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Derek Magill

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To create, first collect

My most creative work nearly always emerges, ironically enough, from collections of the creative work of other people.

The new website design for Praxis done by Rafal Tomal began in my head from a collection of dozens of my favorite startup sites around the world. Much of my writing clearly comes from years of reading and saving passages from some of my favorite writers and thinkers.

Though the goal is to be original, I’ve learned that originality does not arise in a vacuum. You cannot simply “will yourself” into creativity in the moment. So what do we do in the absence of creative inspiration? Collect.

Most of the best artists and the best creators are collectors and curators of work from other people. Montaigne famously surrounded himself with quotes from the classics in his tower while he wrote. Many of America’s founders kept commonplace books filled with passages from literature they read. Renaissance painters studied the works of their “competitors” as if they were their own, often repainting them entirely. Today, a startup marketer might keep a swipe file of his favorite marketing emails and develop new and better emails from them.

I’m often asked how to become a better writer and I like to take the standard response “read more,” and add “and save great pieces of writing in a file.” I’ve turned this into a bit of an obsession with the unfortunate consequence that whenever I read, I find myself wanting to write.

Likewise, I have thousands and thousands of online book marks of articles, sites, landing pages, ads, Tweets, images, and art that I can return to if I’m ever starting to feel stale.

And through this process of collecting, and collecting, and collecting, something truly creative emerges,

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: art, blackout poetry, creativity, rafal tomal

Revenge has a long memory

This newspaper blackout poem is inspired by one of my favorite fiction books, The Meaning of Night.

And I think I only realize this fact after making this poem. I was rushing to get something out before the deadline I set for myself every day and my mind pulled from the easiest source of inspiration — fiction that has made a powerful impression on me — without me really knowing.

A good reminder to all in the age of get rich quick and self help nonfiction: read more fiction. It will help you in strange ways.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: blackout poetry, revenge, the meaning of night

My full interview with Bitcoin.com

I was interviewed today for Bitcoin.com about our recent announcement at Praxis to support Bitcoin Cash tuition payments. I’ve been a huge fan of their work for a long time and was excited when my friend Edward Kelso reached out to do the interview.

It was definitely the most fun I’ve ever had in one. Since we couldn’t use the full interview in the article, I’ve posted the conversation entire below with links. Enjoy!

You can keep up with my writing on Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash on Quora and Twitter.

Kelso: How did you first get involved with cryptocurrency?

Magill: I’d heard about it through my involvement with the libertarian club while I was a student at the University of Michigan. Before I dropped out, I actually co-hosted the inaugural public event for the College Crypto Currency Network with Jeremy Gardner and Daniel Bloch. Jeffrey Tucker came to speak and I still remember he said something like “governments and their ridiculous dinosaur monetary systems will die in the face of the peer to peer Bitcoin revolution.”

Stuff like that is what got me excited: the promise of a digital cash that wouldn’t lose value every year, that could not be censored, and that I could send nearly for free to anyone around the world that would eat the fiat monetary system. I never heard anyone anywhere talking about Bitcoin as purely a “store of value,” incidentally. It was money — the best in the world to ever exist.

Kelso: How did you end up finding Bitcoin Cash?

Magill: I became pretty disillusioned with Bitcoin and the community for a number of years despite holding it. The growing animosity towards anyone who thought “user experience” should factor into the discussion was concerning — though I myself am an idealogical person, I think it’s foolish to expect people to make decisions for any reason other than self interest. They’re going to choose the cash that is easiest, cheapest, and fastest for them to use and they should. When Bitcoin started getting more and more expensive and slow, I said goodbye and started looking for something else that would fulfill that original vision that got me excited in the first place.

I used Litecoin for a good while as a temporary solution, but Lightning Network has never excited me and I haven’t been able to get behind the idea that it is the “silver to Bitcoin’s gold.” We can do better than that, but at least it was faster and cheaper to use.

When Bitcoin Cash hard forked I confess it was mostly off my radar. The Bitcoin name was tainted in my mind then, but my good friend Steve Patterson, the author of What’s the Big Deal About Bitcoin?, did an interview with Yours.org founder Ryan X Charles that excited me about Bitcoin in a way I hadn’t felt for years. I’d stay up all night reading reddit forums, listening to YouTube videos and debates, and pretty soon I was sold.

I think Bitcoin Cash is the real Bitcoin, but personally I don’t care if that battle is ever won. I want decentralized digital cash that I can send anywhere in the world for next to no cost and that is also a store of value. Now I have it.

