Chiwi Journal
host: Camellia Yang
moving for good, New Zealand experiences, breaking the rules, solitary socialite, daydreaming
listen: (download)
Transcript:
Camellia
Hello, welcome to the TV Journal podcast. I’m your host Cmellia. My guest today is Derek Sivers. Derek has been a musician, producer, circus performer, entrepreneur, Ted speaker and book publisher. He’s the author of four books: Anything You Want, Your Music and People, Hell Yeah or No and How To Live. In today’s episode, we covered various topics, including breaking the rules, solitary socialite, future possibility folders, daydreaming. moving for good, New Zealand and many more. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Hey Derek. So glad to have you on my show.
Derek Sivers
Good to see you again it’s been a while.
Camellia
Yeah, since I have left New Zealand for a while for more than three years. I’m a bit homesick. Shall we start with New Zealand?
Derek Sivers
No, Let’s save that for the end.
Camellia
Okay. Yeah, That’s cute. I’ll start with some of your articles that influenced me a lot. First one is a move for good. I remember we briefly chatted about this topic when we met in New Zealand, and most of the people we grew up with, they didn’t choose the path to move around but stayed. What do you think makes you different?
Derek Sivers
I think some people just have that curiosity, that drive to want to take the more challenging path. Some people just want life to be easy. They’ll always choose the easier option. They would always rather relax instead of working. They’d rather watch TV instead of making something. Life is hard enough as it is. They just want to take it easy. Then some of us want to intentionally make things more difficult. We want the challenge because we like the feeling of growth that we get from doing difficult things. I think moving across the world to a culture that is very different than the one, you know, especially if people speak a language that you don’t know yet is one of the most difficult things that you could do but it’s so rewarding. Because what happens after you do it is suddenly you have more places that feel like home. That’s such a wonderfully deep happiness, a real secure feeling to know that many parts of the world feel like home. So to me, it’s it’s worth the struggle bqut most people don’t feel that way.
Camellia
Yeah, true. I know you move to so many places.
Derek Sivers
You too.
Camellia
Yeah, I did. So I’ll say one state’s name and you gave me an answer about how it changed your life.
Derek Sivers
Sure.
Camellia
Ready? New York.
Derek Sivers
That’s where I learned to not be scared of what used to scare me. When I first arrived in New York it scared the hell out of me. Only two years later, it was my comfortable home. That was the place where I started to feel the feeling of like, “hey, places that used to scare me can become my new comfortable home”.
Camellia
What part scared you most? Is it too big?
Derek Sivers
Oh, no. It was just because I was 19 years old. I grew up in a small town and suddenly I’m like, “oh my God, New York City”. It’s not just the physically looking at the height that just keeps going and going and going, but it’s also the cultural baggage. New York City had this reputation as being this tough place. This is also like less so now than when I first moved there. The crime was way worse than it is now. New York City was known as this tough, dangerous place and filled with all the cultural baggage and then just the visceral overwhelm of being there. It was scary when I first moved there, but then within two years and still it’s my comfort zone. I’m so comfortable in New York, every neighborhood, anywhere. I have friends there. I love it.
Camellia
Cool, next Singapore.
Derek Sivers
That’s when I realized that I was just an American. Up until Singapore, I had been living in lots of different parts in America. I still thought that I knew what was right and wrong. I thought I had the answers. Once I got to Singapore, I found a perfectly working philosophy that was completely opposite of mine, you know, this kind of Confucian approach to life. That felt wrong when I first arrived but after a while, I started to understand it and it made sense. Then I felt like I know nothing anymore. 15 years ago, I thought I had all the answers. Now I know that I know nothing.
Camellia
Wellington.
Derek Sivers
I don’t love Wellington. I’m just here out of some accident of necessity. It’s an ugly city. It’s too dense, way too much advertising. I wish they would have made some kind of, you know, regulations about how much advertising you can put because every bit of space is taken up by real estate advertising and it’s just really ugly. I don’t like it. I have nothing else to say about Wellington.
Camellia
But you move there second time if I’m right. What made you make this decision?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, Just my ex-wife’s job.
Camellia
Mm hmm.
Derek Sivers
That’s the only reason.
Camellia
Last city, Oxford.
Derek Sivers
I love Oxford. I am really sad that I’m not there anymore. I loved it thoroughly. I loved living there. It is just the right size for me. I think it’s gorgeous. I think it’s smart and cultural. I love the location. It’s handy to get to Heathrow Airport, which then brings you everywhere. I love that it’s right on the edge of the countryside. I just love the people it attracts. I even like the weather. I like English weather.
Camellia
Yeah, same.
