Deep Dive Podcast
host: Eyal Shay
authority, authorship, conflicting life philosophies, choosing useful beliefs, questioning assumptions and norms
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Transcript:
Eyal Shay
Hello world. Welcome to another episode of The Deep Dive with the Eyal Shay. My guest today is Derek Sivers. Hi, Derek.
Derek Sivers
Hi, y’all.
Eyal Shay
It’s really good to have you on. Thanks for coming on. And without further ado, as the custom goes, I’d love for us to do a deep dive on something which is related to your latest book, which I listened to and loved. So it is called “How to Live 27 Conflicting Answers and one Weird conclusion”. And I really, really enjoyed it. And I think the most striking thing and it’s in the title, is just the format of it and what it sets out to do. And an idea that kind of struck me right away is--. An idea that has been in the back of my mind for for a number of years. But I think really kind of very naturally came to the forefront after reading this book. And that’s the idea of authority or authorship. And yeah, I’d really love to maybe build on that and explore that and see how it relates to to your book. So I’d like to ask you, when it comes to the format and the giving of answers, the authority part. What is your relationship with this concept and kind of the concept of giving advice and just straightforwardly telling people what to do.
Derek Sivers
Okay. First, to explain the format of the book. Did you read the book Sum by David Eagleman?
Eyal Shay
So I haven’t. I know that yours is based on that one.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Okay. So for anybody listening and for you too, my book called “How to Live” is an homage to a book called Sum by David Eagleman, which was my favorite format of any book I’ve ever read because it’s 40 short stories, each one answering the question, “What happens when you die?” And it feels like it’s written by 40 different authors, each with a different idea, and then somebody compiled it into a book. But what’s fascinating is that it’s one author that just answers the same question in 40 different ways. So what happens when you die? And he writes a two page story about what happens when you die and then again, what happens when you die? He writes a different two page story about what happens when you die, and in this case, they’re little fictional stories. You know, in one you wake up in a mansion and you walk around forever, and another one you find out you’re an artificial intelligence program. And in another, you’re whatever. So I think it’s such a fun, creative exercise to do that for yourself. Like even if you’re a musician and I were to say, “Eyal write me a song about a waterfall.” And you’d write it and I’d say, “Okay, now write a different song about a waterfall.” And you’d write a second one, “Okay now write a different song about a waterfall.” Can you imagine doing that 40 times? Like what a creative challenge that would be to make yourself write 40 different songs about a waterfall. So I love this book, Sum by David Eagleman. I read it twice over two years. And suddenly one day, as I driving down the road, I had this lightning bolt of inspiration.
Derek Sivers
I was like, “Oh my God, I want to write a book called How to Live in that format, where I answer the question of how you should live your life like 40 different ways.” Turned out to be 27 in my case. But I’m not just going to invent it like a short story. In this case, I’m actually going to put everything I’ve learned about life into this one book. Because there are conflicting approaches you can take to life. You could say that the most important thing in life is to live in the present moment, focus only on the now. Everything else is either memories or imagination. The only thing that’s real is this very moment. So therefore, that’s how you should live. But on the other hand, we should all be living for the future, right? We should make a brighter tomorrow. We should improve our future selves and our future life. We should make the world a better place for future generations. In fact, that’s the answer for how to live. We should live entirely for the future. It’s like, wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, no. The way to live is to make memories. Like what good is a life at the end of your life if you can’t remember it at all? It was wasted. In fact, the best way to live is to make memories. That’s what’s really important. So I believe all of these. And so that’s what was so exciting to me about writing How to Live, is I did it in the format of the book Sum where I answer the same question how to live 27 times and each chapter disagrees with the rest. So there’s just the context for for you and for anybody listening.
Eyal Shay
Yeah. So this is the thing that’s striking about it, you know, is that taking each one of these in isolation, it’s very well written rhetorically. And I think that it made me think about the human tendency of looking for authority figures to kind of tell us what to do. And also because they are so extreme and they have like a very, very narrow focus in each chapter. Right. It’s also something about how these authority figures, the people who are willing to step into the shoes of an authority figure, I think they also take advantage of the fact that as humans we really want that strong emphasis on like only this is the one thing, right? The and I just love how this is basically this whole project of doing something that’s rhetorically impressive and persuasive. You’re at the same time like undermining it very much.
Eyal Shay
By doing doing it 27 different times. So I really wanted to ask you. What is the lesson to be taken from the fact that there are conflicting things in there?
Derek Sivers
I love that you brought this up. So when I got your email before we spoke today, part of the reason I wanted to come have this conversation with you is you’re the first person to ever say this idea of undermining the authority. But I love that you said this because part of the--. Let me back up. We’ve all seen books that have one strong opinion on how you should be running your life or how you should be running a business, or what approach you should be taking to love and relationships. And basically, every book or guru out there acts like they’ve got the answer, like, “No, no, this is it. This is how you should be running your business. You should value this and that. You should approach this exactly like that. This is it. This is how you should do it. My thesis, my conclusion, and therefore I am right and this is what you should do.” But then we can go read a different book that’s also a bestseller that also lots of thousands of people have said that they love and has helped them. And you read that one and it completely disagrees with the other book. Right. So we’re all used to that. And to me, it was just so fun, this idea of doing it in one book, like each little chapter, which is only a few pages, disagrees with every other chapter. And by doing so, yes, it is intentionally kind of making fun of other books or gurus that act like they’ve got the answer, because it’s also pointing out that there is no one answer, just like there’s not just one instrument in an orchestra which is giving away a bit of the ending. I’m spoiling it a bit, but yeah, at the end of the book there is a picture of an orchestra, and that’s why it’s a reminder that you don’t ask the composer what is the correct instrument of the orchestra. Which one is right? You know, it’s a combination. Yeah.
Eyal Shay
Yeah, yeah. You know, and it’s interesting because in my life, I know from my life that I think pretty much every young person goes through this phase when we’re starting to look outside and we’re starting to look at how to live. Right. And we’re looking up to these people with the answers. And for many of us, I think the default is basically to subscribe to one of them, at least for a short period of time and get this sense that you now have a truth. Right. And it’s something is like flaring up in you in that sense. And you want to go and talk about maybe proselytize, spread the word, whatever. And I’m wondering like where that met you. And if you remember an instance in your life where you were coming across something like that. And yeah, was it followed by a kind of disillusion that down the road led you to kind of make fun of the whole concept?
Derek Sivers
Good question. By the way, I love that we’re having this conversation from Jerusalem, a place where you have this pile of rocks called the Wailing Wall, this pile of rocks that holds up the cross. That pile of rocks, that’s the this, you know, legendary mosque. And they all kind of disagree with each other on what’s the answer? You’re living in that.
