Unfolding Show
host: Marko Pfann
book release timeline, reframing beliefs, science vs. truth, usefulness of beliefs, relationship between belief and action
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watch: (download)
Transcript:
Marko
Derek, first question, when is it coming out? When is it due?
Derek Sivers
I’m actually still writing it. I’m adding some last minute touches. In fact, until five minutes ago my alarm went off telling me that I was about to record with Marko. Up until that alarm went off, I was sitting there writing this chapter about a gorilla, and suddenly it’s like, oh, time to record. Okay, pause. So I’m adding some finishing touches, but it’ll be done soon. By the way, that’s kind of funny, introducing me as a thinker. I like that as if that’s what distinguishes me from other people. Not like the rest of you people that don’t think. Here’s someone who does.
Marko
Well, maybe it’s not the thinking that separates you, but I think it does because you have a very unique way of thinking and we should get into this. But what really separates you from the rest of us is that you can articulate your thoughts very well, actually very precise and in a very engaging way. And what I loved about your book and you say this in the beginning, you said in the beginning of the book is it’s about framing, right? It’s about reframing the experience. Everything we take in and after listening to the book today. It makes so much sense because I believe this is something the world really needs at this point. It’s fascinating how you talk about what’s useful, what’s true, how you make the distinction, and not everything is true. Also, you get into science and then telling people not even science is true. It’s just a concept, right? Those are all concepts. But I want to hear you talking about the book. So what made you choose this specific topic?
Derek Sivers
Ah. I have some beliefs that I choose as a corrective measure, meaning like we all know the experience that say, if you are bowling or if you’re playing Frisbee, that you try to roll the ball directly at the middle pin, but every time you do, it curves to the left. So you think, “Okay, well, I’ve tried this three times now to aim at the middle and it keeps curving to the left. So what I’m going to have to do is I’m going to aim to the right, even though this feels wrong, I’m going to aim over there.” But then the ball curves back into the middle and it works. So it feels wrong at first, but it works. You aim away from the center and then it corrects for your bias, you know. So yeah, I do the same thing with my thoughts. So sometimes I found that I was, for example, thinking that men and women were so different from each other. But I was thinking that way a little too much. I was thinking that women were too different, and I found out that I was wrong, that the differences between men, and the differences between women are greater than the general differences between men and women. So I thought, I need to correct my thinking. So kind of like bowling.
Derek Sivers
I would choose to believe that men and women are exactly the same. Kind of like aiming away from the ball, right? Because I know that this is going to correct my thoughts to bring it back to where it needs to be. So I would share my thoughts saying, I choose to believe that men and women are exactly the same. And somebody in the comments would always say, “But that’s not true. That’s not true. They’re different.” I’d say, “I don’t care if it’s true or not. This is useful for me to believe.” And I’d try to explain, “You know, I choose my beliefs because they’re useful, not because they’re true.” And I had been explaining that for a few years. And then I thought, well, this could be an interesting subject to write a book about because I don’t have all the answers. I just thought it was an interesting subject to learn more about. So for the last two years I went and read like 30 or 40 books about religion. I read the Bible cover to cover. I learned about five different religions. I read six different books about cognitive behavioral therapy and five books about pragmatism and nihilism and all these other books all curious about this subject of choosing beliefs because they’re useful, not because they’re true.
Marko
But that’s not what those books usually teach you, right? Those books, they talk about the beliefs. I want to understand. I want to get into the context, why do we need this? Why do people need to understand that everything we believe, everything we believe to be true. Why should we reframe this? Why should we not believe that everything is true?
Derek Sivers
Okay. When you think of something as true? It’s closed. It’s done. There’s no questioning it. It’s just a fact. And that’s that. That’s just true. You stop thinking about it, and it’s when somebody says, “Well, it’s not necessarily true.” That opens it and now you can consider other possibilities. As soon as you say that something is not necessarily true, it invites you to consider what else might be another way of looking at it. The reason this is so important is because I think a lot of us are suffering emotional damage thinking that say somebody in our past wronged us, “What that person did to me was wrong, and they should pay for what they’ve done.” Or “I live in Poland, and it sucks. There’s nothing to do here. There’s no opportunity. This is a terrible place. I would be happy if I lived in Paris. There’s no way I can be happy here in Poland.” And they just think that that’s just true. And the whole point of this book is to ask you to take all of these things you think of as just true and open them up and say, that’s not necessarily true. And once you say not necessarily true, it helps you creatively consider other ways to look at the situation and ideally choose a way to look at it that works better for you.