Derek Sivers
I just love everything about it. I just stumbled into it like a perfect, wonderful house. I had this wonderful little cottage house there that I just adored. I never wanted to leave, but I moved there in 2019, planning to stay for 12 years. But then COVID hit and that plus some other family stuff just had to kind of make a family decision to move back to New Zealand. So I miss it dearly. I mourn for it. I grieve.
Camellia
Yeah. I think for me, I lived in London for two years. Once I left it, I miss it deeply. I’m now in Lisbon and it’s sunny every day. I miss England weather. That gave me so many inspiration. Yeah, it’s very interesting. I can say sometimes just life leads you to different part and you probably don’t have a choice. You may have a choice.
Derek Sivers
You always have a choice. You never have to do anything, but if you take other people into consideration, it’s not just about you. If it was just up to me, I would probably just be fully nomadic. But wanting to do the best thing for my son and his mom. Here we are.
Camellia
When did you find out you like to be more considerate about others? I know in your book, Your Music and People you say marketing skill is being considerate in your business and in your personal life. When did you start to have this philosophy?
Derek Sivers
Well, I think that was just marketing. I think that was just realizing that was the essence of marketing really comes down to being considerate. Marketing isn’t shouting. Marketing isn’t advertising. Marketing isn’t annoying people. Real marketing is all about being considerate and making it easy for people to remember you and helping them see why they should do business with you and making them feel good about doing business with you. That’s what marketing is really about. And to do all of those things well, you have to be considerate. I think that’s where my focus on being considerate came from was when I started learning about marketing, when I was trying to promote my music and then later my business.
Camellia
Yeah. What about your personal life?
Derek Sivers
I think that comes more from having a kid. I’m not just saying this to sound like a good dad, but my kid just objectively matters more than I do. He’s got more life ahead of him. Therefore, his life matters more than mine. So I put his needs above my own for just that very reason, part of it’s just love. A lot of it’s just practicality? No, not practicality. What is it? Ration. It’s just the rational thing to do. To place your kids needs above your own.
Camellia
I see, since I haven’t had a baby yet, I probably can’t understand this. Maybe one day.
Derek Sivers
Maybe it’s easy to imagine. It’s not so hard to imagine that. When you have a kid and you just realize that this kid’s life matters more than yours, just objectively.
Camellia
Since you have done so many different things and have so many different titles and identities, I wonder, how did you find out that identity is no longer yours? And what do you feel when you say goodbye to your old identity?
Derek Sivers
If an old identity was fully realized, then I’m happy to leave it behind. For example, I was a professional, full time musician for 15 years. I did it well. I did it thoroughly. I did it for 15 years. That was enough. I’m happy that I did it and I’m really happy to leave it behind. CD Baby, I was an entrepreneur for ten years. For ten years I felt like a public servant, like I was living 7 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week for my clients. Everything I did, every waking moment, I had no personal life for ten years. I didn’t go out. I didn’t go to restaurants, I didn’t travel. I just lived for my clients every waking minute for ten years. I’m glad that I did it and I’m glad that it’s done. I think the sad thing is when you have an old identity that was never fully realized. For example, 15 years ago, I said I really, really, really want to learn Mandarin Chinese. I want to speak Mandarin and I want to be able to write Chinese fluently. I love the written language especially. I want to do this, but for 15 years I haven’t really done it. It’s even part of why I moved to Singapore was because the language, because it’s one of the or it is the only place except mainland China where they use the simplified Chinese. I thought, that’s the one I want to learn. So I’m moving to Singapore partially to learn Chinese.
Derek Sivers
But it was always like a fifth priority under other things. I just never really got around to it. Now after like 15 years, it’s just admitting, you know what? I don’t think that’s ever going to happen, I’m just going to let that one go. There’s something kind of sad about that, I really did want it. But I just wanted other things more. So that’s a little sad to let go and the thing I was saying about Oxford a few minutes ago, that wasn’t just Oxford, that was like. We made like a big family decision, my kid is going to grow up in Oxford. He’s going to live in Europe for the next 12 years of his life from the age of 7 to 19. This is where we’re going to live for 12 years. He’s going to grow up here. I had so many plans of all the places I wanted to take him, places I wanted to discover myself, not just visiting a place once. I don’t mean like looking at the Eiffel Tower, but really getting to know all these adjacent cultures. I was really looking forward to that. I had really big plans for my kid to grow up that way. After only 13 months, COVID hit, it derailed everyone’s life. I really I mourn for that. That’s a hard one to look back at. I don’t feel okay about the fact that that’s not going to happen.
Camellia
So how did you cope with this disappointment?
Derek Sivers
I’m very disappointed.
Camellia
Accepted?
Derek Sivers
I don’t know if I fully accept it.Oh, well, that’s life. You can’t have everything you want. You can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything.
