Derek Sivers
Derek Sivers official site. Thoughts on philosophy, culture, self-improvement. Author of Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want.
- Posts
- 634 from 1 Jan 2000 to 18 Oct 2026
- Posting
- weekly (105 in the last year)
- Kind
- personal blog
- Feed
- https://sive.rs/feed.xml
2026 77
- Istanbul Tűrkiye - 12 days in 10 neighborhoods, meeting up with 30 local people for 60 hours of conversation
- What am I doing now
- no AI
- sive.rs/met/at-16
- Bangalore India hospital flow
- international
- Reflections and Moral Maxims - by François duc de La Rochefoucauld
- Building without predicting
- saying no
- Turkey - Culture Smart - by Charlotte McPherson
- On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes - by Alexandra Horowitz
- Private Revolutions - by Yuan Yang
- the foreign publishers
- Writing for Emotional Impact - by Karl Iglesias
- Prepare your “no” and keep it handy
- My life was changed by four sentences in four books
- autobiography
- Geography is four-dimensional
- Netizen
- Cambridge Language Surveys: Chinese - by Jerry Norman
- You Can Just Do Things - by Cate Hall and Sasha Chapin
- Travelling While Black - by Nanjala Nyabola
- Tribal - by Michael Morris
- Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness - by Patrick House
- Elephant in the Brain - by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson
- China in Ten Words - by Yu Hua 余华
- I was inconsiderate but now I’m everywhere
- this site
- About my book notes
- Offline 23 hours a day
- Maintenance of Everything, part one - by Stewart Brand
- You’re Not Listening - by Kate Murphy
- You Will Not Stampede Me - by Bryan Caplan
- More books on this subject
- What next?
- Reframing death
- You are what you pretend to be
- Keep tuning and adjusting
- Take the first step immediately
- Why your choice is wrong
- Talk with friends to solidify it
- Private journal to internalize it
- No new instructions for the computer
- From explorer to self-leader
- How to decide and make the best choice
- An awesome collection of great questions
- Five tiny tales of reframing
- Kingdom of Characters - by Jing Tsu
- Traits of useful perspectives
- Expand your repertoire
- Diamond in the trash
- Answer great questions
- Who chooses your (next) thoughts?
- The most useful part of this book
- Philosophies are instruments
- What is “the truth” really for?
- Life is _______
- Placebo meanings
- Magic mirror shows what you need to believe
- Which perspective empowers you?
- Judge the contents, not the box
- Carpenters’ tools
- Religion is action, not belief
- Useful?
- Beliefs → emotions → actions
- A daily run and imagination
- Bowling: curve into the target
- Fill your senses with reality
- Your first thought is an obstacle
- The more emotional the belief, the less likely it’s true
- Existentialism: A Beginner’s Guide - by Thomas Wartenberg
- At the Existentialist Café - by Sarah Bakewell
- Beliefs are not facts
- Make believe
- Hanging inherited paintings
- Re-edit your mind’s movies
- You can’t trust your mind
2025 60
- You are the strange one
- That was about you, not them
- Bridge guard, revisited
- Fake or real? True or false? So what?
- Even science isn’t true
- Wanna bet?
- Argumentative Indian - by Amartya Sen
- The past is not true
- Memories are not accurate
- The brain invents explanations
- Try to find their incentives
- Cultural meanings
- Obligations are not true
- Rules are a starting point, not the final answer
- Bridge guard
- Separate events and interpretation
- People share perspectives, not facts
- No picture is the whole picture
- Perspectives feel real
- What time is it?
- Factfulness - by Hans Rosling
- What’s this about?
