Derek Sivers
Derek Sivers
Derek Sivers is an American entrepreneur best known for being the founder and former president of CD Baby, an online CD store for independent musicians. A professional musiciansince 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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth22 September 1969
CountryUnited States of America
There are plenty of millionaires who would pay millions to hang a Van Gogh painting on the wall, but hardly one that would have ever had the crazy nut over for dinner. I feel like the big companies are like that with musicians. They'll say, 'We love music! It's all about the music!' - but if a musician shows up at the door, they call security.
Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it.
For years, I'd say yes to almost everything, trying to be nice and generous. Feeling obliged to be of service to the world. Maybe also a fear of being forgotten if I don't. But I paid the ultimate price in doing that, because for all those years, I got almost no work done! Some famous authors have written about this: that if they said yes to every request, then they'd never have time to write another book again.
Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what’s not working.