Derek Sivers
So, yeah, it’s related to religion, isn’t it? This idea, this comforting idea. That you’ve found the answer, right? That this is it. I’m just going to believe this. Those others are wrong. It’s comforting. It gives us a sense of security. It’s a human need, isn’t it, to have this sense of security and certainty. We like that feeling. We don’t want to feel that the rug has been yanked out from under us, that actually we can’t trust or believe anything. That’s a scary idea for a lot of people or a scary feeling. We don’t like that. So even then, like, if you know, what do you do if somebody pulls the rug out from under you, your hands reach around for something to grab on to. We want to steady ourselves. You know, we don’t enjoy toppling over. So sorry. Your real question is, did I in my past have something that I really subscribed to? Yeah, but I think I’ve always enjoyed changing. I’ve always enjoyed the active metaphorically picking up something and looking at it from another point of view. Like, imagine that you’ve got a complex gem in your hand. Picture a ruby or something like that. It’s one thing to look at it, but of course the first thing you do is you turn it over and you turn it around and you look at it from different points of view. Like that’s how you get to know it is by looking at it, lifting it up and turning it around, just shining the light through it, you know, then holding it down. And I think it’s like that with life. You need to see it from different perspectives to understand it. That’s one of the best things, is to see different perspectives.
Eyal Shay
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And in my practice of dialectic, I mean, if you went around and looked at the concepts of perspective and aspect, that’s literally it. The perspective is your new position from which you’re looking at the thing. And the aspect is that side of the diamond that you’re seeing right now. So you know, you’re seeing something which is truly part of the thing but not the whole thing, right? So you want to go at it like 360 degrees and in three dimensions to uncover as much as possible from the truth. And then if you’ve done it enough times, you have a good grasp of what something is. Otherwise it’s fleeting. So even if you’ve seen an aspect and let go of it, you forget, right? Which would be a good case to tell people to read your book multiple times if possible, because I think something needs to to stick and we have to practice for it to happen. Yeah, it’s--
Derek Sivers
If you don’t mind, I want to ask you something. We can forget about the How to Live book for a minute, but just on this subject of different beliefs. So let me just tell a little story and I want to ask your thoughts on this. So imagine that every day you go on a long run through the forest. And any time you’re going on a long run, you have issues of motivation, keeping you going. When you feel like quitting, helping you get to the end quickly. So usually what you do is you imagine a pot of gold at the finish line. And that gets you going. That motivates you. But one day you decide to try imagining that there’s a tiger right behind you and you find that motivates you even more. That fear keeps you pushing, pushing and never slowing down for a second. So now your time is even faster. And then let’s say a running coach gives the advice that you should try imagining that the ground is hot coals and to run like that. And that actually improves your technique and keeps you on the tips of your toes a little more. And so you don’t get to the end faster, but you find that you could go longer this way. You’re not as tired as when you’re landing on your heels. It keeps you on the tips of your toes. And so you’ve been doing this a lot and eventually you just try different things that make your daily run more fun. One day you try closing your eyes while running through the forest and seeing how long you can keep your eyes closed and it makes you listen more.
Derek Sivers
One day you just try singing. The whole time you’re taking the walk. One day you stick your arms out like an airplane. It’s just fun to try different things on your daily run. And then you’ve been doing your run so much that one day you decide to bring a shovel because there are all these rocks and bumps and sometimes holes on the trail. And you realize, you know what? I’m not the only person that runs here. I’m going to make this trail a better place for everyone else. And even though it gets you to the finish line later, of course, you use your shovel to dig up bumps and fill in holes and it makes it a better place. And you feel much better now even though it didn’t get you to the end quickly. So you can tell I’m doing this all like metaphorically, right. But if somebody were to come along and say, okay, now what’s the correct way to run, we need to figure out once and for all. What’s the best way to run? Is that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or is it the the tiger behind you. Or is it with your eyes closed? There is no right answer. You used different beliefs for different purposes. And in fact, you enjoyed changing the beliefs. Just for fun. And most importantly, absolutely none of these beliefs were true. So anybody trying to find the answer is actually just asking you to kind of pick a story that you like. Like, what’s your favorite movie? And. So, yeah. Mr Dialecic. How does this apply to you? I’m curious.
Eyal Shay
Yeah, that’s a really good question. First of all, yeah, by all means, I think we should. And this is something that I discussed before on the podcast, but I myself have this kind of belief and kind of origin story bordering on a kind of personal myth that I carry around with me, around the figure of the Phoenix. And I know that it’s not something that’s real, right? I don’t think that it’s real. I don’t think that it’s true. But it’s something that pushes me forward and helps me overcome hardships because it’s a thing that rejuvenates every time and revives itself after time. And it’s this kind of thing that really does good for you. Right? And it’s outside the realm of logic or how it’s going to do things right. So I’m definitely already feeling like I know something firsthand about playing with such thing. And yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. Whatever works for you. You know, the part that I like the most about your little story is the part where you went and fixed potholes because my wife, who is also my life in a way, my wife is a lot into a natural core and natural movement. And in that point you would say, “Oh, finally he’s doing something that’s kind of working on his range of motion, that’s diversifying his movement and something like that.”
Eyal Shay
So that’s what came to my mind that you might even serendipitously do something that’s even better for you than just running and just doing the same thing over and over again, but actually doing something else that is beneficial to you because it’s going to synergize with the endurance. Now you’re going to have strength too. So yeah, I really like it. And absolutely you can be playful with different things and arrive at the results that you want. It also brings something to my mind which I intended to ask you anyway, so How to live. This podcast is about living well ultimately and featuring people who are coming with ideas that have helped them live well. Why not, How to live well? Like why How to Live?
Derek Sivers
I guess it’s just implied. I think it’s just a kind of a saying, isn’t it? Like we say, “What’s the meaning of life?” We don’t say like, “What is the meaning of a good life?” We just say, “What’s the meaning of life?” And the other adjectives are assumed.
Eyal Shay
Yeah and that is so fascinating that you bring it up because I have a five minute rant on YouTube that I put up that I think we shortened this thing specifically about the meaning of life when people say, “But I think that the shortening with the meaning of life is like at first it’s for convenience.” But then later on people actually forget the well part. So that was interesting. And I saw a correlation there with authorities like to take it back to the concept that they like to be the theme of this with authorities that are giving you a how to live and they create a sort of an algorithm for you, right. Like a code. If that then and act like that. And the codes that people follow never actually work for them. If you actually stick with one code, which is really interesting because humanity has gone through several iterations of these codes, I think it begins with an ancestral code that is pretty much our ancestors did it this way. So you’re going to do it exactly this way and then it develops into a religious code maybe. And then even though it seems distinct, a code of law is not all that different from religion. And in every iteration we find that it doesn’t bring us this sustainable stability into our societies. And I think this is what I like the most about just immediately giving conflicting answers because, like you say, it’s pulling the rug out of the whole project there of trying to find one code and then it provides a natural segway, I think, into authorship, which is the kind of adjacent concept, because then it puts the onus on you to be an author of your own story.