Marko
So in some sense, those beliefs we think are true they limit us.
Derek Sivers
Yes. Unless you’ve chosen it on purpose. Okay. Like you say, for example being a good dad to my kids is the most important thing in my life, and that’s just true. I’m just choosing that. I’m not questioning that, that is closed. I’m closing that on purpose. That will not be questioned and doubted every day. Because this works for me. It’s congruent with my belief. It’s a useful belief. It makes me a good dad. It makes me unconflicted. And so I’m good with this one. I’m keeping that one closed. But there’s another one that says it’s important that I have a lot of subscribers on my YouTube channel, because if I don’t, then I’m a loser and you go, “Hmm, maybe I need to question that one. That one doesn’t work for me. That one’s making me stressed out. I’m not sleeping very well. In fact, maybe I’m not being a very good dad because I keep checking my YouTube hits.” Or something like that. So you open that up and you say, maybe that’s not necessarily true and you question it.
Marko
And a lot of the people out there will now question this theory. I’m 100% with you, but let’s quickly let’s just, for the sake of the debate, get into this. If we always question or we frame what we think is the truth. Then there will not be any truth anymore.
Derek Sivers
It depends where you want to draw the line. Okay, so I draw the line. Okay. Wait. Sorry, sorry, sorry. The very first page of the book. I say, “First, let me be clear. Since the book is called useful, not true that whenever I say true, what I mean is like absolutely, objectively, necessarily, empirically, observably true. Always, everywhere for everyone, at all times.” That’s to me the definition of true, which means it’s not only in the mind, because if it’s in the mind, then somebody else’s mind could think something different. So thoughts themselves are never true. To me the only thing that I consider to be true are those objective, observable, empirical things that an alien from outer space could see in a telescope. An octopus and an ant would both agree. You know that’s true. To me, those are the things that are non-negotiable in life. The physical things. But I was talking with somebody who’s Buddhist that says, “No, no, no, Derek, even those things aren’t true. It’s all an illusion.” I say, “Okay, well, good for you if that’s the way you want to see the world. And if that works for you, that’s great.” For me I draw the line at the physical observables. And those to me are true. You know, somebody says, “Vaccines don’t work.” Well, we can look under a microscope and you can see the introduction of a vaccine, and you can see the virus, you can see it during an attack this and then go away. You could see, it’s observable. We don’t need to debate about that. Or somebody says, “Hey, my politician actually won that election even though everybody says she didn’t. You know, I think she did.” But you can count the votes. That’s a physical reality. You can see how many people voted. So I’m not trying to suggest that we deny facts. But I think it’s about distinguishing the difference between what’s actually a fact and what’s just our interpretations and our meanings that we put onto things which those are never absolutely objectively observably true for everyone, always, everywhere.
Marko
We still believe in them. So just a quick example my audiences are mostly creative people, and there’s this one big belief in the industry that great work sells itself. So obviously you want to have great work. I mean that’s a given, you have to deliver quality work. But it’s not necessarily the ticket to the big money or the ticket to success right. Got a lot of more things into this. Like you writing a book, the book itself won’t sell itself. You’re going to market it. You’re going to talk about it, you’re going to promote it. Those are things that come into this. And what I’ve seen with my clients a lot is-- and I’m going to come to a question in a moment. What I’ve seen a lot with my clients is that oftentimes what holds them back are simple things, simple things that they think I can’t reach out to that person. That person is way up or way too big for me. He’s way up the chain, he will never talk to me. Things like that. Or I could never propose that. Who am I to ask someone on the podcast? Things like that. What would what would be your answer to that dilemma? That people hold themselves back because they think you cannot do that.
Derek Sivers
It’s a beautiful example. That’s wonderful. That’s a wonderful example of something to stop and question and say, “Well, hold on, maybe that’s not true. Maybe I would be doing a favor to this famous podcaster if I were to give them my music. Maybe it would be the best thing that they’ve heard forever. Maybe I’d be doing a favor to this film director by contacting them and showing my amazing camera skills.” There are ways to reframe anything, and then you just have to know yourself enough to notice what works for you. That the way we judge these beliefs is not by whether they’re absolutely or true or not. Because, as we’ve seen, I mean, unless it’s a concrete physical reality, you know I’m snapping my fingers right now. Okay that’s true. You know, what does it mean that I’m snapping my fingers? Well, that’s up to you. Except for the few physical realities that aren’t really negotiable. Your perspectives should only be judged by how they influence your actions. If you believe that the great artwork that you have created should sell itself, and if that changes your actions in such a way that you create it, and then you sit back and do nothing and wait for the world to respond. That might not be working for you. You might find that you’re constantly disappointed and angry that the world isn’t treating you the way you want to be.
