Mark Manson
host: Mark Manson
CD Baby success, useful beliefs, writing process, parenting
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Transcript:
Mark
Derek, dude, it’s so good to see you. I’m so thrilled that you accepted my last minute proposal for you to come on here. First of all, we’ve been friends for a long time, and so it’s cool to just have my inaugural guest be a friend who I’ve known forever. But also, if I were to make a top ten list of people I know who probably give the fewest fucks. You are up there, sir. You are definitely on that list. You’re pretty high on that list, I have to say. You are most well known. You know, I’m sure everybody who intros you, they talk about CD Baby. You sold it for however many millions of dollars. After knowing you for ten years, I actually think that’s one of the least interesting things about you. You always surprise me every time we hang out and we never fail to have super interesting conversations. So I’m overjoyed to have you here. Thank you so much for coming on and being my guinea pig for this first episode. Thank you.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. So audience Mark sent me a text yesterday morning saying he was thinking. Oh no, not thinking. Planning on doing this new podcast. Would I want to be a part of it. And I replied, I think within seconds my phone just happened to be right there in my hand anyway. So I replied seconds later saying abso-fucking-lutely or something like that. And he said, “Okay, cool. You know, in a few weeks we’ll get started.” And I said, “Actually, I’m leaving for Israel in two days. So how about we do this tomorrow?” And so, yeah, here we are the day after he proposed it recording.
Mark
Here we are. We’ll do it live. Right.
Derek Sivers
Get that reference. Yeah.
Mark
So I want to talk to you. You are currently working on a book at the moment about beliefs and this concept of useful not true. Tell me about that.
Derek Sivers
I noticed that it was underneath all of my life philosophies, but never explicitly stated that I don’t believe anything I say. I don’t believe anything anyone else says. I think that everything I say is questionable. Maybe it’s right. Maybe it’s wrong. I think it’s right when I say it, but we don’t know ourselves that well. We think we remember things in the past perfectly, but we don’t. We think we know why we’re doing things in life, but we don’t really know. And we can talk about some colorful stories around that if you want. But then because I believe the same thing about everybody else, I believe that we live in a mostly social world, unless you’re a scientist. We live in a mostly social world where everything everybody’s saying, is just kind of fronting. They’re not necessarily telling the absolute scientific objective, unquestionable, absolute truth. And so I just operate through life this way. Choosing what beliefs serve me best. Meaning like any particular ways you could look at things. One way just makes you sad and just makes you want to just stay in bed and another way makes you jump up out of your chair and take action. Well, then I’ll choose the way that makes me jump out of my chair.
Derek Sivers
I’ll choose the perspective that makes me take action. But every now and then people would challenge me and say, “But that’s not true.” Like the thing you’re saying that you believe that’s not necessarily true. And I’ll say, “I don’t care if it’s true or not, that’s moot. What matters is if it’s useful to me, if it’s a useful belief, I’ll choose it because nothing’s true anyway.” I mean, except for some physical realities, almost nothing in our social world is true. Meaning absolutely, necessarily, inarguably, objectively, repeatedly true. So I’m just choosing the beliefs that serve me best. And people kept pushing back on this idea. So, this is my fifth book now, I think fourth, fifth. And so I thought, “You know what? I’m writing a book on this.” So originally I thought it was just going to be a quick little book that I spit out sharing my ideas on this in a month or two. But wouldn’t you know it? Like the more you go into the ocean, the deeper it gets. So I started researching this subject and learning more about it and going, “Ooh, some interesting people have some interesting ideas about this.” So the book’s taking a little longer than I thought, but that’s the core idea.
Mark
That’s how it usually goes, right, is you’re like, “Oh, this would be easy.” And then six months later, you crawl under your desk and start crying and, well, you know, that’s how I do it. That’s how I do it.
Derek Sivers
Yeah speak for yourself. You know, my first book called Anything You Want. Seth Godin called me up and said, “Hey, I’m starting a new publishing company. I want you to be my first author.” And I went, “All right.” He said, “Can you write a book about this?” I went, “Okay.” And 11 days later I was done. I said, “Here you go.” He said, “Great, thanks.” And it was published two weeks later, and that was my first book, and the rest have been a little harder. Yeah.
Mark
Ignorance is bliss, isn’t it?
Derek Sivers
Yes. Dude, I think that’s an interesting truism to apply to life. In many ways, I was just right now realizing that I love New Zealand so much. But the last two years, like around Covid time, I had to start watching the news for the first time in my life. And I don’t mean TV news, I mean even just like looking at the local news websites. I had never done that in my first eight years living in New Zealand. And then the last two years during Covid, I needed to know like, are we locked down? What’s going on? And I started watching the news and it made me start liking New Zealand less. And I was like, “Oh man, this place is it’s okay. But I think it was great.” And I realized--
Mark
Why is that? Why is that?
Derek Sivers
Now the thing changed Just just because I’m looking at the stupid news which sells the negative stuff. And I went, “Oh my God, I fell for it.” And I just realized this like two days ago. So I think it’s time for me to revert to ignorance.
Mark
Well, it kind of ties into the believe what’s useful not necessarily true, right? It’s like this relates to the concept of information diet, of being careful of what information you ingest because that information is going to color your mindsets and attitudes towards everything in your life. So yeah, you know, part of that is you don’t want to ingest information that is untrue or unhelpful, but also you don’t want to ingest information that makes you feel shitty about your life. That makes you feel bad about things. So I want to challenge you a little bit on this concept because it’s funny. Actually. Years and years ago I wrote an article around similar to this idea and so many people challenged me on it that I got kind of sick of defending myself. And I think I eventually just took it out of my archive because I’m like, “Geez, people.” All right. My question to you is, I guess the first kind of challenge to it. And I don’t know what the answer is to this, but it seems to me that there’s some sort of practical limit to this concept, right? So it’s like if I’m a couch potato and I’m feeling lazy and depressed all the time, if I can manage to convince myself that I’m actually a very unfortunate, successful person who’s just had a bad string of luck, that’s a very useful thing to believe. And that will probably help me get off the couch. So I’m with you there. I do think there’s probably an extreme on the other end of the spectrum where like, let’s say I’m a super ambitious corporate guy working a 9 to 5 and I’m climbing the corporate ladder and I start doing some pretty shitty things to people because I justify to myself that I’m superior and I’m more brilliant and I’m better and I deserve to be at the top. Now that is useful.
Mark
But it’s kind of a shitty thing to believe. It will definitely harm my relationships. It possibly might harm my happiness depending on, I guess, how psychopathic I am. But I think there is a territory with this concept that I start to get uneasy or unsure of, like where the limitations or boundaries of it are. Where would you say those limitations are in your opinion?
Derek Sivers
I’ll tell you. But then I also want to ask your advice. Because the thing that you just said has been the most common response. No offense.
Mark
No no. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Derek Sivers
When I tell people that I’m writing this book. Basically in short, their question is, “But what about psychopaths? What about a politician believing they won the election, that they actually lost. It’s useful not true for them to believe that they won. What about people that believe that their enemy on the other side of the fighting line is subhuman and should just all be exterminated like cockroaches? That’s useful, but not true.” So, so far, the best thing I could offer is to say that I’m sharing a tool like a driving instructor can teach you to drive a car. But doesn’t have to keep addressing everybody, “Now remember, kids don’t drive into a crowd of people don’t use this to murder.” It’s like, okay, does everybody teaching everything have to say, “Now, remember, don’t use this for murder. Don’t be evil.” We don’t think of that with a driving instructor as much. But for some reason, when you’re writing a book, people are concerned about that. But notice that everybody who’s worried about this, like what about psychopaths? They always think it’s someone else. They always say, “What about the bad people that will read your book and use it for evil? I mean, because I’m good and you’re good. But there are some bad people out there that might read your book and use it for evil.” And it’s funny that everybody thinks it’s somebody else. But I feel that I should address this early. So far all I’ve got is basically aparagraph in the intro before the book begins saying, “Just to be clear, this is a book about being the person you want to be. This is not a book about other people and whatever they do. So that’s all I got so far.
Mark
I like noting it as a tool. And there are a lot of things within psychology or self-help that are like that. Like goal setting is a tool, right? Goal setting is ethically neutral. Like Hitler had goals, right? Stalin had goals. He was really good at accomplishing them, too. Goals are very ethically neutral. And I think maybe developing this skill, this mental skill of adopting beliefs around what’s useful rather than true is also ethically neutral. You can see people who get very good at it and very bad. You can actually probably see that within a lot of the same people. You know, when I was reading some of your excerpts that you’ve posted on your website last night, and the person that came to my mind was Kanye West. Have you seen the the new documentary about him?
Derek Sivers
No, I didn’t even know there was one.
Mark
It’s called Genius. It’s on Netflix. It is absolutely fascinating. I would absolutely check it out. And potentially use him as an anecdote for your book because so basically what happened. When Kanye was like 17 or 18 years old and he was still unfamous like nobody knew who he was. He met this young filmmaker, a guy a few years older than him. The filmmaker met him and Kanye was immediately like, “I’m going to be the biggest rapper in the world. You should make a documentary about me.” And the guy was like, “Okay, sure.” And so he started following him around with like a little camcorder. This is back in like 2000, 1999, 2000. Following him around with the camcorder for like 3 or 4 years. And sure enough, Kanye became the biggest rapper in the world. And he caught the entire rise. But what’s so remarkable about the footage is that you see this mindset. It just seems to be inherent in Kanye’s mind the entire time. Like there’s footage of him walking into record labels and radio stations with his demo disk, walking up to people and saying, “I’m going to be the biggest rapper in the world.” And they Just flat out laugh in his face. And he’s like, “Oh, okay, yeah, you don’t get it. All right. You’re going to regret this.” And he turns around and walks out. He’s not deterred. He’s not upset. He’s not angry. Like, it’s just this very fundamental belief. But what’s interesting is the documentary then kind of jumps to the present day. Like, I think the filmmaker comes back into his life maybe five years ago and you see how that mentality is hurting him.
