Inner Path Seekers
host: Jellis Vaes
usefulness of beliefs, luck and money, death
listen: (download)
watch: (download)
Transcript:
Jellis
Derek, a warm welcome here to the podcast. This is. I mean, honestly amazing for me to have you on the show.
Derek Sivers
Thanks Jellis. Yeah, we’ve been emailing about this for a long time, so I’m glad it finally happened.
Jellis
Yeah. Me too. So I have, well, hopefully a delicious meal or a couple of meals prepared for you during this interview. You know, I’ve created quite a diverse interview with different questions. So there will be some, yeah, different tastes in meals. And to start, maybe with the appetizer, by talking first and foremost about your latest book “Useful Not True”. I’ve listened to the audio version, which I always love. And yeah, I like it. Let me ask a question about the book. So it’s probably a question that you have been asked quite often, but I think it might be very helpful for people right now listening who are not familiar with the book. If you could just give an example of what is something that is useful but not true, that you’ve come to realize after writing the book, or during, when you were writing the book.
Derek Sivers
Oh well, since you called this the appetizer, let’s start easy for anybody listening. I’ll use an example that we all know, which is if you are driving in traffic, for example, and somebody else on the road is driving like an idiot and being dangerous and being reckless and speeding and weaving in between cars. And your first thought is, “What a jerk. What an asshole.” But then we’ve heard that it can be wise to think, “Wait, maybe that person is driving a sick child to the hospital. Maybe they have their dying mother in the back seat.” And that thought makes you go, ha! It makes you relax. It makes you remember that other people have problems, that it’s not all about you. That said, it’s probably not true, but it’s very useful to think that way because it made you relax. It made you more empathetic. Trying to argue whether that’s true or not is not the point. The real point was the effect that thought had on you. So that’s an example that we’ve all heard of. But now you can extrapolate that to other aspects in life. You can believe that, say if you get invited to an event and you’re feeling social anxiety, you could believe that everybody in that event is waiting for you to break the ice, that they also are nervous and they want to connect with people, which is why they came.
Derek Sivers
But they’re all too scared to be the first one to say something. So they need you to break the ice. And so if you believe that, you’ll walk into the event and feel that it’s almost like your responsibility or your duty to to be the one to walk up to a stranger and say, “Hi. I’m Jellis. What do you do?” Now that that may not be true, they might not want to meet you. But believing that made you more open or more social. You know this belief that every stranger is a potential friend. Somebody else could argue against that and say, “Well, Jellis, that’s not true.” You say, “I don’t care if it’s true or not. It’s useful. It’s useful for me to believe this because it makes me take good actions.” And so that’s then to really answer your question, that was the main thing I learned while writing this book, is that the whole point of beliefs are the actions that they create. The only purpose of beliefs is the actions they create. There’s really no other reason for them. Even religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs, moral beliefs, the whole point of all of them is to change your actions. That’s it.
Jellis
How? I mean, because as the reader, when you read a book like yours, “Useful Not True” for example. You step on this journey, right? That the writer kind of created for you where you will grow and learn how for you as the writer though, I mean, besides what you just shared, maybe now, has this book changed you?
Derek Sivers
This particular book was a learning experience for me. It’s my fifth book and my previous four books, I was speaking about things I already knew about. This was the first time that I set out two years ago to write a book about something that I didn’t know about yet. I knew a little bit. I knew that I had a tendency to choose beliefs because they were useful to me, not because they’re true. But I didn’t look into it deeper than that. So two years ago, I decided this is an interesting subject. I’m going to write a book about this, and I contacted philosophy professors that steered me in the direction of pragmatism and nihilism and existentialism and skepticism. And I read a lot of books about religion and about beliefs, and I just spent two years diving into this subject of why we choose beliefs. So I learned a lot through that process.
