Derek Sivers - What Do You Need to Believe Right Now?

03/28/24 • 87 min

Why does Game of Thrones cost $70,000 to watch? What happens when you choose to believe that everything is your responsibility? And why do smart people not think that others are stupid?

Welcome back to How They Get Stuff Done. Today I’m speaking with Derek Sivers.

Derek Sivers has been a musician, a circus performer, an entrepreneur, and a TED speaker. He’s the founder of CD Baby, an online distributor of independent music. He’s written several books, including How to Live and Hell Yeah or No. Most recently, he’s been working on his latest book, Useful Not True.

Derek and I discuss choosing your beliefs, taking radical responsibility for whatever happens to you, the benefits of not having a to-do list, walking away from what doesn’t work for you, and more. Enjoy the conversation.

Find Derek over at sive.rs.

Why does Game of Thrones cost $70,000 to watch? What happens when you choose to believe that everything is your responsibility? And why do smart people not think that others are stupid?

Welcome back to How They Get Stuff Done. Today I’m speaking with Derek Sivers.

Find Derek over at sive.rs.

Previous Episode

Jack Ellis - How to Run a Company People-First

Jack Ellis is the co-founder of Fathom Analytics, a privacy-first Google Analytics alternative. Jack also teaches an online course on Laravel, a popular PHP framework, and hosts his own podcast, Above Board, where he discusses running an indie and bootstrapped software company.

Jack and I discuss:

How he runs his company people-first
What happens when you judge your employees on their work, rather than on other measures
Lightweight ways of collaborating with a small team
The importance of online privacy and how his company enables that
Why running a lifestyle business is just the best
Overcoming analysis paralysis
The big downside of working remotely—or is it even a downside?
Why I don’t give specific advice for people with ADHD (or other conditions)

And much more. Enjoy the show!

Find Jack:

JackEllis.me
Fathom Analytics, privacy-focused website analytics
Serverless Laravel, Jack’s course for Laravel developers
Above Board, the Fathom Analytics podcast, which Jack co-hosts

Also mentioned:

Things 3, my favorite task manager
Linear, a collaborative software development app
Tuple, a remote pair programming app

Next Episode

Judson Rollins - What To Do When Work Is Like Drinking From a Fire Hose

Is working in management consulting as glamorous as it seems? What’s the best thing you can do to improve your public speaking skills? How can you use different pricing strategies to scale up your business?

Welcome back to How They Get Stuff Done. Today I’m speaking with Judson Rollins. Judson is an aviation strategy consultant and a monetization architect for expert service providers who want to decouple their revenue from their hours.

Judson and I discuss finding the middle ground between perfection and acceptability, the pros and cons of time blocking, Judson’s favorite ways to capture ideas on the go and even in the shower, and more. Enjoy the conversation.

Find Judson:

Website: ScaleWhisperer.com
Judson on LinkedIn

How They Get Stuff Done - Derek Sivers - What Do You Need to Believe Right Now?

Transcript

Peter Akkies00:00:00.080

Why will it cost you $70,000 to watch Game of Thrones? What happens when you choose to believe that everything is your responsibility? And why do smart people not think that others are stupid? Welcome back to How They Get Stuff Done. Today, I'm speaking with Derek Sivers. Derek has been a musician, a circus performer, an entrepreneur, and a TED speaker. He's the founder of CD Baby, an online distributor of independent music. He's written sever