Life Self Mastery
host: Rohit Malhotra
writing and note-taking techniques, philosophy of travel, relationship with money, entrepreneurial experiences, parenting
listen: (download)
watch: (download)
Transcript:
Rohit
Welcome to the show, Derek.
Derek Sivers
Thanks, Rohit. Nice to finally meet you. We’ve been emailing for eight years, but this is our first time finally talking.
Rohit
Yeah, no absolutely. Thank you so much for, you know, taking your time. I’ve been a big fan of your work. And your book, “How to Live” and you know, I’ve read it multiple times there’s so much of knowledge in your books and your writing. And, you know, people often ask me, you know, why do I read so many books? And where do I get the time. But I’ve actually bookmarked your website on books. And I look at which are the which are the top books that you’re reading and how do you rate it? So I look at all those books which you have rated and, you know, I like to like to read it, but but yeah it’s a pleasure to to have you on the show.
Derek Sivers
Nice. Yeah. That book list was something I was doing privately for myself because I think at the age of 36, I realized there were many books I read in the past that I know I read them, but looking at the cover, I can’t remember what was in it. And that’s a sad feeling. You know, if you’ve spent 8 or 10 hours reading a book to not remember it, then it feels like wasted time. So I thought, I wish I would have done this earlier. But starting now any time I read a nonfiction book that I want to learn from, if it’s a paper book, I keep a pen in my hand and I underline the most interesting ideas. Meaning I’m not trying to summarize the book, but the things that make me go, “Ooh, that’s interesting. I want to think about that some more.” I’ll underline them. And then when I’m done with the book, I type them all into a text file. So now it becomes just a short collection of the most interesting ideas I found in that book.
Derek Sivers
Interesting to me. I’m not trying to do this for others. This is only for me. So that then I can go back and review those notes and remember what I’ve learned or put aside time to reflect on it. So say, if a book proposes a very interesting idea, you can take it in the moment you’re reading. But I wanted to stop and reflect on that some more and think how I could apply it to my life. So I started doing this in 2007. Just for myself. And after about two years, I thought, you know, these are just text files. I could put them on my website. So I was a little worried that publishers or authors might tell me to take them down, but they didn’t. And in fact, a lot of publishers seem very happy with me talking about the book and linking to it. So yeah, if you go to my website, sive.rs/book, you’ll see. I think it’s almost 400 or over 400 books there now with all of my notes.
Rohit
YYeah, absolutely. And what’s the note making process? Do you like to read on Kindle or do you like to buy physical books and then create notes on it?
Derek Sivers
So when I first started doing this, I would do paper books with a pen in my hand because it was 2007. But after a few years, I was traveling a lot. Actually, the very first time I went to India in 2008, I brought a bag this big, like, you know, the maximum carry on size, and it was about one third clothes and two thirds books. And I think I brought a stack of 12 books with me to read while I was there. And I thought, okay, this is getting to be too difficult. So I was reluctant of the idea of a Kindle because I’m no fan of Amazon, but I got a Kindle, and I’ll admit it, it’s made traveling a lot easier. So yes, these days, I use Kindle and there’s a feature inside the Kindle called highlight, where if you hold your finger down over a sentence, those are saved into a separate text file called my clippings.txt. Then you connect your Kindle with USB. You can copy that txt file to your computer, parse it with any programming language and extract all the notes you’ve taken. So that’s what I do. But then I edit them. I never, almost never take them verbatim, I edit them. In a way that makes more sense to me.
Rohit
Okay. And do you like to reread those books or is it?
Derek Sivers
No. Sorry that’s the whole point, is I don’t ever want to have to reread a book for ten hours. Especially if I’m just using it for learning. It’s not like I’m reading it just for joy and pleasure. There might be some books that you would just read for pleasure and enjoy reading them again. I’ve done that twice. There are two books that I’ve enjoyed rereading for pleasure, but mostly I just want the information in it. So now the big idea is, now that I’ve got this text file of my favorite ideas from this book, I will never need to read that book again. I can just go back to my text file and remember what that book contained, or what I love is once they’re in text files, I’ve got over 400 of these text files. Now I can search. I can go into that folder and just search for something like commitment or persistence or, I don’t know, profit and find every mention of that word in every book I’ve read instantly. It’s really wonderful.
Rohit
Interesting. And you had recently gone to Shanghai in China and you know, I left Delhi a couple of years back. And one thing common about Delhi and Shanghai was the air pollution was really bad. But you recently gone there and you said that, you know, the the air quality was really cold. You know, and you also mentioned about the architecture and the places over there. What is it that when you get to travel, you know, what is it that you look at and what is it that you enjoy seeing, which you could learn from that city and that culture?
