Curious Humans
host: Jonny Miller
childhood curiosity, identity and reinvention, negotiation and power, parenting, personal growth and exploration
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Transcript:
Jonny
Welcome to the Curious Humans podcast, Derek.
Derek Sivers
Thanks, Johnny.
Jonny
How are you feeling in this exact moment? In three words.
Derek Sivers
Ooh, chilly. Excited. Balanced.
Jonny
Your your audio is making me sound particularly balanced and grounded. It's very soothing. It's this, like, deep, bassy Derek Derek voice.
Derek Sivers
If you only knew how many of my friends have fallen asleep while we're talking on the phone. Yeah. My damn soothing voice.
Jonny
I think you could. You could record some meditations and have it a side hustle in that if you if you want to.
Derek Sivers
Do you know what's funny is when I ran CD baby for ten years, we would get people sending us meditation albums.
Jonny
And.
Derek Sivers
I'd say, let's say like three out of five times. The person doing it had such an annoying voice, right? The music would come on. It's like It's like, imagine a light. And I think, oh, this is so unfortunate.
Jonny
The person.
Derek Sivers
Has the best of intentions.
Jonny
But that's.
Derek Sivers
Not a place where you'd want to hear a grating.
Jonny
Piercing voice. Like trying to play pro baseball if you're, like, five foot tall. Probably not. Not not ideal. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, well, um, the question that I always start these conversations with that I'm especially interested to ask you is, were you curious as a child, and if so, could you tell me something that you were exceptionally curious about?
Derek Sivers
Hmm. Probably not. You know, I know it's the the topic of the podcast, but, um, probably not. I think I didn't get more curious until I was, like 30. No, no, like late 30s. I'd say 38. I got more curious around the age of 38.
Jonny
What happened to.
Derek Sivers
38? That's when I sold CD baby and suddenly. Sorry. Audience background. Hello. Hi. My name is Derek. I for ten years ran a music distribution company called CD baby. I did it from the age of 28 to 38, and when I was 38, I sold the company, which was a failure, not a success. I did such a bad job of it that I sold the company. Uh, luckily for a lot of money, but it gave me this blank slate in life because up until that point, that was like my entire identity was this thing. That's all I am. I'm Derek from CD baby. And so when I sold the company, it was this strange floating in space, feeling for about a year and a half, almost two years of like, I don't know who I am or what I'm doing Or, I mean, I even thought about legally changing my name and moving to Slovenia and just being an open source programmer. I just, I didn't know.
Jonny
What would you change your name to? What would have been your alter ego? Oh, I don't know. I'm just going to.
Derek Sivers
Change it to my middle name and my mother's maiden name. I was trying to slough off all responsibility, you know. I had already had a bit of a name for myself, like a public name. And I had people that expected things from me, and I just wanted to get rid of all of that. But anyway, the real point is just I had such a blank slate that it was a great time to reinvent myself, and that's when I really started reading books. Up until then, I did read books, but it was, uh, it was a means to an end. I was trying to improve my business, and so I'd read books on how to improve my business. You know, how to get better at marketing or managing or something. And it wasn't until I was 38 that I started opening my mind to learning more about the world, Even college. Right? Like even university. I went to Berklee College of Music, which was just very, very like blinders on, focused, laser focused on one thing, which is just making music. It wasn't like how a lot of people go to university, and they have this broad life outlook where they learn about history and philosophy and chemistry and whatnot. I really just had my blinders on until I was 38. So no, I'd say I wasn't a very curious person, and I actually see it in my kid too. He's 11 years old and really just likes what he likes and just likes doing what he knows he's good at. If he doesn't know he's good at it yet, he doesn't have a lot of interest in it. So I was a little worried about his lack of curiosity. But maybe with you asking me this question now, I have to look back and go, yeah, I guess I wasn't really a very curious kid either. Hmm.
Jonny
Fascinating. I mean, it sounds like you've almost done the reverse of a lot of people who tend to be, like, curious and explore a million things in their in their early years and then narrow down and focus.
Derek Sivers
And yeah, I started out by focusing. Yeah.
Jonny
Yeah. And as I was, I was I was like researching for this conversation. I was like rereading all of your blog posts, which, by the way, I've, I've just loved over the years. I mean, even even back to the when I was working on a startup in map tier, you, you wrote this like outrageous personalized email to everyone that bought a CD baby thing that was like, we're sending this in a perfectly packaged like golden sleeve. And we're like, cheering, cheering it on as it gets shipped. And there was this, like, delightful kind of like playfulness in it. And I think I didn't realize this until the other day, but I've almost like, come to associate you as this, like this, like, generous spirited trickster. And I don't know if I don't know if this lands, but but in the research that I've been doing, I've been getting into archetypes recently. The role of the trickster. Is this like or the sacred clowns? In certain indigenous cultures, they are invited in to kind of poke fun at the the sacred spaces. Like there was one culture where the the clown will actually fling like literal shit across the holy space, but there's this knowing that it's actually a deeply generative force. And so I guess I'm wondering, like, do you identify with that to some degree? I know you worked in a circus.
Derek Sivers
Absolutely.
Jonny
You do, and.
Derek Sivers
I've never heard of that.
Jonny
Oh, well, I can send you the book.
Derek Sivers
Of that definition. It's great.
Jonny
And like, where do you think this. Where do you think this tendency came from? Like what? Where was it? Where was it born from?
Derek Sivers
I tend to have a rebellious streak that I think actually comes from wanting to find the balance. Meaning, if I'm in an environment where everybody is being really serious, then just everything inside me feels goofy to the point of, you know, giddy laughter in serious situations when everybody's being so pompous and so full of themselves, I just can't help but want to knock it down. But then, conversely, when I'm being in an environment where everybody's being so like woo woo or so, uh, hedonistic or complete party animals or whatever, then again, I want to kind of knock that down, and it makes me just want to curl up with a book and, uh, get serious and factual and, and point out to people that all of this shit they're saying isn't actually true.
Jonny
When.
Derek Sivers
You know, a friend of mine is, uh, this new agey woman from Sicily that, uh, she's such a dear friend, but she's so full of shit, because no matter what I talk about, she tries to interpret it through this new agey age lens. It's just like, well, that's you're feeling the energy of the other. I'm like, no, no, that's actually not true at all. That's, that's here's what actually happened is this person said this. And the reason I did this was because of that. And no, it's not because I'm a Capricorn or whatever. Uh, and so I think no matter what environment I'm in, I have this tendency to want to be the opposite of my surroundings.
Jonny
Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. That makes sense.
Derek Sivers
So I think maybe the gesture thing you're talking about I started CD baby in 1998, in New York City, when everybody around me was suddenly thinking that the internet was going to be big money and they were getting so serious about it, and putting together these very formal presentations to investors to raise financing. And and everybody was being so damn serious. Whereas to me, the internet was this fun new thing that we could just make it to be whatever we want. And they were just acting like bankers. And so I think part of my spirit of fun in CDBaby was partially just knowing what, you know, just knowing my place in the world. I mean, come on, it's a music store. It's not like I was selling investment, you know, financial services or something or funeral services, but, um, uh.
Jonny
I would like to see that company. If you did ever get into funeral services.
Derek Sivers
That would be great. Wacky funerals. Um, go out with a bang. Woo! Um, so, uh. Yeah. So I think I was rebelling against the serious environment at the time. But yeah, I rebel against hedonism and I rebel against, oh, God, people who get so into politics and. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, I rebel against almost everything I'm around, but I think it feels like wanting to find the balance, you know. Mhm.
Jonny
Well, well speaking of fun, that was something that I loved that you wrote. I think it was like fun is always a legitimate and underrated goal. I think that was what you wrote and.
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Jonny
A good friend of mine, his name is Tyler. Um, he always loves to ask the question, like, how can we maximize the fun here? And let's say that, like, this isn't the case, but let's say that I'm let's say someone who had a really serious job, really busy. Like, how would you make the case for having fun and like, like how do you maybe how do you actively view your life through the lens of fun? Like, like what does that look like for you?
Derek Sivers
Well, if you want the serious presentation of it in that situation, I'd say that what we categorize as fun usually means what we're most excited about, what we find most enjoyable, entertaining, stimulating, exciting. And these are the things that generate intrinsic energy inside of us, right? So if you're doing something that you find incredibly dull, then you're likely to get sleepy no matter what the hour of the day. But again, no matter what the hour of the day, something that you find fun will keep you up all night long, even if you haven't slept in 27 hours. If you're having fun, you'll be energized and wide awake. And this applies even in a work situation. If you're doing work that you personally find fun for whatever reason, and you don't even need to justify why you find it fun. But if just your intrinsic nature or current situation means that you find something to be fun, you will have more stamina, more focus, more intrinsic drive to do well at that thing that you find fun because you just find it intrinsically more exciting. So there's my, uh, my serious presentation. Presentation?
Jonny
What would be the fun presentation for fun?
Derek Sivers
A fun presentation for being serious. Um. Oh, no. Uh oh. I don't know, it's just I don't know what a fun presentation for fun would be a little too on the nose, right? Yeah. Um, yeah. Sorry, I don't have an answer to that. No.
Jonny
Well, good. Um, so another one of the topics that I wanted to, or I've been curious about for myself recently has been around this idea of freedom. And before we hit record, I mentioned that my wife and I have recently moved from Bali to Colorado. And essentially in the last like two years, I've traded an enormous amount of optionality for like real commitment in terms of like marriage. We now have a dog, we have like a year long lease, like all of these things. And I've actually been loving life this way with these like intentional constraints. And I'm curious what it was like for you after you sold your company, where I believe that you also just got out of a relationship at the time as well, where you essentially had like infinite freedom, you could live anywhere. You had the resources to do anything. Like, how was that for you? And also how did you go about designing like intentional constraints for yourself? Um, during during that process?