Jellis
Wow. Is there anything that particularly triggered you to want to write? I mean, because writing a book takes a lot of time to spend so much time on that topic.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, it was underlying everything else I had been saying for years. For years, even if I was writing about business and I’d say, “Business is a place to be generous. Generosity is the whole point of business.” And every now and then somebody would come and push back and say, “Hey, that’s not true. Business is about profit.” I’d say, “I don’t care if it’s true or not. I’m not saying it’s true. I’m saying that for me to believe this is useful.” So then I had to question, well, what do I mean, useful? And that’s why I eventually came to the conclusion, oh, useful means it helps you take the actions. It helps you be who you want to be, do what you need to do or feel at peace. Feel at peace was one that took a while to realize because like the first example of driving in traffic with a jerk. The action you want to take is not necessarily motion. It can be an internal, you know, makes me feel better. And that’s a lot of the ones that we deal with the past for example. A lot of people have the belief that everything happens for a reason. It’s a very common belief in many cultures around the world. People say, “Everything happens for a reason.” And they say it like it’s a true fact, but it’s not. It’s a belief that you choose or that somebody has told you and you adopt that belief because you like the way it makes you feel. It helps you think of the troubling things in your past that might be upsetting, and it makes you go, “Ah, well, I just have to trust it all happens for a reason” and that belief makes you feel better.
Jellis
Yeah, yeah, it’s a story that helps you navigate through the chaos that life is. Right?
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Jellis
Is there actually anything that you think of right now, when writing the book. Something that you really thought was really well thought out, a concept or an idea that you really liked, but that you in the end, did not put in the book.
Derek Sivers
Oh fun question.
Jellis
That you feel interesting to share with me and the listener.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I’ll tell you a couple, I removed more than I kept in the book. The folder of the final book. The words in the final book is smaller than the folder containing all the things I took out of it. So yeah, there were a few good ones. I had a cute little story about two aliens that are observing Earth right now. They’re in a little spaceship in orbit, observing Earth through two instruments, like two telescopes. One can see everything we do. The other can hear all of our thoughts, but they’re two different instruments and they’re two different aliens sitting next to each other at these two different instruments, and they only know how to work one of them. Right? So one of them can only hear all of our thoughts. The other one can only see everything we do. And so they coordinate. And so the one that can hear all of our thoughts is kind of scanning and observing Earth. And at one point he hears a human that’s under attack, that’s being attacked by ten people viciously and cruelly attacking with just nothing but but vengeance and cruel intentions. And so he quickly gives the coordinates to the other one that can see everything saying, “Here, here, here, look, go to these coordinates. What’s going on there? I’m listening to this attack. And the other alien looks and just sees a person sitting by themselves in their home, just looking sad and they’re confused and they double check the coordinates.
Derek Sivers
They verify. Yeah. That’s there. Wow. And so this person isn’t actually physically under attack, but in this person’s head they’re experiencing an attack that’s not physically happening. And I had a couple more examples like that, but in the end, the other examples didn’t quite stand up. I feel like I could have probably worked for a few more weeks on that and made it a keeper in the book, but instead I had to come to the conclusion that the book is not the final say. That the book introduces the subject and brings it up to say, “Hey, this is an interesting thing to think about. Let’s think about this.” But I don’t have to make the book be like the final answer to everything. So I decided that the conversation would continue on the website for free in the open. And that’s why the ending of the book says, “This is not the end. Go to the website. There will be more stories posted, more beliefs that readers can share, beliefs that they find to be useful, not true.” And things like that. It was a nice reminder that the book doesn’t have to be the whole point.
Jellis
Yeah, yeah, I think that must be quite hard actually, to filter out, you know, a book and know like, okay, that’s for the book. I will just cut that out, maybe use it somewhere else like you do.
Derek Sivers
There are some people that want to write a big conclusive book. Well, let’s say Tim Ferriss, for example. His books are big, and they try to include everything there is to say on this subject. I think he gets inspired and driven by having a book that is the ultimate book on, you know, the four hour workweek or mastering your health or something like that. And so he’s always tormented and driven to make it the best it can be the most comprehensive, conclusive book on the subject. And a lot of people are driven by that urge. I’m thankful that I am not driven by that, but rather I like short books. I think short books are very useful to other people. They’re very easy to give to a friend. You don’t want to give a 900 page book to a friend and say, “Here, read this.” It’s like a curse. But if you give a little 95 page book to a friend that they can read in an hour or so, that’s a nice gift and a nice gift to yourself. It’s less of a slog and more of a treat. So luckily as I’m editing, I ruthlessly chop because I’m actually trying to make the shortest book I can.
Jellis
Right. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And you open the journey for the people you know to continue on by themselves?
