anything you want

Derek Sivers is a deep thinker, a restless explorer, a prolific creator, and an active lifelong learner.

He has reinvented himself many times over: musician, circus ringleader/MC, computer programmer, entrepreneur, TED speaker, resident of numerous cities and countries around the world, and author of books that are both philosophical and filled with highly pragmatic advice.

In this conversation, we cover a lot of ground: how to get luckier, the importance of environment, the worst day of Derek's life, becoming more self-aware through the practice of journaling, and much more.

Derek is my kind of human: thoughtful, generous, self-reflective, brimming with intelligence and enthusiasm, a pursuer of his own dreams and an encourager of others pursuing theirs, and a living reminder that there are other ways of doing things than those we are simply accustomed to or conditioned for.

Derek Sivers Links:
Website: sive.rs (go here for all things Derek, including his books, his blog, and a contact form he encourages you to use to connect with him directly!)

About Your Host, Eric Teplitz:
Website: http://ericteplitz.com/
Schedule a FREE coaching consultation: http://ericteplitz.com/work-with-me/
Access a FREE preview of Eric's online course "Opening to Greater Possibilities": https://ericteplitz.thinkific.com/

Derek Sivers: How to be More Happy, Creative And Purposeful (RL #16)

Links Discussed:

• Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur: Derek Sivers
• Kimo Williams: There’s no speed limit | Derek Sivers
• Mr. Money Mustache
• sivers.org/balance
• Making Money | Small Business Advice from Jason Fried of Inc.com | Inc.com
• Project management software, online collaboration: Basecamp
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life (Mark Manson Collection Book 1) Mark Manson
• Mark Manson - Author. Thinker. Life Enthusiast.
• Seth’s Blog
• How to Live | Derek Sivers
• Your Music and People | Derek Sivers
• Hell Yeah or No | Derek Sivers
• About Benny - Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips
• Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World: Benny Lewis
• What I’m doing now | Derek Sivers
• sites with a /now page
• Happy Smart & Useful | Derek Sivers
• John McWhorter, Ph.D. The Great Courses
• Sivers.org/book
• Movie reviews and ratings by Film Critic Roger Ebert | Roger Ebert
• Ace in the Hole movie review & film summary (1951) | Roger Ebert
• Amber Rubarth on Spotify | ‎Amber Rubarth on Apple Music
• Claude Debussy on Spotify | ‎Claude Debussy on Apple Music
• Abida Parveen on Spotify

Derek on the web:

• Sivers.org
• Twitter: @sivers
• Derek's TED talks
• Derek's Podcast
• Tim Ferriss: Derek Sivers on Developing Confidence, Finding Happiness, and Saying "No" to Millions (#125)

Josh + Renaissance Life:

• Daily Blog: RenaissanceLife.com
• Instagram: Renaissance.Life
• Twitter: @wiggidwags
• Newsletters: Considerations | Bookaholics | Practices
• Leave a Review for the Renaissance Life on Apple Podcast
• Support the Renaissance

A Few Favorite Takeaways:

"I get inspired by Ideas. But I've also noticed that I get really, really inspired by serving others."

“You can’t actually pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Right? Like that's an old slang saying, but ultimately you have to be lifted by those around you. Meaning you can't just act like it's only you in this world and you're going to get some passive income somehow and just think about nothing but yourself.”

“My happiest creative friends I know are the ones who balance making money with making their art."

On Learning Something New:

1. Find a good book and focus.
2. “Then my next bit of advice for learning something new is to set up a or find multiple teaching sources, like say like a video course and three different books. I found the hard way that different perspectives really help you see something clearly.” “Have different teachers teach you the same thing, meaning, [from] different sources.”
3. And then lastly, deliberate practice where You understand that learning something means you're going to have to not just sit and read about it, but, but do it.

Q: Is this really helping me or hurting me?

Last Two:

A question to ask yourself:

“Find the opposite point of view of anything that you currently think is true. Just pick something that you think of as true right now. And find a way to think about the opposite of it. (and good luck doing that with politics.)”

Challenge / Action Step: Email Derek :)