Derek Sivers
I'm it's yeah, that's a fun subject. We, um, most people want more freedom. But if you ever get yourself into a life situation where you have total freedom, it is really like being adrift in space. Like, imagine it, you know, the if years ago you saw that movie gravity where, uh, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are out in space, and there's that thing where the the tether holding you to the spaceship snaps and you're just spinning upside down and all over the place, and there's nothing to grab onto. You can't stop yourself because there's nothing solid to hold on to. Um, and if you think of how disorienting that would be, honestly, that's what it feels like to have total freedom. And I had the experience of that as soon as I sold my company that I had a ton of money in the bank. I had no relationship. I had no responsibilities. I didn't even have a pet. I just was completely free to go anywhere, do anything. I didn't have to be anywhere. I didn't have to do anything. And I had the resources that were it felt basically unlimited. I could just do anything. Like, what do you do with that? It felt so disorienting, but I didn't really set constraints for myself. Sorry. That was kind of a two part question, right? You said, what constraints did I set for myself? I stayed in that sense of adrift, and I just started reading a lot, just started noticing what I really wanted instead of going with norms and what I felt I should be doing, I was constantly changing my mind about things every day.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I didn't feel any loyalty towards previous statements, you know, just because I had announced something yesterday to friends that I'm going to do this now, I'm going to live in this place. And two days later I thought, oh no, never mind. Change my mind. Don't want that. You know, I that really helped to feel no loyalty. I didn't want to, like, create some fake obligations just for the sake of them. So, um, the only thing that brought me out of that state is when I had a new destination. If you remember, back in 2008 and nine, uh, Ted talks were a new phenomenon and a fun source of intellectual entertainment. Yeah. And in 2008 and 2009, I was watching a lot of Ted talks and digging on them. And, uh, suddenly on a plane from LA to New York for a friend's wedding, where I had just felt aimless for like a year and a half, I suddenly bolted up in my seat full of inspiration, like, oh my God, I want to be like a writer, speaker, thinker kind of guy. I want the Ted conference to invite me to speak, and I want to write articles, and I want to write books, and I want to be in the world of thought and ideas, because these are my heroes, the people that are writing these books that I love so much, these authors that are coming up with ideas and sharing them with the world and talking about them and learning new ideas and resharing those and remixing them with thoughts they get from other places.
Derek Sivers
These are my heroes. Like, that's the world I want to be in. And so suddenly, for the first time in a year and a half, I had a sense of purpose and and destination. So, yeah, purpose was the wrong word. Destination is a better way of thinking of it. Because when I. By the time that plane landed in New York, I had a plan. I was so full of drive and energy again, I was like, okay, here's what I want. I need to make a name for myself doing this. I want the Ted conference to invite me. I want to I don't think I was focused on a book by that point yet, but I was like, I know what circles I want to be in. I know who I want to be friends with. This is what I want. So I just arrived in New York City and, um, made it happen. And it actually freaked me out that this was supposed to be a five year plan. And within like seven months, it all came true. Wow. Um, so it was easier than I thought. Which then, after a year, gave me a new sense of, oh, what now? But not as bad as that feeling of being completely adrift. So sorry. I feel like we got off on a tangent, but the point is.
Jonny
A great tangent.
Derek Sivers
There is such a thing as too much freedom. I think we all want the right amount of freedom. And yeah, Johnny, you've found this, uh, this nice balance. Maybe. Maybe. I wonder, were your previous years before Colorado? Were you also quite, uh, super free and adrift?
Jonny
I was at times, um, I kind of went through, uh, I went through a period where I was living in England and was engaged, and then that ended pretty tragically, and it kind of sent me Adrift again, and I spent 3 or 4 years in this period of grief. Honestly, that was this like unintentional untethering and then came to enjoying that and and like finding nourishment in I was living in Bali at the time. But yeah, I think particularly last year, there was a real feeling of like looking to, to ground to like put down roots and, and I think that the word for me was like depth. It was like commitment to this, this one human commitment to place, commitment to the work that I'm, that I'm doing and the freedom coming from that depth, if that makes sense.
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Jonny
Or that commitment at least.
Derek Sivers
Did you see my book called How to Live?
Jonny
I loved it, yeah. It's okay. It's beautiful. Yeah. Paradoxical.
Derek Sivers
Did you read it in Colorado or read it in Bali?
Jonny
I read it in Colorado. Both. Actually, I read the. Okay. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
Um, so, um, because the first two chapters, I chose them very intentionally that the first chapter makes this argument for here's how you should live, be completely independent, break all ties, be bound to nothing and no one and nowhere. You must be completely free. And then the next chapter is like, here's how to live. Commit. It's like, pick a place, pick a person. And one of my favorite ideas in that chapter was we're often trying to figure out how to make the best decision. But guess what? Making the choice makes something the best decision that choosing a place is what makes it the best place for you is the fact that you choose it. That's what makes it the best. There is no objective, intrinsic value of a place that that makes it the best. It's you choosing a place and deciding to commit to it that makes it the best place for you. And yet, there is such a good argument for commitment that it's so fun to contrast that with the also true argument in terms of freedom and independence. Totally. That, uh. Yeah, both. Both need to exist. We got to find our right combination of the two.
Jonny
Yeah. Well, maybe this is an interesting segue to your your new book, which I love the premise for around useful. Not true. And we can come back to come back to like, where that originated from in a moment. But what came up for me was that almost looking at it, this is maybe a bit nerdy, but looking at it through the lens of ego development theory, and my sense is that many of these, like these beliefs, could be mapped on to various stages of human maturation. And so as we progress, the challenge is to like exactly as you just described, with freedom and commitment. It's like to let go of the beliefs that really served us for a certain stage, and then adopt new ones that become more relevant. Does that kind of does that make sense to you? And are there any beliefs that like you feel like you hold now that you wouldn't have done in your in your 20s or in your baby years?
Derek Sivers
Oh I'm sure. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they could change weekly, but that's funny. I hadn't heard that. So how do you mean? So what do you call it? Ego development.
Jonny
Theory. So there's a bunch of different models, but essentially often they happen to have five stages. And it's and it's basically the stages of human maturation. So so one stage is like breaking free of conventions, like rebelling kind of finding freedom. There's one, uh, that the Keegan model, I believe it is, says there's a stage where you begin to question and like question self question everything. And then that then goes into the fourth stage. And then ultimately there's like self-transcendence and merging with the universe. Well, all right. Uh, yeah.
Derek Sivers
Uh, yeah. I think the my next book, useful Not True is definitely the question. Everything stage at it's heart. It's, um, if you put isms to it. I'm averse to isms, but if you had to pick a couple isms to shorthand it, it's skepticism and nihilism, which to me means first just starting out to realize that we are all too certain about things, that we have no right to be certain about, that we think that the things that we think are true, and we think the things that we tell ourselves are true, but we're so often full of shit, we don't actually know why we do anything. We prescribe reasons for things that we've done as if we know why we've done it, but we don't actually know why we do anything. And there are these wonderful examples of this. I'll just tell a quick story of the there are just a few people on earth that have had the two hemispheres of their brain severed. I know what that is.
Jonny
These are fantastic. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. And so when that's happened to somebody, psychologists, of course, love studying these people. And one thing they've found is that you can give a message to somebody. Right? I like you can put on glasses, goggles, whatever. They'd have little screens inside them. And to the right I show a message that says something like, please get up and close the window, and the person will get up and close the window. And then when they sit down, they will put a message to their left eye saying, why did you close the window? And the person will say, well, I just sorry, it was a little drafty in here. Is that okay? I just I was feeling a little cold. And they're not lying. They honestly, truly, to their core, are absolutely certain that is the reason they closed the window. Okay, so there are a couple examples of this. Another one is when they were doing brain surgery on a woman. You might know that when they do brain surgery, the patient has to stay awake, so they actually cut open the skull. But the your brain itself has no nerve endings, no pain receptors. So I'm sorry. Of course it has nerves but doesn't have pain. So when they're doing surgery on your brain, they need you to be awake because they need to keep talking with you the whole time. And they found there was this woman that, uh, that when they touched a certain part of her brain, she would just start laughing.
Derek Sivers
But when they asked her why she was laughing, she'd say, that calendar on the wall is just so funny. Or, you know, just that that outfit you're wearing is ridiculous. It's just hilarious. Yeah, but she was completely convinced that that's why she found it funny. But they know it's because they were touching that part of her brain. So I think this is a beautiful insight to show us that we all do this. Even if you haven't had your brain split in half or your skull is not currently open. We don't actually know why we think anything, why we did anything. We give reasons to it because our brain hates saying I don't know. So we our brain tells our like, your subconscious tells your conscious that you're certain of this thing. Okay, so first you got to understand you don't know why you do anything. And then you got to understand that everybody else is that way too. So basically, there's no reason to ever ask anybody why ever again. Because anything they can say, even if they believe it, will just be confabulation. You know, they don't actually know. Um, and then I think that, um, same thing with anything that's subjective. There's the beginning of the book points out that, um, my definition of true is if something is like physically, Undeniably, absolutely, necessarily, unarguably, observably repeatedly true stack up all those adverbs together, and only if it meets all of those conditions do I consider it to be true.