Jellis
It’s a short book. And having it open, the journey that sets them on their way. Yeah. It’s nice, for me when, I mean, I read a couple of your books and the main feeling that I’ve always gained or felt from them while I read them was this feeling of freedom. Probably because you opened my mind to new ideas, new insights, new ways of looking at things, questioning things. Is there for yourself a main thread that you can see running through each book that you’ve written, that you kind of want to, or that you hope readers will gain from them.
Derek Sivers
Yeah,
Derek Sivers
That’s a deep question. I guess I’m always asking myself, “What’s another way to look at this?” And I try to not put out something into the world unless it’s an angle or a perspective that either hasn’t been considered, hasn’t been talked about publicly, or is underrepresented in the conversation. So I try to bring up an alternate point of view that most people are not considering. So that was the point of my last book called “How to Live”. It had 27 conflicting answers to that question of how should I live my life. And the whole point was to make you realize that no one way is the answer, that each one can be useful for a purpose, each one could work. You could live your life by any one of these or none of them, or combine them. So anytime somebody is telling you that you know,”Jellis this is the answer, this is how to live.” That you should take it very lightly because it’s never the only answer.
Jellis
Yeah, see, that’s what I said. Like, your books are very, very freeing to me to read.
Derek Sivers
Thank you. Mission accomplished.
Jellis
Yeah. Awesome. Like I said in the beginning, I’ve got quite a diverse interview prepared for you. So let me serve you another meal here. Let’s play a game. It’s not a complicated game. You might have played it before. It’s called overrated, underrated. And just to explain the not complicated rules so everyone is on board. I’m going to say a word to you. You know, and I kind of selected some words or concepts out that I thought you had something interesting to share on. And you can reply by saying if you feel that’s overrated or underrated. And then also if you could elaborate why that would be.
Derek Sivers
Sure. By the way, I love that you’re doing this. No, I have never played this, although it is one of my favorite podcasts is called conversations with Tyler, and he often plays overrated or underrated on that podcast. So I’ve heard it many times, but I have never played it. Lay it on me.
Jellis
All right. Cool, cool.
Jellis
All right, let’s start with luck.
Derek Sivers
Overrated.
Derek Sivers
Hugely overrated. How do I elaborate on that? I’ll just tell a quick little story. Let me just tell you. I’ll just tell a quick story to say why I think this is perhaps overrated. I used to believe it was-- God actually, you know what? I could argue both ways. I generally believe it’s underrated that people attribute to skill what is often just luck. And so when a friend of mine called me a successful entrepreneur. No, no, he called me a great entrepreneur. And I said, “No, no, no, no, no, I am not a great entrepreneur. I am just lucky.” And he said, “Bullshit, what you did, was not luck.” I said, “Bullshit. Yes it was.” And he said, “No man, I don’t believe in luck.” I said, “How can you not believe in luck?” I said, “Look, you were lucky to be born in America, in a prosperous country.” And he said, “Great example. That wasn’t luck.” He said, “My great grandparents came over from Russia like three generations ago. They knew nobody in America. They didn’t speak the language, but they believed that if they endured the hardship in their life, that their kids would have a better life and their grandkids would have an even better life.” He said, “They invested the hard work and misery to make the future generations happier. That was not luck.” Right. Ooh. Good point. So now I often think in terms of the things we do that might even seem like luck, but actually are the culmination of many micro decisions.
Jellis
So luck for you is overrated.
Derek Sivers
Ha! I can argue both sides of this one.
Jellis
Okay.
Derek Sivers
Let’s say for now, I’ll pick overrated. Sure.
Jellis
Okay. All right. All right. Okay the next one that I have is one that might not surprise you. Money, overrated or underrated?
Derek Sivers
Sorry. My real answer is, in some circles, let’s say in many circles, money is very overrated. Money’s never the point. It’s a means to something else. It’s just a neutral trade of value. It’s not that important. A lot of people are chasing more and more and more money, when in fact they really should just spend a little more time looking inward, going, “Wait, why? What do I really want?” And go directly for what you really want instead of trying to get the money. That’s just supposed to be the neutral trade of value to get you what you really want. Just go directly for what you really want. That said, in some circles, like especially a lot of my old musician friends, money can be underrated because it seems to be the opposite of art. And so they say, “Man, money doesn’t matter, don’t worry about money.” But by saying that, they’re being very unwise because the rest of their life becomes very hard because they’ve dismissed money, which is supposed to be this neutral trade of value by not putting any attention into making money. It’s like they’re not putting any attention into being valuable. And I think that can be a disservice. So it depends which community you’re in.