Marko
Tell me more about the relationship between belief and action.
Derek Sivers
Right. So your actions are created from your emotions. You believe that it’s important to get out of bed in the morning, so you do. You believe it’s important to go to sleep at night, to get enough sleep. We believe it’s important to get a good night’s sleep. That’s why we don’t stay up all night. So your beliefs choose your actions. So knowing that you can choose beliefs that affect your actions the way you want them to be affected, like say you’re just imagining that, okay, you I loved your example, great art should sell itself. You choose to believe that. And then you realize that’s making you do nothing, that’s making you angry, that the world is not beating down your door. So you try on a different belief. You think, “Okay, well, it’s my belief that I’m going to create the best work I can and then it’s my duty to help the world experience this great art. I need to make sure that everybody on earth is benefited. As many people as possible are benefited from this great work of art I’ve created. I will be making their lives better, so it’s my duty to put myself into every public place and even go do some silly things and make a spectacle of myself because I’d be doing the world a favor. Because ultimately they’d be getting my art. So I’m willing to look like a fool for a minute.”
Marko
In service of the art right? Your duty, your responsibility is to make sure everyone sees what you’ve created. So that’s so much better. I mean, that’s just one, two.
Derek Sivers
I mean that’s just one, you know, you could think of ten more and just see how they work for you. And one of these ideas, one of these perspectives will help you take the actions that you know you should be taking or one of them will just click for you and you go, “Yeah.”
Marko
Because it makes you feel different, right, you have a different emotion.
Derek Sivers
And that drives your actions, you feel yourself jumping out of your chair instead of sinking into it you know. This is the difference between Richard Branson and a lot of other entrepreneurs. I read his autobiography and he said, “I’m actually a naturally very shy person.: But he said, “In the early days of Virgin Records the company was not doing well, and some local newspaper did a story about me. And as soon as there is a face behind the company sales took off and suddenly everybody was interested. Before that, we were just another faceless company that nobody’s interested in. As soon as they said it’s Richard Branson, they put my face behind it. Now, everybody wanted to get involved with the company.” He said, “I personally don’t like being public, but I do it because I care about my company and I think we’re doing really good work, and I want this good work we’re doing to get out to the public.” So he said, “I do these ridiculous publicity things for the sake of my company.” And so it’s just he just chose a different belief. He’s like, I’m naturally shy, but I’m going to do this thing I don’t like because it’s going to get my company out to the world. It was just a different way of seeing it and choosing different beliefs which affected his actions.
Marko
And I love how simple this is, right. So when people believe they have to change, they think it’s a big act. They have to do all those things. They have to create, I don’t know a new pattern, a new whatever, new routines or whatever, but actually it’s just a decision to believe in a different story, to believe something different, to believe to be the person. And then automatically you get a different emotion, which drives a totally different action, but that you get a different result, which reinforces the story you just started to tell yourself right. And someone who could question now, is that true or is it false?
Derek Sivers
So that’s why, you know, hence the second part of the title, you know, “Useful Not True”. The point is there will always be someone to tell you, “But MarKo, that’s not true. This thing you’re telling me it’s not true, I can prove something against it.” And if you believe that the criteria we should be basing our beliefs on is whether it’s true or not. Well, then you’ll never be congruent because thoughts always have an argument against them. They’re never necessarily true or not. That’s why in the book I talk about religion for just a chapter or two because that definition of true is being, you know, absolutely objectively observably true for everyone, everywhere, always. Means no religious beliefs can be true, because anyone who believes a certain religion knows that there are other people that believe a different religion. So either half the world is wrong. Well, actually, let’s say there is no religion that most of the world believes. So let’s say either most of the world is wrong and you’re right, or the reason you have your religious beliefs is because this works for you, that this makes you a better person. It makes you happy. It makes you not afraid to die. It guides your actions and peace of mind in a good way.
Marko
And what that points to is that the search for the truth, which religion is mostly about, like everyone believes this is they have the truth that the final truth, the true truth, whatever. Right. And it’s the same for me when I start teaching people what I know, I thought I had to get to the truth. What’s the truth behind all those marketing, sales, branding things. What’s the essence? And what I didn’t realize is that I lost my audience. I lost my clients because me going to the essence was fun for me, and I figured some things out, but it wasn’t useful for them because it was way too deep. It was way too abstract. It was way too complex. So all of a sudden, because I didn’t go through the process. And so at some point I decided to give them what you said. And I just realized this when I listened to your book today is it’s about what’s useful to them at this specific stage and not giving them the whole truth because they can’t handle it at that point. And probably I don’t know it anyway. So but.