Derek Sivers
Right? Like there’s a thing in fiction called the unreliable narrator, which is when you’re taking in a story, it could be a movie or whatever. In fact, I’ll use movie examples you’re taking in a story. And it seems at first like the person telling the story is giving you the real story. And every now and then some movies play with this, and it turns out that you can’t really trust what they’re showing you, right? So let’s say the movie Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump is very naive. And so he tells the story, understanding from his limited point of view what he understood to be true. But then the screen shows you a different perspective that’s like, “Oh, that’s not what was really happening Forrest just didn’t understand.” And eventually you learn like, okay, I’m going to hear the story is told by Forrest Gump, but I can’t really believe everything he’s saying. The movie Memento was not super popular, but is a brilliant example of this because it’s a story of somebody with really bad memory loss and then it’s his movie. He’s the one telling the movie. So all we ever see are short little two minute snippets.
Derek Sivers
And in fact, the whole movie is played backwards through these two minute snippets that go backwards in time. So we learn that we can’t trust what we’re being shown. And I think the other most popular example of this is Pulp Fiction, where in that case, this is maybe more like my How to Live book. Pulp Fiction was shown in scenes that only show you one perspective at a time. So first we just see the perspective from the hit man, you know, in a certain scene. And then later in the movie they’ll show you that same scene. But from the perspective of the guy hiding in the closet. And so we know that we’re only being shown one perspective at a time and the other one will come later to give you a bigger idea of what’s happening. So with each of these the unreliable narrator is fascinating for the viewer because yes, we at first want to just buy into the story and believe what we’re watching. And eventually you learn like, “Oh, hold on, I’m just going to have to suspend judgment because there’s more to the story.”
Eyal Shay
Yeah, Yeah, exactly. So I’m wondering, like in your life if that’s the default to be kind of suspicious about perspectives. Right. And I think we should correctly be suspicious of our own perspective sometimes because we can be biased. Right. So, I mean, where does that meet you?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Okay. We’ll do others, then we’ll do ourselves. You asked this question earlier about like, have I ever subscribed completely to a point of view and then changed my mind or lost a belief in it. See, I think any of us who have done that, whether it’s in the big, huge, life changing one like, you know, growing up with one religion and then changing it or letting go of it or vice versa, or even just a certain methodology, you know, maybe you subscribe to a certain book that you read and you said this is the way and you did it for a while until you found out it wasn’t. Some people get disillusioned by just finding out more about the author. There’s a really legendary book called “Think and grow rich” by Napoleon Hill and massive million best seller and Napoleon Hill talked about how Gandhi ordered 6000 copies of his books for his followers. And he talked about how how the book came from his meetings with one of the richest men of all time. And I forget who he said it was. It turns out later a journalist went back and found out that all of this stuff was just lies.
Derek Sivers
Gandhi never ordered his book. He never met with this legendary billionaire. Like all of it was lies. And the guy was just basically a salesman selling lies, like whatever he could do to sell a book. And it was all made up. But it’s like, even though that’s the case, do you now disbelieve everything in that book? To me, the answer is no. That’s that’s the point of my story about the running in the forest, is that it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not. All that matters is whether it works for you. And if a drunk person at a bar gives you some advice. And even the person giving it is a miserable failure. But it’s good advice and it’s like, “Oh, actually that’s what I needed to hear today. I could use that.” Well, it’s good for you. It doesn’t matter who gave it to you and it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. And sometimes with these psychology experiments, you know, in Daniel Kahneman’s famous book, Thinking Fast and Slow, after the book came out and was a big seller, some people tried to repeat some of his tests that he did in that book and couldn’t repeat them and found out--.
Derek Sivers
And so do we say that’s it, the whole book is false. Now just throw out the whole thing. In fact, just toss it in the fire. It’s of no use to us. No, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. What matters is if it’s useful to you. So it’s not true that there’s a tiger behind your tail, but if believing that makes you run faster, then that’s useful to you. So, no, I already had a huge chunk of--. What do you call it? Take it with a grain of salt. I don’t know where that thing comes from. Whenever I would hear anybody say, “This is the way.” Whether it’s a religion or if it’s a book or whatever, anybody who says this is the way I think, “Okay, well, that’s a way. Okay. That may be the way for you. It may help you to believe that since it’s your book or your religion. But for me, it’s it’s a way.” So I already heard that. I’m sorry. I think there was a second part to your question. I’ve forgotten.
Eyal Shay
No, I think that answers it. I think in a very real way. I mean for me I have confess that I have this moment stuck in my head where I’m 18 or something at the height of my reading Buddhism and talking to my then 33 year old sister and telling her, “No, no, you don’t understand. I’m going to be just like Buddha.” Like I took it so seriously. I’m going to be completely enlightened very soon, actually. You know? And then I remember getting to be 33 and thinking just like, “Oh, I’m now the age in which my sister told me that it’s going to pass.” And I was like, “Oh, yeah, I’m glad I’m not there.” So I’m glad to hear that. In your case, you were spared the embarrassment of going through something like that.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, okay, that was that’s a really fun example. That’s because we all know that feeling of being a teenager. And yeah, I think it’s a search for identity sometimes, isn’t it? You know, the way that I lived in Los Angeles for years and I would see people get so into yoga like they would move to Los Angeles for whatever reason coming from anywhere. And Los Angeles has this culture of yoga. A lot of people like doing yoga, so they’d go to a yoga class, but they wouldn’t just do the yoga. They would buy into the whole persona. They would start speaking in a certain way. They would say Namaste at random moments. They would change the decoration of their house and and just like they would take on this persona of a yoga person, right? Like that’s who they wanted to be. And we see that with people who get a Harley-Davidson motorcycles, just, you know, the leather jacket, the tattoos. And they just like, want to be in this club. It’s an identity. It’s people searching for who am I? I need to pick political parties. Oh shit. Like I don’t mess with that. But people treat their political party like a religion, you know?
Eyal Shay
Yeah, Yeah. Tell me about it. Again, Israel. Yeah. You’re going to find some nutjobs that are very much staunch supporters of some fantasy kind of religion. Yeah I think, I thin that’s the even like a meta level to you know going beyond just whatever works for you, but understanding that instead like you have to move away from the stage in your life where you’re looking up to authorities to kind of going through a coming of age and realizing that, hey, you know, there is uncertainty and I have to become the author of my own story and I’m not going to go up to somebody else who’s an authority, but I’m going to be an author and also my own authority, which is something that’s really interesting to me because how do you know? How do you get conviction about something? Right. It’s so weird. Like how how do you do that? Is it just thinking about something X number of times or is it seeing it with your own eyes? That’s usually, you know, and I don’t know. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Derek Sivers
I still think it comes back to that idea of what works for you. That if a belief like shakes your body in some way. Like makes you go like, “Oh, my God, yes, yes, this is it. This is so true.” What it’s really telling you is like, this is what you needed right now, right? Like in my story, like to suddenly believe, I’m going to pretend there’s a tiger right behind me. “Oh, my God, yes. This is working for me. I’m running twice as fast. This is what I needed.” Or like, I’m going to bring a shovel today and and make this trail a better place. It’s like, “Oh, this is what I needed right now. You know, like I’ve been running for myself for too long. What I really needed was a belief that would make me take these different actions that suit who I am now. Like each time somebody really holds on to a belief, I think what they’re saying is like, “This is what I need right now. This works for me.”