Derek Sivers
I travel to inhabit philosophies. And what I mean is there is a Chinese way of thinking. Currently, I mean, it changes through time, but right now, China is very, very intertwined with the government. So to live in China-- I read a few books before I got there, explaining that in the Chinese mindset, the government takes care of everything. Cradle to grave as they say. Even if you live in a small town and you have a problem with your landlord. It’s the government’s problem. You turn to your local government official to sort out the problem with your landlord. If you’re sick, it’s the government’s problem to get you better. 10% of China’s population. Works for the government. Sorry, 10% of the adult population works for the government. It’s the world’s largest government just micromanaging every aspect of life. And so I wanted to go there to experience that way of being, you know, and if I were to live there or spend more time there, even I would go there to want to do it their way. I wouldn’t go there feeling that I’m right and you’re wrong. I would go there assuming that they are right and kind of surrendering to that way of doing things.
Derek Sivers
Same thing. If I go to a Islamic country in the Middle East, I would want to surrender to that way of doing things. I would not want to go in there drinking alcohol and, I don’t know, wearing a tank top and shorts or something like that. I’d want to inhabit that philosophy in that way of being in order to experience it firsthand, instead of just reading about it in a book. I’m specifically not mentioning India yet, because I don’t really believe that there is an Indian way, you know. I believe it’s just an accident of history that what we call India is one country. I think it could have just as easily have been 20 countries and Europe could have been one country, you know. So I think there are very, very different ways of being in India. So with India, I kind of think of it almost the way that I think of Europe. Like I’d like to go spend more time in different parts. But anyway, in short, that’s the reason I travel. I finally figured out after years how to put it into words that I want to inhabit philosophies.
Rohit
Got it. Interesting. And you know for the first 40 years you know, you started off with music and then you build CD Baby. Was it a conscious decision to be a musician because you gave a timeline that you would want to be successful by a certain age and then, you know, did you want to pivot to becoming an entrepreneur?
Derek Sivers
No, no, no, I thought I was just going to do music for life. No, that’s all I wanted. You know, from the age of 14, I said, this is it. My whole life, I’m going to be a successful musician. Didn’t necessarily need to be famous. I just wanted to be successful. Which to me just means, my definition of success is just achieving what you set out to do. If you do what you set out to do, then you are a success by your own definition. A project is a success if it meets its goals. It’s not about money or fame, but I just wanted to be a successful musician. I wanted to be a great musician. I wanted to make a living doing it. And I got most of the way there. I got partway, there, I bought a house with the money I made from music. But then right away I accidentally started CD baby. But I never intended to be an entrepreneur. In fact, I never really considered myself an entrepreneur very much. Other people called me that, but I was just helping musicians. I was a musician helping other musicians in a way that to me felt very much like a cooperative. Yeah, I wasn’t necessarily trying to be an entrepreneur, but then after I sold that company, people looked at me as an entrepreneur. And called me an entrepreneur. But when I started to meet a lot of other people that called themselves entrepreneurs, I didn’t like them so much. I found that it all felt stupid to me without music, you know, like the whole time I was just trying to help musicians. I wasn’t trying to make money or have social status within certain circles for. Having a bunch of money and influence and when people would talk about investors and Q3 results. You know I would lose interest completely. To me, without music, it was meaningless.
Rohit
Interesting. You know, what I’ve seen is Americans are very very entrepreneurial. Maybe if you look at some of the most innovative companies, be it Apple and Google, you know, they’ve all come out of the US. And when you sold CD baby, you know, I’ve seen entrepreneurs have that or you know, you don’t call yourself an entrepreneur. But when you build something and you sell it, you have an edge to keep building and and doing it bigger or more. You want more in life, you know, or that’s what you’ve been trained to think that, you know, let’s go for the bigger outcome. So, you know, when you sold of CD Baby, did you want to build something or did you want to go back and do what you want to do, which is build music or write books?
Derek Sivers
I thought I wanted to keep going. I think okay on the positive side of being an entrepreneur, I think it can be like a playground for grown ups that or maybe, let’s say like a sandbox. That when you have your own company it’s like a sandbox where you can test ideas. You know, I liked the fact that I could read a business book that would say something about a new way to communicate with your customers or consider trying having three different price points. And I’d go, “Ooh, that sounds fun. I’d like to try that.” And then the next day I would try it. I would just go into my website because it was me. I didn’t have investors, I didn’t have a board of directors. It was me. And yeah, I liked that. It was like my little sandbox where I could go, “That’s a fun idea. Let’s try it.” Type some stuff out, hit, hit, send, upload. Done. And now my website has three price points. Let’s see what happens. Oh, interesting. People seem to like this. They keep going for the top tier. I wonder if I should have raised my prices. It can be applied psychology or applied philosophy. It it can be a fun place to test your ideas and see how the real world reacts to them.
