Lucas Devotion
host: Lucas Devotion
book draft feedback, Wellington, perspectives and reframing, beliefs and actions
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Transcript:
Lucas
Obviously had a great time reading the draft of your book.
Derek Sivers
Thanks. This is maybe my first or about my first time ever doing a local New Zealand podcast.
Lucas
Okay.
Derek Sivers
Which I’m thrilled at.
Lucas
That’s very exciting.
Derek Sivers
Yeah I mean, I admire what you’re doing anyway. I like your podcast anyway, but when I saw that you were local, it’s like, oh hell yeah, this is great.
Lucas
I would have thought that, you know, because I feel like Wellington’s especially quite a creative city. I would have thought people would be pegging you down to do mini documentaries or, you know, think tanks about your book or stuff like that all the time.
Derek Sivers
A think tank about my book. That would be embarrassing. But maybe, I don’t know, maybe everybody just doesn’t want to bother me. There are some places that we think of as antisocial places. A friend of mine that’s nomadic and has, like five homes around the world. The place that he considers most home is his least social place. It’s where he goes to just put his head down, do his work, do his thing. He makes a point of not making friends there. And all of his friends are spread around the world, so I can relate. I’m kind of the same way. So Wellington is a pretty antisocial place for me. My friends are elsewhere.
Lucas
That’s so interesting. I almost have the the opposite association, you know, coming up there for the big festival on Cuba Street and stuff like that. Getting a beer with the friends. So, yeah, I love the idea that, well, I’m out drunk somewhere in the street. You’re hunched over a manuscript somewhere in the hills having your isolation time.
Derek Sivers
Exactly. Yeah.
Lucas
Cool. Well, let’s do it. Let’s talk about “Useful Not True`’. Because, yeah honestly I went in and I wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to it, because it’s such an interesting kind of title. And then on on the initial pages, you kind of set the intention for the book, I suppose.
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Lucas
This is what the book’s about, and this is why I’m going to try kind of convince you essentially. So I have some quotes and I have some questions. Yeah if you catch me looking down, I’m not looking at my phone playing Minecraft. I promise it’s because I got book of quotes here. So let’s start with this one. “People speak as if they’re stating facts, but it’s just their current perspective.” You know, reframing, which is the subject of the book, is like a useful tool for anyone trying to make a change in their life. What example or examples of reframing would you offer that have kind of affected you the most?
Derek Sivers
Oh man, it’s everything from tiny moment to moment minuscule things to big, giant life size things, almost every day. I mean, let’s just start stupid. You know, you’re carrying a plate of spaghetti and meatballs and it falls on the floor and you could think, you know, “FML. This sucks. This is the worst thing.” Or you could just, like, laugh at how ridiculous this is. I mean, it’s just like an instant tiny reframing of was that a bad thing or a funny thing. Then life size, you know, you and I were just talking about what Wellington represents to you versus what it represents to me. You can think of the place you live as a bad place for this and a good place for that. Or you can just decide to reverse it and say, “You know, it’s not exactly true, is it? I’m just projecting that meaning onto this place. This is just a bunch of humans and buildings and hills in my case, so it can be whatever I want it to be. I’ve decided now that Wellington is this instead of that.” And you can make it happen. Bigger examples, that little bit that you just quoted about people are just speaking from their perspective. Every day people try to put their perspective on you like, “Lucas, you can’t do that. There is no way you’re going to be able to have a successful podcast. Who the hell are you? You’re not a top selling author. There’s no way that anybody’s going to listen to your podcast.”
Derek Sivers
Somebody is saying that and they think it’s true. They think it’s an absolute fact, and they think they’re trying to do you a favor. By helping you face reality that this is not worth your time, you should just stop doing it. And then somebody else can look at you and say, “Dude, you’re great. You’re great at asking questions. You’re great on the mic. You’re into this. You’ve got a sharp mind. You could be the best in the world at this if you want to be.” And neither of those statements are necessarily true. It’s just a perspective that you can choose to adopt or not. And so there’s no point arguing, is one of them right and one of them is wrong. Because each one of course probably thinks the other one is wrong. So a big point of my book is to say nothing in your mind is true anyway. There’s some true things, you know I’m snapping my fingers. That’s true. That’s just a fact. What does it mean that I’m snapping my fingers? Well, that’s up to you to decide. None of our thoughts are necessarily true. So all of these perspectives that people tell you, like you can’t do that or that you can, none of them are true. It’s all up to you to adopt whichever one makes you take the actions that you want to take.
Lucas
Why do you think that we experience so much internal resistance when it comes to the idea that what we know and think is true might not be a universal truth?
Derek Sivers
Good question. I think it’s just because all we have to go by are our eyes and ears and the things people have told us, that we believed because we were small and they were our parents. Or because we respect and admire somebody that told us things are this way. And so we just take it in like, okay, this is my view of the world. “I’m no good at this and I know that for a fact because my ex told me that, and she knows me very well. So that’s just true that I’m no good at this thing because my ex told me so.” And you know, “Christchurch is a bad place for this and London is a great place for that. And you know, you can make millions with your podcast or you’re a failure.” All these things, it’s just how we see the world. We think of it as just reality in the same way that like, yeah, right now it’s cloudy outside right now. That’s just a reality. It feels the same. “It’s cloudy outside right now. And I’m no good at this.” Those two feel equal, whereas it’s tough to separate them and realize cloudy outside right now is a fact. “I’m no good at this” is not a fact. They feel the same to us. It just feels like just hard, cold reality. But it’s not, it’s just a perception.
Lucas
So many people hold these kind of beliefs at almost an identity level. And you know when I say so many people, of course I include myself.
Derek Sivers
I thought you were going to say, “And by so many people, I mean me.” Sorry. Yeah. Okay.
Lucas
And yeah, we just hold these, these beliefs that not only not very true, but they’re also probably not very useful. And, you know, it feels really good to, I suppose, read your book and kind of intellectualize what you’re talking about. But where do you even kind of think about taking the first step when it comes to untangling these kind of bad ideas, bad beliefs, bad systems away from your identity as a person?
Derek Sivers
I think it helps to suss out or guess the reason why you have that belief. And I don’t just mean blaming your mother, but seeing like how that belief has served you. Okay, let’s let’s start easy when parents say, “It’s your job to take care of me when I’m old.” You can see how that’s a useful belief for them. It’s useful for them to tell you that’s reality because it serves them. Okay, that one’s very transparent. Let’s do another easy one, patriotism. Whenever somebody says, “My country is the best.” You can see how that instantly gives that person a feeling of being on the winning team, just by deciding that their country is the best, or believing that their country is the best. They feel like they’re on top. They’ve won in life. They’re in the best country. This place I am is the best. Lucky me. Okay, so that belief serves them. So if you have a belief-- let’s just keep picking on Lucas and his podcast. If you have a belief that, “Oh, I could never have a podcast. I’m just not that kind of person.”