Eyal Shay
Now I really like it, you know, because in my mind it makes me realize that there’s something inherently softer and more self loving about the way you describe it, because trying to stick to one way of life is always more coercive in a sense, right? You’re always working on sort of superimposing whatever is in your head, on onto reality. And that takes a lot of energy instead of being more fluid and accepting and kind of moving from one thing to another. And now that I think of it that this is not a very common trait in people or not common enough, I don’t see it in myself enough now that I think about it.
Derek Sivers
It’s what I worry about. Isms. Whether it’s a religion or even just a collection of beliefs, certain philosophy, you know, stoicism, humanism, pragmatism. I don’t even know that much about philosophy. But when somebody buys into one saying, “This is it, this is my ism, this is my thing, I’m going to apply this to everything in life.” The truth is that you don’t apply one approach to everything in your life. You treat your children differently than you treat your friends differently than you treat the mayor of your community or you know your community leader differently than you treat the the people that run your country. Like, you could have different political philosophies even when it comes to your country. You could be a libertarian when it comes to your community. You could be, let’s say, a liberal. And when it comes to your family, you could be a socialist. Believe in sharing everything. You could have different approaches. So to subscribe to just one and say, this is me. This is my political belief, this is my philosophical belief. I think it smells like somebody’s just yearning for certainty, but haven’t really thought it all the way through.
Eyal Shay
Yeah, Yeah, I accept that. I have this, like, uncanny experience having a podcast, which you might know because you’ve been talking to people a lot. But basically I would record now with Derek Sivers in two days time, I’ll be recording with somebody else, and then I’ll find myself saying the phrase yearning for certainty. Right? And this is like, this is something that Derek said to two days ago
Eyal Shay
And then you realize as you go from recording to recording, from conversation to conversation, that we’re really more just a phenomenon of interactions that are happening with us. And I’m actually channeling every other person that I’m speaking through. And that’s actually a really nice touch in The Big Lebowski cult film at this point. But if you notice carefully, the different characters repeat things that they’ve heard over the radio or from other characters. And I think that’s that’s so true. And it helps understand that we’re much more malleable than we really are, and we have less control than we think about our actual self and the opinions held within.
Derek Sivers
Thanks for a Big Lebowski reference. I love that movie so much. Actually, I hadn’t thought about that in a long time. About the The Big Lebowski. It’s like people repeat the phrases that they’ve heard from others earlier in earlier scenes.
Eyal Shay
Yeah, just the very first scene is him in the supermarket and on the TV the president at the time, Bush Senior, I guess, says, “This aggression will not stand in Iraq.” Or something. And then later on, he just says it to some mafia person or something like this will not stand
Derek Sivers
Yes. Oh that’s beautiful. You know, it’s funny. I thought about it in some other ways. I didn’t ever pay attention to things like what was playing on the TV in that movie. Thanks for that. Oh, that’s so much fun.
Eyal Shay
Well, let’s see how many times you watched it, because in my case, it’s probably over 30.
Derek Sivers
So yeah, I guess it’s probably more like eight. But God, I love that movie. But I still hadn’t noticed that. Wow. Yeah. You know, my little story of running in the forest? There’s a certain point where you actually just enjoy trying on different things. Let me try closing my eyes today. Let me try singing today. It’s sometimes just part of the fun of life. You just want to try on different approaches. Let’s see how this feels. In fact, I think it’s kind of like part of the experiment of seeing what works for you. The only way to know is to try things. So it’s yes, we hear podcasts, we listen to an interview with somebody listening to this interview today in the future, and they’ll be thinking about something we said tonight. They’ll try it on in some way. They’ll like say it in front of their family or say it to a friend the next day, or they’ll try a different approach the next day. And and then they’ll listen to your next week’s podcast and do the same. And that’s the fun of life is trying these things on. And then the parts that stick to you kind of become your personality in a way. Who you are is the culmination of a thousand little choices of what you chose to adopt and keep.
Eyal Shay
Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I make the point often in conversations that, you know, morality, we get the word morality, and it’s so loaded for us because it’s about good and evil and what’s right, what’s wrong. But it just comes from ultimately from Latin mass, which is habit or custom and or ethos in Greek is the same idea. It’s basically just that your personality is all your habits together. Right. And there’s really even a person who is supposedly immoral just has a different morality, a different set of habits. And tweaking with those, it’s very important that we’re going to be playful about these things, as you say. And I think that’s the hardest part for us. And maybe there’s something to ponder is like, why is it so hard for us usually to be playful about these things? Why do we kind of clutch and and cling on to a certain image or self instead of being playful with that?
Derek Sivers
Is it because we think that make believe is for kids? And pretending is for kids. And we need to feel like we’re grown up now. I only believe what’s real. And so kids can say, like they can have a blast like pretending that a monster is chasing them and pretending to hide or pretending that they are a doctor or pretending that they’re they are the monster. You know, like they could do this just for fun. But then we’re grown up and this idea of like you pretend there’s life after death. Somebody says like, “No, I believe there’s life after death.” And they can only feel good about that if they really say that this is true, this is the way it is. They can only feel the peace that they need inside if they feel that this is true. They don’t say like, “I like to pretend that there’s life after death, because that makes me feel good.” No. Yeah.
Eyal Shay
Yeah like, what the hell is wrong with that?
Eyal Shay
Yeah, I really like this angle because I think there’s this problem with our education system mainly, is that we’re again, going back to the structure of your book and giving us, giving us spoon feeding us the correct opinion. Right. Which is dogma and expecting us to simply parrot it back and live our lives by it right. And abide by them. And that takes all the playfulness out of the thing. And then something magical happens and we hit 18 or 21 or whatever the threshold in the country you live in, which is kind of arbitrary as well. And then suddenly you’re a grown up. And as a grown up, you’re not being spoon fed things anymore. You’re already trained. They’re not worried that you’re going to think for yourself. You’ve been going through this for 18 years or whatever, but now you’re supposed to actually know everything and never show that you don’t know or that there’s any kind of uncertainty. Right. And then you assume that I’m this person who knows when in fact, there are a lot of things that you weren’t prepared for by your dogmatic education.