Jellis
Yeah, I’ve heard you say a few times, that you don’t work for money.
Derek Sivers
I never have.
Jellis
That might confuse some people right now. Listening, thinking like, what do you mean you don’t work for money? Of course you work for money. What do you mean with that actually?
Derek Sivers
Money is always the side effect. Money is never the point if you’re doing something only for the money-- well, let’s just say you should aim to never do something only for the money. There should always be another benefit in it for you. Something you’re learning by doing this. Making more connections, building your expertise. Focusing on that the learning, the building, the expertise, the making new connections. That’s the real point. And yes, money also comes as a side effect. But if you lose your values or let’s say if you’re valuing money as the point itself, to me that’s like saying that the point of having a car is to make the odometer go up, and then you get people doing stupid things like propping their car up over night on a thing and making a machine spin the wheels so that when they wake up in the morning, the odometer is higher. And now you’ve made the numbers go up, but for no benefit for anyone. And I think that’s what a lot of people, unfortunately, lose their way and start doing with money is money’s supposed to be a side effect of doing what you want or what excites you. But if they focus on the money itself, then it’s like you’re just spinning the wheels to make the odometer go up. It’s not the point. So, yeah. So I’ve never worked for money.
Jellis
Is there maybe something, I don’t know, some insights to anyone listening who might be merely chasing money?
Derek Sivers
Stop. I mean, just or, you know, ease out of it. Ask yourself what you want to be doing. Go ahead.
Jellis
Sorry, I could imagine some people who grew up poor, who started earning a lot of money because of some business that they created, feel a lot of satisfaction from that and continue just growing and growing more money.
Derek Sivers
Okay. If that actually works for them, if that’s actually all they want out of life. Well, wow. Lucky you. If that’s all you care about in life, is digits. What a simple life. What a sad and simple life. Wait. So hold on. I’m sorry. I should kind of elaborate just a tiny bit more on this. Of course, I know friends in situations where you have no money at all, you have to do something just for the money. And so you could look at that and say, “You privileged, asshole? You know, I have to work for money.” That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is you can take any situation, even when you’re doing something just for the money. You can turn it into a learning situation. You know, even if you’re just working in a warehouse, moving packages from left to right, you can turn it into a learning situation and learn the systems and learn how the warehouse works and do things so that you could use this learning to advance yourself in life instead of doing it just for the money. So I should actually, I’ve never actually written about this. I should clarify it more if I do, because what I’m not saying is don’t do any work because it pays. But I’m saying that any situation you’re in, you can make it about much more than just the money.
Jellis
Yeah. I think this comes down to deep happiness instead of like a short term happiness. Right. Getting some money, your next paycheck, well, yeah can help to get some short term happiness, but that’s not long term happiness. Uh,
Derek Sivers
Well put.
Jellis
It has to be something deeper. Like learning a skill or doing something meaningful or helping or serving people. I think, yeah. If you want to experience that, go for that. Okay.
Jellis
Role models/mentors. Overrated, underrated?
Derek Sivers
Well, role models may be underrated. Mentors? Definitely overrated. Overrated if you think that it has to be a real person. That knows you very well and works with you and guides you telling you what to do. Seeking that is like seeking a spouse and a professor in the same person. For somebody to really commit to you and get to know you that well, and also have this magical wisdom that you think that they know better than you but they know you very well. That’s really hard to find. I know some people have found that I don’t know if I ever have. So instead, you’ve probably seen, I wrote a little article that I’m kind of proud of about how to contact your mentors. So the URL is sive.rs/ment the first four letters of mentor. So if you go to that article you’ll see my take on how to ask your mentors for help.
Jellis
Okay. And role models you said are underrated.
Derek Sivers
Well, maybe that’s the gist of my recommendation is instead of looking for mentors, look for role models where you can get to know someone’s thinking style and imagine what they would say instead of needing that person themselves to tell you what to do. You can just get to know all of their public writing and speaking and just imagine what that person would say. And that can be as or more useful and definitely more considerate than insisting that that person themselves stop what they’re doing to give you their full attention for many hours.