Derek Sivers
Then what that belief gives for you is justification for why you’re validated, to just sit there and play video games or watch TV, because, “I am not the kind of person who could have a podcast. That’s just not for me. No. Fuck it. Grab another beer. Just keep playing the video game. I couldn’t do that.” Whereas if somebody actually believed I could do that, and in fact, I could be great at it and I could change the lives of millions of people and be a huge success doing it. Then oh shit, they have to face the fact that they’re not living up to their potential right now. So I think a lot of discouraging beliefs come from this safe, cozy feeling of, “Well, I can’t do that anyway, so I’m totally justified for living my tiny little humble life.” You know what I mean? So I think it helps to try to suss out how that limiting belief has been serving you. How has it helped you in that deeper way.
Lucas
I guess I can see the parallel in something I think I and other creatives that I know experience sometimes. Which is the idea of under committing to a project because then if it doesn’t work out or if it isn’t good, then you can almost tell yourself the narrative of like, “Well, I didn’t give it my best anyway. So no wonder it turned out bad because I only gave it like 50%. If I’d given it 100%, it would have worked.” But you almost don’t want to give it that 100% because if you give it everything that you have and it doesn’t work, then what are you. You know what I mean?
Derek Sivers
Well, guess what? Let’s take this personal for a sec. I knew a woman, one of one the great loves of my life, actually, in New York City. After she and I broke up, she would only date unavailable men. So she and I stayed in touch as friends for like 20 years. We’ve lost touch the last few years. But we dated briefly when we were, like, 20. And then for the next 20 years, we stayed in touch, and I noticed that she kept going for these unavailable men, like men that were married or just not interested in committing like she wanted. And I finally asked her, like, “Why do you keep doing this?” And surprisingly, she knew the reason. She said, “By going for unavailable men. I can never truly be rejected because if he rejects me, I can just blame the fact that he’s got a wife or he just doesn’t want a relationship. Whereas if I went for somebody that was truly available and he rejects me then that is a true rejection of me.” Yeah and so that’s kind of like another version of what you just said, that she never gives it 100% because then that rejection would hurt too much.
Lucas
Yeah. It’s fascinating, these kind of defense mechanisms we build around ourselves, whether we’re aware or not aware. The idea that so much of this is kind of formed in us subconsciously or by, for example, what you gave, you know, parents and society just kind of chipping away at it over time. It can feel a little terrifying at times the amount of impact that others can have on us without kind of our, I guess, full consent, I suppose. The example you give the book was very enjoyable, the video of what present would you like. And he wrote down leather jacket. Using subconscious clues, he was able to literally change his answer to the point where he was confused why he even wrote leather jacket in the first place.
Derek Sivers
Did you ever find that video? Did you see the original?
Lucas
Yeah, I watched it.
Derek Sivers
Good, good.
Lucas
Shocking. If anything. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
Love it, love it, love it, love it. Yeah.
Lucas
Yeah, just in a lot of ways, it kind of feels like it takes away some of the currency of free will and thought that I feel like we all kind of feel like we have and we trade. How do you kind of look at it? How do you stay empowered? How do you look at the world kind of through an empowered lens, even understanding this idea that maybe we don’t have as much influence on ourselves as we think we do?
Derek Sivers
I think it makes you have a healthy doubt for authenticity. We say authentic like it’s a fact. Like, “My authentic self. Who am I, really?” Sorry, I used the wrong tone of voice for that. I used a snide, doubting tone of voice. I should have said it in one of those heartfelt, soul searching kind of voices. Like, “Who am I? Who am I really?” You know, it’s in pop culture, you know, Moana’s grandma says to little Mona, “Don’t forget who you are.” As if that’s supposed to be some, like, unchangeable, solid this is who you are. But who little Moana is on the island, it’s just some bullshit cause she’s on this coconut island with her bullshit dad putting bullshit into her head. It’s not authentic. That’s just some shit that people put in your head. So I think it’s really healthy to doubt this idea of authenticity. And who am I, really? Because you are in total control of your thoughts and beliefs, even though other people have also put their judgments and values and thoughts into your head, whether subconsciously or extremely consciously. You have shit in your head from other people, but you also have the ability to recognize that and replace it with thoughts, beliefs and judgments and values of your own design. So it really helps to give up this idea of, “Who am I?” And replace it with, “Who do I really want to be?” And then you can make that conscious decision it doesn’t matter who you’ve been in the past. That’s a product of your environment and just random circumstances from what movies you watched and who your friends were in school. But you can decide who you want to be. And therefore based on who you want to be deliberately choose what beliefs you will need to lead to the actions that will help you be that person. So I think it’s really healthy to recognize how subliminal our influences have been.
Lucas
Yeah. Yeah. So when you’re thinking about that, the idea of okay, well, I’m going to take a look at my beliefs and set them to be something that helps me get towards my goals. I have another quote from the book where you say, “All that matters are current actions.” And you talk about this idea of kind of the past, as you said, being a product of how you brought up and your environment. And so the future is kind of a result of the changes to your belief structure that you make now. But where does that leave your process when it comes to goal setting? Are you framing that in terms of like your identity and then how you sit in kind of tangible goals and milestones through this new lens? I hope that makes sense.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, it does. It’s a big question. It makes sense. How do I use it? I still out of a lifetime of habit, think in terms of identity, and I’m not that kind of person. But I doubt it shortly after, I catch myself thinking that way, “I’m not that kind of person.” And then I’d say, “Well, wait, what the fuck does that mean? I am incapable of doing that because I have not in the past. Well that’s stupid.” So I catch myself thinking that way. And then I know well if it’s a human ability well, then I have the ability to do it. So then it’s a matter of what do I actually want to do. And if this thing that I’m thinking of is something that I want, well, then it doesn’t matter how I’ve identified in the past, this is something I can do. And then I just run it through my value system. “Is this something I really want to do? Is this something really worth doing? Am I willing to do the work necessary? Am I going to commit to doing this? Am I going to make the change against the challenges and obstacles that are sure to come? Yeah, this is totally worth doing.” Or, “No, that was kind of a whim. Sounds kind of nice, but, you know, yeah, I’d kind of like to be super fit. Am I really going to do the hard work of, like, going to the gym for two hours every day? Nah, I’ll just be a little fit. That’s fine”
Derek Sivers
You know but some people make that choice and they go, “Yes, I am going to be super fit. I am going to go to the gym two hours a day. This is totally worth it for me. I’m going to make this my top priority even though I’ve been a couch potato until now, this actually matters to me that much. I’m going to fucking do it now.” And that healthy doubt of your identity can then help you just decide for the future based kind of on a blank slate because you are or you can be. And even if you’ve had habits in the past, you know, you have a tendency to sleep in late. And in order to do this, you’re going to need to wake up early. Well, then you can just address that tendency and change those habits. Sorry. I feel like I forgot the second half of your question. You asked, how do I apply this to making big change? And I think there was a second half.
