Last updated on September 14, 2023
I first became familiar with Derek Sivers in 2015 after hearing him on the Tim Ferris podcast. Shortly after I read his first book, Anything You Want, which was recently re-released with additional chapters.
Today I listened to his latest interview on Tim’s podcast. It’s a great episode, and clocks in at a strong three hours. The entire interview is great, but I want to share one thing I learned. If you’d like to listen to it, this part begins around the 2:11:00 mark.
Derek is talking about video games. He shared about how there is the temptation to continue playing even after you’ve beaten the game; even after there are no additional rewards. Then he said, “Isn’t that the definition of addiction?” He then defines addiction as “Continuing a behavior even though it’s not rewarding you anymore.”
Then he made the jump to how he thinks about making money. He said, “It’s a game I decided to stop playing because I had enough.” Understanding what you need, and then making the intentional decision to stop once you get there, is something I’ve been thinking about for awhile now.
Sivers shares two examples of people who have done this. Gotye wrote the song “Somebody that I Used to Know” in 2011. It was a huge hit, and could have carried him for years. Yet a couple of years later he retired. He decided that he didn’t want to be singing that song for the rest of his life.
Cameron Diaz was the 5th highest grossing actress, and yet she too decided to quit. She wanted something different from life.
Sivers then referenced Felix Dennis, the author of How to Get Rich. He said that he read that right after selling CD Baby and had a lot of money. He made the decision to put the company in a trust before the sale, which meant that he never touched any of the $22 million it sold for. I believe I read that he receives a small percentage every year, which pays all of his expenses. He knew that he didn’t need $22 million.
Here’s the quote he shared from Felix Dennis that impacted him: “If I had my time again, knowing what I know today, I would dedicate myself to making just enough to live comfortably, as quickly as I could, by the time I was 35. I would then cash out and retire to write poetry and plant trees.”
Sivers decided to heed this advice. He quit the game of making money. And it seems to me that he continues to bear fruit as a result of this intentional and counter-cultural decision.
So why do we continue to make money when we have enough? It seems like a simple thing, yet it is very normal. I don’t know if it’s the case for everyone, but I see two primary reasons for why we do this.
First, we continue to play the game because we fear that the money will run out. It’s just human nature, and the amount of money that we have in the bank is the not the primary indicator. We can live with a scarcity mentality, or we can live with an abundance mentality. It takes discipline, but it’s our choice.
The second reason we continue to play the game of making money is that it makes us feel better about ourselves. I believe that we were created to be creators and cultivators. This is part of our core identity. Yet it’s so easy for it to be taken to an extreme and become corrupted.
It’s important to understand your motives for making money. It’s important to understand your motives of why you want to do a certain deal. Sometimes we make money because we need to eat. That’s where things start. But as we get older and grow in our careers, our motives change.
Our identity is tied up in our work. When we are producing, we feel better about ourselves. Ego can be a good thing, but it can also lead us into dangerous territory.
In a future post I plan to share how I’ve been working through this issue in my own life and business.