Derek Sivers
And if it's not all of those adverbs and true, well, then it's debatable. It's negotiable. It might or might not be true. And because it's a might or might not situation, I just define that as not true. It doesn't mean it's false. It just means that it's not absolutely, physically, positively, observably repeatedly, undeniably, inarguably true. And but I think this is such a useful thing to it's such a useful perspective because then you realize how much of life is just subjective perspective and therefore creative and up to you to make it how you want to be. You know, there's so little in life that is an actual fact. Almost everything. Unless you're a scientist all day, for a professional scientist for a living. Almost everything in most of our lives is just subjective. And when you realize that, it just gives you so much creativity to let go of common perspectives and interpretations, let go of your own subjective past perspectives on things. Notice when you're saying things that are not absolutely, positively, physically observably undeniably, inarguably observably repeatedly. True. Uh, and let go of those things and instead choose beliefs that you find help you be who you want to be. Mm.
Jonny
Yeah. I find this so fascinating. And I've been I've been researching the nervous system and now teaching a course around the nervous system. One of the things that I love to share is this idea that we perceive what we call reality through the lens of our nervous system, and, and that this applies with emotions as well. There's many examples of confabulation where you know someone listeners can imagine this too. Like when you're angry, you will find reasons to justify your anger in in the outside world. Like it's a, it's a very common thing to do. I suppose my, my curiosity is like, how do you actually go about doing that in, in your day to day life? Because it's it's very easy to say, you know, just let go of this belief. Like this belief isn't serving you. Let it go. But most people the same with, you know, if there's a lot of, let's say, anger coming up, you can say, let go of the anger, but most people cling to it. So so how do you how do you actually work with that in a kind of practical cool aspect in your life.
Derek Sivers
For me personally, I journal a lot. I find most of my sanity through just writing to myself. It's nothing. There's nothing formal about it. There's no system. I just whenever I'm feeling less than 1,000% congruent and excited and, uh, flowing, I'll often turn to my journal and just write. I'm like, what am I doing? What's going on? Why am I feeling what's up? What's bothering me? This is bothering me. Why is that? Because this. Is that true? Yes. Are you sure? No.
Jonny
Why is that? Because this.
Derek Sivers
But couldn't you also see the opposite? Yeah. Okay. So. Okay. So what's the opposite point of view? It would be this. All right, well, that's the opposite. What are the. That's the 180. What's the 90? Uh, okay. Now, what's the 170? What's the almost opposite? Okay. What are some other perspectives on this? How could I think about this? All right. What would be a really useful way to think about this? What? How could I think about this in a way that it would actually make me feel and act better? What what what belief system would create better actions in this situation? Well, that one, but that's not true. Could it be true? Well, like I just I have these dialogues with myself. Not literally, but like, that's kind of how it's going. I challenge myself in my journal and I'll do this for whether it's 20 minutes or 3 hours until I feel ready to bash on in the world again, you know, like, um, like, okay, I feel better about this now. I've got a new perspective. This works for me better now. This this new perspective is helping me take better actions under this new way of thinking. I'm going to take this approach now, and this is healthier than the way I was feeling three hours ago. That's how I do it. Other people might do it by talking with friends. Some people are non-verbal. I had a fascinating conversation with an Irish guy that has no internal dialogue, but he was one of the smartest people. I've been talking to him for two days. It was at this conference, and this fascinating Irish guy just seemed to know everything under the sun. No matter what subject came up. He'd like, knew the whole history and everything about it.
Derek Sivers
I was like, what the. All right, Mr. Pedia, um, may I call you wiki? Like, how do you know everything? And he's like, oh, just just an interested guy. And so it was on the second or third day of talking with this guy that somebody brought up the subject of internal dialogues or narrative, whatever you call it. And somebody said, do you know that there are some people that have no internal narrative or no internal dialogue? And surprisingly, this Irish guy was like, yeah, well I don't. And everybody's like mhm. How do you not. And so I just kept asking him all these questions like so when you're thinking something how do you, how are you thinking it. If you don't have words in your head, in your head. And he just said well mm. I don't know. He said, I mean I, I have thoughts. It's just that they're not verbalized in my head. If I sit down and start writing, they turn into words. But in my head they're not already words. Yeah, well that's fascinating. But anyway, so he said that he will just take a bike ride or a walk and feel fully present in the moment. But when he gets home and finds that he deliberately thinks about something that he was thinking about before the walk, that now his mind had changed, or he'd had some new insights even though they weren't verbalized. So for me, it's all very verbal. For him, it's nonverbal. For somebody else, maybe it's social. Maybe you need to be with a group of friends talking through things or talk to your best friend about something that's on your mind. For me, it's my journal. Yeah, I don't know. Do you have a process like this?
Jonny
I mean, it's fascinating you give that example because I. I'm also one of those freakish people that doesn't actually have an internal dialogue the majority of the time. And this actually changed for me in my teenage years. I had a lot of like, I'd say, like self-critical thoughts, like a lot of unhelpful dialogue, I'd say. And then over the period of, I'd say like my mid 20s, it just completely disappeared. But I now particularly enjoy journaling because without it, I actually don't know what it is that I think or feel about a certain thing. And I now have a practice of attempting to kind of identify the the felt sense that's there and the emotion and like feeling into the body of whatever's there. And then from that place beginning to journal. And so kind of like through the lens of like internal family systems where like there are different parts. I have this sense that there are like different nervous system states or even like different tension in the body that correlate to those different parts. And so when I've identified a part, I will just like journal or sometimes speaking through with with a friend is helpful as well. But without that, like I can think things like I can like repeat a song lyric in my in my mind obviously, but it's not, it's not the default. I almost have to like, try, if that makes sense. Um, cool.
Derek Sivers
Okay, so how then when you want to think differently about something, how do you deliberately change your mind on something?
Jonny
I don't know if I deliberately changed my mind, I, I love the process and part of this podcast is part of this is like like living into questions and like really sitting with questions, almost like, like dropping a question into my subconscious and like waiting for something to arise in that and as well as kind of deliberately seeking feedback or reflections from other people who generally don't share my point of view with with certain things, like I'm part of a men's group, and that's a way that like, you know, we challenge each other in a healthy way or we call each other out on stuff. Yeah, I mean, and also reading as well. But I don't know if I have a conscious process for changing my mind with something. Okay. Yeah. This actually ties into something that I'm very curious to ask you about. And I had a couple of friends that were interested in this as well. Maybe. But maybe. Is the setup like like my if I was to like my projection of you and my my sense of like where I imagined Derek would be in like 30 years time is like as this kind of Leonard Cohen type character, like the kind of professional musician like, achieved fame and success and then ended up in a monastery like finding. And the reason that I, that I feel this way is because you have this like deep draw towards both simplicity and also truth. And I think a lot of what you write about, both in this book and the book, How to Live Like you're How to live is like it's like an exercise in polarity thinking. And that's basically the practice of non-duality. Like that's basically how meditation teaches, kind of one of the main techniques. And you know the question, who am I? Which is like the classic kind of contemplative question where like I am, I am not my thoughts, I am not my body, I'm not my feelings. And so I'm wondering, what is your relationship to meditation? And yeah, how how have you explored it in your life, if at all?
Derek Sivers
Oh sorry. My answer for this is really disappointing. Like 20 years ago, I did it for a bit and I went, okay, I get it. And really not since.
Jonny
But that's fascinating. Like, so what about it? Do you have any stories about people that do meditate, or do you have any reasons that it hasn't like drawn you?
Derek Sivers
Know stories? No. I admire people that do. It's not like I have a negative association with it. I think I just have so much I want to do. Uh, we could get on to this later, but, like, if you see how I spend my days, I. Whatever time I naturally wake up, I'm a naturally early riser. This morning. I've been up since 430. I don't know why. No alarm clock, no nothing. It was pitch dark. It was. I was comfortable, but just at 430, my brain woke up. And even though the house is cold, it's the middle of winter here in New Zealand. That's why I said I was chilly. By the way, when you asked my three words.
Jonny
At the beginning. Of course it's winter down there. Yeah, middle of winter.
Derek Sivers
It's quite freezing in my house. And, um, and, uh, yeah, I was freezing, but, like, my brain was awake. I was just suddenly thinking of all these things that thinking about programming. I was thinking about writing something about things I want to do. Am I right? Okay. I'm up. And so. 435 I grab a cup of tea. 436 I'm typing. I'm already. I'm at the computer. My day has begun. I'm writing so full of thoughts. I'm working on my book. I jotting down some programming ideas I want to do later I'll come back to this, but an insight. I had something I was programming yesterday and my brain begins and I stay in that mode often from 430 until I go to sleep at 11 p.m. I'm just kind of there's like so many things I want to do and create and read and then maybe like once a day I might hit some point at like one in the afternoon where suddenly I'll be like, hmm, I'm tired. I'll lay down with like an empty head, and either I'll just go take a walk in the forest, or if I'm just too tired, I'll just lay on the couch and just do nothing for a bit until 40 minutes later.
Derek Sivers
I'm like, oh, idea. And I'm up and I'm writing again. And it's just like, this is how this is my ideal life. This is how I love to spend my time and spend my day. And so the idea of, okay, now you've been sitting there all day long writing, now sit there and do nothing. That's not appealing to me. That's not something I want to do more of. I really like my writing and creating. So if I'm going to do nothing, okay, so this is why I said it depends on how you define it. I do almost every day take a good long walk in the forest. And during that time, sometimes I run through things that are on my mind anyway. But quite often my mind is just kind of blank, like I'm just observing. I'm fascinated with looking at all the trees and the way that the light shines through them. And. And, uh. Yeah. So my mind is pretty empty. So is that meditation? I don't know, it's not a deliberate letting go of thoughts. It's not a deliberate nothingness. But anyway, there's my true answer. Mm.
