Mind Love
host: Melissa Monte
lifestyle inspiration, parenting challenges, cultural norms and individuality, decision-making, commitment, exploration
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Transcript:
Melissa
Let’s welcome Derek Sivers to the show.
Derek Sivers
Thank you, Melissa, and thanks for having me even though you just moved house.
Melissa
Well, I usually like to ask people what inspired their latest book, but I want to ask you what inspired your whole lifestyle? Because I’m obsessed with everything that I’ve read so far. And I’m like, yes, these are just tidbits I feel like everyone needs in their pocket.
Derek Sivers
Oh, what inspired my lifestyle? It might be the fact that I moved around a lot as a kid, and so I always had the feeling like, I’m not from here, no matter where I am, I’m not from here. And therefore I feel like your rules don’t apply to me. I didn’t feel a need to adhere to the cultural norms of wherever I am, so it meant that I was often thinking of things from scratch like, “Well, people here do it this way, but how do I think it should be? I think it should be that way.” So I’m going to do it that way, you know, because I often ask myself the question, like, in a perfect world, how would it be? And then I just try to make my life work in alignment with that. Does that make sense?
Melissa
It does. And that might be why I resonate with so much of what you say. Because I was an only child in our family. It’s not like we moved. I wish we would have moved countries more, but I was just moving schools a lot as a kid. When my mom met my step dad and then moving another time, I just was always the new kid. I moved like eight times by third grade and I am just not a rule follower like everybody knows that about me. And it just came up in conversation yesterday. My mom said something and I was like, you know, “If you make it not a rule, I’ll be more likely to do it.”
Derek Sivers
Interesting. So you’ve noticed that about yourself? That’s really cool.
Melissa
Yes, yes, and it’s funny just hearing you say that because the joke, especially for a big group of friends in my 20s. They would always say, “Well then there’s Melissa. Melissa’s always saying there’s got to be a better way.” And it was like a play on the infomercial line. But that’s how I was always like looking at what people are doing. And I’m like, “There’s got to be a better way. Is there a new tool for that? Is there something else we can do?” And redoing people’s processes.
Derek Sivers
Nice. We got to cut out the fact too, that there are different phases in life, and sometimes when you are super busy and overwhelmed with work or life, you don’t have time to to stop and question things. I think it was an old George Carlin joke, he said, “Some people look at the world and say why? Others look at it and say why not? And then others look at it and say, I don’t have time for this shit.” So sometimes in life, you don’t have time to get all philosophical and questioning everything. Sometimes you do.
Melissa
That’s true. I have an infant and a toddler right now, and I’m kind of teetering between that at any given moment. And then both kids will be napping and then all of a sudden I’m like, redoing my shelves or something just to make room. That’s this move was actually such a blessing in disguise because it came very last minute, and so we didn’t have time to talk ourselves out of it. And then all of the storage is different. And so I had to rethink every part of my life, but I was actually able to say, like, “What do I do when I first come in the door? How do I cook?” And I’m like, “Wow, there’s so many better ways to organize everything.” And and I feel like I’m having a whole life makeover right now.
Derek Sivers
I love that one of the-- here’s a weird thing about me I love moving house. I love moving every year or two because of the process that you just described, that when you move well, for one, you just get a new experience. Like cool. You get to live life in a new place for a couple of years, but the process of moving from one place to the other makes you start to question all these things. Things that you might have acquired a few years ago with the best of intentions. But now it’s been two years and you haven’t used it. And so when it’s time to pack it up, it’s like, “Really? Am I going to pack this up and carry it to the new place and unpack it again? Maybe it’s time to get rid of it.” Or, you know, what this place really needs is to--, you know, so I really love that process of moving. It’s so healthy.
Melissa
I’m really glad to hear you say that perspective, because all everyone ever says about moving is how much it sucks. And so then I sort of defaulted into that and I’m like, “Oh, moving is such a drag.” But I’m actually pretty excited about it. I also have never lived somewhere longer than three years because we just rent, but I feel myself being like, I should buy, we should buy soon. And I kept saying during this move, we’re going to have to move at least one more time just because then we’ll own a house. This is a rental. We can’t stay here forever. But I might be questioning that now. It’s like this thing. And it goes to what you talk about, where societal norms become the thing everyone’s looking to do, but they don’t really stop and ask, like, “Is this what’s right for me? Or what do I want to do? Why do I want to do this? Is it just because everyone else wants to do it?” And yeah, and one of the reasons we haven’t bought anywhere is because we aren’t 100% sure of like where we want to end up. We just want we keep living in the moment of like, “Well, now we’re nature people. We’re probably never going to live away from nature. We live up in the mountains.” And so, yeah, I might be questioning the whole buying a house thing.
Derek Sivers
Good. So Melissa, even from what you know about me, even I, until just a few months ago didn’t question that. I kept thinking I needed to buy a place, too. And then I realized when I did a hypothetical that the idea of staying in one place for 20 years to me felt like death. That was a worst case scenario. So I was like, “Well, why would I buy a house then?” Like my ideal life would be moving every year or two. But then still, I hadn’t questioned this cultural norm of that you should try to buy a place. And so I kept thinking I was going to buy a place, and I kept thinking that I was going to make it my home base and then travel. But then I realized like, “No, I don’t even want a home base. I don’t want to be anywhere for 20 years.” I want to keep going. That’s life to me.
Melissa
Grant Cardone talks about that a lot. How you shouldn’t live in the houses that you own. You should just rent them and the houses that you own you rent out because once you live in it, then it’s not an asset anymore. He has a whole thing about it. And so he rents the perfect houses, moves whenever he wants, and then all the houses he owns, he rents out and then makes a profit on it. I think that’s a pretty good way to go while still owning a house.