Derek Sivers
I like that about it. So I found that when I sold my company I missed that right away. Even just a month after selling the company, I was reading a book by Charlie Munger, who was Warren Buffett’s partner, and he mentioned an idea that I wanted to try. And I went, “Ooh, I could.” I went, “Now I’ve got no business, I’ve got nowhere I can try this idea.” And I found that I missed that. It’s like a laboratory, a sandbox. So I can see why people keep doing it. The idea of more and more, that might just be human nature. That we like the feeling of progress. That’s why people play video games. The dopamine of constant little improvements and this feeling of progress feels really good to us. So somebody might just be sitting in their living room getting more and more unhealthy and fat because they’re just sitting there all the time, but they feel like they’re making progress because of the video game. So I guess having a business and making more money could be a more healthy version of that.
Derek Sivers
But that’s what I thought I wanted. And when I started going further down that path, I realized I didn’t actually want that. So for my own human nature. Sorry. Yeah, just my own personal preference, I should say. I find that I do nothing for money anymore, that the money I sold CD Baby for was enough. And everything I do now is just because I find it intellectually interesting. But nothing for the money. There’s one guy I know in Switzerland, he’s a nice guy, but he keeps coming to me every year going, “Oh, Derek, I’ve got this great opportunity for you. It’s going to make money. You know, a friend of mine is starting a new cryptocurrency company. And if you get in now.” I think, no, no, no, like, you’ve missed the point. Like, come on, you know me. I don’t want more money. He’s like, “Yeah, but I’m sure this thing is going to explode.” I’m like, “Great, tell everybody else, but I don’t need more money. That doesn’t interest me.” Intellectual challenge interests me. Learning Chinese interests me. Meeting people from Africa interests me. Reading new books interests me. Making new money? No. No interest at all.
Rohit
Interesting. And you know, especially after your exit, what is your relationship with money? Once you have had enough, does your relationship with money change or does it change after a certain age or experience?
Derek Sivers
It’s different for everybody of course, I read Richard Branson’s autobiography where even after he has $1 billion, he wants more, but it’s not for the money. I think he just sees it as like a fun game that he likes playing. Some of my friends are almost that rich. I know friends that are worth hundreds of millions now, just since I’ve known them. And some of them keep pursuing profit, even though they’ve got hundreds of millions of dollars that they’ll never be able to spend. They just find it fun to keep pursuing profit. Just as maybe like a challenge. Like, let’s see if I can make this happen. For me personally. I feel like, the metaphor I make is as if I had 1000 cupcakes in my house. It’s more cupcakes than I’m ever going to be able to eat in a lifetime. In fact, I give cupcakes to every friend that comes over. Like, “Please take some of my cupcakes, you know, please let me pay for dinner. Look, this is more money than I’m going to spend in a lifetime.” And so if somebody comes to you and says, “Hey, Rohit, I’ve got a way you can make more cupcakes.” You’re like, “No, no, no, no, no, I do not want more cupcakes. I have enough.” So that’s my relation to money.
Rohit
Interesting. And, you know, I was reading your book and you had mentioned about writing notes to each customer who bought from CD Baby. And I’ve been into, you know, sales, business development and partnerships. You know I’ve done, you know, those sort of things where I would send over a bottle of champagne or something to maybe get a meeting or trying to make a customer feel special. But how can somebody who’s working in a customer facing role or maybe in a startup? You know, because I spend my entire career in startups, how can you delight a customer so that, you know, they feel special and it’s not a price war later on. But what can customer facing guys do to delight the customers?
Derek Sivers
It’s different for everybody. Different for every business. I mean, like, it depends if your customers are the purchasing department at Procter and Gamble versus, you know Tracy who is buying a sweater for her poodle. But I’d say the common theme is to show people that you see them as a person. Meaning more and more everything is automated. And you contact even a company that you’ve been doing business with for 20 years. And sometimes you get this response that’s like, “We have created ticket number 43625. Please wait 72 hours for a response.” Or you know, “Hello, I am customer service representative 9312. And the response to your question is, yes. Just click this page and fill out that link.” And you think, “Oh, come on.” You know, I want to be acknowledged as a person that has given you so much money and I’m choosing you. There are so many other companies I could go with, but I chose to stick with you. I’m not shopping to switch to the lowest price. I’m sticking with you. I’d like a little acknowledgement from somebody that cares.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. So I think, yeah, whether it’s even a person inside the purchasing department at a big company, or somebody buying a sweater for their poodle, both people want to be acknowledged as a human. Even if it doesn’t take that much effort to send the tiniest little email looking at the right hand side of your screen, seeing that this customer has been there many times, but they haven’t ordered from you in a year, and it could just be as quick as sending a tiny one sentence thing that says, “Hey, it’s been a year. How are you? Thanks for coming back. Everything all right? It’s good to see you again.” And people go, “Oh, wow. Oh, my gosh, a real person. Wow.” Thank you. It’s so nice to know that are a real person is there” Sorry that’s what took me too long to say. People want to know that they are communicating with a real person. And that that real person acknowledges that you are a real person.
