The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 364: Derek Sivers- How To Redefine Yourself, Make Big Decisions, & Live Life On Your Terms

Episode Date: May 10, 2020

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Text LEARNERS to 44222 Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com #364: Derek Sivers: Derek Sivers is a writer, musician, programmer, and entrepreneur best known for being the founder and former president of CD Baby, an online CD store for independent musicians. A professional musician since 1987, Sivers started CD Baby by accident in 1997 when he was selling his own CD on his website, and friends asked if he could sell theirs, too. CD Baby went on to become the largest seller of independent music on the web, with over $100M in sales for over 150,000 musician clients.  Notes: The similarities between becoming a Dad and starting a business: The transition from being "me" focused to becoming focused on others first. "That happened when I started a business... Long before I became a dad." "As a dad, I learned to be fully present with him. To shut everything else down and focus on him." "Adults are always looking for amazing superlatives. Kids are happy with tiny details." "Stop wasting hours... Learn to have a blast where you are." Making big decisions: There is a difference between theory and in practice "Don't consider anything decided until you've tried it." Why you should keep your goals to yourself: An identity goal makes you a different person. If you announce it to others and they give you social satisfaction, that feedback you receive gives you internal satisfaction. That could lead to you already feeling satisfaction and thus less likely to achieve the goal... Receiving the satisfaction from others before you've done it is not helpful. (NOTE - There is additional information to read about this nuanced topic. THIS is helpful.) Sustaining excellence: They hold themselves to high standards. They set high stakes. They have amazing self-control "Excellence is setting high standards and living up to them." Excellent leadership is being selfless... Doing what's in the best long-term interest of the people you're leading. Selling CDBaby for $22m and giving the proceeds away to charity. The power of writing: "I journal my ass off." Documenting your daily thoughts is a very useful exercise -- It's fascinating to look back on how you felt at that specific time. Create "Per Topic" Journals Journals that focus on a specific topic (Singapore, Interviews, Language Learning) Values = Learning... Remaining flexible and creative. Answering the questions, "What did I really want from that?" Derek's values evolve and change over time Being a monomaniac - Obsessed with one thing at a time Currently: Writing a book called How To Live The stress of replying to 7,000 emails vs making a genuine connection with each person... Being a longterm thinker Here is WHY joining a Learning Leader Circle is a good idea...  

In general, I think that excellent leadership is being selfless. That to have the perspective to see what's long-term best for the people that you're serving and then ensuring that it happens, right? Like a narcissist is the opposite of a leader. Like I think good leadership is forgetting yourself and doing what's best for others. Are you curious about taking a more proactive approach to your leadership development? Have you thought about the people you are surrounding yourself with as you strive to get better? If so, the new Learning Leader Academy may be for you.

It's been designed to not only provide you with online training videos. In fact, I filmed 30 of them sitting side by side with the greatest mentor of my life, dad, but the Learning Leader Academy also gives you the opportunity to interact with an active community of leaders with growth-oriented mindsets. If this sounds like something that you would like to do, check out more details at Ryanhawk.me. That's Ryanhawk.me for the Learning Leader Academy. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Brixie and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk. you so much for being here. Text, learners to 4-4-2-2-2 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Received Mindful Monday updates what I'm reading, writing, watching,

thinking about. Also, give you more details about my book, Welcome to Management. Text, learners to 4-4-2-2. Now on tonight's featured leader, Derek Sivers. He started CD Baby and sold it in 2008, for $22 million, donating all of it to a charitable cause. He's a self-described monomaniac, introvert, slow thinker, and he loves finding a different point of view. Also a best-selling author of multiple books, including anything you want. It's 40 lessons for a new kind of entrepreneur. A few of the topics we discussed, why you should not share your goals,

with anyone but yourself. And then a unique process to help you make better decisions. Derek shared some interesting stories around that. And then the power behind a daily journal and why you should do this right now. Ladies and gentlemen, this one is quite a bit different, but very interesting. It's Derek Sivers. Welcome, Derek Sivers. It's great to have you here on the learning.

your show man. I've been following your work for many years and I'm big fans. So it's great to talk with you, man. Thanks, Ryan. I like your show. That's why I'm here. So thanks for having me. I remember listening. I don't remember which, which show actually was on, but I thought, who is this guy with the soothing voice that, but I was taking so many notes on my phone. I was pausing and the notes of my phone thinking, and I have to admit, I had not heard of you prior. It might have been Tim show. I don't know. But I had not heard of you. you prior to that. And I just thought this is maybe one of my favorite podcast I've ever listened to. And I thought I have to talk to this guy at some point. But I believe that was four or five years ago.