- Art of Spending Money - by Morgan Housel
- Charisma Myth - by Olivia Fox Cabane
- Rule Makers, Rule Breakers - by Michele Gelfand
- How to Know a Person - by David Brooks
- In Praise of Commercial Culture - by Tyler Cowen
- Book Notes
- Expert Author Community by Kelly Irving
- speaker
- Community Collective by Paz Pisarski
- Victory Degree by Nik Atanackovic
- Learning Leader by Ryan Hawk
- Get Yourself Optimized by Stephan Spencer
- Less Clueless by Steve Sima
- Spaghetti to Bento by Alexandre Petit
- Abundant Thinking by Elan Gelfand
- Between Views by Alec Kosky
- WanderLearn by Francis Tapon
- Icons by Motiversity by Tyler Waye
- Going Solo by Matthew Mayer
- Polish Anything You Want by Krzysztof E. Socha-Zalewski
- Focused by David Sparks and Mike Schmitz
- Crazy Good Turns by Frank Blake
- Kyle Thiermann
- Community Collective by Paz Pisarski
- Blind Blaming by Kevin St. Clergy
- Drink and Think by Tate Hackert
- Reframeables by Rebecca and Natalie
- Less Clueless by Steve Sima
- Patterns of Success, Freedom, and Happiness by Oskar Woehr
- Ike Inspiration by Ike Okwerekwu
- Think Like a Game Designer by Justin Gary
- The Armen Show by Armen Shirvanian
- Why did I move to New Zealand?
- How to listen to Ulysses
- self-expansion
- the birth and reverb of friendship
- a relationship that ended, not failed
- Have I been married?
2024 26
- Why are my best friends Jewish?
- One big choice shapes a hundred more
- Come and get me (both you and AI)
- I’m in the final third of my life
- I love the contradiction of religions
- The first time I met someone who believes in God
- Dismissed!
- I hated Dubai until I learned about it
- To question is to consider, not refute
- Rats are surprisingly sweet pets
- We don’t need to use what we make
- money and career
- Wealth = Have ÷ Want
- How to sync Mac and Linux /home
- programming / tech
- How to make the best possible translation of a book?
- Useful Not True
- How and why to make a /now page on your site
- the best book ever written
- Ben Kihnel
- other people
- It shows what you need to believe
- AI gives the news you need
- How to learn JavaScript
- How I backup
- Esperanto, Toki Pona, Swahili, Indonesian
2023 16
- walk and talk
- The past is not true
- dashing dog, searching for purpose
- $575K of books sold. $575K to save lives.
- The joy and freedom of harmlessly upsetting social norms
- Why I let go of my U.S. citizenship
- the Michael Browne suits
- Curve into the target
- Thinking something nice about someone? Tell them.
- 50 conversations in Bangalore and Chennai
- Explorers are bad leaders
- Travelling just for the people
- Want anonymity? Make a persona not a mystery.
- I want to lose every debate.
- Conversations with Tyler Cowen
- Reading the Bible start to finish
2022 22
- Make believe
- Daily run, part two
- Static HTML comments
- Daily run, part one
- Your explanations are not true
- Shortest date, and ketchup
- full-length videobook for “Your Music and People”
- Anything You Want — third edition for 2022
- Scuba, panic, empathy
- Writing one sentence per line
- The joke that changed my life
- Find a good available .com domain
- Travel is best with young children
- Short URLs: why and how
- Anything You Want
- Ancestors, Luck, and Descendants
- Why I left America
- Write plain text files
- Database triggers to clean text inputs
- Generate unique random values directly in the database
- Database functions to wrap logic and SQL queries
- Database trigger recalculates totals, for data integrity
2021 32
- Conclusion
- Balance everything.
- Make change.
- Make a million mistakes.
- Don’t die.
- Create.
- Htl22
- Reinvent yourself regularly.
- Get rich.
- Live for others.
- Prepare for the worst.
- Laugh at life.
- Follow the great book.
- Htl15
- Value only what has endured.
- Chase the future.
- Be a famous pioneer.
- Do whatever you want now.
- Pursue pain.
- Let randomness rule.
- Master something.
- Make memories.
- Intertwine with the world.
- Think super-long-term.
- Do nothing.
- Fill your senses.
- Commit.
- Be independent.
- Considerate book pricing
- How many pets do you have?