Kelso: You’re unusually active in the BCH space? What compels you?

Magill: I think government control of our money is the great battle. Everything else seems trivial in comparison. Take away their ability to tax and inflate and so much of their power to do evil things to good people is gone. I have enough of an understanding of sound economics to know that this won’t happen if Bitcoin is nothing but an expensive digital piggy bank. It needs to be spendable, daily cash as well.

There’s also a big element of simple financial self interest. I want Bitcoin Cash to enrich my life and anything I can do to help onboard new users is a win in my mind. I think there’s a lot of false selflessness in the Bitcoin space these days. There are a ton of accusations being thrown around about people who “are only in it to get rich.” If you’re argument can only work if you assume people will act for charitable reasons, I think you’re setting yourself up for failure. Everybody in crypto wants to get rich and that’s a good thing. My 85 year old grandpa who asked me to buy him some Bitcoin Cash wants to get rich, not save the world. We should want more of that, not less.

And frankly, it’s a lot of fun. I joked in a blog post recently that I fought in the great Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash Wars of 2017, but in a sense that is true. I love a good intellectual slugfest and I think if you look at history, ideas are moved forward exactly this way. I see this as all similar to the Federalist – Antifederalist debates. We need more people writing and speaking on this, amateurs and experts alike.

Kelso: How’d you hook up with Praxis?

Magill: My obsession with Praxis and what we’re doing is similar to my obsession with Bitcoin Cash. I want to be able to live as freely and as wealthy as possible and I want others to be able to do the same. Money plays a big role in that but so does education. I think the schooling system has cast us into somewhat of an intellectual and personal dark age.

Kids today graduate with no skills of note, no understanding of what they want or how to get it, they’re not well read, not well versed, and totally unequipped to live a free, fulfilling, successful life. Praxis was started because we wanted to offer something 10x better than this. Through Praxis a kid who is 18 or 19 can sidestep all the wasted time and debt they would accumulate in college and jump right into their career. They’ll learn on the job and get paid to do it. The best part is that by the time they would have graduated college, they’ll have 4 or 5 years of solid work experience and a professional portfolio that makes their degree status irrelevant. And yes, we do have some partners in the cryptocurrency space. BitPay is one of our top ones.

I got involved not long after Isaac Morehouse started it in 2013. I’d dropped out of college and was running a marketing business of my own working with clients in commercial real estate, apparel, firearms, and craft beer. I was experiencing first hand the life changing benefits of starting your career at a much earlier age than you’re traditionally told is possible but I also understood that there had been some challenges I’d had along the way that something like Praxis could help with. I couldn’t get the idea of Praxis out of my head and I reached out and pitched them on being a client of mine.

When we’d grown enough to bring on as an early employee, Isaac asked me to be the Director of Marketing. I’ve been there ever since. Last year was our best year ever and we’re tremendously excited for 2018.

Kelso: What do you think the BCH method of payment will do for Praxis.

Magill: We want to provide the best payment options available to our customers. We started accepting Bitcoin (core) in 2014 after some customers requested it. It was great, but by the end of 2015 nobody was using it. We’ve recently gotten a ton of interest in accepting it again though in the form of Bitcoin Cash because it is useable like core once was. Incidentally, we’ve seen dozens of our customers, ages 16-26, sign up for Yours.org accounts and start making their first transactions in Bitcoin Cash. These are people who were previously totally uninterested in cryptocurrency who are now using it daily. That’s telling.

What it will do for our business remains to be seen. Short term, it might just be a couple customers here and there who use it and we’re excited enough by that, but long term the ability to process payments at much lower fees will do wonders for us financially. And keep in mind too that we’re in the education business. I’d love to see more and more of our customers be inspired to learn about Bitcoin Cash and use it because we offer it as an option. I think it will be great for them personally and financially.

If you liked this interview and want to support more of my work on Bitcoin Cash, please consider sending a micro tip in BCH. You can also keep up with my writing on Quora and Twitter.

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Legacy format: 1JX2oZ5mX73atpDcLbrJ1Dn7CkMhw6Txxx

Bitpay format: CZyvNbRqQA27nx832MBDajQ8psa7npw5oU

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: bitcoin, bitcoin cash, cryptocurrency, interview, isaac morehouse, jeffrey tucker, jeremy gardner, praxis, ryan x charles, steve patterson

Just exciting enough

I showed this to someone and she told me she loved it. I asked her, “do you understand it?”