Derek Sivers
Ahh brilliant.
Mark
And how Kanye just has this overwhelming confidence and belief. Like he’s very untethered to reality at this point. He’s been way too famous, way too rich. He’s surrounded by sycophants. Everybody’s kissing his ass. He’s got yes man everywhere. Nobody’s looking out for his interests. And he just has this overwhelming confidence to do this or record that. And you can just see how it’s getting him into trouble. And so it’s almost like a fascinating case study of the benefits and perils of overconfidence I would say. So my second point, aside from I really like the tool thing, it does feel like this concept needs to be there. It needs to be attached to--. I think it only works if you’re willing to change those beliefs, right? Like if you have a belief that’s useful, but you are completely inflexible about it. It might help you for a little while, but at some point it’s going to fuck you. And so if you’re not flexible in your beliefs and willing to check in on them and switch them out for new ones, then I think that maybe that’s kind of where that threshold is, where it’s like it goes from helpful to unhelpful, right?
Derek Sivers
Okay. Oh, good stuff here. The example you used at the beginning of The Boss. I’d say that his beliefs were not useful because you know the difference between shallow happy and deep happy. Right. So shallow happy is eating the ice cream now. Deep Happy is being proud of yourself for not eating the ice cream. That’s just a dumb example. So on a shallow level.
Mark
We’re all about the ice cream metaphors here.
Derek Sivers
On a shallow, actually--. You know, I heard somebody say once, I’m not into this kind of thinking as much. If somebody said, “A shallow happy is a day at the beach, deep happy is owning the beach.’ Like maybe it depends what you want. You don’t want to own a beach. Okay so the boss might be short term happy like, “Yeah. I’m just stomping on everybody getting what I want. Look at me. I’m crushing it.” But that’s funny that you said that word. Like, imagine crushing everything around you. Pushing it, crushing everybody. But you could say, like, this isn’t working for you. Yeah, you’re crushing everybody around you. You’re being bad. You’re making the world a worse place, and ultimately, you’re making your future worse. You might be on a short term selfish gain right now, but you’re on a long term downward path. Right? So, quick aside, when people say, “When you say useful, not true. What do you mean useful?” Because yes, somebody could use it for short term evil and say no, no to me useful. And I do define it at the beginning by saying useful means generally being who you want to be. It’s something that helps you go where you want to go, ultimately be who you want to be. It’s long term, not short term, but so back to the point of changing the beliefs. I’m so glad you brought this up. Did you ever read the book? I think it was Marshall Goldsmith that wrote a “What Got you Here Won’t Get You There”.
Mark
Never read it. Great title, though.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. The book is written for CEOs that climbed the ladder or built their way up to the top. So now they are the boss of people. And what he’s saying is this guy’s been like a corporate consultant for years. And he’s saying from all that, I’ve observed the skills that it took you to get from, say, childhood or obscurity to being the boss of a big company were a different set of skills that you’re going to need now as the boss. So you might have made it more about you on your way up, but once you’re at the top, you need to make it about the people around you. A tiny example. He said, don’t add $0.02. That’s the metaphor we use, especially like American slang. When somebody gives you an idea and they’re like, you know, “Hey, Mark, I’m thinking about doing this podcast. What do you think?” And he’d say, “Well, here’s my $0.02. Make sure that you do it outside, right?” And they go, “Oh, okay. Do it outside, huh?” So now you’ve added your $0.02. But when people are your employees, what you’ve just done is you’ve made that idea less theirs because you added your $0.02 and because you’re the boss, you’re not just some random dude at a bar. They kind of have to include your $0.02. Even if you just said, “Oh, make that shade of blue a little bit darker.” Well, guess what? They’re going to feel less ownership in that because you added your damn $0.02. So that was one example where he said, “Yeah, on your way up you had a certain set of skills. But what got you here won’t get you there.” And that’s the only book I’ve ever heard talk about this.
Mark
So, yeah, it makes sense, though, that useful is a moving target, right? It’s like a useful belief for Kanye, when nobody knows who he is, is no longer useful when he’s the biggest rapper in the world. What’s useful when you’re starting out at a company is not always useful when you’re the CEO. And so that seems like an important-- I do think a lot of this revolves around really just how you define useful.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, you’re right.
Mark
It’s a moving target. I think the ethical component of like it can’t be win/lose, it needs to be win/win or win/win/win That strikes me as important. Like useful needs to cast a larger net than just simply like what makes Mark feel like a badass today, Right? And it’s funny because I’ve always felt like I dip my toe in the water on this concept and I never jumped in. But I always felt like it’s a deep pool. Like you can go very, very deep on this. And there’s gotta be so much value down there. But I don’t know. I was too busy writing articles with fuck in the title to explore.
Derek Sivers
Fucking useful or fucking true. Yeah. Useful or.
Mark
Yeah useful or fucking true.
Derek Sivers
Wait, you know what? I’m going to change the subject a bit, but I’ve just kind of been kind of waiting to get this out. So you did this really sweet intro to me when you first hit record and said hello and we jumped right into things. I have to give a tiny reverse intro that you do not listen to all of these podcasts that I do when I’m the guest on other people’s podcasts. I’m sure you haven’t heard them all, but at least 2 or 3 times people have asked, “Which writers do you admire? Who are your favorite writers?” And I go, “Actually, I really only got one. Mark Manson just hands down, I think is the best writer out there right now because I really dig into the craft writing. There are other many, many other people that have wonderful ideas and God damn, you have to scratch through a bunch of fucking verbiage and examples to get those little ideas right there.” Like the people with the metal detectors going through a bunch of stuff, looking for a few good coins on the beach. I read these 300 page books that have maybe 50 good sentences in them, but it’s worth it to me. I read the book for those 50 good sentences, and when I keep my notes, when I’m reading somebody else’s book, what I do is I like to paraphrase.
Derek Sivers
I put things, I take their ideas and I want to save those ideas, but I put them into better words because fuck their words, all the damn words they use. So I reduce it to what I think could be a better way to express it. And I just do it for practice. Like the way a musician practices scales, I practice taking other people’s ideas and putting them into my own words as writing practice for expressing that idea more beautifully, more succinctly. And so I do this all the time, and I’ve done this with hundreds of books. Basically every book that you can see on my website that I’ve ever read, if you go to my sive.rs is my website. And right there you’ll see the Derek’s book list. So the last almost 400 books I’ve read that since I started taking notes in 2007. And every time when I would get to one of your books, I’d say, “Oh, that’s a really good idea. Okay, I’m going to put this into better words like, All right. Oh, fuck. Fuck. There’s no better way to say it.” And you were the only writer out of the 400 and something books I’ve read. The only person where I cannot change a single word to improve it. So there you go. Hands down you are my favorite writer. That.
Mark
That belief. Your belief Derek, may not be true, but it is certainly useful.
Derek Sivers
Oh, nice.
Mark
At least it’s quite useful for me. So thank you very much.
Derek Sivers
Nice deflection, but that’s how we met. Okay, so then I also think that’s how we met, and I think that’s one of the coolest ways to meet a potential friend is that I contacted you out of the blue, I believe. I think because I had read some of your articles and liked them so much. So much. That I just found the contact me link or whatever and I emailed you, Dude. You’re amazing. You’re a great writer and I just really love your articles.” This is long before your first book.
Mark
Long time ago. This was like 2012.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, yeah. And so and then I got the best response, which was, “Oh, my God, I love your articles. How cool.” And was it in Bangkok we met the first time?
Mark
We met the first time in Bangkok.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, yeah. And so that’s how we met. So that’s actually happened a few times in my life and I think that’s the coolest way to meet, is out of mutual respect like that.
Mark
It is. You know, it’s funny. So, you know, having 24 hours to prepare for this interview, I got on your website last night for the first time in a while and probably read through a dozen of your more recent musings and it does strike me how similar you and I think. Like it’s, it’s--
Mark
There are so many times where I read your stuff and I’m like. I have had similar thoughts to that, but I have never--. You really have this--. See, now we’re just kissing each other’s ass. But you have this incredible ability to capture a deeply complex concept in a very simple metaphor or story. Like it’s very elegant. It’s almost like Aesop’s Fables. That’s kind of what it feels like to read a Derek Sivers post. You know, it’s 300 words, 400 words, a very simple story about you and your kid or something you did in the music industry. And then it just lands and you’re like, “Oh, I never thought about it that way.” So you’re not too shabby yourself. Speaking of your posts, though, I wanted to bring something up because you did have a post that was, I believe it’s an excerpt of the new book, that I really liked. And I think it’s a really interesting concept to explore a little bit. You were talking about your kid and some of his friends. They were like playing a game. They were building pillow forts and all this stuff, and basically they were playing make believe. And you kind of use this. You use this as an example of how something could be untrue but useful.
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Mark
And you kind of use it as a jumping off point. And it was one of those thoughts that kind of like, it was like an initial domino that just spread and all these like, further dominoes. I looked up a famous Picasso quote. He said, “Art is not truth. Art is a lie that gives us truth.” Well, and this got me thinking about the role of art in our lives.
Derek Sivers
Sorry, sorry, sorry. Hold on, I’m not hearing your further sentences. I’m still digesting that one. Damn, That’s good. Wait, can you say that again?
Mark
Art is not truth. Art is a lie that gives us truth.
Derek Sivers
Oh, fuck. That’s good. Yeah. See, I can’t approve that one either. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. Now I’m ready. Okay. What?
Mark
So it just got me thinking about the role of fantasy metaphor, art fiction. And I think we’ve all experienced this to some extent. Like if you think about like your favorite films. Some of your favorite films. In many ways, they feel more. And I want to say true, but like more important or significant than a lot of the events in your own life, like when a movie like really hits you hard. And it just got me thinking about like the role of art in human culture and how it is almost an organizing force for true sentiments that we don’t necessarily have. Like their intangible. We can’t point to them in reality. So anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there and see if--
Derek Sivers
I wonder the connection is with dreams and I’ll just preface to say I know nothing about what I’m about to say, but like.