Camellia
Actually, before I moved to England, I planned everything like, I’m going to watch the Euro Cup, I’m going to all the writers, the residency to visit. I planned that whole Europe trip, then COVID hit. It’s kind of hard to follow my plan for two years.
Derek Sivers
I’m glad you were able to move to Lisbon. You know that was a place that I almost lived as well. I became a legal resident of Portugal and planned on living there. Then again just family things happened and it didn’t work out.
Camellia
Oh, well, I remember I emailed you to ask you about what do you think about Portugal? You said it’s a little bit sad and dirty.
Derek Sivers
Oh that was private, you can’t insult Portugal on the air.
Camellia
Sorry. I think I do feel it’s like New York and Lisbon is all very dirty, but I think it’s part of their status identity.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, true.
Camellia
Yeah. New Zealand is clean, but I don’t have that deep connection. I don’t know why so clean is not my priority when picking up the city.
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Camellia
What are some of your life turning points that made you rethink your principles?
Derek Sivers
Let’s talk about the first time I discovered the benefit of breaking the rules. I was 17 years old and had just gone off to university. I went to Berklee School of Music, so 17 years old, got on an airplane, went far away to the city of Boston. I had never lived in a city before. It’s my first day there and everybody was checking in to their dormitories and we had all been assigned a room. The school takes care of that in advance. They say you’ll be in room 312, you’ll be in room 163. So I went with my friend first to his room. We checked him into his room and his room was huge with a bathroom. Then I went to go check into my room and it was it was like this booth I’m standing in right now. It was just this tiny little room with a bunk bed and just enough room to walk around the bunk bed like this sideways. They were supposed to be two of us in that room, they wanted two people to live in that tiny room that was just a bunk bed and room to walk around it. Not even a desk and no bathroom, no nothing. I just took one look and I just said, “oh, hell no, I’m not doing that”. So I totally broke the rules and found somebody whose roommate didn’t show up and had an empty room like they had a suite.
Derek Sivers
Nobody had showed up for the other half. I found out about this and so I knocked on their door and I said I was the roommate. I said, “oh, this is my room but for some reason they must have given me the wrong key. But this is my room. Hey, I’m your new roommate. I’m Derek. Nice to meet you”. For a whole week, I climbed in through the window because the housing office said “absolutely not. Go back to the room we assigned you to”. And I said, “absolutely not. I won’t”. They said,” you are seriously breaking the rules”. And I said, “I don’t care. I refuse to sleep in that room. I’m sleeping in this room. I’m climbing in the window. I’ll do this all year if that’s what it takes”. After about a week, they finally relented and they gave me the key. When I look back, I’m so proud of little 17 year old Derek that did that. That’s really cool to stand up for yourself and not take the rules too seriously, to be resourceful, to make something happen instead of just going, “oh, well, I guess that’s what I’ll just have to do then”. I think that was a turning point, as you said, of learning to break the rules.
Camellia
It’s good example. I remember you mentioned a story in your book or your article when you were in school. There was a professor going to give a talk, but he didn’t eat. So you ordered pizza then it led to him giving you some mentorship or something like that, if I remember correct. I think it is also a good example to notice something someone else didn’t notice and give you an open the door for you to some opportunities. It’s a reminds me when I first noticed your website, I read almost everything on your site and I’m very fascinated about the terminology you call solitary socialite.
Derek Sivers
Oh, the solitary socialite.
Camellia
Yeah. What are the pros and cons of being a solitary socialite?
Derek Sivers
The two pros are first, that it’s efficient. I mean, it’s so efficient to meet everybody by email, I go through about 100 emails a day and I can do it in about 90 minutes like I do it in in under one minute per email. I can have one on one communication with 100 people a day in 90 minutes. That’s so efficient. I have this program that like a database. So I get to keep track of everybody I’ve communicated with and I can see our email history. I keep track of where people live and what they do and their URLs, and I follow people on Twitter and stuff like that. So it’s really efficient to keep in touch with lots and lots of people. Another surprising thing I like about the solitary aspect is I don’t usually know the age or the race or even the gender of who I’m talking with. It’s funny, I just realized that with the I guess there are some languages where I’d have to use a different verb if it was masculine or feminine for who I was talking with. But in English, you know, I don’t know. Often, there have been some times where I’ve been emailing with somebody for years and found out that they were much older than I thought. And the other gender, because sometimes there are these names like Bobby or Robin where you can’t be sure what gender somebody is. I’ve been surprised a few times to find out that I thought I was emailing with somebody from a certain demographic and they were completely different.
