Derek Sivers podcast

A musician had manufactured 10,000 copies of his CD, in anticipation of 10,000 orders that were sure to come through that week. He had bought a quarter-page advertisement in the back of a magazine with a circulation of one million people. He kept saying, “If only one percent of the people reading this magazine buy my CD, that’ll be 10,000 copies! And that’s only one percent!” He bought 10,000 padd...

A musician named Griffin House used to sell CDs at his gigs for $15. He’d mention it once or twice from the stage, and sell about $300 per night on average . One day his manager, Terry McBride , asked him to try a completely different approach. He said: Tell the audience, “It’s really important to us that you have our CD. We worked so hard on it and are so proud of it, that we want you to have it,...

I’ve always used freedom as the compass to guide my decisions. We moved a lot when I was a kid. I lived in five states and countries by the time I was 5. I left home at 17 and went off to college as far away as I could. I joined a circus for 10 years. Then I quit my last job in 1992, vowing to make a living making music and never have a job again. A few years after I started my company, I delegate...

If we hate doing something, we think of it as hard. We picture it having many annoying steps. If we love doing something, it seems simple. We think of it as one fun step. If you ask someone who hates running how to do it, they’ll say, “Ugh… First you put on running clothes. Then you have to stretch. Then you put on your shoes. Then you go outside. Then you get all sweaty. Then you have to cool dow...

Watch Elizabeth Gilbert ’s great TED talk called “ Your elusive creative genius ”. Absolutely amazing speech. Emotional, universal, insightful, educational, and funny. She comes across so nonchalant, light, and conversational. Effortless. I was there at the conference, and saw it in person. It was the hit of the conference. When the conference was over, she asked me to walk with her back to her ho...

When we wonder what’s worth doing, we ask ourselves, “What do I really love?” or “What makes me happy?” That question never really goes well, does it? Maybe it’s because there’s a long list of things that make us happy, and we need to narrow it down further. Or maybe because the things with the deepest rewards don’t always provide shallow pleasures along the way. So try this question instead: What...

Use this rule if you’re often over-committed or too scattered. If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, say no. When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!” — then say no. When you say no to most things, you leave room in your life to really throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say “HEL...

I was in Las Vegas for a conference, taking a taxi from the airport to the hotel. I asked the driver, “How long have you lived here?” He said, “27 years.” “Wow! A lot has changed since then, huh?” “Yeah. I miss the mob.” “Huh? Really? What do you mean?” “When the mafia ran this town, it was fun. There were only two numbers that mattered: how much is coming in, and how much is going out. As long as...

I’m in New York City. Across the street is a man pacing on the sidewalk. He’s insanely barking something at the top of his lungs. Everyone is avoiding going anywhere near him. I get closer. I try to figure out what he’s screaming about. Finally I hear it. “20% coupons for window shades! 20% off! Window shades! Get your coupons here!” Yeah… uh… that’s not working. A week later, I’m hanging with a f...

If you see a gorgeous painting that fascinates you, does it matter if you find out the artist didn’t pay her taxes? Would you stop enjoying the painting? If someone shows you a great way to memorize names, does it matter if you find out that person is an alcoholic? Would you no longer trust their memorization techniques? When I buy a book that has a picture of the author on the cover, I rip off an...

It’s supply and demand. The more people do something, the less valuable it is. Everyone else is multi-tasking. So it’s more valuable to single-task. Everyone else is hyper-connected. So it’s more valuable to disconnect. Warren Buffett’s investing advice is “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.” So do what others aren’t doing. If you play an instrument, give it...

I hear lots of business plans. Most of them are trying to do a ton of things. For example: “It’s a social networking e-commerce portal for live music, where everyone creates a profile to enter all their dates, if they’re a musician or venue, or their available dates if they’re a music fan. Then we connect the fans with artists’ dates. Then we can sell the tickets for the events, and give a digital...

I learned this huge life lesson from a secret document. Music publishers give a cash advance to a songwriter in return for owning half the future income generated from their songs. The publisher is betting that those songs will earn at least as much as that cash advance. I was working at Warner/Chappell music publishing, when someone stepped away from her desk. I noticed she had accidentally left...

