season 3, episode 3

Welcome to Musicians Tip Jar where we talk about musicians and money. Today we are jumping back in for the second half of our interview with CDbaby founder, Derek Sivers and we discuss the actual thing that separates the super successful from the rest.

Quote of the week

“You can do anything but you can’t do everything, you have to decide.” -Derek Sivers

I’ve been a musician, producer, circus performer, entrepreneur, TED speaker, and book publisher.

Monomaniac, introvert, slow thinker, and love finding a different point of view.

California native, I now live in New Zealand.

Non-profit of the week

Music Box Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization committed to creating programs designed to give students the opportunities to train in the field of music education and cultural arts. 

We believe all children, no matter where they live, where they go to school, or what special needs they may have, deserve to have a music education.  Music Box Foundation believes that music has the power to unify and strengthen our communities and provide inspiration and purpose to our youth. Music can ignite a passion for learning, keep children off the streets, and provide an exciting and lucrative career path.

Learn more at https://musicboxfoundation.org/

Episode: 63

Just as it’s often true that the second half of my set is the strongest, this last half of the interview with Derek just keeps cranking up the insights. Things are just getting warmed up! By the end you will better understand how solving problems is at the core of being an artist, what’s often been the secret to great success and how knowing your next step is a criterial next step in your development as a successful musician.

Derek Sivers is best known for starting the massively successful online distributor of independent music, CDBaby.  But he has given so much more since with many books. His newest book, Your Music and People, is loaded with value and motivation for the everyday musician. Please enjoy the second half of our chat with the one and only, Derek Sivers…

Dave Tamkin: One thing I use is Fiverr.com. And I'm not sure if you're familiar with them or not. But sometimes if I hire somebody, and they do a very good job at one creative adventure or task that I present them, and they don't know how to do something else, I'll often say I can teach you how to do this. And then in turn, then hopefully you can use that to help other people in your business that you have here in exchange for helping me out here. And I think because musicians know how to make websites, how to do social media buying or whatever, build your email funnel, they could teach other people how to do that as well.

CHRIS WEBB: And for us, I think both Dave and I, we do a lot of performance. That's kind of a lot of where we make our income. But there's lots of other ways teaching and selling music to film and TV and all you know all the different avenues pulled from chapter 76 In your book about pricing and putting yourself pricing and putting yourself into it. Right. And, and knowing your value and then being willing to hold on to that, like, what are some some ways that that you encourage people to find that value in themselves and then find ways to stick to it.

DEREK SIVERS: The biggest thing is to think of everything from the other person's point of view, which is the essence of the starving artist problem, right? So if I feel like it's hot in here in this room, right now, I don't think it's hot in here only for me, I think of it as a fact. It is hot in here. And if somebody else is cold, I'm confused. How can you be cold? It's hot in here, right? I don't think it's only hot. For me, it feels like a fact. So when we feel like our music is valuable. It feels like a fact like my music is valuable. This is good music. But it might just be that this is only valuable to you. Like the process you went through to write this song was valuable to you. And the end product of this song might not be valuable to other people. It might be but it might not be you have to start thinking outside yourself and think of everything you've created from the point of view of like a disinterested party who's just overwhelmed with stimulation. Why would your music be interesting to them? Not because of the of intrinsic reasons you created it, but for the extrinsic reasons that they'll be encountering it. When busy doing other things, right? So same thing with a venue, same thing. When you start thinking this way, then you think about it from the venue owners point of view. Why is this venue owner doing this? They could be doing many other things. So they've chosen to run a music venue. What do they really want out of this?

CHRIS WEBB: You brought up two more things. Let's let's bond this a little. Because you also said, You because You also said in the book that you need, you need to make sure that you're solving problems, right. How can you how can what you're doing, solve problems, have your music songs?

DEREK SIVERS: And I think that maybe that's one way of doing it. It's not the only way that you know, Bob Dylan wasn't writing songs to solve a problem for me, but I enjoy them anyway. The German band Rammstein isn't Rammstein around seen that there was a time lapse showing how much work is involved in setting up their stage show with all the pyrotechnics and stuff. And it was like six days of work to set up a Rammstein show and they had it and time lapse with all the you know, the the scaffolding going up and the pyrotechnics and all this, and then only in the final 90 minutes, does the band come out on stage and do their thing. And then it's days of teardown right. And it made me think about like God in a way that is so considerate. What they've chosen to do is to do the extra work to put on an entire sensory visual show for people knowing that when people when at least their fans go out to see a show, they want the full high stimulation, like more stimulation than a video game come up can offer right like something to pry them away from their screens at home, and get them to drive an hour off to a venue to do this. Because they get in front of their face and like the bass in their chest at the fireworks. And I think Damn, that's, that's some next level thinking. Yeah, it goes beyond this song that you initially plucked out on six strings. And, and turns it into this giant, consider it show. I really admire that it's not for everybody. But to me, that's an example of they're kind of solving a problem. Like how could we create a show that is so big and exciting that it will be more exciting than anything that this person could possibly have coming in through their screen at home?