Jonny
Yeah. There's a part of me that almost like, wants to like I feel angry is not the wrong word, but I almost feel like meditation is. It needs a rebrand, like most of the world. Consider it as like a way to de-stress and a way to calm down or whatever, like a means to an end, which it is for many people. But the view that Sam Harris actually has a very great articulation of the case for meditation as more of like I frame it as like an inner adventure. It's like exploring, exploring, like like, who am I like, what is the nature of the self? And it's not, it's it's for me. It's like the complete opposite of, like sitting there and doing nothing. Like there is so much aliveness and so much like whether it's like a feeling of electricity going through your body, whether it's like trying to not not not even trying, but like noticing what is the nature of of myself in this like, like what is arising. Anyway, I, I'm not trying to I'm not trying to convince you to go on a ten day meditation retreat, but I do. Yeah. It's just for me. It's something strange that like the way in which you view the world, I would have I would have totally imagined that, like, meditation would have been something that you just like, you just sit for like, three hours every morning. I was like, of course he does. Like, yeah, it's that's an interesting interesting.
Derek Sivers
I mean, maybe it's just that I do, but also my fingers are on the keyboard, so I like to. Sure. Yeah. I mean I do spend three hours a day just kind of just sitting there thinking, but it's, it's I enjoy writing it while I'm thinking it, instead of just doing nothing with it and letting it go. Unless again, unless you want to count all that time walking. Uh, also, you know, let's not forget, I spend for the last ten years, I reliably spend about 30 hours a week. Just one on one with my kid. That's with all devices off, completely disconnected. Just giving him my full attention with him leading the way. He's 11 now, and I've been doing this since he was born. I put aside 30 hours a week to give him my undivided attention. And in that time, yeah, he's. There's no self here, right? It's just it's all him. He's leading the way. I'm just his little assistant or his giant assistant. And, uh, and, you know, that's, uh, who knows? Maybe the word meditation, like you said, is, uh, is too misunderstood. Or maybe it's one of those words like do or thing where it has too many totally or friend or love one of those ones that it's like, we think we know what it means, but oh, man, there's actually like, you know, 80 different definitions of this word. So maybe meditation is, uh, is just too vague. Yeah.
Jonny
I'm really glad you brought that up. There was a, um, on this this meditation retreat, I did, I did recently. The teacher saw you. He compared the monastic life to parenthood, and he described the story of his, his good friend, who I think they had, like a three year old kid. And how there was this, like, wearing away of the self in a beautiful way until basically, you know, all that was left was just this, like this love for the kid and I something shifted in me when I heard that. And I really enjoyed listening to your conversation, actually with my friend Paul. Paul Paul Miller, who has also recently had a kid and I'm one like my wife and I are kind of in this inquiry for ourselves of like, if when do we want kids? Like, what does that look like? And, and I think part of my part of my hesitation is actually having not met that many parents or fathers that I like, admire or that I look up to. Yeah. Um, and so I'd love to hear from you. Like, what is your journey of father had been like. Like, what have you what have you learned? How has it how has it changed you? Has it worn you away in a in a good way.
Derek Sivers
Well, you say that you guys are not sure. I was absolutely sure. I did not want kids. Oh, yeah. I knew this for certain because of my sister. She's not going to listen to this. Um, but, uh, my sister had two kids. Two boys, when I was 30. She had them two years apart. So let's say 30 and 32 and. Oh, God, the household, the way they lived, the screaming, the constant screaming, the the tornado disaster zone that their house became just filled with crap everywhere and just shit all over the floor and everything knocked off from the boys, always running around screaming. And my sister didn't even notice it anymore. There was this one moment I'll never forget. It was just horrific moment where I'm trying. I'm at my sister's house and her boys are aged four and six or something like that, and we're trying to have a serious conversation. And her boys are like, literally screaming and and jumping on the couch and running in circles as we're sitting on the couch and they're screaming all around us. And I eventually said, like, hey, could you? And she goes, what? I said, could you ask them to stop? And she goes like sacrilege. Oh, God. She goes, I'm sorry. She goes, I don't even notice it anymore. I was like, you don't even notice it. I was like, oh God, no kids for me. I never like you don't notice that your two kids are screaming and running in circles and knocking things over in the room that you're sitting in. What a way to live. No way. So I did not want kids. And later when I, I didn't remember that that was why. But when I looked back, although who knows, maybe this is confabulation and this not really the reason why. You know, I don't believe a word I say, and neither should you. So, uh, I did not want kids. My ex-girlfriend and I had agreed not to have kids. And then it was actually after a trip to Bali, when it was a month after Bali, or a month and a half after Bali.
Jonny
Fertile land of Bali.
Derek Sivers
She said yes, that. She said, I'm pregnant. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, you're on the pill. And she said, do you remember when we were in Bali? And I forgot to bring my pill? And I was like, no way. But we agreed, no kids. She was like, yeah, sorry. I was like, oh God, this sucks. No, I was so upset. Also, we had just broken up, so she and I were together for a year and then broke up and then found out that she was pregnant. What? Timing. So? So that's why if you hear me talk about parenting a lot, it's always, you know, first person plural. Not, uh, sorry, first person singular. Not plural is we. We parent separately. So he's half the week with me and half the week with her. So anyway. So, yeah, by the time he was born, I was, um, I had resigned to my fate. And then shortly after that, I got excited because he is awesome. And, uh, and I, I used to only believe in nurture, not nature. I used to think that everything was upbringing, but he just has such happy DNA. He is such a happy kid. And, um, even as a little baby never cried, never has had a tantrum in his life. And I'm not exaggerating. Not once has he ever had a tantrum, ever. Which blows my mind. People kept telling me, oh, just wait. It'll come. No. He's 11 now. Never did. And he's like my best friend. And we're like soulmates. Now he's just. We are so, so, so close. We just talk, talk, talk about life now. He's my favorite person to hang out with. It's, uh. In short, I just. I tell my friends, like, having a kid is just. It's just being in love. And it's like, if somebody were to say, like, being in love is a lot of work. You'd say it's a lot of work. Yeah, but it's maybe because it's a lot of time with somebody, but it's like the happiest damn time because you're in love. So to me, that's what having a kid is like.
Jonny
Mhm. Wow. How do you think that maybe a better way to ask this question. What are some beliefs that you now hold as a result of your conversations with him that you didn't 11 years ago?
Derek Sivers
Oh. Oh God. That he's just going to be who he wants to be no matter what I say or nudge or do. I tried to get him into music so many times. He's just not into it. I tried to get him excited. I tried to I tried so many different ways and he's just totally not into it. He likes making weapons. He likes raising mice. I heard about.
Jonny
That. That's great. And selling them to you. Right? I think I read well, he just wants to.
Derek Sivers
It's okay. Yeah. We're only one week into this plan, but, yes, he just got a boy and a girl mouse with the intention of breeding them next month and selling the babies. Yeah, he's he's his own person. And it's sweet that as much as he admires me and as close as we are, it's really amazing to me to see him straight up defy me. It actually makes me really happy. Um, so even just. Okay, last week when we were picking out the mice, there were a whole bunch of mice. And I just hate the ones with the red eyes. And I was like, oh, they're just like the ones with the black eyes are adorable. The ones with the red eyes are straight up creepy. So I said, okay, I am happy to. I will feed these mice. I will take care of them. When you're not there. I will do everything I said. I just have one request. No mice with the red eyes. And he was kind of quiet and nodded, and he was looking at all the different mice that were there and making his decision. And so but I told him, all right, it's your decision.
Derek Sivers
So finally, yeah, he told the lady that we bought them from the breeder. He said, okay, I want that boy and I want that girl, okay. And I was kind of standing outside, uh, waiting. And so we come out and. Yeah, sure enough, as you know, where this story is going, that he picked a boy with red eyes and it was just like, dude. And he said, that's the one I wanted. He said, I heard you. You made your point, but this is the one I wanted. I said, all right. And it's the same with some other things in life too, that I really like, that he has a good sense of self and what he wants, and he's not just doing what his dad says, and he's also not rebelling against me. In many, many ways we are completely aligned. But where he differs. He knows his preferences and like I don't know, to me that's really cool to see. I'm like, all right, right. On making your own decisions in life, I love it. Thinking independently.
Jonny
Yeah. I mean, it sounds like he's got at least some of the the trickster DNA intact, at least in a healthy way. What are some things that you. What's a good way to ask this question? Um, what are some skills, if anything, that you're looking to impart to him that maybe you wish you'd learned when you were when you were growing up? Because, I mean, for me, I could list so many things. And I'm curious, like, are there specific things that you're trying to share, or is it more just an organic process.
Derek Sivers
Talking with strangers, like how to talk to people? And luckily, he's pretty good at this. He's not good at asking so many questions yet, but he is confident to talk to anybody. And I like that. Like we can. That's a superpower. We can go to the the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, and he will talk with a man smoking a hookah in an alleyway. And I'm like, right on. That's cool that he feels comfortable going up to strangers and talking with them to grown ups, talking with them confidently. Yeah, and I did that by example. Ever since he was a baby, I've always, uh, since he started talking, I should say, always gave him my full attention when he was talking and really, really listened. Um, and I think that helped him feel like talking was worth doing, you know? I mean, it's funny, I meet a lot of his friends. Uh, and now I'm feeling we're talking too much about parenting stuff. But I meet a lot of his friends that it's kind of 50 over 50. Like, half the kids have this ability to connect with a grown up, and half don't. So half of his friends call me Derek, and we talk about anything the same as I do with him And the other half. They're just like. They don't look me in the eyes. It's like, um. Hey, uh, friends. Dad, um, can I have something to eat? You know, like, you could just tell they just see me as, like, this, this other, this parent that they're not.