- How to Live
- a random page
2020 3
2019 43
- Time is personal. Your year changes when your life changes.
- Experiments in music and life
- Writing daily, but posting when ready
- How I got rich on the other hand
- Podcast published today
- When in doubt, try the difference
- Why experts are annoying
- What you learn by travelling
- PostgreSQL example of self-contained stored procedures
- Mastery school
- Monthly self-expansion project
- Living according to your hierarchy of values
- How to ask your mentors for help
- When you win the game, you stop playing
- Digital pollution
- Cut out everything that’s not surprising
- Heed your fears
- Daydreaming is my favorite pastime
- Anti-chameleon
- Where we do and don’t want automation
- Human nature to focus on the one bad thing
- Back and forth between super-hot and super-cold
- Err on the side of action, to test theories
- Blowing off work to play
- What happens when we ignore plans?
- Tour -isms
- Meta-considerate
- Daydreaming the downside, for once
- Where to find the hours to make it happen
- Your heroes show which way you’re facing
- Don’t quote. Make it yours and say it yourself.
- Have a private email account
- Future posthumous autobiography
- Cross the world four times
- What I did belies why
- Would you make your art if you were the last person on earth?
- Travel without social praise
- Travel without a phone
- initialize
- My old clothes don’t fit
- Doors and windows and what’s real
- I’ve moved from New Zealand to Oxford England
- Benefits of a daily diary and topic journals
2018 31
- Subtract
- The art of selfishness
- You don’t need confidence, just contribution.
- Unlearning
- If you’re not feeling “hell yeah!” then say no
- About this book
- OpenBSD : why and how
- Moving for good
- Detailed dreams blind you to new means
- Include everyone in your success
- My writing process
- Keep in touch
- Be an extreme character
- Get specific!
- What it means to be resourceful
- Rock stars have a boss?
- Never wait
- The higher the price, the more they value it
- Considerate communication
- Creative communication
- Get personal
- Pedestals prevent friendships
- Use the internet, not just companies
- Move to the big city
- Why you need a database
- Shed your money taboos
- Pricing philosophy
- Art doesn’t end at the edge of the canvas
- It’s hard to get off stage
- “Marketing” just means being considerate
- Repeatedly follow-up to show you care
2017 8
2016 31
- Quitting something you love
- Solitary socialite
- Frequently Asked Questions
- How to do what you love and make good money
- Tilting my mirror (motivation is delicate)
- Why are you doing?
- I’m a very slow thinker
- Keep earning your title, or it expires
- When you’re extremely unmotivated
- Disconnect
- Don’t add your two cents
- Possible futures
- Singing the counter-melody
- How to thrive in an unknowable future
- How to stop being rich and happy
- What to do when you get successful
- Do this. Directives — part 1
- How to be useful to others
- How to get rich
- How to like people
- Don’t start a business until people are asking you to
- Interviews at sive.rs/i
- Why I don’t promote
- Happy, Smart, and Useful
- Assume men and women are the same
- Beware of advice
- Overcompensate to compensate
- How to take a compliment
- Why I don’t want stuff
- Should you learn programming? Yes.
- Switch strategies
2015 7
2014 20
- How to change or build your career
- Fixed mindset vs Growth mindset
- I love being wrong
- You can afford to be generous
- Lose every fight
- Every interaction is your moment to shine
- Customer service is everything
- The philosophy of great customer service
- Loving what I used to hate
- The Meaning of Life
- Change careers like Tarzan
- What if you didn’t need money or attention?
- How will this game end?
- Imitate. We are imperfect mirrors.
- Understanding Singapore
- Understanding Vietnam
- Understanding Indonesia
- Understanding Japan
- Same word. Different places? Different meanings.
- Wood Egg 2014 books are on sale now
2013 14
- Jac Holzman
- Why am I here?
- Why my code and ideas are public
- OK Milt, I’ll start writing again
- Fragile Plan vs Robust Plan
- Wood Egg (my new company)
- Some will always say you’re wrong
- No rules in this game
- Seeking inspiration?
