The Stoa
host: Peter Limberg
public versus private life, writing as a primary focus, balance in life decisions, seeking help and community
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Transcript:
Derek Sivers
Hey, everybody! By the way, you know all those things you just said about me? They’re actually all past tense. I think my “Me in 10 seconds” actually says I was an entrepreneur.
Peter
Oh, yes, yes.
Derek Sivers
I have been an entrepreneur and a musician. A couple of years ago, I realized that most of us hold on to titles longer than we should because I’m not really an entrepreneur anymore. I’ve been calling myself an entrepreneur. I started a company 23 years ago and I sold it 13 years ago. I haven’t really started a company since then. I’ve published books, but I wasn’t trying to make money from it, you know? I thought about how just because somebody was a high school athlete doesn’t mean they can keep calling themselves an athlete forever. Like at some point that title expires. So I went to my bio and my site and I changed it to past tense. Instead of saying I am these things, I was like, I was these things. What am I now? I don’t know. We’ll see.
Peter
I imagine, given what you just said, you don’t carry a label and you don’t hold on to any too tightly. But is there any that resonates with you right now, like an artist of life or something jazzy like that.
Derek Sivers
By the way, Peter, I love how mellow you are. You know how everybody it’s like when they get on a mic, they’re just like, “okay ladies and gentlemen.” They kind of churn up this adrenaline. I like how you’re just mellow.
Peter
So yeah, the title you’re using now?
Derek Sivers
Right now I feel like I’m only an author or a writer. Which ever word doesn’t matter to me. I feel that up until a year or two ago, I thought of myself as a programmer and an entrepreneur that would sometimes write what I had learned and share it on my blog. Now I feel like I really, really, really like writing. I think it’s the most interesting thing to talk about ideas and dive into ideas. If I make that my main job definition, then that means I have to do more of that and do it better. I was like “this is the only thing I want to do now”. So I’m just a writer.
Peter
Yeah. What I got from you is that what you identify with it’s almost like you have to live up to that identity. This seems like you’re using in a positive sense. Like, you know what? I love writing. Let’s call myself a writer. Make me do it better.
Derek Sivers
Years ago, when as a teenager and we used to make business cards. Do you remember business cards? Do we still do those anymore?
Peter
Maybe.
Derek Sivers
I had a business card because I was trying to be a freelance musician in New York City. At first I just played guitar. Then I started playing bass because it’s almost the same. Then I started taking piano lessons and really taking piano seriously. So what I did is I added piano to my business card. So now anybody I was meeting, I hand in my card. It’s like, okay, I’m on the hook now. I have defined myself as also piano player. I started getting gigs as a pianist, and I felt like defining myself as such meant I had to rise to the title.
Peter
Yeah, I like that. To circle back to your writing practice, I’m curious. What’s your ritual? You wake up first thing in the morning, you’re just random. Do you have anything?
Derek Sivers
It’s such a difference between in theory and in practice. In theory, I would love to be a ritual guy. I would love to tell you that every morning at 7:58, I do such and such. And by 8 a.m that and I do this until 1pm. In theory, yes. In practice, no not at all. Every day is different.
Peter
You’re in a zoom room with a bunch of good looking strangers that get horny over the word meta. So given this context, any thoughts you’d want to share with us about yourself or in general, like maybe what’s alive for you at the edge of your thinking?
Derek Sivers
A lie at the edge of my thinking?
Peter
Alive for you. Or a lie.
Derek Sivers
A lie at the edge of my thinking, that would be a fun one, wouldn’t it? Especially as like, a welcome question. What’s a lie? Hold on. Let’s see. I wonder if I could answer both of those.
Peter
Maybe they’re the same answer.
Derek Sivers
Was that a poetic way of saying what’s on my mind?
Peter
Yes, pretty much.