So it's great to finally be here, man. Yeah, I haven't done any podcast interviews in four or five years until now. So yeah, thank you. I don't try to be soothing. Well, you just are. So I appreciate being here. I'm curious because we're both dads. And I want to start this one a little bit different. And being a dad, I vividly remember, you know, first child being born and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and I've always like I don't even remember life before that because of how different it is and how I feel personally. And I'm curious from your perspective, Derek, I believe you became a dad, what, seven or eight years ago, is that correct? And, and, and I've read a lot about how you parent, and we can maybe get into some of that. But I'm curious from you,

how did becoming a dad change your views on the world? That, that, that, and, and, and, and, and I'm curious, change that I hear other dads talk about, I had most of that happened to me when I started CD Baby. So, yeah, I was 29 years old when I started this company, but up until that point, everything I did in life was me, me, me, me, me. Like, I was a musician. I was up there promoting my music and I was on stage singing my music and the microphone and everything in my life was me, me, me. I had been around the world. I had performed a thousand shows. I had recorded multiple albums. I had been on the radio, and I even bought a house with the money I made making music. So, when I started CD Baby, I started caring about my musician clients more than I cared

about myself. That's why I listed all the things I did. It's because I had already had my day in the spotlight, right? So now I wanted them to have the spotlight, not me. And I wanted them to get rich, not me. And then I had employees. Like I had 85 employees whose lives were somewhat dependent on me. And it was up to me to take care of them and pay them well and make sure they were happy and healthy and growing. And so when friends told me how having a kid changed their life, I think that I went through some of that already was starting my company. You know, like, that's when, that's when life became not about me. So then 10 years later, when I had a real baby,

I think the major change of view was not that. It was more like I learned how to be fully present with him, that I'm usually very, very future-focused. Like my head is always in my work and on my future plans and towards the vision of the future that I'm building. But to be with my kid, I have to shut that all down, like mentally and physically and just be 100% engaged in his world and his play. So I think the common leadership lesson between those two things, is to be selfless that I think the surprise is that the leader follows the lead. You also have written a lot about the fact that in all parents can relate to this where you'll go to the

park or you'll take your take your kids somewhere in nature or even playing outside. I was doing this recently with my daughter on the trampoline. And after, you know, 30 minutes or 40 minutes, I'm just exhausted. I'm tired. And you've written about the fact that sometimes you guys will play outside for five hours exploring. And partially, and I'm curious of, one, how you have the, you've built up the energy. And two, you're never the parent, it sounds like that says, come on, son, we're going to go home. You want to let him explore until he's finished exploring.

And I'm curious your mindset towards promoting and nurturing that exploration in your child. Sure. Well, for one, it really helped that I raised him in New Zealand, right? Like, we just moved to England a year ago. But the first seven years of his life were in gorgeous, breathtaking New Zealand. So if I'm somewhere stunning and like, oh, MFG gorgeous and my kid is sitting there playing with a stick, well, yeah, I could just hang out there and just look at the world for five hours, you know? I found that when we are trapped inside on a rainy day,

it's hard to sit on the living room carpet for five hours. So it's not like I have this master Zen patients. It's just it really helped that I would usually take us somewhere gorgeous to go play. So that helps. But I did notice that adults are always looking for big, amazing superlatives, right? I would say, like, let me take you to some distant, amazing thing I'm going to show you. But kids are happy with the tiny details. So what I mean is, like, in New Zealand, we would drive many hours to get to the most amazing view or the best forest or some fascinating rock formation.

And sometimes we'd even drive overnight to get there. And then we'd arrive, and he would just prefer to play with the dead log. full of bugs that was right at the trail entrance. I'm like, no, come on, come on. Like, this is just the entrance. Come on, let's go up to the peak. We're going to be able to see everything. He's like, no, Dad, look at these bugs.

And so many times, we would never even get to the big amazing thing that I intended to see because we just play all day long with the little tiny detailed thing that he was fascinated with. So after doing this eight or nine times, I finally decided to stop wasting the

hours driving to amazing things. And instead, we just learned to have a blast, or I learned how to have a blast in the local forest that's just five minutes away. So the lesson learned is that you don't need amazing things to play. You know, you got some sticks, some leaves, a cardboard box, some weird discarded trash. He can have more fun with these things than any official toys. In fact, put another way, if you buy your kid a toy, they'll probably have more fun

with the box it came in. We all know that experience at holidays, not Christmas, they're opening up and playing with the box. It's hilarious. You mentioned you lived in New Zealand for a while. I know you've lived all over the world, and now you live in

Oxford, England. And when I think about that, as someone who's born and raised in the United States and lived primarily the bulk of my life in the Midwest, I hear that and think, wow, like, that's amazing. And I wonder how somebody does that. But I want to expand out even more and think of the broader topic of making decisions. Because, Derek, there are a lot of people listening who have to make wide variety of decisions of, okay, do I, do I change careers, go for this job? Do I make, do I move across the country for something?

Who am I going to marry, right? Where to live? So if we zoom out a little bit, could you share a bit about, and maybe if you want to use the moving of where you're living as one of the examples, but zoom out a bit first to talk about how you make big decisions? Sure. Later, let's get into values because that's a huge, huge part of it. So let me give you a concrete example of that is that the one that you just mentioned is I also, I grew up in. Hinsdale, Illinois, and even worse, sorry, not worse, but even more, I was more entrenched in America when I was living on the beach in Santa Monica, California.

