Just Get Started
host: Brian Ondrako
parenting, confidence in sharing work, reflection and idea generation
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Transcript:
Brian
Derek, welcome to the podcast. Glad to have you, man.
Derek Sivers
Thanks, Brian.
Brian
I’ve been excited about this for a long time.
Derek Sivers
Well, me too. When you first reached out to me, I checked out your podcast. I was like, “Oh my God, this is great.” I’m a fan, so I’m excited to talk to you, too. Well, and you.
Brian
Well you know, it’s funny and I’m trying to connect the dots on the time exactly. I don’t remember. But when you were on Tim Ferriss podcast originally, or at least the one I listened to, this is back, I don’t know what’s it been, six, five, six years?
Derek Sivers
2015? Yeah.
Brian
And I might not have listened to it then, but it might have been right around that time, I think it was before I started this podcast. But anyways, I give you kudos because one of my philosophies around the hell yeah or no because of you and also I have a now page, I’ve had on my website for many years. I’ve probably for about four years, I think, or five years I’ve had a now page and I update it every quarter and I just love kind of doing that and it really helps me reflect on like what are some things I have done, what are some things I’m excited about. So a little different and kudos to you for that. So just to give you a little love up front.
Derek Sivers
Thanks, Brian.
Brian
But yeah, so I enjoy obviously reading your blog and obviously the conversation you just had with Tim, whatever, a week ago as we recording this was unbelievable, awesome conversation. And you ended by saying something that really hit home with me. And because we’re both single dads, kids with similar ages, you know, my son’s 10, he’ll be 11 here soon. And you said something, I don’t know if you remember this exactly, but you said, “If you do this right, it passes on for many generations.”
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Brian
And I love that because I think about what I grew up with and I had a good childhood, but there was a lot of-- my parents were divorced. There was a lot of shouting and arguing. I thought that’s how relationships work. If you wanted something, you shouted it, you know, like that type of thing. And so I’m curious if you could start talking about parenting and some beliefs you had growing up going into parenting. And now 11 years after having a child, how has that changed or how have you confirmed some of those beliefs?
Derek Sivers
My childhood was inconsequential. God, this would have been a really nice time to have memorized the monologue from Austin Powers. Where Dr. Evil says, “My childhood was inconsequential, whipped in burlap bags.” He had a wonderful monologue, but damn, I should have memorized that. Anyway, no, my childhood was actually just inconsequential, except that I had two parents that were both just kind of absent for their own reasons. Immersed in their work and what not. And I liked it because since then, I’ve met a lot of people that grew up with parents that were too invasive. You know, like putting a lot of negative beliefs into their head and telling them, never trust foreigners or never trust anybody but your family or stay close to home, that your family is the only one that will really love you. Things like that I think really messed them up. So I think a lot of people’s parents can mess them up. So for me, I’m thankful that my parents were just kind of absent. So I felt like I just kind of raised myself in a way, like I found self-helpy books early on as a teenager and went, “Ooh, this is great.” And I’m generally thankful for my childhood. So the way I’m raising my son now has almost nothing to do with the way I was raised, partially because the age difference too. I didn’t have a kid until I was 42 and I left home at 16 and never went back. Sorry, 17 and never went back. So then I didn’t have a kid until I was 42. And so the way I’m parenting him is not really a reaction to my childhood. Do you know what I mean?
Brian
Yeah, I do. And maybe that’s different where I think I was 28 or 29, I guess when I had him. I don’t know the facts behind this, but you know, a lot of folks, especially men, go through like late 20s, early 30s that kind of not midlife crisis, but you change a lot, you think you know all that and I think I went through that where I was in the other boat of like my parents “Oh I had a bad upbringing. I wish it was whatever.” And now I’ve come to realize, similar to what you’ve realized is actually I appreciate, you know, I had a paper route when I was like 11 years old when my other friends didn’t have jobs and stuff. And I now appreciate that for the work ethic I learned and for the responsibilities. But back then it was like, “Oh my God, my parents are not doing enough for me and and all that.” So I don’t think when I was starting out being a parent, I had still grasped some of that. So I think again, those old beliefs that kind of this is how you should parent, of how my parents parented. And I didn’t realize there were some good stuff in there that ultimately I’ve pulled out now. But to your point, you have to look at it from both sides. It’s not always perfect either, you know.