Derek Sivers
Yeah right.
Marko
But it’s like the distinction and I never thought about it that the truth might not be the ultimate goal we should pursue. That’s kind of what you’re saying here, right?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. I mean, at first I just toss it up and say no thoughts are necessarily true. No beliefs are necessarily true because there’s always going to be somebody that could argue against it. That’s why it’s funny that whenever somebody says, “I believe”, then whatever they’re going to say next is not true, because if it was true, there would be no need to say I believe. Like nobody says, “I believe squares have four sides.” There’s no need to say that because, yeah, that’s what a square is. If it was really true, there would be no need to say I believe you could just point and see there. But we say, I believe to tell somebody, here’s what’s in my mind, this isn’t apparent. So I need to tell you what’s in my mind, which means, okay, I’m just going to tell you some of my thoughts, which is just my viewpoint, but it’s not the absolute truth.
Marko
So they’re not sure if what they say is actually right and they want to just give--
Derek Sivers
Oh, they believe it’s right. But I’m just saying, as an outsider, the reason you’re having to tell me what you believe is right is because it’s not apparent to the whole universe. It’s a perspective.
Marko
I know that there are different point of views or distinctions about what I believe, and then that’s why I say I believe that so, but doesn’t the belief also shape our identity?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, well, identity is dangerous, right.
Marko
It’s dangerous, isn’t it? Like a lot of people-- and then you say this in the book, they confuse identity with belief system.
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Marko
What’s the distinction here? I mean, like let’s just say you lose a specific belief or you let go of something specific. That could very well change your personality.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. And which again, then you have to choose it. So actually it was a German guy that reached out to me a few years ago. He was a stranger. I didn’t know him, but I think this is a kind of a funny thing about German culture. How Germans like to correct people even if, you know, I don’t know you, you’re a stranger. But I’m going to tell you that you’ve made a mistake you’re wrong. So German guy reaches out to me and says, “You know, on your website you say that you’re an introvert.” He said, “I don’t think you should define yourself like that.” He said, “I think you should look twice at that. That’s a very fixed definition. You’re not opening yourself up to the possibilities of that maybe you’re extroverted in some situations and introverted in others, so you shouldn’t be so fixed.” And my first reaction was, fuck you, dude. But then my second reaction was like, huh that’s a really good point. I’ve been saying for decades that I’m an introvert that’s a very fixed definition. The truth is yeah the truth, I’m quite outgoing and extroverted in some situations. Maybe I need to let go of this. Wow. Maybe I’ve just been identifying as an introvert for so long that I haven’t questioned it. I’m really glad he pointed that out. And so we could do that with anything. You could have identified yourself long ago as saying, “You know, I’m not a public person. You know, like the Richard Branson example. I’m shy. I don’t want to be in the spotlight.”
Marko
It’s just who I am.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, this is just who I am. But then you might realize that’s holding you back from what you actually want. So Richard Branson actually really cares about his companies. He really is just an introvert entrepreneur that’s just kind of shy and wants to be, you know, he just finds business fascinating. So he has to do something that’s against his nature in order to get what he wants.
Marko
I want to quickly go back to the shift that happened to you from introvert to would you say you’re an extrovert now did that change?
Derek Sivers
No, no. See, now I just decided I’m not going to categorize.
Marko
Okay. But just getting getting rid of that belief that you are introvert. Did that change the way you behave? Did the change the way you see yourself, the way you show up?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, there are definitely some things that I’d say no to because I thought, “Well, that doesn’t fit with my identity as an introvert.” So I would say no to some things. On the other hand, there are still some situations where, yeah, I’m not going to deny that I have a preference. I have a couple times tried to go to an event put on by somebody whose books I love. I’ve tried to do this twice. Twice I have loved somebody’s book so much that I went to an event by that author, and suddenly I was there with a thousand other people, all being stupid about, you know, like, “Oh, I hate this. Oh no, no, no, no, no.” And I left going, “Oh, yuck, I hate that. Get me away from these people. I’ll just get back to the book. Thank you very much.” But then another friend of mine is the opposite. She said, “Yeah. I looked at the book and it was okay, but, you know, I mean, who’s got time for books?” So she said, “So I flew to the event and it was amazing. There are all these other people. And I was like, so charged up. It was like transformative. And I was sitting there talking with people all night about the changes we’re making in our life. And, you know, it’s really like we got into this drum circle around a fireplace and we’re singing and it was connecting and oh my God, it was transformative.” And I think, “Fuck that, just give me the book, you know.” So yeah, the book works better for me. So we can have a preference. But I’m glad that this German stranger reached out and challenged me to stop categorizing myself or limiting myself to one definition.
