Do As I Do
In December 2023, I decided to sign up for Derek Sivers’ email list. I’d first encountered him from a Tim Ferriss interview that stuck with me a while before then, and had recently started re-engaging with his work. When I sent the signup email, I expected an automated confirmation. What I didn’t expect was a thoughtful reply from Derek himself.
He thanked me for writing, welcomed me, and included a few links to essays he thought I might find useful. Later, when I followed up with some personal context about my own winding path, he replied again, short, simple, and human. No team signature, no “do not reply,” no layers of gatekeeping. Just a person on the other side of the screen.
That exchange was a small thing, but it landed with me in a big way. It wasn’t just that he responded; it was how. Direct. Generous. No wasted words. He modeled, without explicitly saying it, how to run a business: treat people as people. Make the interaction itself valuable. Share resources freely, not because they’ll convert into leads or sales, but because they might actually help.
It made me reflect on how I approach my own work. Whether I’m connecting an artist to a client, pitching a story, or brainstorming a new project, the temptation is always there to scale: automate responses, template everything, cut corners on the human side of things. But that’s not what sticks with people. What sticks are the moments when you take the time, even just a little, to acknowledge them as individuals and meet them where they are.
Derek’s book Anything You Want talks about building businesses that are personal, honest, and aligned with your values instead of chasing someone else’s blueprint. My short email back-and-forth with him was proof he lives that out. And it gave me a working example of how I want to shape my own interactions: fewer layers, more substance.
Sometimes the best lessons in business don’t come from theory, frameworks, or market analysis. They come from watching how someone you respect moves through the world, and realizing you can choose to model the same.