Derek Sivers
I was just thinking earlier today about the public and private balance. I was talking with someone else who also has the same tendency as me, which is to feel the need to dive in 100% to one thing or 100% into another thing. So therefore, like a very black and white approach. She asked me, “well what about having a kid?” Once you have a kid, I mean, that kind of means you need to put your whole career on hold and your work life is on hold because your kid is your top priority now. I said, “no, no, no, no, my kid is my top priority, but it’s got to be a balance between public and private. If I was like 100% private life and I did nothing in the public, that would be really sad to me. But on the other hand, if I was 100% public life and had no private life, that would also be really sad. So no, my kid’s only eight years old, I’ve only been doing this for eight years. I’m no big expert.” I really like this idea of saying and not or to things and not thinking we need to pick one or the other and each of us finding our balance. Whether you in my case the public/private thing. I like for about 40% of my life to be public and 60% private or whatever it may be. I was thinking of the metaphor of the country house and city apartment, meaning there’s kind of a centuries long tradition for those that can afford it. To have an apartment in the city and a house in the country. So it’s not either or. You don’t have to ask yourself, “do I want to live in the city or do I want to live in the country”? For hundreds of years, people have been doing this thing where they have a little apartment in London and a house up in Gloucestershire, or it’s the little apartment in Vienna and a house out there. I’m thinking about that metaphorically, that’s the end answer to where to live. You don’t have to pick one or the other, that you can set up your life in such a way that you can have your city apartment and your country house and say yes to both. Because you don’t need to deny any aspect of your personality or your needs that you can say yes to them and just find out how to make the balance. So, there’s something alive at the edge of my thinking that’s not a lie.
Peter
There is like cities dichotomies that pop up in our mind. And then this idea of like getting into right relationship with them. Like the private versus public for example. I publicly came out as a stoic since COVID came online. I’m finding my avatar in the spectacle, if you will, is making me become more stoic and virtuous than my daily life, because people are seeing that like, oh, should I live up to it? So it’s like the identity piece and I feel like the right relationship with private and public is slowly coming into place right here. So do you have any thoughts on that?
Derek Sivers
What you just said “I came out as a stoic.” There’s probably some parts of you that disagree or not aligned with stoicism as an ism. This whole idea of isms, this need to subscribe all the way in. Maybe I kind of have a bad association with isms, but when I think of anything that ends with ism, it’s this kind of all in subscription to something. Which reminds me of when I lived in Santa Monica, California for a few years. Everybody in Santa Monica, California, is into yoga and not just doing yoga, not just a downward dog and doing it and enjoying the physical thing. They go all in to this whole culture of it, where everything just becomes namaste and they all drink the same kind of macho, they all wear the same stuff and they carry their mats around. Now they take on this new lifestyle where everything in their house is suddenly bamboo. This need to go all into an identity and go “this is me now, that was the old me, this is the real me and this is the new me.” That’s kind of an ism, it’s buying in all the way. Whereas, I think the “and not or” can apply to this too. You can say, “I like stoicism, I believe in what they’re saying, I believe this is a great way to be and I also do some things which are completely counter to it. I like those things too”. You don’t have to pick just one philosophy and say “this is it for me”. You can you can listen to AC/DC and Debussy. You don’t have to pick one.
Peter
I think we’re going to call ourselves the weird Stoics here because we’re doing exactly that. Having all these, like, philosophy sex with all these different reality tunnels here. So that does resonate. I’m not going to hug you anymore. So I’m going to pivot to the Q&A.
Derek Sivers
I’ve been trying not to look down but it’s funny. Was it Victor that said something like “oh yes, I enjoy my little apartment and my posh mansion”. I can’t look down. I’m going to laugh too much.
Peter
Yeah, the chats will get you in trouble. The title of this event was entrepreneurialism in the spiritual. I don’t know what it was, but we don’t have to talk about that.
Derek Sivers
Thank you for making a title, but we don’t need to hear it.
Peter
Cody, you are up.
Cody
Thanks. There’s something that’s really alive. I think I wrote a question in there mainly just to get your attention, Peter, because I actually like you to talking to each other. The first conversation I had with you Peter, was like “man you should get Derek on here.” You’re like yeah “I’ve already talked to Derek.” He said something really awesome when you’re thinking and you are still. I watched you read your newsletters. I watch you think about what the Stoa is and what a steward of the Stoa is. How it’s different than Rebel Wisdom and this kind of guerrilla punk rock atmosphere that this thing has. Its identity seems to be like alive in what you two are talking about, this identity that’s like not an identity. It’s like playing these dualities and at the same time this thing needs to sustain. Ideally sustains Peter so that we can keep having this place and Peter doesn’t have to go do other things and we all have to pick up the pieces and we’ll do it poorly probably. Can you give Peter some wisdom and us also some wisdom that we can support him? In this world this isn’t a corporation, this isn’t a business. It is somehow trying to make a living. It has its own identity crisis. And it’s doing well.
Derek Sivers
Is it, Peter? Is it going alright?
Cody
Peter, add some more in there.
Peter
It’s going alright.
Cody
Good. Alright is not good enough.
Derek Sivers
Well, the real question was, is it sustainable as it is now?