Lucas
Yeah, I mean, I guess I was kind of curious if this kind of thought process has affected how you you set goals and milestones, like for example--
Derek Sivers
Oh yes. Goals and milestones. Yes.
Lucas
Yeah. If you were still working in kind of a medium to large corporate business, a growing business. There is you know, kind of that expectation that you have your quarterly target to hit or a certain milestone or, you know, whatever it is. And I feel like we as a culture, as a society, have almost kind of taken those that same kind of thinking on our personal lives, “Oh, I can get to, you know, 70kg by the end of September.” And it becomes very like, you know, analytical and caught down in the numbers and very we’re treating ourselves kind of like a business, which is interesting. And so does thinking about your identity and your belief structure and stuff like that affect how you’re thinking about setting those kind of goals?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, but the real question for anybody listening is not what does Derek do but what works for you. Like I’m not into like watching numbers and setting goals. That doesn’t work for me, but for a lot of people I know, including some really successful people I know, maybe the most successful people I know, are really into that. They actually kind of enjoy this gamification of things. A friend of mine is a best selling author that set some number like, “I’m going to sell 2 million of this book, and I’m going to sell this many hundred thousand in the first week. And I’m going to achieve this chart position, and I’m going to contact this many people, I’m going to do this many media appearances.” And that works for him. I won’t say them. It’s a guy, that works for him. To use those numbers. That gets him excited. In the same way that playing video games excites him. He tries to beat that high score and he just straight up said, “This works for me. I like this way.” Because it came up because I said he was crazy, like, why do you do that? And he’s just like, “Dude, this works for me.” I went, okay, like once he explained it, he elaborated a little more than that, but once he explained it, I go, “Okay, I get it.” That doesn’t work for me. I don’t like gamifying things, it feels cheesy to me. I don’t like this daily tracker check in kind of bullshit. I’ve tried the things I like wearing the thing on my finger or my wrist, or the strapping a thing on my heart and counting my steps. Some people are so into that. To me, I so rebel against it. So the real point is you just have to notice what works for you. You can listen to podcasts like this and listen to a bunch of people tell you how you should be, but ultimately you just have to notice what works for you.
Lucas
Okay, so I guess based on your answer, maybe I’ll pivot what I was thinking for the question there. Do you think a good process, since there isn’t kind of a universal answer for everyone, is to, for example, consume a podcast like this, or consume books and then stack those ideas against what you already believe and what you want your actions to be. Like do you feel like there is a place for research and discovery that’s more that kind of like traditional goal setting nature? And then, yeah, pivots to, you know what I mean?
Derek Sivers
I do and yeah, I think when you’re seeking, if you’re feeling lost and not sure which direction you’re heading or what you’re after or how to do it. I can imagine you take in a bunch of information, you read a bunch of books, a bunch of articles, watch a bunch of videos, listen to a bunch of podcasts, and at some point you’re going to have to try it. See that it works and figure out what you’re after. You have to decide. And then my best advice is to stop with the fucking inputs. Stop with all the podcasts and all the books. Because to get things done, you need to feel congruent. You need to feel committed. You don’t want outside input when you already know exactly what you’re doing and where you’re going. I’m going to make a weird comparison here. The difference between an explorer and a leader. I thought of this business wise because I’m a bad leader in business because I’m an explorer. Metaphorically speaking, I would be like the guy that lands on foreign soil and just starts poking around, right? Like, “Well, let’s see what’s in here. Let’s go in this little bay. Oops. It’s not a bay, it’s a river. Let’s try that. What’s at the top of this hill? Oh, nothing’s at the top of this hill. Well, let’s go in here. Let’s look at this cave. Oh, it’s not a cave.”
Derek Sivers
You know, the explorer goes to an uncharted land and just starts poking around to see what’s what. But people who try to follow that explorer will be very frustrated. Like, “Ah, seriously, we just went up this whole hill and now you’re saying, never mind. Now we tried to go into this bay, but it’s not even a bay. What the hell, dude, where are you leading us?” And the answer? He’s not. He’s exploring. But then when an explorer finds a pretty little bay, that’s nice to live in, you know. Sorry, I’m thinking Akaroa. And then he sends a message back to the Queen, who then appoints a leader that says and because this is what a good leader needs to do, say, “Everybody, this is where we’re going. This is why, this is the beautiful future that awaits you at the finish line. We’re going on a straight line. Exactly here. Follow me. Follow the person in front of you. We’re all going exactly like this. We will be leaving at this hour. The journey will take this long. We will be arriving there. Here’s what you can expect.” And if somebody were to try to say to that leader halfway through, “Hey, man, what do you think about maybe going to South America instead?” It’s like, no, what are you talking about? Get out of my way.
Derek Sivers
Here’s where we’re going. I know where we’re going. That’s a good leader because that person is easy to follow. Okay, so that metaphor I just gave you is easy to understand. But now you’ve got to do that inside yourself as well. There are times when you’re exploring and “Hey man, just taking it all in and checking it out, I’m going to read everybody’s book. I’m going to listen to everybody’s podcast.” And at a certain point, if you want to get something done, you need to turn yourself into that leader of yourself and say, “Nope, this is where we’re going. This is why, it’s a straight line. I’m not open to any other inputs. I’ve decided this is where I’m going.” And then you just do that and you unsubscribe to all your podcasts. You stop reading random crap and you stop taking in new inputs because you know where you’re going. And if you want information, then it would be like the leader of that second journey, getting some information on the upcoming weather reports or something like that. But it’s not to change his mind on where they’re going. It’s just to know if they need to perhaps curve around a big storm or something like that. But how’s that for a metaphor?
Lucas
No. Yeah, I like that.
Derek Sivers
That was my first time saying all that. That was fun.
Lucas
Yeah. No, it was really good. I guess that’s just led me to some thinking about which kind of archetype I rather fall into. And I suppose there would be different that you kind of didn’t talk about.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. We could keep going. The cartographer.