Derek Sivers
Well. I’ll admit that most of the way I’m parenting is based on recent good advice I’ve read. So when he was born, I read a great book called “Brain Rules for Baby” by John Medina, and that had some amazing tips from a brain researcher at University of Washington on what they’ve learned about how babies brains develop and therefore the rational thing to do is as such. And so I just followed his advice. And then later I read a book called “How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk”. And that had some great advice. Then I read a book called “The Gardener and the Carpenter” by Alison Gopnik. And that’s just not a how to, but like philosophical thoughts from a grandmother. She’s actually a philosophy and psychology professor that as a grandmother is writing her thoughts on parenting in general in the zoomed out view. It’s a wonderful philosophy. And then lastly, a brilliant book called “Playful Parenting” that talks about the importance of play for kids. That play is kids language. If you want to communicate with your kid, you have to do it through play. Like play is everything. Play is how they emote. Play is how they learn. Play is how they process their feelings. And this book, “Playful Parenting” is amazing. So I’m only mentioning those four books because I’ve read many others but those four books are great. So most of the way I’m parenting is based on the advice of these wise books, not as a reaction to my particular childhood.
Brian
No, that’s a good thing to mention. I think it’s probably top of my mind, too, is because, I always kind of think about, “God, how did how did I get parented? How am I trying to parent now? Am I doing the right thing?” I think we all have that. Are we doing the right thing? Yeah, we figure it out, I think, as we get older. So even if you mess up, I’m sure the kids eventually make do. But that’s how I always think. And then I have some friends that are starting. They’re just in their early stages or they’re about to want to have kids. And I kind of think about that because they ask questions, “Hey, what advice do you have? What should we consider?” And I’m like, “I don’t you know, here are some things I could share with you, but I didn’t do it great the first few years. I think I could have done a lot better.” So anyways, I thought the reason is because especially reading your blog, I mean, this the first time we’re meeting, but listening on podcasts, reading your blog, you seem very thoughtful. Like you kind of sit and think about these deeply. So yeah, I figured there might be a few nuggets you could share to help folks that are getting started from a parenting standpoint, you know?
Derek Sivers
Oh, yeah. And at first it was a out of bounds topic. What do you call that? A no go topic? Something that I wouldn’t write about publicly. But yeah, that’s it. Just a few years ago, I did start writing about it publicly. So if you look at my blog, sive.rs/blog, you’ll see a few articles now about parenting, about the benefits of ignoring plans, the ease of traveling with kids. I think that’s a huge misconception, is that traveling with kids is hard. I found it to be so easy, so wonderful. In fact, it’s my preferred way of traveling. I basically only travel with my kid because it makes everything so much better. So I do have a lot of articles on my blog now about parenting. So my advice to parents, if you’re listening or you’re about to become a parent is go to my blog and you’ll see my thoughts there. But then also definitely read those four books I mentioned. If you’re having a baby, go read “Brain Rules for Baby” by John Medina. If your kid is a couple years old read “Playful Parenting” anytime from age two till 12. And then the book “The Gardener and the Carpenter” by Alison Gopnik is just wonderful at any age, even if your kids are grown up, it’s just such a beautiful philosophy of parenting.
Brian
Now, I appreciate you mention that. That’s why I wanted to start off just to kind of ask some random stuff about the parenting side. And you mentioned the “Playful Parenting” I think from like a getting started where, I kind of like to help a lot of folks because I know that’s where I struggled. Starting the podcast, the children’s books, all these things where I was like so hamstrung and fearful. What I learned and maybe you take it from a different angle, but like the playful side, like just going after it and trying and “failing”. We’re not really failing, right? We’re learning. We’re testing things out. I found that was one of the easiest ways to get started, if not thinking of like, this has to be the most perfect thing in the world. I just have to kind of do it. You said something where saying good enough is a superpower, and I really like that of let’s just get out and put some stuff out there and do it because we want to be creative. Is that kind of how you like to think or anything you would add on top of that?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. It’s by necessity. You learn usually the hard way. That perfectionism will keep you from launching anything. And if you’re not launching, then what are you doing? It’s all for naught, if you don’t get the thing you’re working on actually launched, if your idea just stays in your head or stays in your diary or stays in your three quarters finished. If you’re not launching, it’s all moot. So you just learn by necessity what it takes to just get something launched, which almost always just means at some point saying, “All right, good enough.” Release it to the world.
Brian
If you have one of the things I know I struggle with in a lot of folks is confidence of like, I have that idea. I have it written down in front of me somewhere. Like, gosh, I can’t put that out and let my neighbors or my colleagues or whoever read that like until it’s perfect. And even when it’s perfect, they might not put it out. What do you say to folks like that? Like, did you ever have confidence issues?