Rohit
Right. And you have built lot of websites, music companies, apps and books. And before the call, I talked about that. You know, how you put up an ad for a content writer. You have personally emailed 3000 people and, you know, you don’t use an executive assistant and you don’t use AI to write. How do you manage? And you’re also single task, which is very interesting, where you just focus on one task. But how do you manage to do so many different things and in an excellent way.
Derek Sivers
Well. Thank you. It helps that I know a little bit of programming, so most emails take me under 10s to answer because I’ve mapped my 36 most commonly used sentences. I’ve mapped them to the 26 letters and 10 numbers on the keyboard. So I hit the backslash key and an end. Uh, I’ve made these macros, so if somebody emails I can send pie, which is like, “Hey, nice to meet you. Thanks for taking the time to write that introduction.” Then /y, “Hey, I haven’t heard from you in years. Everything okay? How have you been?” Somebody says, “How are you?” /n I can say, “Oh, how am I doing things? Thanks for asking.” So I’ve just noticed that over, how many years? 15 years of answering over a quarter million emails by hand. Yeah, there were many sentences that I was typing very often, so I mapped them to keys. So now I can scan an email quickly. Hit six keys send. And so I’m able to go through emails in about 10s each. So yeah 100 emails, what is that 1000 seconds. How many minutes? Sorry, I should have picked an easier number to round. But I’m able to go through emails very, very quickly. But yet I am still giving them my personal attention. So it’s it’s both.
Derek Sivers
And then, of course, I get emails of somebody saying, “I’m depressed. My wife just died. I don’t know what’s the meaning of life. What should I do? I’m thinking of moving to Germany and starting an ostrich farm. Help. “And so, of course, there’s no form letter for that. And I’ll take a little longer to answer those. But then there are plenty of emails that are just people that said, “Hey, I read your book and loved it and want to be on your mailing list.” And and I’ll say, cool. Or you know, right when before you and I hit record, you told me you’re from Chandigarh, which is one of, to me, one of the most interesting places in the world that I’m looking forward to going. And if you would have emailed me from out of the blue, even if you would have just said “Hi, I read your book and liked it. My name is Rohit, I live in Chandigarh.” I went, oh my God, Chandigarh. You know, I would have just quickly said like, “Hey, cool, thanks, glad you liked the book, but how cool you live in Chandigarh I’d love to hear any stories of growing up there. And someday I’m going to come there. And I’d love to meet you when I do.” And you know, that took 10s to write that. And people get an email like that and they go, “Oh my gosh, wow, a real person.”
Rohit
Nice. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. And you know, in your book you made a very interesting comment that assume you’re below average. And I told my wife that it is such a great sentence because you sometimes assume after you’re working for some time that I am above average. And you made a very interesting statistic, like most 95% of drivers, what, you know, they assume they’re better than others. So what’s the thesis like? You know, should you always assume that, you know, obviously when you’re starting out with a new profession or a new experience, you’re below average. But what do you mean in that? You know, assume you always below average. Are you always looking to keep learning?
Derek Sivers
Yes. But the bigger issue here. Sorry, this is what my next book is about called “Useful Not True”. It’s about choosing beliefs for the effect that they create in you. So if you had a tendency to think very low of yourself and to think, “I’m awful, I am terrible.” Then you would be well served to deliberately adopt a belief that you are great, that in fact, you might be the best in the world at what you’re doing. And adopting that belief would help counterbalance your built in belief that you are terrible and you’re awful at everything. Then I would suggest that you should deliberately believe that you’re amazing. And then the truth would be somewhere in the middle. So, you know, the beliefs would help bring you to a more accurate connection with reality. In my case I read this statistic twice in two different books about cognitive biases that most people believe that they are much better than average at simple things, at driving, at being a good friend. 95% of patients in hospitals believe that they are better than average health. But also 90 something percent of doctors believe that they are better than average doctors. And so after reading this, I thought. I’m going to just choose to believe that I’m below average.
Derek Sivers
I’m going to deliberately try to believe that, in everything I do. Even if I’m out driving on the road, I try to think I’m a pretty bad driver and believing that maybe then makes me a better driver. Maybe helps me be more cautious. I definitely believe that I am way below average when it comes to business and entrepreneurship. I got really and this isn’t-- I don’t think I’m feigning this belief. I got really lucky being in the right place at the right time with my one company, but I mismanaged it really badly. I’d say the reason I sold the company is because I did such a bad job at it that I had to sell. I’m a really bad entrepreneur and it helps me to realize that I think it makes me more humble, makes me more willing to learn and to listen from everyone. But anyway, the bigger issue is you should. Understand where you have a nature to fall, and then deliberately choose beliefs that would help counteract your nature to bring you to where you want to be. Bring beliefs that will affect your actions in a way. That’s what you want.
Rohit
And do you have like, feedback loops? Like obviously, you know, I would love to have a coach who can direct me, especially in the what has happened in the last two years, especially when it comes to tech companies. A lot of people have got got laid off and people are scared of AI that, you know, they’ll lose their jobs and all that. But how can somebody have a feedback loop to ensure that they’re getting better at their work? Or maybe they’re learning or relearning themselves, learning about new skills. What advice would you give to listeners who would want to have that feedback loop to always keep learning?