Derek Sivers
Even like the race thing has surprised me a few times. Like I’ve been emailing with somebody for years and then they say, “oh, hey, look, I made this video”. I’m like, oh my God, I was not expecting that and I like that. I like that it’s just like I’m dealing with people just for their ideas, their words, not their face, you know, not their age. So what’s the downsides? The downsides is because I’m doing this all by email and so quickly, like I never, ever do zoom, ever. Only when doing interviews like podcast interviews, but never just for talking to people. So the downside is that I don’t remember people as much. I’m sure that I’ve emailed with a photographer and a lawyer and a programmer in the past week, but if you were to ask me, “hey, can you recommend a programmer”, I’d say, “I don’t know”. I interact with people so quickly that I don’t know who’s good. I don’t know their work. So say when I lived in a very social city, like when I lived in New York City, Los Angeles or Singapore. I met face to face with a lot of people and then I’d really get to know them and get to know their work. I’d get to know their temperament. I’d get to know whether I would actually recommend them for a job or not. I love the sounds of the city as we’re talking about the city.
Camellia
I should get the booth like you. That’s the thing about moving around, you can’t set up the permanent recording thing. You just need to accept that. I echo with your dealing with people online because I’ve been emailed by a person named Shannon is in Chinese. You probably assume it’s a girl, so I kind of send the many, kissing and very intimate emojis. Then after half a year, I found out that he’s a guy. Yeah, I felt so embarrassed. I said, “oh, sorry about that, because I thought you are a girl. That’s why I used this kind of emojis”. But he didn’t take it to mind because we often just communicate with the ideas. I know you keep writing and doing a lot of creation. Why do you think you should not wait for inspiration to come?
Derek Sivers
That’s just a basic fact of life. Inspiration will never make the first move. She only will meet you halfway. You always have to start working without inspiration. And only when you’ve begun working without her then she will come join you. That’s just just a fact. Like ask anybody who is any kind of professional creator and they’ll tell you the same thing. I’ve found it personally, but I’ve also read lots of interviews with creators and they they all say the same thing. You cannot wait for inspiration.
Camellia
Yes. So true I put Hemingway’s quote on my website. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed”. You just need to do the work. The muse won’t just come randomly, but do you think you when you travel or try some new experience, you get new idea where you can see that as an inspiration?
Derek Sivers
Sometimes, rarely. You’d have to really go out and engage. Some people might get some inspiration by just being a tourist somewhere, but for what I’ve done, inspiration rarely comes from the outside world. To me, the inspiration is very often just comes from the work itself. You begin writing or doing whatever you’re doing, and then the inspiration comes just from all the culmination of your life experience up to that point, not just because you saw something pretty in a strange place today, you know?
Camellia
Yeah, it’s kind of it’s already inside you. Some external facts just triggered you so you can make the connection. I read something you kind of like train your kid to be very focused. Is that part of your secret to be so productive on creating writing?
Derek Sivers
I don’t think I’m very productive. I’ve done a lot over the years. But if you look at how much some people write every day or put out something every day or every week. I’m not one of those. I don’t think I should be giving any secret on how to be productive since I’m not productive, I should also not be giving any secrets on basketball tips.
Camellia
I think maybe these are wrong words because your content to me is very high quality and very inspirational. So with that, the focus plays a big role in there.
Derek Sivers
Maybe. I work for a long time on the stuff that you see me put out publicly into the world. I might put out a little article that’s only 20 sentences, but I worked for like 8 hours on those 20 sentences, you know, or my TED talks that are out there. I think I have three or four, three TED talks that are just like 3 minutes long each. I worked for months on those. That was like a full time job for two months to get up there and deliver a good 3 minutes. That was so much work to give a three minute talk. That was a month and a half of my life preparing that three minute talk and getting it just right word for word. So it’s like that with the articles that I put out and the books that I do. I spend a lot of time editing and sweating over every word, which really comes out. Ultimately that comes from wanting to be considerate. I don’t want to waste anybody’s time. I don’t want to pollute the world. I don’t want to put out any sentence into the world that doesn’t need to be there. So I want people to know that any time you’re getting anything from me, whether it’s a book or an article or a talk, that I’m not going to waste your time, I’m going to give you the absolute best and minimum number of sentences I can so that you can get the best benefit in the minimum time.
Camellia
I can’t remember who said that before. He mentioned, okay, this is the long answer for your question because I don’t have time to shorten that up.
Derek Sivers
Oh yeah. It’s a credit to Blaise Pascal, I think. Long ago.
Camellia
Yeah. It really takes effort. Like when you read some short and sweet article, maybe there’s a couple of months work behind that. There’s another article you talk about daydreaming because this one of my favorite leisure activities, I like to daydream. So what are the benefits of daydreaming?
