121: Happy, Smart, & Useful by Derek Sivers and A Reminder from the Mexican Fisherman by J. Money of Budgets Are Sexy

Optimal Living Daily: Reading you the best content on personal development, productivity, and minimalism. Episode 121: Happy, Smart, & Useful by Derek Sivers and A Reminder from the Mexican Fisherman by J. Money of Budgets Are Sexy. Originally a professional musician and circus clown, Derek Sivers created CD Baby in 1998. It became the largest seller of independent music online, with $100M in sales for 150,000 musicians. In 2008, Derek sold CD Baby for $22M, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. He is a frequent speaker at the TED Conference, with over 5 million views of his talks. Since 2011 he has published 34 books, including “Anything You Want” which shot to #1 on all of its Amazon categories. J. Money is a 6’1, hyperactive, rock a ‘hawk who loves drinking beer, blaring hip-hop, talking about money, and now playing with his two adorable baby boys. He also has a podcast: M.O.N.E.Y. He tracked his expenses for 3 months, made a budget, read some books, and stumbled into personal finance blogging and idea sharing, randomly turning BudgetsAreSexy.com into his full time “real job” a few short years later--14 million views later! The original posts are located here: and !