Derek Sivers
Sure. Two ideas. A coach and a measurement. I’ll do the coach one quickly, because it’s not for everybody. But I just want to say, a coach doesn’t have to be great. It can be almost anybody that’s not you. They don’t have to be a business genius. Just anybody that’s calling themselves a coach, can be helpful because it’s just somebody outside of yourself that’s outside of your mind that can look at what your actual actions are. And so if you say, “I’m gonna lose weight” I’ll just pick an easy thing like that. I’m going to lose weight. Instead of seeing your intentions, your good intentions, they just looking at what you actually weigh and what you’re actually eating or how much exercise you’re actually getting. They’ll demand to see something outside of you. So number one, I want to say, if you’re thinking that you need some help, just go online and search coach, business coach, life coach, whatever. And go try a few of them, like hire three different people for 2 or 3 sessions each and then stick with your favorite. It is so so so helpful to have somebody outside of yourself giving you feedback, even if that person is not a genius or a success in their own, they can be really helpful.
Derek Sivers
So I’ve done that many times with great results to just hire an outside coach to help hold me to not just hold me to, it’s not about accountability. To help give me an outside perspective on what I’m trying to achieve. And then help observe it from the outside. Okay. So that’s number one. But number two, came from the first time I hired a coach. I said I want to get better, in fact, I want to get great at the Ruby programming language. And he said, “Okay, great. How will you know when you’re great?” And I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, how are you going to measure it? You want to get great, what’s an objective measure that we can use to say that you’re great? I went, oh. I said, “Okay, well, here are the top six books on the Ruby programming language. I guess I would consider myself great if I went through all six of those books and did all of the exercises and understood them.” He said, “Okay, great. How many chapters are in them?” I said, “What?” He said, “The total number of chapters in those six books.” I said, “Oh, I don’t know. It’s different for all of them.” He said, “Well, just go take two minutes. Go count them.” I said, “Really?”
Derek Sivers
He said, “Yeah, right now just take a minute.” So I said, “Okay, hold on.” And just while he sat on the phone with me, book number one had 19 chapters. Book number two had 38 chapters. Whatever it was, he added them all up together and said, “Okay, what is your time frame? How long do you want it to take to be great at this?” I said, “Four months.” He said, “Okay, you told me that there are a total of 125 chapters. You’ve got four months. That means you’re going to be 31 chapters per month for the next four months. 31 chapters per month. That’s a chapter a day. Can you do a chapter a day? It’s seven days a week.” I said “Yes, I can.” He said, “Okay, you promise one chapter a day and you’re going to do it thoroughly.” I said, “Okay, yes.” He said, “Now do you want to go through each book sequentially, or do you want to do chapter one from each of the six books, and then chapter two from each of the six books?” And he just worked with me to make what was a vague intention turn it into a concrete, measurable thing. So I think that’s the answer to your question. That’s the answer to your question.
Rohit
Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Because, you know the follow up to that is can you measure relationships? You could measure how many dates you’ve been to, but can you really measure, you know, friendships or relationships with your spouse or the family?
Derek Sivers
That’s a fun question. I’m tempted to say, short answer yes. I don’t know what your measure would be. But I’ll bet if you spent some quiet time and looked into your heart, you would have your own definition of what makes a relationship great. That if we have a great relationship, then we would do this. Okay how often? Once a week? Once a month, once every year. And we would have these level of conversations where I feel this kind of feeling afterwards. Okay, how do you get that feeling? Can you think of an example when you did have that feeling? And you just start to-- let’s just say you put aside the time to define exactly what it is you want.
Rohit
Right. And you know, you wrote somewhere that the coolest people are the ones who find me through my writing, you know. And I’m trying to put in the reps to become a better writer. But how can we be more effective in writing? You know, I think you are very effective in your writing. And you can make people think but you can make people act through your writing because it’s so specific. But how can I or anyone else be very effective in writing and you know, what’s what’s your advice on that?
Derek Sivers
Thank you. Again, I think it depends on what kind of writing and what your goals are. But say, if you are writing fiction, you might want people to fall in love with your main character. So that would be your measure of how good your fiction was or how many people hate your villain. If you’re doing sales writing of course you would measure it by how many people bought what you’re selling based on your writing. That’s probably the easiest measure. It’s something we’re already measuring in numbers, purchases, new signups. I think that’s part of the fun and allure of sales, copywriting and marketing writing is that you see these concrete results. It’s almost like the gamification of writing. Or is it kind of writing I’m doing for my philosophical nonfiction writing. Honestly, for me, I’m just trying to please myself. When I wrote that book called “How to Live”, it took me four years of working out that every day until I was happy with it, and I was so happy with it that I didn’t really care, even if I put it out in the world and nobody liked it. I’d say, “I don’t care. This is the most beautiful book ever. I love this book so much. It’s exactly what I wanted it to be. If you all hate it, I don’t care.”
