Supercharge Your Career in a Sh*t Economy
host: Joel Bein
shifting from consumer to creator mindset, self-investment, long-term thinking, reinvention, taking action, nuanced and agile approaches to life
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Transcript:
Joel
Welcome, Derek.
Derek Sivers
Thanks, Joel.
Joel
My pleasure. So you about a year ago inspired me to write my first book, which, by the way, is called Do It Now:A Finished Book. I was reading on the couch and I read this one passage, and this is--I was reading your book, How To Live. And this is the section about creativity. You write in this, When most people look at modern art, they think I could do that, but they didn’t. That is the difference between consumer and creator. At this point I’m already a fairly creative person, but there was this extra push and this extra light bulb that came off.
Joel
I popped out of my couch and started assembling the book because it really just put it succinctly in terms of this creating a versus consuming ratio. And realizing that at the end of our lives we’re not going to regret creating. Talk about how someone might be able to start switching that mindset from just consuming to creating and executing. You’ve also said if more information were the problem, we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs. So how do we start to shift and maybe let go of that tendency to consume the podcast and read the books and all that information could be great. But how do we start really just becoming creators?
Derek Sivers
Well first, by the way, thanks for describing that actual like jumping up off the couch moment, because to me, everything is about that moment. Goals are pointless unless they make you do that. Philosophy is pointless unless it makes you do that. It’s like everything we learn is just for that moment that makes you take action. Everything else, the different mindsets and the way that you think about things, only are there to serve that moment of actually taking good actions. And I love that you describe that. That sentence is the one that made you stop and jump up off the couch.
Derek Sivers
I live for those moments. Everything I’m doing, every book I’m reading, everything I’m pursuing is always for that moment. The thing that makes me leap into action or take better actions. So yeah, first I just had to acknowledge that. Switching the mindset from consumer to creator, I think about there’s this woman I knew that lost a third of her body weight after a lifetime of being fat. That she finally went down to like a lean, trim, strong weight. And it was really impressive. So I asked her how she did it and she said, “Oh, I had to completely change my relationship to food.
Derek Sivers
I had to completely change the way I think about food.” I think about that with our inputs, meaning media, videos, news, books, articles, feeds, all of it. I think, at least for me, to switch into creator mode, I need to change my relationship with those inputs and think of myself first and foremost as a maker that only uses those inputs for specific purposes instead of as the default thing I do. So I think for a lot of people, inputs are the default thing. People wake up and immediately while they’re still in bed, look at their phone and start swiping on their phone. This is like their default state. And you can compare it to the way that people are with pleasure eating or junk food or something like that. If you want to get healthy, you’re going to have to change that relationship. So I think of that with inputs versus outputs.
Derek Sivers
The times when I’m most productive and creative are the times when I completely change my relationship with the inputs. So I think of myself first and foremost as a creating machine, not an input machine. So I wake up and I start writing. I leave my internet off most of the time. Old school nineties style. When we used to have dial up modems, if any of you kids hear your grandparents talk about this thing. The way we used to connect to the internet was a dial up modem.
Derek Sivers
It was a very intentional act. You had to use the family phone to go do this action that connects to the internet, and it would take about 30 seconds to connect to the internet. And then you do it with a specific purpose, to go get something you needed. I liked that balance. It’s not pre-internet times where you’d have to go down to a bookstore or a library. You were still connected to the internet, but it was done with intention. So I try to do that, at least for me, that’s like changing my relationship to the input. Where instead I go online to get some information I need. Specific information like if I’m creating something, and I realize I don’t know the meaning of this term or this word or I need a couple more bits of input around this information that I’m creating. Then I’ll go online specifically to get that and then disconnect again as soon as I get it. That to me is the change of mindset that helps the most.
