Chris Ming, Author at Christopher Ming Blog

notes

Ramit Sethi’s interview Derek Sivers, creator of CDBaby

This week we’re listening to a great interview, conducted by Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You to be Rich, of Derek Sivers, the creator of CDbaby. Derek also blogs here.

The first time listening to this interview, my girlfriend and I were driving to Chatsworth for a lunch (yes, that’s correct — instead of a long, meaningful conversation, we hooked up the iPod and got our learn on. That’s true love.) and we followed Derek’s story of the creation and eventual sale of CDBaby on a beautiful Sunday drive, catching the sun at it’s peak as we came down the hill in Chatsworth.

If I had to sum themajor takeaway of the 1-hour interview, it’s with Derek’s one-line: “the standard is for chumps.” Derek illustrates the point far more eloquently with his example of crash course music school (cramming two years of music school into six weeks before he went to Berklee) but what he’s saying is that you don’t have to accept the pace determined for you by others. You don’t have to play by all the same rules. If you want to do something, you have to make it happen for yourself. And if they don’t let you, well, you should change it.

Click here to download the video

The link takes you to Ramit Sethi’s earn1k private list, which if you’re not on, I highly recommend you join, because he puts up such awesome free material, it’s ridicccculous. After you’ve downloaded, listened, maybe checked out Ramit’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich site or Derek Siver’s blog, come back here for other takeaways from this interview:

Takeaways:

08:12 – He lays out his dream scenario for CDBaby, which he broke down to four qualities: 1. get paid every week, 2. full name and address of everyone who buys the music, 3. never get kicked out because you don’t sell enough, 4. no paid placement. Whenever we start a project, do we think about “man, these are the core ideals that I want to hold onto?”

Not that you’ll have to hold onto them forever, or that they won’t change as the business or market changes. But it’s important to recognize what you’re striving for, even if you delineate from that original vision.

16:22 – After putting ~10 years into CDBaby, Derek realized he was finished, “the way a painter takes on final brush stroke, and realizes they’ve finished their painting.” So he sold the company, banking US$22 million.

17:37 – “Are you rich?” Ramit started to say “Yes. Rich isn’t really just a number… it’s about the journey, about what your values are. It’s not about the finality of a number.” They discuss what rich really means.

19:57 – “Ever since highschool, I’ve been making every decision with freedom as the compass, which direction, what decision will point you to freedom?” That’s why I don’t own many thing. Because everything you own is one little weight restricting your freedom.

22:17 – “The ones who shout ‘My country is number one!’ the loudest are the ones who never left.”

24:00 – Ramit talks about how hard Derek and he work. And I believe it, because you don’t achieve their level of success without working hard, so I don’t want to undermine his position on this. I just thought this was a moment worth noting because (especially in my industry) I feel like I’m constantly hearing about how hard people are working. (“Crazy busy” seems like a constant theme of conversation.) It just makes you want to remind people that everyone is busy, everyone is working hard. I feel that way myself. At the end of the day, no one’s going to remember how hard you worked, they’re only going to remember the results you achieved.

24:55 – “My nickname in highschool was the ‘robot’ because no one ever saw me sleep, or drink, or relax, or party. Kimo Williams was a real turning point in my life. I didn’t have a role model who set my expectations high enough. He set a new model for me.”

26:21 – “It moves at the pace of the lowest common denominator. You don’t have to accept the standard pace. The standard pace is for chumps. Whenever you hear anyone tell you this is how long it takes to get a degree, or to get this accredition, that’s for chumps. If you know what you want, you can go for it, and it’s not even with cheating, you just don’t accept the pace, you do it faster… It was like that scene in The Matrix, where Morephus teaches Neo how to fight in the simulated karate scene. In only 2 3-hour lessons, Kimo taught me 4 semester of harmony, in antoher 2 3-hour lessons, he taught me 4 semesters of arranging.” This resonates with a lesson taken from Irving “Swifty” Lazar, one of the greatest literary agents of all time, the King of the Deal, who changed the rules so quickly they ceased to exist. Who booked 3 (or 5, depending on the source) deals for Humphrey Bogart before supper. On a dare.