Derek Sivers
No, I didn’t. Well, not since I was 18. Sorry, I’ve told the story publicly before, but God, I don’t know if I’ve ever actually written about it in my blog anyway. Tarleton is the name of my old boss at the circus. From the age of 18 to 29, I was the ringleader MC of a circus. And my boss was this amazing, gorgeous, wonderful woman named Tarleton. I was 18. She was probably 35, and we spent hundreds of hours together in the circus. And after about a year together, I was still very insecure at the age of 18. Right. So I had no confidence at the age of, let’s say, 17, 18, but somewhere around the age of 18, 19, after a year with the circus Tarlton was so effusive in her compliments for me, saying, I’m the most amazing guy she’s ever met. I’m so wonderful. And any woman who doesn’t appreciate that, that’s her problem. And at first I thought that all these things she was saying were just her trying to be nice, you know? But after a year, they actually kind of got into my soul. And I think ever since the age of 19, I’ve had quite a confident swagger to me. So sorry. You’re asking two different questions. Okay, that’s me. But that may not be helpful to anybody else that hasn’t worked in a circus with Tarlton.
Derek Sivers
But for others. I do think it’s important to do your best. To be proud of what you’re making and know that whatever you’re putting out into the world is your best effort. You don’t want to half ass it just to get it out. Unless that’s a strategy to release something to the public intentionally. In a better state of mind, like, “Hey, world, this isn’t perfect, but let me know what you think of this. Please give me some suggestions on how you think this could be better.” And then you start to see your creation through the eyes of others instead of just through your own thought spaghetti. And it can help you improve it. If your audience is understanding that this is your beta test, maybe you tell insiders first, you tell your friends and you know your private mailing list first before you tell the whole world so that they can say, “Oh, Brian yeah, that’s a terrible title.” Or, “You really drone on too long at the beginning before you get to the point.” And then you see it through their eyes and you go, “Oh my God, yeah, you’re right. Yeah. Wow. Okay.” And then you fix it. And then through the feedback of others, you can improve something further until you really feel like, I think this is my best. This is all I’ve got.
Brian
And even if they don’t have an audience, giving it to your spouse or your best friend and, “Hey, would you checking this out and give me some?” I find that’s one of the hardest things folks have, is like giving it to them. I say the neighbor, but like giving it to someone really close to them and almost like it’s a vulnerability, it’s like hard to be vulnerable with something because we get these identities for the longest time, you know, I was a professional. I used to teach golf. That was my first career, right? And when I was leaving the golf industry, I was the golf guy. I was so fearful of telling people I was leaving because I was the golf guy and how was that going to look? How are people going to perceive me? And I know it’s the same thing with even when I started this podcast, like telling people I was starting a podcast. They look at me and this is 2017. They’re looking at me like I have four eyes. I’m like, “Yeah.” Because again, I wasn’t whatever. There wasn’t a name attached to it besides Brian that someone that I know that doesn’t do this, you know? So it’s that identity that we grab onto.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I do find it more useful to get feedback from people that are not super close to you. People who might be aware of you but are in that outer circle, not your inner circle. They tend to be more objective. And helpfully dismissive. Like if they look at something you’ve done and just said, “Honestly, I don’t know what you’re on about here.” That’s actually really useful that if somebody in the outer circle just took a look at something you’re launching and in 30 seconds just can’t figure out what you’re even saying. They’ll just tell you like, “Sorry, I don’t even know what you’re doing here.” That’s more useful than if somebody that’s really close to you, a dear friend, might look at it and go, “Hmm, okay, let me sit with this a little longer.” And but most people don’t do that. So it really helps to have your beta audience be somewhat disconnected and disinterested.
Brian
That’s a great point. I guess because if you give it to your mom, they’re not going to say anything bad potentially. Well, maybe who knows, depending on who the mom is. But they might not say anything bad like, “Oh, this is beautiful, this is great.” Which again, that encouragement is good. But if you’re trying to get to a better level. It takes from because you said something earlier, which I want to make sure we’ll kind of go down to alleyways at the same time. But you mentioned about I’m not sure what people can take from my story being a ringleader, but actually I think having that support system, having people that are giving you confidence and saying those kind things, that’s what we need, that positivity. Because I think if you’re told that you suck and you’re never good enough, you might be able to overcome that and become better. But a lot of folks probably would go hide. Would you do that or would you go from a different side of it?