Lucas
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Derek Sivers
The people rowing. You know, I dated a woman for a long time that she just wanted to be one of those people rowing. She’s like, “I don’t want to be a leader. I don’t want to be explorer.” Just tell me what to do. Just tell me to pull in the sheets and hoist the mainsail. She didn’t actually say that. But you know the shutting out inputs and putting your head down to do the work, is a hard decision to make. Especially once you’ve grown habituated to listening to podcasts every day and taking in new inputs all the time. I feel like the most lost people I hear from in my email inbox are the ones who are reading a lot of articles and listening to a lot of podcasts. Those people are the most lost, and I think those two things often go together well.
Lucas
Yeah, interesting. You know, something you kind of talk about in the book is how do you get a good gauge on the belief structure and the beliefs of other people based not really on what they say. You kind of talk about what they say kind of reflects that, but mostly like their actions and how they’re treating other people, how they’re responding to other people, how they’re responding to situations. So I was curious, you know, how do we start focusing on other people’s actions instead of kind of what we believe about them to be true. Especially when it comes to, you know, groups. I suppose an easy example would be thinking about the idea of like religious groups. We have associations of you know, they’re all like this or they all believe that, where in reality it’s probably much more diverse when it comes to the actual beliefs than we kind of have the opinion of. So, yeah. How do we start focusing? How do we pay attention to focusing on people’s actions more than what we believe that they believe?
Derek Sivers
That’s a fun question. I think it starts with just disbelieving everything they say. To just know, like we already do with politicians or salesman.
Lucas
Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.
Derek Sivers
“This new AI solution is sure to revolutionize your life.” You’re like, I know you’re full of shit. You’re trying to get me to buy the thing. I’m not going to believe anything you say right now, especially about some future upcoming tech and how it’s going to change my life. When somebody says that we already know, I’ll believe it when I see it. So I think we should do that for everybody in a way even well-meaning people. I knew somebody once, years ago, that when I first met her, one of the very first things she told me about herself, well, actually two things that she went to Harvard University. It’s kind of a joke how do you know somebody went to Harvard University? They’ll tell you in the first minute they meet you. There’s a lot of truth to that joke. So within the first minute, she told me she went to Harvard and then she told me some things about her character.
Derek Sivers
That she really emphatically said, like, this is who I am. I’m this kind of person. And I knew her for many years after that day we met and I looked back and I think, no, actually, that was totally wrong. You’re completely not that kind of person. And it took me years of yeah, it took me about two years of watching her in action, just kind of going through life before I really stopped believing what she told me that first day. And since then, I remember her as an example. A fair warning example of just because somebody tells you something, no matter how emphatically they tell you doesn’t mean it’s true. And in fact, they might not even know. I don’t think she knew herself. That what she was saying was not true. I think she really believed that she was that kind of person and identified as such, but it was completely not in alignment with her actions. And if you just look at her actions, you realize that you kind of just forget anything that people say because your actions reveal your values. One more example of this, me. I was talking with an old friend that I’ve known for a long time, and he said, “What are you doing?” And like, not in this instant, but like, in this phase in your life.
Derek Sivers
I said, “I really want to start this company idea I have. It’s called Muckwork. You know, I’ve been wanting to do it for ten years. I really, really want to do it.” And he just laughed. And he goes, “No you don’t.” I mean, “The fuck I don’t. I’m telling you, yes, I do. I really, really, really want to start this new company.” And he said, “No, you don’t.” I said, “What are you? Dude you can’t just say, no, you don’t. I’m telling you, I do.” And he said, “I’m telling you, you don’t. And I’m telling you that because I know you and I look at what you do.” He said, “I don’t really care what you tell me right now. Looking at your actions. You’ve been talking for ten years about starting this company. You’re not doing it. You don’t actually want to do it. I don’t care what you say. If you want to do it, you would do it.” And I went, “Whoa! Holy shit, that’s heavy dude. That was a great point.” So and that’s the answer to your question.
Lucas
Yeah. So, I am very aware of how much, how much time I’m using up and there’s some other stuff I want to get, but just--.
Derek Sivers
Oh, no, I’m good.
Lucas
Quickly touch on that point as well. How are you filtering those kind of that kind of feedback? Because we previously talked about how the the opinions of others often has quite a negative impact on us and our belief system, and kind of takes us out of alignment with what we want and what we want to do. But then you just gave an example of someone close to you other than yourself actually helping pull you, maybe closer in alignment to what you actually want. So yeah, how are you filtering that feedback? Is that just a fact of this is someone that was close to you and you really trust and you know that they’re thinking about these kind of things?
Derek Sivers
No. Because sometimes people really close to you that you trust are still wrong. Yeah in fact, just to balance it out. I’ll do one more quick example of that. Years ago, when I was in the music industry and I desperately, desperately wanted to be a successful musician, I met with a famous music industry lawyer. He said, “Derek, I know you. I’ve been watching you. I’m a fan of what you’re doing. Here’s what I think you should do. You need to start a record label. You need to find a few other artists here in New York City that are in a similar genre to you. You need to start a label, sign these three other artists, and then let me pitch you to the bigger labels as the boy with the Midas touch with your label. He said, “I can get you a seven figure deal if you’re able to do that for me, start a record label. It’s a way better strategy than me just getting you an artist deal on your own. So if you want to do that, I’m totally into it. I will help you all the way. I’ll be your guy.” And I walked out of his office thinking, like you could say that what he was saying was very encouraging, right? But Lucas had like the opposite effect on me. I just walked out of his office like, “Yeah. He’s right. That’s a better strategy. Fuck! Now I got to start a fucking label.” I’m sorry. I’m swearing a lot today.
Lucas
You okay. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
It makes an emphasis. It was sincere in the moment. Um. And so even though technically he was being encouraging, it had the opposite effect on me because I didn’t want to start a record label that did not align with my values at all. That didn’t align with my interests. I was not intrinsically motivated to do that. And so, unfortunately, I wasted the next two years of my life begrudgingly starting a record label because this smart guy said that’s a better strategy. And I’m sure for someone it was. But for me it wasn’t because. I didn’t like doing it. Yeah, I didn’t value it. So that’s again why it doesn’t matter what people say. You have to notice how it works for you. Does this perspective that saying I want to do something doesn’t mean I want to do it. Only my actions prove that I want to do it. Does that perspective charge me or drain me. Okay, then a lawyer said you should start a record label, and I can make you a big success if you do. Does that idea charge me or drain me? It’s going to be different for everybody. So you just have to notice in your own internal compass that when people present you with perspectives, because that’s all they are, they’re not true or false. They’re just a perspective. When somebody gives you a perspective, you just kind of run it through your compass to go, “Hmm, is this exciting me or draining me? Is this making me take the actions I want to take? Is this making me jump out of my chair and jump into action? Or is it making me want to curl into a ball and crawl into bed and sleep for ten years?” You just have to notice what’s working for you.