Derek Sivers
Oh, God, it’s all of them. Your brain doesn’t make a big distinction between something you’re imagining and something you are actually doing. Sorry, this is going to sound stupid, but like, you know, when you physically touch something, all that’s really happening are the nerves sending messages to your brain, but ultimately it’s your brain that receives the messages from the nerves saying that you’re touching this thing. Same thing with your seeing things. It’s like hitting the back of your retina, but then it’s nerves that are sending the messages to your brain saying that you’re seeing this thing. So when you imagine something, it’s almost like it’s really happening to you, especially if you let yourself imagine vividly. Whether that’s just closing your eyes on the sofa and daydreaming like that or making really concrete plans like I often love making really specific concrete plans. I’ll have some daydream about how I’m going to build a forest in India and I’ll spend weeks planning it and I’ll talk to people and I’ll find out more about this and I’ll get all the facts and I’ll spend many hours making a specific plan. It’s really exciting and fun. After a certain point, I think, “alright, well, I might do that. I might not”. Now I’ve got something else that’s interesting me, I’ve learned about the Esperanto language and I want to do that for a while. So it’s okay to just let yourself vividly dive into these things that you might do or just imagine doing. Maybe you’re never going to do it and you just want a daydream. I think it’s all wonderful.
Camellia
This is I have so many interests and I’m very curious about everything, but I know I can’t do everything, so I like daydreaming about that. I’ve already done that. Then just imagine that. This could connect to your another article about the future folders. Would you mind elaborate this idea?
Derek Sivers
Oh, it’s kind of just what I just said. I used to feel bad when I would not make an idea happen. I spent weeks planning how I was going to build a forest in India. And I would feel bad that I didn’t do it after all that work. Eventually I just realized that I can just save all that work in a folder. Put all of those folders in a bigger folder called Possible Futures. Then someday, if I want to make it happen again, I can just pull up that folder and get back to it. Maybe I’ll make it happen. Or maybe I’ll just leave it as it was. Now I don’t feel bad about any time I spend planning something that I don’t end up doing. I just considered them all possible futures.
Camellia
So do you believe in a parallel universe, Derek Sivers from another universe already done that.
Derek Sivers
Maybe. Doesn’t matter. This one is okay just daydreaming about it.
Camellia
I see you finished the How To Live and I see so many conflicting philosophies in that book.
Derek Sivers
I’m so proud of that one. That’s my soul in there. I love that book.
Camellia
It took years for you to write it, right?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. It was so rewarding. That was like four years of hard work to make it that small. It would have been easier to make it much longer, but to condense it down and make every sentence count. That was a great feeling. Here I have a little tiny one here. I love how tiny this is it’s like 115 pages. So much of my soul is in there in 115 pages.
Camellia
Yeah it’s easy to carry when I travel. So I like your book. After reading your book, I feel like there is no right or wrong way of living because, you know, in our society, so many people just follow one single path the society taught us to do. After reading your book, I said, “well, there’s so many possibilities”. That means each individual has to dig deep in their heart to find their way of living. What do you want this book to achieve?
Derek Sivers
I think the the punch line at the end of the book is a picture of the orchestra. To me, it’s like the different ways you could approach your life are like the different instruments in an orchestra where a composer or conductor never has to decide, “well okay, of these 27 instruments, which one are you going to use?”. They don’t have to decide that because you can make combinations of them. You can use combinations and you can use time. They can say at the beginning, I’m going to have just the flute and a drum. Just the flute will come in and then the clarinet will join it. Later I’m going to have the trumpets come in and then it’s all going to stop and there’s going to be just a harp. It’s like this with your different approaches to life. You don’t have to pick one. You can say, for now I’m going to be a hedonist, but I’m going to do it in Cambodia, which will help me save money and just live a hedonist life surfing on the beach. Later, I’m going to go back to school and get my master’s degree and then I’ll be head down getting my master’s degree. After that, I’m going to move to somewhere boring because that’s where I met somebody from this boring place and we’ve decided we’re going to go there and have kids and all we’re going to do is just be with our kids in nature. Then a different time, I’m going to get a good paying job in San Francisco and make a lot of money. You don’t have to pick. You use them with time and you combine them.
Camellia
Yeah, experience different things.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. So you don’t ever have to decide. You don’t have to look deep into yourself you can just go with whatever’s happening in your life and know that you can use time.
Camellia
Because I don’t know if it’s my age now or some social peer pressure. “Oh, you are in your thirties now. You should settle down and have a family”. So what’s your opinion? Like, move for good and settle down.