Marko
Yeah, that’s untypical for Germans. So another thing I like, this is a statement that we love in your book is “The future is useful, not true.”
Derek Sivers
Yeah, well, once you realize that anything in the mind is just a thought. It’s not necessarily true. Then you realize that the future is a bit of fiction that we’ve all agreed upon, that it’s just our imagination. There is no such thing as the future. It doesn’t exist. By definition, it doesn’t exist. But yet we all act as if it does. It’s just something we agree on. Like we all agree that money is worth this much, that you can trade money. It’s like we agree that these pieces of paper or these coins are worth something, and that’s how we get along. We agree that there’s this thing called the future, but it’s really just our imagination, our predictions.
Marko
When I listen to that today, that actually was liberating for me. It’s so true there is no future and anything you do today will actually shape the future. And that’s how you can change the future. It’s like you don’t fight against something that seems to be written in stone. It’s like not like your destiny, but it’s like you create your future today by the things you do. You exercise today, you grow muscles tomorrow right. Things like that. So I actually listened to it when I did my exercise today, my trainings. And that was really liberating to me because it made me realize there’s nothing I have to fulfill. There’s nothing that has to be done. Like I can choose what I want to do because there’s no future that I have to. I don’t know how to say that, but that I have to live up to it. It’s like--
Derek Sivers
Nice. It’s all in your head.
Marko
It’s in my head, right. And probably most other people don’t even think about my future. They’re more concerned with their future. So it’s all made up and you have this story with make believe, the games the kids play, right. It’s so true. It’s like we make believe that if we don’t do something, there will be something bad happening to us. That’s why we go to work. That’s why we get up in the morning and you chose a different path. Like, what was that like 20 years ago, right?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Yeah. Wait. Sorry. Quick question, in Germany growing up as a kid, did you call it make believe or what do you call it in German?
Marko
Yeah, I actually was thinking the same thing today when you said that. I know what make believe is the game. We don’t have a name for that. I couldn’t think of one, but it’s more like playing games is that. So basically, for my German audience, make believe is kids playing, just inventing their own rules, their own worlds right, “I’m a superman today.” And you are playing roles, role play. I would say that’s something we would say probably.
Derek Sivers
Okay. Right.
Marko
My son is six, so he’s doing a lot of that. He’s in his own world. Like he’s trying to make me believe that the world is different than I believe it is. And it’s like we get into this discussions and I usually lose. But because he’s very good in articulating this, however, we don’t have a word for that there.
Derek Sivers
You know we’re all role playing at some point, you said, “I’m creative, I am in the creative business. I am a creator.” And there were many other beliefs you could have chosen. But you chose that one, and for some reason, that one made you go, “Yeah, this is who I want to be. This one inspires me. This one makes me jump out of my chair and take action.” Whereas the thought of like, “I’m an accountant.” That one didn’t work for you. That one didn’t inspire you to action. But somewhere there’s somebody who went, “Oh my God, I could be an accountant.” And that got them excited and made them study harder and, you know, open their own business for an accounting firm. Somebody got excited about that. You didn’t, you got excited about being a creator. And at some point you said, “I’m going to have a podcast.” And other people hated that thought. They said, “I could start a podcast.” And that idea made them go, “Oh God, that sounds horrible.” But for you, that idea worked. And so it’s role playing. It’s not like this is who Marko is, it’s just who Marko’s chosen to be right now.
Marko
I like the analogy you just made, like it’s role playing with identities, right? Because, yeah if you choose an identity, you also buy into the belief system that that falls into that comes with the identity. The creator quality of work is important. If I’m an accountant, accuracy is very important.
Derek Sivers
Sorry now reversing, rewinding to what you said half an hour ago, somebody choosing to believe great work will sell itself. That belief could be useful at the moment that you’re creating. So while you’re sitting there creating, part of your mind could be thinking, “Oh fuck, how am I going to sell this thing?” And if you think great work will sell itself, you think, “Yeah, I’m just going to shut out all those thoughts and focus 100% on just making this as great as it can be.” And in that moment, that was a useful thought. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. It was useful for you to believe in that moment. Then when the work is done, you finished it. You went, “Wow, it’s done.” Now that’s a harmful belief. Now the better belief for you to have is great work will not sell itself. I need to go tell everyone about this.