- The Great Movies
- Human Intervention as a Competitive Advantage
- It’s all who you know?
- Focus, entertain, or both?
- Memorizing a programming language using spaced repetition software
2012 5
2011 36
- Friends from memory
- The co-op business model: share whatever you’ve got
- 232 sand dollars
- Procrastination hack: change “and” to “or”
- You make your perfect world
- Delegate, but don’t abdicate
- Make it anything you want
- It’s about being, not having
- Prepare to double
- It’s OK to be casual
- Little things make all the difference
- The most successful email I ever wrote
- Like you don’t need the money
- Care about your customers more than about yourself
- You don’t need a plan or a vision
- Why no advertising?
- Proudly exclude people
- Formalities play on fear. Bravely refuse.
- Start now. No funding needed.
- The advantage of no funding
- Just like that, my plan completely changed
- If it’s not a hit, switch
- This ain’t no revolution
- A business model with only two numbers
- Make a dream come true
- Just selling my CD
- What’s your compass?
- Ten years of experience in one hour
- Anything You Want (my first book)
- Projecting meaning
- Fish don’t know they’re in water
- Don’t be a donkey
- I moved to Singapore
- Any questions?
- There’s no place like home
- Delegate or die: the self-employed trap.
2010 22
- Obvious to you. Amazing to others.
- Why wreck a blank canvas?
- The day Steve Jobs dissed me in a keynote
- KarmaList wishlist?
- Valuable to others, or only you?
- Quit quirks when working with others
- My loss
- I assume I’m below average
- How to get hired
- How to hire a programmer to make your ideas happen
- After fifteen years of practice
- How I became Ryuichi Sakamoto’s guitarist
- Naïve Quitting
- Thursday = Thor’s day
- A real person, a lot like you
- Flip it in your favor
- First Follower idea is all yours
- First Follower: Leadership Lessons from a Dancing Guy
- Don’t punish everyone for one person’s mistake
- There are always more than two options
- Big catalog = infinite specialty shops
- Seth Godin on spreading music and selling intimacy
2009 82
- Papa Bill: I don’t need to worry about you.
- Put buskers online
- "Online" marketing = "Color" TV
- Why I gave my company to charity
- There’s no speed limit
- Shine a spotlight on one idea at a time.
- The challenge: Don’t speak in future tense.
- Trust, but verify
- Let pedestrians define the walkways
- Fela Kuti
- Confidence required
- If you think you haven’t found your passion…
- Doesn’t feel like work (or I’ve forgotten)
- Learning the lesson, not the example.
- How I knew I was done with my company
- You should feel pain when unclear
- How do you grade yourself?
- Not happy with existing venues? Make a new one
- What’s the difference between like, love, and in-love?
- And if only 1% of those people…
- Does your company really want to hang out with me?
- Biking
- Venue for audience to mix their own audio
- Emphasize meaning over price
- Is there such a thing as too much freedom?
- Write? Write. Sleep? Sleep. Read? Read. Don’t fight it.
- Safety
- Imagining lots of tedious steps? Or one fun step?
- Does it help to be desperate? Part 2
- Does it help to be desperate?
- Climbing ladders
- My heroes
- Kurt Vonnegut explains drama
- How to send personalized emails
- Sprezzatura
- What do you hate not doing?
- Musician’s own website as definitive source of all info
- No “yes.” Either “HELL YEAH!” or “no.”
- A computer that would require kids to be creative to use it
- I miss the mob
- Listen to my music, and let me know what I should do
- Barking
- Tom Williams, hired by Apple at 14
- The power of no reward
- The mirror: It’s about you, not them.
- Semi-experts: profit by saving us time
- Nothing to waste: The advantage of being under-funded
- Version 0.1 = Start lo-fi
- Early drafts of great work are encouraging
- Doing the opposite of everyone is valuable
- Japanese addresses: No street names. Block numbers.