Derek Sivers
If maybe he really likes owning and renting out places to me, I would rather have my investments be more diverse. I’d rather have some ETFs that represent the entire world economy, instead of just that house in Cleveland or Wellington or whatever it may be. I’d rather spread out that risk and not have the tangible, single place that I own that I’m depending on, because, you know, then it’s like a fire or a flood hits that one home and you’re screwed. I’d rather just have ETFs in the stock market, but that’s me. You know, everybody’s got their own preference. I don’t want to be a landlord.
Melissa
Yeah I’m pretty sure he owns thousands of houses. So it is spread out a little bit. But I want to talk about your book, “How to Live”, because I’ve been opening pages and finding like today’s life advice for a couple of weeks now. And I’ve never seen a book written in the way that this book is written. It almost looks like it’s going to be poetry. It almost reads like poetry. It does read like poetry, but it’s like every paragraph is just this tidbit. I want to read an example of it because it’s amazing. But you say that, “All misery comes from dependency.” So I actually sent this to my cousins. And you say, “All misery comes from dependency. If you weren’t dependent on income, people or technology, you would be truly free. The only way to be deeply happy is to break all dependencies.” And the way I found you was actually the Tim Ferriss podcast, and you were talking about becoming free of tech, which is something I still have a lot of work to do, but I’m very inspired by that. But I love new tech products. All my stuff is in the cloud, but now there’s all these things talking about, like one day the grid’s going to go down. The World Economic Forum’s already warning about it. And so you talked about how you sort of compiled all of this because you were questioning things. But what about this book in particular? How long did it take you to write it? There’s literally something about every point of life in here. It seems like something that you would have left on your bed when you died, “Yes. Here’s all that I’ve learned.”
Derek Sivers
So yeah, you just answered the question. That was the original motivation was when my kid was born, maybe a year old. A lot of parents start thinking of this thing of like, “What happens if I die before my kid is old enough for me to teach them what I’ve learned? I better write it down.” Apparently, this is a real common feeling. So my book, “How to Live” started with that. Like, how would I put everything I’ve learned into a book? And then I started thinking about the most efficient way to communicate an idea is as a directive to just say, do this, because that’s like a seed that has the oak tree inside. So we could spend thousands of hours describing every twig of the oak tree, or you could say, “Just take this and stick it in the ground and water it.” That’s the directive that carries so much other knowledge with it that usually the person will have to learn from their own personal experience. But a simple directive saying do this carries so much wisdom inside of it. To me, it’s like the most compact form of wisdom is do this. So then I started thinking that would be badass to compile everything I’ve learned in life into a book full of directives.
Derek Sivers
And I was like, “But I have many conflicting things I’ve learned in life.” That’s why the first two chapters--. So, listeners, if you haven’t read the book yet, Melissa, just read from the opening chapter, which is saying, “Here’s how to live: Be independent.” Then the very next chapter is, “Here’s How to Live: Commit.” Which is all about being dependent about making dependencies and thriving on your dependent connections. And I realized along the way, that’s how I see life is these things are both true. Independence is crucial, and dependence is crucial, and giving is crucial, but receiving is crucial. So how do we reconcile all of this? Well, I’ll wreck the surprise a little bit. The very last page of the book is a picture of an orchestra seating chart with the violins here, the clarinets, the cellos, the trumpets and whatnot. And I realized that I see the different ways we could approach our life, kind of like instruments in the orchestra, that it’s not like one is the right answer, you know. Is the French horn the right answer for you, for life? No. It’s like you are the composer and conductor. You get to use all these different ways of living like instruments, like the way that a composer uses instruments to say, “Okay, now I’m going to bring in the trombones for a while, and now I’m going to mix it with the cellos and then stop the cellos. Now it’s time for just a little flute solo.”
Derek Sivers
That might be you saying, “Okay, I’m taking on the responsibility of two children, and we’ve decided we want to be in nature now.” And now you’ve combined this, you’ve combined children, nature, a podcast, a marriage, and a few things. You’ve got a few instruments playing at once right now, but you might, at some point in your life say, “Kids, mama needs some alone time.” And you might take ten days to go to Greece by yourself. And that’s like a piccolo solo in the middle of the orchestra. You know, it’s like that’s when you can pause your other values and say, I need more of this right now, this thing. And again, it’s not like the piccolo is the right answer for life. It’s just what you need at that time. And then you can go back to your combination of the violins and violas and cellos and the other values in your life. So yes, that also kind of answers your first question about how do I approach life. It’s the How to Live book.
Melissa
I’m glad you answered that, because there were a couple things where I was like, “Well, here we’re talking about completely living in the moment, but here we’re talking about thinking long term.” And I was like, this reminds me though of something that I’m always talking about. I talk about my Rolodex of mindsets, and it’s something that I realized in my 20s, where everyone’s always seems to be looking for like the right way to think about something. And I’ve learned over time that I need to just figure out what’s going to help me in this moment, and it might be different from tomorrow. What works right now might not work in a month because I get over it, or because I’m in a different stage of life or whatever it is. And the ultimate goal is to just kind of figure out how to have acceptance for what is. And so if you’re using different tools, different ways of looking at it like, okay, now I’m only thinking about my future self. Now I’m not thinking about the future at all. I’m only thinking about right now. And you’re just doing this to see, like, “Okay, well, I’m flipping through my Rolodex of mindsets. Oh, there it is. There’s peace.” You know, like, I thought about it this way, put it through this filter, and suddenly things are a little bit rosier.
Derek Sivers
That’s nice, I like that. That’s a great metaphor. Thank you.
Melissa
You’re welcome. You left me with about 100, so I’ll give you one. You can add it to your next book.