Peter
It’s a big question because we’ve only been around for seven months and about 200 people are supporting our patron, that’s increasing. I’m not really thinking about livelihood too much, but I think it will eventually go there. I think Cody’s asking how to make it interface with the community more or make it more alive and keep growing without getting burnt out and what not.
Derek Sivers
I wish I was that kind of business mind, like Seth Godin. If you ever see that guy live in action his ideas are instant. I went to a town hall in New York City with him, where strangers would stand up and say, “I’ve got this idea for a dog food business, but I don’t know what to do. What do you think I should do?” Without missing a beat, he’s like, here’s what you need to do. It was breathtaking. Oh, my God that was off the top of his head. The next person would stand up and ask a question about something completely different. He’d say here’s an idea. Again, I was like, fuck, that was brilliant. Oh my God, he’s doing that live. It was like watching a master jazz improviser. Maybe I could play a solo that brilliant, but with much composition and thought. A brilliant improviser just does that live. So sorry, I’m not that kind of business mind that could come up with a great idea for Peter right now.
Cody
No, I don’t think so much of that is needed. There’s something I remember reading about when you were doing CD Baby and sorry, this is going entrepreneurial. I think you do this in your own life where you tried to do something, but people didn’t want that. That’s not what people wanted. So there was this aspect of listening to people, and I think there’s a balance there of like having an idea, but then also listening to actually what people want and what people are telling you to do. There’s a balance there too. Maybe I just want to keep harking on this, it’s hard to have one identity when there’s this other whole opposite side and how you do that in a daily life and really maintain that balance without toppling over in this dance.
Derek Sivers
When I was a teenager a music teacher told me something that I found interesting. He felt it was crucial. He said, “this is the most important thing you need to know. Before you go out into the music business, you need to know what approach you’re taking. Are you going to please the industry or are you going to please yourself?” I said, well, both. He said “no, you need to pick. You need to choose. Ultimately, it’s going to come down to the this or that decision.” He said “because if you’re going to please the industry, you can study the billboard top hits and you can figure out how to make a hit and you can figure out how to get rich. Or you can decide that ultimately doesn’t matter that much to you. And you’re going to just make the music you want to make. If it makes some money, that’s fine. If it’s able to support you and pay for your cost of living, that’s great. Anything more than that is just dessert.” So it depends on Peter’s intentions too. It may even be that the Stoa loses money each month. But he says, “you know what? This is worth it to me.” Some people have a hobby where they spend money on bicycles and go on bike trips. Some people buy ping pong tables. I’m spending my time and money on the Stoa because I enjoy doing this, even if it loses money. So it depends with intentions too. All of us have things that we do not for the money and we just choose that this is what we like doing. I actually kind of hate the monetization of everything. I hate that every good idea needs to immediately answer how can we monetise this? I resist that a lot by keeping things super DIY technically. When you go to my website: sive.rs , it’s just this barebones static HTML because I’m not going to go into that hole of filling it with JavaScript and stuff that’s going to make it expensive to run. I don’t have employees then I’d have to ask the question of how to monetize this. Peter, if you’re feeling the same way about the Stoa, like you’re just going to do this no matter what.
Peter
One thing I recall reading your book years ago, I got a sense it’s like you were just doing it for fun, number one. Then any time something came to you like some shit hit the fan, you use that as a forcing function to create some pulses or whatever. And it’s not like you had this top down thing going on. I also got a sense that you could end it any time you’d be cool with it.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, literally I had some weird paranoid fear. The original CD Baby logo I had scanned it off of a Hallmark card because it was something I was doing in my living room. There was a funny picture of a baby face on a Hallmark card. I scanned the Hallmark card and I put it inside. I photoshopped it with layering into the hole of my CD and that was the logo. I was always scared that Hallmark was going to find this out and sue my ass to the ground. It kind of felt like at any point this whole thing could shut down and I had to always be okay with that. We all know the stoicism comparison there. We don’t need to say that blatantly.
Peter
I was trying to fish for it, but I didn’t want to be obvious. Alright, Jess you had some questions.
Jess
I have a bunch of questions, but I’ll just pick the last one that I wrote. Which is you’ve talked a bunch about kind of refusing to choose philosophy. That’s something I really admire because I’ve been trying to do that in my own life. I quit a job last year and I’ve been trying to build something new and it’s basically been like this, refusing to pick any one thing. I asked a friend what she was going to do and she said “I’m going to live well every day for the rest of my life.” I guess the question is, is there a way that connects to your spiritual self, spiritual practice or anything? And also, how do you know if you’re moment by moment or day by day? How do you know if you’re kind of going wildly off base in relation to that? How do you know if you’re accidentally falling into some trap and what kinds of traps are they?