Lucas
And how do you determine whether that’s an issue with the idea or your belief around the idea. So, for example, I really like what you wrote about memories and how you can think about memories and reframing memories to kind of take lessons from them. Maybe not see yourself as kind of the victim or all the time actually be able to extract some value from things that you feel like might not have any value just by kind of reframing them, maybe seeing where you were in the wrong. But obviously negative memories have a bit of that kind of feeling that you just described, the feeling of, you know, when I think about a breakup, I do kind of want to curl up into bed and cry, but that’s potentially a really good opportunity for me to reframe that memory of the breakup and take a valuable lesson from it. Yeah. Even though it’s making me feel that negative feeling. So yeah, I guess is that just because it’s something from the past or you know, how would you kind of respond to that?
Derek Sivers
Dude, that’s a really, really good question. I’ll just use those same two examples in hindsight that I could have in that moment when the music industry lawyer said, start a label. You’re right. I could have, in that moment said, like this feeling is currently making me want to curl into a ball and go to sleep. I could have reframed it in such a way that I was excited about it. I didn’t, but I could have. Right I could have stacked up reasons why this is the way and this is going to be great. And I’m going to do this 100% with enthusiasm. So I guess it’s a choice. You know, I reframe the past more when I’m trying to make the best of a kind of unavoidable situation. So okay, I’ll pick a dumb example. Right now I would like to be living in Dubai. That sounds weird for me to say, but Dubai, if you get past all of the stupid, glitzy Instagram hashtag millionaire bullshit. Underneath the surface, it’s the biggest cultural melting pot I’ve ever seen in my life. You know, the most melted pot. It’s the biggest variety of cultures I’ve ever seen in one place in my life. It is the bar in Star Wars, and oh, my God, I would love to be living there right now. But more than that, I love my boy who is here in school in Wellington, New Zealand, and his mother works at the Beehive at the government, and that’s that. This is where we are. So I have so this is what I’ve got to work with.
Derek Sivers
Either I, you know, decide to be a bad dad and goodbye, kid. Good luck. I feel like being in Dubai. Well, I’m not going to do that. So no, my kid is my top priority. So then I have to reframe for myself. How am I going to make the best of this situation. There are few options. I could just say, “Oh well, never mind.” Or I could start spending two hours a day on the phone on video calls with people in Dubai. I could start to work remotely with the Dubai Cultural Center. I could start a podcast like you and interview people from around the world and um, and say, damn it, I’m going to make my own Dubai right here on my microphone with talking to people from Kenya and Uruguay and Ukraine every day. Or I could just be patient and do something else for six years until my boys out of school. These are the the reframing options that I’m very deliberately trying to reframe to make the best of my current situation that is like a kind of unavoidable thing. And I guess it would be the same if, you know, I was in a car accident and couldn’t walk anymore or whatever, I’d find a way to reframe that to make the best of the situation. So sorry I’ve tangent on your original question about how do you know whether to reframe something or just disbelieve it or believe it and reframe around it or disbelieve it. And that’s a really, really good question. I guess it’s just a matter of what works for you, huh?
Lucas
Yeah and I suppose, you know, it’s all well and good to to talk about it in this kind of calm moment, but in moments of tension it’s hard. It’s hard to make that decision. It’s hard when the emotional pressures on, it is hard to like reframe. So I could definitely see, you know, in that moment of you getting the opportunity, you should start your own record label, feeling that emotion, even if something that happened to you now, you might not have that kind of habit of checking your actions, reframing your actions so ingrained that you might make the same decision, and you would still have to look back on it with the reframe as opposed to doing it.
Derek Sivers
Right. You know, you’re making me realize something. God, it’s funny you know, I tell you this random story about this music industry lawyer from decades ago, and I haven’t thought about it much since. And then you question me on it. And you know, what I’m just realizing is, in that moment, I was being that ship captain leader. It was like, damn it, this is where I’m going. I know where I’m going. I’m being a successful musician. That’s what I’m doing. And in a way, this music industry lawyer was saying, you know, it would be smarter if you steered down to Argentina. And actually, come to think of it, I don’t fault myself for saying, “No, that’s not the path I’m on.” I was in leader mode, not explorer mode. I was mid journey towards where I was going and it didn’t work out. I didn’t get to be a successful artist, but yeah, that’s funny. The way that you asked me about it just then made me think, “Oh, man, was I an idiot for not just reframing that in the moment. I could have just reframed my enthusiasm for it and just gotten excited about it.” But no, now I’m remembering I was in an absolute head down monomaniacal, single focused, laser focused, blinders on, driven state of mind at the time. And this guy was trying to pull me off the path.
Derek Sivers
Except, see, dammit, I let myself get pulled off the path, which I felt conflicted about the whole time. And he told me to go to Argentina. I just ended up in the middle of in the middle of the Pacific. Yeah. Totally astray. Anyway, God, sorry to harp on about my own, like, single example, but I guess it can be a metaphor, then that you should be constantly testing these perspectives against your own enthusiasm. Which is measured by the actions that you’re taking. Again, like me saying, I want to start a company but not actually doing it. Let your actions be the real measure of what’s working or not. If something’s actually making you jump into action then that’s a good goal. By the way, I don’t know if you’ve heard this before. The most beautiful definition of a good goal. A good goal is whatever makes you jump into action now. A bad goal, no matter how lofty or impressive or admirable it is, if it doesn’t improve your current actions right now, it’s not a good goal. The whole point of a goal is to improve your current actions. Because goals are just predictions. They’re just projections. They’re imagination. They only exist to improve your current actions. And that’s how we should measure them.
Lucas
That’s interesting. That’s very-- yeah, I don’t know. It’s kind of very reminiscent, I suppose of a bit of Buddhism, a bit of Zen, a bit of power of now stuff, you know, thinking a lot about what’s happening in the current moment and not trying to project too much into the future.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. I mean, but that’s just whether you label it as Buddhism or not. I don’t, I just think of it as that distinguishing between what’s in your head versus what’s real. You know, your memories, the past that’s your memories and what we call the future that’s your imagination. That’s like your predicting. Anything you describe that’s in the future. You’re trying to guess and predict and imagine and estimate what will happen. The only thing that’s really under your control is your current actions and how you’re choosing to think.