Mark
Always love that on a podcast. Hey guys have no idea what I’m talking about, but--
Derek Sivers
Dreams. Don’t they say that there’s a theory that the reason we dream is to process unprocessed ideas, things. So, in a way, I think what you’re saying is that movies can do that in a way, too. That it’s tapping into something, that maybe there’s some feeling of loss that we haven’t addressed in our past or something. And it’s sitting there kind of unprocessed within us as we’re going to work and playing a PlayStation and looking at a phone or whatever. And that a movie can go like vibrate that and kind of like bring it up and tap into this thing that’s in you that needs to be addressed.
Mark
Well, if you think about it, the best art is very therapeutic. Right. The very best art in any medium music, film, painting, whatever theatre. I feel like this is, it’s somewhere around this, right? It’s like it’s a piece of fiction. It’s not true. It’s a bunch of people on stage playing make believe. But depending on where you are in your life and the specific concepts, abstract concepts and ideas that are being played with. It can impact you in a way that feels way more true than, say, like sitting and talking to your parents or calling your ex girlfriend or whatever?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Maybe because it also helps point out something in us that we wouldn’t have noticed by ourselves.
Mark
Probably, like it’s situations and contexts that are basically impossible within our own lives. Right. Or they are just exaggerated to such an extreme extent. Like you think about The Godfather, right? It’s about a mafia family and everybody fucking gets shot and dies. But at its core, it’s a movie about family and like the struggle of balancing commitment and love for your family versus your worldly goals and aspirations. And I think everybody can relate to that on a certain level. So there’s like something in the exaggeration of it that makes it feel extremely impactful and true.
Derek Sivers
Ooh. And maybe they have to do that kind of exaggeration to call our attention to this specific thing. They can’t just present a big, well-rounded life and expect you to go pluck out the meaning out of it. You have to zoom all the way in. Yeah.
Mark
Yeah. And I think in a lot of ways that is kind of the role of art. I know you. I believe in that same article you mentioned the role of religion or it might have been in another interview.
Derek Sivers
That was that one. I mentioned it quickly at the end. Yeah.
Mark
Yeah.
Derek Sivers
Well the idea of thinking of instead of arguing that your religion is true or arguing that someone else’s religion is not true, and using that as your argument, again, just put that aside. Nothing’s true anyway. Just think of it as, is it useful or not? Right? Is this religion useful to you? Is this religion useful to somebody else? Well then that’s a better thing to judge it by.
Mark
It’s a much better framework to judge it by. And I also think it’s probably a much easier argument to make. I mean if you really think about it, like the whole concept of objective truth is a pretty recent invention in terms of civilization. I mean, I guess if you go back to the Greeks, but like for them, in terms of like mainstream culture, we’ve only really given a shit about what’s capital-T true the last couple hundred years. So in some ways it is--, we are aculture built on thousands of years of art and history and religion and is in many, many ways truer, I guess, than, you know, pulling out a measuring tape and saying, “Well, no, you know, Jesus doesn’t fit in that box.” So not true.
Derek Sivers
Right. Which I was surprised twice. Surprised first, sorry about religion because I was brought up with no religion at all. My parents didn’t even mention it. I was 11 years old the first time I met somebody that believed in God. And I didn’t know that anybody did. I thought it was like the Easter Bunny. I thought that like, not really. Wait, you actually wait. You seriously actually believe what? You’re not just kidding. And that was the environment I grew up in, which is I didn’t know anybody that believed in God. So I’m coming at this totally naive. I’m learning about religion now at the age of 53. I read the Bible last year.
Mark
Oh wow. Is that why you’re going to Israel?
Derek Sivers
No, it’s just an interesting place.
Mark
It is a very interesting place, but. Yeah, sorry. Go on.
Derek Sivers
So. Yeah, but now I’m actually open to religion for the first time. I’m open to learning more about it, whereas I used to just shut my ears and like, “Ah, I don’t want to hear about stupid religion.” Anything to do religion, you know, I’d plug my ears and drown out the noise or just shut down. But it wasn’t until like three or so years ago somebody told me that all of these things in the Bible were not meant to be taken literally. That they were written in a time before science when this was the way to communicate an idea as to say this thing happened. Right. Which didn’t necessarily mean that you were supposed to actually believe that this thing happened or whatever, but maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. But that was moot. It was a way of communicating values and ideas. I went, “Oh, okay. Well, then if we’re not saying it’s objectively, absolutely, positively, inarguably true, well then that’s really interesting.” And so that’s why I was like, “All right, now maybe I’m up for reading this famous book that’s affected so much of Western civilization.” So I read that book page to page like read it carefully every single page and have you?
Mark
I mean, so I grew up quite religious. I grew up in Texas, so we have very opposite backgrounds in this regard. So yeah, I’ve gotten plenty of Jesus throughout my life, I’m afraid.
Derek Sivers
Did you get it interpreted? Or did you-- see that’s why I didn’t want to hear anybody else’s spin on it. I just wanted to read the original canon.
Mark
I will say this. So first of all, no, I have not read the Bible as an adult. I grew up, my parents were very involved in the church. I grew up in Texas and went to church multiple times a week, Bible study. And then I went to a private Christian high school. And so we took theology. We had chapel every day.
Derek Sivers
Whoa. Okay. I had no idea. All right.
Mark
Yeah. So I came out of it a little bit resentful and bitter. You know, I decided I think when I was probably 12 or 13 that I didn’t believe any of it, that I was atheist. But I still had to exist within that environment and within that community. And there was a lot of tension and it was very difficult. So I had a lot of resentment towards it for a while. And I remember back when kind of Sam Harris burst onto the scene with-- what was his book called End of Faith. And Hitchens was doing his whole thing. Like, I sympathized a lot with those positions. It’s funny, though, because as I’ve gotten older, I’ve mellowed a lot about it. And actually I think you and I have kind of in a very roundabout manner, arrived in kind of the same spot in that the older I get, the more I appreciate some of the practical, the usefulness of religion and the usefulness of religion as a social organizer and as a set of principles that people don’t always follow it, but at least they aspire to. And at least they try. And at least they come together regularly and build a community around those principles that are by and large, very good principles. So. I have a lot of respect for it now that I didn’t have when I was younger. But I still don’t believe in it.
Derek Sivers
Well, that’s a perfect segue into when I said that there were two surprises for me. So first was finding out the thing I already said that that people didn’t necessarily mean that every word in the Bible was literally true.
Mark
Metaphorical.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. But then the second one was. Just about a month ago, I was talking with a Hindu scientist who is a super nerdy scientist, didn’t even know she was Hindu. I knew she was from India, but not everybody’s Hindu there. So she’s a super nerdy scientist. She’s all about the science. And I said, “Are you Hindu? Muslim?” And she said, “Oh, Hindu.” And I said, “Oh, okay. So I’m so curious because I had just started to read a book about Hinduism.” And I said, “So quick question for you. All those tales of like Rama and Sita and all of these things. Those are metaphors, right?” And she goes, “Oh, no, no. Those those actually happened.” And I went, “Wait, what? So do you--” So she goes, “Well, no, I think they they happened like before time, like before there was Earth. That’s when those things happened.” I was like, “Are you choosing to believe this? Are you saying this is like you know, and Luke Skywalker was Darth Vader’s son or are you--? And she goes, “Well, no. I mean, I really think that these they’re telling the tales of things that happened before time, before the Earth was created.” And I just looked at her so confused, like, “But you’re a scientist. Wow.” And I was flummoxed and stumped. And I went, “Okay.” And I haven’t talked with--. Oh, no. I have talked with Hindus since then, but I haven’t gone back to try to understand that better. But that was--
Derek Sivers
So here’s the order. So first I read the Bible and then watched a whole bunch of little videos around it. And I wrote about it somewhere in my blog. If you search the word Bible on my blog, you’ll read my tale of how I read it and my thoughts and which translation you read makes a huge difference. And then I read a book called “What Everyone Should Know About Islam”. And that was really well written. It was a really good book that addressed in FAQ format, just the basics. Like, “Here’s a whole bunch of stuff about Islam that everybody seems to not understand.” And it was a great way to just do the whole thing in FAQ format. Then I read a book about Judaism. I think it was called like Judaism for Dummies, and that both okay, so both Islam and Judaism made a lot of sense because they’re like a top to bottom, “Here’s how you should live your life.” I’d say that actually made more sense to me than Christianity because both of them were like a complete how to live manual. Yeah, this is what you should eat. This is how you should dress. This is how you should marry. This is how you should live your life. This is what you should do every day. This is how to live. And those make more sense to me. I still don’t understand the whole like Trinity Christianity. Yeah.
Mark
Oh yeah. It was interesting--
Derek Sivers
So sorry. Hold on. I just have to finish this thought. Sorry. And then after reading those two books going, “Wow, okay, that’s really cool. I understand that.” Then I’m like, okay, Hinduism, here we go, Hinduism for Dummies. And then it was just, “What the fuck? I’m staring at this page.” But it’s just a jumble of words and nothing’s making sense here. “What? Oh, my God.” Hinduism is the most confusing one of all. So I’ve actually read two books start to finish about Hinduism. And it was one of those things like I put down the book and it was like walking out of an artsy movie that you kind of walk away going, “Um, I technically saw that, but I don’t know what I just read.” You know? Yeah. So anyway, that’s where I’m at. I’d still like to understand Hinduism someday.
Mark
Yeah, I don’t. Hinduism, out of all the world’s major religions, I feel probably least informed about it. I was in college when 9/11 happened, and so I took a number of courses. I took one course on Islam. I took a course on Middle Eastern history. And what struck me about Islam, there is an elegance and a beauty to like the completeness of it. It really helped me understand I think a lot of the mentalities of that culture because in Christianity, there’s kind of a lot of gaps. There’s like, they really care about these things in this lane. But if you’re over here, like, they have nothing to say about it. Whereas Islam is like there’s kind of like a complete set no matter what you’re dealing with or worried about. The Islamic texts probably have something to say about it or some sort of rule about it. And it was interesting because there’s something very satisfying about that. I think there’s just an innate thing in human nature that we want stability and predictability. We want easily available answers. And so once I kind of learned about all that. I understood the appeal, I think, and I sympathized a lot with that appeal, which and it was a very weird time.