Derek Sivers
I honestly don’t know. This is where my own perspective might be skewing it because like I said, I’ve had plenty of confidence. I’ve always been seeking criticism. I don’t need more compliments. Don’t tell me it’s good. Tell me what could be better. So maybe that’s from my confidence. Or maybe it’s just from a really intense will and drive to make this thing happen. You know, maybe that’s the distinction here. If you’re on the fence, if you’re feeling tentative about doing something or not, if it’s a delicate motivation, then, yeah, you probably do need compliments and positive reinforcement. But if you’ve got this intense drive that even if from day one, you were like, “Oh hell no, I am going to be a great podcaster. I really, really want this. I’m doing this no matter what anybody says.” And if you had this intense drive, then what you should be seeking is criticism. Critique, trash it. Tell me what’s wrong, don’t tell me anything that’s good about it. Tell me only what’s wrong with it. Tell me how it could be better. Because that’s what will help you improve. That said, even with that intense drive, it can help to hear what people like about something. So if somebody says right away like, “Ooh, I love the title of your podcast.” Or whatever it may be, then that can really help you to emphasize that. Like, “Ooh, okay, I’m getting a lot of positive feedback on the title.” Or say you’re launching a product or a service and you’ve got a certain aspect of it that people say, “Ooh, I really like that.” That can help you amplify that thing that they really like and call even more attention to it. So I shouldn’t actually say, ignore all positive feedback because sometimes the positive feedback can help you realize that maybe something in your offerings should be highlighted a little more since people seem to like it.
Brian
Yeah, I think if it’s mixed, right, you might get someone that you respect. Maybe it’s a mentor or someone like that. That’s like, “Hey, title is great. By the way, I’d encourage you to look at this.” So who knows you might get.
Derek Sivers
Yes, that’s the best. Yeah. If they can say the thing or two that you like the best, right? And then give me a handful of things that you think could be improved. That’s the best feedback.
Brian
You know, you made a great point, though. I had this visual in my head of like and I don’t know, it’s because probably because it’s in my logo with the mountain. But like you think of climbing a mountain right at the beginning, you’re putting all the things in your bag, you’re excited for the hike, but you’re probably nervous. You’re trying not to trip and fall. But once you get over a few peaks and you kind of look back and you’re like, “Look at what I did.” The confidence grows. So if someone’s like, “Hey, you’re not a great hiker.” You’re kind of like. “Yes, I am. I’ve just done all this stuff.” I never really thought of it like you just mentioned, but like at the beginning stages. You probably need that confidence or excuse me, the support to really give you the positive feedback. But as you go through the journey and you get beat up and you get off the mat and you’re back up to fight again. If I use a little rocky, you almost can take more of the criticism and you’re okay with it because you know what you’ve done. It’s kind of like that man in the arena speech, right? It’s like you’re down here, you’re already doing it. So let the crowd yell at you because you’ve already accomplished things. I don’t know. Nice thinking out loud here.
Derek Sivers
I kind of like that. I think you’re right.
Brian
Yeah, that’s good. I’m glad we’re solving some stuff here. We’re not just opening more doors. When you look back and I don’t know how much you reflect on like your career, but like with CD Baby with your first business, was that your first major business, would you say? Or did you have any small--
Derek Sivers
Major yeah. I mean, I did a bunch of things before that. So, imagine this. I moved to New York City when I was 20 years old with a fierce determination to be a successful musician, and I did a little bit of everything. So I was a session musician. I was a touring guitarist, I was a songwriter. I was a performer. Even as a performer, I put together like a few different acts. So I had like a five piece funk band, but also my solo act. And then I even had a thing called The Professional Pests that made a ton of money where I was running around inside a lycra black bag bothering people and college campuses would pay me like $1500 to come run around the college campus and bother people because it was funny. If you go to professionalpets.com, you can still see a little remnants, a few photos that I had saved there, but I did whatever it takes. I was a booking agent. I started a record label, I ran a recording studio. I was producing people’s records. All of this in the span of maybe five years when I got to New York City. And then amidst all of that, one of the many things I did was to sell my CD on my band’s website. And of all the things I just mentioned, this was the one that really took off. Because right away all my friends in New York City in the music business were saying, “Oh, can you sell my CD, too?” Because I was the only guy doing this thing. So suddenly everybody piled on that one thing and that took off and got huge. But, you know, it was like thing number 18 that I had tried and the other 17 didn’t go so well. Professional pests did pretty well, but the other 16, not so much so. Yeah, it wasn’t my first, but it was my first hit.