Joel
I think it’s really helpful because it’s really simple, sort of low hanging fruit actually. Just to switch to that shifting of your habits just in the morning, for example. I know you probably read “The Creative Habit” by Twyla Tharp, where she talks about just that consistency of she was a choreographer in New York City, a famous choreographer, and she would just wake up every day at 5 a.m. get in a taxicab. She’s going to the gym, and then she starts her work. And there wasn’t any thinking about it.
Joel
Because she set up in advance that automaticity of the creative routine. And so I know for me, I’m not checking my phone and my emails for a few hours into the day, starting off with just the habit of studying my music, doing my writing. That’s the first thing in the morning. Then I get that hit of creative fulfillment as well. And you start to get--what I’ve found is you start to get excited about that creative process and having created something and built something and you can see that end product. And then that becomes more exciting than any consumption. And then the consumption becomes, again, like you said, that means to an end to fuel your motivation and all those types of things.
Derek Sivers
Hey, so wait, before we change subject, her insight--my favorite part of that thing that you’re quoting is that she said, “My only real habit is to get in the taxi.” She said, “Once I get a taxi, it’s begun. The only hard part is to get myself into that taxi.” So to me, one thing I would do is actually every night, about an hour before bed, I’d go into the closet that has my broadband modem connecting to the fiber and power that down, about an hour before bed so that when I’d wake up, there’s no internet. And I would leave it in that default state. So even if there were bits of information I needed to go online to get, I would just jot a note to self later. Like note to self, look up more about this, note to self that, and just don’t go online at all until much later in the day.
Derek Sivers
But even then when I do, then I’d go online with intention. So what you just said a couple of minutes ago though, was do this in the morning in the first half of the day. But there was implied in your statement then that, hey the second half of the day, just go be your usual self. But I’d even challenge that. Like a person who’s trying to lose weight would need to change their relationship to food all the time, not just half the day. Challenge yourself to change the relationship to inputs and information all of the time and not just revert to old habits in the second half of the day, but you just stay that way. Don’t take in random inputs anymore.
Joel
I love what you said in your book about, if you spent the next ten years only creating and never consuming, would you really regret that? It’s often, and we’re just going to get into this in a second about seeing the bigger picture, but sometimes it takes that zooming out and realizing that ultimately it’s not a sacrifice. It’s in your self-interest to to start shifting those habits and prioritizing creativity.
Joel
I’m curious about what we talk about a lot at Career Hackers is how can we help people break into a new job, a new industry, get their foot in the door and stand out from the crowd. All these types of things. One piece of advice we give is, “Hey, do free work, give free samples, give gifts to companies, do a project, do an SEO analysis of a company without waiting for permission and just email them. Say, ’Hey, I made this for you.’ Or write a blog post about why you love their product or create a list of leads and send it to them, and prove that your researching the company, that you really care about them in particular, that you’re willing to do the job before you have the job.” But it’s interesting, I think in our culture at large, we hear that term free work and is like the free work, like I’m somehow not going to--
Derek Sivers
Be exploited.
Joel
Get used or be exploited. I need to make sure that I’m watching out, and making sure that I’m getting my pay. I’m just curious if you could riff on seeing value in a more broad way, besides just monetary value. And how free work, doing work like that is not actually free. It just might be free in the sense of you not getting paid at first, but you’re actually potentially receiving a lot of value because you are building, you’re building your reputation. So what do you think about free work?
Derek Sivers
I think it’s shortsighted to think of money as the only form of payment. I come from the music industry where it’s very normal to say, if you want to be a record producer, you go find a recording studio and do what you’re saying. You just offer to do anything. The cliché is sweeping the floors. I’ll sweep the floors at a recording studio. I will wrap cables and hang them on hooks. Whatever it takes just to be in the place where everything’s happening. The recording studio’s where it’s all at.