Dave Tamkin: Yeah, it also speaks to your chapter about exploring everyone's senses. So appealing, says as far as you know, smell or like you just said that, you know, the base and their chest, you will like this. Something unique about Chris. And I don't know, Chris, if you want to share this, but he had a pick a language to graduate college with a music major, and he picked sign language. And they pushed back on. But he had to go out and do you know, interview all these people about how they, someone who can't hear, takes in music and feels that, Chris, if you want to talk more to that, but I thought about you when I read that chapter?

Chris Webb: Well, that's nice. Cool. I mean, the main thing that relates to right there is just that they they want to feel it too, right. Like they want to feel the emotional impact of what art does. And and they found in the Deaf culture, they have these parties that are very visual, like like that will probably be a really great place for a deaf person to go see a concert? Because all those other elements kind of offset their their inability to hear it. Right. They feel it with the bass, you say and so

yeah, I think that that show would deliver really well for them.

Derek Sivers: So, to wrap up what I said, solving a problem, you have to kind of loosen your definition of problem to think of what you're doing that way. So there are some examples in the book about like, like when I was running CD, baby, yoga music always sold really well. Christmas music always sold really well meditation, CDs sold well, because those were things that people were using, like, Okay, I'm having a Christmas party, I need to get some Christmas music to put on in the background.

I do yoga every day I want to put on some yoga music.

So those were music for a specific purpose. But yeah, if you think of like a Rammstein concert, or even just somebody wanting you to live the life that they wish they could if they could quit their dumb job and be free like they wish they were. And you're representing that freedom and the transparency of emotion and expression like that might be the problem that you're solving. It's being the fullest version of yourself the way that they wish they could be.

Chris Webb: That is so powerful. And I experienced that the most right after the lockdowns ended and COVID was sort of subsiding. And I remember playing a show and this man was Like, in tears like I was just playing a cover of a Van Morrison song. But you know he hadn't heard it in years and I was giving him something that was releasing something you know emotionally from him. And I was like wow, you know you sometimes forget that you're even doing that you forget that impact is always present right as an artist. Sorry what Van Morrison song was it into the mystic? Oh, what do you do for the saxophone part? I played on the guitar. I loop the he has a kazoo right

Dave Tamkin: nothing makes a man cry like this. Be honest with him, Chris.

Chris Webb: I teach a class on film and TV and like how to get your music onto film and TV. And that's always what I'm telling them is that your music all of a sudden takes new legs, when you can put it in the context of characters that people already care about, you know, wow, that's a really powerful way to like get people to care about your music. And that's worked for a lot of bands, right? They've they found their success by getting onto a show. First, you say something that I believe in to the core of our mission here at musicians tip jar in saying that you need to know your next step. We preach with this, this concept of knowing what you're doing next, what you're trying to do next. We preach that within the finance and budgeting and investing and all of the aspects that make your finances stable, can I ask some of the ways that you yourself, try to keep this idea of knowing your next step in part of your progress in life?

Derek Sivers: See, for me, I interpret that, I don't know if this is the way you meant it. But here's the way I use that concept is for daily motivation. I find that if I don't know my next step, and I mean, really like the next action that I will be taking in five minutes. If I don't know what it is, I procrastinate and I feel lost. And I will allow any distraction to pull me aside. But if I know what I need to do next, like specifically, contact this person say this or read this, learn this, like this, or even you know, fix the bridge to my song. Or in my case, like, you know, fix this bit of programming that allows people to put more than one book into their cart or whatever. If I know the next concrete step I need to take I'll do it and like stepping stones, I can keep doing that. Right. Like if I know all the next steps to take, I can keep going full of motivation. As soon as I don't know the next step. I just I feel lost and I'm like yeah, maybe I'll go get something to eat. What am I doing? Oh, call a friend, I get distracted. And when I catch myself doing that, I think Ah dammit I've, it's because I don't know the next step. And so I stopped but I take this vague cloud of what I need to do and chop it up. Yeah, and until I've got specific actionable goals, and once I have actionable goals, not to be confused with Lunchables. Then I can then suddenly I'm motivated then I jump into action right so i i highly recommend that to anybody but that's just like a generic universal motivational. It's like the book Getting Things Done by David Allen it's about that kind of stuff. Like breaking things down into their specific actionable can do it in five minute kind of steps. Yeah, even kind of even heard the founder of IKEA, who's like a, you know, 140 year old Swedish man saying that, but that's how he runs his days that he breaks his days into 10 minute segments. And that's how he gets so much done is always knowing like, so

Chris Webb: you're saying that that being that successful? Doesn't have some magic like mental gift that the rest of us don't have I don't understand. I I always feel like we have this impression like even the success that you have reached like it feels like you must know something the rest of us don't know. And then he was those other than the rest of us have never right you know some secret it right. But that's, that's I only say that because it's very inspiring that you that you that you allow us to feel the fact that really it's just our own mind that stopping us from moving towards what we want. Right?