Brian
Well, the reason I wanted to bring that up is around the paradox of choice. And I know you talked with Tim a little bit about this recently, but again, I want to go deeper because I see this from like getting started where we get hamstrung with so many options. There’s so many things I want to do. I could do a lot of stuff. How do you pick a lane and just get started and do something even if it doesn’t work out? Like you’re saying, “Hey, I tried this and did this.” You tried it, you learned, you took what you did, and then you went on to something else. I’m just curious your thoughts around, like just picking a lane and going forward instead of spinning your wheels and not doing anything.
Derek Sivers
Got it. I have a little article that includes a drawing that sums up my methodology on this, and I can give you the short URL because it’s short. If you go to sive.rs/hsu, which stands for Happy, Smart and Useful. That’s the way that I ask myself what’s worth doing? Which is the combination of what makes me happy. What’s smart meaning strategic and what’s useful to others. So we could pick those apart, but they’re pretty self-explanatory. So happy. Somebody could tell you, “You know, Brian, what you should be doing is such and such.” And you would listen to that and go, “Huh? Yeah, I guess you’re right.” You know, that fails the happy test, right? It has to be something that excites you, that gives you energy. When you think about it, that makes you bolt up out of your chair, that makes you want to stay up all night. It has to pass that happy test. Smart. Meaning strategic means like it’s not just a waste of your time. There’s some things that might make you happy, like, “Hey, I’m going to I’m going to just jump rope a lot or I’m going to lay down and count clouds.” It might make you happy, but it is not wise or maybe not a good use of your time. Or let’s say it’s an unwise strategy to get you what you want. Like here’s a better example would be saying, “I want to be really smart. So I’m going to watch a lot of TV.” And you think, okay, that’s an unwise strategy to getting smart.
Derek Sivers
There are better strategies and then useful. You may not share this value, but to me, I’ve found it really helpful to think of what’s useful to others, not just to me. So if I’ve got a few different options. And even if a few of them would make me happy and they’re smart. I’ll give more weight to the one that’s more useful to others. That’s benefiting the world. Other people in the world, not just me. Because ultimately I found those to be the most rewarding. Socially, I get the most feedback from people going, “Oh my God, thanks. This is so great. Wow, this is so helpful. Thank you.” And then that feedback helps fuel the motivation loop. But also financially, people pay for things that are most useful to them. Whereas, see, one of your plans was to write in your diary a lot or I want to journal more, but a different plan was, I’m going to write public articles. Well, those two things might be almost identical, but one is writing just for an audience of yourself, and the other is writing for others. Well, then the one that’s writing for others is going to be more useful. But even then just putting more articles into the world is less useful for people than providing a service that they’re actually asking for in need. You know, so when looking at the many different paradox of choice options of what to do. That’s how I’ve tended to choose mine. And been happy each time that I did that, I used that metric.
Brian
Well, if I remember, you also said something along the lines of-- and I actually like this of thinking about who you want to serve. The type of people you want to serve is a great way to look at, you know, because it’s like, what’s my purpose? Well, who do you want to be? Who do you want to have conversations with? Right. Who do you want to help? I think that’s a great way of looking at it. It’s like I can’t remember what you were saying when I read this, but the whole idea of like, if it’s like it’s a bad crowd, like, do you really want to serve that type of individual? You know, maybe not. Yeah, we need to consider that.
Derek Sivers
I think that not to diss anybody who’s interested in Blockchain stuff, but I just found out that like two years ago when everybody was all a fluster about cryptocurrencies, I just didn’t like any of those conversations. They all seemed to be really ambiguous and greed focused, and I just didn’t like the people that were most excited about cryptocurrencies. I like some of it from like the nerdy, like I learned how to make my own Blockchain. And I did that just quietly in my programming terminal. Like, okay, I understood the math behind the making your own Blockchain, but I just didn’t like that crowd. Same thing is I don’t like a lot of entrepreneurs that are really focused on raising money. There are different kinds of entrepreneurs and some people are just really focused on raising money. And I don’t like those people. I don’t like being around them. I don’t like the conversations. And so I used to think that I wanted to be a serial entrepreneur. But then I moved to San Francisco temporarily, and I just found that everybody around me was just talking about raising money. That was like their main drive in life. And I just thought, “Ooh, I don’t like this, so never mind.” And I left the entrepreneur world and went into the world of authors where it’s like, “I always love those conversations, talking with authors who are just swimming in the world of ideas.” And their currency is ideas like, “Yeah, I like these people, these are my people.”