Marko
Yeah, it’s like you gotta be like Richard Branson. Like the story you told half an hour ago. That’s the same with your book, right? You have to have the face behind the book. You have to have the face behind the book. Otherwise like a company without a face is faceless. We know this right from business and the same for me is with art. Like the art, where we have a face in mind of the person that created it, is worth so much more like.
Derek Sivers
Well sorry to interrupt, but be careful if you’re acting like this is true. You were starting to sound like you were saying this like it’s a true fact. But I could argue against it. In fact, one of the best books I have ever read in my whole life is anonymous.
Derek Sivers
If you go to my website, if you go to sive.rs/book. Right near the top of that list of all my book notes, there’s over 400 books there now that I’ve read and loved to take notes on. Right at the top of that list, near the top of the list is a book called. I believe it’s called “Nothing and Everything”. And the author picked a stupid pseudonym. They call themselves Valentine. We don’t know who it is, it’s an open source non-copyright book by an anonymous author. But fuck, it’s brilliant. It’s amazing. It’s a great book. They’ve done nothing to promote it. It’s just sitting there on Amazon, and I’m glad that somebody pointed me to it because it’s breathtaking. It’s beautiful. But in that case, the person said, I guess I’m imagining that the person said, “You know, I could go tell the whole world about me, but I don’t want to. I’m just going to put this out there.” And for them this worked, and I found this book and so did thousands of other people. So it’s never the only way. Everything you were just starting to say there was a choice that you could say, this works for me, but it’s not the only way.
Marko
And that’s kind of how marketing works, isn’t it? Like you have this idea, you convince people about your worldview, your picture, and that’s why people follow you, right? It’s like, because that’s how you see the world and that gives them sight. Maybe it gives some hope, maybe give some direction.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Or identity. Like you said, somebody can look at Bjork and say, “Oh, that’s who I want to be. I love Bjork, she represents my soul in some way. You know and somebody else could say, “No, no, no, man Kraftwerk. That’s it. I’m a Kraftwerk.”
Marko
It’s like the same with sports fans, right? It gives you an identity.
Derek Sivers
Hell, yeah.
Marko
Who you are, the group you belong to.
Derek Sivers
Yes. It’s so funny when sports fans say, “We won.” No you didn’t. You drank beer on the sofa. They won.
Marko
They won. Cool.
Derek Sivers
Sorry. You see, you asked why I wrote this book. It’s just a fun subject. I’m not claiming to have all the answers. I just realized two years ago this is an interesting subject. So I spent the last two years learning more about it, and I’m sharing some ideas.
Marko
The premise of the book is there is no truth. That’s what I got out of it. And one of the things you talked about your scientist friend right. That when he asked you what’s one thing you believe to be true. You answered science.
Derek Sivers
And he got a good long laugh.
Marko
Yeah. Tell me about that. So, you think science isn’t true?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Well, sorry. I just have to correct one thing you just said. To me the premise of the book is, everything is open for you to reconsider. It starts out by pointing out over and over again, this isn’t true, that isn’t true, this isn’t true, that isn’t true. Because I’m trying to open these things up to say not necessarily true. All these things you’re thinking are absolutely true are closed. Let’s open them up so you can reconsider them. That’s it. I’m not saying that facts aren’t true. I’m just saying, you know, all of these thoughts
Marko
Depends on who comes up with the facts.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, yeah. Anyway so, yeah, the science. I removed a funny detail. He’s actually a German scientist living in Tokyo, and he let me stay at his home while me and my boy were on a vacation. I put out the call saying, “Hey, who’s got space?” And this guy that I’d been emailing with for years said, “Hey, man. I’ve got a spare bedroom, come and stay at my place.” I went, “Cool.” So I went to go stay at his home, and he was telling me what he was working on, and I told him what I was working on. He said, “Oh, Useful Not True.” He said, “So what’s an example of something that is true?” I said, “Well, science, for example.” And he goes, “Oh no, no. Science is useful, but it is definitely not true.” I said, “Wait, huh? What do you mean?” He said, “Derek, the whole process of science is putting your discovery out there and challenging the world to surpass it.” And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “Well, look at Newton’s laws of motion. For hundreds of years this was just true. And then Einstein said, ‘Actually, there’s more to it than that. Newton’s laws of motions are not necessarily true.’” And then for decades, Einstein’s theory was the top dog. And then somebody came along and said, “Well, actually, there’s this thing called quantum mechanics that shows that Einstein wasn’t necessarily true. Now, this is the best model we’ve got.” So he said, “No scientist thinks that their work is true. They’re just proposing a theory or what we call a model.” And he said, “There’s a famous quote that no model is true, but some of them are useful.” And he said, “So I just assumed that, of course you knew that science is useful, but not true.” Well, so that changed my mind about science.