Derek Sivers
Oh, well, like that to me is my preferred way to travel. Is to consider or assume that wherever you are now, this is where you’re going to stay. This idea kind of came from an art teacher that said that when you go to a museum, you should pretend that you have to buy one piece of art in this museum and which one is it going to be? That makes you look at everything very judgingly, you have to decide what is your favorite? Look at things very intensely and so that was his recommendation for here’s how you should go to a museum. I’m saying, here’s how you should travel. You should assume that wherever you are that this is going to be your permanent home for the rest of your life, that you are now a local. Instead of asking how they do things, you should be asking, how do we do things here? How do we tip here? How do we pick a home? How do we hail the waiter at the restaurant, whatever it may be. You should really internalize it and think that this is your permanent home, think like a local and try to become a local. Even if you end up leaving weeks later, I think you’ll have a better experience if you assumed that you’re moving there for good. But not settling down. Not just like, “well, you’re in your thirties now. You should settle down”. That’s just silly bullshit.
Camellia
No, I don’t buy this. Sometimes I call that noise around me. I found this very interesting, a lot of people travel in a group and every time they go to a new place, it’s still that kind of group of friends. They just change a location for drinking. I just can’t understand. They don’t take time to learn local culture, but just change a place of drinking is very funny in my opinion. You have another article about living in one place, but think globally. That’s what you did in New Zealand, you did the opposite way when you were in Singapore. You just indulge yourself with the local community. Have you change the second time you move back to New Zealand?
Derek Sivers
No, I think I’m still global. I love New Zealand physically more than socially. I never wanted to be social in New Zealand. I always thought of it as like my natural place. I like the people here. I like this being my international home base.
Camellia
Because for me I feel like it doesn’t matter where I live now, since the internet is so convenient, I can talk with you and other people who I found that I want to learn from. Quite interesting to see, like where your physical body lives does not matter that much. I wonder if you feel the same.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, it matters somewhat. You are affected by your environment. I think it would be depressing to be in a place where everybody felt hopeless and depressed. Even if you were in your room on the internet connecting with inspiring minds, I think it would still feel a little bleak to be living in a place where everybody around you was hopeless. I have felt much more excited when I’ve lived in places like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, where I was surrounded by really ambitious people doing really interesting things. London too, London was great for that meeting so many ambitious people doing interesting things and they were really excited about something. Then you meet them and and pretty soon they’re introducing you to somebody else they’re working with and collaborating with people. That’s wonderful. Yeah we can sit in Bali and use the Internet worldwide, but something special happens from being in the same place with other driven, ambitious people.
Camellia
Yeah, I think the energy and the vibes just give you more different. Lisbon when I moved here, I just like this digital nomad environment. So many entrepreneurs and founders here. I go to some events, then I get some collaboration opportunities. That’s something I won’t be able to get in New Zealand, so I feel like that’s good. But the downside is this the weather is so good, every time I stay home, I just feel like, “oh, I want to go outside”. That’s the opposite of London.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I was like that when I first moved to Los Angeles. Every day I didn’t go out to the beach I felt a little guilty. Eventually I just realized, you know, it’s always going to be nice here. I can go next week. I just need to work today.
Camellia
Yeah, there’s a question that bothers me a lot. I’d like to seek your opinion. People like to use stereotype or to prejudge people. When people look at me, “oh, you are Asian” and they probably have some stereotype, but actually my behavior probably is very different from how people think Chinese girls should behave. So I wonder, why people always use stereotype. Are they too lazy to think out of the box?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I think it’s efficient. They just don’t care that much. If you really get to know one person. If you meet somebody that really cares about you and wants to know you better, then they will ask you a thousand questions in order to get to know you better. Most people that are just interacting with you on some kind of transactional basis, it’s just efficient. They’re sometimes correct. That’s why they’re stereotypes is that they came from something. Even if it’s only 55% of the time, if they can make some assumption like, “oh, you’re from here, well, then you’re probably this” is just a quick way to get through life. I don’t think you can take it personal. They’re just being efficient.
Camellia
I see. Have you ever encountered any stereotypes or what people think of you is wrong.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, but I think they’re often right. When they think that I’m a brash American, I think, “oh, yeah, I guess I am”. You know, When you asked what I learned moving to Singapore. I think it made me realize how American I am, because in America, I felt kind of strange. I didn’t feel like an absolutely typical American when I was in America. I thought of my distinguishing features that were not like the people I was surrounding. Then when you put me out in the rest of the world, yeah, compared to the rest of the world, I’m very American. I’d say that when people have made a stereotype about me, it’s often turned out to be true. In fact, when I moved back to Wellington twice now. Twice when I went to go meet somebody in person for the first time, somebody who I’d been emailing with, maybe even talk to you on the phone and now is going to go meet them in person for the first time, twice. The person I was meeting with accurately predicted before I arrived that I would show up in a Nissan Leaf. They were right that I have a Nissan Leaf, because I’m not going to splurge on a Tesla, but I’m not going to drive a petrol car.