I very explicitly felt this is the only place for me. I never wanted to go anywhere else. In fact, I don't think I'm ever going to even take a vacation ever again because I live in paradise now. This is amazing. And I even had little disagreements with my girlfriend at the time who wanted to travel, And I was like, travel. Why travel? We live in paradise. This is amazing. I never want to go anywhere but Santa Monica ever again. So it wasn't until I heard myself say that. And then I went, oh, wait a minute. Like, I'm 35. Am I seriously just going to spend the rest of my life here in this one spot? Is that me? And I went, oh, hold on. And, and, you. And, you know, just like like that like two values flipped you know the value system in my head flipped and suddenly

i was like no no no wait a minute i love Santa Monica but learning and growing and exploring and expanding myself identity and having experiences like this is really important to me oh my god what have i done i've gotten and so just like that it kind of a lot of these changes happen in an instant. You have a certain thought that you can't unthink, you know, and it just changes the wiring in your brain instantly. But yeah, let's get on to values later. I want to answer your question. So the big decisions in general, though, besides that thing I just mentioned of values flipping, I think the biggest lesson I've learned in the past couple years is the difference between in theory and in practice, right? Like, in theory, you can read books on parenting.

or think about where you'd like to live or even describe the kind of marriage you want to have. But in practice, when you actually go try the thing that you think you wanted, you often find out that you don't actually like it, or you thought it would be really different than it is, or the other people involved in this decision with you have a very different set of needs and values than you do. So the lesson I learned this year is don't consider anything decided

until you've had a chance to try it in the real world. Like don't announce, we've decided we're going to move to the countryside because then you're going to be all embarrassed and guilty and conflicted if you get there and you find out that you just don't like living in the countryside. Like in theory, you thought you did. but in practice, I didn't know they were going to be this many bugs. It's boring. So instead, I think it's better to say, like, we're going to try living in the countryside for a while and see what it's like.

You know what I mean? Announcing what you're doing, like announcing your plans has a weird effect on your psyche and your self-identity. So you have to be careful when you announce. things because it, yeah, it can mess with you wanting to go back on them or not. You know what I mean? Yeah. That actually reminds me, Derek, of, I saw you gave a talk and I've referenced this in writing and talks as well and usually get a side eye and people questioning me when, and you've done a lot of research and spoken about the fact that you should keep your goals to yourself. You shouldn't share them with other people. And this is counterintuitive.

to what most people say. And so I'd love for you to expand and explain why should those of us, those, me and people listening, why should we keep our goals to ourselves instead of making them public? This, I'm no expert in this. I really just read an article in Newsweek magazine once that talked about this. And I went, huh, that's interesting. And it happened to be the same day that the TED conference was asking for submissions. So I said, oh, I could talk about this thing I heard about earlier today, and they chose me.

And so then I had to get on stage as if I was some kind of expert. But that said, the idea is, okay, I'll just share the idea with your listeners. Sure. The idea is that for a certain kind of goal, something called an identity goal, where if you were to do this goal that you're announcing, it would kind of make you a different kind of of person in your eyes. Like just just the fact that you're pursuing this lifts your esteem, the esteem in the eyes of others and self-esteem. So if you announce that you're doing this then, like, you know, I've signed up to, I'm going to do the Iron Man competition or I'm going to, I've started taking Chinese lessons, I'm going to learn Mandarin. And if you announce it to

to others and then those others give you the social satisfaction of like whoa Ryan dude right on man you're going to do Iron Man you're going to learn Chinese that's awesome man I could never do that well then that social feedback that you get gives you internal satisfaction like you're like uh-huh that's right I'm the kind of guy that does Iron Man or that's right I'm the kind of guy that learns Chinese, and you've now already felt a lot of the satisfaction that you shouldn't have felt until you actually do the thing, right? Like social, we're social creatures. The things other people say and what other people think of us affects us a lot. So the big idea is, for these kinds of goals, these identity goals, try not telling anybody and keep it to yourself

so that you have to actually do the hard work necessary in order to get any satisfaction from this thing. Because otherwise, having already felt the satisfaction, you might not follow through and do the hard work necessary if you've already felt the reward just from announcing it. I've personally seen this comment, and you probably get this way more than I do, is I'm writing a book or I'm going to start a podcast.

and my whole thing is then just do it and show me the book. If you have questions about writing a book, that's a different topic. I'm happy to help just share my experience with you. That's different as opposed to trying to get the rewards before the actual work. I'm with you. I'd rather, I'd rather, I always admire people who accomplish the great things. Not the ones who tell me what they're about to accomplish. Just go do it.

Oh, right? Dude, so you live in Ohio. You probably don't get this as much as people in L.A. But when I lived in L.A. for seven years, and there's, it's almost like a disease in Los Angeles where everybody speaks in future tense about the things that they've got pending. Like, oh, yeah, man, we're in talks with EMI to get this thing going. You know, I'm optioning a script and something like, oh, yeah, this agent is looking at my so-and-so, and we're going to be doing this project with it.

everybody's going around bragging about these hypothetical future tense things they're doing and they feel the social satisfaction from doing it and I just after a couple years of that I felt like just going around wearing a t-shirt that would say tell me when it happens I'm with you I like that that that actually I think works exactly that's a Ryan Hawk shirt tell me when it happens or just let's see it so uh the the other thing Derek, I often open this podcast with a question about the term sustaining excellence. I am fascinated by studying, learning, reading about those who have sustained excellence. Talk about actually doing it, right?