Brian
Yeah, Well, and you know, that’s something I think about a lot is, from an entrepreneur standpoint, especially early on, let’s say take ten years ago or so, it was the same thing you were saying. It’s like you look up to the folks that started the big companies and you’re like, “Whoa, look what they did.” And now looking back, I’m like, you as, “No, I want to write. I love doing the podcast.” Like, I want to do different things that kind of hit home like the one on one type conversations. Certainly, sure the more people I can help the better, but it’s kind of more the intimate like I don’t know. I’m curious your thoughts on this like partly was actually sitting in what do I really want? And when I really hit home with an honest approach to what Brian really wants, it was, I just like writing. I love just thinking. I love like putting my thoughts down and figuring out how to craft them differently. So when I hand them over to someone else because I put all this out online, is, “Oh, someone can actually have a reaction.” It makes them think, it’s a different way of like, “Oh, I got to build the next Instagram.” So you know what I’m saying? But it took time to actually sit and discover that, you know. So I don’t know if there’s really a question there. I’m kind of curious, like your thoughts on how you came to the realization of being an author. Like was there any practices you did to that or was there anything specific?
Derek Sivers
A little bit. I asked myself, “Who are my heroes?” Even though I used to call myself an entrepreneur. My heroes were all of the authors of my favorite books. And I realized through that question, “Oh, I think this is the way I’m facing.” So I think your heroes show you which way you’re facing.
Brian
Is there a few you’d call out?
Derek Sivers
Oh, yeah. Many actually. Audience I have this book list ever since 2007. Every book I rea. I underline my favorite sentences, circle my favorite paragraphs, and when I’m done, I compile all those notes into a text file and I put it on my site. So there’s over, I think, almost 400 books now with my detailed notes. It’s not a summary. It’s just, to me, the best ideas from each book. So if you go to sive.rs/book, you’ll see 400 books with ideas plucked from them in detailed notes. So I sort them in order of my favorite, most highly recommended books at the top. And so those authors, who would that be? Alison Gopnik, Neil Strauss is an amazing writer. Sharon Kay is a philosophy professor that I think is just the clearest writer I’ve ever read. Tim Ferriss. Mark Manson. Writers like this. That I just so admire the way they think and their unique thought process or their unique conclusions that they came to in the way that they put it across. These are my heroes. So to answer your question, look at my book list and you’ll see the top ones. There are my favorites.
Brian
Do you read like front to back or do you skip around? Like, how do you read your read books? Is there anything you’ve learned that’s been helpful?
Derek Sivers
I do front to back. And I almost always force myself to get to the end. Unless I’m really, really disliking a book. Then I start to just skip, skip, skip. But there have been times that I haven’t liked the first half of a book, but I have liked the second half or a book that I almost gave up on. We’ll have a brilliant chapter 17, so I do make myself keep pushing through. Usually there have been very, very few books. I’d say like four out of 400 books. So, well, let’s reduce that. Common denominator is for one out of 100 books that I will give up on and truly abandon. But the other 99 I make myself finish. It also helps that I have a pretty damn high filter before I choose to read a book. So it’s only if multiple people that I respect have recommended a book and say, “You should read this.” Then I will read it.
Brian
You know, I’m always curious about this because I hated reading before, like five years ago. And I’m always looking to like almost tips really of like, do you highlight, do you like jot notes down for each chapter? Because you read a good book and you’re like, how do I remember all of this? The principles of it five, six months later, you know?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, that’s why my book notes started. So before 2007, I also read a few hundred books, but I can’t remember any of them for the most part. And then I realized, “Oh, this is sad. I’m spending hundreds of hours reading and a few years later it’s gone.” So I was like, “No more. From now on, I’m going to do the extra work of taking notes for every book I read so that for one, I never have to read this book again.” If I want to remember what I read in, you know the book What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly. I don’t have to go back and read the book again. All I need to do is just refer to my text file, which is like 1 or 2 pages of my favorite ideas from this book. So that’s my next recommendation, is don’t try to summarize the book. That’s not your job. Instead, as you’re reading, only save the ideas that you find most powerful or surprising or useful. Just save those. Never mind the rest of the book. It may be that you read a 300 page book and you only get ten ideas from it. But those ten ideas might change your life. That happened to me a few times that I’d read a book. That was a pretty bloated and flawed book.