Derek Sivers
In fact, I’ve got a very specific story about, there was this songwriter named Gerry Deveaux, who when I first moved to New York City, I was working at Warner Chappell Music Publishing. So it’s like Warner Brothers, Warner Music, main music publishing, copyright department. How else do you describe that? And there was this guy named Gerry Deveaux, that was like a friend of a friend of somebody that worked there. He just started hanging around the office. Just visiting almost every day, just like, “Hey, what’s going on? How’s it going? All right. Anybody need anything for lunch? Hey, look what I brought you all today.” And he would listen in to the conversations of what’s going on.
Derek Sivers
And every now and then, a lot of record producers have little bits of music that they put out. Like a beat or a groove or something like that. And they’re like, “Yeah, I think this could be a song, but they haven’t turned it into a song yet.” So what Gerry Deveaux was doing is listening in for who’s got some grooves that don’t have a song. Oh, yeah, “You’ve got a groove that doesn’t have a song. Yeah, let me have a night with that.” And then he’d take it home for a night and write a melody over it. Write some words over it and bring it back the next day. “Hey, what do you think about this?”
Derek Sivers
So I quit my job there after two years, but a year or two later I saw the back cover of Billboard magazine, the music industry trade magazine that said, Warner Chappell celebrating the number one success, the top songwriter of the year, Gerry Deveaux, with 11 number one hits. I think it was just because he was hanging around where things were happening. Just physically in the place, in the recording studios and the music publishing offices where things were happening.
Derek Sivers
He was just hanging around doing things for free until he just got himself into this songwriting position. Lastly, it reminds me of a story from the book “Predictably Irrational” by Dan Ariely, which I read years ago. But this story sticks in my head. He was a psychology professor that he sent out a little thing to his classroom. Say there are 200 kids in the class. Half of the class got one flyer, half got a different flyer. And what the flyer said is, “I’m doing a poetry reading next week.” They all said that, but half said, “How much would you be willing to pay to come to my poetry reading?” And the other half said, “How much would I need to pay you to come to my poetry reading?” Then they would write the answers in the blank and then collect it. And then even after he told them what the experiment was, he said, “Okay now really, even knowing this, how much would you--what monetary amount do you feel is correct?” And the ones that had been anchored to think that they were supposed to pay to attend the poetry reading still felt like, “Well, okay, now I’ll only pay $0.50.” But the ones who had been given the initial flyer with the idea that they were going to get paid still said, “Well, all right, I’d still want you to pay me at least $0.50 to attend your poetry reading.”
Derek Sivers
They couldn’t, you know, they had been anchored to think that either they should get paid or they should pay. So I could imagine that with work. Instead of saying, “How much money would I need to get paid to go to this recording studio to wrap cables?” I’d think, “How much would I need to pay to be there in the recording studio where everything is happening and meet all these people and make the connections and get the experience of watching records being made.” How much would I need to pay to do that? I’d be happy to pay to do that. So yeah, with any industry, I think there’s a version of that. That if you could put yourself into the position where you see how all the decisions get made, how projects finish get from start to finish, get completed, and get into the industry that you want to be in and be a fly on the wall and learn that. I’d pay to do that. I wouldn’t ask for money to do that. I’d be happy to pay to see that in action.
Joel
Often it’s just a matter of being more imaginative and questioning some of these premises that were handed down about how you launch your career. People pay to go to a conference or pay to go to college and pay tuition. And it’s like that’s supposed to be helping your professional development. But then the idea of not let alone offering to pay a company so that you can work for them, but even just offering work for free that somehow is a problem. But you’re receiving all this potential value. If you say, “Hey, I’d love to work for you for seven days, give you a free trial and you just soak it all in.” You ask as many questions as you can to learn more about the behind the scenes. You create as much value as you can, and you’re also lowering the bar for them where it’s easier for them to say yes. If you make that pitch to them, then you have a chance to prove yourself in action rather than just, “Well, look at my resume or whatever.” So there’s a lot of self interest for you if you choose to to engage with that process.