Derek Sivers
And that’s how I really feel about that book. But there are other ones where I was writing it more for the public. And maybe the measure of success for that kind of writing is people getting back to me, saying they loved the book, or they made this change in their life thanks to the book. But of course see, so you heard there’s three very different. And that was only three. I’m sure there are other kinds of writing, too. But you’ve got to ask yourself the same question you just asked about relationships. How would you measure it? How would you define that this was a success or not, and just put aside the time to reflect and write that down and then be able to look at your actions saying, “Okay, am I getting these results?” It can really simplify things so much. It can take a vague idea like, I want to be a better writer and turn it into, “I want to write something that at least two people a week reply to me saying thank you, or that they shared it.” There’s another good one I think Seth Godin would measure himself by how much people shared his writing with others. He would look at how many people retweeted it or how many people forwarded it, and that was his measure.
Rohit
And I see that you’ve done short form writing uh, where your blog posts would be, you know, as short as, like what Seth Godin or some of the other prolific writers would do. And you also done long form writing. Is there any form of writing which you enjoy more?
Derek Sivers
Well. Personally, I like short. My new book, the average chapter length is 20 sentences and that makes me happy. It’s the antidote to too many books that blather on for too long, saying what could be said in a short article. They take a whole book to say it, and so I want to do the opposite. And say it in a very short, short book what could have been talked about for much longer. Okay, here’s my little measure for myself that how I measure success as a writer. If people wish, I would have said more then I’ve said, just the right amount. I always want people to wish that I would have said more about that.
Derek Sivers
But that’s just me. You know, that doesn’t mean all writers should be like that. That’s the way that makes me happy.
Rohit
And another blog post which you wrote was “Hell Yeah or No”. And it’s been referenced across the-- you know, I think a lot of product managers talk about it because a lot of product guys are like the CEOs of the company, and they get to decide, you know, should they take on this project or not. But, you know, how do you get to decide, it could be relevant for somebody who’s working in startups or somebody who’s busy in their personal life what to say yes or no to a project or something?
Derek Sivers
It’s probably the intersection of what’s personally exciting you the most and if you’re having to do it with business, then it has to match the business’s goals as well. You might personally be more excited about leaving work early to go skiing, but that doesn’t match with the business. That’s not only measuring what excites you the most. Yeah, if you’re in the position where you can decide for yourself what you do, then it is more about whatever excites you the most. Because when people say they hate their job or they are bored in their life right now, it’s usually because they’re doing things they don’t find interesting. It’s like a compass inside of us that points towards excitement. Whatever gives you energy or whatever drains your energy. And I think that as long as you steer towards whatever’s giving you energy, you’re on the right track. the problem is when you do these things because somebody has told you it’s what you should do, or you’ve read a book that says this is the way and you start to do it, but you feel this drain of energy and you’re going about it, but you don’t want to. That’s the enemy, that’s the state to avoid. Whatever’s exciting you, even if it might not make the most business sense. I think we need to follow that compass. It might not be the most profitable thing to do, but if it excites you the most, I think it’s worth doing.
Derek Sivers
On that note. I built all of the computers at my old company. I had 85 employees, and whenever I hired somebody new that needed a new PC. I would go down to the computer store, and I’d buy a motherboard and a case and a sound card and a CPU and Ram and a hard drive. And I’d put it together myself and install Linux on it myself. It saved a lot of money off of buying ready to go PCs. But most importantly, I enjoyed it. It was something I would stay at work at night after everybody had gone home, and I could have gone home and I could have gone out to a movie, or I could have gone home and sat in front of the TV, like a lot of people do. But instead I stayed at work and I built a computer and installed Linux on it, and it made me happy. And years and years later, I was in Singapore and I mentioned this to somebody who joked sarcastically. He goes, “Yeah, that’s a good use of the CEO’s time.” I said, “Yeah, it fucking was because I loved it. It made me so happy. That was my happiness.” If I was only doing what is technically the best use of the CEO’s time, I would have quit my job years ago because that would be boring. So instead I’d mixed doing what the company needed with doing what I enjoyed most.
Rohit
And you know, I understand you living in New Zealand. But you were also living in Oxford you’ve been to India and Singapore. You know, I read that for the first 40 years you were in the US, but now you moved around places. Was it a conscious decision to move around after every, you know, couple of months or a couple of years? But does it also make it difficult to make new friends?
