me in 10 seconds

I’ve been a musician, circus performer, entrepreneur, and speaker.

I’m a slow thinker, explorer, xenophile, and love a different point of view.

California native, I now live in New Zealand.

Me in 10 minutes?

See my “/about” page.

What am I doing now?

See my “/now” page.

Contact me

I love meeting people, and I reply to every email, so say hello.

articles about…

self-expansion
personal development, exploring, learning, expanding identity
Useful Not True
reframing: choosing a helpful perspective, understanding others
writing
writing, journaling, publishing
Anything You Want
entrepreneur lessons from starting, growing, selling my company
programming / tech
programming, web, servers, PostgreSQL, OS, home tech, code
Hell Yeah or No
fixing faulty thinking, making things happen, what’s worth doing
saying no
minimalism, enough, rejecting norms, self-reliance, satiability
How to Live
actionable directives, in a perspective taken to its conclusion
Your Music and People
considerate marketing, calling attention to your creative work
money and career
working, building, leading, business, direction
international
cultural psychology, amateur anthropology, understanding places
other people
interpersonal understanding, personal profiles
autobiography
stuff about me, ideally useful for you
this site
announcements and behind the scenes of my websites

my books

Derek Sivers hardcover books, stacked
Useful Not True book cover

Useful Not True

Doubt everything. No beliefs are true. Adopt what works for you now.

How to Live book cover

How to Live

My masterpiece. Best thing I’ve ever made. My soul in a book.

Hell Yeah or No book cover

Hell Yeah or No

Useful wisdom. Simple profound mental models to guide your decisions.

Your Music and People book cover

Your Music and People

Get your work to the world by being creative, considerate, resourceful, and connected.

Anything You Want book cover

Anything You Want

40 lessons for a new kind of entrepreneur. My tales of starting, building, and selling CD Baby.

See the foreign publishers of my translated books.

projects

Book Notes
detailed notes from the last 430+ books I’ve read
Now Now Now
a collection of sites that have a “what I’m doing now” page
Tech Independence
step-by-step instructions to set up your own server and break dependency on the cloud
Conversations in…
when I travel, I meet with people who have emailed me
Inchword
tools to help people translate books
Books that reference me
excerpts from books that have written about me
MusicThoughts
inspiring quotes about music, translated into Español, Français, Deutsch, Italiano, Português, Русский, العربية, 日本語, and 中文

interviews

You can listen to over 250 interviews, where I’m the guest.

Each one has audio, sometimes video, and a full transcript.

photos

Derek Sivers Derek Sivers Derek Sivers Derek Sivers

social?

tweets

book notes