Mark
Like you weren’t really supposed to sympathize with the appeal of Islam at the time. Like the Iraq war was starting, like things were a mess. Christianity is kind of messed up because if you actually look at Jesus as a well, first of all, you get all of Judaism, but then it branches off and then Jesus is kind of this political radical with all these crazy, really world changing ideas that didn’t exist until him. And then it all gets fucked up in the Middle Ages because like a bunch of popes decided to come in and like, put their stamp on things because they were feuding with some king or baron. On like the next country over. And they’re like, “You know what? You’re not allowed to marry your cousin anymore. Jesus said it.” So Christianity’s got this, like very kind of convoluted or checkered interpretation that happens. And I think there’s a lot of ambiguity in it which causes a lot of problems. But we’re going to get canceled by everybody here Derek. So if we don’t if we don’t blow up on the first episode. It’s the one episode podcast.
Derek Sivers
I got to say, one of the best things about learning a little bit about religion is it makes for really fun conversations. I found myself in a room with some Irish people I didn’t know, and we were just talking about something. And actually they invited me to go to a cigar bar. I’d never been to a cigar bar. I’m like, “Oh, had a cigar once, like 20 years ago.” So there I was, having my second cigar in life with a couple Irish people and I said, “Wait, you grew up in Ireland, right?” And they said, “Yeah. South? Yeah.” I said, “Are you Catholic?” He said, “Well, I’m atheist.” But I said, “Oh, okay. But you know about Catholicism.” I said, “I just read the Bible last year. I’m so curious. There was nothing in there about all these Catholic things like confession. There was nothing in the Bible about confession. So where did this come from?” And he was talking and I was still looking really confused. And he said, “Well, you know that Catholics believe that the pope talks to God.” And I went, “Oh, see, I didn’t know that. I thought that the Bible was the end of the story. Like, that’s it. This is the Canonic thing. This is the canon. Everything about Christianity, Catholicism, it’s all in there.” And he said, “No, no, no. Catholics believe the pope talks to God. And that’s why the pope can say more things.” I went, “Oh, I thought God stopped talking in the year zero.”
Mark
Yeah, right. Well, and that’s where the split between Protestants and Catholics originated because the Catholic Church got so corrupt and started piling on new laws and regulations on top of laws and regulations that finally a certain percentage of the monks in the 15th century said, “Fuck you, we’re going back to the Bible like it’s the Bible and nothing else.” And then Europe killed each other for about 200 years. And here we are.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. So now that I’ve got this, I’m spending a little more time in Islamic countries. And I find it fascinating. So now I want to understand more about this, like Sunni versus Shiite. Like I know literally that they just believe that it’s the descendants versus the you know. But why is that such a schism? Like I can understand the Protestant. I’m sorry. Yeah, we’re too off base in any way. I’m just way.
Mark
We’re getting way off in the weeds for.
Derek Sivers
Two dummies talking about this stuff. But damn, it’s made for some good conversations. I highly recommend anybody, even if you’re totally atheist, if you start to just read a For Dummies book about a religion. Yeah, it it gives you a starter point for a lot of interesting conversations with strangers.
Mark
It’s absolutely-- and the great thing about at least even getting a shallow understanding of most of the world’s religions is that it bleeds over into so much culture, history, geography. So you actually get a good sense of a lot of different things. But let me bring this back and this actually loosely related. My next question actually kind of loosely relates to religion, and that is money. How do we get rich, Derek? Do you believe it’s possible. So changing a belief is one of those things that it’s easy to talk about, but particularly for like deep seated beliefs or beliefs that we’ve held for a long time or maybe even beliefs that we don’t have a ton of awareness around or understand why we believe something it can often be very difficult to dislodge an unuseful belief. So I have a two pronged question here. Do you believe that any belief can be changed or dislodged? And two, if so, what do you think are the most effective means of doing that?
Derek Sivers
Yes. Possible. And the most effective means, in short, I think, are the ones that Tony Robbins teaches, which who knows where he got it from? Neuro-linguistic programming or whatever. I’m not saying he’s an innovator, but if you read the Tony Robbins book called “Awaken the Giant Within”, it’s not a great book. It’s a flawed book and it’s especially dated. He wrote it in 1989 and used so many topical examples of Michael Jackson, O.J. Simpson, Pepsi, just just like so many examples that are so dated. But inside of it is a methodology for changing any belief. And I just recently learned about cognitive behavioral therapy, aka CBT, and found that’s another kind of more formal and current way of doing what he was spouting about in the late 80s. But the big idea is that you can stack up a bunch of reasons within yourself, attach like viscerally in your visual imagination, attach a bunch of negative connotations to the old belief that you know that you should let go of and attach a bunch of positive emotional things that you make yourself feel in your gut. However you do that, whether it’s through writing or visual imagination or talking through it with friends or, I don’t know, oil paint on a canvas or whatever it may be for you that makes you attach emotions to ideas. You can do it very deliberately if you know that. You know, I need to stop drinking, for example.
Derek Sivers
But I keep drinking. Obviously it’s giving me some pleasure. But I know I need to stop. Let’s just say he advises that you stack up a whole bunch of reasons in yourself over and over. Like hammer yourself with all the negatives of drinking and ham yourself with all the positive, warm and fuzzies of not drinking and all of the benefits that will have to your life. And then to answer your question, me personally, I journal a lot. I journal for hours and hours and hours. Not every single day, but especially if I’m going through something or trying to reframe a belief or trying to process something that’s really upsetting me. You know, whether it’s a breakup or a major decision in life. I just spend so many hours in my journal very deliberately. Walking through the different ways I could think of this thing. Whether it’s in the past or the future. And after I’ve been in brainstorming mode for, you know, “What’s another way I could think about it? Okay. Oh, that one’s really good. But what’s another?” I make myself keep going. Right. It’s like the brainstorming 101, don’t stop just because you had a good idea. Keep going. Keep looking at other perspectives. So I’ll keep looking at a bunch of different ways to think about something. And at a certain point, one feels like, “Ooh, this works.”
Derek Sivers
And there’s one example we hit on just before we hit record, the temporarily abled one. We can come back to that in a second, but I’ll find a belief that I can just tell like, “Ooh, this hits me.” Like, this works for me. This is what I needed to believe. This is a good perspective I can use. And then I’ll just start writing. It’s like self-talk, “Why do I need to believe this? Why will this help? If I believe this. Oh, right. If this, then what?” Right. So if this belief, then what are the consequences. What are the consequences of this belief? We tend to think of the word consequences as a negative. But if you think of it with the positives, I drown myself in that. Or I just immerse myself. I bathe myself in this way of thinking until I step away from my keyboard. Like, “Yeah, all right, this is it. This is my new way of thinking about it.” And then I try to go make something happen with that belief right away, whether it’s a just making a phone call to initiate something, signing up for something, walking out the door and doing something, talking to somebody, whatever it is, that is the next step in that belief. Yeah. Being actuated in your life.
Mark
I like the idea of focusing less on the belief itself and focusing more on evidence accumulation, because to your point earlier, almost everything in the world is debatable. You could argue almost anything. We have a limited amount of attention and focus. And so I guess the question is, what are you going to spend your time and attention accumulating evidence for? And so you don’t even necessarily need to like feel something to be true. But if you start focusing on the evidence that supports that belief, you can kind of find it. You know, it’s interesting, I quit drinking last year. And I definitely--
Derek Sivers
That’s why I used that example. I saw that
Mark
Yeah. Yeah. No, but it definitely rang true because I originally quit for very superficial reasons and which was I’m trying to lose weight. I’ll do 30 days, whatever. But as I stopped it really became undeniable. Like the evidence started mounting. Right. I feel better every morning. I’m sleeping better. I have more energy during the week. I’m losing weight. My workouts are better. Like everything starts compounding on top of it. But it’s funny what that really rings true. So I quit smoking in my 20s when I think when I was 24 or 25. And really like most smokers, I really struggled to quit. And I remember the way I finally kicked it is, I got religious about it. Like I reached a point where I kind of told myself everything bad in my life, whether it’s true or not, I’m going to blame it on smoking.
Derek Sivers
Nice.
Mark
You know, like money problems. Girlfriend got mad at me. Whatever. It’s smoking’s fault. And then my brain. I would find a reason it was smoking’s fault. I’m stressed out at work. It’s smoking’s fault. You know, I don’t have enough money to fly home to visit my parents for Thanksgiving. It’s smoking’s fault. I spend too much on cigarettes. Like, it became this one note song that I just kept playing in my head over and over. And I just developed such a loathing for the habit. That it really became a tailwind to quitting like it really made a big difference. I guess this does tie into religion, right? It’s almost like finding something you want to believe and then making everything you experience affirm that even if it isn’t objectively true.
Derek Sivers
Right?
Mark
Which is. Go ahead. Sorry.
Derek Sivers
No, no. You have an idea. Go ahead.
Mark
I was gonna say, which is now we’re kind of getting into, this is kind of like the secret for smart people. Okay, this is--
Derek Sivers
You know what’s funny. We have this. Yes. There’s a series of book books called “The For Dummies” books. But it’d be funny to take a book like The Secret as is and add the word for dummies to it.
Mark
I thought you were going to say we should write a book called The Secret for Smart People, and then talk about all the psychological concepts that explain like, here’s the research that explains cognitive bias. Right, Right.
Derek Sivers
Okay. Sorry. Go ahead.
Mark
Yeah, I’m trying to remember what I was going to say.
Derek Sivers
I’m sorry. Wait, no.
Mark
Okay.