Lucas
Yeah, I suppose my mind went to kind of the Buddhism or the Zen school of thinking immediately because it’s kind of the only group that has awareness as one of their key principles at least that I’m like kind of aware of. Because yeah, it seems like what you’re talking about kind of does require a lot of awareness just about how you’re reacting to things on kind of a more visceral level. You know what I mean. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. I feel like before we let this subject drop, we should mention one other scenario. Where if somebody tells you something that even though you catch yourself resisting against it at first. Something in you recognizes this could actually work really well for you, if you make this change. You know what I mean? Sorry I’m kind of gesturing with my hands to say, like, there’s this distant thing in the future. Like, you know what Lucas just told me something that I didn’t like hearing, and I’m resisting against it. But I can see that if what Lucas is saying is true, or if I accept what he’s saying is true, if I make this change in myself, where he’s describing going is actually where I want to be. So if I can just rethink this and get over my resistance to this idea, it does actually align with what I want. I’m going to give a concrete example of that, for decades I’ve described myself as an introvert and out of the blue, some German guy emailed me and said basically, you should doubt that. He said, “That’s not wise of you to pigeonhole yourself like that. You contain many aspects, and I’ll bet that there are times when you’re an extrovert, and there are times when you actually need to be and want to be an extrovert temporarily. But if you’ve defined yourself as an introvert, you’re not going to be open to those moments.”
Derek Sivers
And my first reaction to this email from this German guy was, “Fuck you, like the fuck are you to tell me who I am? You don’t know me.” I think I just sent him a polite thank you, but it sat with me for a couple days after that. Like if what he’s saying is true. Like this gesture with my hands, right. What he’s describing is here, and I’m having a resistance to it because, “No, damn it, I’m an introvert. That’s who I am. I don’t like extroverts. They’re noisy.” So I was resisting that idea, but it’s like, actually he’s talking about un categorizing myself. Stop pigeonholing myself. It took a couple days for me to rethink that. But then I did and I reframed it to myself because I liked where it was going.
Lucas
Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Oh, man.
Derek Sivers
It’s a fun subject, isn’t it? Sorry. By the way, anybody, if you’re listening to this, when Lucas and I first started talking about doing this podcast, I said, “Look, I’m not trying to promote my book. I mean, it’s not even 100% done yet. It’s like 95% done. I’m not here to sell another 20 copies of my book. I don’t care about that.” But this is the only thing on my mind lately. So it’s like, I’d be happy to be on your podcast if you don’t mind talking about this thing, because it’s been filling my head for two years. It’s just such a fun subject.
Lucas
Yeah, it really is. I would love to-- just because I enjoyed it so much in the book. Obviously if you’re comfortable, I would love if you shared the story that you did in the book about the car accident and how it’s impacted kind of your thoughts about the truth and the past. It was such an impactful moment and just kind of wanted to hear it in person, I suppose.
Derek Sivers
Sure. Hey, sing me that song. Yeah. So when I was 17, I was living in Chicago, and I haven’t seen them here in New Zealand. Do you know what a yield sign is?
Lucas
Yeah, I know it from video games.
Derek Sivers
Okay, okay. So it means the other lane has the right of way. So almost like we could put a stop sign here, but instead we’re just going to put a yield sign for you, which means slow down and look both ways, because any car coming the other way gets first priority. So at the end of my street was a yield sign. And one day I wasn’t paying attention. And I blew through it and the other car smashed into me. And both cars were just totaled. And I was thinking more of myself in the moment. But they told me the next day that the woman that I hit, that I broke her back and she’ll never walk again. I was like, “Oh, shit.” And but this was just like a couple of months before I went to off to college, to university and so I went away, moved to Boston for university, and it was sitting with me for the longest time that, oh my God, some woman back in Chicago will never walk again, because I hit her that day. It kind of really messed me up. And it sat with me for so many years that in my mid 30s, after 17 years or 18 years, I was back in my hometown and I looked her up using the old fashioned White Pages phone book.
Derek Sivers
I found her address and I just showed up at her door and I knocked on her door and she answered and I said, “Hi, my name is Derek. I’m the kid that hit you with a car 18 years ago.” And I started sobbing. It was like 18 years of pent up emotions about how I had wrecked this woman’s life. And she said, “Oh, sweetie, sweetie, you know, come on, it’s okay here. Come on inside.” And she walked me to her living room, walked, and it took me a minute to process. I was like, wait but I thought. And so she started explaining how she had been really overweight and really overeating. And don’t worry, honey, that car crash was one of the best things that happened to me. It made me turn my health around, and I got my eating under control because she said, you know, especially it was like meaningful to me that the reason I hit you is because I was eating. And I’m so sorry that I put you through all this just because I was eating. I was like, wait, she’s apologizing for hitting me? And I said, ‘No, no, no, like I hit you.’ And she said, ‘Sweetie, no, I hit you. Like, oh my God.’ And then she started crying. She’s like, “Oh my God, all these years you thought you hit me?” And she said, “No, no.”
Derek Sivers
And then this time she started crying and like, wiped her tears away. She goes, “It’s so stupid, these stories.” And it just made me realize how we have one interpretation based on incomplete information and a misinterpretation. And that’s what we call the past. We make one story about it based on some incomplete stuff. We latch on to a story and we repeat it. We say, “This is the past, this is what happened.” And usually we go tell our sob story to anyone who listen. You know, “My mother abandoned me. My father abused me. I came from a bad family. I was unpopular in school. All the kids made fun of me.” I think of how many people say all the kids in school made fun of me versus how few times that’s actually true. Occasionally there is a kid in school that everybody makes fun of, but for mostly no. It’s probably like once or let’s say twice. Somebody made fun of you and you interpreted that as everybody is always making fun of me, and you hold on to that for decades as your identity. I’m the loser that everyone makes fun of. You hold on to this like it’s the past. But you know, anybody who’s been to a high school reunion 10 or 20 years later often finds out that their stories about the past are not true.
Lucas
Wow. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. That’s like a stand up bit waiting to happen in the end there. How everyone always says that they got made fun of by everyone in school. If the statistics worked out, everyone would just be making fun of everyone else all the time. Because of the amount that happens. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
A school full of punching bags. Yeah, yeah. And and maybe like three bullies. Right. Three bullies and 297 punching bags.
Lucas
Yeah, Cool. Well, we just we have a little bit of time left, so I just want to do some quick fire questions, if that’s all right. Before we finish off.
Derek Sivers
I will do quick answers. Yeah, minus stories and tangents.