Derek Sivers
I’m going to answer sideways. There’s an interesting quote I heard which is “an open mind, like an open mouth, needs to eventually close on something.” When I heard that, I went, Ooh oh, God, that’s good. Because sometimes I am too open minded, which then made me kind of reflect on what does that mean too open minded? Well, you’re too open minded when you never decide on anything. When you are always leaving all options open. You can do that to a fault. I really like that thing we do in English where you could say like any positive thing and you can say to a fault, somebody can be generous to a fault, sweet to a fault and open minded to a fault. Which means, always open never deciding. I heard that the Latin root of the word decide, I think the “dec” in there means to cut off other options we need to decide things. I think that this idea of I’m always just going to do whatever I want. It could be a rationalization for not deciding something. I guess nobody ever needs to decide anything until you find out that it’s actually getting in the way of what you want most. I often think about this dichotomy, what you want now versus what you want most. What I want now is chocolate all the time. What I want most is to be healthy. If I only were to observe the now and have chocolate all the time, it would it would hurt what I want most. There’s always a metaphorical version of that. It’s fun to just do what we want every day, but that’s kind of a shallow happy. Sometimes the deeper rewards come from not following your daily impulses and doing what you want most. That’s how I think of it. There are lots of things I do in a day that I don’t really want to do today, but I know that that’s what I want most. Does that make sense or did that help? I think I kind of answered sideways by accident.
Jess
Yeah. I guess it’s also not so much about whether or not you follow any given impulse, but also how you make sure to include all of the aspects of your self in a full life like all of that. That’s kind of the thing I’m referring to. For me, it’s like right now I don’t have a guitar and there’s some part of me that isn’t really awake because the guitar is on the wrong side of the country. That’s a very literal expression.
Derek Sivers
As you can tell, I like those little metaphors. You guys know that I’m not here to promote anything. Please don’t think that I’m saying this for any self promotional reason. I’m still writing my next book called How to Live, and it’s totally up your alley. Everybody in the top row, because it’s the whole the idea. It’s so much fun. Sorry. If you don’t mind, I’m going to pause. You’ll see it has to come full circle to what you were just saying. There’s a book called Sum by David Eagleman. It’s probably my single favourite book of all time because I think the format is so brilliant because it’s 40 little short stories. The subtitle is a 40 Tales from the Afterlives, and every little short story answers the question of what happens when you die. Every little short story inside every chapter answers what happens when you die, but every chapter disagrees with all of the others. So it’s like chapter three here’s what happens when you die: You’re awake and you’re surrounded by these little creatures. Chapter four: When you die, you’re in a giant empty mansion and you walk for days. Chapter nine: When you die, you were immediately accosted by you. I love this format of answering the same question a bunch of times in deliberately conflicting ways. I read the book twice over two years. Then suddenly, while driving down the road, I went, oh I want to write a book called How to Live that’s going to steal his format. Every chapter is going to be completely convinced that it has the answer on how to live. And it’s going to say, here’s how to live. Freedom is how to live that all misery comes from attachments that you don’t want. We always need to be free and independent at all times, and here is how to do it. Here’s a recipe for the most independent free life. This is how you should live. Next chapter here’s how to Live: commit. All great things in life come from committing from the deeper happiness of being rooted, committing to a person, committing to the mastery path of a career, committing to a place, committing to people. Each chapter is completely convinced that it has the right answer. It’s a blast to write. So with that said, my full circle is that last week I was just writing the balance chapter. Here’s how to live, balance. Look at the balance of nature, the balance of all these adjectives about when somebody is crazy, we say that they’re off balance. The good life is a balanced life.
Derek Sivers
In the concrete, how to live this way. It was about using the clock as your ally, like a hunter, uses his hunting dog to let the clock aid you in your balance. Because if we just let our desires run their course, then we end up doing too much of what makes us happy. We do not enough of the things that we need to do, but don’t make us happy in the moment. Therefore, if you acknowledge these different aspects of your personality that need to be balanced, your different needs, public versus private. Everybody has a human need for certainty, but we all have a human need for uncertainty. Those are clashing things but you need to acknowledge both of them. What most people do is they swing their lives in this pendulum where they follow one path for a few years and they say, “hey man, I’m just going to quit my job and go completely nomadic.” It’s because they’ve had too much certainty in their life, no offense. They go all the way to the other side because they say, I’ve been ignoring this aspect of my personality. They go 100% of this other one, but now they’re imbalanced again. Now there’s like too much uncertainty, and after a couple of years they go “oh I just need a little more rootedness.” So instead the balance chapter is saying that you have to use the clock and the calendar to schedule your need for uncertainty, your need for certainty, your need to make music, your need to learn, your need to create and express yourself. That’s how my balance chapter would answer that.