Derek Sivers
Well, actually, I was biting my tongue to not say that, but I love that you said which one is right, because that is the subject of my next book. I realized that when people read “How to Live”, a lot of people were asking, “So yeah, but which one do you really believe? Which one do you really follow?” I said no, all of them. And I realized that the question had in it this idea of rightness, which one is right? Like which one is true? Because only one can be the right answer, right. And I think that has this idea of true inside it, of wanting to define something as true and right and chosen and the other ones as wrong or flawed or not quite right and therefore not true. And I think that’s a flawed way of thinking about it. And it makes people discard hundreds of great ideas because they’re wrapped in an ideology. And if something about that ideology is flawed, then they can define the whole thing as not right or not true and discard it all, when in fact there’s a ton of good wisdom in it. And let’s say, like, okay, I know nothing about Scientology, right. But let’s say that Scientology might actually have some really good ideas in it, but because they do things, I don’t know, whatever they do, you know, we hear bad things about Scientology.
Melissa
I’ve seen the documentaries.
Derek Sivers
Oh okay. So I haven’t even seen the documentaries I’ve just heard Scientology equals bad equals evil equals manipulative or something like that. And so we discard the entire ideology. But what if you were to actually read their teachings and you liked two thirds of it. Well, most people wouldn’t even do that. They’d just say, “Stay away from that. Crazy people do that.” But if there’s some good stuff in there, we have it bundled in an ideology that we’ve defined as wrong, and so we can ignore that. Or, you know, somebody can be Christian and then their local pastor molests somebody and they can just say, “That’s it, I’m leaving the church because the messenger is flawed, therefore the religion is flawed. Therefore all of the teachings are flawed because it’s no longer right.” So I’m trying to separate this idea of useful from true that something can be useful even if it’s not true. And in fact, we should stop trying to call things true and right and judge them just on whether they’re useful to us. And that’s like your mindset Rolodex. I really like that metaphor.
Melissa
It’s funny that you’re talking about this because an episode just aired or actually it’s airing next week around embracing diversity and spirituality, because I was raised Christian and my family is still very much so. And I was in my teens, I think I was always questioning things. Like there were just things that contradicted, that didn’t line up, and it just never really resonated with me. And so it’s always a topic on my mind, especially when my mom just comes to help me move. It just comes up every time. And I am totally a proponent for taking what’s needed. I remember I was listening to Ram Dass and somebody asked him a question around some guru who had apparently done some sexual abuse, and so everyone was discounting everything. And he said, like, you have to allow the humanness in these people as well. Like power easily corrupts even some of the best minds. And so they come to the West bringing all their teachings. And then it’s kind of hard to be above that in all situations if you’re still human, which pretty much every guru is. But yeah, I love that. I just finished reading a book on Islam, which was a first for me. I have been diving into Hinduism quite a bit.
Derek Sivers
Wait wait wait wait. Stop there. Wait, what Muslim book? What did you read?
Melissa
The Secrets of Divine Love by A. Helwa. And so she wrote it in a way to kind of show people a different side of this religion that has taken a lot of-- people think they know about things when they only know a couple of talking points. And it’s funny because Scientology, I think, is the same way. When I was young, we had a neighbor that was a Scientologist and I remember my mom has always been a pretty intense Christian and she was warned that this was a cult. And so she literally like, I think she said something to my stepbrother, who then told my neighbor, who then told her mom that my mom thinks she’s in a cult because this whole thing, we couldn’t hang out anymore. But I remember getting older and I was like, reading something about Scientology. And I was like, “There are some great things in here.” Pretty much everything that I have learned on how to be happier, less anxious. It’s all in there. But then it’s like the higher you get up, then you start to kind of figure out all the secret beliefs that aren’t presented to the public. But it’s actually-- mine is all the documentaries. It’s actually got a lot of good things in there. So just like you were saying, yeah, there’s something in everything, and there’s a part of your book where you talk about sort of not conforming to the societal norms or to the religious doctrine or whatever. And that’s kind of how I live. I love to learn about things. Just enough. And then I’m like, “Oh, I just got a little too deep. This part’s not serving me. I’ll stay over here.”
Derek Sivers
Right. Well, okay. Wait, you lived in Santa Monica, right?
Melissa
Yes.
Derek Sivers
Okay. When I moved to Santa Monica, I loved it. But I found it funny that at least when I was there, I don’t know if it’s still the same way. Everybody kind of insisted that you have to do yoga. “Oh, my God, you live in Santa Monica? Are you going to do yoga? You’re coming with me to yoga.” And so many people get into yoga, and then they treat it like it’s a little religion. Suddenly they’re saying namaste to strangers, and they’re changing the design of their house to be this kind of yoga-ish way. And people really love to buy into an ideology. They really have this need to not just keep it as disparate ideas, but to combine it into an ideology so they can say, “I subscribe to this.” You know, it’s not that you just do yoga. I am the person that does yoga. I’m going to be this whole way. And same thing with people that do cycling. They’re not just riding a bike. Suddenly they have to wear the exact same thing that everybody else wears with the company names on their, their spandex lycra, whatever that stuff’s called, and act a certain way and kind of buy into the whole thing. And it’s funny how we have that tendency to want to turn ideas into an ideology, or we don’t want separate ideas, we want an ideology to call it right, to say, “This is the one, this is who I am.”
Melissa
I know exactly what you mean about the Santa Monica yoga thing. I started doing yoga when I lived in Texas, though, and then I moved to Hollywood, and then I was like, maybe I should move to Santa Monica where all the yogis are. And I moved to Santa Monica, where all the yogis were and was very much a part of that whole ideology. And then came a time in life where I started questioning what everyone around me was doing, no longer fit into that ideology, and moved to Big Bear. And so, yes, it’s like I thought it was only religion. But no, it’s like every little sector of life people suck you in and then it’s like, “Wait, but you’re one of us. You’re a Yogi. You’re supposed to also think this way, oh, lockdowns are happening. You’re supposed to get on board. Oh, these protests are happening. You’re supposed to think exactly what we all think.” And I’m like, “Oh no.” I’ve never been good at thinking with the group. And the moment I find myself in that place, I will find something where I’m like, “Nope, still outside here.”
Derek Sivers
I’m curious what happened, what was it in Santa Monica that you said, like, this doesn’t work for me.