Derek Sivers
No, you got it. Okay. Because I want to ask whether you would ever have one more cigarette now. Or one drink. Like once you’ve made the change in your life and you’ve quit the habit, is it okay to have one a few years later?
Mark
Cigarette? Not one a day. No. Because I literally cannot conceive of any sort of benefit that would justify having one ever. A drink? Jury’s out. I’m doing 2023 without drinking. It’s going really well. I feel really good about it. I have not declared that I’m never going to drink again the rest of my life. I’m definitely not going to drink frequently for the rest of my life like that. That is settled. But never drink again. I don’t know. There have been a few times like I’m at a nice restaurant. Great meal with some friends and family. Good steak, man. Fuck, A cab would go really well with this steak. Like that’s happened a few times, so. Right. Yeah. The jury’s out on that.
Derek Sivers
See, I think it’s okay to be most of the way. I think it’s okay to see. Ah, see, maybe this is my non-religious bent. Is I don’t feel the need to be absolutist about things. I can be mostly vegan. But then if I’m some kind of situation where the only way to eat vegan is to have some fuck ass iceberg lettuce, I’ll say, “I’ll have the burger.” Yeah. I thought you were vegan. Like. Yeah, mostly. But I’m having the burger that I don’t feel a need to be religious. I also don’t, as you said in your intro, I don’t give a fuck what anybody thinks of me, so I don’t need to do the social signaling that I think most people do it as some kind of signaling.
Mark
And just to note to the audience, guys, like a lot of people say that, Derek really does not give a fuck, but I can vouch for his non fuckery like it is. It is legit. I mean.
Derek Sivers
Maybe it helps that I’ve already been successful by my own definition. Yes. I really don’t care what anybody says, what anybody thinks because you know, I’m happy with my own situation, but also just kind of, I discount it. But anyway, I don’t do the social signaling so much that I like, I’m not going around saying I’m vegan. In fact, I’m not. But same thing with drinking. I usually don’t drink, but there are some situations where it’s like, “You know what? Yeah, actually it would be nice right now.” And I’m still like that with cigarettes, I think. I haven’t had one in a few years, but I like--. No, wait, wait. See, that was true until the cigar bar with the Irish people. There you go. The situation, it was like a few months ago and suddenly I was talking to these Irish people and said, “We’re going to the cigar bar.” And I had the cigar and it was okay. Yeah. And but afterwards I saw one of them outside. We were like standing outside. And it was just this gorgeous environment in the mountains and somebody busted out a cigarette and I said, “I haven’t had a cigarette in years.” They said, “Do you want one?” I said, “Yes, please.” And I thoroughly enjoyed that cigarette. Yeah. And that’s really nice to not need to be absolutist about something to make that change in your life.
Mark
I’m sure there is a conceivable situation that I might have a cigarette like. So my uncle is a lifelong smoker. If my uncle and I love him, I’m really close with him. If my uncle was on his deathbed and he was like, “My final wish as I go out. Is that you have a cigarette with me?” Then I’m having a cigarette. But short of such an extreme circumstance, I’m probably not. But this raises a really interesting point, and this kind of ties into like the ability to let go of beliefs, because I truly believe this is a skill. And actually, I think psychologists have called this cognitive flexibility, the ability to try on adopt different beliefs or mindsets, and then when they stop working, take them off and change them out for something different, like a pair of clothes. And I feel like this is something that you are extremely adept at. In fact, you actually wrote an entire book. I love this book by the way. I know I’ve told you that, but, “How to Live, 27 Conflicting answers and one weird conclusion.” For people listening, it answers the question how to live. But it’s 27 completely different answers and all of them make sense, which is the maddening part. Reading it is a very unique intellectual experience because there’s like this strange dissonance that starts happening, at least when I read it.
Mark
There’s a strange dissonance that starts happening in my brain of like, “Wait, all these things are true, yet they contradict each other.” Yeah. And my brain doesn’t know what to do with it. It’s very interesting. But anyway, you know, this ability to like set down beliefs, pick them back up, be rigid if you need to be rigid with them for a while, I think I’m at a place in my life, I probably need to be really rigid for a while with alcohol just because I’m coming off of 20 years of drinking a lot, so I probably need two, three, four years of being pretty rigid about it and then I can probably ease off. There are some people who have to be rigid for the rest of their lives. They can’t have another drop the rest of their lives because it just spins everything out of control. So part of me wonders. I do think there is a skill aspect of this. I also think there’s a bit of a talent aspect of it as well. Like I think there are people who are just kind of innately born with a knack for letting beliefs go and being uncertain about stuff sometimes. And there are some people that really, really doesn’t sit well with them and they struggle to do that. I don’t know, you look like you disagree.
Derek Sivers
I don’t know about--. Okay. Dogs helped me think more in terms of nature, not just nurture. I used to think 100% nurture. But then I started to understand dog breeds and how huskies pull, greyhounds run, bloodhounds sniff. That’s in their nature. And I went, “Oh, okay.” So maybe people do have a nature and anybody with especially more than two kids always has these tales about how they swear that they raised these two kids exactly the same. But wow, are they opposite? Yeah. So, yeah. So we have to acknowledge that you’re right, we have a DNA. But I think that’s a classic not true and not useful thing to blame too much on innate skills. I think it’s too often and people point to everybody pulls out the same dumb example of basketball players. Well, you know, if you’re five foot two, you just can’t be in the NBA. Okay, great. You found one example where, you know, but for the most part, the innate saying that either you have it or you don’t. You’re just good at ot or you’re not. You’re just born with it or you’re just never going to be born with it. And to me, that’s one of those not useful beliefs that you’re just choosing something, unless useful to you is defined by your tranquility. Because what you really want is to just sit on the couch for the rest of your life and do nothing. Then great. You’ve found a useful belief that will help you do nothing. But I think for most of us, you’ve got to try to catch yourself.
Derek Sivers
When you think that like, “Well, fuck it, it’s out of my control. There’s just nothing I can do. Fuck it.” Usually that’s not a useful belief. Yeah. I’m sorry. I’m just realizing of course, many, many exceptions. But I’ll just finish this idea. Is that the two--. Because we shouldn’t let this tangent go that you brought up about. What did you call it, cognitive flexibility. The idea, too, I think of it as holding the beliefs at arm’s length and to see that there are different ones that you can choose. I think that whole idea starts with thinking that you might be wrong. Yes, that just because everything in your instincts are telling you, “This is so.” If you can believe, I might be wrong. That’s the first step. Then you can say, “If I was wrong then, or if I might be wrong, what other way could I be thinking about this?” Once you can see a second way, well then, you can open up and see a third and fourth. Yeah, but whether that’s innate in some people, who knows? But I do think it’s something that everybody can develop, like everybody can learn to sing. Even if you’ve got an annoying speaking voice. Everybody can learn to sing. Even though we think of that as just either you’re good or you’re not. No, everybody can learn to sing well. And I think everybody can learn cognitive flexibility and holding beliefs at arm’s length and adopting the one that works for you and putting it aside when it’s not.
Mark
I agree with you, and I also agree that it’s not useful and not true to believe so. And just a quick response to the NBA example. Yeah, people always say that they’re like, “Oh, if you’re five foot two, you’ll never play in the NBA.” Yeah, but you could still be a fucking good basketball player. Like you don’t need to be in the NBA, but like, nobody’s in the NBA. So you can always, I think the useful and true belief that is related to this is that you can always improve at any skill, no matter what, no matter what sort of disadvantage you’re at. I’m not going to--. But see.
Derek Sivers
But see that’s also to me. I’ll still push back and say I’d still say that’s useful, but not true. Like you can always improve. It’s like if there’s any counterargument, then it’s not absolutely inarguably objectively true. And it’s like, but hey, but it’s really useful to believe that. But that’s a classic one, too. I’m sorry. That’s cool to catch yourself in these things that even though I’m writing this book, I still catch myself saying things like whether it’s. “New Zealand is a great place to live or I just can’t do such and such.” I’ll go, “Ooh, I just did it, didn’t I?” I’m saying something that’s not true as if it’s true. Anyway. Yeah.
Mark
So to the point about being willing to be wrong or questioning if you’re wrong. I think this is why people often experience the most identity change after tragic experiences or extreme negative experiences in their life. You know, they lose a job or a relationship ends or they have a falling out with a family member. Those sorts of experiences tend to precipitate very large identity shifts because it’s like you take something very, very dear and personal to somebody. You pull it out from under them. Basically something that they either took for granted or assume was true and was always going to be there. You take it away from them and then it kind of forces them into that mindset of like, “Well, shit, I thought this was a sure thing, but clearly it wasn’t. So what else in my life do I think is a sure thing, It might not be.” And they start asking questions. Do I actually like my friends? Do I really want to live in this city? Do I want to go here or there? So it’s interesting in that it’s almost like hardship. Hardship makes this process easier in some ways, I think, or at least creates opportunities. Probably creates more opportunities to ask these questions, whereas I think when everything’s going right, you can kind of delude yourself into thinking it all figured out. And so you don’t question, you know, you don’t want to fuck up the gravy train, so you don’t start asking if you’re headed in the right direction or not.
Derek Sivers
Good one. Yeah, I like that a lot. Louis C.K. said that when his marriage broke up, he was devastated at first and then Andrew Dice Clay was talking with him in the parking lot outside a comedy club and said, “Why do you look so glum?” He said, “It looks like my marriage is done.” He goes, “Oh, congratulations.” And he said, “What do you mean congratulations?” And he said, “Nobody ever leaves a good marriage.” I went, “Ooh!” And he said, “That idea just bowled me over.” And I’ll admit, I mean, maybe I shouldn’t have done a double reference with that. I could have just said the damn idea, But--.
Mark
Hey, we’ll give Louis his credit or Andrew credit.