We're kind of dovetelling off that nicely, which is the people who have been able to sustain it over many years. And I know you're known as one of those kind of philosophical advisors that may, Many high performers go to. You're laughing, but I think it's maybe you're a little uncomfortable because it's true. But many high performers go to. So you get kind of inside the minds of people who have sustained excellence. You've done it yourself. From your perspective, I'm curious, what have you found to be some of the commonalities

among people who have sustained excellence? They hold themselves in very high value. In other words, the stakes are high. And this is a little personal, but why not? I'm going to tell a little story because I was in love with an Olympic athlete and got to know her very, very well. And her self-worth was so inspiring. I was one of only four people that had her phone number because she raised the bar for social interactions so high that only these four people were allowed to take her time. Everyone else had to go through her agent. Her agent was

one of the four people that had her number. So like anybody outside of that? No, you cannot have any of my time unless you pay handsomely. And then even for dear friends, even though she was a big-hearted person that loved her friends fully, they weren't allowed to waste her time. She was shocked that I let my friends complain about their life to me for hours. I said, well, what, you don't? And she said, no, my friends know not to waste my time like that. She said, no, I have a high, I have high expectations for my friends. So our time together has to be high quality.

I went, whoa. So even in friendship, even, I mean, this is a little more obvious, but it's like she would never, ever, ever break her diet. Like, the yolks were always removed from the eggs. There was never any oil on the salad and never, never, never a piece of bread. I said, you don't like bread? She said, of course I love bread. But if I eat the bread, then my performance suffers tomorrow.

And nothing is worth that. So she had the most amazing self-control because she valued herself so highly. So yeah, I just told you the little story of her, but I think that that's the common thing that I've found among the excellent. Was she happy? Very. Really? That doesn't sound like that happy of a life to me. Oh, no, it was, this had been a lifelong mission.

She had been like this since she was like four years old. Okay. I just think like the thing with, from a relationship perspective, like let's, well, we could go to that, that aspect of it first. you know, part of being a friend, as, as, you know, because this is what you do and have done for a while, is that you're there for your friends when they need you, right? And sometimes that's not really, you are going to kind of waste time. And I think having a good community of friends where you can go to each other and sometimes things aren't good, which is natural in life.

And that person is there for you. And the give and take parts of the relationship kind of shift back in forth depending on what's happening on that particular day. And so sometimes you're, you're more of going to, going to receive. And other times you're going to be more of a giver in the relationship with friends or even a partner. And if it's only like, hey, we can't talk unless it's, you know, like, you know what I mean? That's that's why I wondered about that aspect of it. No, I think she just put the bar in a different place. So it's like random little like winging and moaning about your day for hours. No. No. Um,

You need to talk? Yes. Like, I'm there for you when you need to talk. Like, there were times as much as she, like I would have said, if you hadn't reminded me with that follow-up question, I would have said that she always put her practice and training as top priority above everything else. And for the most part, that was true. But yeah, there were a couple times in our times together when I had to. like when I actually called her when she was training and I said I really need to talk. And she's like, okay, no problem.

I'll wrap up now. I'll call you back in five minutes. And she would like stop her training because I told her, no, this is important. So I think that's what I mean. She just kind of set the bar. So it's like, no, don't drone on. Like maybe you should just go writing your journal if you need to, you know, whinge for for hours. But yeah, anytime, like if we're talking high quality relationship need time,

It's like, where you really are calling on a dear friend. Yeah, I'm there for you. So basically, you found that these people just seem to have extremely high expectations for themselves first. And they live in a way to live up to those big expectations. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, honestly, I was just enjoying a little trip down memory lane. I hadn't thought about her in a while when you just asked that question. But yeah, I mean, as I'm running through other examples of my high performing friends in my head,

I'm thinking, yeah, that is the most common thing is just kind of holding yourself to a very high self-esteem, very high value. Yeah. I'm curious from a philosopher like yourself, when you think of the word excellence, what does that mean to you? Or how would you even define that word? I think there's a lot of different definitions when you go out there online. I'm curious, what would be yours? Sorry, I think my answer is shorter than the question.

I think it's just setting very high standards and then living up to those standards. I think it's just totally subjective for each person. How do you do that for yourself? Like how is living an excellent life? And this may be a weird question, but is that something that's important to you? I don't think of it in terms. I mean, yes, important, yes. But how it's defined might change daily.