Melissa
Lockdowns 2020.
Derek Sivers
Oh no. Sorry. I mean, about the like the yoga community. Yogi.
Melissa
Yes, that was it. Everyone was like advocates for everything the government was saying. And I was like, “I didn’t know this is what liberalism was. But I guess now it is.” By June of 2020, we were like, we need to go live in nature and kind of create our own lives where we don’t have to listen to what everyone else is doing.
Derek Sivers
Wow. It was so tribalistic, wasn’t it?
Melissa
It’s still kind of is.
Derek Sivers
Oh yeah. It’s a black or white. Pick your tribe. Which one are you.
Melissa
I try to stay out of both sides because I did start to just sort of lean towards the other side. And then they started saying things that I thought were crazy. And so I’m like, yeah, it’s best to just stay out of this. I really think the divide and conquer strategies are real. So I no longer align with any political party. I can pretty much disagree with certain things from anybody that I like and follow. But I think there’s something to be said for-- again, it’s kind of like creating a whole ideology over something. It’s like, “Oh, I like this one influencer who’s been speaking out against this.” And then they’ll say something where if you heard it on its own and you didn’t already like the person, you might have a red flag that goes up. But because it’s this person who’s been saying all the other right things, then all of a sudden you believe that. You believe that it’s just like a slippery slope. So I loved the whole section of your book where you talked about there’s this part that says cut ties with society, don’t engage, don’t even rebel because that’s reacting. And one of the recent things I’ve been going through is A Course in Miracles. Have you heard that of that?
Derek Sivers
I’ve heard the phrase, but I don’t know what it is.
Melissa
It popped up in the 70s. A woman named Helen Schucman channeled like, it looks like a Bible. It’s written on pages that are like biblical width. And supposedly she’s channeling Jesus. But the whole book, it really feels close to a lot of the beliefs in Hinduism without necessarily like the god, all the different gods that they worship there. But but I just really resonated with it. And one of the things that it says, though, is it’s really about accepting the now, and it talks about resisting. Even resisting something you’re clinging in a way because you are defining yourself at any given moment, rather than just sort of allowing the moment to pass through you, transform you in the way that you need to. But it’s like everyone’s choosing so much who they are with every little decision, rather than just kind of flowing with how life is. You also talk about free will in a way that A Course in Miracles really defines it, where as we we think we have this free will, we think that we’re making all of these choices. Ram Dass was saying something recently, probably 20 years ago, but I listened to it recently.
Melissa
But he was talking about how something happened where his guru, like predicted this thing, he thought he was making this decision was this hard decision for him to make. And then he ends up showing up with 33 people at this dinner. And the guru already had told somebody two hours before, 33 people will be here for dinner, because his guru knew everything, apparently. And anyway, he’s like, “All this time I thought I had free will, but if my guru already was prepping for this before I made the decision, what was really happening? Like is it just me thinking?” And so he talks about how it’s best to just sort of say use a randomizer app or something like that and then just commit hardcore to whatever the next action is. Just accept it. And yeah, I got like three different sources telling me the same piece of wisdom in the last couple of weeks. So I’m like, I guess this is how to live.
Derek Sivers
This is the answer. This is the one. Which by the way, and thanks for that story. That was interesting. When I was writing the How to Live book, every chapter I was working on, I would convince myself accidentally that this was actually the answer. I know I’m writing this book that the whole point is there’s not one answer. But yeah, come on, this is clearly the way to live. This is clearly the one. This is how we all should be living. This is the best answer. Every chapter I made myself feel that unintentionally, just because I was immersed in that kind of mindset. And then it was time to work on the next chapter and I’d be like, “Oh, actually, actually, this is really the answer. This is the way.” So I love that I was feeling that because I wanted the reader to feel that I want you to feel when you’re reading each chapter, that this is actually the answer. This is truly the way I was hoping to be persuasive and convince you that this was truly the right answer, and then was hoping to knock you off with that, I was hoping to disorient you with each new chapter, then saying that something else was in fact the right answer. And then your head was supposed to be spinning by the end. That was the intention for the reader, but that was also the effect on this writer.
Melissa
I think what I love about it, though, is we talked about the Rolodex of mindsets and like, well, what what way of thinking of this is going to help me right now. But when that becomes the habit instead of like me going to your book like, “Oh my God, which one’s right?” Then it requires introspection and it’s funny because one thing that I realized while reading your book was that I’ve always loved being--. When I was younger, I loved being the spontaneous person. I couldn’t make plans more than a day in advance because I wanted to just go with the flow, and that was great until it wasn’t. It stopped being as fun for me, and I moved to a period of my life where I really liked to plan things out, like really far in advance. I still leave room for the little spontaneous decisions because I like that. But I realized that I was working towards, well, there was a good like year or two that I’m like, “All right, you know what? I know myself now. I just need to actually build a life around all the things that I love.” And so I was like, “All right, this is my favorite face wash. This is my favorite whatever.” And like instead of trying all of the new things all the time, I just want to kind of stick to these things.
Melissa
And I still have some of those things. But then I was getting to a point where my life ended up being so rigid that I was like, “Nope, I need to make room for that spontaneity again.” And then all of a sudden I started trying all the new things, and then I reached a point in my life where I was like, “I want to be really minimal and not have anything.” Then I was like, “I want a self-care corner where I go sit there. It’s got all the things that I want.” And and so what I realized though, is that instead of trying to say like, “Okay, well, what decision can I make now that will just last for the rest of my life?” I now know, like, “Okay, what do I need today? What mindset do I want to be in today? What feels good? Let me try on a few mindsets like like outfits and decide what works for this period.” Maybe next week that mindset doesn’t fit anymore. It’s a little too small, maybe the week after that. And so it’s allowed me to-- again, the habit isn’t the thing that I always reach for. It’s turning inward and just asking instead and like feeling into what I want and need.