Derek Sivers
Yes and no. Yes. It was a very conscious decision. I felt that it was important to keep pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Right now I also have to live in a place that’s best for me and my kid and his mother. So it’s not just me, if it was just me, I would be much, much more nomadic than I am. But I’m having to find what’s best for all three of us. So for me, in my belief system, I believe it’s important to push yourself out of your comfort zone. And as soon as some place feels like home for me, then I want to keep going to somewhere new. Because then I’m expanding my definition of what feels like home. If I had never left my hometown, then that’s the only place on earth that would feel like home. If I keep going like, right now there are probably five places in the world, probably more. More like seven that really feel like home for me. Like really, really, really to the core. This is home. How cool that there are seven places on earth that feel like home to me. I love that, I would love for there to be 20 places on earth that feel like home. And so I plan to keep going and staying in places long enough until it really, truly feels like home. And then I keep going and I keep pushing onto another. As for making friends, it depends. There are some places where I really click with the local culture, and I make friends there very easily. New York City. Los Angeles. Singapore and Bangalore are my four most social places.
Derek Sivers
Then there are places that I also love, but I don’t have friends. That don’t have local friends there. So Wellington, New Zealand, where I’m living now, and even Oxford, England and Portland, Oregon are three other places that I lived and I love but just never really clicked with local people there. And that’s okay because I use the telephone. My best friends right now are spread around the world. So right before you and I talked, I was talking to one of my best friends in New York City and had to hang up the phone to go, “Oh, hey, sorry, I’ve got this podcast in five minutes, I gotta go.” And so I was talking to my friend in New York and I woke up to voicemails from my friend in Bangalore and my other friend in London saying, you know, “How are you? What’s going on?” And, so I have friends by the telephone. If it weren’t for the telephone, I’d probably be very lonely.
Rohit
And, you know, I see that you’ve been in New Zealand for quite some time. I mean, you moved around, but you again come back to New Zealand. So I’ve never been to New Zealand. It’s just a farthest corner of the world, but is very different from US and some of these Western countries?
Derek Sivers
No. Okay you’re in London now. If you want to go to New Zealand, just go to Wales. It’s the same thing. It’s the exact same as Wales. It’s really no different. In the US, I tell people it’s just the same as Vermont or Montana. Just go to those places. You don’t need to come here. I don’t even think it’s worth visiting for most people it’s just very green and pristine. Yes, but it’s not that different from finding a green and pristine part of your own country where you already are. You don’t have to fly all the way across the world. I chose to do it because I was living in Singapore when my son was born and my wife didn’t like Singapore. And so she said, “I want to get out of here.” So I thought, well, if we have to go somewhere else anyway, what’s the best place on earth to raise a baby? I thought, well, New Zealand, it would just be a wonderful place to raise a baby in nature. So I did nine months of paperwork and became a legal resident and now a citizen. And now it is the place on earth that feels the most like home. I really, really love it completely, but as a place to visit? No. The very first time I visited here in 2004, I was living in California. I spent $12,000 to fly, that’s even economy. Flying economy to New Zealand and like two weeks of hotels and renting a car. Even trying to save money cost $12,000. It’s kind of an expensive country and just a long way to fly. And I came back to California very disappointed. I always advise people not to fly to New Zealand and come visit.
Rohit
And you you mentioned that your son was born 12 years back, and you love spending time with him. You mentioned you spend 19,000 hours, but you know, usually when men have kids, they would want to work hard, but since you sold off your company, you want to spend more time with the kid. Which is the right way to think about it. But did you consciously decide, like, when I’m going to have a kid, I would want to spend more time with him. Or did it just happen, you know, when when you had a kid?
Derek Sivers
Both. When I was a teenager, I was a fan of the Beatles, and I read that John Lennon was a bad dad when his first son was born, during the height of Beatles popularity. So he had a first son named Julian and didn’t give him any attention because he was busy being a Beatle. And so when Yoko Ono got pregnant he told his agent, okay quit everything. No to everything. I’m just going to be nothing but a dad for the next five years. And he did so from 1975 to 1980. He was a full time dad. He did almost no music, almost no gigs. As famous as he was. He just said no to everything. I’m just going to be with my son. And I remember as a teenager hearing that story, thinking, you know, if I ever have a kid someday, that’s what I’m going to do. Like when the kid’s born, I’m just going to stop everything and just give him my full attention. So that said, I was not planning on having kids. And so, yeah, when I was 41 years old and my wife said she was pregnant, I said, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, we agreed not to have kids.” And she said, “Well, mistakes happen.” And so once he was born, though. Yeah, I was doing some other business things. I was planning on starting a new company, but as soon as I found out she was pregnant, I kind of shut it all down and have been mostly full time dad for the last 12 years. Everything you’ll see me do is just spare time.
Rohit
Interesting. And you, you’re about to launch your book, “Useful Not True”. So when ware you plan planning to launch this book? And you know why you’re writing this book now?