31:27 – “A typically musician will complain about the world and the state of the music, and say the radio only plays shitty music, and it’s all owned by corporations. Well, then let’s make a radio station. If you don’t like the distribution, make your own distribution. Gary Jules created a venue for people who just wanted to listen to music in Hollywood, while his friends complained about how everyone was just posturing in order to get a record deal, and that Hollywood was just crowded with Scenesters. So Gary just walked around until he found a venue (coffee shop)… called Hotel Cafe, and he convinced them to let him use the space. Now it’s a great place to play. Gary just made that place exist, and I love that mentality towards life. If you’re dissatisfied with it, change it.”

40:05 – When you find people who match the “what” you want in life, make sure they also match the “why” they want it too.

52:00 – A discussion on delegation “I had to teach them how to do everything I was doing. So if they asked a question, I made sure everyone heard the answer, and they understood the why, so they wouldn’t ask that type of question anymore.

Click here to download the video

Full Transcript of the Interview

Adam Ayer’s Cliff Notes on the video

If you skipped the link in order to just get my notes on it, definitely do yourself a favor and download it yourself. I wrote down the nuggets that resonated with me, and most of them care from Derek Sivers, probably because this is the first time I’ve heard him speak. Ramit’s dropped a handful of great tips as well, but because I’ve been listening to his material for a much longer time, it didn’t resonate to the same degree.

Photo Credit: Jim Roberts

notes

LEAN IN, Videos, and Evernote

The more I dig into Sheryl Sandberg’s LEAN IN, the more it feels like a gender studies book. I’m surprised at how surprised I am. I thought it was going to pull a reverse psychology trick on me, like, “Here’s this book that seems like it’s just a book about how women are treated differently in the work place… but it’s actually much more than that… except, it’s actually not.”

Perhaps I over thought the whole thing. Hardly outside the realm of possibilities.

I will say this for LEAN IN: the book opens with huge promise. Some highlights below, my notes in italics:

We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in.

*how many times in mid-conversation, or a pitch, if I even get a hint that their eyes are glazing over, do I pull back? The moment I felt like I may be imposing, I back off. I’d rationalize it as “reading the room,” when what I should do is lean in more.

I rarely heard anything, however, about the ways I might hold myself back. These internal obstacles deserve a lot more attention.

*her message is: work on yourself, too. It’s not just the institution or the situation or a million external forces holding you back. Work on what you can control and it’ll reflect in the world around you.

I do not believe that there is one definition of success or happiness. Not all women want career. Not all women want children. Not all women want both.

*After discussion with Amy: it’s not important to have an equal “50-50 split” on household chores or whatever. Instead, have a common goal. Working towards a common purpose. Show respect and gratitude for your partner’s work.

I have heard these criticisms in the past and I know that I will hear them — and others — in the future. My hope is that my message will be judged on its merits. We can’t avoid this conversation. This issue transcends all of us.

*How to deal with criticism: your message will not resonate with everyone. If you put your thoughts out to the world to be judged, they will be. You can only hope that your message will be judged on its merits, no more and no less.

This week I’ve also been listening to two amazing pieces:

Bryan Elliot of Behind the Brand interview with Tim Ferriss

Chris Anderson’s Ted Talk: How Youtube is Driving Innovation

After less than a month of using Evernote, I maxed out my free account’s quota. So I purchased Evernote premium and spent an hour over the weekend geeking out hard core and eliminating mad papers from the apartment.

Now documents that’ve been taking up space and gathering dust are accessible and searchable on the computer (e.g., story ideas written on index cards, travel documents, how to solve a rubiks cube scribbled down 4 sheets of loose leaf).

Photo Credit: BlogHerAnnual

personal development

What’s the Point in Writing About Self-Dev?

In March I had gone to see a taping of Conan on the Warner Bros lot. Colin Farrell was on the show, as was Jenna Elfman.

What sticks out most in my mind wasn’t Colin’s new movie trailer, or Jenna pantomiming a blowjob, but something I noticed afterwards, when the cameras finished rolling, and everyone rose from their seats, prepping for the mass exodus:

Conan O’Brien walks back to the set. A woman stands there waiting for him, probably a set PA. Without looking her in the eye or saying thank you, he hands her his microphone, then disappears behind the stage. The set PA disappears in the other direction.