Derek Sivers
They don't know how to connect with adults. So that's something that I did very deliberately. That's nice to see that he's got that. What else making instead of consuming. That's always been one like between the lines overtly and covertly. Since he was born, I have always glorified, making and denigrated consuming. So he is proud to define himself as a maker or as his friends are often or not his friends. The other kids around him are often consumers that just want to watch their screen. And he's like, no, I'm going to make animation. So like he got the little app on how to do Lego animation and like, moves the Legos just a little millimeter at a time and and makes animations. He makes weapons. The biggest room of the house. Most people like their main central room of the house is the living room, which they use to sit there and stare at a screen. To us, like the main room of the house is the making room. I love these two big tables just full of crap and glue and paint and tape and nails and lego and wood and bits and things. And, um, because that's that's the main focus of life is making.
Jonny
Um, you're making me want a making room. Now, in our house, we've got, like, a spare room. I'm like, that's the making room. Now I know what it is.
Derek Sivers
To me, this was a sorry. So you're from England. Where did you grow up?
Jonny
Uh, yeah, north of London. England.
Derek Sivers
What part? Like where?
Jonny
North Hertfordshire. I went to school in Saint Albans. Yeah. Okay. Back in the day.
Derek Sivers
Nice. So right before Covid, unfortunately, with bad timing, I moved to Oxford.
Jonny
I know you bought a house, right?
Derek Sivers
Yes. I loved it so much. I loved living there. I wanted to live there for the rest of my life. And then Covid hit. And his mom, my ex, hated it. And the world was locked down and school was closed and you couldn't travel. But we were New Zealand citizens, so we came back here. But the point is, it was the making room came from a soul searching moment. The night before I was deciding whether to buy a house or not. So I found this great house in Oxford, but I was trying to justify the price. I was like, damn it, that's a lot of money. Do I want to do this? I was like, what am I really doing this for? And I actually looked at some other examples of people I admire and the homes that they bought, and I saw that so many people's nice homes were focused around relaxing is like, here's our our media room, here's our sauna. Here's our patio where we can look out at the countryside. I was like, no, see, I don't do any of that stuff. I don't I don't sit around with lemonade looking at the sunset. I don't sit in a hot tub sipping champagne or whatever people do like, I don't like sitting around lounging. And so it was in that soul searching when I realized, oh, hold on. Like this. Main central room. The room with the fireplace there. Like the biggest central room, like the heart and soul of the house. That doesn't have to be a living room. It can be whatever I want it to be. I was like, okay, so what's my highest value? It's like making nice.
Derek Sivers
I was like, oh my God, it's not a living room. It's a making room. Okay, I could put like three, two meter long tables in this room, put them on here. And it's like, okay, now this is exciting. Now it feels worth getting a house instead of a little one bedroom apartment. Now I'm into this idea. So yeah, I bought that house. The main central biggest room of the house was the making room, and that's where we spent all of our time. So yeah, that's where my kid and I like. So we both miss that house a lot. So wherever we live now, even as later we've lived in a little apartment, we converted what other people would call the living room became the making room where we had our big two metre long tables. And, uh, it's just been like, always the focus of the house, because that's everybody gets to make their own definition of what they feel home is. Right. To me, home is the place where where I have no friction for making things. Mhm. So that's what home means to me. Mm. I don't want to sit around and I don't, I don't have a TV, I don't watch screens. I don't spend an hour on meals. I just, you know, quickly eat my food and get back to work. Yeah. And when I'm, when I'm feeling leisurely, then I want to be out. I don't want to be home if I'm feeling leisurely. I want to be out in the the marketplace, out in the Grand.
Jonny
Bazaar conversation, going on adventures. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
Out in whether it's Times Square or.
Jonny
Dubai.
Derek Sivers
You know, the Dubai Mall or whatever we could. I like being in. I like being out, out, out when I'm not working. So this this helped me decide some things around the house, like I don't need to have any leisure space in the house, because when I'm feeling leisurely, I do not want to be at home. So anyway.
Jonny
Was the out out out. And Michael McIntyre reference?
Derek Sivers
No, sorry. What's that? I don't even know who that is.
Jonny
Oh, there's a there's a British comedian who talks about, like, going out and then. Out, out. So if you're going out, you're like, getting ready to go out. And then you go out. Out. And then if you stay later, you go out, out, out. And I thought that's what you were referring to. He's he's a kind of family friendly British comedian that us, us Brits appreciate. I don't know if he's if he crossed the pond.
Derek Sivers
So what's his definition of out, out, out.
Jonny
Then when he says you stay out later.
Derek Sivers
But what does he say about out out out.
Jonny
So out out, out is like if you're if you're staying kind of to the end of the of the are you going to the after party. It's like are you going like out out out.
Derek Sivers
Okay. It's like the.
Jonny
The hierarchy of being out. But anyway, before before we get on that tangent, there's um, I wanted to I love this idea of the making room and it, it kind of overlaps with something I've been thinking about and teaching in my Nervous System course, which is this idea that we design our environments and then our environments design us in return. And I've been, you know, there's there's studies on like the cathedral effect, which is where if you have high ceilings, you tend to be more creative, more like conducive to abstract thinking. Uh, there's other environments which are, you know, more around play. And so I love this idea that by again, by questioning the kind of the classical assumption of like, okay, every house has a living room. Like you've, you've like reframed that around. You've designed your environment in a way that it is now designing you and your son in return. And I think that's such a, such a beautiful example. And I imagine there's many other ways in which our physical spaces could be designed. Anyhow, the other thing that I'm really curious to talk to you about, you mentioned that like the house was a lot of money and yeah, Oxford's an expensive place. And I'm wondering, like, like you obviously made a lot of money when you sold CD baby. How has your relationship to money shifted over the years? And, and I'm particularly interested in like, like what stories did you have around money because it sounds like and again, maybe I'm projecting here, but like money was freedom when you were young. Like if you had enough money, it equaled freedom. And but like, how how have these stories or this relationship to money changed?
Derek Sivers
Mm. It's constantly changing something I've said a lot that I think might still be true, but I also might be full of shit. I'm not sure is that I think of acquiring money a little bit like acquiring stuff. And once you've got enough stuff, if you keep acquiring stuff, well, then we call you a hoarder. And that's like a mental disorder. Those people whose homes are filled with stuff, and I have some friends that are multi-millionaires and still spending so much energy deliberately making money, not just doing what they love, but deliberately focusing on making more money. And to me, it feels like a mental disorder to keep doing that. When you have enough, way more than enough, more than you'll ever need to keep focusing on making money feels like a disorder to me, and so I very often have to check with myself like, am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Whatever this may be at any given moment and I mean any time over the last 15 years since I sold my company. I'm planning on doing such and such. Why am I doing it? Is it for the money? Because if it's for the money, there is no point in doing that. Because what the hell would I do with more money? Having more money is not something I need in my life. Which kind of reminds me of, um, years ago, I. I dated this, uh, girl that was very skinny, and it was just her DNA. No matter how much she ate, she just stayed skinny.
Derek Sivers
That was just, like, whatever. Her, uh, her family was all just skinny. And she said it made her feel so alienated from people. When everybody's talking about counting calories and worried about getting fat. She just said that she just couldn't relate. In fact, people would, like, literally insult her and tease her about being too skinny. And so I felt that way about money. Like after you have plenty, then it's a little alienating from the whole world where everybody's focused on making money and talking about how to make money. And I just kind of feel like the skinny girl when everybody's talking about calories. I'm like, oh, well, I'll just sit out this discussion. So I still feel a little weird when people email me and ask my advice on making money. I'm like, uh, it's like asking the skinny girl how to lose weight. I'm the wrong person to ask. So that's a lot. I constantly have to, but I'm still really stingy. I still hate spending money. It really messed with me in a good way. When? A few years ago, after I published my first two independent books, Your Music and People and Hell Yeah or No, I put out those two books in 2020. Thanks. And, um, and I just emailed my mailing list and said, here they are, they're for sale. And within, I think a month I made half $1 million. Wow. I was like, oh my God, okay, what am I going to do with this money? I was not, I thought I was going to make 50,000.
Derek Sivers
I was not expecting, you know, 500,000. Yeah. So after kind of walking on air for a couple days and feeling great about myself, I thought about what to do with it. And a friend of mine said, you should celebrate. I said, but what does that even mean? Like, go drink champagne or like, make stuff? Yeah, they should celebrate. I was like, and I got to credit her. Uh, she's an author, a Lithuanian author. That's a friend of mine. And she said, um, she said, someday when I sell my first screenplay, she said, I want to buy part of a forest in Lithuania and just protect it. And, like, make sure that nobody wrecks that forest and do nothing with it. Do not develop it, just protect it. And I went, oh, so that's kind of like charity as celebration. I was like, huh. So that got me looking into effective altruism and saying, okay, well, if I'm going to be charitable, then what's the most rational way to help the most people and not just do some kind of, you know, oh, well, I feel like protecting cats or, you know, so I'm going to give it to the Cat Protection Society, but like, okay, what where would my money do the most? Good. I'm sure somebody studied this. So I went out and looked for this and I found what are they called, the, um, effective altruism. Uh, like.
Jonny
Will MacAskill and Toby Ord. Yeah.
Jonny
Give give give give. Well.
Derek Sivers
I'm forgetting.
Derek Sivers
Org GiveWell. Thank you. Givewell. Org. So I found givewell.org. I went, oh, good, here we go. Some data nerds that have looked into every charity and found out like, okay, well, how many lives are being saved with the money given to them? And most importantly, how much will giving new, giving more money save more lives? Because there are some organizations like the Red cross, like they might be doing good stuff, but if you give.