Lucas
So so many questions. I could keep talking about it all day. But how about this one, how do you feel like you’re going to--. This is gonna be hard to do as a quick fire. How do you feel like you’re going to communicate and teach the ideas that you’re kind of formulating in this book and your previous books to your son?
Derek Sivers
Oh, just in little drips ongoing. They come out in incidents in everyday life when he gets in a fight with another kid, or he’s disappointed that something didn’t happen or sees a situation where somebody is in need of help. These little tiny lessons come up in just little everyday life, in the moment. It’s what schools like to call project based learning, applying lessons to a project instead of keeping them abstract and like, “Okay, chapter seven, now we’re going to study calculus.” Instead, applying them to real world situations. So that’s what I’ve been doing with him since he was two.
Lucas
So you’re not reading the “Useful Not True” draft as a bedtime story or anything like that.
Derek Sivers
No, no, no. I’ve tried things like that, not with my own books, but with other philosophical things. And I’ve just found that he remembers them when they’re applied to things that matter to him right now.
Lucas
Yeah. You talk about keeping keeping a journal, a notebook. Do you personally keep kind of like, a private journal full of your beliefs? And what would be an example of something that you’ve written in there recently?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I journal like a motherfucker. I journal for at least an hour a day, sometimes three hours a day if I’m going through a big fork in the road. I don’t have a separate place where I keep beliefs. They’re just intertwined, they’re liquid, they’re constantly questioned. The only one that’s just like-- I mean, no matter how much I questioned it, it’s not going to change. It’s what I mentioned earlier where it’s like my boy is my top priority. Every now and then a friend will say, “Well, Derek, if you want to be in Dubai so badly, why don’t you just go to Dubai? He’ll understand. He’ll be fine without you.” I’m like, “Absolutely not.” I’m not going to abandon my boy just because I’m curious to meet people from Pakistan in Dubai right now. He is my top priority, other values are ever changing and so they just weave their way through my daily journaling kind of thoughts as I’m just looking at my life. You asked for a specific example. I’m yearning to get back to programming right now. I’m starting to learn a new programming language called Go.
Derek Sivers
I’ve been programming in a language called Ruby for 24 years or something. And I’m so excited about this programming language. And many times a day I have to stop myself and just, like, get back to finishing this book so I can launch the book. So then I can turn my attention to other things. And so that’s like a daily belief thing where I believe the most important thing is for me to finish this book first so I can give my whole hearted or full attention to something else afterwards. Yeah, these beliefs can just be little daily, moment to moment things. I like that you can use a belief to help you get out of bed in the morning and use a different belief, maybe even a conflicting belief, to help you go to sleep at night. You know, you get up in the morning going, “It’s really important that I get out of bed right now.” And at night you say, “It’s really important that I go to sleep right now.” These are conflicting beliefs, but we use them at different times. So it’s like that with anything.
Lucas
Right? So as you say in the book, what’s the best instrument situation.
Derek Sivers
Yes. Yeah. There’s no right answer to what’s the best instrument because they’re all like instruments in an orchestra. The different philosophies that you could be living by, stoicism versus hedonism versus whatever ism. They’re just like instruments in the orchestra. And you, as the composer and conductor, can choose to play two at the same time. You can choose to let all of them wait while you play this one for a while, and then bring the rest in later. Yeah, it’s up to you. There’s no right answer.
Lucas
What’s the reason that you recorded a draft audiobook?
Derek Sivers
Oh, the way that I write is almost like song lyrics. I choose words a lot on how they sound and their rhythm. There’s a lot of internal alliteration, and I make sure that this would be interesting if I was sitting down over a beer with a friend and saying this stuff. I make sure that it stays interesting that I’m not droning on for too long. So the whole way that I write is I put down some sentences, I edit them, I kind of do it visually, and then quite often I stop and I read the whole thing out loud, and I notice where I’m tripping over some words, or I’m noticing that this sounds redundant, looked okay on the page, but once I’m saying it out loud, it’s kind of the same thing as I said six lines ago. All right, so I’m going to cut this. So yeah, reading things out loud is a big way that I test the writing.
Lucas
In your writing and also just speaking to you now, you use a lot of analogies and examples and comparisons and personal stories. Is that how you think and and how you kind of have a lot of your ideas, or is that just how you communicate?
Derek Sivers
Nobody’s ever asked me that before. Thanks. No, it’s very deliberate. My previous book, my newest released book is called “How to Live” and it is very abstract. There is not a single story anywhere in it, and that’s actually closer to how I really think, because it makes sense in my head. But I find that when I’m communicating that to others, the ideas stick better if you have visual specific stories. So with this book called “Useful Not True”, I deliberately set out to do the opposite of what I did last time and fill it full of little visual anecdote parables.
Lucas
How long have the ideas from “Useful Not True” kind of been ruminating around because, you know, touch touching on your last book. Kind of the-- I don’t want to call it a gimmick because it’s very clear that it’s more than a gimmick, but there’s conflicting ideas in there. There’s different beliefs, there’s different concepts that are presented. Yeah in the same way that you’re talking about how you can kind of pick your beliefs like you would an instrument in an orchestra, you can pick the ideas that you think are going to be the best for the life that you’re trying to craft. So how long have you kind of had this understanding or been thinking about these kind of ideas that have come out in this most recent book?
Derek Sivers
A long, long time, but I just hadn’t put it into these words before. So “Useful Not True” could be seen as like the prequel to my last book, “How to Live” My book, “How to Live” to people who know my stuff, it probably seemed like it was very out of the blue, apropos of nothing. But it was actually an example of how I think of beliefs and philosophies, as none of them are necessarily true. They’re just ones that you choose for a purpose, like a tool in the toolbox. But I’d never explicitly said that before. So for years and years and years, whatever how long I’ve been writing books now, 13 years I’ve been writing books and I’ve been writing articles longer than that. I would constantly share a perspective. Like my first book called “Anything You Want”. It’s all about saying that a business is not about making money. A business is a place where you get to make your own little utopia, where in this little world called your business, you can make it anything you want. You can make the rules whatever you want them to be. You can make the world the way you wish it should be.
Derek Sivers
Think it should be in this little thing that you’re calling a business. That’s what it’s really for, hopefully it profits too. But really, first and foremost, it should be a place to make your little utopia. So somebody could look at that and say, “That’s not true, you’re full of shit. That’s not what business is.” And I’d say, “I don’t care if it’s not true. It’s useful for me to believe this. It leads me to better decisions and actions. It leads me to more creative solutions to believe this. It helps me be more customer focused.” It helps me in this way, that way. And in fact, when I look back at all of my books, they’re just me sharing perspectives that I find useful. I’m never stating them to be true, even though people might think that I am. But I’m just saying, here’s how I think about it. Kind of saying this perspective has worked for me. And then my last book called “How to Live” took that to a gimmicky extreme. And my newer one then this “Useful Not True” book kind of goes back like a prequel and says, actually, okay, let me walk you through this thought process.