It’s an innocuous thing, really. He wasn’t rude: he didn’t throw the mic at her, or like, spit on her or anything. But I believe the sum of our thousand innocuous actions throughout the day paint an accurate portrait of who we are and how we view the world:

Do you hold open doors for others?
Do you hold open doors for strangers?
Do you arrive on time?
Do you say “please?”
Do you say “thank you?”
Do you turn to the waiter when they greet you?
Do you greet them back or just start reciting your order?
Do you look them in the eye when you order or leave your face buried in the menu?
What about when you hand them the menu — do they deserve your attention then?
Or do you think none of that is necessary if you give them a 20% tip?
Do you know the names of your interns? Of your PA’s? Your assistants?
Do you thank them for their time?
For the scripts they cover and the unsolicited manuscripts they read?

Getting away with any of the above, without rebuke or reprimand, is a sign of higher status. In the dizzying rush to reach that status or level of success, it’s easy to say, “I’m going to emulate that behavior.” After all, people who’ve climbed to these levels reached it for good reason (not all, but many). It’s not hard to pick up bad habits.

There are stretches of days and weeks where I feel suffocated by these bad habits. Which is when I need to remember that I’ved worked for people who understand the concept of mutual respect. Gentlemen like Mark Teschner, who looks you in the eye when he shakes your hand, and remembers an actor’s name after a whirlwind casting session of 50 actors for one role.

I’m glad to read that even at the agencies, you still come across gentlemen like Sam Haskell, who Rob Carlson (partner at WME) described in THE MAILROOM by David Resin as “the best agent in that building”:

Because of his attitude and his personality, his ethics and his family values, he turned out to be probably the best agent in that building, and he did it by being different from everybody else. That was the biggest surprise for me: that you could be that great a person and still be amazing at your job. You didn’t have to be a jerk. You didn’t have to treat people like shit. You didn’t have to treat your assistants terribly. Every night Sam would walk out, and no matter how bad a day we’d had, or if I’d fucked up, he’d say, “Rob, thank you very much my friend. I appreciate it. Have a good night. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Every night.

There are times I wonder, “what is the point of this? What’s the point of listening and reading and writing about self-development?” Moments like the Conan-moment above remind me that for most of us, on a day-to-day basis, we can’t choose the people who surround us. We can’t always distance ourselves from their habits we’d like to avoid. But that isn’t our excuse for our own bad habits, because the behaviors we do want to emulate: good habits, mental frameworks, philosophies, strategies, and tactics — they’re never more than a click away.

Jim Rohn said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” So spend time with the right people — even if you have to pipe their words directly into your brain, from a podcast, or a book.

Photo Credit: mrehan

notes

The Rise to the Top Interviews Ryan Holiday

I’d been writing a screenplay and used Ryan’s book as a reference. Then I saw that David Siteman Garland had interviewed Ryan a while back and immediately downloaded the audio. The Rise to the Top Interview with Ryan Holiday covers Ryan’s book, TRUST ME, I’M LYING: CONFESSIONS OF A MEDIA MANIPULATOR (DSG’s affiliate link). I read the book when it first came out in July 2012) and watched Ryan speak at a signing at the Book Soup book store in West Hollywood.

Here’s the Interview

This interview serves as an excellent primer for Ryan’s book, which covers the techniques of the media strategist who’s worked with Tucker Max and American Apparel. For example, they talk about “moving up the chain” and that a blogger’s value comes from hitting quotas set for them. The book is marketed as a “how-to” in manipulating the media and defending yourself from manipulation, which I feel is a bit of a misrepresentation. The tactical analysis of Ryan’s methodologies aren’t very indepth, and I found a great deal of the latter half redundant.

Nor is the interview (or book) something I’d prescribe as a “must listen to” in the self-development track.

However, if you’re interested in understanding the mechanics of blogging and how it’s changed today’s media, this is a worthwhile interview (and the book, a worthwhile read).

Ryan and David also shared a handful of nuggets about his work, which I’ve included below.

*I don’t guarantee these are word for word quotes. Consider them more like very accurate paraphrasing. Italics are my notes, bold is mine.*

07:30 – RH “I’m a big proponent of the vertically integrated model, that you don’t make a product, ship it, and then decide how you’re going to sell it. For me, how can I put things in the book that are going to make people talk about it. How can I create a cover that’s going to create a spectacle and generate attention. How can I reach out to my contacts and get a base going and gather momentum. For me, I saw this book as an opportunity to prove the things in this book.”

The vertical integration model Ryan discusses below is what Seth Godin has been saying for years — marketing isn’t what Mad Men. Marketing is the product.