Derek Sivers
I love that. Yeah, I agree and have done the same with the pendulum swinging far to one side and then going too far, and then the pendulum swings back to the the middle at first, but then I keep going that way and it hits some other extreme and I go, “Oh, I think I’ve got too much of this now.” You know, what was funny is, let me think, how old am I. Like 15 years ago I did the dating apps and really binged on that. And it was interesting to see how many people because you’re just coming across hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people looking for a relationship and saying what they want. And it was interesting seeing how many people define what they want by what they don’t want. They’re usually reacting against their most recent situation. So even you guys moving out to the countryside was a reaction against just being in overcrowded Santa Monica during lockdown, surrounded by this mob mentality. And you’re like, “Oh, get us out of here.” It was a reaction to that. And I wouldn’t be surprised if in 10 years, 15 years, something like that, you’re like, “All right, enough countryside already. Get me to New York City, let’s go to London.” Whatever it may be. You’ll want some urbanists, and maybe you’ll feel in 10 years like this. In fact, this is what I really need. We need to live in New York City. This is the place for us now. And you might do that for a few years until you feel like, “No, actually, I think what we need is to be nomadic or whatever each one feels like” It’s reaction against the previous situation, whether it’s what you’re looking for in relationships, maybe what you’re looking for in your diet, your lifestyle. Yeah, I think it’s usually a reaction against what we’re lacking.
Melissa
Yeah. It’s funny that you say that because it was just a couple of weeks ago. We were talking always deciding, like, “Are we going to live here? Are we going to go to Michigan where we have a bunch of land already? But I don’t know about the winters.” And I was just like, “I think we’re nature people now. I just cannot see myself ever living in a city again.” And then I was reading a part of your book the next day, and I was like, “I mean, we could live in a city. I can’t see it now. It doesn’t make sense to me now.” It feels very far fetched, but it feels better for me to feel like opportunities are endless, rather than to all of a sudden feel like I’m like creating all these rules for my life. But at the same time, as you mentioned in your book, sometimes we think we want more choices when we’re really we want less. And so it’s like, should I be narrowing it down? But for something like that yeah, I think a lot of what I’ve learned about myself in the last couple of years have been a reaction to what I am realizing through experience I don’t want at least right now. But it’s funny. Again, I had like three sources, your book being one of them, A Course in Miracles being another Ram Dass being another that it was like every time I’d read a portion of your book, I’d hear the exact same thing in this other text or audio. And it was about the resisting. It’s like, you think you’re not choosing that. But even in not choosing that, you’re choosing something, you’re choosing the rest or this other thing that’s the opposite of it. And yeah, I think a lot of my own self discovery too, it has been watching, realizing what I don’t want.
Derek Sivers
At the age of 22, 29, and 42, I decided that nature was the answer. That in fact, I’m just a nature guy. I need to go live in nature. And so at the age of 22, 29 and 42, I did. The age of 22 it only lasted six months. 29 it lasted two years. 42 I moved to New Zealand and I’m still here 11 years later, but I’m just starting now after 11 years in gorgeous nature New Zealand, my plane transferred in Dubai as I was going to a conference and instead of just switching to the other plane, I turned it into a two day layover because I’m like, well, all right, Dubai is a place on earth that sounds massively unappealing to me. It sounds awful from what I’ve heard of it. So let me check it out. And I loved it. I loved it so much that I wish I was there right now. And it is the opposite of nature. It is entirely man-made. And I just realized it was feeling like the remedy for my 11 years in New Zealand. And what’s funny is I know a guy who lives there who steered me right a couple times. He said, “You have to go to this cultural museum, the Al Shindagha Cultural Museum.” And I’m so glad he told me to do that.
Derek Sivers
I’m so glad I read two books about the United Arab Emirates culture, and a third one about the history of Dubai that gave me so much more insight into the place. But then that same guy is saying, you have to go camping out in the mountains here. You have to go out to this trail, you have to do this waterboarding thing, or what do you call it, paddle boarding. And that’s where I said like, ’No, no, no, no, no, I’m not here for the nature right. I live in New Zealand like I’m here in Dubai for the people.” Oh my God, the people. It’s like the bar in Star Wars. Everybody’s from everywhere. And they’ve all just gathered together temporarily in this place to get some business done or trade some things or whatever. And oh my God, this is so fascinating to be here. And it was interesting noticing in myself that I also, yes, I moved to New Zealand feeling like, “Oh, I’m just this kind of person, really. Nature’s where it’s at. This is who I am.” And yes, that has been true. And part of me that will always be true. But yeah, I think that pendulum swung to the far edge and it’s now going back.
Melissa
I get really enthusiastic about all things health. And so I think that’s why I love nature so much. It’s like I go walk outside barefoot all the time for grounding. Like, I’m teaching my toddler to hug trees and I’m like, “Do you feel the stability? Can you feel that energy?” I just want him to just open his mind to different ways of thinking and kind of reacting with the world. But yeah, I’m an early adopter for anything tech. I love it. And so like this kind of merging of mindful tech, it could be a slippery slope. But I love like the okay example of it, the muse brain sensing headband. I use it for a full year and I’m sitting there simultaneously mildly concerned about the emfs that’s just right around my head. And also my meditation practice improved so much with that thing, because anytime it goes by mantra meditation and supposedly if your thoughts sway, it starts to make these bird sounds, and then you have to go back to the mantra and then they’ll die out. Or it’s the opposite. Maybe the birds come when you’re peaceful. But it was just immediate feedback. It was like the book peak performance that I read about getting immediate feedback will just really improve anything. And so I got this immediate feedback with my meditation. And ever since using that for one year period of time, I have been a daily meditator since then. So yeah, I’m always kind of merging. So my point being that I could see myself being like, “All right, well, now it’s time for the bustle of the city because I just like both.” But I think that’s one thing that’s changing recently is instead of trying to figure out, “Well, who am I? What do I like?” It goes back to that sort of asking myself, “Well, what’s my next step in evolution?”