Derek Sivers
It’s thinking short term versus long term. Short term is saying pay me now. Long term is thinking, “All right, well how can I get more than cash value for this.” From the relationships I’m going to make, from the education, especially the relationships though. You’re in, you become somebody that’s trusted, somebody that’s been there. Somebody experienced, somebody less risky. I have a whole article about this, by the way, that agrees with the stuff you’re saying, which is cool to hear.
Derek Sivers
So it’s @sive.rs my website, slash get hired. After running CD baby for ten years, I hired over 100 people total. Some people that came in were not what I expected. In fact, I’ll tell one last tiny story. Sorry, this is even more applicable than the Gerry DeVeaux songwriter story. At Warner Chappell Music Publishing, there was one guy that came in. The company wasn’t even hiring. But he came in and he said, “You guys aren’t doing enough with your advertising.” Sorry, meaning getting your music catalog into advertisements.
Derek Sivers
He said, “Just give me a desk, give me a phone and give me the stationery and give me a month to show you what I can do.” And the company went, “All right, fine.” And there was literally, an unused desk at the office. So he used the unused desk. He worked for free for a month. Got some of our songs into Budweiser ads and a Chrysler ad or something like that. And the company went, “Wow, okay, you just brought in more income in the last month and a lot of our employees do. So you’re hired.” His name was Alan Tepper. He’s such a good guy. I just love the way that the company wasn’t hiring. He made a job for himself. So in my article, siver.rs/gethired, I talk about how you can use that lesson for your own career.
Joel
Yeah, that’s like the secret sauce. That’s what I did for my role to break into my career reinvention. And that’s what Charlie Hoang did when he was finished college in 2008, in the recession. He started pitching entrepreneurs like Red Meat Safety and eventually Tim Ferriss with this approach of offering to work for free. And Charlie and I had a podcast about that a couple of years ago that people can check out on the on the [unintelligible] podcast feed. So I wanted to segue into what you mentioned about seeing that bigger picture and sort of playing the long game.
Joel
You have a chapter in your book, “How to Live”. Playing this super long game. And if you can start to see how your daily choices are planting seeds, are rippling into the future and thinking potentially, 3, 5, 10, 20, 50 years in the future, why not? Because all those choices will set you on a trajectory. And if you tie it into free work, if you can just see yourself as investing in yourself, how can you see the long game and the potential return on investment you can get from pitching yourself to work for free upfront, and how that can really--your future self will thank you. Because of all the opportunities you can bring.
Joel
Also you wrote in that chapter, one of the bits was about, “If you’re 40 and you want to learn to play a new instrument, if you practice every day, even just 10 minutes a day for 20 years, you’ll be a master.” But people often will say, “I’m too old for this or it’s too late, or I don’t have time.” Oftentimes we just need to give ourselves--to zoom out and give ourselves some grace and give ourselves a longer ramp, right. To build towards those bigger pictures. So what advice do you have about to shift into that mindset of self investment and playing the long game?
Derek Sivers
I’m going to go back to the very beginning of the call where you talked about jumping out of the couch. And I stopped to say that that’s the most important thing. There are ways that you can think that will make you feel defeated. And there are ways that you can think that will make you procrastinate. And there are ways that you can think that will make you jump up and take action. And it doesn’t really matter what’s true. What matters is what’s useful for you. And what’s useful for you is whatever mindset makes you take action.
Derek Sivers
So if thinking of this in a 30 year timeline or a two year timeline, or if you want to think of it as education, or if you want to think of it as the final test of your willpower, whatever way you want to think about it that makes you jump into action, is the one that’s most useful to you. So I think you just have to notice your internal compass of whatever excites you versus whatever drains you. That little compass needle is swinging and whatever excites you and makes you take action, go do that. Stick with that way of thinking, and whatever mindset you find is draining you or whatever way that you’re framing this. If it’s making you sit on the couch or just continue surfing podcasts and news and reading more articles and whatever’s just making you procrastinate like that, that mindset is not working for you. Find whichever one makes you take action.