Jonny
So much money, they're bloated, they don't use it.
Derek Sivers
If you give $1,000 to the Red cross, it's not going to do anything. So where will your money help save even more lives? Therefore, this is the most rational place to give the money that you can afford to give. And so once I found them, I went, okay, this is where I'm going to give all of that money to. Because in fact, I don't need it. I want it all to go there. And here's the part that I'm getting to is I found out that it costs $2,000 to save someone's life. So every time you give them $2,000, someone will not die. Which means every time you spend $2,000, you're choosing that over someone else's life. So every time those people who fly business class for $10,000 instead of economy for $1,000, that was their choice that they're going to be more comfortable for nine hours, but for people will die. I mean, that's what it really comes down to. And that messes with me, if you think about it. I mean, I know that when I talk about this with friends, they say, well, in that case, you would actually have to take the $1,000 flight, and then you'd actually have to send the $8,000 to the charitable organization to send the difference. I'm like, yeah, but but the point is, in my mind, I can't wholeheartedly spend $2,000 anymore without thinking that somebody has died because I didn't, because I kept this $2,000 for myself. So maybe, like you said, uh, much earlier, you talked about people rationalizing their beliefs that if they're in an angry mood, they'll they'll find justification for why they're angry. So I think I was already stingy, and this has just given me more rationalization.
Jonny
For.
Derek Sivers
Why I should not be buying anything and should just be giving my money to charity instead. So, um. Yeah. Anyway, there's some thoughts about money.
Jonny
Yeah, it's it's beautiful and also fascinating. Um, and I've been having these conversations with, um, a mutual friend of ours who also made a lot of money in the startup world and is kind of in this. He describes it as like, like a post-money, post-money world where, like you said, most people are kind of still playing that game. And he also said that he feels a little bit isolated at times in this. And I'm wondering for you, like, it doesn't sound like like it is, but when you kind of moved past that, like that finite game, let's say you, you kind of won the game to some degree. And now it sounds like the game has shifted to how can I do the most good with the money that happens to come my way, but you're also not actively trying to like, maximize your money. Like, I imagine you could spend your life differently if you wanted to, like, make as much money as possible in order to give it away. So it's almost like you found a, like a middle ground there.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. It's not I don't know if it's completely congruent. I mean, when I gave Tim Ferriss some shit for having six minutes of advertisements at the beginning of every podcast episode. He made a good point. He said doing those ads earns me almost $1 million per episode. And he said, and I give most of that money to charity. So that money has helped build schools. It's helped research. It's like.
Jonny
Psychedelic.
Derek Sivers
Research. I'm like, okay, like it's still annoying, but all.
Derek Sivers
That's congruent. That makes sense. I don't like it. So I guess, you know, we all, um, have you looked into, uh, what's his name? That, uh, the righteous mind, the author.
Jonny
Right, that's.
Jonny
Peter Singer?
Derek Sivers
No, no, sorry, I forgot his name right now. Um, the author of the book The Righteous Mind has a metaphor of the elephant and the rider and, uh.
Jonny
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Derek Sivers
He said that the relationship between our emotions and our rational mind is like an elephant with a boy riding the elephant. He said, your rational mind is like the boy riding it. Your emotions are the elephant with a lot of tugging and pulling and kicking. Maybe the rational mind can nudge the emotions a bit, but for the most part, the emotions are just going to do what they want to do. So, you know, as you're asking my thoughts about money, and I'm sure so much of this is just driven by emotions that I'm not even aware of, and I'm giving rationalizations for it.
Jonny
Yeah, I appreciate that perspective. Something that I've, I did a training recently with this amazing guy called Joe Hudson and he, he says in the context of decision making, but it actually applies much more broadly that like when we think we have a decision to be made, it's actually it implies that there is an unfelt emotion there, and otherwise it would just be a choice. It would just be like the next most obvious thing. And so his.
Derek Sivers
Hold on An unfelt emotion. Sorry. Can you?
Jonny
Yeah. So so so, to give an example, um, let's say you are unsure what country to move to. If you think that you have this big decision to make. In his view, it's likely that there is an avoided emotion there. The emotion might be fear of making the wrong choice. It might be a projected disappointment into the future of living somewhere that you don't want to live. But but he's like, if you if you do the work ahead of time to actually feel the emotion that's there, that's arising, then you will just make the next most obvious thing that might be do more research. It might be speak to someone that lives in the country, or it might be I'm just deciding I'm going to move to America. Like that's kind of how even with the bigger like decisions, they if we think it's a decision, it's an indication that there's some underlying emotion. It could be subconscious, which has is like asking to be felt and that that wow perspective has Really? Yeah, it really landed quite deeply in me. And and realizing that we actually make a lot of, I would imagine, beliefs as well to support, to keep ourselves safe from feeling certain emotions which we habitually avoid. And everyone has, has different, different ones. A bit of a tangent. Cool. I like that, but, uh, one of the. I was reading through your blog post and I liked your book review on power. I believe the book was actually you can negotiate anything. Yes, it's at the top.
Derek Sivers
Of the list right now. I just reread.
Jonny
It. I was I was like, wow, that's that's not the book that I would expect to be at the top of Derek Sivers list. But I, I read your notes and it was fascinating and I'd love for you to share. Like, what are some of the things that have actually, like stuck with you from that book? Okay.
Derek Sivers
From rereading so the book is called, it's either how to negotiate anything or you can negotiate anything.
Jonny
You can negotiate.
Derek Sivers
The author's name is it is you. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. You can negotiate anything by Herb Cohen. This book was written in like 1980, and I read it for the first time, probably in 1990, and it was already full of dated references then, you know. President Jimmy Carter and and Nixon and whatnot. But it turns out later, I actually, just a few days ago, read the Wikipedia page about the author. And he was a professional negotiator that the U.S. hired in 1982 to go negotiate the the U.S. hostages that were being held in Iran at the time when when switching from President Carter to President Reagan. And so this was the guy that was negotiating that. So maybe he was assuming that we knew that. Uh, so that's why he's talking about Carter and whatnot in the book. But anyway, um, so I read that book at a very formative age when I was maybe 20 and probably read it a few times. Again, I remember it was just one of those paperback books that I just had around, and I would pick up and reread. So first, just as a writer, oh my God, he tells so many stories. Every single point he tries to make is just story, story, story, story, story.
Derek Sivers
So many tiny little relatable stories of when this approach was used. Let me show you a counter approach. Let me tell you about the story about when somebody didn't do this and how it went wrong. Now, let me tell you a little story about a time when I did this. Let me tell you a story about a friend of mine who did this. And these stories are so memorable that when picking up the book, after not reading it for 20 years, like as soon as I just got to the first sentence, I was like, oh, right, right. I know the story that's going to come up now I remember this. Wow. Oh, wow. And so as a writer, that helped me remember the importance of stories. In fact, that's why I picked it up. To reread it now is because I was like, you know, what about that book that, you know, I still remember these stories 20 years later, I'm going to read that book again. So when I did read it again, I was amazed that it's related to everything we talked about my useful not true book about how everything's negotiable if it's not physically observably undeniably, you know, factually a physical thing.
Derek Sivers
This cup is on this table kind of true. Everything else is subjective and negotiable. Things are presented to you as facts saying, here's the law, you may not do this. And he said, well, that law was negotiated by somebody. Just some people in a room made that law. They negotiated it. So it's still negotiable. It is not that's not the law of gravity. That's not some law of physics. That's a law that some people made up. And I don't think it applies here. I don't think it applies to me. And so he talks about how many times he has negotiated things that people considered to be unnegotiable. Every price was just decided by some marketing manager and the supplier and whatnot. Uh, picks a price. It's not the price. It's not a you know, God didn't make that sign that this was just made by some people. And he really emphasizes, yeah, if you look at my book notes on this. So so audience, go to Sive.rs slash book and you'll see my list of the last 380 books I've read since 2007, and taken detailed notes on each book I've read. And this and they're sorted by my by how much I recommend them.
Jonny
You're rating. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
And with the newest one at the top. So this book called You Can Negotiate Anything right now has a ten out of ten rating. And since I just reread it last week and took my notes last week, it's currently at the very top of the list. And so if you click in to look at my notes, you'll see he talks a lot about realizing the power that you have in any situation. And he said, first, I need to talk about the word power. A lot of people have negative association with the word power because they've been on the other end of somebody abusing power or using it for evil ends, he said. Power in itself is just neutral. It's just the ability to get from point A to point B that's just that's power. So assuming you're using it for good, let's talk about the power that you have. You might not realize you have. And he tells this here's one of these many little stories I'll never forget. He said, okay, let's say, for example, you are a prisoner in solitary confinement, and there's a guard right outside the prison gates, outside the bars having a cigarette.
Derek Sivers
And you want a cigarette? You would think, obviously the prisoner has no power in this situation. The prisoner could say, please guard, may I have a cigarette? And the guard would say, yeah, screw you. He said, okay, but let's look at the power that the prisoner does have. Instead, that prisoner could say to the guard, look, if you give me a cigarette now, all you have to do is give me a cigarette. But if you don't, I will bash my face against this wall. I'll pass out into a bloody mess on the ground. I'll say that you did it. And even though they won't believe me, you'll be hauled into court. And you'll have to appear in so many hearings. And it'll be hours of your life and so much paperwork just to defend yourself against my stupid allegation. Or you could just give me a cigarette and this could all be done. And he said, in that case, do you think the guard's going to give him a cigarette? Yes he is. Do you think he's going to light it for him? Yes, he is.
Jonny
He said. He said.