Marko
That’s crazy. That’s the one thing when when we talk about facts, I would have thought science is where the facts come from. And what you said is like the reality we perceive today or we think to be true. They’re all just based on models.
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Marko
Which are close to reality, but not reality. And we improve those models over time. Is that what he said?
Derek Sivers
I think, yeah apparently so. Yeah.
Marko
So basically we don’t really know what’s true when it comes to science right. It’s like we’re talking about Newton, Einstein and then quantum mechanics and but the funny thing is, and you have this in your book to shoot a rocket to the outer space we still use Newton’s law, right?
Derek Sivers
Yes right. And thanks for that reminder. He said, “What’s interesting is, to land a rocket on the moon. We don’t use Einstein’s science. We don’t use quantum mechanics. We still go back to Newton’s laws from the 1600s because they’re good enough to land a rocket on the moon.” So he said, “It’s a good reminder that the most accurate model is not the most useful.” Yeah, you can use something because it’s useful. Doesn’t have to be true.
Marko
So if I think about entrepreneurship or creativity and all those struggles we endure because we seek the truth behind something, so we want to understand it. So we can finally break through whatever is holding us back. But in the end, we might not even have to find the truth, right? The models we have might be enough and we can just use them.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Which is it tries to put aside the wasted effort of arguing with other people, telling them that they’re wrong, that their beliefs aren’t true, or you know something they’re saying is not true. Because, “Here’s my belief. Let me tell you what I believe. I’ll tell you my point of view.” You know, all we’re doing is arguing perspectives. It’s beautiful that you’re in Europe right now. I’m in New Zealand, and so if I were to ask you, Marko, “What time is it?” You might say it’s 5:00. And I’d say, “Well, for you, but down here it’s 9:00. And for you, it’s Tuesday right now. For me, it’s Wednesday.” It’s a reminder that anybody speaking is just telling you how things look from their point of view, where they’re standing right now. But it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily true for anyone else. And that’s the same when people say something like, “You can’t do that, here’s what women want.” They’re saying it like a fact for them. It just feels like this is absolutely true. You can’t do that. But that’s just from their point of view. From your point of view, you can.
Marko
In your research. Did you find out why we say that? Why we come up with those? Why do we want to believe in something to be true?
Derek Sivers
Oh, God. So we can just-- so we can function.
Marko
Function, okay.
Derek Sivers
I mean, you step on the ground knowing that it won’t collapse. It’s real. You open the door and turn the key on your car knowing that it will not explode.
Marko
So we need that. We kind of need those fixed models to get us through our days, right?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. And so I think that all we have to work with is just what comes in our eyes and our ears, and our poor little brain is just in the dark there. It only knows these little signals that it gets. So we’re just using the best information we’ve got. And which is fine if you’re saying, “All right, well, my eyes see that it looks like a warm, sunny day outside.” And maybe you open the door and you say, “Okay, it feels warm, you can function.” But I think it’s a trouble when people tell you beliefs like, “Marko. You’re a bad person unless you call your mother every day.” You know, there are a lot of people who live under these kinds of beliefs because they were just told as a fact growing up. “You are a bad person unless you call your mother every day.” Or “You’re a bad person, unless you give up your dreams to take care of your family, you’re a bad person if you do what you want. You need to only do what others want.” These, you know, half the world operates on these social norms.
Marko
Like, that’s how we get conditioned, right? It’s like the beliefs of the society, of our parents, those structures give us hold when we grew up, but they limit us when we want to find ourselves, when we explore the world, if we actually want to create something and we have all those beliefs from other people back in our mind and from from society. And what I’ve learned because I work with a lot of different nations and countries. Its particular in Germany it’s like we are very focused on the past. And so everything we do is based on the prediction, like we predict the future really from the past. And it’s like when you look at that Germany as a nation, we have the most insurances, the biggest insurances in the world are in Germany because we need insurance. And I believe one of the reasons is obviously because we had so many wars, not just the world wars, but there were small wars, things like that. We can’t trust our neighbors.