Jellis
Do you feel and I think you said it’s already a bit, that you can only have a real role models or mentors in person instead of online, or can they also be online?
Derek Sivers
Well, I’m actually highly recommending they be in your head. So yeah, they could also be online. But all I’m saying is don’t even insist that you need to get a Bill gates to email you personally to tell you what to do. I’m just saying you could just imagine to yourself, “What would Bill gates do?” But this goes at any level, even if it’s a podcaster, even if it’s somebody that listens to your show a lot saying,”Jellis I need your help, what should I do?” It’s like, well, come on, you’ve listened to all of my podcasts. I think you can imagine what I would say. And you imagining what I would say is actually much more efficient for both of us, and ultimately gives you a sense of pride that solution came from you. It would mean more if you asking yourself, “What would Jellis say?” That’s what I’m saying you to somebody in the audience right now. If you’re asking yourself, “What would Jellis say?” Ultimately, that’s more useful to you than insisting that Jellis himself tell you what to do.
Jellis
You’re actively thinking about what to do, right?
Derek Sivers
And also, with every single little idea you get to-- say if you think of like ten things. Sorry, I’m just going to keep picking on you. If you audience were to think of ten things that Jellis would tell you to do and say, eight of those ten make you right away, go, “Oh no, not that. Oh no, not that.” But then one of them makes you go, “Ooh, that’s a good idea.” And then one of them makes you go, “Ooh, that’s a great idea. In fact, I want to take action on that right away.” Well, there now you’ve had a quick feedback loop between your giant hairball of internal factors now bringing in Jellis’ influence of what you think he would say. That’s a much faster processing loop than trying to get Jellis on the phone or meet up for coffee in person in Belgium. By the way, where in Belgium are you?
Jellis
Right now I am in my hometown, so it’s just tiny town. But mostly I’m in Antwerp.
Derek Sivers
Okay, cool.
Jellis
You know Antwerp?
Derek Sivers
Of course. It’s gorgeous. Yeah.
Jellis
The Flemish city. Yeah, yeah.
Derek Sivers
For a little while I was a legal resident of Belgium, and I lived in a place in Ixelles, Brussels.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. So I Brussels is ugly, but it’s the peg that holds the two halves together. But my favorite, you know, Bruges is gorgeous, but my favorite city in Belgium was Ghent, because it was that nice balance of, like, the beauty of Bruges, but yet this kind of lively student scene. It just kind of had a creative vibrancy to it, but yet, like, perfect small size. I really like Ghent. I would love to live in Ghent.
Jellis
No kidding.
Jellis
Yeah, yeah. If you’re ever moving to Ghent, let me know.
Derek Sivers
I will. Sorry. Yeah, I’ll do Ghent, underrated. There you go. I’ll just added one to the quiz.
Jellis
Totally underrated. Let me ask a last one. I got a few more for a bit later in the interview, but last one for now. Passion, overrated or underrated
Derek Sivers
Way overrated. I love the take on it from Cal Newport’s book called “So Good They Can’t Ignore You”, where he deep dove into the subject and came to the conclusion that passion is what we call the excitement that we get from a field of our expertise, but it tends to come after. It’s our expertise that first we get to know something and get good at it, and then it starts this feedback loop of getting more interesting, doing better work. And because you’re doing better work, you get more rewarded, and then you start to meet more interesting people in the field because you’re getting better at this. And then it turns into a passion. The common problem people make is sitting at home saying, “I need to find my passion.” As if just sitting there and thinking for a long time will suddenly find a lightning bolt to shoot through their veins and charge them full of passion. And I think that’s a huge mistake. I think you just start doing whatever you can. And then as you build expertise, your passion for that subject will grow.
Jellis
Okay. Yeah. I’m just thinking that. Why were you in Brussels, actually.