Derek Sivers
Okay, well, it's the same with you in any situation in life. And this is the point that I felt was just profound. And I might have to just turn it into into an article to share it with people is he said, so much violence comes from people who feel powerless. They feel that they have no power in life, and the only thing they can do is to lash out and abuse with violence. And he said if they just realized the power that they have, if they just learned how to think in a different way and realize the power they have to get from point A to point B to get where they want to go, to be who they want to be. They do have the power. They just don't realize it. And he said, that's what this is really about. That's what negotiating is really about, is realizing how much power you have in any given situation. So I thought it was beautiful. That's why I just I gave it a ten out of ten. I was like, you know, everybody needs to read this. Yeah.
Jonny
That's fantastic. It reminds me of the Viktor Frankl Man's Search for meaning of like he found his power or his agency in that, like, like the freedom between stimulus and response. Like even in the worst conditions imaginable in a Holocaust camp. It's like someone can find their own agency, I guess, in that. Yeah. Beautiful. So, um, I had this funny moment before. Before I hit record where the next thing that I wanted to, I was curious about was the topic of sex, and I was like, oh, I'm going to name this money, power and sex with Derek Sivers. Nice. Sure. Um, I don't know if that will actually happen. We'll see. Um, but you in your conversation with Tim Ferriss, which I thought was really moving, actually, you guys, you mentioned offhand that you were walking in a forest talking for, I think, hours about sex, but you didn't mention what you were talking about. And so, of course not. I was if you're, you know, we can edit this out, obviously. But if you're open to sharing, like, what have you been exploring in that domain? Is there anything interesting that you think might be worth passing on to our listeners?
Derek Sivers
No, to be fair, we were not talking for hours about sex. We were talking about for hours about life, including sex. But I think the reason I said that is, is an example is that, um, I think when I was a kid or a teen, I used to think that famous, important people got together to talk about important, serious things. And, uh, it was liberating for me to realize that the best conversations I had with people that were VIPs, or when we would just shoot the shit, like with any of them and just talk shit about friends, or talk about sex, or just talk about stupid shit and that that's like, it's so endearing to get off the pedestal to not be the public figure. So let's just say when, when Tim and I get together, which is rarely, we talk about the shit that we would never talk about publicly. And that's what's so fun is I just, I the week he was here, I laughed harder than I have in a long, long, long time. I don't mean once, I just mean like so much of that week was spent with both of us. Kind of like red faced rubbing the tears from our eyes and laughing because, uh, we talked because we both are public figures. And it's only when we're completely offline. And he knows I'm not going to gossip a thing about anything he tells me, and I know he's not going to go tell anybody anything I tell him. So we're able to just be completely free and talk all kinds of shit that you'd never say publicly. So am I going to share it? Hell no. Um, but, uh, yeah, it was endearing and liberating and hilarious. Does that help? I mean, sorry, we're not, like, having serious conversations about, you know, the meaning of sex and anything like that. No, we're trading shit stories, you know?
Jonny
No. It does. I mean, I think, um, part of the reason that I asked about it is I feel like it's one of those topics which is, is actually very important and almost like under-discussed, in a way. And there's a lot, you know, so many misconceptions and myths.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, yeah, I agree. But I'm not the person to, uh, to have that important conversation with. The only the only one insight that I wish that I would have learned earlier is I feel like I was brought up. Maybe it was the I don't know if everybody's brought up this way, or if it was just the circumstance of the exact time when I was brought up. I think, like as I was becoming like 12, 13, 14, the movies that were famous at the time kind of sold this message of sex as something that boys want and girls reluctantly give. Mhm. Um, and one of the worst offenders of this was the movie. There's something about Mary.
Jonny
Yeah.
Derek Sivers
Where, where he's about to. He's finally, like, has a date with Mary and his friend is just like, you know, hey, man, you're just, like, too excited, you know, because you've got you've got the baby batter on the brain. And, um, he said, no, man, you got a D, you got a desexualize this thing, man. And so that's why the whole hilarious scene of of the hair gel or whatever that the. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. That because the whole point of that scene was his friend telling him to desexualize it. Don't be wanting sex so much. Women don't like that. And it's funny because, you know, we watch this movie, we go, ha ha ha. It's a big hit movie. But you you accidentally take in that message that women don't like sex or, hey, man, don't be so sexual. That's rude. Women don't like that. And I think I it wasn't just that one movie. It's just that one comes to mind. But I feel it was like in between the scenes, even when women, because most of my friends are women. But they would tell these stories about like this creep that was hitting on him.
Jonny
Or creepy dude. Yeah yeah yeah.
Derek Sivers
Creepy dudes, gross guy, online dating people, sending dick pics or whatever. And this unintended message was accidentally received as like, women don't like sex or men. Yeah, sex is something that men want and women reluctantly give Of and God, that just stuck with me as like a truth for decades until recently. Until I was God. What age? 44.
Derek Sivers
44. When I met Carla, I was 44 when I was like, oh my God, this is like the best sex of my life. I can't believe, like, this is the thing that I wish. I have very few regrets in life, but that's one. If I could go back and tell my younger self like, damn man, I missed out on like 20 years of sex. Not that I had none, but like very little sex for 20 years because I thought it was rude. Because I thought like, wow, it's not, you know, you should never try for that or I don't know, I've really got the wrong message in there. So that's one of my few regrets in life making up for it now.
Jonny
Wow.
Jonny
Thank you for thank you for sharing. And it sounds like that's that's like maybe the perfect example of a belief which is profoundly not useful and also not true. Yes.
Derek Sivers
It's like yes, yes. Yeah. If you think of that like the different categories, there's things that are true but not useful. Not true, but useful. Yeah. Anyway yeah you're right. That's a not true and not useful.
Jonny
So the the other I guess it's just like this. This may not lead anywhere, but I think you mentioned that personal growth is like one of your, one of your like core values, something that you kind of lean into. Are there any are there any ways in which you've kind of been leaning into your edges in a kind of healthy, playful way in recent memory?
Derek Sivers
What do you mean edges?
Jonny
Edges is in things which maybe make you like a little bit uncomfortable, or things which would be, yeah, outside of your comfort zone or your your usual Derek default path.
Derek Sivers
Absolutely. What three words did I say at the beginning when you asked, what are my three words? I said chili. I said excited and balanced, I think. So the excited. I wasn't talking just about this conversation in this moment, I actually meant like, this month. You know, I mean, that's true too, but I chose those words carefully. Uh, this has been a really exciting month. In one month, two of my old prejudices were reversed. Two things that I was prejudiced against. I am now prejudiced towards in favor of. We don't use it that word for that direction that much. Yeah. It's because it's prejudging. Yeah. Never mind. I guess it doesn't apply when you're no longer prejudging. Now I'm post judging positively. I'm posthumous. Um, so, um, okay, I'll tell you the two things. Dubai and Python. Okay, so Dubai was on my top ten list of places I never want to go. It did not sound like my kind of place. I lived in Singapore, which some people compare Singapore and Dubai or maybe just some the kind of people who come to Singapore often, sometimes go to Dubai. So people had told me that Dubai is this materialistic, shopping focused, crass, soulless place. And every time I hear about it, I think, oh, yuck. I never want to go there. I literally have.
Jonny
That same reaction myself. Yeah, that's I have that right now.
Derek Sivers
Okay, good. Have you been there?
Jonny
I've not been there. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
All right. All right. Perfect.
Jonny
Brilliant.
Derek Sivers
Dude, I had a flight because I had agreed to attend this conference, and my flight from New Zealand was passing through Dubai, so I thought, all right, you know what? I'm going. Instead of just changing planes for four hours, I'm going to spend two days there. So I spent two days there and I absolutely loved it. I am so fascinated with it. I think about it. It's been just over a month now. I think about it every day. I, I wish I could have just stayed there. I wish I could move there right now if I didn't have my wonderful boy here in New Zealand. I would be living in Dubai right now. I find it fascinating. It is. It is the bar in Star Wars. Do you remember? I do. The bar in the first Star Wars movie. All of these people from all over the universe are passing through this trading port. So many different creatures, some kind of questionable characters. And they're all in this one place where they're. They're in a transactional kind of way. That, to me is Dubai or let's say the Dubai Mall in particular. I didn't see everything in Dubai. I only spent two days there, but oh my God, it's the best people watching I've ever seen. I brought my laptop to do a little work, and I couldn't get any work done because I just sat there, people watching for hours.
Derek Sivers
I just was like, I can't work. Oh my God, these people are fascinating. So many people in the kind of like the Arab robes and then the. And suddenly, you know, the people from Nigeria with these giant green robes will come through. And then people from all over like the Middle East and Asia and then Pakistan and Bangladesh and India and and all around the Middle East and then the European tourists and uh, oh my God, so many people. It was so interesting. And then the conversations I had, everybody is from somewhere else. Okay. So London, you know, London a bit. London is full of foreigners. Right. But if you look at statistics, about 37% of the population of London is foreign born. Same thing with a lot of the big international cities like New York City, Singapore, Toronto are all about like 35% foreigners. Dubai is like 95% foreigners. There are almost no locals there. There are not that many Emiratis. There are not that many locals. And they kind of they keep to themselves out in the suburbs more. A friend of mine that's lived in Abu Dhabi for ten years said, I've tried. And he said in my ten years here, I think I've had conversations with a handful of Emiratis. He said they're just they keep to themselves. And he said, so. So the point is, when you're in Dubai, everybody's from somewhere else.