We all need a place to play. Kids need playgrounds and sandboxes. Musicians need an instrument. Mad scientists need a laboratory. Those of us with business ideas? We need a company. Not for the money, but because it’s our place to experiment, create, and turn thoughts into reality. We need to pursue our intrinsic motivation. We have so many interesting ideas and theories. We need to try them! The...

Everyone knows about being introverted versus extroverted, but there’s another axis that makes a much bigger difference. It’s present-focused versus future-focused. Some people are mostly focused on the present moment. They live for today and do what feels good right now. Some people are mostly focused on the future. They use today as a stepping stone and do what’s best for their future selves. I...

Not everyone is broke. When musicians put me on the guest list at a venue, I pay anyway. I like to support the venue and the artist. When the record label Magnatune let people pay as little as $5 to buy an album, they paid an average of $9.82. Many pay much more, because they know it goes to the artist. Radiohead’s album “ In Rainbows ” was offered for free, but 40% of people chose to pay for it a...

Should you spend more time promoting right now? Or should you spend more time creating and improving? It’s a tough question. Lucky for you, I’ve got the answer. It comes down to one observation: Are your fans telling their friends? If not, then don’t waste time promoting it yet. Keep working, improving, and creating, until your fans are telling their friends about you. To be clear, I don’t mean fa...

If you’re a full-time musician, you’ll never have a job, a boss, a salary, or insurance. You’ll bootstrap everything yourself. You’ll always struggle against apathy and gate-keepers. And you’ll have to be one-in-a-million to achieve this incredibly difficult goal. To some people, this sounds horrible. To me, it was a dream come true. Someone with a steady 9-5 job asked me how I could handle the la...

A musician sent me her album, and very proudly said, “This cost $80,000 to make and two years to record. Everything is top-notch. We used one of the finest studios in the world.” She wanted me to be impressed, but once she said “$80,000” I lost hope in her ability to make a living making music. I’d be much more impressed with someone who could make an album for $800, because that shows they are re...

Ever since I was a teenager, my dad would occasionally send me things to sign — things for the family business. I didn’t understand the complexities of it, and didn’t need to, so I’d just sign without question. Four years before starting CD Baby, as I was recording my first album, I needed to borrow $20,000 to buy studio equipment. My dad said, “Instead of lending you money, start a corporation. T...

Many years ago, I worked in the music industry in New York City. Then I left. Fifteen years later, I came back to New York and met with many of the people I hadn’t seen since then. Every single one of them had ended up about where you’d expect, based on their character. The disciplined ones had succeeded. The temperamental ones had flamed out. The ones who’d acted like leaders were now leaders. Th...

In 1990, at the age of 20, I moved to New York City and got a job as the tape room guy for Warner/Chappell Music Publishing . It was a small office, about 12 people, but the door to one room was always closed. I assumed it was unused. One day, after a few months, I hear an old man yelling, “Goddamn it! What’s wrong with this typewriter? Can’t someone make a simple goddamn typewriter work?! What th...

You have a goal you’ve been putting off. You want to do it someday. You’ve been meaning to take real action on it, but could use more motivation. Let it go. It’s a bad goal. If it was a great goal, you would have jumped into action already. You wouldn’t wait. Nothing would stop you. The purpose of goals is not to improve the future. The future doesn’t exist. It’s only in our imagination. All that...

A farmer had only one horse. One day, his horse ran away. His neighbors said, “I’m so sorry. This is such bad news. You must be so upset.” The man just said, “We’ll see.” A few days later, his horse came back with twenty wild horses following. The man and his son corralled all twenty-one horses. His neighbors said, “Congratulations! This is such good news. You must be so happy!” The man just said,...

I meet entrepreneurs who are waiting to find an investor. I meet musicians who are waiting to find a manager. My advice is to assume nobody is coming. It’s more useful to assume that it’s all up to you. This is not hopeless, but helpful and empowering. You probably heard about Aron Ralston, who got trapped in a remote canyon for five days and had to cut off his own arm to escape because he knew no...