You know, that example I said earlier about Santa Monica, where it's like, on a Tuesday, I felt, oh, this is where I'm going to spend my whole life right here. I live in the best place on earth. And by Thursday, I'm like, I need to leave America and never come back in the name of growth and exploration. Like, you can have these flips of values where suddenly what you would have described as an excellent life two days ago is not what you would now. describe as an excellent life today after you've had an unforgettable thought. So, yeah, I think I'm acknowledging that the definition is ever changing, but yes, I definitely hold myself to high standards. I think that's why I fell for the athlete. I hadn't met anybody like her before. I was like, you're like me. And yeah, I've always tried.

to make, I hold myself to, like a very high expectation for what I want out of life, yeah. What about, let's shift from a leadership perspective. When you're running CD Baby, and maybe you can briefly talk about,

you know, everything you accomplish with CD Baby, but as you mentioned, you had many employees, like 80 plus, is that what I've, what I heard you say? 80 plus employees,

so you're in a leadership position doing everything you can to support the team that you are leading to help the clients and customers to, as you said, be, achieve their kind of musical dreams. But this is a big time leadership role you find yourself in. And so I would imagine, given the type of guy you are, you're going to study what it means to become or to be a good leader for your team and for your clients.

And so how do you think about leadership? How do you, what is your mindset towards being an excellent leader? and how do you define that for yourself? And maybe there's examples of others that you've looked at that have been helpful too. But I'm just curious of that in general. I honestly haven't thought about this in a long time. It's funny. It's been 12 years since I left CD Baby.

And I feel like being a leader is something that I did for 10 years. And I think a big reason I quit is because I didn't like it. I didn't like the having all that responsibility. So sorry, I'm not going to have a lot to say on this. But in general, I think that excellent leadership is being selfless. That to have the perspective to see what's long-term best for the people that you're serving and then ensuring that it happens. right like a narcissist is the opposite of a leader right like i think good leadership is

forgetting yourself and doing what's best for others you um sold cd baby and can you share like kind of the exit story there how much you sold it for what you do with the money and why you uh you uh you asked in in four four seconds you just named the three things that I had planned to never speak about. And I, sorry, I don't mean in this phone call, I mean 12 years ago, when I sold the company, I thought, okay, how much I sold it for and what I'm doing with the money? This is nobody's business. So, you know, it's funny. Well, it was 2008, and podcasts were not really mainstream yet, right? No, definitely not. And so there was this guy, Greg Gallant, I believe, who interviewed me on his podcast.

And we were like an hour long into the conversation when he said, so how much did you sell for? And I was just suddenly put on the spot. My brain was quickly going like, should I say this out loud? Like, that's nobody's business. And I was like, I'm on the air. I'm being recorded. I don't want to be rude. And then the real thought was, you know, we're an hour into a podcast.

Nobody listens to these things anyway. So I said, all right, I sold for $22 million. And so he published the podcast saying, Derek Sivers sells CD Baby for $22 million. I'm like in the big headline. I was like, oh, damn it. I outed myself accidentally. And then like about a month later, again,

I still didn't learn my lesson. I still didn't think anybody listens an hour into a podcast. Some random dude said, you know, so how does it feel to be swimming in $22 million? is now. And I said, well, actually, I just gave it all away. And he's like, what? You gave it all away? And I said, well, yeah, I'd set up a charitable trust and I'd put the money into the trust because I didn't want it. And he's like, wait, we need to talk about this. I was like, oh, no, man, I didn't think I was going to ever talk about this publicly. So anyway, there, I just told you the answer

through my whining little tale. But yeah, that's what I did. I was, I was already making plenty of money before I sold the company. I was the sole owner. I had no investors. It was a very profitable business. So when I sold the company for 22 million, I knew that I didn't even want the money. So I set up a charitable trust to benefit music education, because to me, that just felt like the grand circle of life, like the idea that all this money came from musicians in this generation. And when I die, it's going to go all to the next generation of music. in that generation. Do you ever rethink that decision?

Are there ever days where it'd be nice to have like 10 million right now? No. No. Never do. Really? No. I mean, seriously, okay. Well, I very often, you know what?

I keep a, okay, I journal my ass off. I journal for one to three hours a day. I just like to think. I think I do it instead of watching movies. It's like I watch movies in my life. my head. I play out alternate futures. And so one of the things I occasionally ask myself a few times a year is if I ever start to have that thought that you just described, I'll stop and I'll turn to my journal and I'll say, what would I do if I had a hundred million dollars right now?

And I'll sit there with an open journal and I'll say, um, um, um, what I get a Tesla? I don't know. I don't need a Tesla. Would I, no, I wouldn't. Maybe I'd hire a teacher to help. I was like, well, okay, that costs $20,000. All right. I was like, and whenever I try to come up with something I would do in my life, if I had $100 million, I'm stumped because I wouldn't do anything differently.

I just don't want anything. And so, no, I never regret the decision. I'm really glad that I didn't have that 20, $22 million come to my name and find it burning a hole through my pocket just because I have it. I think that I probably should go by the giant home I don't need or the stupid car that I don't need. You know, so I'm glad I didn't do those things. You just mentioned a journal a lot. And I think this is something I work with leaders that I talk about quite a bit is the importance of documenting what you think.

putting pen to paper and you've definitely talked about this. And my feeling is, especially whether it's from writing a book or even just writing articles, I don't fully know how little I know about something until I try to write about it. And then you do the research. And then by the end of it, I feel like I have a little bit better grasp on whatever it is I'm writing about.