Peter
Thank you, Jess. Victor, you had some plus ones. If you can unmute yourself and ask your question Victor. Maybe he disappeared.
Derek Sivers
I see, Victor, but I can’t hear him.
Peter
Ask to unmute you. There you go.
Victor
Hey, Derek I was intrigued by the the title of this session, and so I thought, oh, just ask the direct and easy question, which is tell us in what way you see entrepreneurialism as a spiritual practice? That landed really strong with me and I’m interested to hear your take.
Derek Sivers
I only recently realized that the word spiritual has the word spirit in there, which seems to imply some ghostly thing. Now I’m suddenly unsure if I ever knew what that word meant. Yesterday, I found out the definition of a word pithy. I’d been called pithy for years. With pith, I think of the inside of wood, and it’s just this really lightweight thing. And so every time somebody called me pithy, I thought they kind of meant I was an airhead. Okay sure I guess I’m an airhead if everybody says so. Then yesterday I looked it up and it said powerful and profound. So now I don’t know spiritual. I’m not sure if I know what that means. Entrepreneurism or entrepreneurship and spiritualism. Sorry. I don’t know. If there’s a variation on that question, if you want to ask a slightly different angle that I might be able to say something about. If you want.
Victor
Now I’m beginning to wonder if I made up the title. Or maybe I got it wrong.
Derek Sivers
No, I think I also saw that. It’s not your fault.
Peter
It’s my fault, technically.
Victor
Oh I’ll try out a practice here where I sit with something for just a second, get uncomfortable and spit out whatever comes. What’s it like coming into a space that you’re unfamiliar with and uncertain about? What expectations might preexist your arrival?
Derek Sivers
Oh, you have to have confidence that you can do this. I’m thinking about this with parenting because my kid is eight and how to instill this feeling of I can handle this no matter what happens I can handle this. I’m entering into something I’ve never done before. I can handle this. Somebody I love just died. I can handle this. I feel like I need a little mantra there that I could help instill into his head. It’s funny having a kid and thinking of how you can influence them. Ever since he was born, I sing him lullabies every night. One time when he was about three years old I was singing the usual lullabies. I would sing him Blackbird, Hey Jude, Over the Rainbow and yesterday. Some Beatles and things I felt like had a nice singing melody. Then I thought, I’m a songwriter I’ve written over 100 songs. I can put an idea into his head let me sing, let me think. Put things into his subconscious. So I made up a song for him one night that went.
Derek Sivers
(singing) Whatever scares you, go do it. Whatever scares you, go do it. Whatever it scares you go do it. Because then you won’t be scared anymore. Won’t be scared anymore. Won’t be scared anymore until you are. Then whatever scares you, go do it. Repeat and repeat. I’ve been doing that since he was two. So now whenever we’re out and playing and he’s about to climb up the tree really high and he goes “I’m scared”. I always go, whatever scares you and he goes “go do it”. That’s in him now.
Derek Sivers
I might have an answer to your entrepreneur question. I think of entrepreneurship differently than a lot of people seem to because I wasn’t trying to be an entrepreneur. People started calling me that later. To me it was like a charitable thing I was doing. Again, sorry, I’m not pushing books, but in my book called Anything You Want about how I started my company. I didn’t realize until other people told me but the whole way I was approaching it was like I had already made a good living as a musician. I already bought a house in Woodstock with the money I made touring. By my own definition, I was already successful. Then I built this little web store to sell my CD. I just did this for myself. But then my friends in New York City that were musicians started asking me “hey, man, could you sell my CD through your thing?” As a favor to my friends, I started selling their CD and I took no money for doing it. I just did it as a favor. Then friends of friends and then strangers started calling. It’s weren’t even a friend of a friend. They just heard of it from someone and they started sending me their music. So I picked a price, I said an amount that would just kind of pay for my time. I still thought that of this, like as my community service. Like the world has been good to me it’s time I give something back. I was doing this the way that some people would volunteer at a soup kitchen or something. It got really popular and became a full time job. I had to hire somebody to help me do it and so on. The whole time, I never thought of it as like that narrative that people put around this, how did you get the confidence to quit your job and start a business and believe in your dreams?