- Customers given too many choices are 10x less likely to buy
- Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them
- That’s version infinity. First launch version 0.1.
- Show success before asking for help
- Why you need your own company
- Books that reference me
- MusicThoughts update : inspiring quotes for music-makers
- How to make a movement. Lessons learned from dancing guy.
- You have enough.
- Are you present-focused or future-focused?
- Some people like to pay. Let them
- Are fans telling friends? If not, don’t promote
- The security of no security
- What super-power do you want?
- You need to be profitable to last
- My $3.3M mistake
- Have you looked under the chickens?
- Not what it used to be!
- Character predicts your future
- Sammy Cahn said thank you
- Goals shape the present, not the future.
- Accelerate change
- Aimee Mullins
- My favorite fable
- What do you do for feedback on a new song you’re writing?
- Ideas to Reality
- A free, open song contest idea
- MusicThoughts.com
- Amber Rubarth on being a full-time touring musician
- Advice for a 19-year-old guitarist who wants to be a session musician.
- Complainers
2008 39
- Don’t... if you think it’s going to make you happy
- Getting past it
- Assume nobody is going to help you
- Happiness is letting someone make you the villain
- How to attend a conference
- Make mystery : make people wonder
- Real rebellion is going to school wearing a clown suit
- This is just one of many options
- Are foreign accents a reflection of identity?
- Nobody knows the future, so focus on what doesn’t change
- The Grand Pursuit
- Uncomparable: anchor a new mama
- Are you at the starting line or the finish line?
- Mastering entrepreneurship?
- Small actions change your self-identity
- Iceland
- 6 things I wish I knew the day I started Berklee
- I interview Tim Ferriss about the 4-Hour Workweek
- Reversible business models
- Bye-Bye, Baby!
- Ah, to own nothing!
- Songwriters who don’t perform
- Action-Reaction
- A Musician’s Advice About the College Market
- Selling music by solving a specific need
- How was India?
- Don’t promote until people can take action
- two three four ONE, two three four ONE
- Aim for the edges
- Restrictions will set you free
- Eliminating the time between thinking something and doing it
- If I had a record label, would you be signed to it?
- Circle of influence — Circle of concern
- Piracy is not the problem
- What should I do when someone says, “Let me know what you think!” of their music?
- Never have a limit on your income
- Whatever scares you, go do it
- Happy 10th Birthday to CD Baby — and an announcement
- The strength of many little customers
2007 2
2005 1
2000 52
- Compass in your gut
- Ignore advice that drains you
- Stay in over your head
- You don’t get extreme results without extreme actions
- Be a competent novice, not an expert
- Have someone work the inside of the industry
- Assume the basic sale, and go for quantity
- Get rejected, get filtered
- Photos of your audience on your website
- Put your fans to work
- Call the destination, and ask for directions
- Your interactive website
- Promo bits, ready to copy
- Or you can not talk at all
- Describe your music like a non-musician
- Without a good reason, they won’t bother
- Hillbilly Flamenco
- Don’t know how to describe your music?
- Make people curious in one sentence
- When your music can’t speak for itself
- Shining example: Rayko
- Life is like high school
- Small gifts go a long way
- Don’t be afraid to ask for favors
- Always think how you can help someone
- Meet three new people every week
- Stay in touch with hundreds of people
- Persistence is polite
- Don’t be a mosquito
- Every breakthrough comes from someone you know
- Captain T
- Business is creative
- This is only a test. See what happens
- Direct it yourself
- Was 10%, now 90%
- A good plan wins no matter what happens
- Test marketing
- Well-rounded doesn’t cut
- A hundred actors on stage
- Don’t try to sound big
- Touch as many of their senses as you can
- People search harder for the obscure
- If you target sharp enough, you will own your niche
- The most expensive vodka
- Proudly exclude most people
- A curious answer to the most common question
- Use the tricks that worked on you
- Constantly ask what they really want
- How to get through the gates?
- It’s just people inside the machine!
- What’s inside this book
- Some quick context for these stories