Same thing that goes if I'm getting ready to give like a big speech, somewhere that I you know I I want to serve that audience so I prepare like crazy and there's a lot of writing and rehearsing and thinking and and pictures and analogies right and so I I would just from your perspective for the person maybe who says I I get it you know Derek has time to write that much I don't have that time to write and obviously everyone listening has that time it's it's their choice of how they choose to use it what what have you found to be the power behind documenting your thoughts. By the way, time-wise,

I don't think I have watched a show of any sort. I haven't watched any video of any sort like more than two hours in the past year. Really? I don't watch anything. So I think my journaling time comes from that kind of time. I really meant it when I said like I watch movies in my brain. You know, like I, anytime I feel like that kind of just crashing on the couch and exhaling, I do it with the journal in my hands.

And I just, I just write. And I just play out hypotheticals. And I just pour out whatever is in my head. And so, okay, you asked the value and the importance of it. One of my favorite things, sorry, this is answering your question, is I just a few years. ago started keeping per topic journals. So because I'm just doing it on the computer anyway in text files, but I'm sure you could do this on paper too if you wanted. I found that there were some subjects that I just kept coming back to. Like for years, we were considering moving to

Singapore. In fact, back to Singapore. My son was born in Singapore. And we were considering moving back there from New Zealand. So for years in my daily diary, I kept having thoughts. come into my head about Singapore, kind of like updated thoughts. And so eventually I thought, you know, I should really keep these all in one place. Instead of having them scattered among 400 separate entries, I should just put them into one place.

So that's when I started keeping a, I call it Thoughts-on journal. So it's like a folder called Thoughts-on. And inside are a couple hundred text files with names like Singapore or language learning or interviews. So that really helps to whenever you find yourself returning to the same subject, open up that journal and write down your current thoughts. I timestamp it like with today's date. And then you write down your current thoughts about this thing now.

And then it's fascinating to scroll down and see what you were thinking on this subject three months ago or one year ago or three years ago. It's really cool to see how your thoughts have changed because a lot of us often come back to the same thought. So then you can see how consistently have I been feeling or thinking about this subject? Or is it always changing? Another example is like for a year I wanted a dog and I really, really wanted a dog. But I told myself, that's a huge commitment. I'm not going to get a dog unless at least a year has passed and I still want a dog. And so I had thoughts on dog.t.tx.

But I would always turn to what I was thinking about getting a dog. And it was just interesting to see that like after a year, it's like, okay, my thoughts have been very consistent on this subject. And so after a year, I got a dog because I could look back at the consistency. Yeah, it helps to see your expectations. When I was living in New Zealand for a little while, I thought it would be really cool to get an RV, you know, a motorhome. And I thought that for a few months and I had thoughts on RV.tt full of many, many, many thoughts about why I want an RV and the pros and cons. And so

eventually, I got an RV. And it was totally different than I expected. It was kind of terrible. Even though I had rented one before and I knew that. I thought that owning one would be different somehow, but no, I hated it. So, yeah, that lasted a few weeks. I sold it right back to the dealer I bought it from. Luckily, I didn't lose too much money. But yeah, that's something where you can look at the thoughts on journal now, and it's fascinating to see what I expected it to be like versus what it was like. So anyway, as you can tell from me going on and on and on about the subject, I think this is just one of the most useful things anyone can do, not just. writing down the first thought that comes to mind,

but constantly challenge yourself. When you ask yourself a question, like, why do I think we should move to the countryside? You'll answer that question. Like, you'll say, because I want silence. So then you have to push back on yourself, and you have to say, so am I unable to get silence where I'm living now?

Like, wouldn't noise-proof windows solve that same problem, but yet I could still remain conveniently located where we are? Do I need to move an hour into the countryside to get silence, or could I move five minutes away? You've got to push back on yourself to challenge your thinking.

And then lastly, despite everything we said, I think it's also important to keep just a daily what I did today diary, even if it's like you just spend five minutes a day just saying what you did today, because I'll bet that future you is going to want to know what present you back in crazy 2020 was doing. You know, like in 2050, you're probably going to be wondering, like, was I really as scared as I

remember in 2020 or as happy as I remember in 2020? Or what was I thinking when all that crazy stuff was going down in 2020? Like, I have some faint memories, but it would be way more interesting to be able to look at a daily diary of what you were doing in that crazy year of 2020. And who knows, future years will probably be crazy too. But yeah, do this for your future self. Journal your current activities as a service to your future self. You mentioned earlier in the conversation about your values. And this is a topic I've been talking about with my friend Brooke Cups recently. And he's a high school leadership teacher and basketball coach and incredible, incredible guy about living out his

values has really helped me. And I'd love to hear, one, what are some of your core values and then further how you actually live those values out, considering the choices you make and how you choose to live, right? Like, I think it's, it's what you've done in your past is, is not what most people would do, whether you, even just from the same. CD baby sale or other things from there. So what are some of your values and how do you choose to actually live out those values? I think values themselves aren't very interesting. Like, okay, learning, creating, growing, change, parenting.