Lucas
Yeah. Interesting.
Derek Sivers
It’s fun. You know I got to tell you that I sound now like I’m talking like an author. But even that was a reframing for me. It was just like, I don’t know, five, six years ago, I still thought of myself as an entrepreneur and a programmer that occasionally writes down what I’ve learned and shares it with the world. And it was about 5 or 6 years ago I realized that all of my heroes are authors. And that just made me realize what direction I was facing. It really helps to notice who you look up to. Who do you most admire? Well, that says something about you, that says something about what you value most. And I realize that all the people I admire most were authors, because they were the ones generating these ideas that changed my life. I’m not so impressed with somebody that made money, whatever, you know. But these people generating the ideas, oh, fuck, these guys are my heroes. And that’s when I realized, yeah, this is what I want to do. I want to be the guy sitting there generating really interesting insights. And in that moment something flipped in me and I made it my top priority. And now I’m so into it. I’m really just nerding out on the craft of writing the best little sentences I can.
Lucas
But still learning, still learning a little bit of Go on the side, right?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, you know, what’s funny because of what I just said, I’ve thought I should outsource the programming. I shouldn’t do the programming anymore. And a few times I’ve actually tried, I’ve even started hiring a programmer one time, even like started to hire somebody and got two weeks into it and paid her for like two weeks. And then I had to say, “I’m sorry.” I just like programming so much. I love it, I miss it, I miss it the way that, like you miss your beloved golden retriever when you haven’t seen him for a couple of weeks. I just miss it. It’s something I really love doing. To me, programming is philosophical, but that’s another subject.
Lucas
Yeah, yeah. Let’s not, let’s not. We’re, you know, we’re we’re doing--
Derek Sivers
You wanted quick answers.
Lucas
Let’s not dive down that one.
Derek Sivers
No, we won’t.
Lucas
You talk about judging the contents of kind of beliefs, not the box.
Derek Sivers
Right.
Lucas
I think in a lot of ways, that’s how I want people to view this podcast. Yeah. You kind of talk about also in the book, people and celebrities and leaders and stuff, how there’s this kind of trend to almost religiously follow everything they say, but then they make a misstep or they are exposed for like not telling the truth in some area and with, you know, all everything they’ve ever said gets kind of thrown out. And yeah, I think I want people to view this podcast in that kind of light where I could make a misstep or I could have a guest on that’s, like, not so informed. Or I could just do, like, a bad job or something like that. But that doesn’t kind of invalidate any of the ideas of the people who I have on that are really gifted or the great work I’ve done previously. And so, yeah, what would you suggest? How would I be able to communicate that to people and understandable and kind of digestible way like, like don’t just believe me for the sake of believing me. Don’t just believe the people I have on for the sake of believing the people I have on, like actually take some time and question it and become a little more disconnected with, I guess, the dynamic that’s going on.
Derek Sivers
Actually, the story I told earlier of the explorer versus the leader. I think if you frame what you’re doing as exploring, not leading, I think that’s what’s key. When somebody saying, “I’m a leader, follow me.” And then when that leader screws up, we think, “I’m not going to follow you anymore.” But if somebody just says, “Don’t follow me, I’m just exploring. I’m just exploring. We’re going to explore this and that, left and right, up and down. We’re going to explore everything we can. Don’t follow me. I’m just exploring. And I’ll share with you what I’m finding in my explorations.” Then if you find something that somebody doesn’t like, that’s okay. You could just say it’s like you’re tasting everything on the menu.
Lucas
Yeah. Interesting. That’s really interesting. Well, that worked out perfectly considering we talked about that earlier. Yeah. Okay well, I mean, I could talk about this stuff all day, but let’s call it there for now. I’ll ask you one final question, which I asked everyone that I have on the show. From your perspective, because you’re so articulate and not only with your writing, but with your kind of interview style, your words and your speaking as well. As well as being very experienced when it comes to everything. You’re just a talented dude.
Derek Sivers
Too much build up. What’s the question?
Lucas
Well, what would you say about kind of this podcast process with me? What constructive criticism or feedback would you give me to improve the episodes that I’m doing? The experience recording, anything like that in the future, moving forward.
Derek Sivers
If I had criticism and you asked directly like that, I would give it. But honestly, I think you’ve fucking nailed it. I think you asked amazing questions. I think you kept a great pace. I like your Kiwi casual style is so refreshing. When I’ve been around a lot of Americans who have this kind of, “Hey, everybody, listen to my podcast. They all sound like announcers.” And I love your real, more relatable dude persona. So no, I have no suggestions, except for the tiny technicality of that our recording time at 2:00 or 1:00 or whatever, you know, that I still didn’t have a Riverside link to use. But that’s that was on me a bit. I should have--
Lucas
Don’t bring that up on the podcast. Don’t bring that up.
Derek Sivers
Hey. You asked. There we go. But actually, you know, if the audience hears that, that’s good, because I want them to know that’s honestly my only critique. I love your style of interviewing, and I really appreciate it. So thank you.
Lucas
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for your time. And yeah, also for you know, giving me access to your book really. It was really, really cool to read it. And I listen to the audio book a couple times as well, just to make sure I really soaked it in. I’m excited. Is there a date locked in for when it’s coming out yet or how--
Derek Sivers
I was writing it up and until five minutes before we hit record just now, and five minutes from now, I think I’m going to be back to writing it. I’m still just making those final little improvements. I’ve made probably a thousand changes since the version you saw that was just a few weeks ago.
Lucas
Yeah, it was interesting to see kind of the difference even in just the audiobook and the version you sent me, I think they were only a maybe a week apart, a few days apart, and there’s already sections moved around and.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, constant tweaks. Yeah.
Lucas
Well, yeah. Thank you. Anything you want people to go check out any plugs or?
Derek Sivers
Email me just, also because I don’t know that many people in New Zealand, I’ve been here mostly as a full time dad and my kid gets all my spare attention. But he’s almost 13 now and is needing a little less of my attention. So anybody in New Zealand or Wellington listening to this, email me, go to my website, sive/rs, and email me and say hello.
Lucas
Awesome. Well, yeah. Thank you so much for being on the show today.
Derek Sivers
Thank you.