleasure. No. Is to do what the Quran says. No, no, no. The goal in life is to give. You have to give everything. Okay? So each one of these people insists that their way is the way. And I always thought that was kind of amusing that everybody thinks they're right. And then I thought, oh well, don't I do that too? So driving down the road one day, I thought, oh, wouldn't it be wonderful to take everything I've learned in life and make a book called how to Live? Where every chapter would have just the argument in favor of one way of life. A chapter would be entirely hedonistic. Just everything. Living for the moment. Just fill your life with pleasure. Nevermind tomorrow, Never mind yesterday. All there is is now. And the very next chapter would be all of the thoughts around living for the future. Serve the future. Never spend, only invest. Serve your future generations. Do everything for your descendants. Be a great ancestor. And then the next chapter would be like, no, it's love. Life is love. Everything is love. And I thought, oh my God, that would be a great book. So it took me four years to write it. It took me two years to write it and then two years to edit it because the rough draft was 1300 pages of everything I had to say on every subject. But who the wants to read that? So then I spent two years compressing it down to just 110 pages that are almost read like poetry. So it makes me really happy. Yeah, it's a really unique book that I'm. I'm so proud of it that honestly, dude, if I had done nothing else with my whole life than made that book, it would feel like a life well lived. Like that was. That was a worthy life. I made that book.
- [42:39]
Omar Zenhom
So I'm glad that you said that because I thought of something when you.
- [42:43]
Derek Sivers
Said, because you're about to die.
- [42:44]
Omar Zenhom
Sorry, no, sorry. There's gonna be a knock on your door right now. So. So you mentioned that when you sold cd baby, you thought, okay, this is maybe the best thing I could ever done. It's all downhill from here. And then you just mentioned how to Live is your best work. There's a documentary that is one of my favorite documentaries. I'm an unapologetic Michael Jackson fan and I think his best album is bad because the documentary that Spike, the documentary is made by Spike Lee and it's about the Bad album.
- [43:17]
Derek Sivers
I didn't know that. Wait, when was the documentary made?
- [43:19]
Omar Zenhom
When it was the 25th anniversary of BAD, so maybe about 10 years ago. And.
- [43:23]
Derek Sivers
Wow, I had no idea. Okay.
- [43:24]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah, it's on YouTube. It's. You can find it. It's incredible. And the reason why I love this documentary and the Bad album is because he's following up Thriller. Thriller is the best selling album of all time. And if any, if anybody knows Michael Jackson, if you ever speak to anybody has ever met him, his blessing and curse in life is Thriller. Like he. He had no competition. So his biggest competition was himself and trying to beat the Thrill album. So the album after Thriller was probably his best expression as a musician, as an artist, in my opinion. Whether it's his music videos or what he called short films or his music itself, his performances on stage, I just feel like he was at his pinnacle because he felt like he could do anything. I find it fascinating when people do create something incredible and then how are you going to follow that up, buddy? You know? And I feel like you kind of just resigned to the fact that maybe I won't follow it up. Maybe, maybe that CD Baby is just what it is. And then over time, what, 15 years later, you write how to Live.
- [44:22]
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
- [44:23]
Omar Zenhom
How did that make you feel when you wrote that book and felt like, okay, maybe, maybe I'm not all washed up.
- [44:29]
Derek Sivers
Oh, I think I had. Those are two separate, unconnected things. Because for one, writing how to Live, especially once I really got into editing it once, it was really becoming, what it was really becoming, was such a deep joy. Like every day I felt I was reading the best book ever written and I was the one writing it. I was like, there is no book on earth like this. Oh my gosh, this is so amazing. And I would just thrill myself every day while writing it. Just like every sentence was thrilling me. Now I'm thinking of the word thriller too much anyway. But the feeling that I had not peaked came way earlier. We left out one little lucky other thing that happened to me is just a year and wow, only one year. One year after selling CD Baby, the TED conference invited me up on stage not just once, but three times at three sequential conferences. I spoke on the big main stage, TED three times. And it was such a thrill that right after that, nobody had even. I was meeting people that only knew me as the TED speaker and they didn't know anything about CD Baby. They'd say, so what did you do before TED and so that was like, by 2010, I felt that everything just doing three TED talks somehow in the public's eyes, surpassed anything I had done with CD Baby. You know what I mean? It's almost like CD Baby was the ticket that got me into ted. And then everybody knew me as a TED speaker. And so that was a lucky transition for me that people started caring about what I had to say instead of just how I could sell their music.