Derek Sivers
I’m writing it because it’s a really interesting idea that kept coming up underneath other things I was talking about that I would deliberately choose beliefs not because they’re true, but because of the effect they have on my actions. Like we talked earlier with believing that I’m below average. Or everybody knows this feeling. That if you need to shut out distractions and finish something by a tight deadline, you tell yourself this is the most important thing in the world. Nothing else matters as much as this. And you tell yourself that in order to get something done. Now that’s not true. There are other things that matter more than your stupid project. But you tell yourself that because that’s what you need to believe to get this done in time. So I think we can just do that in other aspects of life too. You can choose to believe that if you finish this project, people are going to be very happy. You can choose to believe that giving is more important than receiving. You can choose to believe that money is just a measure of how much you’re giving to the world. All of these things are beliefs that we choose, not because they’re true. We don’t need to argue about whether it’s true or not. We choose them because of the effects they have on our actions. So I found that an interesting subject, and I thought maybe I’ll write a book about this. It’ll be a good way to learn more about the subject. So, yes, for the last two years, I went and learned a lot more about this subject. I read maybe five books on cognitive behavioral therapy, six books about pragmatism, 6 or 7 books about religion beliefs. I just went and learned about the subject a lot. And then, of course, like, just looked into my own mind and heart and tried to share what I’ve learned in a very short way that makes people wish it would be longer.
Rohit
Nice. Yeah. I’m really looking forward to read this book. And I quickly want to do the top three. What’s your favorite business book?
Derek Sivers
The Art of Profitability by Adrian Slywotzky.
Rohit
I don’t think I’ve read this book. I’ll read it.
Derek Sivers
It’s a masterpiece. It’s brilliant, yeah. He tells it in a funny way as a conversation between a master and a student. But it spells out with line drawings a bunch of interesting profit models with examples. So “Art of Profitability” by Adrian Slywotzky is my favorite business book.
Rohit
Got it. Put that in show notes. And you know, if you could go back in time when you, when you started writing and your book How to Live”. What is the one thing you would have focused on or done anything differently?
Derek Sivers
Oh. In terms of writing or in life. How do you mean?
Rohit
In writing and like the book you wrote “How to Live”. Or you know, entrepreneurship.
Derek Sivers
I wouldn’t have done anything differently with that. There are very few things in life that I wish I could go back and change. I actually wish I wouldn’t have left Oxford. I loved living in Oxford. I moved there at the beginning of 2019, and I intended to stay for 12 years. And then Covid hit and we didn’t know how long Covid was going to go on. And we were citizens of New Zealand, which was Covid free, 100% Covid free, whereas in England everything was locked down. My kid was not allowed to play with other kids and school was closed and travel was closed. So we made the family decision to move back to New Zealand so that my kid could have fun. But by doing so I invalidated my UK visa and I miss it. I miss living in Oxford. That’s one of my few regrets in life. But sorry, that has nothing to do with my book. It’s just actions have hidden consequences. So even things that I can look back and say on a shallow level that I maybe would have done them differently. On a deeper level, they might be affecting me in some beneficial way. So there’s really almost nothing that I can look back and wish happened differently. I’m very happy with my life. It’s not like I’m missing a leg right now because I tried kicking an alligator. Yeah.
Rohit
Interesting. And do you have any favorite online tool? For example, Gmail? Slack, Zoom, ChatGPT?
Derek Sivers
No, I am completely opposed. I am a product of the time where I grew up maybe. But I got into the internet in 1994. And in 1999, 2000, all of these companies that my friends were depending on all went out of business. And things like even like Myspace and mp3.com businesses that around me everybody was depending on mp3.com was most musicians entire web presence. Same with MySpace.com. And so many people depended on that infrastructure and then poof, you know, gone, out of business. And I’m very, very, very wary of any online tools. I see them as like broken walking canes. You know that like walking canes with a crack, you would not want to lean too much on them. So I really enjoy the learning and growing process of making something myself if I feel like it’s something I need. I used ChatGPT a few minutes a month as I’m writing, if I need to say something like, “What’s a word that means this. List ten other ways to say this phrase. “A large language model is good for coming up with things like that. But that’s about it. That’s how I use it for these days.
Rohit
Interesting. And you know, what’s the best way people can reach out to you and know more about your writing and your books?
Derek Sivers
Oh, yeah. You know the answer to that. Everything is on my website. I’m not on any social media, sive.rs, it’s my website because of the reason we just said. I don’t like platforms. I don’t trust them. I don’t enjoy being on them. I don’t like the incentives that people have to make noise to get attention. Just so they can get some invisible bonus points. You know more likes or whatever. So I like just keeping everything on my own website. So sive.rs is my site and everything is there, including the link to email me, like you did eight years ago. And I’m glad you did.
Rohit
Yes, absolutely. And it was so kind of you to to reply back. It’s very rare to find, you know an entrepreneur with your stature to reply back. They usually have a executive assistant. So, absolutely this was this was great fun. And, you know, I’ve been meaning to speak to you for so many years. And I loved your book “How to Live”. And I’m gonna again read your new book, which is “Useful Not True”. And I learned a lot of stuff from you. So thank you so much for taking our time and speaking to me.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Of course. Thanks for inviting me. Really nice to meet you, finally.