Derek Sivers
This is fun. You know that my interest in this subject, my little story of running through the forest. Comes from a few things I’ve chosen to believe in the past. Like when I found myself blaming other people too much for things that happened in my life, I instead tried on the opposite, which is to assume that everything is my fault. Everything. Even Putin attacking Ukraine. That’s my fault.
Derek Sivers
I could have done something about that. That’s my fault. I take full responsibility for that. Everybody that’s ever a jerk today on the highway, that’s my fault. I could have found a way to reach out to them. I could have done some kind of outreach program to make people kinder drivers. It’s my fault. Everything that’s ever gone wrong in my life, everything that anybody ever did, was entirely my fault. That feels good to me. That feels empowering. It feels really nice to stop thinking like a victim. And so I shared that belief once on my blog. And a lot of people commented like, “That’s not true. How dare you? That’s awful.” Or “I’m wracked with guilt all the time. I hate this idea that you just said, the idea that everything’s my fault. I think I would just literally kill myself because I feel guilty all the time.” So two things here. For one, this idea of like. “No, that’s wrong. Don’t believe anything. That’s not true. That’s wrong. So stop it.” And two like, “No, I hate that.” It’s like, well, okay, I wasn’t saying this is for you. And I’m not saying it’s true. I’m saying this works for me for now. So I can choose to hold a belief because it changes my actions. Like we’re emotional creatures, right? So beliefs affect our emotions and emotions affect our actions. Like for most people, facts don’t change our actions. Facts are things we use to kind of support a belief which then affects our emotions, which then affects our actions.
Derek Sivers
So you can choose to just hardwire that, to just say, “I’m going to choose to believe this. Everything is my fault.” Because it gives me this emotion, which then makes me feel like not a victim that makes me feel better, which then helps me take better actions because I don’t believe that anything is someone else’s responsibility. It’s all up to me. That helps me feel more powerful and take more powerful actions. That’s just one example. I’ve got some more. There were times when I chose to believe that I’m below average because that made me feel dumb, which made me try harder to learn. Whereas when I felt above average, I felt a little too smug and confident. I wasn’t learning as much. I was feeling like I had the answers. When I feel dumb, I’m full of questions. When I feel smart, I have only answers. And that reminds me of the Picasso quote. Picasso said, “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” Love that reminder, reminding you the value of questions.
Eyal Shay
Oh, that’s fantastic.
Derek Sivers
So anyway, these are beliefs that I’ve chosen to adopt, and it’s always been striking to me when somebody says, “But that’s not true.” I’m like, “Who cares? What do you mean true? What do you care about true? I’m choosing to believe this.” And it’s honestly wasn’t till this conversation with you right now that I thought about childish pretending. You pretend something because it works for you right now. It’s fun. It makes you feel better. It changes your actions.
Eyal Shay
Yeah, well, that’s all I aspire to be is an idea generator. With the help of other people coming on here. That’s the point. So I’m happy that happened. First of all, I think it’s amazing that it comes naturally to you to kind of let go. And maybe that comes with practice. I don’t know. I think intuitively it’s quite hard for people to take themselves seriously, I think because in our own mind it’s kind of a loop that goes on and on, right? Like a kind of spiral. Like if I’m not playful with the things, then I’m less likely to take myself seriously. I need my own voice to be like this authority figure which decides things. And I don’t want to view this authority figure as unreliable. Therefore, I’m going to listen to it very much instead of kind of challenging it in a way. And it reminds me of an episode from my life where I was about to turn 20 probably, and coming out of a long while where I was pretty depressed. And it felt almost strange because a number of books that I had read in a number of kind of internal processes that I was going through led me to a point where I just kind of got into this mode of fake it till you make it. And I was like, “I’m happy. I’m happy. I’ve been happy for a long while. I’m going to be happy from now on.” Totally worked. Couldn’t tell you how. Couldn’t explain. But now I’m thinking, you know, there’s no physical law of nature that stops us from waking up somebody different in the morning. So we have the capability of doing it. There is no physical law of nature to stop us from doing it.
Derek Sivers
I like that. I forgot about, “Fake it till you make it.” That’s another great example. Fake it till you make it is choosing. Yeah. That is pretending. It’s choosing. It’s pretending you’re confident until you feel confident or pretending you know what you’re doing until you know what you’re doing. That’s a wonderful example. And yeah, and the idea of like we can always wake up somebody different. There’s a wonderful book you would probably like, I think called “The Courage to Be Disliked”. Do you know this one?
Eyal Shay
I have heard the title before. Definitely.
Derek Sivers
Oh, yeah. You would really like it. It emphasizes this idea that everything in the past. Or just individual dots. There’s no line connecting them. We don’t need to make it a story. You know, this happened in April. This happened in June. It wasn’t cause and effect. There’s not a line connecting those two things. It’s just this happened in April. This happened in June. Those two things don’t have to be connected. They’re just two things that happened. We try to make everything into a story because that’s in our DNA. Somehow this need to make everything into a story. But that’s false. And so same with us, with our lives that yesterday you were E-all that version. And tomorrow you could be E-all a completely different one. In fact, you could change your name tomorrow. So just the fact that you had these preferences and habits yesterday doesn’t mean you’ll have them tomorrow. It’s a wonderful reminder.
Eyal Shay
Yeah. And I think it ties back to being to being playful and and creative in kind of and you mentioned stories. So again, I think the concept of authorship comes up when you take charge, when you are able to write your story and be creative with it, because ultimately your ability to play different parts and to have a large repertoire of emotions, of possible actions when you’re less predictable, not just to others, but also to yourself, means that in context, in real time, you have a larger repertoire of actions to choose from. And it’s not going to be completely weird to you. So you can be mentally nimble, right? And that brings resilience, that brings fitness, and that brings ultimately much better flow. Hmm. I wonder if the idea of like authoring your own life kind of resonates with you in different junctions where you felt like. Because I know I’ve heard you on other podcasts saying that, you know, some things really matter to you and you’re going to do them your way. And I was interested in kind of looking into that and thinking about how this came about, kind of taking control of how things are and not just going with the flow that is maybe the norm.
Derek Sivers
Oh, yeah. Well, that’s changing gears. Sorry. We’ve been kind of talking on one subject for most of this conversation, which has been really fun. So you had to change gears. I think we all do that in a way. If something really matters to you, if you care a lot. You probably want to control it a bit more, right? A carpenter who knows how to carve wood probably has strong opinions about how he wants the table and chairs in his kitchen to be because this is something he does all day. The carpenter carves all day and he’ll have more opinions about that. Than say his television. He’ll be like, “Oh, we’ll just just pick up any good TV. That’s fine.” But the chair, “No, no, no, no, no. Hold on. I want these kind of legs. It has to have this kind of see the arch here.” You know, they’ll have more opinions. A carpenter will have more opinions about the chair than the TV, perhaps. And so I find that too, that I’m kind of unusual compared to most people and the fact that I got onto the internet really, really early before it was commercial like in 1994, and just learned the nuts and bolts of things. So I learned my own like Linux server administration and how to do everything at the command line and how to program my own servers and then as the internet got more popular and companies like Google and Facebook say, no, no, no, here, we’ll take care of your email for you.