Derek Sivers
So I’ve thought about that ever since that nobody ever leaves a good marriage. Nobody ever leaves a good relationship. Or a great relationship. So really, any time somebody has a breakup, you should be saying congratulations to them. And by the thing that you just said, which I think is so insightful and wonderful that whenever somebody has some kind of terrible tragedy in their life, you know, “My parents just died.” Like, “Wow, congratulations.” You know, “Fuck you, man.” But this is, in a way, like, “Yes. Congratulations. Oh, my God. You’re about to have an amazing, transformative experience. I know it’s going to be a little painful to go through, but you’re going to be letting go of some habits that you’ve been doing that weren’t rewarding. You’re going to be letting go of some people in your life, right? Coming up, you’re going to be taking on some new things that you were putting off before. Like, there are a lot of things that are about to change for the better in your life because of this.”
Mark
Death is always a tricky one because I do think most people experience some sort of growth after somebody close to them dies. But then there’s always this awkward almost guilt of like, “Well, I don’t want to be happy that they died even though good things happened as a result of their death.” I think that’s a very common experience among people. Let’s see--.
Derek Sivers
But, you know, in New Orleans, I think we should all see a New Orleans funeral where they celebrate people’s deaths. What do you call it? The culture. The usual thing, the cultural thing in New Orleans. New Orleans cultural funeral is to play sad music at first while they’re carrying the coffin on the shoulders. And at a certain point, somebody in the band knows when to do it. Chick-chick-chick-chick a drum. And it’s like it turns into a celebration of that person’s life. Yeah. You can see a tiny example in the YouTube video of the huge fat Hawaiian guy singing Over the Rainbow. I forget his name. I don’t know how to pronounce it. Somewhere over the rainbow. And if you see his YouTube video or the YouTube video that they made of it, they made the YouTube video after he died. It’s of.
Mark
Of his funeral.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. And so at the very end, I had to explain it to my kid just last month. So that’s why it’s on the top of my mind. But they show a bunch of people out in the ocean on a boat with a big sign saying, like, whatever his name was, “We love you.” And then they spray his ashes out to the ocean and everybody’s applauding. And my kid said, “He died. Why are they applauding?” And I was sitting there with, like, a little tear in my eye, even though I don’t know the guy. I was like, “Because they’re celebrating his life, because they loved his music, they loved his life and they’re celebrating his life. It’s a happy thing. And you can even have a happy cry.” Anyway, so it’s nice to remember that even a funeral which we think of like objectively, well, you know, now there’s one thing that’s entirely negative. There’s nothing positive about a death. It’s like, well, yeah, but you can just see the death as whether you’re religious or not. And you believe that they went to a better place or you just want to say this is a great moment to acknowledge how wonderful this person’s life was.
Mark
The singer’s name was Iz. And yeah, it’s a beautiful rendition. Speaking of parents who are going to die, you have a kid.
Derek Sivers
He has a parent that’s going to die. I’m in the last third of my life. Oh, Mark, that’s a useful belief for me right now, by the way. Not necessarily true. I’m in the last third of my life. That helps me a lot.
Mark
How has that affected you?
Derek Sivers
Oh, that is the procrastination killer. I love it. I love how it simplifies things. I love how it makes me evaluate what new things to take on or whether I should be wrapping up some things. Maybe some things deserve to be wrapped up and some things need me to open up. And but most of all, it’s a procrastination killer. I really like this idea. It’s a exciting positive idea to me that I’m in the last third of my life.
Mark
What would you say are the most impactful belief changes you’ve made? Say, in the last ten years? Would that be one of them? Oh, that’s not a belief change, but that is a belief you’ve adopted.
Derek Sivers
It is. Right. Because actually, I think in a way, if you always think that you’ve got plenty of time.
Mark
You take it for granted.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. So me saying I’m in the last third of my life, this only started a few months ago when I went, “Oh, you know, I’m not even going to say I’m in the middle. I’m in the final third.” God. Right before we hit record today, I told you one that I deliberately adopted. I ran across a tiny little article where a woman said, “We are all temporarily abled.” And I don’t know anything about the author, but I got the feeling that she’s physically disabled in some way. And she said, “Let’s not forget that all of us are only temporarily abled. At some point, every single one of you reading this is going to become disabled in some way, whether it’s the final five minutes of your life or the final half of your life, or maybe tomorrow you’re going to become physically disabled in some probably permanent way. So therefore, all of the abilities you have right now are temporary. And it’s nice to remember them. Remember that you are temporarily abled.” So like most of us, I procrastinate exercise.
Derek Sivers
I know I should be exercising more. That one idea that we are temporarily abled that gets me out of my chair immediately. All of the other ideas of why I should be exercising don’t work as much on me. Interesting that one that works for me, that gets me out of my chair. And it did, yesterday. I thought about it because I came across that idea yesterday. It was a blue, sunny day. I had tons of work to do. I was like, “Right, I’m stopping this right now. I am temporarily able, damn it, I’m doing this while I can even lifting weights.” So like right here next to me, like three feet to my left outside this recording booth is a squat rack. And I go to it when I remember how lucky I am that I can lift these weights right now. Because someday soon, in the future, I’m in the final third of my life. Someday soon in the future I won’t be able to lift these weights. So, fuck yeah, I’m lifting them now, you know. So this is how it seems like--.
Mark
It sounds like you’re impacted quite a bit by beliefs that help you not take things for granted.
Derek Sivers
Oh, yeah. Yeah, good perspective.
Mark
That seems to be the common thread between those two. What would you say are the most useful beliefs, period? We already kind of mentioned one, which is I can always be wrong. That seems like almost like a prerequisite to the useful not true.
Derek Sivers
Probably the meta belief that you can choose your perspective. That everything can be seen from multiple perspectives and that you can choose any perspective that you want and you are already choosing a perspective. The one that feels true to you is already a choice that maybe your environment, your parents, the place you live helped shape that choice for you instead of you choosing it deliberately. But that everything is negotiable. Somebody says, “Mark, you can’t sell 10 million copies per book. That’s ridiculous. Nobody sells 10 million copies.” And you’re like, “I think I can.” The people that laughed at Kanye. You know, there’s a way that people will tell you that’s just not true. You know, you’re a 17 year old kid from Chicago. There’s no way you’re going to be the world’s biggest rapper. You’ve got to face reality. You don’t have powerful connections in the music industry. You don’t have famous parents in Hollywood. You’re not going to make it. You need to just accept that. And people say these things like they’re true. But there are so many things like that in life. You know, you’re black, you can’t be president, whatever. And for all of us, even the more mundane examples of you’re in your late 50s you can’t learn French. Now, these things come up all the time. They don’t even have to be all self-helpy. They can even be as simple as, “Look at you. Why would that girl ever be attracted to you?” Yeah. Yeah. They can be very day to day mundane things. You know, you’re no good at math. You were never good at math in school. You can’t learn computer programming. I’m sorry. I’m picking all of these. You can’t do this. You can’t do that ones. But I’m sure there are others that my brain is just not going there right now.
Mark
You could put them all in a bucket and just label a bucket. Anything is possible.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that’s a good meta belief that anything is possible. And I know that Americans come to that belief more easily than other people. But yes.
Mark
It’s a very cultural belief for us. I would kind of add as a corollary or like a sister belief of that is that improvement is always possible. So this kind of ties back into the genetic thing, which is. You can always get better. Always.
Derek Sivers
I just reread a book called “You Can Negotiate Anything” by Herb Cohen. It was written in the 70s and I read it in the late 80s or something, or 90s. And oh my God, I read that book so many times in the 90s and I just rebought it and reread it and it’s so good because I forgot how meta he gets about saying, “Look, this is really important. You need to understand that everything in life is negotiable. Everything that people tell you is written in stone is not.” And that was so beautiful. I didn’t really remember that he got that meta. But I think it’s such an important lesson that everything in life is negotiable. That’s a great belief.
Mark
So I started asking you about fatherhood earlier. I actually wanted to bring this up, so this is something as you mentioned, I’ve not listened to all of your interviews. I’ve listened to some of your interviews. I’ve read a ton of your work. I’ve seen the things that you post and the books you read, your books and you’re a man of ideas. You have tons of interesting and quirky and philosophical ideas that you get really excited about and you love working on. I know right now you’re very passionate about data ownership, which is just such a Derek thing. I love it. What’s interesting though, is that whenever I hang out with you in person, it’s very clear how much you prioritize your kid in terms of time, attention, care, how much thought you put into it and it’s very admirable. But it’s funny because it’s your public facing identity. You never really go there. And so I guess my first question is, why is that? Just out of curiosity, really? And then two, would you say fatherhood has deeply affected any beliefs of yours or changed your worldview in any way?
Derek Sivers
Okay. So the reason I didn’t talk about it, is is a shallow reason. You’ve noticed that there are some subjects if you talk about them online to the general anonymous public, the kind of quality of conversation that’s going to come from this or you’re just going to get a bunch of dumb, emotional, reactionary, stupid, gut level lizard brain comments. And so that’s why. Even though I wrote a post saying “Here’s how I read the Bible. Like if you decide to do this, here’s my tips.” I got no less than 50 different questions over the next month going all asking the same thing, which is, “Well, tell us your thoughts on the Bible. Please give us a post.” And I’m like, “Nope, I will not be doing that. Absolutely not.” Because the kind of conversations that would spark are not the conversations I want to have. I have no interest in starting that. So I felt that with parenting that it’s like, “Oh God, everybody’s got everybody with a kid or God, everybody, even without a kid has their fucking opinion. About what you’re doing wrong and their way is better or whatever.” And like, I just don’t want to have those conversations. So I’m like, no, this is my offline life. This is my personal life. I’m not going to bring that into the public. But then I wrote one little post in 2015 taking the angle that I felt okay taking, which is to say, I have this kid. I do a lot of things for him, but ultimately. I’m doing these things for me.