Those are my values. Boring. How do I live them? I notice when one is lacking and I give it my more priority until it's not lacking anymore. Boring. But what's interesting is, remaining flexible and creative in how you can fulfill your values. The big idea is to not get stuck on one plan. So say that you had planned to be a public speaker or even better a concert promoter.

So you decided that this is what matters most to you. And damn, I'm going to be a concert promoter. This is my calling. Well, then COVID-19 hits in the career of a public speaker or a concert promoter is not going to be doable for a few years. So you have to ask yourself, like, well, what did I really want from doing that? What was it I really wanted? Was it to share my ideas? Was it to become eloquent? Was it to meet lots of people? Whatever it is, what are some other creative ways you can get what you want considering the new situation? Like, Say, if travel was your top priority, but then you have a baby with someone who is strongly opposed to traveling.

Well, so now you have to ask yourself what you really wanted from travel. Was it just to eat crazy food? Was it to more deeply understand different cultures? Was it to brag on Instagram about your wonderful life? You have to really be honest with yourself to try to think through what was it that I really wanted from that and then what are some other creative ways you can meet those needs considering the new situation and lastly i think it's important to not get too attached to your current values because like my example earlier like they could change it any time i made the the out-of-the-blue

santa monica travel the world versus not example but what if say your health was never a top priority. Like if somebody would have asked your value systems, you would have listed five other things, but you wouldn't have put health on there. But then you suddenly get lymphoma or something. And suddenly health becomes a top priority. And all these other things that were important before, whether it was going out to parties or traveling, might suddenly become very unappealing. So yeah, don't get too attached to your current values. Just admit that they are likely to change at any time. So when somebody wants to know your values, you can say, well, these are my values now. You're a self-described, I may say this wrong, monomaniac.

I only learned that term a month ago. Okay. So self-descreated, did I pronounce that right? I think so. Okay, self-described monomaniac, meaning, and what that means is you are the type of person who has an obsession with one thing. And I'm curious how, how, how, how, How did you diagnose yourself as that? And how do you think that's been helpful for you? It's making it sound like a very serious thing, especially when you say diagnose. But no, it's more like I just randomly came across this word in a book or somewhere. And I went, monomaniac, what is that?

And I went and looked it up. And I went, oh, hey, that's me. It just means, yeah, I have always been this way since I was a kid. I just get really, really into one thing at a time. I'm really not good at doing that super balanced life where I wake up and do an hour of this and then three hours of that and then make sure to get two hours of this every day and then one hour of that. I admire people to do that, but I've tried to do that even.

And I just, I get so into what I'm doing. I just want to see it through to completion. So honestly, that's all it means. What are some of those things recently for you? The one things. Sure. It's not that interesting, but a very concrete example is my next book is called How to Live. And I absolutely love writing it so much that for 15 hours a day, I was doing nothing but writing

how to live for months every single day, seven days a week, just writing how to live all day long, except, you know, of course, stopping to play with my kid. And then at Christmas time, my assistant said, hey, there are a whole whole thing. bunch of things on the back end of this system here that I really can't do my work without and I need your help making these things. I went, oh, good point. So I paused the writing of my book and for three months just got really totally into programming all these like backend tools I needed in order to help me handle the book production stuff better and yeah, did nothing but programming for three months. I haven't done any writing in months. And I'm at the very tail end of that now. And as soon as I'm done,

I'm going to go all the way back into writing, just nothing but writing all day, every day. So that's the kind of, oh, and then when the COVID-19 stuff started, I got really worried about all these people I know out in the world. And so I sent out an email to my whole mailing list saying, how are you? Are you okay? Like, yes, I'm really answering. I'm sorry, I'm really asking, please answer. And I got 7,000 emails in return. And so... I think I was one of those, but yes. Asking you to come on this podcast, but go ahead.

So for the next two weeks, I did nothing but answer emails. Like literally, I would get up at 5.30 or 6 in the morning, and I would answer emails nonstop, just stopping to stretch and eat a little bit, then get back to it until midnight every day. So what is that? 6 a.m. to midnight? What is that? 18 hours a day. Just doing emails for two weeks until they were done because I just like to see things through

to completion. And you've written about that. I'm immersed in their stories and almost devastated from the stress, but also thankful for the connection. This is in regards to all those emails. And I guess my question is, is there a point where that stress outweighs the value of the connection? And what's your decision-making process for that? Hmm. I think in terms of net, right?

like the warm and fuzzy good feelings I get from connecting with 7,000 people versus a few hours of stress trying to get back to them all in time. So that's a huge plus and a little minus, right? So that's net positive. But let's pick a different example. So say someone who buys a house that's bigger than they need or a new fancy car that costs 10 times what a basic cheap used car would cost to use your $100 million question earlier.