Derek Sivers
None of that applied. I was just helping my friends. I do think there’s something to that, though, of putting yourself out into the world to offer your help. To just be a public servant and help what people seem to need help with, whether that’s a service or a product or something that people need help with, you’re there to help. I think if you switch your focus from How can I make money? Me, me, me, me, me. You flip that and say, Alright, forget me. I don’t care about me. How can I help you guys? What’s up? What do you need? Doing that switch of mindset seems to be very rewarding. The world rewards you for switching that. So if you want to call that kind of spiritual, maybe.
Peter
Cool. And if you don’t mind, Derek, if I can use that lullaby for the next intro music for the next event, I would appreciate that. Someone in the chat says we should have a Meta Modern Stoa Lullaby album, so maybe.
Derek Sivers
Yes. Oh, you know what? Hey, wait. You guys are the best audience. One of my little whimsical ideas I had once. Think of this idea that if somebody is Jewish and they need some wisdom, they go talk to their rabbi. If somebody is Catholic, I guess they can go into the confession box and talk to the priest. It’s not just for confession. You can get wisdom from the wise elder. But those of us that like stoicism, we don’t have a sage we can turn to. What if we make a stoic sage as a service, almost like a phone number you could call. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it needs to be one brilliant genius on the receiving end. It could be all of us. The collectively kind of being your highest self and channeling the best wisdom you’ve heard.
Derek Sivers
Sixteen years ago, I hired a life coach type person and I only found out later that this dude was younger than me and had no particular success in life. But he was a great coach for me because when I would call him with a problem, he would just channel the wisdom that he had read through books. He was basically echoing what he heard through books, but by being a little bit separated from it, he didn’t know me. We had never even seen each other. He was a phone call I would make. I would tell him what was up, a problem I was wrestling with. He’d say, “what about this?”. He’d give an approach that he had heard. So I thought Stoics Sage as a service, a wisdom hotline. Whether it’s an email address, a phone call or a live chat, when you’re feeling stuck with something that you want to know what the stoic sage would say. We can all channel our stoic wisdom.
Peter
Yeah, I love it. It’s sort of like the collective part, like the next Buddha, the Sangha or a decentralized psychotherapy. Someone comes in, then all us meta stoics just kind of give them love and wisdom.
Derek Sivers
I like it. Lullabies too. We’ll make up a Stoic Lullaby album to put healthy thoughts into the next generation’s heads.
Peter
Alright, Pranab, you’re up next.
Pranab
Cool, I have two questions. Which one should I pick? Yeah, on your about page, you have a list of all these different kind of traits and behaviours that you prefer that are against the norm or against what people typically think of as accepted. How did you decide on those and how long did it take you to really accept those things as a part of yourself? Are there some things that were more difficult to accept than others and what was your process to finding yourself?
Derek Sivers
Decades of pain and shame? I’m 51 now. That’s decades of slowly admitting my tastes and preferences and catching a lot of shit for it and people getting mad about it. Me either realizing I was in the wrong or saying no, I seem to just want something that’s different from what most people want. The about page was actually a bit of like an outing of myself. Peter, you use that word earlier. I outed myself in many ways, especially like the most despicable one in there that I’m still okay with, is that I’m not into my family. I don’t love my parents. When people hear that, they think, Oh, something’s wrong with you. You need to go see a shrink. I don’t know. It took decades before just saying, no, nothing’s wrong with me. I just don’t love my parents. I never did. Not even as a little kid. I just don’t feel any connection with them. And since putting that out into the world, I’ve heard from some other people that feel the same way.
Derek Sivers
It’s so liberating for them to read that like, Oh my God, you too. They reach out and say, “God, it’s so nice to talk to somebody that feels this way because all my friends give me so much shit for not loving my family and tell me something’s wrong with me”. By the way, when I say my family, I mean my parents, not my kid. I love my kid. But if someday my kid says he doesn’t love me, then I would get it. I think it’s just been decades on earth and slowly admitting things that seem to be here to stay that are just my tendencies, it doesn’t mean they’re unchangeable. In fact, lots of things change. I guess that’s the nature and nurture balance, right? We have our nature and sometimes nurture can change your nature. It’s kind of what cognitive behavioral therapy is about. Any rational thoughts can actually change the irrational emotions underneath them sometimes.
Peter
Alright. Katrina, you had some questions.