- [46:14]
Omar Zenhom
So I encourage anybody who's listening to read how to Live first. I'll just read it straight up and just as life advice. It's great. Then read it again with the perspective of the life of your business. Because I think that helped me a lot when I was at the last few years of Webinar Ninja before I sold it. Because I had to let go of things that beliefs that were holding me back in the business. And I thought, this is how to do it. And I realized, oh, maybe I'm looking at this wrong. Maybe I need to change my perspective because I've been doing that for very long time and that's not what's going to get me to the next stage. And I find it very fascinating. Has anybody told you that this is or did you intentionally write this thinking that this would help the lifespan of a business?
- [46:58]
Derek Sivers
You're honestly the first to make that connection. I wrote an earlier book called you'd Music and People that seems like it's written only for musicians, but is actually just a holistic approach to marketing. Marketing. As if people matter.
- [47:11]
Omar Zenhom
I do want to say though, that your original title of Anything youg Want is I wish it was called the Music of Business because that's.
- [47:18]
Derek Sivers
Oh, you do. Oh, thank you.
- [47:20]
Omar Zenhom
That's brilliant. That's brilliant.
- [47:22]
Derek Sivers
You're the first person to say that. I really like that title too. And Seth Godin published it. And I said, how about the Music of Business? And he goes, no, no, Corny. No, we're gonna call it Anything you Want. Really? Anything you want? That's pretty generic. Oh, well, all right. You know best. So yeah, when I re released it, I self published it. I was really tempted to go, ha ha, now I can call it the Music of Business. And I thought, oh man, that's gonna mess with people who think, ooh, Derek's got a new book out and then they buy it. And it's the same thing that they read with Anything you Want. I was like, all right, so I kept the same title, but thanks for knowing my other desired title.
- [48:00]
Omar Zenhom
No, because it's so true. Because business is like a symphony, a song just like how to Live, you know, the orchestra. And there's so many parts. There's so many. Sometimes in the song there's a somber part, sometimes there's this excitement part, you know, like. And that's business. That's. That's the journey of a business where it's like, it's not all, you know, things going, you know, up and to the right, you know, So. I love that title.
- [48:26]
Derek Sivers
Thank you.
- [48:27]
Omar Zenhom
There's so many things I want to talk about, I gotta be honest.
- [48:29]
Derek Sivers
Okay, sorry. I feel like I keep taking these tangents. Let's get back on the track.
- [48:33]
Omar Zenhom
I love the tangent, but I'm saying that because I'm eager to talk about so much.
- [48:39]
Derek Sivers
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- [49:11]
Omar Zenhom
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Derek Sivers
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Omar Zenhom
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Derek Sivers
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- [49:42]
Omar Zenhom
I read your latest book twice. Useful, not true. And the reason why I read it twice is because the first time I read it, there were some moments that kind of hurt, that kind of felt like, oh, I don't know if I like this, you know, not because it's wrong or, you know, there's something. I think it just again, you know, the upbringing I came from and it was just like, oh, I was kind of seeing things in a different way. And there's a couple things I want to pull out from that book. There's a line from this book that I absolutely love and that's the part I wanted to kind of revisit because it was kind of hurting a little bit. It's in a section called Obligations Are Not True.
- [50:21]
Derek Sivers
I Was wondering if that was going to be it.
- [50:24]
Omar Zenhom
Family, friends, colleagues, and communities put social pressure on you to do what they want you to do. They say it's your obligation, your duty, your responsibility. But those terms are social expectations. They're not real. They're not even universal. They're just one way to see the situation. I read that part maybe about 10 times in a row because it was just like, almost like, do not compute. You know, like, I don't know. What's Derek talking about? Maybe he had too much kava. You know, like, whatever. It was, right? And I was just like. And then it hit me. I was just like, okay, this is the way maybe my family sees things. And the reason why I bring this up on this podcast and with you is because in the journey of becoming an entrepreneur or just a creative or somebody's trying to do something significant in the world, you're going to have to ruffle some feathers sometimes. You're going to have to say no to some things that you'd usually say yes to. I want you to talk a little bit more about this point because I think a lot of people don't realize the uncomfortability of change and becoming something new.