09:23 – RH “I saw Tucker was working with other writers and authors, and I thought, ‘I’m not old enough yet, but I want to do that someday. I want to be one of those people. I decided I was going to meet Tucker, work with him, and learn from him. So I waited until I had my chance… I wrote an article about him, knowing that Tucker liked to post articles about him that he liked… We started a relationship from there, and as a 18-19 year old kid, I sent him every question that popped into my head.”

Ryan’s message here is that he used a Charlie Hoehn method to connect to Tucker Max. Ryan had a strategy that took in account what he wanted and how he was going to get it. It’s an example that demonstrates if you want something, you can get it — you’ll have to be intelligent, strategic, and genuine, but you can get it. (I realize I may have the causation mixed up, as Ryan probably contacted Tucker Max before Charlie worked for Ramit, but I’ve always thought of this as the Charlie Hoehn method, as publicized in his Recession Proof Graduate and Tim Ferriss’ post, 12 Lessons Learned While Marketing ‘The 4-Hour Body.”)

RH – “Dov Charney of American Apparel saw that all the money Nike was saving by using these child workers in Indonesia was going to endorsements and Lebron James and the New York Times stores. And he thought this was an inefficient model. Dov decided he wanted to pay his workers a fair wage, but he wouldn’t use these kind of endorsements. So the question became, how do we market this global brand on what is essentially a shoestring marketing budget?”

37:43 – DSG “The cover is badass.”

RH “I hate business book covers. I wanted an amazing book cover. The designer who did this is amazing. She did Tucker’s book covers, she read the book and loved it. She asked me if she could make the cover, and I told her ‘I would kill to have you do it.’”

The cover artist is Erin Tyler. She also designed many (most? all?) of the blogs on the now defunct Rudius Media websites. I interviewed her for a cover story on blogs-to-books when I was at Rutgers, and I remember her being very accessible and sweet. She used to blog at The Bunny Blog, and her design work can be found at Erin Tyler Design.

Photos Credit: timferriss

notes

Reading: Going Paperless

Going Paperless is a blog post series by SF writer Jamie Todd Rubin that documents his process for removing paper from his life.

More than changing how I think about using paper (which it has), it changed the way I think about organizing my work flow. I’ll detail how this took place for another post, but if you’re interested in getting started, here’s my favorite post: Tips On How I Use Evernote to Remember Everything

While it does offer some tactics, the two major insights into Jamie’s methodology about going paperless are:

You do this because it can make your life more convenient and provides more time for what matters. If you feel it complicates your life, go back to what you were doing.
Don’t feel overwhelmed by trying to do everything at once. Implement the tactics slowly. Make habits, don’t fall
suspect to whims.

Photo Credit: Classic PDF

notes

Reading: Amarillo Slim’s Memoir – In A World Full of Fat People

I finished Amarillo Slim’s memoir, In A World Full Of Fat People as my non-work related read. For work reads, the challenge is dealing with volume, so they require intense focus, and brute forcing my way through manuscripts and scripts. Basically, it sucks 80 percent of the joy from reading. Allocating time for non-work related reads is my way of saying, “I never want to not enjoy reading.” One hand washes the other.

I broke into this memoir because I love gambling and books on gambling. I didn’t read it with the idea of finding takeaways…

But I just couldn’t help myself.

There are major correlations between his anecdotes and self-dev (maybe not self-dev exactly, but bear with me, I’m about to drop some education on the practical application of Slim’s gambling philosophy):

Amarillo Slim was one of the world’s greatest proposition gamblers. He bet he could beat “Minnesota Fats at pool with a broom, Bobby Riggs at table tennis with a skillet, and Evel Knievel at golf with a carpenter’s hammer.” But Slim’s philosophy to be a winning gambler was simple:

“I never make a bet unless the bet is already won.”

Put another way, in Slim’s words:

“I learned that there are people who love action and others who love money. The first group is called suckers, and the second is called professional gamblers, and it was a cinch which one I wanted to be.”

What he’s talking about, is preparation.

Slim would practice with a skillet at table tennis for weeks before setting up his mark. When another mark wised up to the skillet gambit, he’d practice for months with a coke bottle to break him.

He’d master every pool hustle there was until he could do it with a broom. Blindfolded.

And Slim had patience: he would take his time laying the trap for a sucker, losing a little at a time until he was “ready to break the sonuvabitch.”

A full write-up to follow, but my major takeaway is self-dev is preparation. You’re preparing yourself, arming yourself with abilities to win the bet you place on yourself. These bets can take on many forms:

A negotiation next week.
An interview three months away.
Business decisions of tomorrow that’ll influence you for years to come.

