Derek Sivers

Interesting framing, and definitely cutting close to some uncomfortable psychological questions. I don’t think I care much about being a high-performer for its own sake, but it definitely sucks to disappoint people. And I have the sense that there are people out there who experience a lot more joy and engagement with work, which is certainly something I want.

It’s possible that I just have the wrong personality to be a high-performer, and I should embrace being a somewhat overpaid flâneur. Or maybe I just haven’t found the right environment.

For now, I’ll keep following Derek Sivers’s advice [0] to relentlessly steer towards the things which give me that spark of excitement and motivation.

[0] https://sive.rs/compass

> It is easier to start with a monolith, find the right design and then split on the boundaries [..]

This reminds me of the discussion on let pedestrians define the walkways[0] [1]

"As time goes on, we get smarter. We learn more about ourselves or our customers — what we or they really want. Therefore, we’re at our dumbest at the beginning, and at our smartest at the end. So when should you make decisions? When you have the most information, when you’re at your smartest: as late as possible."

[0] https://sive.rs/walkways
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/oct/05/desire-paths-the-illicit-trails-that-defy-the-urban-planners

(I'm the guy he refers to in that post.)

If anyone reading this builds software like this, and releases it publicly, whether free or for sale, please let me know. I'd be happy to send people your way.

Because of https://sive.rs/dbt I get a few emails a week from strangers, asking if my software is public yet, or if not, what else I would recommend. (And I might never make my software public. It's too tied-in to my now-complex PostgreSQL system of everything.)

I'm definitely going to send people to Jakob's post here now. But if interested in this subject, please email me here:

https://sive.rs/contact

I liked this way to contact your subscribers, I received the other day. No tracking necessary and either engagement or pruning:

You signed up for my private email list at https://sive.rs/

... but since you've never replied, I can't tell if you're a real person.

Please reply to this email and say anything, ideally something about yourself like where you are in the world. Or feel free to ask any question.

(I read and reply to all. This part isn't automated. It's just me.)

If you don't reply, I'll assume you're not getting this, and delete this email (redacted) from my system.

>> I’ll contact someone if I loved their book or music or work. I’ll find a way to contact the author or the creator and say, “Holy shit. That was brilliant. I loved it. This was amazing. Count me as a fan.”

>> I’ve done this about 20 times. I never got a response only once or twice, but the rest responded warmly. Many of these people have turned into friends. We actually call each other on the phone and shoot the shit. A couple of them have even turned into best friends.

more here: https://sive.rs/2020-04-email

There's a great post[0] by Derek Sivers detailing how to find a good (short) .com

There are still plenty of short ones out there, and a common tactic is for people to work backwards from the domain, and call their brand/product/service the domain name instead of starting with a name and then trying to find a .com for it.

On the other hand, there are spammy/sketchy gTLDs like .cyou[1] which are mostly used by malware authors and spammers.

[0] https://sive.rs/com

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.cyou