Derek Sivers
We’ll take care of of of keeping track of all of your friends for you. We’ll do that for you. You don’t have to do that. I thought, well, I don’t need you. I know how to do this myself. So for things that matter to me, I still like to code them myself. Right. So if you get my book or books, you go to sivers.com. I made that whole website myself by hand. I made my own store by hand because I care about how my books are sold. I want them to be sold in a way that I think is better than Amazon or even, you know, the book layout itself. You know, I did all of the layout and used a program called Latex that digs right down into the very code of how books are printed at a printing presses. I didn’t use Adobe or something like that. That just hands it off to another program where I just drag my mouse around. No, I wanted to like get into the code and yeah, when you go to my website sive.rs on my blog, it’s again every line of code. I did it myself because I care. This is what’s left when I die, is this website. That’s it. You know, my website and my bicycle. That’s all that’s left when I die.
Eyal Shay
Yeah I was very relieved when I thought, ’Oh, we’re going to do this on Riverside.’ And you were like, “Oh, I know Riverside, that’s great.” And I was like, “Oh, good. He didn’t code his own podcasting software.”
Derek Sivers
Guess what? I almost did. If you go to earmouth.com, I’ve never announced this publicly before. If you go to earmouth.com, I started coding my own like it was just conversation recording. It was meant to record conversations between friends, but I abandoned it. It was a few years ago, but yes, I almost started coding my own. Wouldn’t that be funny? In fact, the thing that when you booked this conversation with me, I didn’t want to use Calendly so I built my own scheduling software.
Eyal Shay
It’s amazing.
Derek Sivers
But that’s just also like the creative carpenter thing, right? The reason somebody is a carpenter, unless they’re only doing it for the money, is they enjoy it. It’s fun. They love the smell of wood. I love the look of code. They enjoy having the tools in their hands. I enjoy having my fingers at the terminal in coding. I just enjoy doing it. It’s creative. It’s fun.
Eyal Shay
That’s awesome. Yeah. And if we’re to to kind of connect it to the to the last subject is, it’s not just coding though, right. You see it transferring other domains of your life where you feel like just because you’re able to think about things from more perspectives, you can better tailor your own lifestyle.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. I don’t know where that might just come from. Not feeling a need to be normal. I don’t know. But yeah. I’m very minimalist, you know, I only have one pair of pants. I don’t own many things. Somebody came over to my house where I’d lived for many years and walked in and said, “Do you live here? There’s nothing here. This is your home?” Like, “Well, yeah. I’ve got everything I need.” It’s like, no, I didn’t put a plant. I didn’t hang pictures on the wall. I don’t need that. I’m good. So, yeah, I guess I don’t try to be normal. I don’t know why not?
Eyal Shay
I don’t know. But I need to bring in an expert on, that could tell me what it is. Is this just temperament for people who don’t have the need to be normal or maybe even have a need not to be normal?
Derek Sivers
No, it’s not a need to deliberately not be normal. There are some ways in my life where I’m just normal. I think it’s just with everything in my life I like. I think I just enjoy the process of thinking of it from scratch. Like, why am I doing this? What’s the real point? What do I really need? Hold on. Like, let me remember the what you call it first principles or whatever. Like, what am I really doing here? And so I go back from scratch and I’ll just put a few times, a few hours in my diary of thinking about this, like, “Well, if what I really need is da da da da. Then what’s the most effective, efficient, direct way to get it? Well, then I would just do this. Okay. Do I need all these other steps that people do? I guess I really don’t, do I? Well, let me just try it. Let’s see what happens.” And so I’ll just try something and do it my own direct way and find out that works for me. And then people look at me and think that it’s weird. And I think, “Oh, okay, I don’t care. It works for me.” Yeah.
Eyal Shay
I mean, I find that it’s very, very important when doing philosophy and I don’t mean philosophy from the philosophy department, which is basically just saying what the other guy said on what year and what book and all that, but doing actual philosophy, trying to live. Well, you know, I think it’s unfortunately not that common for people to look further into like, why am I doing this? Questioning it right. It’s so easy for us to fall into just the old habits that we’ve just seen our parents do and then other people do. Yeah, I think there probably is a connection there between not being normal and being playful and tweaking with things. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
I think Tim Ferriss says it really well. I think that’s what people really loved about his first book for the Four Hour Workweek is that it proposed a bunch of radically unusual ideas that were all just kind of thought of from scratch for the effectiveness. Like, “Well, what I really want is ten good clients, not 90 bad ones and ten good one. So I’ll just get rid of the other 90.” It’s like, “Oh, you did what? You got rid of 90 clients to keep only ten.” Or, you know, “I’m going to just fit everything that needs to be done for the week into 4 hours.” That was the whole gist of the title, right? And it’s funny. So Tim is a friend and like a few weeks ago I was asking him about conversations with friends if he ever had trouble because he’s so famous, when he has a conversation with a friend, does he ever have trouble with people not pushing back at him and just kind of going, “Ha ha ha, Tim, you’re right.” And he said, “You know what I do when I really want push back on my ideas. I actually I hire a journalist and I hire a lawyer because their job is to push back on what they hear.” He said, “I’ll actually sometimes hire a journalist and a lawyer and book them for an hour each, and I bounce ideas off of them because I know they’re going to push back and disagree with everything I say.” I’m like, “Oh my God, that’s really smart.” It’s just trying to find friends that will push back. Just find two people that do that for a job and just have that.
Eyal Shay
Hopefully, hopefully you can still push back for him because it’s genius. But you also they also have to be very intelligent lawyers and stuff like people who actually come up with good ideas. It’s fascinating for me to hear what famous people have to do differently because of the circumstances they live in. It sounds so out there. I know.
Eyal Shay
Yeah for me. Like just recently, I’m actually making one of these transitions and trying to act a little differently, being playful with things because I really want to push this podcast forward. And so I’ve been finding myself actually doing these little games with myself, and it’s actually really hard. And I’m definitely going to now think more from first principles about how to be effective about these things, because you want to find solutions not just to not do the usual thing. Right. But I think that also working with limitations that you know about yourself. So, for example, I don’t love social media, I love Twitter because I can approach people and I can make friends across the globe and all that. But I don’t like sustaining an account where I have to publish things about my podcast, right? So then it drives you to think creatively about these things, right. And solve for them. And I know I’m interested to ask for you. Like, isn’t it the case that eventually there is an answer? Like it’s harder to find, but there’s almost a way to do everything just the way you want? Don’t you find it like that?