Derek Sivers
Ooh. Good one. Yes. What’s my next step in evolution. I really like that. Cool.
Melissa
You also talk about choosing and this is a tidbit from the book that I sent to my husband. Because my husband’s always like, “I’m a Libra. I can’t make decisions quickly.” And it’s something that he’s been working on for years. And there’s this section in your book that says like, “You’ve been looking for the best person, place or career, but seeking the best is the problem. No choice is inherently the best. What makes something the best choice? You.” This is a life changing epiphany. You can stop seeking the best option, pick one and irreversibly commit. Or at least for now, I added that part. What then? It becomes the best choice for you. And that that was just one of the things, even in this whole move where we’re like, “Well, should we be moving to this new house? Should we stay here for one more year? Should we go over there?” And it’s like, well, we’ve made the decision. Now we just need to stop looking for the possible downsides because we’ve already committed. Now we should just go really hard on the good sides until we feel so excited about it. And I had my mom help move me in. And my mom is a little OCD. She’s the cleanest person you will ever meet in your life. She moved out of a house that she lived in for 20 years, and the realtor actually said, “We’ve never seen a house in this condition before. And so she comes and she’s just like, “Oh my gosh, everything’s filthy.” And I’m like, “Mom, you haven’t moved into a house that’s been lived in before, since I was four years old. All of them are brand new. So you got to be okay with the woman that just moved out, lived here for 20 years, and there’s a little scuff on the door.” And so I just spent the last three days being like, “Can we only focus on the positive aspects because we’re already doing this.”
Derek Sivers
Right? Right. Yeah. If something’s already a decision, well then we don’t need to focus on the negatives. We’ve made the decision. Let’s focus on the positives. Yeah. You know, that thing about choosing something and committing doesn’t have to be forever. So I love the way that you mentioned this. Like we’re moving to here in rural California. We’ve made this choice. Let’s go all in on this. Like you said, the kids hugging the trees. I love that going outside barefoot go all into that lifestyle that choice. You know, I lived in Singapore for two and a half years. I thought I was going to live there much longer, but I met some people in Singapore that were conflicted the whole time they moved there, because their job at Procter and Gamble told them they had to move there or, you know, “Sorry, we’re going to put you here in this position.” And they’d get there and they were kind of torn the whole time. They’re like, ’All right, I’ll be here, but I’m not going to enjoy it.” And they would only get their food from the American imports place, and they’d just eat their pop tarts and peanut butter and stay in a little bubble, and they’d send their kids to the American school and surround themselves by other Americans, even though they’re living in Singapore. Oh my God, a fascinating place with so many interesting people, and what a unique place on Earth that they could have gotten to know if they made it a real choice and really chose it instead of this half assed kind of like, “Well, all right, I’m going to do it, but I’m not going to enjoy it.” It’s just setting yourself up for misery. That’s absolutely a recipe for misery to to do something but resent it.
Melissa
I’m curious how you balance because this is another conflicting ideas, both of them golden though. And it’s like okay, go super hard and just go all in to the lifestyle of the people around you and also don’t necessarily fall into the kind of ideology that everyone is creating around their lives. And so one example. I moved up here to Big Bear and I love it. And I’m like, “Okay, I’m a nature person now.” Like I’m going to walk barefoot outside. We’re going to go into the forest and like, just let our kid roam and I want to plant a garden now that we have a yard and we’re not in LA and all of these things, and then it’s like you get pretty far in and it’s like, well, there’s quite a bit of a religious people. We’re probably the only one in this new neighborhood that’s not religious, that doesn’t go to the church on the corner. But I’m also the kind of person where I’m like, “I’ll go a couple times.” I went to the church near me over there. I think it’s kind of fun, too, when people get into their worship mode, I can like, feel an energy in the air. And so I will just sort of be translating things in my head to fit my own view of God source. However, I want to view it for the day. But yeah, how do you balance? How do you balance really going fully, committing to the new places that you live? While also, I don’t think othering yourself would be the right word.
Melissa
Yes.
Derek Sivers
I know what you mean though.
Derek Sivers
I think it’s just appreciation. That you can be curious, you can be interested, and you can appreciate someone’s point of view without needing to adopt it as your own. Kind of like, I mean, I don’t know how different you and your husband are, but some of my best couple friends are very different. So different. And that’s so fun when you have this kind of yin yang dynamic in a married couple where they’re so different and they can appreciate each other, I’m trying to make a yin yang with my fists here, sorry. That you can appreciate the differences in the other without trying to make the other person be like you, without trying to make yourself be like the other person, but to just smile and appreciate your differences. And acknowledge them. And not say that they’re wrong, but be glad that this person is the way that they are. That’s the way. I’ll give one just tiny examples. When I first moved to Singapore, I moved from La to Singapore, and I was in entrepreneur circles in California. And suddenly I’m speaking at business schools in Singapore. And I just assumed that, of course, everybody in business school wants to start their own business. So they had me speak to this class of 30 young business students, and I said, “Okay, raise your hand if you want to start your own business.” And nobody raised their hand. I was like, okay, maybe they’re shy. I was like, “Really? Nobody?” I was like, okay, they must just be too shy.
Derek Sivers
Maybe this isn’t a hand raising culture. So I picked on somebody. I said, “You why don’t you want to start your own business?” And they said, “Well, my parents took the risks so that I wouldn’t have to. I don’t want it. I want to get a good paying job. I don’t want to take the risk of a business.” I was like, “Okay, why don’t you want to start your own business?” And turns out I had misunderstood that. That they saw risk as undesirable, whereas I came from a place where it was extremely desirable because risk equals reward. And so the big reward comes from being the one to take the risk. And everybody wanted to start their own business. And my point is, at first I felt that they were wrong. I was like this, “You people are wrong. You all need to be starting your own business. This is just wrong.” Or I’ll pick one more to not focus on that one example. I met a lot of people that used to be musicians, and then they’d say that their parents talked them out of playing music so they could get a good job. And again, I felt, that’s wrong. You need to do what you want to do, not what your parents tell you to do. And eventually I realized, like, no, that’s just an American individualist point of view, that doing what’s best for your family or your community or your country is not wrong. It’s just a different set of priorities.