Derek Sivers
Real answer. I will admit now, ten years later, I was just trying to get a passport for my kid. I want, yeah present tense. I’ll still say that, I want my kid to have an EU passport. I think it would increase his options in life. Belgium was at least ten years ago, a pretty quick path to becoming a legal resident first. If you just incorporate a company in Belgium, then they will make you a legal resident. And then you have to hire a couple people and have a real company where you’re increasing the local economy and providing a couple of jobs. But if you do that for a number of years to keep your resident status active, you can apply for citizenship after just a few years and probably get it. That’s what I was trying to do. But then unfortunately, my immigration lawyer forgot to tell me to file one form and poof, a couple years of work and maybe €100,000 all disappeared. Which was really kind of sad at the time, but that was ten years ago, and I’m over it. But that’s what I was doing. Yeah.
Jellis
I wonder if it’s still the easiest country in the in Europe to jump.
Derek Sivers
There are always easier ways. I think it’s like if you really wanted to run a company anyway that needed a couple employees with a physical office in Belgium. It’s a good path. If you have savings that you could invest, then Portugal had a thing called the Golden visa where you could just buy an investment property, and that was quite easy. If you have way too much money and you don’t mind just throwing away €1 million, you can contact Malta. And Malta will make you a pretty instant citizen if you want to just give them €1 million. There are ways. It depends what you consider to be easy. It’s a fun subject I nerd out about. Of course, I learned about it because I wanted my boy to have an EU passport just to increase his options in life. It was just rational.
Jellis
Wow. Okay, cool. Okay. Thank you. Just maybe a bit off track now.
Derek Sivers
Totally off track. But that’s what we’re doing here. It’s fun.
Jellis
Yeah, totally off track. Yes.
Jellis
Okay. I have a personal question for you that I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time, so now is my chance. Now I will say, of course, I think this is a question that, not alone in a way, will help me, but I think it’s quite a common one. Our feelings are not so unusual, you know? So this is something that I used to struggle with way more in the past, way less now. But I will say that it can sometimes still bite at me. So I don’t have a 9 to 5 job. Most of my life, basically, when I was like, 23, I started on this path of just being self-employed and doing my own thing. And I’ve had people in my hometown, my grandpa or other people that I’ve heard of call me weird for doing what I do. Now I could imagine that there are quite a lot of people that are held back because they’re afraid of internal or external judgments of being called weird, because as humans, we’re social creatures, right? So yeah it really hurts, actually, when someone calls you weird and in a way casts you out of their circle. And my question is, I could imagine this is an assumption that there might have been people in your life who might have said it directly or indirectly to you as well, that what you do in life is weird. Have you always, if people have said that to you, been okay with it, with just dealing with that? If yes, can you see why? If no, how have you become better at that? And maybe the last-- I’m making the question how super long. But if there’s anyone listening right now who might be held back from that internal or external judgment of doing something that they want to do. Do you have any suggestions or insights to them?
Derek Sivers
Okay. Fun subject. I’m going to try to be succinct. Otherwise, I could talk about this thing for hours. First, I have to say you have to know yourself enough to know whether you want to walk the weird path or not. Some of us do. Some of us don’t. One of my best friends does not. She moved from Korea to the US when she was nine years old, and all she’s ever wanted to do is to fit in. She felt like such an outcast at nine that she just decided at nine years old, like, “I’m going to fit in.” And that’s all she’s wanted in her life and she’s one of my best friends. So following the path of not being weird is not wrong. You have to just decide for yourself whether that’s what you want. Often norms can be good guidelines. When in doubt, follow the norms. It’s the the well proven path to a good life is to follow the suggestions, whether it’s your religion or your community, morals, or just what your parents say, doing what a lot of people suggest can be a good recipe, but for some of us it can be the anti-recipe. I look at most normal people and think, “Ugh that is the opposite of what I want. I don’t want that life.” If you want to put me on the shrink’s couch for a minute to ask why I’m this way, it might just be DNA, but it might be the fact that when I was age 2 to 6, my family moved around a lot. So everywhere I lived, I felt, “I’m not from here. I’m not one of you people.” Because we moved to different countries too. So wherever I went, people would say, “You’re weird. You’re not like us.”