Derek Sivers
These things benefit me. So I wrote that one post and a lot of people liked it and the comments were nice. They were not evil. So then I felt kind of confident to do a couple more posts about it. But I don’t want to be a parenting blogger. I think that would be really off putting because I know that before I had a kid, I didn’t have a kid till I was 42 and thought I was never going to. So any time somebody started talking about let me tell you about my kids again, my ears would just shut off. Like, don’t, can’t relate. Don’t want to hear about your kids. My ears would just shut down. So I don’t want to make that my main subject, but am bringing it up a little more now. And my kid’s 11 now, so pretty soon he himself is going to put himself online more and that’ll be interesting. So I also felt that, it also just seemed morally wrong for me to force a kid online without his permission to take a baby that doesn’t understand what online is and just put them online and show them to the world and even telling the world their name. That just felt morally wrong. So I felt like he’ll put himself online when he wants to. And until then, I’ll just speak about him abstractly from my point of view, like how having a kid has affected me or something like that. So I am talking about it more, but that’s why I didn’t.
Mark
Fair enough. So i totally, totally respect that. It’s funny, too. Remember I was at a party once and I forget how it came up, but there was a woman I was talking to a woman. She had a teenager and she was having trouble with him. And she kept asking me for advice. And I kept saying like, “Well, I don’t have a kid.” I like pre-empted everything I said with, well, I don’t have a kid. And finally, after 3 or 4 times, she told me she was like, “Stop saying that. I’m asking you for a reason. Because if I ask other parents, I won’t get an honest answer.” I’ll get an answer that makes them feel--
Derek Sivers
Morally supported and makes them feel like a good person.
Mark
Exactly, she said, “I only ask for parenting advice from people who don’t have kids because they’re objective about it.”
Derek Sivers
Wow. Smart.
Mark
Yeah.
Derek Sivers
You had a second half to that question, which is like how it’s changed me. And honestly, my answer is a bit surprising that it really hasn’t. The most common answer people say is, “Oh my God, having a kid changes everything. Suddenly you’re not the middle of the world anymore. It’s like life is about someone besides you.” Like, I went through that already before. Had a kid. To me, starting baby was like that. When I started CD Baby, I was 29 years old. I was the center of the universe. And then I had this little hobby that was to help musicians. And suddenly my life shift. Life shift happened there, which was I made for the next ten years of my life, I made them my everything was like, you know what I don’t matter anymore. And they’re just like, “Well, don’t you want to try to make the company as profitable as possible?” I was like, “Nope. I want the musicians to have it all. I don’t need anything. This is about them, not me.” They were like, “Let’s do an article about you.” I was like, “No, please turn your attention over here. This is not about me. I’m just here to support these musicians.” And I did that for ten years, and that’s where that mindset shift happened to me. That’s where I became not the center of the universe. So having a kid didn’t change that for me. But that’s the usual answer you’ll hear from people.
Derek Sivers
And I mean offline, not just for public posturing, but even in private conversations. Thoughtful people I’ve met, said that that was the biggest change for them in having a kid. For me, the thing that you said, like hanging out in person and what a big deal he is for me, I tend to have one top priority in life for years at a time. So from the age of 14 to 29, my top priority was my music. I was just all about the music. If you were to try to talk to me from the age of 14 to 29, I would not talk about anything but music. If you were to tell me about this interesting book you read, I had no interest. You wanted to try to talk to me about anything else. I had no interest. All I wanted to talk about was music and pretty much just my music. That’s all I cared about. And then at 29, when CD Baby happened, that’s when that shift happened to me and it became all about creating this thing that was supporting musicians. And so from 29 to 39, for like ten years of my life, all I cared about was CD Baby. My music was out of the question. Done. Gone. You try to talk to me about anything else? I didn’t want to talk philosophy. My head was down and focused on this thing for ten years.
Derek Sivers
Then I sold the company and I had a few years of being a little bit adrift and kind of floating in space and not sharing what I’m doing. And then at 42, I had a kid, and even that was reluctant. I had decided I did not want kids. My ex and I had agreed no kids. And then, oops, she got pregnant and I was furious. I was like, “How could you do this to me? We had agreed, You can’t just decide that I’m going to have a kid. That’s not for you to decide.” She said, “It’s not for you to decide not to. You know. Fuck, fuck. I was like, “Oh, man, this is terrible. This is like a jail. It’s like I’ve been wrongly sentenced to jail now for 18 years.” And that’s really how it felt thoroughly. And somewhere along the way, when she was like four months pregnant, I was just, like, resigned to the fact it’s like, “All right, fuck, I’m gonna have a kid.” And I started reading some baby books. It was really the book Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina gets full credit for getting me interested in being a dad. Or being interested in my kid then was like, Oh, so okay. He’s a neuroscientist at University of Washington and talks about babies and childhood brain development from a scientific point of view and what we’ve learned and why you should not let them see any screens at all before the age of two and why you should make sure, he said, if you take nothing else out of this book.
Derek Sivers
But one single point, the most important point that all of our research has shown and again, I like that he’s saying this not as his opinion, but saying, look, we’ve done all these tests and these are this is the objective data that the tests are showing. The most important thing you can do is to help your kid feel safe. If your kid feels safe, your kid will thrive and flourish and blossom and all of that. But it just got me excited. So then when he was born, I was like, okay, this is interesting, this is fun now. And that at the age of 42 is when, I just noticed in hindsight now, top priority. Everything else is secondary. Yes. Money, career, me, everything, my plans, my dreams, all of that is secondary to him. But it’s not that different from when everything was secondary to my music or everything was secondary to my company. It’s just this is my top priority now and will be. I mean, he’s 11 now, so there will be a time soon when he’s more into his friends than he’s into me and he just won’t need me around so much. And then it’ll be time for my priorities to shift again in a few years.
Mark
Are you excited about that or?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Actually here we are. This is late 2023. I’m just starting to feel it this year. He’s just having more and more friends that he likes to spend more and more time with. And I just started feeling the me coming back and it’s really nice. In fact, even when you were here a couple of years ago. And you and I were walking in the forest. I told you probably that I was planning on having two more kids. Yeah, that’s gone now. Yeah, I’m really. I’m really enjoying that. I feel like my time of making my kids my top priority in life is coming to a slow and happy ending. Yeah, it’s really nice to feel my own priorities coming back.
Mark
That’s great. I got two more things before we wrap up. The first. So one of my favorite concepts that I love and it’s like my hammer and everything’s a nail. I try to apply it to everything. Is this idea that the best thing about something or someone is also usually the worst thing. And so my question for you. What is the thing about you that you think is likely both the best thing and the worst thing about you. Like it probably leads to a lot of your successes, but it also causes a lot of the problems in your life.
Derek Sivers
What do you think it might be?
Mark
One of one of the things that’s very notable about you is this cerebral ability to kind of interchange beliefs and ideas and identities. Like most people struggle with that. Most people it’s a very emotionally draining difficult or it’s either cognitively difficult, like it’s exhausting for them or it’s very emotionally draining to let something from their life go, let an identity go and try bring something new in like it can be very exhausting. I feel like you have an alacrity with that, that most people don’t. I could see that being an issue with interpersonal relationships because friends, family, partners. They like stability. They don’t like having to adapt to a new you all the fucking time and having to get to know new Derek or whatever the thing is that you’re passionate about. That would be my guess. Just from knowing you. I don’t know if that feels accurate to you, but.
Derek Sivers
Right on. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. You’ve noticed the thing that when you use somebody’s last name, you’re talking about the public figure, right? So I did have just a moment just now to go like, how cool Mark Manson is telling me what my problem is. It’s kind of cool, you know. Knowing you, do you know what your problem is?
Derek Sivers
Okay. Yeah. So yeah, right on. See, I don’t use that hammer a lot. The strength is your weakness thing. So I hadn’t thought about this, but my flexibility has another negative side effect that it’s probably actually my next post. In fact, I was going to post it yesterday. I’ll probably post it tomorrow, so it’ll be out by the time this is aired. The downside of molding yourself to be what other people need you to be. So I’m strong, I’m flexible. I can handle it. I’m resilient. Somebody needs me to curl into a ball. I can curl into a ball. Somebody needs me to brace myself and lift them high in the air. I can lift them high in the air. Somebody needs me to flatten out and be invisible. I can flatten out and be invisible. Look at me. I can do all of these things. Interesting. And I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the challenge of being another way. But then the problem is sometimes I do that to be with somebody I want to be with. And then after a few years or months I might be like, “Okay, this is really hurting my back now, twisting myself into this position that you asked me to be in, and I can do it. But it kind of sucks.” And I go and I shake it off and I go back to being myself, which is not who they want me to be. They wanted me to be that, you know, curled into a ball. So that’s my flexibility.
Mark
That’s super interesting, actually. I imagine that a lot of people, this isn’t to say that you are codependent, but there’s kind of a codependent role that often happens in unhealthy relationships where there’s one person who’s just giving, giving, giving, and there’s one person who’s kind of taking taking. And I could see how if you’re just a person who’s just very naturally adaptable, both mentally and emotionally. You could almost kind of paint yourself into a corner, week by week being like, “Well, they seem to need this thing to be happy.” So and that’s pretty easy for me to do. So I guess I’ll do that. And then the next week it’s something else and next week it’s something else. And you get eight months in. And you’re like, wait a second. I’m a pretzel over here. And I can’t move.
Derek Sivers
Yeah that’s been my romantic relationship pattern in the past. And that is the the weakest slice of pie in the pie chart. You heard that metaphor, right. You know, you’ve got the eight different aspects of your life. Let’s cut them into slices of pie. You know, which one is the strongest, which one are the weakest. If they’re unaligned, you’ve got a wobbly wheel, right? Like that’s an old self-help. Who knows? Seven Habits of Highly Effective People kind of metaphor. And yeah, probably looking back at my life, the romantic relationships has always been the weakest and probably because of the thing. So that was kind of cool that you you called that out and nailed it. I was going to say that if we took a totally different angle, I think independence. I think--
Mark
I could see that as well. I could see that.