Katrina
Hi, everyone. First Derek, thank you so much for the very sweet lullaby. The moment I heard it, I was like, I can go do anything I want right now. I feel so hypnotized by this. I love that you do that for us. Thank you. The context of the questions that I’m asking is basically I’m 26 right now, and in your twenties, you seek to find yourself. I did something recently where I hired a coach for myself. You had mentioned that you hired a coach for yourself too. That’s what inspired this question. I remember in making that decision there was some shame in it, I should know how to do what I want to do. I read all the books, I follow all the blogs, there’s this wealth of productivity information on the internet, why am I getting stuck? Then finally I was like, I just need help. In hiring a coach and also finding really wonderful communities on the internet, like these zoom communities, I feel like that has been the shifting point for me in getting out of my own head. I really would love to hear what has been one of the most important ways that you’ve asked for help from others? What are some of the most impactful communities that you’ve been part of that have helped you in life?
Derek Sivers
Cool. I think what we’re doing here is amazing. I don’t think I’m any smarter than anybody here. I’m flattered that you guys asked me to be in the answer role. Before Peter and I unmuted and went public I was telling him that I’m psyched to be here because I love this community so much and what you guys are doing that I’d be happy to just be on that other end. So the idea that I said earlier about the stoic sage as a service, the idea that any of us could do that. The most helpful thing is to get the opinion of somebody who’s not in your head, because in your head it is like a giant tangle of billions of little thoughts and considerations that are going into any given decision you’re trying to make or what should I do? It’s like mixed in with a billion things. First, the act of having to turn it into a question. I’m making it smaller here. To turn this jumble of stuff into a question that you ask of somebody else. Just that process is hugely helpful to say, if I had to describe this to somebody else, what’s the actual question? Computer programmers do this thing sometimes it’s called rubber ducking. If you search the web, you could read a description of more thoughts on it. Rubber ducking was called that because a couple of famous programmers said that they actually put a rubber duck on their computer monitor. When they get stuck, they have to explain it to the rubber duck. Alright, Ducky, here’s the problem. The act of having to describe it even to a rubber duck helps. Now being on the receiving end of that, it’s always easier to give advice to somebody else than it is to take it yourself.
Derek Sivers
If all that big jumble of things in your head that’s making you feel lost and confused. If you were somebody else asking yourself that question. It would be easy for you to give that person advice. You’d say what to do because you’re not in that jumble of thoughts. It’s easier to see what somebody else should be doing when you’re not in the mess of tangled thoughts. I think that asking almost anybody for help or for feedback, especially someone that doesn’t know you well, that’s what I really like about this idea about the Rabbi. Even years ago, before I’d heard of Stoicism, I always liked that idea because I lived in New York City for years and there were Jewish communities. I had a clear picture of the Rabbi that I would go to for wisdom. Whenever I’d get stuck I’d often think, what would the Rabbi say? There’s this little Rabbi in my head that is basically busy and disinterested. “Alright I’ll give you 2 minutes. What’s the problem?”. I have to tell him my problem in 2 minutes. “I don’t have time for the details. What is it?”.
Derek Sivers
I have to reduce it down to that. If you reduce the problem down to 2 minutes and you think of what would the Rabbi say, we can even do that in our heads. Having another person do that is great. When somebody asks my advice on finding a great mentor or a great life coach. I say, no you don’t need to find a great one. Any of those people that are out there calling themselves a life coach don’t hate the fact that they’re just a 25 year old on a beach in Bali that’s looking to make some money by calling themselves a life coach. Telling your problem to a 25 year old on a beach in Bali that’s calling themselves a life coach can be useful. They don’t have to be a super sage themselves just describing it to somebody else. Even if you disagree with what they say. I found the guy that I hired 16 years ago through Tony Robbins company. I love Tony Robbins books I did back then. I went to TonyRobbins.com. I clicked coaching. It said request coaching. I signed up and they assigned me to some guy and it was super useful. It doesn’t even have to be somebody brilliant. Remove the stigma that asking for help is a bad thing. I think we should make it more popular, we should all be asking somebody outside of our own head for help.
Katrina
Well, thank you.
Peter
So this might be the last question because we do have to end at the hour. Okay. Who? Anjin. You’re up.
Derek Sivers
Derek, I think the most played YouTube video after Rihanna umbrella is your leadership lessons from dancing guy. For me, I’ve come back to that year after year, and it’s often what I show to people. It kind of blew my mind. For those in the audience, Derek is narrating this video at a music festival where this lone nut is dancing. Before you know it, by the end of the video, everybody is dancing with him. He’s made a movement. Derek, I’m curious. You had this fantastic takeaway that leadership is over glorified. If you watch the video, it was the first follower that was the most important to turning the lone nut into a movement. I’m curious how this principal has been a part of your thinking and played out in your life since you’ve made that video and if you change your mind about any aspects of it.