Derek Sivers
Right.
Marko
And I’ve lived in New Zealand, in Australia even in the US. It’s more that go west mentality, is like we conquer the world or we explore the world. It’s like path finder. If you want to sell something in Germany, you sell them the assurance, the reassurance that this is gonna work. And if I’m going to sell something into American, it’s the big vision, “Hey, you want to get there? Let’s do that. That’s going to be fun.” And that also comes down to how we’re conditioned and the beliefs we have. And the reason why I’m saying is because you said something very beautiful in the book too is like that, the past is a story with one perspective or one point of view. That’s what you said, right?
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Marko
So why did you say that?
Derek Sivers
Oh, because so many of my friends have been traumatized by their story of the past, especially this belief that somebody has wronged them, that, you know, “This person in my past did something bad to me, and it was wrong and it was evil. And people are evil. And I have proof of that because this person did an evil thing.” And they just say that like it’s an absolute fact and law of nature, that this is a true fact. And in a couple cases I’ve actually known the other person involved and and talked to the other person and they’re just like, “Huh? What? She said that I had no idea.” He said, “Yeah, you know, she was into me. I wasn’t into her. I had no idea that she was affected by this.” And so it’s like she hung on to one version of this story and built her worldview around it, “People are bad. People will screw you over. I’m unlovable. I’m impossible to be with. These are just facts. And I know this because this is the past.” And so I think it can really, really helpful for all of us to look at your own past and say, “Maybe that’s not necessarily true.”
Marko
And you also had like, you had this, I can’t really remember, but there was a story that our memory fools us. So what we believe to be true. What happened to us. The story that we have in our mind is not necessarily what we actually perceive to be true ten years ago.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, yeah. You can look up there so many scientific studies about how badly we remember. There was a short way of putting this is that remembering is a creative act.
Marko
Oh. That’s nice. Okay, so anything I remember?
Derek Sivers
You’re recreating it. You’re pulling some faint, foggy, misty little thoughts from your brain, mixed in with dreams you’ve had, mixed in with interpretations. And you bring it up and you feel like it’s a fact. But your brain lies to you.
Derek Sivers
To me, again that’s a useful thing to believe because again, it helps you open things up and question them and say, “Maybe that’s not necessarily true. I feel like it’s an absolute fact that my friend a year ago said something nasty to me. And that’s why we haven’t talked since then.” That might not be true. Not necessarily true. Maybe that’s useful to open that up again. And. Consider other possibilities.
Marko
Derek, we could talk for hours about this. And we’re already over time. And I want to be respectful with your time because your day just they just started today and you probably have a lot of things to do. But I have one more question. What’s something you want the audience to take away? What’s the message you want them to get out of today’s conversation?
Derek Sivers
Oh, well, the message is you should look at all of these things that you consider to be true, and consider that unless everyone in the whole world would absolutely agree, always, forever, even non-human machines would look at that and agree that that’s absolutely true, then maybe it’s just a perspective that you’ve adopted and it’s worth opening that up questioning it and considering other ways of looking at that. That’s the message. And then the action I would like people to take is, I do interviews like this not to promote my book. I don’t care if anybody buys it or not. I wrote it for my own sake. But I really like meeting people that like these kinds of conversations. So that’s why I have a very open inbox. And it’s one of my favorite hours of the day is getting emails and connecting with people from around the world. That’s how you and I met. So my action is I would like anybody listening to this to go to my website, go to sive.rs and contact me and say hello.
Marko
That’s beautiful. I didn’t know that, you’ll get many more emails from me now, knowing that you’re going to read them. That’s amazing.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I love it. I know it’s unpopular, but it’s one of my greatest joys in life. Okay. Like the example of the scientist in Tokyo. You know, we met because he emailed me out of the blue. In fact, some of the greatest loves of my life and some of my best friends are people that just emailed me out of the blue. And conversely, some of my other best friends are people who I loved their book so much. I went, “Oh my God, that’s a great book!” And I just like, found the author and I emailed them. I was like, “Dude, that was a really good book.” You know and that’s how we became friends. So I really love my email inbox. So yes, anybody listening this far, please email me and say hello.
Marko
I love this approach and I want to encourage everyone to write him an email and start the conversation.
Derek Sivers
Thanks, Marko.
Marko
Derek, thank you so much for your time today. And I’ll put the link for your book below the video. Once it’s available. And yeah, thank you so much.
Derek Sivers
Cool.