Derek Sivers
And it took me a while to just appreciate the differences. Be really glad that I had some really good Singaporean friends that I really got to know really well and really understand their mindset to the core. Where it came from, how it shapes their lives. And they’re really good people. And so I really got to appreciate that. Yeah, I fully immersed into Singapore culture without becoming Singaporean, without fully adopting those values, but just appreciating them and. Same way, I think everywhere I’ve gone, I try to immerse myself in the local culture and live like a local. But it doesn’t mean I need to fully adopt everything. I think it’s just more important to just appreciate the differences and then like you say, just have the insight into yourself to know what do I need. I think I like this aspect of Singapore culture. I think I like that aspect of New Zealand culture. I think I like this from Hinduism, I think I like this from Scientology. I think I like this from Islam and just have the self identity. The standing on your own two feet. What do you call that? Like just kind of your certainty. Your certainty about who you are and what you need. That you’re not just thrown off course by everybody that presents a new idea to you. Thinking that you need to doubt that you know who you are and what you need, and you can pick and choose the ideas from here and there.
Melissa
Yeah. You said something about living like a local. And it’s funny because I think my favorite times have been when I have been balancing living like a local and living like a tourist at the exact same time. One example is I moved to Hawaii for a while, and my friend was already living there, and there was just certain things I wanted to do, and she was like, “No, we can’t do that. It’s too touristy.” And then we left and things would pop up and I’m like, “I wish I would have done that.” So I ended up going back for a couple of months and I was like, “I’m going to do all the touristy things.” And that’s how I’ve moved a lot as an adult, probably because I was used to moving as a child, and that was kind of my coping mechanism for a long time, was like, “Oh, things are getting hard here. Let me just go to a whole new location.” So yeah, and it was great because I learned how to make new friends really quickly. But I also learned how to explore on my own, which I found a lot of people don’t do, they don’t like going to a restaurant by themselves, or they don’t like just going on a hike by themselves. And that’s what I got really good at. That’s how I made friends, is I would sit at the bar at restaurants. And so when I moved to LA, I had a list of 100 things that I wanted to do and all the places I had seen on like a reality show or like in the lists of top 20 things to do in LA or whatever. And I checked off like 80 of those, and I feel very accomplished from my LA life. It was awesome.
Derek Sivers
That’s cool. I love that. Yeah. Like you really got to know LA. You weren’t just living in LA but hiding in your room and, you know, reading the web. You really went and did LA. That’s so cool.
Melissa
And then like the things that like in the group of yogis, what is everyone doing. Oh they’re doing ecstatic dance. I’m going to do that and contact improv and all these super weird things that if you were to drop in, you’d be like, “What is happening?” But I think what I gained from it is that it expanded my ideas of what is normal and and what’s possible. Really, I think people are just waiting for somebody else to kind of guide them. But it reminds me of a line in your book where you said, “Live like you’re the only person on earth.” And I think I did that for a couple of years because I was like, I don’t have anyone to travel with. And then I just gave up on that and I was like, “Well, I’m moving cities on my own. Why can’t I just travel on my own and do these things on my own?” And I think it just made me a little bit fearless. And it’s something that I hope to instill in my children. It’s like, “Oh, you want to do that? Do it by yourself. I’ll give you $10 to do this by yourself.”
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I love that. By the way, in a few hours I’m going to see the new Wes Anderson movie by myself.
Melissa
Oh, perfect.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, it’s like a 2 p.m. on a Wednesday. And I just thought, Yeah, it’s an obscure little movie. It’s not playing at many movies. I really want to see it on the big screen.” I didn’t feel like asking friends to come along or waiting till it was a night time to do it. I was like, “Yeah, taking that 2 p.m. Wednesday show.” So anyway, yes, what you’re talking about is a common thread with something you mentioned earlier of the picking and choosing to say like, “Yes, I’m going to live in Hawaii, but I also want to do these things and I don’t care if you are--”. You know what, your friend was trying to put it into a camp. “The locals do this, the tourists do that. Which camp are you going to be in? No, no, Melissa, you’re in the locals camp. You can’t do the things from their camp. Those are tourist things. You’re not allowed to do that tribe.” So yeah, you were trying to describe it and do some things from both and yeah, tribalism. We got to fight against it.
Melissa
Yesterday we were moving and my husband had a bunch of stuff on the top of our car we’re only moving four miles away and we’re driving through and he goes, “Everyone thinks we’re tourists right now”. And I was like, “You hate that, don’t you?” And he’s like, “I hate it so much.” Because he lived in Big Bear before I did. And that’s where we met. And then we traveled around together and came back. But he’s always just prided himself on like being the local. He knows the parking spots by the mountain and like all the little things, how to avoid the traffic. And he’s like rolling his eyes at the tourists. And, oh, we have a mountain term. The people that are not from the mountain are called flatlanders. And so you’ll hear people mutter that freaking flatlanders. Like when they’re like, stopping in the middle of the road to put their chains on and all of that. And I was just like, “Let’s just own it. Let’s just act like tourists.” It’s like how I was reading there’s some poem I wish I could remember who wrote it, but it’s like the joking about getting older and it’s like, “Well, when I was younger, I did this and this. Now that I’m older--.” Basically saying how he’s going to do all the crazy things on purpose because nobody is going to fault you for it. It’s like, “Oh, you’r picking somebody else’s flower. Oh, it’s just this old man.” Like you’re not going to get mad at him for picking the flower in the garden. And I’m like, live like that now.