Derek Sivers
So you can just ask anybody, where are you from? And they're always going to be from somewhere else. So I had so many interesting conversations with strangers from Cameroon, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kenya, a few different Kenyans. God, it was just fascinating. And then the stories that they were telling me and even their points of view, because the guy from Pakistan telling me about like he comes from this neighborhood that's right on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is a special culture. He said, you know, whether it's Pakistan or Afghanistan, it doesn't really matter. You know, this is my neighborhood. And then about ten years ago, he moved to a neighborhood on the edge of Dubai called Deira, which I haven't been to yet, but I can't wait to see. And he said, one by one, all of my cousins and relatives started moving there too. And he said, no. He said, I just counted. Recently I have 120 family members in my neighborhood. And he said, so everywhere I go in my neighborhood in Deira, Dubai, I have, he said, almost everybody is related to me in some way. That's just in my one little neighborhood. And anyway, it was just such an interesting place. I love that. Yeah. Living there, to me, feels like living in or living above, next to the bar in Star Wars. Yeah. That's so great. That's Dubai.
Jonny
Thank you for sharing that. Like that actually has completely reframed my perspective. And I could totally I could totally imagine, like, I love people watching and I love talking to strangers. And you're right that most people who are traveling, they're almost by default. They're just like more interesting to talk to. And they're more likely they're more likely to be interested as well, which I think makes for better conversations. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
So that was one. And then Python computer programming language. So first I have to explain that just by random circumstance, in 2004, I learned the Ruby programming language. I just happened to have the Ruby programming manual during a Christmas holiday where I was offline in my girlfriend's cabin in Sweden, and so I learned Ruby very well, and I loved it. And I used Ruby as my sole programming language for everything since for, well, 19 years now. And Ruby and Python are so similar. It's like Portuguese and Spanish, right? So by being fluent in Ruby, I was like the Portuguese speaker in, say, like South Brazil surrounded by Spanish speaking countries, because Python is so much more popular that I was just refusing. Like anytime somebody would talk about Python, I'd say no, I'd plug my ears. I'm like, I'm not learning Python. It is too similar to Ruby. If I'm going to learn another computer programming language, it's going to be Lisp or something obscure. Yeah. Rust or something that is nothing like Ruby. Why on earth would I spend any effort to learn something that is so similar to Ruby? No, I'm not learning. Ruby. It's the same as. I'm sorry. I'm not learning Python. It's the same as Ruby. So I have held this prejudice for 19 years against Python. And recently I was starting a new project where I had to decide from scratch what was the best language to do this new project in. And I evaluated 15 other computer programming languages. Even some really obscure ones.
Jonny
Tried really hard not to use Python.
Derek Sivers
Well, I didn't even. I wasn't even on my radar. It's funny, I was even searching for like I was looking at one called Gerbil Scheme. I was looking at really obscure languages. And finally after 15, I was like, oh, right, okay, I haven't I didn't consider Python. I was like, I was like, all right. To be fair, I'll consider Python. So I pulled up Python and I did the same evaluation that I did in all the other languages, which is I wrote a little script in each one, like I learned enough to do this, and I actually did use OpenAI. What do you call it? Um, ChatGPT a bit to say, okay, can you help me write a script that does this and that and show me how to connect to a database like so and so? Dude, it was it was number five. Or maybe it was 16 out of 15. Like when I finally pulled up Python, I was like, all right, you know, connect database. And I was like, as soon as I did, I looked at the screen and I was like, oh my God, that's beautiful. Whoa. I was like, that's brilliant. That. Wow. Out of the 15 languages I've just been looking at for the last five days, this has just become my favorite one. What the hell? Why have I never looked at this language before? This is gorgeous. This is amazing. And so I spent the next three days immersed in the. I went through the the documentation, the manual start to finish and said wow out loud at least a dozen times over three days. Like, you know, just be doing something simple, like. Okay. Open a file and read it and go. Whoa! Wow. Wow. That's beautiful. Damn. So just like that, after 19 years of prejudice against Python, after ten something years of prejudice against Dubai in one month, I've had two things that I had on my shit list now become my favorite. So now it's like, I wish I lived in Dubai and I'm doing all my new projects in Python. What a great month it's been.
Jonny
That's that's amazing. Thank you for sharing both of these. Um, okay, so I have, um, I have a few rapid fire questions to, to, to round off and then, then we'll wrap up. First question, what is one hypothesis that you hold that you suspect might be true, but don't yet have proof for?
Derek Sivers
Sorry. Um, anything I would say would be a lie because I don't think anything is true.
Jonny
So I mean, that's that I guess that's a that's a hypothesis. I mean, that's my theory. Sure, sure. There you go.
Derek Sivers
I mean, that's my that's my nihilism in full effect is I just really think that basically nothing except the physical things in front of me are true. So I don't judge things that way. So if there's some hypothesis that I'm choosing to believe, I just still see it as a preference. I, I don't see it as true. If I say that that humans should do this or I should do that, or the world is as such, I'm just too aware that every single thing I could say there would just be a preference, that absolutely none of them are true because they're just perspectives.
Jonny
Yeah, I think that's a that's a great answer. And it's also something that I feel like is an example of something that is. Yeah. All right. We won't go down that rabbit hole. But I, I appreciate the way you took that if you were to write an illustrated children's book, what might the title be?
Derek Sivers
Hmm. It's all up to you. Mm. I'd probably. I mean, sorry, dude, my head is in the useful, not true mindset right now in this thing we're talking about, about pointing out that all of the things that people are going to tell you are not necessarily true. And it's all up to you what you want to do with life. And I would probably make some colorful, memorable examples of a kid going through the world being told that things are so by very smart, knowledgeable people around him, and then later finding out that none of those things are necessarily so, that it was just that person's opinion and that helping kind of disprove. Because I think that, um, kids think of grownups as authorities that know better. But so often grown ups are so full of shit and they tell kids things. I was about to say lies, but they're not intended to be lies. They're just they're beliefs that people hold that I think are harmful beliefs. And they tell them to kids as if they're truths. And I think it's really harmful. And I mean, that's really my ultimate motivation for writing this book is some of my best friends are still fucked up in their 40s because of beliefs that their parents gave them when they were eight. And it's taking decades to unravel those harmful beliefs. And yeah, so I would think that that would be a useful kids book.
Jonny
I love it. Perhaps the subtitle could be grown ups are full of shit. Yeah. Good one.
Derek Sivers
Thank you. That would actually probably sell better that way. Yeah.
Jonny
What is your your working definition of a meaningful friendship.
Derek Sivers
Mhm. Uh, vulnerability. Mutual admiration. Wide open communication. Yeah. Those are my big three.
Jonny
And then last question. What is your greatest aspiration or hope that you hold for your writing and your books.
Derek Sivers
Ooh. Greatest aspiration. Okay. If I take that adjective seriously, um, then of course, it's like the childhood dream of many to think that something we make is going to be read after our death. And I remember. Well, sorry, I'm saying childhood because I remember I'm actually specifically referring to an old girlfriend of mine who was actually my first major girlfriend when I was 21 years old, told me that she used to daydream that her diaries would be read like Anne Frank's diaries after she died. She likes to write in my diary. Just convinced that after I die. These diaries are going to be read with such, uh, you know, earnestness and seriousness. And people really valuing my thoughts. And she said that I realized later, like, I'm just some eight year old girl in Massachusetts, you know? So, um. Yeah. Greatest aspiration. Okay. Taking that adjective all the way, then? Uh, yeah. It would be nice if my books were valued greatly, even after my death. And it's a wonderful definition of the afterlife. If you are a total atheist and believe in nothing, and you believe that when you die, there's no whatever spiritual realm that you just plop into the earth, well, then your, um, your personality is what lives on through recordings like this, um, through your writing. Uh, and so that is your personality living after you have physically died. That is my favorite definition of the afterlife.
Jonny
Mm mm. Wow. Well, this has been this has been so much fun. Really, really appreciate your time. Uh, where where can listeners read your books, your book reviews? Buy the new book. What would you like to direct people to?
Derek Sivers
I would like people not to go to Amazon, not to go to audible.
Jonny
Don't go to Amazon. People don't give you.
Derek Sivers
Money to go to just, you know, decentralize. Quit going to the man for everything. Um, so just go to my website. Go to s I v e r s and everything is there. My books are all there. Just buy them directly from me. All the money goes to charity. And also you just get a better deal. When you go with me. You get the audiobook and the e-book and the paper book and everything all included. And, um. Yeah. And the best thing is to send me an email. The reason I do these podcasts is clearly, I'm not here to promote anything. Uh, I've done a terrible job of that if I was, but except for my new illustrated future children's book. Oh, yeah. The grownups are full of shit.
Jonny
Heard it here first, thanks to Johnny Exclusive.
Derek Sivers
Yep. Title by Johnny. Um, then, uh, I like meeting people, as you can tell. So anybody. If you listened all the way to the end of this interview, you should go to my website and click the link that says email me and say hello.
Jonny
Well, I will make sure that all of those links and your email, which is brave of you, will be in the show notes. Um. Thank you. So let's close with this, this line from the poet Rilke. And he said, try to love the questions themselves and live them. Now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live your way into the answer with that in mind. What is the question that is most alive in your consciousness right now? And what question might you leave our listeners with that they may potentially email you about? Hmm.
Derek Sivers
Ah fuck it. I'll just say, uh. What? What is your dream situation? What's your ideal in this scenario? I like asking that because we so often constrain ourselves to the defaults. We constrain ourselves to the norms. And what we see is just like, well, yeah, of course I have to have to do this. I have to do that. This is what you do. This is how it goes. And I think a great question to live is to constantly ask yourself, well, like, what's the ideal like in a perfect world, how would it go? And then creatively make it from scratch that way.
Jonny
Derek Sivers, thank you so much.
Derek Sivers
Thanks, Johnny.