If somebody decides to buy those things, then they're probably deciding that they're going to have to work at a job doing something they don't really want to do for the next 10 years in order to pay off that expensive choice. So to me, that's like a little plus. Like, yeah, it's kind of nicer to have a nicer car.

But there's a huge minus on the back side of that. So to me, that's net negative. So I think I've always been a long-term thinker. Even when I was a teenager and my friends would ask why I didn't have any tattoos. And it's like, well, because my 90-year-old self might not want them. And they just looked at me weird. I'm like, dude. I'm like, I don't know.

Like, even as a teenager, I'm just like, I'm always thinking in terms of my 90-year-old self looking back. I'm always thinking in terms of decades and net positive in the long term or net negative. So, yeah. Is writing books the primary way that you make money? Or what's the primary source of your revenue streams now? I haven't made any money since 2008. When I sold CD Baby, yeah, I had plenty of money saved up. So I've just been living off of savings.

Seriously? Uh-huh. Wow. Okay. I just do everything for free. And I enjoy that. I like not having to monetize the things I enjoy doing. So all of this, you know, whatever, hundreds of, or thousands of hours of answering email, I'm just doing it.

So your book, anything you want, which is a very popular book. Is that what about that? Oh, sorry. Yeah. I guess I have earned a little money from that. But, I mean, hardly anything in the big picture. Okay. If that money went into my bank account, I didn't even notice.

So you're good, you're good for the foreseeable future financially? Yeah, I live very cheaply, so I'm good. Wow. That has to be, it reminds me of like Forrest Gump. It's like, that's like one less thing. I don't know, you know, I mean. I love that quote. Do you?

I mean, you just would be able to mow the grass for free because it's a lot of that's one less thing to worry about. I mean, it's like, you know, especially it's a. As a dad, I think of, I don't know, I mean, I think of this quite a bit of, you know, we have a high fixed cost as a family because kids are expensive. And so there's that balance between, like, my parents were so great about that for us and our family that I want to be the same as one of the leaders, my wife being the other one, the leaders of our family, that that's there. And so I see that, though, but did walk away from a corporate America job with some of those inflated salaries. and comp plans to do something more that I love and the satisfaction in it is dramatically increased even if initially at least the income went away.

And so that's why I'm fascinated by that part where you, it just doesn't seem like it's something you think about. Yeah, it's amazing. I don't think that part, though, is that relatable to many people listening, Derek. You probably know that, though. I mean, you have to know that, yeah. Well, you know, I, ever since I was a teenager, I found a way to live so cheaply that I never had to do anything I didn't want to do. So I haven't ever really in my life done anything I didn't want to do because instead I would just lower my expenses so low that, that, you know, just making a few hundred dollars a month was paying my cost of living.

And so there's always something you can enjoy doing for a few hundred dollars a month. Yeah. So that's always been my approach to life. And I think then selling the company or running a company and making millions doing that just made that even easier to do. It's really interesting. Derek, once again, thank you so much for investing your time with me today and all my listeners. where would you send them to learn more about you online? Only one place.

Just go to sivers.org. S-I-V-E-R-S dot org. And as you can tell, I do like hearing from people. This is honestly why I do interviews like this. For one, I liked Ryan's interesting questions, and they were very thought-provoking. But otherwise, I really like hearing from people. So go to Sivers.org and my email address is out there and introduce yourself and say hello.

By the way, it is the fastest website on the internet. It's because it has, I'm a minimalist. It has absolutely not one single line of code that doesn't absolutely need to be there. I hand-coded the site myself. Every single line. I didn't use any word press, no nothing. I wrote that site by hand and I didn't add a single line unless it had to be there. So yeah, it's really damn fast.

If you click on a link, you will be on that page and, like instantly. I've never experienced that. It's like, wow, this is the, I thought about like, could I hire Derek to do my website, but I'm guessing that's not something you do. No, it's, I love it. I wish everybody would do that.

It's just, you just remove all the bloat. And, you know, the actual, if you think of, think of the average site and think of why you're on that site. Usually there are some paragraphs of text that you want to read. And then you think of how much junk is usually also on that page.

Well, just get rid of all the other junk. can just give them the few paragraphs of text they came for. Anyway. Love it. Love it. Well, thanks again, man. I would love to, no, I love it, man. I'd love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man.

Thanks, Ryan. All right. Thanks so much, man. Wow, very grateful for Derek's time today. A few of the key parts that I thought of. Don't be the type of person who talks about what they're going to do. Be the type of person who actually does it. This was spoken about when we were on the topic of why you should keep your goals to yourself.

Be a person of action, a person of accomplishment, not someone who walks around talking and telling everybody about what you're about to do. Then the importance of the Daily Journal, it's very valuable to document your thoughts and beliefs and your future self will thank your current self. And then leadership is thinking about what is a. the long-term best interest of the people you're leading. And that's how Derek strived and worked to lead within his business. If you enjoyed this one, as much as I did, I would love it if you would share with a friend or two, perhaps one that has never listened to the Learning Leader Show because you continue to do that. You give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis.

And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk with you soon. Can't wait. Thank you.