Derek Sivers
So notice how you said let’s rock it and let’s just let people think we’re the tourists. But I think there is a hybrid that we should all consider is to let people know that we can be independent thinkers and let them know, “No, I’m not in the flatlanders camp.” So what’s called flatlanders, right?
Melissa
No, we’re mountain people.
Derek Sivers
No. What was the other one called?
Melissa
Oh, yeah. Flatlanders.
Derek Sivers
So we’re not saying that we’re 100% in either camp. I’m saying that we are mostly this way, but there’s some good ideas from that that I got. I’m a little proud of my 14 year old self. When I think back that I was way into heavy metal at 14, all my friends were into heavy metal, but there was this Cyndi Lauper song that-- in fact, just Cyndi Lauper in general. I loved Cyndi Lauper, and my friends were like, “Oh God, how can you listen to this crap? I was like, “Because it’s good. This is a great song.” And I think the same thing came along later with, like, Britney Spears, Hit Me Baby One More Time was a great song, and I was surrounded by jazz musicians. I was in the music scene in New York City at the time, and my friends were like, “How could you listen to this?” Remember ringtones? I made the ringtone on my phone, “Doo doo doo doo doo doo.” You know the opening notes of Hit Me Baby One More Time because I liked it so much. I wanted to hear that little thing every time my phone rang. And yeah, I was around somebody when my phone rang and they were just like, “Dude, what the hell?” Because it’s this wanting to put you in a camp, are you a person that has sophisticated music tastes, or are you a disgusting, shallow teenager pop girl. Which camp are you in? But I think it’s really cool to show people and yourself that you’re an independent thinker that will pick and choose what you like and not give in to the pull of tribalism.
Melissa
That is such a good point. I am immediately reminded of when I was visiting the Hollywood sign and I was taking pictures, and this woman goes, “Where are you from?” And I was like, “Here.” And she’s like, “What do you mean?” And I was like, “Well, I’ve lived here for a year, but it was time to come see the Hollywood sign.” And she’s like, “I didn’t know that locals do that.” And I was like, “Oh yeah, I’ve got this whole list.” And I like, pulled up the list. But your story about the music reminds me of-- I’ve always kind of listened to different music than most people, and I think I identified with that. But there was a song it was a heavy metal song, Iron Maiden, Hallowed Be Thy Name. I just loved it. And that was one of my ringtones for this specific person back when you had to like import the ringtone.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, yes.
Melissa
But like, I had a BlackBerry at the time and you had to go through quite a few steps to like, be able to. It wasn’t called jailbreaking with that, but something to be able to get my own ringtone. It took me like 40 minutes to get it on the phone and Iron Maiden was one of them, so I appreciate that for sure.
Derek Sivers
You know, that’s why I interrupted you earlier when you mentioned a book about Islam because I just last year or this year read a book. Fascinating book called What Everyone Should Know About Islam. It was so good. You might really like it. It’s done in kind of an FAQ format where, yeah, it’s not written as a narrative, prosaic, whatever you call it. Just right away, the guy just answers the most common questions people have about Islam. And so I’m trying to find something similar with Hinduism. So far, everything I’ve found about Hinduism is drowning me in names. I mean, every page is telling you 20 names for things you know this which is called this, and your chakra which is called that, and this person who is called that. And the story of this, which is called that. I’m going, “Is it possible to teach Hinduism without all of these names?” Can you get to the essence of the practices, the beliefs, the mindset without drowning me in what the name for everything is?
Melissa
Ram Dass would be a good one to go deep on. He’ll call to the names of things every now and then but that’s not the essence. It’s like if he thinks it’s important, but all of his teachings and I like to go really hard at one thing at a time. That way I really understand it. I used to sort of dabble the whole time and now I’m just in this, I just want to know. I want to be able to differentiate what’s what, rather than just getting all these beautiful spiritual messages at the same time. And so, yeah, I went really hard on A Course in Miracles and now I’m going really hard on Ram Dass. And so I’m actually going through there’s a podcast called Here and Now, and there’s a foundation that their whole purpose is to preserve people like Ram Dass and Allen Watts and things like that. And so there’s a little intro by some guy, but I usually skip past that to about 15 minutes and then just listen to Ram Dass talk. And I’m on episode like 50, and I understand more about Hinduism now than I ever did, even reading specific books on it, so that might be helpful for you.
Derek Sivers
Thank you.
Melissa
Yeah. Well, we have covered a lot of ground on this.
Derek Sivers
Fun stuff. I love these subjects. I love like, almost everything you brought up, I went, “Yes. So glad we’re going to talk about this.” So yeah. Thank you. Wonderful conversation.
Melissa
Well, just thank you too. What you’re adding to the world. Because I feel like you’re like my star brother from across. I’m like, “Yes.” Somebody that at least views the world-- I don’t even know how to word it because it’s not one thing. You know what I mean? I know what you mean.
Derek Sivers
I know what you mean. There’s so many things you said that we can that we have in common.
Melissa
Yeah, it’s the appreciation for it all. And I had this epiphany the other day where I’m like, “Oh my God, I appreciate.” The two meanings of appreciate. It’s like what you focus on expands, but what you give gratitude grows. And so--
Derek Sivers
That’s a good one. I hadn’t thought about that.
Melissa
I love like the idea of like now, I’ve had the word appreciation just in my mind all the time. It’s like, no, just appreciate this and and it will appreciate. So thank you for what you’ve brought to this episode, the world, this conversation. For listeners that are interested in learning about all of your books, where’s the best place for them to connect?
Derek Sivers
Oh, just go to my website. Don’t go to Amazon. Screw them. Go to my website. Contact me directly. I don’t even do social media platforms. I don’t like them either. Go to my website is sive.rs. It’s just my name with a dot and send me an email. Honestly, the kind of person who listens to Melissa’s podcast and listened all the way to the end of this is my kind of person. So introduce yourself, say hello, tell me who you are, send me an email, I reply to every single one and I really love them.