Bets are won and loss in the preparation.

Photos Credit: pokerwire

notes

Listening to: Jenny Blake Interview

I’m listening to David Siteman Garland’s interview with Jenny Blake of Life After College, on The Rise to the Top. I finished the interview yesterday, on my way home after my first visit to SoHo house. Which, by the way, I had zero idea on how to find the entrance to. #FirstWorldProblems.

The two major discussion points I found really interesting were:

1. The process of product development, from book deal to course creation.

2. Transition of a brand, as Jenny shifts her focus away from Life After College and into the next iteration of the Jenny Blake brand.

Full write up to come. In the meantime, here’s the link to watch (or if you’re a badass mofo like me, you can download the audio so you can listen while you get your swell on, and get ripped).*

*(There is zero correlation between listening to this podcast and getting ripped. Unless it’s a reverse correlation.)

Photo Credit: Swong95765

career

Time To Get Back To This

Time to get back to this. Yes.

I’m moving large chunks of the “Moving to Los Angeles” posts to another blog, one geared towards Los Angeles, the entertainment industry, and personal finance.

RSVP

I don’t mean it when I say I’m only here for the open bar.

Because the food is nice, too.

career

Rebuilding Part 3 – “Assist”

A week after returning to the restaurant, I was offered an assistant position at a literary management company. Which made things tricky: work six days a week, plus my own writing, plus night and weekend reading. It could be done, but did I want to put myself through that?

I thought about quitting the restaurant. I remembered my father reminding me over the phone, when I first arrived in Los Angeles, “Look after yourself. That’s enough right now. Just do what’s best for you.” That’s what quitting would have meant: looking out for numero uno, making things easier on myself. It didn’t feel right, though. I couldn’t quit, effectively spitting on their faces, after they so graciously took me back when I needed help.

So I do both. My writing and job suffer for it, but that’s the choice I made. On my day off, I squeeze in down time and grocery shopping, maybe the gym or changing the car oil. The juggling isn’t easy, and you have to be ruthless with time to get it done. When I first arrived in Los Angeles, I weighed the pros and cons on taking an assistant job if you want to write, and it’s as simple as: you make time for it. You (as BJ Fogg so adroitly puts it,) “prioritize so hard it hurts.”

Besides slowing down my writing, assisting has opened my eyes to plenty of other weaknesses. Issues that I deferred for years, for the sake of writing and work. These days I wish I addressed those years ago, but for lack of that option, will settle for now:

I don’t know shit about the entertainment or book industry. My boss called me into his office, and showed me a novel with a risqué cover, a woman’s hot mouth pressed against a bare shoulder. Then he asked me where he should pitch this project, a mild erotica-thriller (in the vein of 50 SHADES OF GREY.) I didn’t even bother bullshitting my way through a response. I had no idea, and that’s a problem.
I don’t know enough about Los Angeles, my own backyard.
Assisting has shown me how difficult the process of getting anything made is, how many moving parts there are in this arena. Everything must align. The pegs must be in the proper row at the proper moment to have impact on the world. For every great writer who says, “I just focused on the writing, I didn’t play the game or network. I just wrote in my voice and did what I thought was right, and I made it” (e.g., Hugh Howey’s wonderful post on his success with WOOL in the Huffington Post) there are a thousand artists who won’t get in front of the right people because they didn’t do their homework.
I don’t spend enough time building relationships with other people. Which says nothing about being shy versus friendly, introverted versus extroverted – (self-examinations rendered moot when you force yourself to commit the desired behavior.) What I mean is that I’ve made a habit out of putting work/writing above everything, to the detriment of maintaining strong friendships and relationships. That’s something I want in my life, and it can’t be done sitting in front of a computer as life passes outside the window. This in turn means…
Work focused, not just harder. There are only 24 hours in a day, and you can’t keep adding to-do’s to the top of the pile. Pinpoint exactly what I want to work on at any given time, and attack that. Identify what can fall to the wayside, and then let it. It all falls back to elimination, followed by prioritization

Ideally, I wouldn’t be 26 years old, still waiting tables on weekends to survive. In an ideal world, I could make it as a writer without working as an assistant first. But there are too many other things to be grateful for to dwell on this inconvenience as I work and rebuild, to have impact on the world.

###

Photo Credit: PCCare247