Derek Sivers
So I’m going to have the all electric car, but I’m going to be cheap about it. That’s kind of the Derek Sivers way They stereotyped me to assume that about me. They were dead right. I pulled up in a Nissan Leaf and yet twice two different unrelated people that don’t know each other a few months apart both like as soon as I arrived. They’re just like to the person they were with, “I told you, you won the bet. We knew you’d come in and Nissan Leaf, we figured you were a Nissan Leaf kind of guy”. Yeah, I don’t mind stereotypes. They’re fun, they’re efficient. I know other people whose feelings get really hurt by them. They’re sick of being assumed that because I look like this, you think I’m going to be like that. I can see the downside to it. But you can’t take any of it personally. People aren’t thinking of you personally. They’re just going through life. They’ve got their own life to worry about. They’re not thinking about you.
Camellia
Yeah, exactly. That’s the thing I started to realize. It’s not all about you, people just thinking efficiently. I even wrote a book about why people always use stereotype to judge me two years ago. I got an identity crisis. Why do people always put me into a Chinese girl’s box. As you mentioned, it’s not all about you. It’s just a daily encounter. Something about you is different from a typical American stereotype.
Derek Sivers
God, I don’t know. In America there are these different pockets of cultures. When I was in Chicago, I never felt I fit in. I moved to Boston. I didn’t fit in. I moved to New York City. I didn’t fit in. Then when I went to San Francisco, I went, “oh, I fit in almost too much. This is creepy. Everybody is like me”. I was born in Berkeley, California, which is part of San Francisco. I lived there till I was five and then moved around the world. I think maybe because of my parents or something that San Francisco California culture just stayed with me. When I’m in California, it’s almost creepy to me how much I fit in, how everybody is like me, how I’m like everybody else. So, no, I don’t think there’s anything special about me.
Camellia
How do you balance, like adapt to local life and fitting in? You mentioned that when you are in Singapore, you kind of want to indulge the local culture.
Derek Sivers
I mean, I don’t pretend to be somebody I’m not. But I think it’s just about understanding. Sometimes it’s just in your behavior in the way that you act. I don’t come in acting like a brash American. If that’s rude and off putting, I might internally keep those same beliefs. Externally I’m going to be considerate. I think it’s more about understanding. It doesn’t mean that doesn’t mean that I need to be a chameleon and completely blend in and pretend I’m from there, but I think it’s more about understanding. Yeah, the empathy and the connection of understanding people and understanding how you fit in into their world.
Camellia
I still remember when you when we first met in New Zealand, you show off your Chinese. Oh, God. What’s the sentence again?
Derek Sivers
Oh, God. My one ridiculous sentence.
Camellia
Something about TV, yeah.
Derek Sivers
That was, I don’t want to watch TV now. I learned it from a grammar lesson from the Michelle Thomas Mandarin method where they don’t teach you vocabulary first they teach you grammar. That sentence was used to show off the grammar of saying wo xianzai. I just liked the way that sentence sounds.
Camellia
Yeah, that’s cool. I was thinking to learn Portuguese and I ask you for some recommendation, but since it’s not my priority and the people in Lisbon, they all speak perfect English. So it’s not necessary for me to learn.
Derek Sivers
The Michelle Thomas Portuguese Audio by Virginia Kammer is really, really good. It’s a wonderful ntroduction to European Portuguese and so is practiceportuguese.com. They are great for learning Portuguese. To me, the combination of those two things you’ll learn not Brazilian Portuguese, but you’ll learn real Portugal Portuguese. Those are my favorite resources.
Camellia
Yeah, my favorite writer, Fernando Pessoa. He’s a kind of inspiration for me to want to learn Portuguese. I want to read his work based in his language. But now I’ve got so many things going on and it’s not my priority. Eventually I think I will learn. It’s so beautiful Portuguese because before I moved to Portugal I never thought about learning Portuguese because French and Spanish is more popular than Portuguese. Do you have any like inspirational writers you regard as heroes?
Derek Sivers
Oh, all the time. In fact, I don’t remember her name right now, but by the time this podcast goes live, if you go to my book page on my website, sive.rs/book, where I post all of the notes from the books I’ve read. If you sort with the newest at the top and look for the book that I’ve read on the 28th of July, I just finished it yesterday. It’s this book about philosophy, the complete introduction to philosophy. The woman who wrote it, oh, my God! She’s one of the clearest writers I’ve ever encountered. She takes these incredibly complex, hard to explain philosophical concepts or everything that a philosopher like Nietzsche or Immanuel Kant taught and compresses it into an incredibly easy to understand 15 page chapter. It’s breathtaking. She’s one of the best writers I’ve ever encountered, and I just emailed her yesterday to tell her so. She’s a professor in Ohio, so amazing. I think I’m constantly finding writers that can impress me. The bar keeps getting raised so then I get really upset when I encounter a writer whose content I would like, but I hate their writing style if they get too flowery or too verbose. It’s really frustrating to me because I really like it when people are simple and succinct.