Derek Sivers
But damn, I got 3 or 4 good ideas out of it. And two of those ideas changed my life. I actually put them into action, made a major change in my life because of 1 or 2 ideas that I plucked out of an otherwise not great book. And so that’s my last suggestion is, I believe that you don’t really learn at the moment that you are taking in information that’s not learning. Learning is when you reflect on your personal application of that information you’ve taken in. The information isn’t the point. The point is what you do to use it to make an actual difference in your life. And that requires reflection. Like in a diary, a journal, a project planner, whatever it may be. I’ll give one real example of this is it was in a bloated, crazy book called “Personal Development for Smart People” by Steve Pavlina that he mentioned quickly in passing in one paragraph. That the way we learn is by being surprised and a good way to be surprised is by reading books on subjects you know nothing about, but a great way to be surprised. And he just mentioned this in one passing sentence. He said, a great way to be surprised is to move across the earth, far from your home to a place that’s a very different culture than where you grew up, so that you’ll be constantly surprised every single day.
Derek Sivers
And I read that sentence and I saved it. I put it into my notes and I thought about it again and again for the next year or two. Until about, I think about a year later. I was like, “You know what? I’m going to do it. This is what I want. I want to keep learning and growing. I do not want to stagnate or plateau. I’m going to move across the world far from where I grew up. And even more than that, I’m going to force myself to stay out, even if I get homesick or even if I want to retreat, I’m going to force myself to stay out in the world learning and growing constantly living in places that surprise me.” So I completely, massively changed my life because of this one sentence that was buried on page 385 of this flawed book. Wow. But it’s because I reflected on it and internalized it. So I highly recommend doing that. Extracting the key ideas that surprise you and putting aside the time to reflect on them, thinking how they would apply to your life. And then actually taking action and making a change based on those ideas you read. If you do that, you will get way more out of one book than most people get out of 50 books.
Brian
That’s a pretty cool story. I want to if I could just go down a little bit deeper in the rabbit hole. This is one of the things that bridge of like you read the book, you have all these ideas that kind of think about how do you reflect, though? I get caught up like this. I know other folks I’ve talked with get caught up with like, how do you reflect? Is it by going for a walk? Do you sit and journal on it? Like, how do you pull those out, extract those even further to reflect?
Derek Sivers
Yes. Whatever works for you?. Yeah, whatever works. Try different things. For me personally, it’s a combination. I find the most useful is when I’m sitting at a blank text file and I open it up and I just-- either your stream of consciousness or start with a question like, “Where should I be living right now?” Or, “What should I do about this situation that I’m wrestling with?” And then I’ll just type, my fingers will just fly. I won’t let myself stop at one or even two options. I make myself keep going. So, you know, “What am I going to do about this current situation I’m in? I could do a da da da da da. A has this benefits? A could be good for this. Yes. In fact, I think A might be the answer. But wait, what if I did B? B would be a weird choice. I’ve never done B before, but I hear it’s good. I know some people do that. That might be a nice change. Okay. Let’s see. What else could I do? Maybe C. In fact, I have kind of done C before, haven’t I? Yeah. If you look at it, if you squint C is the kind of thing I did ten years ago when I such and such. And I was really glad that I did that. Let me write about that. Wow C is really appealing now that I think about it. What else? I could do D. No, D sucks. I don’t want to do that.” I’ll just sit for an hour or two, just thinking and then when you hit some kind of exhaustion point and you feel like, all right, I’m all thunk out, then, yeah, I may go for a walk.
Derek Sivers
Maybe it’s instantly or maybe it’s not. Maybe that’s like, “Oh, it’s 3:00, my kid’s coming home from school.” And so that’s that. The deadline has hit, but then the next morning I’ll go for a long walk and I’ll think about those things that I was writing about in the journal yesterday. Yeah, it’s really just whatever works for you, but just give it the time. It really helps to shut off your phone, even shut off your computer, shut off your internet because you don’t want to get into the journaling process of like, “Ooh, what about B? Let me just go search the web for B Oh, what’s this funny cat video?” You know, we all have this tendency to-- I won’t even say cat video because we all know that cat videos are a completely obvious distraction. You know that you’re distracted. But it may just be that while you’re searching the web for some thing that passed through your head, you’ll fall down some rabbit hole that you’ll think is useful but is actually a distraction from the the reflection you need to be doing. So I usually make a point of making sure I’m disconnected from the internet when I’m reflecting. So that I keep going with my own thoughts so that even if I say like, “Oh, I want to look more into that.” I’ll just leave it at that. I’ll just say, “Yes, I want to look more into that, but I won’t do it now.” I’ll just leave that as like, yeah, I should look more into that later, but keep going, you know, keep reflecting. That’s what you’re really doing here. Does that help?