- [51:30]
Derek Sivers
I think the biggest benefit of living in different parts of the world is that different cultures have different norms that go unquestioned in that area. If you're around a bunch of other people that think the same thing, then social norms feel like laws of nature. Like, well, yeah, duh. You have to take care of your parents. Obviously, no one dare question that. But then you move to a different part of the world where that's not true, and you go, hmm, well, but then maybe this other part of the world has a different belief. Like, hey, dude, it's a sunny day. You can't be inside. You know, it's like, well, that's not true. It's like, dude, you're working and it's sunny out. What are you crazy? It's like. But then somewhere else, there would be a different set of beliefs. So it's really healthy to realize that there are very few things that are absolutely true in life. My definition of true is absolutely, necessarily, objectively true for everyone, everywhere, always. Any creature. And even a machine could look at it and everyone agree would agree that that's true. If it doesn't fit that criteria, then to me, it's just a perspective. So if somebody says, well, Omar, you have to do this thing for your family, I think, well, no, that's not true. You're telling me you want me to. And maybe I also want to, but let's not mistake that. That's not an absolute truth. I don't have to. But, you know, for business, oh, my gosh. This comes up so, so handy when as soon as you grow past a certain size, as soon as you go beyond two or three people, somebody's going to show up saying, well, you know, you have to have the terms and conditions, your privacy policy post. You need to have your employee. And they tell you that you have to do all these things, and most of them you don't. So whenever my business was growing and people would show up telling me about these things that I have to do, I'd always say, will I be arrested if I don't? Will I be put into jail if I do not do this? They'd say, no. I'd say, okay, will there be a fine, like a government fine if I do not do this? And if they'd say no, I'd say, okay, well, then, please leave. I need to get back to helping musicians. If this isn't something I have to do, I'm not going to do it. There's so many things like that. People telling you, you have to have insurance, you have to have an HR policy, you have to have this. Like, no, I don't. So even at the business level, it's really handy to realize that almost nothing people say is absolutely true. It's just their perspective or very often their wish. So that's the thing with the obligations. Point is, when people have a wish and they try to legitimize their wish by calling it your duty or your obligation, but it's just them trying to legitimize it. If they didn't personally want you to do it, they would say, oh, don't worry about it. It's only if they personally want you to do it. They try to legitimize it by calling it your duty or an obligation. So whether it's HR insurance terms and conditions or whether it's your parents saying it's your duty to come stay by our side for the few decades of your life to take care of us, maybe it's not.
- [54:48]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah, And I think that's what I got out of that part of the book was, I don't have to. I get to choose to. I get to. There's a different feeling when you choose to do things and not choose, but also just, okay, I know that I don't have to do this, but I'm going to do it because I'm Going to get XYZ for me. I want to do this for me. Which was very powerful.
- [55:10]
Derek Sivers
Oh. So before we change the subject on this point, in my final year of cd, baby, when I was feeling so frustrated, I talked to a wise friend of mine who heard me complain, like, ugh, I have to this. I have to do that. I have to do this. I have to pay my employees. I have to take care of it. I have to answer all these emails. And he said, no, you don't. I said, yes, I do. I have got so many emails, I gotta do the taxes. He goes, no, Derek, stop. I'm not just being New Agey. You need to understand this point for real. You don't have to do any of that. And I said, yes, I do. I have to pay my employees. He said, no, you don't. He said, if you stop paying them, they will stop showing up to work and they will go find another job. And maybe one of them will sue you because you owe them the money because of a contract. But you don't have to do it. There will be some consequences if you don't. But you don't have to do it. And I went, hmm. I said, well, I have to pay my taxes. He said, no, you don't. He said, if you don't, the IRS will come after you after five years and they'll make you pay a penalty for the taxes you should have paid. And if you don't pay that, they'll make you go sit in jail instead of in your bedroom. He said, but. But let's always be clear between what you're choosing to do versus what you have to do. He said, you don't have to do anything. You could right now to Hawaii, get a shack on the beach, change your name, and never speak to anybody ever again. And things would work themselves out. Or maybe, you know, next time you tried to return back to the mainland, you'd be hit with some fines. But you don't have to do anything. Everything you're talking about is optional.