Joel
I love that because even when I asked you, what advice do you have, I almost took back the question because advice can be so easy for people to hear a statement and then go in without critically thinking about how it applies to their lives. That’s really what this is all about at the end, is to be in that mindset of self agency and thinking critically and creatively and what’s going to work for you. And this touches on the whole theme of your book, “How to Live”, which is subtitled, “27 Conflicting Answers and One Weird Conclusion.”
Joel
This is one of the reasons I really love your writing and your thinking, you have the ability to be agile in philosophizing and seeing those two truths simultaneously. Looking at things from a variety of angles. In your other book you talk about a counter-melody. Looking at things from a different perspective and seeing a complementary way to look at things. I guess I’d love to riff on that in our last few minutes here because that’s like--it’s a great way. We were closing our event, it’s a two day event and I think this is a great way for people to leave this event with all the different talks they might have gone to and all the advice and the nuggets of wisdom. At the end of the day, how can people--I would invite people to come back for themselves, and come back to their own thinking.
Derek Sivers
You need to stop thinking that any particular way of thinking is right or wrong, inherently or globally. Nothing is inherently right or wrong or globally right or wrong. It’s just right or wrong for you in this moment. I think that the way that you can tell what’s right is by what’s making you take action. Like what’s making you jump into action. Whatever is making you jump into action and take the right actions that are helping you be who you want to be or get where you want to go. That’s the right mindset for you right now. The mindset might change day to day based on the nuances of your situation.
Derek Sivers
You might wake up with a certain amount of energy that requires a certain mindset in the mornings, and you might require a different mindset in the afternoons, or a different mindset when somebody’s rejected you. Or a different mindset when things are going really well. You might need different philosophies in those different situations. And I think the problem is thinking that these philosophies are supposed to be globally applicable. They’re really more nuanced than that. The truth of any situation is way more nuanced, I should say. The reality of a situation is way more nuanced than these Tweetable, Instagrammable quips. So don’t think of the advice that you hear as globally applicable or globally right or wrong. Just constantly pay attention to what’s making you take the right actions and use that as your ultimate measure.
Joel
And always checking in with yourself and developing that self knowledge and what’s working for this season of life, and maybe you want to totally change things up? You have a chapter in the book about reinventing yourself. You have a chapter in the book about doing things randomly, instead of predictably. And how can you intentionally totally shift your approach to things. And so the point that you invite people to think about in your book How To Live, is to not get married to one solution. I think that’s the takeaway for this event this week, is how can you become in the driver’s seat?
Joel
Because we learn you need to check these boxes. We learn growing up, check these boxes with all these rules. Apply to a job through the job posting this way. The company said to do this, so therefore I will do that. But 21st century mindset, I think, is when we become what Seth Godin would call an artist. An artist is more nuanced and agile. So how can you start asking these questions and realizing that there’s so many different ways to do things?
Derek Sivers
Well put.
Joel
Well, thanks so much, Derek. It’s been a true pleasure, and I believe that our audience is going to receive a lot of value from this. And again, website is sive.rs. There’s lots of good amazing blog posts to check out on his website and you can check out all of Derek’s books. So thanks again, Derek. Any last closing comments?
Derek Sivers
Well, I’ll just add just for novelty sake, that when you and I first booked this, I assumed that it was going to be 9 a.m. in New Zealand in my usual recording booth, which is very well set up with my good microphone and everything and good lighting. And Japan opened its borders and so I booked a flight literally the next day. They opened the borders to tourists for the first time in two and a half years. So me and my ten year old son left the next day. Flew from Auckland, New Zealand to Tokyo, and we are here for two weeks. So I am in a little tiny tatami mat Japanese hotel room right now, and it’s 5:00 in the morning and my boy is asleep in the next room. So this has been a fun adventure to not have my usual recording stuff, and not be on my usual nice gear. Just be being in a little tatami mat Japanese hotel room doing this interview. So thanks for having me.
Joel
Well, thanks so much for waking up early today. See you.