Camellia
I remember one friend asked me, “who do you want to meet in this world?”. I probably want to meet a writer, but I can’t figure out which writer alive I want to meet. I have a writers on my list, but they all dead.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. I mean, there’s some good ones. I love Mark Manson’s writing.
Camellia
Oh, yeah, it’s good. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
When I read a book and then I take their ideas and I try to put it into my own words and try to say it better than they’ve said it. One of the only writers that I just can’t improve on, it’s Mark Manson. Every sentence he writes, I look at it and “how can I make this better?”. I’m like, can’t, damn it. He nailed it. He’s so good.
Camellia
I joined his private book club, Zero Fuck Gay Club is kind of like an FTP stuff. I asked him about my commitment issue. Because I move around and even for my relationship, normally just lasts for three months then. So his advice for me is just make a damn commitment and then stick with it. Don’t think about anything else. Okay.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. There can be the separation between your mind and your body. You can let your mind wander, but let your body stay committed to one thing. Let the others be possible futures.
Camellia
So that would be your advice for me as well. If I ask you this question.
Derek Sivers
I don’t know about advice. Advice is so full of shit.
Camellia
Okay, last question about New Zealand.
Derek Sivers
Oh, alright.
Camellia
What’s was different with the second time you moved back compared with the first time you lived there?
Derek Sivers
Oh, none.
Camellia
Yeah, that’s what I imagine.
Derek Sivers
You know look this is my favorite country in the world. Even though you heard me talk poorly about Wellington. I love almost everywhere else in New Zealand except Wellington. It was just through some circumstance like I said, it was because of my kid’s mom, who’s my ex and the job that she got. So this is where I am. It’s fine, I don’t care. I actually like the weather. For anybody listening, Wellington New Zealand is officially the windiest city in the whole world. There are windier places in the world, I’m sure the South Pole is quite windy, but as far as cities go that are over a certain size. Wellington is the windiest city in the world and I like it because it keeps the air clean. It has some of the cleanest air in any city because of the wind. It’s just at the very tip. It’s like ocean to the west, ocean to the east. The wind is just blowing through all the time. It keeps the air really clean. The landscape around Wellington is wonderful. So I’m fine with living here. I just I don’t like Wellington, the city, but I like the Wellington area, New Zealand.
Derek Sivers
I refer to this earlier, but like when COVID hit. I was living in England and my ex was there and she didn’t like it. So we kind of like had to make this big family decision of where to go. Do you remember when COVID first started? We didn’t know how this is going to turn out. We didn’t know if this was going to last one year, ten years. Maybe this is just the new reality. Maybe nobody will ever travel ever again. I didn’t know what kind of tribal wars were going to break out and people locking their borders like we just didn’t know. So I had to ask myself when it first hit, if I could only be in one country for the rest of my life and never, ever be in another country ever again, what would that one country be? To me, that was just obviously New Zealand. That’s what made the decision to move back here. Like, this is my real home. I’m a citizen. That’s where my heart lies is here. My possible futures and my daydreams might lie elsewhere, but my heart is here. And it’s my favorite single country in the world. I’m happy being here. Very happy being here.
Camellia
I think Wellington has a very famous Burgers festival every August. I don’t know if you heard about Wellington On a Plate.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, Wellington on a plate. Lots of burgers. Great. They’re all $30
Camellia
Yeah, it’s very expensive. Yeah, but that’s a burger that I missed about Wellington. And the sign on the mountain. It’s like a blow away. It’s quite interesting. It’s one hour now, and thank you so much for your time, Derek.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, It’s good to see you again.
Camellia
Yeah, appreciate that. I’ll probably go back to New Zealand end of this year. Cool. If you’re free we can catch up in Wellington.
Derek Sivers
You mean, are you thinking of moving back or just visit.
Camellia
No, it’s just a visit.
Derek Sivers
Okay. You’re going to stay in Lisbon, right?
Camellia
I don’t know yet, but for this year.
Derek Sivers
Oh, okay. That’s a commitment thing for this. Well, we’ll come back to that in another conversation. I’ll ask you again next year.
Camellia
Yeah. For this year? I would definitely stay here. Still need to explore the city. Explore Portuguese culture. Thanks for listening. That’s the end of the conversation. Please make sure you check out Derek’s website at sive.rs and introduce yourself. He would love to know where you are and what you are working on.