- [56:41]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah.
- [56:41]
Derek Sivers
It's your choice. Whoa. Okay. It finally sunk in. So this is really in line with this. This point we're making about obligations. Yeah, you. You have to have a privacy.
- [56:52]
Omar Zenhom
You're saying to yourself are not really true. They're just ideas that are kind of pushing you to do things that maybe you have to stop and just say, well, maybe I don't. Maybe I don't have to do this. Maybe I can, you know, And I like the fact that the story went that way. Instead of of no, no, Derek, you get to do these things. Like, you know, like.
- [57:11]
Derek Sivers
Yeah, yeah, thanks hippie. Yeah, that helps.
- [57:14]
Omar Zenhom
Better to know, like, actually I actually don't have to do it. I don't have to do anything. Which is, which is really refreshing. But also leads to another thing I love about useful not true is this idea of sometimes you can tell yourself something to be useful to help you do something that's not necessarily true. You could tell your you can create a new narrative for yourself. It reminded me of a scene from one of my first shows, Seinfeld, where Jerry needs to lie about something to get out of a jam. And he calls upon his best friend George Costanza because he's a professional liar and he's prolific at it. And George just looks at him like, listen, this is a gift from God. You know, I can't teach you this. But then as a parting piece of advice, he says to him, just remember, Jerry, if you lie and you believe it, it's true. You know, which is interesting. Like it's such an interesting line. Oh. And he says, it's not a lie. It's not a lie if you believe it.
- [58:10]
Derek Sivers
Nice.
- [58:11]
Omar Zenhom
That's how he says it.
- [58:12]
Derek Sivers
That's life.
- [58:13]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah. And how many times I look back at my own career as an entrepreneur in life where I frankly lied to myself. I frankly told myself a story because I needed to believe it because I wasn't there yet. I wasn't maybe that person yet. Can you give me some examples of where you had to tell yourself a story where it was not necessarily true?
- [58:35]
Derek Sivers
Lest anyone listening now think that we are talking about lying. Bold faced lying. No, no, no. Even saying, I'm gonna start this business and people are gonna like it. People need this. That's not true. These are all predictions that you're imagining to be true. And you imagining this to be true is creating the motivation that you need to go try to make it happen. It's seeing the plan. It's almost like the visual metaphor of somebody seeing like, I'm going to walk this direction and it's going to bring me over this mountain pass and into this beautiful valley. It's going to be great. I can picture it now. And I got my picnic blanket, I got a basket full of food. We're gonna have a really nice time. We can't physically see it right now, but where we're going, it's gonna be nice. You're imagining that it's going to be nice and that's what gives you the motivation to pack a Nice picnic. Same thing with starting a business. You're picturing that people are gonna like this thing. People are gonna happily pull out their credit card to pay you. And you need that belief to get through the hard work of turning nothing into something. So we all do that to make anything.
- [59:52]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah. It's a little bit like writing a story for yourself. You know, it's kind of like saying, okay, I'm going to play this character in this new story and this character, you know, this happens to them. And we usually don't put any conflict in that story because we forget about conflict when we're starting out. But I find that incredibly helpful. I know one time in my research for this episode, you shared a story in another interview about being a telemarketer and you had a colleague who was a great telemarketer and you just did what he did and you became a great telemarketer. There's so many times in my life where I just acted as if I was great at something. I knew I wasn't really that yet, but I definitely did better than when I wasn't acting. Right. So do you continue to do that in your life now that you've kind of had successes in life?
- [60:41]
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Every time you enter a crowd of people that you don't know, like, say if you're invited to an event, you walk in thinking, I'm going to like these people, I'm going to make friends, I'm going to have good conversations with these people. You go in telling yourself that's going to be true. And then it becomes self fulfilling because you believe it's going to be true. You enter enthusiastically into conversations, or you walk up to a stranger and say, hi, my name's Omar. What do you do? It's that belief that makes it. If you believe, like, oh man, this is going to suck. Everybody here is an idiot. I don't want to be here. Anybody I talk to is going to be boring. I would rather be at home. Well, that's not true either. You choose the belief that will enable the actions that you want. So yeah, every time I do anything, I have to choose the belief that will make the good actions happen.