Derek Sivers
I’m so sorry to have a non answer for that fun question, especially if it’s the last question. I basically have almost no thoughts on leadership. It was a YouTube video that was bouncing around the web. It was like on Reddit or something. In 2009, I watched it and I went, ha ha ha. Then like a little later I was like, that’s kind of like a metaphor for leadership, wasn’t it? I think I had just recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point, and I had just read Seth Gordon’s book called Tribes. I have no thoughts on leadership of my own. I was only channeling what I had read in The Tipping Point and in Tribes. It was because one guy did it, but he was just on his own. Once somebody started following him, that’s what made other people get up and follow. People came in slowly and once there were three or four people, now the people that were standing on the fence feel okay about getting in. I only had 3 minutes of stuff to say about that. And I wrote a little tiny blog post. Then the TEDx conference put out a call for speakers and I tossed my hat in the ring and they chose that. I did it on stage at TEDx and I was nervous as hell.
Derek Sivers
After I did that talk, which sorry, this sounds like I’m bragging, but it got a standing ovation at TEDx, which is weird. That only happens about once a day at TEDx that everybody stands up for a speaker. I was the guy that day and it was really flattering. After I gave the talk for the next three days literary agents came up to me going, “oh my God, you need to turn this into a book, I can get you onto the speaking circuit to talk about your leadership lessons. We need to make a book out of this”. I just said no to all of them. I said, I have nothing more to say. That was it. I had a 3 minutes worth of a metaphor to make, and that’s all I have to say about that. So sorry, I don’t actually think about it much.
Derek Sivers
It was something I did once in 2009 for 3 minutes, and that was that. I know you guys have to go on the hour, Peter told me in advance. I got to tell you guys, this is the coolest conversation I’ve had in a long time. I fucking love these questions and I kind of wish we could do this for like two more hours. So Peter, maybe we’ll do a part two soon. In the meantime, I see that the little chat thing down below says they were 99 queued up questions. So another idea is, you know, my email address is just Derek@Sivers.org and I actually put aside time every day to answer every email. If you had leftover questions you didn’t get the chance to do here in the whole group, please email me. A lot of my blog posts publicly have come from people’s questions. It might even turn into a public thing. Email me anybody that didn’t get the chance to ask your question here. We can do one more if we’ve got five more minutes.
Peter
Maybe I’ll sneak one in myself. There’s something deliciously original about you. Like, you’re you, I got that sense when I read your book. Get the sense now, and I’m wondering if there was a consistent energy or maybe principles that surrounded that energy when you’re an entrepreneur and what you’re doing now. Or did your philosophy or worldviews or principles change with this change of life?
Derek Sivers
It’s hard to figure out why you are the way you are. I think it was just because when I was a little kid, we moved around a lot. I went to a hippie school in California when I was five. We moved to England for a year and everybody called me the American kid. And I just felt like, oh I hate you English people. I don’t like the way you do things. Your rules don’t apply to me. But then I moved back to America and everybody called me the English kid because I had picked up the accent. Now I didn’t feel a part of America. I didn’t feel a part of England. Then I went to a kind of a posh high school, but I just wanted to be a heavy metal musician. Everything that my posh high school friends were doing, trying to get into Ivy League schools, I felt like none of this applies to me. I’m just going to be a musician. But then as a musician, I felt like I didn’t want to be like my other musician friends. I wanted to do my own thing. So I think it’s probably just a long history of feeling like the thing that you guys are after is not what I’m after. I’m just doing a different thing. So it had nothing to do with the entrepreneur thing that came later. I think this whole approach to life just kind of feels like not a part of the game that everybody else seems to be subscribing to. At the same time I don’t think I’m that unique. I just think of myself as pretty normal but everybody else says I’m weird.
Peter
Well, whatever you are, I think we all vibe with you.
Derek Sivers
I love this. I love these questions. I know that’s not like a kind of a bullshit flattery thing. Like, hey, you guys wish I could stay all night? Got to go. But no, I actually, this. Is the best conversation I’ve had in a long time, I’d be happy to come back any time. I love these questions and I love this subject of conversation. Everybody, please email me your question If I didn’t get to it and you have me back whenever you want, I’m happy to join.