She said “of course,” and proceeded to describe it entirely differently than how I’d meant it. I’d tell her what it means but it’s about her.

Maybe I could have told her more
but the black dress pants were just exciting enough
“These’ll work,” I said.
Deafening silence.
“I can do this.”
Talk about a narrow path to victory

Make your own.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 365 day blogging challenge, blackout poetry, blackout poetry month challenge

A Dialogue with a College Student Interested in Journalism

I was having lunch the other day with a student and had to chance to talk about what she was interested in.

Her answers might seem ridiculous, but they’re actually typical of many conversations I have with college students today.

The truth is most students have no idea what they want and when you press them a little, they fall apart.

They use college as a way to absolve themselves of the responsibility of figuring out what matters to them and doing it. Read the dialogue and see what I mean.

Derek: So what are you interested in?
Student: I’m studying journalism.

Derek: Nice! What about journalism excites you?
Student: I really love writing.

Derek: What have you written?
Student: Umm.. well I wrote an essay for my English course this year.

Derek: But you haven’t written anything else?
Student: No not really.

Derek: Nothing at all?
Student: Nope.

Derek: Why not?
Student: I just don’t feel like I’m good enough yet.

Derek: Well, what would you like to write about?
Student: I have a ton of interests. It’s hard too because I have so many and never enough time to hit them all!

Derek: I bet! What are some things you’d like to write about.
Student: Well, politics and maybe culture. There are just so many.

Derek: Thats not much what else?
Student: Umm.

Derek: It’s probably just hard to think of them….Anyways, politics is pretty broad. Anything in particular?
Student: I’m not really sure yet. Maybe elections

Derek: Do you post political stuff on Facebook or Twitter?
Student: Not really.

Derek: What are some journalists you follow regularly?
Student: Oh I don’t know, just a bunch of stuff I see online.

Derek: Hmm. Well you should just get started!
Student: How so?

Derek: You can start a blog and just start writing and what not.
Student: But who would read it?

Derek: You have to start somewhere.
Student: I know. I’m just so busy with school.

Derek: Maybe try something else? You really don’t need a degree to be a journalist.
Student: Yeah I would but I’m already over a year in. I feel like I should finish.

Derek: Well you can start writing now always. Any ideas for what you could write about?
Student: Hmm. I’d have to think about that.

The problem is that you don’t just magically know what to do when you graduate. It takes time, trial and error, a bias for action, and a lot of introspection.

College, with its dinosaur credentialing system, its emphasis on grades and conformity, allow for almost none of this.

Filed Under: Dropping Out

The Parable of the Dropout and the Marketing Director

A Marketing Director was at a coffee shop in Austin, Texas when he saw a young man working on designing an advertisement on his laptop. The ad was one of the best he’d seen. The Marketing Director complimented the young man on the quality of his work and asked him if he was in college.

The young man replied, “only for a little while. I dropped out.”

The Marketing Director then asked why didn’t he go back to school and study marketing and advertising. He even offered to write a letter of recommendation.

The young man said he was learning a good amount on the job and making money.

The Marketing Director then asked, “so what is it you do? Personally and professionally”

The young man said, “I work from coffeeshops, contract for clients right now and will be starting a company soon hopefully. My clients respect me and I make good money, learn a ton, and travel around the world regularly. I have a ton of free time and am writing a book. I’m also debt free.”

The Marketing Director scoffed. “I have an MBA from Harvard, and can help you,” he said. “You should go back to school and get yourself a degree in marketing and advertising. With that degree, you could get yourself an a good entry level job. You could work for 5-10 years and move up the ladder, and one day make really great money. You might need to take out student loans but it will be worth it.”

The young man asked, “But, how long will this all take?”

To which the Marketing Director replied, “Oh, 4-6 years for college, and another 5-10 years on the job.”

“But what then?” asked the young man.

The Marketing Director laughed and said, “That’s the best part. Eventually you’d be able to leave your job.”

“Then what?”

The Marketing Director said, “Then you could work from coffeeshops all over the world. Get paid to contract with clients, start your company, make great money, and travel the world. You’d be highly respected. You could spend time focusing on your hobbies and even write a book if you wanted!”

Filed Under: Dropping Out

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About Derek

Derek Magill has been the Director of Marketing at Praxis and has worked with companies like Voice and Exit, Colliers International, The Objective Standard, and FEE.

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