- [61:36]
Omar Zenhom
One of the most powerful parts of useful not true is about the idea that your past is not true. And that's something maybe some people have a hard time understanding because we, we all believe like this happened, you know, I was there, you know, and it's not until you show some examples, you share some stories. I don't want to ruin for it ruin it for people. But can you share a time where your past dictated the way you acted, whether in positive or negative way, because of what you believed?
- [62:04]
Derek Sivers
Oh yeah. I'm going to. I'll tell you a quick one that's not in the book. I for years thought that I had been wronged by all of my ex girlfriends. Maybe not all, but most. I felt that like, man, I am unlucky in love. I have been just like dumped and screwed over and all of this. And then it was really just recently, like just maybe five years ago, that somebody said something that made me look back again at the past and go, oh my gosh, wait a second. And I replayed all my past relationships in my head, realizing I kind of screwed over them. I think I've actually been the screwer, not the screwee. I've been the one that really wrecked that relationship. I think I actually, I dumped her. I was kind of wrongly thinking that she dumped me, but oof. Yeah. And so actually I contacted some exes to ask them and yeah, basically the new updated version was closer to how they saw it too. They all felt that they had been dumped and screwed over by me. And here I was for decades thinking I had been such a victim. I'm like, whoa. I suddenly saw my past through a new light of like, oh, I've been kind of a bad person. I haven't been the victim, I've been the destroyer. Oops, that's one tiny example.
- [63:27]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah, I mean, it's very significant, but I think that it could go either way. You can e. You think that, you know you've been wronged or you might think that you did something horrible and really it was either a mutual mistake or maybe one sided and you just remember it differently. And I think that part of the book really is very powerful. I think that so much of what we think we are and what we're capable of is dictated by the story of our past. Because we think our past is who we are. We think, okay, this is what I've done. This is who I am.
- [64:02]
Derek Sivers
Right. Here's. Let's do one more example that just came up a couple days ago. Almost everybody has some story about their childhood school years that they were bullied and teased and well, I was never a popular kid. I mean, you did a version of it earlier.
- [64:18]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [64:19]
Derek Sivers
And I think a lot of people think that they were somehow particularly unlucky in this. But then you realize actually everybody gets teased. There's maybe two kids in school that don't get teased like, 98% of everybody feels that they were on the receiving side of bullying and that they were on the receiving end of a particularly large amount of ridicule and teasing. But actually, everybody thinks that. So we're all kind of delusional. It might help to kind of replay your past, realizing you weren't such a oddball. An oddball. In fact, that was everybody. We all went through that. That was a big one. That just came up recently. And it's partially from my kid. My kid's 12 now, and there was a situation where I was there when one kid, when he was five years old, said something once to him, teased him about his name. And here we are, like seven years later, and he said, people always teased me about my name. And I said, like what? And he said this thing. I said, no, I was there when that happened. That was one kid said it once. He said, no, it happened all the time. And I said, can you think of another example? And he goes, well, I mean, it was mostly that kid, but he did it a lot. I was like, no, I was there. He did it once. It was a kid on the playground you never saw again. He said, well, it felt like a lot.
- [65:41]
Omar Zenhom
He probably played in his head a lot, like over and over again.
- [65:43]
Derek Sivers
It just upset him. So he's just gone for seven years, kind of thinking that everybody makes fun of his name. It's like, no, it was that one idiot kid that you never saw again.
- [65:55]
Omar Zenhom
This is so interesting, and I love that you're bringing this up in the book, because there's a common theme I find in all your books, is this idea of questioning. You should question everything. You should be a little bit skeptical, and you don't have to be facetious about it. You don't have to be. Not believe in anything and have no conviction, but just. Just at the same time, just, you know, when something's presented to you, just see, like. Well, you know, poke a few holes in it, see if it still stands up, you know. And I think. I think that's helpful advice in general. I want to talk about your website because you sell your books through your website for those who are interested. S I V E IRS without the.
- [66:36]
Derek Sivers
I S I V E R S.