Brian
Oh, my God. Because I’m thinking about it from like, if you’re writing a book, you don’t edit it while you’re writing. You write it all down and then you edit later, right? It’s kind of the same concept. Just put it down, answer it, and then come back and look at it later and figure out what the best answer. That’s at least how I was kind of compartmentalizing what you said. It seems like just get it, then we can reflect even more. You can’t reflect. Yeah. No.
Derek Sivers
Yeah and then there. You’ve got to know what works best for you. Many people advise that once you have an idea, you should take action on that idea right away. Go make that phone call. Go fill out that application. Go post that help wanted ad or whatever it may be. Do that right away. Take action in the moment. Tony Robbins gives that advice a lot, but because I was talking about reflecting and pushing through to not just A and B, but C, D and E. There have been a few times that I think I acted too soon on an idea that was the wrong idea. But now I had started down that path. But it wasn’t till a month or 2 or 10 later that I realized that I should have maybe thought of some more options before I took action on the first thing that came to mind. So you’ve got to just know this about yourself. Lately I’ve found more benefit in delaying action for a while to keep thinking of other options and only after it’s digested and sat with me for a bit, then I think, You know what option D is actually, I think this is the one that it passes my test. It’s happy. It makes me happy, it’s smart. It’s useful to others. I think this is the way to go.” And then when I feel like, yes, this is it, then I take the massive action instead of at the moment I had the idea. Yeah, but that’s for me personally at this stage in my life right now. I’m sure there are other times in the past that the correct strategy, especially if you have a problem with procrastination, were just making something happen, is to jump in and take action right away.
Derek Sivers
The other benefit of taking action right away is it helps you see if it was the wrong idea or then you could argue that it’s better to just do something instead of nothing. I thought for a long time that I wanted a motorhome, an RV, and so my kid said, “Let’s get an RV.” I said, “Yeah, let’s get an RV.” So I bought an RV. Actually, sorry. I had rented one before for a week, and I thought it was pretty cool. That’s why we said, “Let’s get one.” So I bought one and it was more like in the second week I was like, “God, this really sucks for reasons that I didn’t know about till I was actually in it.” Namely that my kid would sit in the back seat and the diesel engine of that RV was so loud that I couldn’t hear what he was saying. So I used to love our long road trips together because we’d drive for hours in my car, my quiet car, and we would talk, talk, talk the whole time. And that was half the fun of the road trips. But suddenly in this RV with the loud diesel engine, it was too loud for us to talk. So I could not have predicted that until I was actually sitting in the seat of an actual RV for more than a week going, “God, I really miss talking.” We’re just sitting here silently. He’s just staring at a book while I drive. This sucks. So yeah, sometimes you just have to jump in and try the thing you think you want. Even if it’s just to find out that you don’t actually want that.
Brian
Yeah, I think that’s a great point. You know, we all go through that. It’s like you can’t get everything handed to you on a silver platter and say, this is the decision. You have to actually make some decisions and make some some poor ones, I guess, as well. So you don’t know what’s poor at the time because it could have worked out. You could have loved it. Just like moving. Right. You love it. So same thing.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Be willing to admit quickly that you made the wrong choice. Yeah.
Brian
Derek, this is a lot of fun. I could probably keep you for another five hours. I don’t want to do that. You got other stuff. Any other final thoughts you would share? Anything that you can just think of? Maybe it’s some things you’ve thought about more recently that have been on your mind.
Derek Sivers
Honestly, I will always share what’s on my mind and share everything that I think others could find useful. It’s kind of my personal mission or challenge to myself is that whenever I’ve stumbled across something that I think is useful to others, I make a point of sharing it publicly on my blog. So I’d say actually my main advice is anybody if you listened all the way through to the end of this, please go to my website and send me an email to get on my private mailing list. So you go to sive.rs/contact and send me an email and introduce yourself and. I have a very no spammy, just very rarely occasionally mailing list. When I’ve thought of something that I think others will find useful, I post it and share it.
Brian
Well, I can second that because I always enjoy reading it. So thank you, keep writing it.
Derek Sivers
Thanks Brian.
Brian
Yeah, absolutely. Derek that’s a lot of fun, man. I appreciate you coming on and sharing your thoughts. I know we scattered around a million different areas, but it was fun. I appreciate you sticking with it and and coming on and joining.
Derek Sivers
No. Thanks for having me.