The Surprising Benefits of Working Weird and Awful Jobs (ft. Derek Sivers)
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Podcast
Mark Manson
4.8 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 28 February 2024
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Successful people talk a lot about what made them successful. But they're rarely asked about all the things that went wrong.
What about all of the things that failed? Or all the times they got fired? Embarrassed themselves? Spent time in jobs that were just plain weird or awful?
No one asks this stuff. Until now of course.
In this episode, I talk to my friend Derek Sivers about the weird and awful jobs that eventually led him to become a millionaire. From circus ringleader to founder of one the most successful music start-ups of our time, this guy has a story to tell.
Derek Sivers is the author of four books, founder of CD Baby which he sold for $22 million (then gave most of it away), and just an all-around badass.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | How does a circus clown end up becoming a multi-millionaire? |
| 0:03.8 | How does a bouncer get fired from a bar and then later get paid to go drink in that same bar? |
| 0:09.3 | You know, when people do podcasts with all these ultra successful people, it's always about their greatest successes. |
| 0:15.9 | What did they do right? |
| 0:17.1 | What were their best decisions? |
| 0:18.6 | How did they overcome the obstacles? |
| 0:20.4 | How did they figure out that genius chess move? |
| 0:22.8 | Then you're free to check the king. |
| 0:25.0 | Nobody asked them about all the things that went wrong. |
| 0:28.2 | All of the jobs and companies that failed, the times they got fired, |
| 0:32.2 | and of course, all of the times they embarrassed themselves and the career paths that didn't work. |
| 0:37.0 | So I decided to sit down with my old friend Derek Sivers and do just that. |
| 0:41.0 | See, it just so happens that Derek actually is the circus clown who ended up a multimillionaire. |
| 0:46.0 | He was the ringleader of a circus in his 20s before he went on the found CD-baby, |
| 0:50.0 | one of the most successful music startups of the last 30 years. |
| 0:54.3 | Now between the two of us, Derek and I have had some pretty weird and terrible jobs. |
| 0:58.7 | Telemarketing, investment banking, Japanese rock band, Derek got paid to harass college students while wearing a black |
| 1:05.6 | lycra suit. I'm not making that up, you'll hear all about it, and of course I got paid to take guys |
| 1:11.1 | to bars and help them pick up girls. |
| 1:13.5 | These are all the hard-earned life lessons of the career paths that didn't work out for us, |
| 1:18.4 | but inevitably made us who we are today. |
| 1:21.1 | This is how all of our unexpected failures helped us learn and |
... |
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