- [66:38]
Omar Zenhom
I V E R S Sorry. Yeah, sivirs. But there's a dot between the E and the river. And you sell these books on your site. You have formed a C corp. You do not get a salary. All the profits of your books go to charity to help people that have malaria, cure malaria. And you Continue to write these books. Why did you set things up in this way where you don't get compensated? Actually where it forces you not to get compensated?
- [67:05]
Derek Sivers
Yeah, because I don't need the money. And with some soul searching, I realized I just don't want the money. I've got enough. I'd rather it just never touch my hands instead of it coming to my hands, me paying 30% income tax and then it going right back out again. It's just I'm not anti government. I'm very thankful for the New Zealand government where I live, but it just doesn't make rational sense. It would just make more Sense to have 100% of the profits go all to a charity. So yeah, I don't receive a dollar when you buy my books. I'm very thankful that the company I set up gets the $15 instead of giving, you know, 11 of it to Amazon, the $15 goes directly into the company that gives 100% of its profits every year. Just everything left over that wasn't necessary to just basically pay for the server, the, I don't know, the credit card processing fee, the paper to print, the paper, books. Everything else just goes to the Against Malaria foundation or basically goes to givewell.org, which has done the hard nerd work of figuring out what's the best bang per buck to save the most lives per dollar. So I just let them figure it out. I don't play favorites.
- [68:21]
Omar Zenhom
Sorry to interrupt there. But what I also love about how you sell your books is something I never have seen before. But if you buy for those who are listening and you buy a book from Derek's website, when you buy the book, you kind of buy the content. So you get the audio, you get the PDF, you get like the digital version. And then if you want to buy the physical book like I've done, then you would then pay another $4 or something for the print version and then you get that shipped to you. So it's like, where did you come up with this concept where it's like, okay, you get certain things and. And now you can download the book whenever you want. This is a very interesting concept novel.
- [69:04]
Derek Sivers
I like that. Where did I come up with it? Right here. My. Can't pull it out of my. No, I really just like I said earlier, I just sat down with a blank slate. Wait, we gotta back up one step.
- [69:20]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah.
- [69:20]
Derek Sivers
My first book, Anything youg Want, was published on Penguin, so it was put into bookstores. It was on the big major publisher. I got to experience Having a publishing deal from the largest publisher, what was that like? They were nice to me, but I just didn't like it. I attached no meaning or value to having a publishing deal, to being a published author. I don't care about that. It means nothing to me. So I didn't get the warm and fuzzies or a feeling of status or pride from being on Penguin. Instead, I just felt out of control. Like they'd kind of just send me these royalty statements, like, all right, well, a few thousand people bought your book. Here's your money. I'd say, well, who were they? Come on, I want to talk with these people. So the connection means way more than the $4 I get from selling a book. So I want the connection. So I just realized when I was writing my next book and Penguin said, hey, we'd be happy to publish it. I said, thank you, but no, I'm going to publish it myself. And in fact, I even paid them a few thousand dollars to buy back the rights to my first book so that all of mine could be self published. So I, I took it off of Penguin so I could self publish it. Because it's just more rewarding. It's more rewarding to get the direct connections. It's more rewarding to have the entire $15 go to charity. And it's more rewarding to set up things the way I want them to be. I mean, I guess that was the message of anything you want, right? It's like you get to make your own little utopia whenever you start a business. So I thought, okay, as a reader, how would I like it to be? And it's like, well, as a reader, if I buy whatever the subtle art of not giving a. If I buy the subtle art of giving a on the paper book at the bookstore and I read it and I like it, and now I want the audiobook. Man, I gotta pay $18 again to get the audiobook. And if I want to have it on Kindle, I gotta pay $13 again. Why do I have to buy this book three times? I already bought it. I just want different formats. It's just the words. Come on. It's just getting the words from Mark's head into mine. The format is moot. Why do I have to pay triple for the three different formats? And what about if there's a new format someday? Things are beamed into our eyelids or whatever. Am I going to have to buy that again? All of my favorite books I'm going to have to buy again? I mean, people experienced this with Music years ago when they bought the LPs and then they had to buy the CDs all over again and then they had to buy the MP3s all over again. It just seems to me that the right way to do it would be to set a good price once for the content. So for me I just picked $15 and I figured if you pay me $15, that's it. You own this book forever in every format that will ever be invented. If there's an AI, if there's a robot that shows up to your house to sing this to you, you've already paid for it, it's done. You've paid me the 15 bucks. That's all I ever wanted from you is just. That was just the 15 bucks. Once the format is moot. The whole point is getting the thoughts from my brain into yours. And so that's it. The only catch of that is like, oh, but paper. If you actually want me to print a few hundred pieces of paper and ship it across the world, all right, well that's going to cost. So I just, I found out what the break even cost of that is and it was four bucks. So if you've already paid me for the contents and you want a paper book mailed to you, then you pay an extra four bucks for the paper. Or conversely, if you knew from the first moment you wanted the paper book, well then you paid $19, the 15 plus the 4. You ship the paper book. But hey, you also have the digital contents now. So I'll mail you the paper book immediately. But hey, anytime, years from now, if you want the audiobook, the ebook, the video book, the AI book, you've already paid for it. It's all there in your account. So that's something that Amazon can never do for you.