Derek Sivers: Yeah. You know, and I mean, it's funny, you know, I've, I've been me for quite a while now. And sometimes I forget that I'm officially successful. But if I think back about like what did it he was really just like a few bold moves, you know, like, we'll start with taking the pig show gig saying yes to that when my friend said no, led to 10 years in the circus that was like from the age of 18 to 28, I performed at that circus, and did over 1000 shows that an average of, let's say, an average of $200 each, so I probably made $200,000. But more than that got amazing experience just what made me from performing over 1000 shows to very apathetic audiences. Sometimes, you know, it's an amazing performing experience, like to learn how to be a real entertainer, you know, not just a shoegazing guitarist, that I started as I learned how to work a crowd, you know, and it's, it was funny later, when I started performing in the college circuit, that it was the same tricks that I would use to get four year olds to stand up and dance the same trick worked on 22 year olds.

Yeah. That was funny to learn. So yeah, that was an amazing experience. But then, even like starting CD Baby was, it was just kind of a thing that I said yes. To actually, let me take something back. I started this paragraph saying a few bold moves. But no, it's actually just a few things that I said yes to, that other people didn't. That led to everything else, right. And then like CD Baby just kind of snowballed. It just built on itself. And it was the right timing, saying yes, to that one pig show led to 10 years of shows. And then, um, in the intro, you said TED speaker, you know, that was also just a thing, like, just one day, I was like, I want to speak at TED, like not TEDx, like the big Ted, I want to do that. How do I do that? And it just took like half an hour of searching and how to do it. And there's a submission form, and I submitted a form and they said, Yes, and invited me to speak at TED. And it was just like, a thing that I did. And because I did that, that led to other things. And that's about it. Like, I think there's only been like three or four things I did in my life that led to everything else. And I wouldn't be surprised if like the founder of IKEA was like, same thing, I probably just had an idea. So let's try this little thing and started this thing. And there are probably one or two other decisions along the way. Like maybe it used to be one shop, and he made this decision to franchise. It's interesting, if you read the autobiography of Sam Walton, I think it's called Made in America who started Walmart. The guys just totally humble, they can Bentonville, Arkansas, just making like a little Five and Dime shop. And he just makes one shop. But he just finds it really interesting. So he makes a second shop. And then says I think we need to spread out a bit, I'm going to make a third shop. And then Boy, I've got three shops. Now this is fun. I'm going to do more. And then that leads to Walmart. But it's totally the things that separate super successful people from the rest of us are often just a few moves like that.

Dave Tamkin: You also mentioned in this book that the dreams that you have planned, you sometimes don't want to concentrate on all the details, but work with one giving along the way. It seems like you did that with the pig, that you weren't expecting this future in front of you. But you're given a set of circumstances and you were able to make them work. But if you didn't concentrate on what you thought your next 10 years were going to be, you might have missed that altogether.

Derek Sivers: Oh, man, that's a great point.

Dave Tamkin: But this is your point. Yeah, I'm just stealing your words.

Derek Sivers: No, I like the way you put it better. And it's like if you're too focused on the mountains in the distance, you might not notice the flowers at your feet. Mm hmm. Cool. See, I like that better you laminate right? I should have said that like a deep southern drawl an old saying,

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Action:

1. Turn off the metronome for 5 minutes and take a deep breath with the understanding that when you look back it's about being willing to say yes that might make all the difference.  SO when that next nerve racking but exciting opportunity comes your way.  Your action is to say YES.

** We know how valuable your time is, we appreciate you for spending this time with us and being a part of this community. It is our hope that you feel that sense of community here at musicians Tip Jar and help us spread the word to make us stronger together.

Ways to connect with us:

Derek’s info: https://sive.rs/

Email is at: Musicians Tip Jar@gmail.com

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As always, Thanks for joining us and remember there is already enough for everyone, you just need to know how to get it.  Until next time, on behalf of Dave Tamkin and myself, Chris Webb, we wish you great happiness, health and wealth. Let this episode serve as a simple reminder; Looking too far ahead can cause you to miss the most important stuff right under your nose. This is Musicians Tip Jar

*Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax legal business or financial professional for individualized advice. Individual results are not guaranteed and all discussed strategies have the potential for profit and loss. Those are operating on behalf of musicians Tip Jar LLC exclusively.