Derek Sivers
I think you always have to add the words for now to the end. And for now, might continue for the rest of your life. Or for now, might last ten years. Or it might last ten weeks. Always add that to your head because it will let you expire past ones that felt like forever decisions. And you have to admit to yourself that. That’s not needed anymore. Like, I adopted that habit six years ago and it was needed then. It’s what I needed. Then it was the answer then. But you know what? Six years later, that’s not the answer for me anymore. I can let go of that now. I think it always helps to try to think directly what’s the best way for me to get to where I want to go right now. But then be prepared to let go of those in the future.
Eyal Shay
Yeah. And so would you say for that matter, like it would probably go to shop around for opinions from people who are other creative thinkers. I guess now I’m imagining--
Derek Sivers
Oh from anywhere. I mean, they don’t even have to be particularly brilliant creative thinkers. You know, like I said earlier about like, you can get it from a drunk at the bar? Yeah, you can get it from anywhere. I find it really useful to actually scramble up and read books and listen to podcasts or whatever by people that you wouldn’t ordinarily listen to. I like right now. One little example is Jordan Peterson. I think a lot of people are opposed to him because he’s kind of like put himself into a political camp. But I wasn’t even aware of that. I just heard that there’s this book called 12 Rules, and I read it knowing nothing about him. I was like, “Wow, this is really brilliant. There are a lot of really interesting ideas in here.” It doesn’t mean that I’m going to now subscribe to everything else he believes in life, but, you know, just take the book for what it is. There’s some great ideas there, but it’s coming from the source of somebody that I ordinarily wouldn’t have tuned in to if I was just staying in my social circles, you know? And I like doing that with the book that I mentioned earlier, “The Courage to Be Disliked”. That was a Japanese author channeling an Austrian psychologist that was a contemporary of Freud. So you get like a very different perspective from a book like that. It’s really useful to to scramble up your inputs, to hear different points of view and then even deliberately think metaphorically. It can be really good for you to say, like read a book on, I don’t know, physics or the history of emu farming or something like that, that’s out of your realm and think metaphorically about how this might apply to your life. You might pick up some really useful philosophies from an Emu farmer that you never would have considered because the people in your usual echo chamber don’t say these things.
Eyal Shay
Yeah, yeah. I’m reminded of a little story that a friend told me when I was in America, and he said he had hitchhiked with this truck driver and at some point they talked about global warming or fracking or something like that. And the truck driver just told him, like, what are you getting out of the soil there? It’s oil, right? What does oil do in my truck? It lubricates, right? So it doesn’t heat up. So it’s like, what do you think is happening underground when this oil is taken out? And my friend was like, “Yeah, I have no idea if this is true, but I really like this guy’s thinking, it’s making the connection and creating some sort of interesting new idea there.” And it’s interesting for me now because I’m thinking like we’ve been talking about authority figures and how they the people who want to give you their opinion and they become maybe very good at that, like gurus and leaders. But it’s also an interesting experiment to maybe go out on the street and just ask the cab driver and the butcher and just all these people. It’s like, “Hey, you know what? I have a podcast. I want to grow it. I want to grow it so bad. How would you do it?” And it’s like, sure, most of them will say, I don’t know, but maybe one of them will be this amazing authority all of a sudden that will give you the million dollar idea.
Derek Sivers
All right. Let’s use that as an example. So this is, you know, listeners will have their own version of that. But you just asked an interesting question, which is like, yeah, asking a cab driver, how can I grow my podcast? But I think what I’d put back to you is like, why do you want to grow your podcast? Like, what’s the real point? Like, what’s the real point of growing your podcast and. going back 20 minutes. This is what Tim Ferris said he always likes about his conversations with me is I’m always doing to this to him like he’s around a lot of people that are very rich and he’s talking about like how to make more money with his investments. And I’m always like, “Why do you want more money? Right? For what? What’s the point of that? What would you do with that? Is there something you can’t afford right now the real point?”
Derek Sivers
And so because I’ve thought about this too, like selling more books, right? In my case, I’m like, sometimes I’ll catch myself wondering how to sell more books. Then I stop and I’m like, “Wait, why do I want to sell more books, to reach more people? Why do I want to reach more people, so I can feel more famous? Like, do I want that? Have I enjoyed feeling more famous in the past? No. Why do I think I want more of that? What really matters?” And so in that case, like I just recently figured out, it matters much more to me to win the respect of ten people I admire. It matters more to me than winning the respect of a million people that I don’t admire. So I realized that, yeah, even if even if I suddenly had 1 million more readers tomorrow, that actually wouldn’t matter to me at all. In fact, I think it might be a bit of a pain in the butt to have.
Derek Sivers
A million people contacting me. Or just like, suddenly we’d have to put up barriers and assistance in a way that I don’t know. But if I write in such a way that I can win the respect of ten people, I admire that means a lot more to me. And I think believing that or choosing that belief will make me a better writer. I won’t be writing for a million. I’ll be writing for ten. And I think that’ll make me a better writer. So make sure you’re questioning your questions.
Eyal Shay
Yeah. No, I love it. I mean, this is you being a dialectician because we want to have an anchor up there that we’re aiming our actions towards. Right? Just to throw out a bit of dialectic here, but good. The concept of good is a relation, really meaning the fitting. So if I’m doing something, it’s good for something, which is good for something and we want something that’s always a sure thing that you can aim for, that’s actually good because money can be destructive for some people to have, right? They could self destruct. But yeah, I mean, to answer your question seriously about my podcast is first of all is because I try to align the benefit of me of even my guests. It’s very important for me that this is a fun podcast to do and the benefit of listeners who might come on here and get these ideas that they can play with, right, and apply in their lives and see what sticks. So that’s one aspect. Then there’s the aspect of actually making a living. And you know, I had imposter syndrome for the longest time, but now that I have 60 something episodes like I definitely would like to see what it is. And the third thing is I think just this game that I’ve been playing, running in the forest, where I’m basically saying it was like, “Hey, here’s Tim Ferriss, like 100 feet in front of me, Let’s see if I can catch him.” So there’s that too.
Eyal Shay
And curiosity, It’s like, sure, I completely believe you that being famous is not great. And I’ve read Tim Ferriss’ blog posts on how much it can suck being famous, and I believe that. But I’m also a curious creature, so it’s like I don’t want to get that famous. I don’t want to be that rich. But just to a point where, you know, I’ve experienced something more.
Derek Sivers
Cool. Good answers. You know why it works for you? I mean. That’s answering why? That’s really cool. Yeah, it would be fun, you know, not right now, but, like, on. on a deeper dive. A different time.
Eyal Shay
An even deeper dive.