- [72:58]
Omar Zenhom
I just find that similar to what you said about CD Baby. You just wanted to help musicians get their music out there and you're so focused on helping the end user, the customer, the person that is going to consume this content. And this is kind of the same thing. You're just putting yourself in the place of the reader. What would be the best situation for them?
- [73:21]
Derek Sivers
Actually, to nerd out, I set up a foundation. First a non profit foundation and then the foundation set up the C Corp. And that's Sivers Inc. That owns all the copyrights to my books and everything. So I liked. It just feels better to me in the same way that I think about this, in the same way we do interior design on our home because we like it to be A certain way or even you choose what house to buy because it has a view or where you live because it's near the beach. We all just set up our environment the way we want it to be. Techies do it with their layout. Maybe they want a vertical monitor or the split keyboard and they go like, ah, this makes me happy. This is the way I like my environment to be. We can do that business wise. There are different ways to set up your business structure itself that can make you happier or just, you know, please your sense of values in some way. So when I thought it through and thought well, yeah, what I really want is to just have this foundation and it sets up the business so I'll do the work. But it's a C corp so it doesn't flow through, so it's there and then everything gets to go out to charity but the parent owner is the foundation. Yeah, this makes me happy. I like this. This is the interior design of the business that I want.
- [74:34]
Omar Zenhom
I love it. Derek, I can't tell you how much I love this conversation. It's been long overdue. I want to thank you so much for your time and I also wanted to say thanks because you're one of the people I know that has so much success in business, in life and being an author and you're still somebody is a, that's approachable like you reply to emails and to me, I, I, I love when I meet great minds, interesting people, fun people, people doing interesting things that are also just good people. And that's actually quite rare, you know. And I feel like maybe that doesn't get pointed out enough in entrepreneurship. And I just wanted to thank you for just being a nice guy, you know, like you've been so kind to me throughout the years and encouraging and the fact that I got to sit down to speak to you today and you know, and be able to help share your message and share your wonderful knowledge with my audience has been so wonderful and it's, it's genuine. I don't, I, and it's so hard to put into words because I feel like I don't usually say this to anybody because most people are, are very kind of self fulfilling.
- [75:42]
Derek Sivers
Thank you. But if you don't mind, since it was just what we were talking about one minute ago, these two things are connected. Did you say that you used to live in the Village in Manhattan?
- [75:50]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah, I used to live on MacDougall Street.