Derek Sivers
Always choosing, like the self-reliance. Independence is mostly a strength, but it has some downside side effects. At any time things get tough in some kind of relationship. My feeling to the core was going to say my first reaction. But no, it’s my first, second and last reaction. And all the ones in between are like, you know, fuck it, I don’t need this. I’m thoroughly happy on my own, so I’m out of here and it’s sincere and and it actually has made me happy. But then, you know, you look and I have long friendships but the romantic relationships have not lasted as long.
Mark
It’s funny. Yeah. So first of all, I can relate to the independence piece a lot. Like, that’s something that’s one of my double edged swords for sure as well. But I will say this. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed friends. And, you know, we don’t talk that often, but like, I don’t know, once a year, twice a year, something like that. For somebody who’s on the other side of the world, I would say you are a very good friend in that you’re very flexible and you give easily and I never feel any sort of expectation from you. So I have personally experienced that you are a good friend and somebody who is very easy to be friends with and I could see how other people would experience that as well.
Derek Sivers
Thanks.
Mark
Last segment and this is this one I’m really excited about.
Derek Sivers
I didn’t know we had segments. Cool.
Mark
I mean, we’re trying to build a show here, Derek. We’re going to have theme music. We’re going to have like the chyron come up on the screen. It’s going to be great.
Derek Sivers
Do you have a band? Is there going to be a band?
Mark
Do you want to be the band? You can reboot the music career. No we’re going to do a segment called Fuck, Marry, Kill. Which are you familiar with this game?
Derek Sivers
Remind me. Yes, kind of. But remind me the rules here.
Mark
So traditionally, I give you three people and you have to choose which one do you fuck. Which one do you marry? Which one do you kill?
Mark
But I’m going to go a little bit more abstract than that. But we’ll see. But we’ll start easy. Okay. So fuck, marry, kill. Prince, David Bowie, John Lennon. And you have to explain why each choice.
Derek Sivers
Okay.
Derek Sivers
Okay, hold on. Let me think about something. Okay.
Mark
Oh, wait, hold on. I was looking in the wrong spot. Let me say that again while you think. Let me say that again. So. Okay. Okay. Prince, David Bowie, John Lennon.
Derek Sivers
All right. I’m going to get better for one second. I’ve learned as an interviewee, yes. Instead of leaving a really long silence when I’m thinking it’s probably more entertaining for the audience if I explain what’s going on up here. I’m going to think out loud for a second. Okay. So I am or was a huge, huge, huge Prince fan. I mean, that was my number one dude. I had posters on my wall, my own music was imitating Prince. Prince was by far my major musical hero. But I heard what a fucking asshole he is. Like really over the top. What the fuck.
Mark
Would never marry that guy?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. So would he be in the kill category? No. Okay, so. All right, so I don’t even know what it would be to fuck Prince, but okay. I’m going to put him in there. Now, John Lennon happened, right? Because John Lennon had like, he was in the right place at the right time, but he wasn’t a massive talent. I think him getting killed is, was necessary for him to be a legend, for him to forever have a place in people’s hearts as the one that died too young and kept him special. So I guess I’m going to have to marry David Bowie, which I guess there are worse things. I always use David Bowie as an example. I contrast him with ACDC for the metaphorical example of people who are just happy doing the same thing in their life and they really have no interest in being anything else than they are that they developed at a certain point in their teens or early 20s and that’s it. They’re just going to stay right there for the rest of their life until they die. That to me, I’d call that ACDC. And because musically they came out in 1973 with some great music and they did the exact same thing forever. For 50.
Mark
For 40 years. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. So David Bowie kept pushing himself, kept doing different personas, would take on a certain thing, get celebrated for it and leave it behind. Bob Dylan did that more in the 60s and 70s. Paul Simon kept doing that. Madonna used to do that. I really admire people that keep pushing themselves to change, maybe because of the thing that you said before. So yeah, marrying David Bowie. There we go. Okay.
Mark
Nice. All right, next one. Fuck Marry, kill. Music, writing, Coding.
Derek Sivers
Okay. Again, I have to think out loud. Music, writing, coding. Yeah. That’s my trifecta, isn’t it? Coding. Okay, so music. What does it mean metaphorically for you to fuck something in this game? I’m just curious. What’s your association with that?
Mark
The hard hitting questions are coming out. I think in my mind when it comes to, like, abstract activities like this. To me, marry means you do it for you can do it for the rest of your life. You’re you do it every day for the rest of your life. Fuck probably means every once in a while, like once a year, you can kind of binge on it. And then kill. Kill obviously means you can never do it again.
Derek Sivers
Okay. All right, Good. I’m glad you said that. I think my brain was going other places. So. Okay, so music. Oof! I mean, that does kind of work as a rest of your life thing. But for me, I did it as the what do you call it? The Flash pan I did.
Mark
Flash in a pan?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Flash in the pan. I did it intensely for 15 years. It was like if you were to just dissect my brain, it was just every single neuron was just doing nothing but music. I thought about nothing but music. I did nothing but music for 15 years. 15 very formative years. Age 14 to 29. Nothing but music. I have already killed it in my life. Even just a few years ago bought a guitar and had it sitting there in the room as I was writing and kept looking at it like, “Oh, I should play.”
Mark
I do the same thing like every every 3 or 4 years. I’m like, “I should get a guitar. I should start practicing again. I should learn some songs.” And then I will literally play for 30 minutes and then put it away and not touch it again for a year.
Derek Sivers
Oh that’s nice to hear. Okay. We didn’t talk about this when you were here. Okay. That’s that’s nice to hear. Yeah. Yeah. Because Yeah, about 30 minutes. It’s like it’s kind of fun to like the old muscle memory. Like, “Oh, look, I’m still good.” Yeah.
Mark
Yeah.
Derek Sivers
And so what.
Mark
Exactly? Yeah.
Derek Sivers
And it’s just not my aspiration anymore. And some people are so dumbfounded by that. Like, how could you not? Um, but that’s just different values. I mean, my younger self would have said the same thing, like, what has gone wrong with you? That you don’t care about music anymore.
Mark
It’s funny, you know, this is a commonality. You and I have never really talked about, which is funny because it is so formative for both of us. But I was reading or listening to one of your interviews last night and you were saying how when you started CD Baby. Your justification for it was kind of, “I’ll do this for a while and it’ll pay the bills. And then what I really want to do is have the freedom to do my music full time.” And you kind of kept that story going in the early years. And I had the exact same thing. Like I started my first online business because I was like, “Well, if I can just get this making a couple thousand a month, then I can really do the music thing.” And then of course, you end up working 14 hours a day for five years and the guitar just collects dust in the corner. Yeah, but what surprised me is that I stopped wanting to do it.
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Mark
It never came back.
Derek Sivers
And yeah, it’s a drive. I feel like in a way that it was like almost like a problem I was figuring out for 15 years. It’s not a perfect description, but it’s--. I was on the pursuit of the craft. I wanted to be great at this thing. I was driving every single hour of every day to be the best writer, performer, recording artist. Just everything was just on this drive to constantly get better every day. And then at a certain point, it’s not your drive anymore. So to me to pick it up now and and that’s a tough one I still get wowed by-- what are they called Ableton push. Every now and then I hear of an instrument that I go, “Ooh, maybe this is so.” Ableton push, I think push three is the newest one. It’s that eight by eight grid of pads that I think if anybody were to ask me today not that you’ve asked me. Let’s pretend you just asked me. “Hey, Derek, what do you think? If a new musician was starting out today and they were kind of instrument agnostic, what instrument should they pick up?” Sure, I would say, “One of these. Whether it’s the Ableton push or the React Machina or whatever, there are a few of these eight by eight grids of pads with a few sliders and knobs. You can make every sound in the universe on that thing.” The only thing they used to lack was aftertouch, which meant after you hit the pad, the ability to go boom, hit the pad and go like, boom, boom, boom. To whether it’s to bend it up or like push it down further. They lacked that ability. But the new Ableton push three added that ability. But so for years I’ve been saying this would be a perfect instrument if they added aftertouch and the new Ableton push three added it and I had that moment like you deciding to buy a guitar. I was like, “Oh my God. This is it.”
Mark
This is it.
Derek Sivers
I’m going to get this instrument. I’m going to start practicing this. This is it. And that lasted like a day before I caught myself. Future conversations. Next time we record, let’s talk about Dubai and moving every year. Let’s talk about the money conversation we had in Berlin before your first book. But now to get back to the question, Fuck, marry, kill, I have killed music. Programming, by your definition is something to fuck because it could be a craft for life. It’s on the verge of that for me. But for now, I think it’s role in my life is going to be something that I’m glad I know how to do, Glad I know how to fuck and I’m going to occasionally do it when I need to solve a problem and use the leverage of technology. But writing is the one that I’ve chosen to marry.
Mark
Beautiful. Derek. It was a pleasure, dude.
Derek Sivers
Me too
Mark
I hope we get to do this more often.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, well, I think by definition of your show, we are going to. A
Mark
And there’s so much shit to talk about.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, of course I’m for it. I mean, with you yes. I mean, it’s kind of like, you know, like when I said that I had never intended to write a book, but then Seth Godin said, “I want you to be my first author.” It’s like, “Well, what do you say to that?” But yes. And so yesterday my phone is on my desk. Suddenly it lights up and WhatsApp and Mark is saying, “Hey, I’m starting a new podcast you want to be on?” I’m like, “Fuck yes, tomorrow.”
Mark
Now move your schedule up. So anyway, yeah thanks. See you again. Thank you. I don’t know how to wrap this up. We never talked about how to wrap this up, Drew. How are we wrapping this up? I don’t know.
Derek Sivers
Do the thing that musicians do sometimes where they leave in the intro, like, you know, the James Brown, they catch him before they hit record. He goes like, “How’s my levels, Ron? All good. All right.” Let’s count it off. You know, you could do that in the podcast. You could be like, “Hey, Drew, how do we wrap this up?” Yeah, like,
Mark
I don’t know what the fuck we’re doing, like, and subscribe and all that shit. I don’t know. Whatever, “Don’t forget to smash that, like, button, everybody. The like button, bro. Oh join my newsletter. Get all the free shit.”