Derek Sivers
Even deeper dive deeper. To question each one of those things too, even those you might be kind of confabulation and rationalizing and making up like, “Oh, but I want that. Oh, but this I’m just curious.” That might not be your real answer because somebody could give you a like the movie Total Recall. They could implant a little dream into your brain that would just give you that feeling for one night in your imagination. You could be super famous for one night. Your imagination is like, okay. And then would that be enough? Like there satisfied your curiosity. That’s what it would be like. So now you don’t need to add a million listeners to your podcast. Is that really true or was that the real reason? Yeah, it’s really, really helpful to doubt yourself, doubt everything you say, doubt your beliefs, doubt even when you give some answer, even privately in your diary, you say this. Yeah, this is why it’s like you always question it. Always go, “Hmm. I might be lying without realizing it.”
Eyal Shay
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the curiosity pause reminds me a beautiful section from Kurt Vonnegut’s book, Mother Night. I don’t know if you’re a fan of his, but he’s a hero of mine. Complete hero of mine. But there’s-
Derek Sivers
I got to meet him in person before he died. Sorry.
Eyal Shay
Oh, my God. Oh, now you just melted my heart. Just thinking of it.
Derek Sivers
Just like I asked him to name my band. I said like, “I’ve got a band. What do you think I should name it?” I was so hoping he was going to give me a word or two to name my band. Then I was going to say, “This is, you know, why is my band called this? Because Kurt Vonnegut named it.” But instead he was like, “Well, you know, a lot of people have named their bands after my book.” So I was like, “Oh, well, I tried.”
Eyal Shay
What a disappointment. There you go.
Derek Sivers
No, it was still great. It’s like, “Wow, I got to meet Kurt Vonnegut. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I so rarely hear anybody mention Kurt Vonnegut.
Eyal Shay
No, that’s that’s a welcome interruption. It just makes my day that I know someone who’s known him.
Derek Sivers
One degree of separation.
Eyal Shay
Yes. Yes. But in his book, his main character in Mother Night is this internally conflicted spy. And at some point he just stands in the street and he’s not moving an inch to any side. And he’s just saying, “It’s not because I didn’t have love anymore. I learned by now to live without love. And it’s not because of I don’t believe in God anymore. I learned to live without God.” And it’s basically what’s really missing is the curiosity. I’m not curious about anything that’s in any direction. And then a policeman comes and he’s like, “What are you doing, sir?” And he’s like, “Nothing, doing nothing.” It’s like, “Shouldn’t he move along, sir?” And he’s like, “Okay. And then I move.” He was like, waiting for this just external motivation that’s not really motivating on some high level, but it just got him moving and sometimes that’s necessary even.
Derek Sivers
That’s a good one. Yeah, that’s like we could add that to the running in the forest story. You know, you got to have some people standing at random points in the forest making sure you keep moving. You know where I thought you were going with that? It’s a different book. I don’t remember where he said it, “You are whatever you pretend to be.”
Eyal Shay
Oh, yeah. No. So that’s the introduction to this book to Mother Night. Oh, I believe so. Yeah. Because it’s all about pretension, the book.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I really like that. You are whatever you pretend to be.
Eyal Shay
And this goes back to playfulness, right? This goes back to my days as a depressed person who’s kind of is done with it. And I’m like, “I’m going to try and be something different now.” Because you know what? I’ve been mulling over the thought of killing myself for a few years now, and it’s like I just realized that, like it or not, we’re going to die at 80. So I have 60 years left to see other things. I don’t have to worry about dying because it’s happening down the road. It’s like, why rush things?
Derek Sivers
There was, I think it might be called 30 True Things. If anybody listening to this, anybody curious enough to enjoy Eagles style, you might like my book list. Not my own books, but I’ve read over. But no, I’ve taken notes on the last 340 something books I’ve read since 2007, and I put them all for free on my website. So whenever I’m reading a book, I underline my favorite ideas. I’m not trying to make a synopsis or a summary of the book. I just underline the bits that I think are the most interesting. And then later I put those all into a text file and then I put them on my website so the world can enjoy my favorite ideas from the book. And I think it was a book called 30 True Things. It was somebody that’s been a psychiatrist for decades meeting with patients, you know, sitting on his couch, talking about their life. And so he’s met a lot of people that have talked about killing themselves. And he said my first question is, is not why do you want to kill yourself? But well, then why are you still alive?
Eyal Shay
Like, why haven’t you gone for it?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. What’s keeping you here? And to just flip the focus onto that, like, what’s keeping you alive? Why haven’t you done it? He just said, it always changes the conversation for the better.
Eyal Shay
Wow.
Eyal Shay
Yeah. That’s one way to, like, throw a curveball at yourself, right?
Eyal Shay
Yeah. Wondering if there is anything else that we could connect to the theme here or anything that--.
Derek Sivers
There are so many things. I honestly, I think my next book is going to be called “Useful Not True”. I’m fascinated with this subject of choosing your beliefs. Not because they’re true, but just whether they’re useful to you. And this whole conversation reminded me of the playful aspect of it.
Eyal Shay
Yeah, and I’m going to annoy you by saying this sounds a lot like pragmatism. You’ve subscribed to pragmatism now.
Derek Sivers
We’ll see. I don’t subscribe to anything, but I’m going to learn. I just learned about that term last week. I had never heard of the School of Philosophy called pragmatism, because I never studied philosophy. So somebody just told me last week about pragmatism again.
Eyal Shay
Again, again, it’s your advantage over those people in philosophy departments. Yeah. Any idea when it’s going to be finished?
Derek Sivers
Dude, I just had the idea a week ago. No.
Eyal Shay
Okay. Gotcha.
Derek Sivers
So, no, I mean, I really. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation and being able to talk about this. I’m really glad that you took my How to Live book like that. That was really fun to think about the undermining of authority and that was a really fun angle on it. And I’m glad it took us to a really fun conversation. Yeah, I like you.
Eyal Shay
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. If I had to sum up. Yeah. It just made me think, first of all, of the of how we should probably be cautious listening to authorities and then kind of taking responsibility over our own lives, facing the uncertainties, being mentally nimble and authoring our own story the way we want it. Because we have that power. We have that power to wake up a different person every day and do the things that we want without just taking a default route that was marked for us. Yeah. Derek, thanks so much. This has been amazing. And are there any other online venues where people should look you up at all?
Derek Sivers
Nope. Just go to my website. If you can’t tell by now, I answer all my own email. Really my favorite thing about doing podcasts like this is because of the people that I meet that if you listen to this show all the way to the end, you should send me an email and introduce yourself and say hello. I like knowing the kind of people that would listen to your Eyal Shay’s show. So go to my website sive.rs email me, say hello.
Eyal Shay
That’s awesome. And I’ll just add that very recently I added a pstreon page for the podcast, so if anybody listened and liked it, you can go to patreon.com/eyalshay and check out what’s on there. Yeah. Derek, thanks so much. I really appreciate it.