- [75:52]
Derek Sivers
That's what I thought. Okay. There are some people that choose to live in the Village right there like on Bleecker street with their window open. It's like they like to hear the bustle of the crowd around them. But there's some people that, no, they want to live way up in the Catskills, isolated. Don't bother me. So let's use this metaphorically, that it's not that people who are aloof are not nice. They just have a different set of values around. Like, not wanting the world to bother them. Like, yeah, no, keep me, keep all of you away. So I know a lot of famous people that there's no way to reach them on purpose. Like, no, I don't want anybody contacting me. It's like the digital version of just wanting to live in Montana, on a ranch, like, you know, keep everybody away. But there's that other version. It's like some of us like the bustle of the energy of living right on McDougal, right there. And so I like that digitally, it's like, I'm physically aloof here in New Zealand. Sorry, not aloof, but I'm physically remote. But digitally, I love checking my email every day. I check it once a day. It takes me one to two hours. And I hear from so many interesting people around the world. I was just talking to somebody right before interview that was talking about how he went and did the hajj in Mecca and how much he loved it and how safe he felt in Medina and Mecca and how he just didn't want to leave. He said, I've just never felt such comfort and such safety. He said I was in this little bubble of love because he grew up as, like, a Muslim in Texas. He said, I don't think I could describe to you the joy of just being there amongst my fellow men and just feeling such love and trust. And that's the conversation I was having 10 minutes before we hit record. I was like, God, I love my inbox. And somebody else was telling me about his tough decision to leave Boston and go back to Colorado to live with his parents and how he's trying to make that choice. It's so interesting. I love hearing from people around the world. I think it's like the digital version of living on McDougal street with your window open. So it's not that I'm so nice and other people are not. I mean, thank you for the compliment, but it's more just. I really enjoy hearing from people and hearing about other people and learning about the way that other people see the world and hearing other people's experiences. And then when I travel I get to actually meet these people in person if they've been emailing with me for years. In six days I leave for a trip to South America for my very first time. I've never been to South America and I'm gonna go to six countries and meet with 50 people one on one that have been emailing with me for years. And how cool that I get to do that because I've got the open inbox, you know what I mean? So I love it. It's totally self serving. It's a thrill. So it's not that I'm being nice, it's that I get a lot out of it.
- [78:42]
Omar Zenhom
That's great. Well, I'm glad that you get a lot out of it because it's been beneficial for me and many others. So Derek, thanks so much and hopefully we'll see each other in person soon.
- [78:53]
Derek Sivers
Someday soon. Thanks, Omar.
- [78:55]
Omar Zenhom
Wow, that was an incredible conversation with Derek Sivers who I find to be one of those, one of a kind, kind of people. I really hope you enjoyed that episode as much as I did. And if you want to connect with Derek personally, and who wouldn't, head on over to his website at Sive r s. Go to the contact me area and click where it says say hello and then you'll become Derek's penpan. I did this 10 years ago and I've been corresponding with him ever since. He really does respond or reply to his own emails. It's really refreshing for a guy that's been so successful to be so personable. Also, I highly encourage you check out and buy his books. This isn't something that he asked me to do, but I believe that the wisdom and the insights that you're going to gain from this book or these books, I should say, are invaluable. Derek's books are just a treasure trove of inspiration, information, perspective. This book, Anything youg Want really helped me, you know, start out in business and set my mind right when it comes to carving out my life as an entrepreneur when I got started. Super influential. Love it. This book, how to Live is a game changer. It's going to change the way you think about life, business, everything. In such a small book, you're going to absolutely love it. Pick up this book for sure. Yeah or no. This is a book that really makes you, forces you to reevaluate your priorities and how you're spending your time. If you have a hard time saying no, this book is for you. These are my three favorite books and I just read his latest book, which I highly recommend you read as well. I'm ordering the physical copy right now, and it's called Useful. Not true. We discussed it on the show. Thank you so much for joining us today. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button. And if you found this episode useful and you think somebody that you know, a friend, a family member, or a colleague would enjoy it, share with them, Send it over to them. We're on every platform. Apple, podcasts, Spotify, YouTube. Share away. Thank you in advance for doing that and spreading the love and helping your friend, your family member, you know, enjoy an incredible episode that we just enjoyed together. Until next time, keep on learning, keep growing, and, of course, keep moving forward.
- [81:25]
Derek Sivers
And we're back, folks. It looks like Jim from sales just got in from his client lunch and he's got receipts.
- [81:31]
Omar Zenhom
His next meeting is in two minutes. The team is asking, can he get.
- [81:35]
Derek Sivers
Through his expenses in that time?
- [81:36]
Omar Zenhom
He's going for it. Is that his phone? He's snapping a pic. He's texting around. Jim is fast, but this is unheard of. That's.
- [81:42]
Derek Sivers
That's it.
- [81:43]
Omar Zenhom
He's done it. It's unbelievable. On ramp, expenses are faster than ever. Just submit them with a text.
- [81:51]
Derek Sivers
Switch your business to ramp.com.