Derek Sivers
I’d say, “Yeah, I’m not one of you people. Your norms don’t apply to me. I’m not from here.” And then we’d move to somewhere else and I’d say, “Well, I’m not from here either.” And then we moved to Chicago when I was six, and I said, “Well, I’m not from here.” But that’s where we ended up staying. But I just kept that feeling with me the whole time. I’m not from here. Your norms don’t apply to me. It’s like if you were to suddenly go to Sri Lanka right now, assuming you’re not from Sri Lanka, that the community and society’s norms in Sri Lanka wouldn’t apply to you. You’re an outsider, so I just feel like that everywhere. I feel that no matter what group of people I’m in, this is not my culture. Their norms don’t apply to me. Anything they say I should be or should be doing doesn’t apply to me because I’m not from here. So that’s my take on it. And I taught my kid early on, like starting when he was, I don’t know, four. That weird is a compliment. When somebody says weird, if somebody says you’re weird, that’s a great compliment. You should say thank you. And I just instilled that to him earlier. I said, “Because it means that you are not just doing what everybody else is doing, that you’re creative and surprising, that you’re looking at things through your own formula, not just adopting theirs.” I said, “Yeah, weird is a great compliment.” So it can just be easily reframed and you could choose to reframe that for yourself if you want to walk that weird path in life.
Jellis
Yeah, because unfortunately, in general, you don’t call someone weird, you know, it’s not meant as a compliment. It’s mostly meant as something negative. So it should have some maybe rebranding or yeah. Is that what you wanted to say or?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. There’s a TV show called Rick and Morty. A cartoon show that I watch. Okay, so there was a line that people often quote from that, whereas I think he’s performing in front of an audience and everybody goes, “Booo!” And he says something like, “Your boos mean nothing to me because I’ve seen what makes you cheer.” And it’s like that’s the idea that it’s like, if you disapprove of my actions, I’m going to take that as a sign that I’m doing the right thing.
Jellis
For someone listening who, you know is afraid of being called weird and he’s held back from pursuing what they actually want to do. Is there something that you would say to them still.
Derek Sivers
I still wrestle with that myself, even though I have proudly embraced the weird path for my whole life. And I’m 54 now. I still have to catch myself and even more wholeheartedly embrace doing things the way I want to do, even if most people I know are against it. And one example is, a lot of my ex-girlfriends have been upset that I really love working. And I mean, you know, my definition of work is not like I’m just not not just trying to make money here, but doing what I love. I wake up at five in the morning excited about the book I’m writing or excited about programming, coding. Or excited about a book I’m reading. And I stay excited about what I’m doing from 5 a.m. to midnight, you know? And I don’t want to sit around watching TV. I don’t want to just sit on couches wasting my life away. I love my work, I say my work, but it’s like my life’s work. It’s like doing what I love best. I’m really excited about life. I don’t want to just sit there and stare at screens. And this has been very, very disappointing to a lot of my exes. That might seem exciting and interesting at first, but ultimately I just want to sit around for a third of their life staring at a screen, and I would just say, “No, I won’t do that. I won’t just sit on a couch and stare at a screen even with you. Like, sorry. I value my life and my brain and my thoughts and my interests too much.” And so I find that I’m still constantly having to re-support that decision internally.
Jellis
And you still struggle with that, with taking this path of being weird or?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, well, I just gave you one example of not wanting to watch TV. By the way, it’s one of the few things I know how to say in Mandarin Chinese, I don’t want to watch TV now. Anyway, how coincidental that just came up in conversation. But it comes up with things like my technology choices. I like ultra simplicity when it comes to programming and tech. Not quite retro because I’m not nostalgic, but I dismiss unnecessary complexities that people choose because they’re hoping to get a job at Google or Facebook or something when you need giant, complex technologies. But I’m just running a little personal website on a $5 a month web server. I like to constantly make things as simple as possible, even if it’s more work up front. And I find that I’m having to constantly defend those kind of choices. Yeah point is, I do still have to catch myself, no, not catch myself. I have to strengthen my logic to explain why I’m doing what I’m doing. And maybe that’s the eventual answer to your question, which is, I think even if you have a grandpa telling you you’re weird and you care about your grandpa a lot, you just have to put in more time to logically explain to somebody who has a different value system why this choice makes sense for you.
Derek Sivers
I’ll give one more example. Somebody just asked me a week ago why I gave away all my money and why I don’t want any more money. Sorry, I didn’t give away all my money. I basically just refuse new money coming in. I say I’ve got enough. And he said, “That’s very unusual. Why are you so weird?” Essentially. And I said, “Look, it’s it’s as if I had 1000 cans of beans in my basement. I have beans for life. I don’t need any more beans. And so if you show up at my door saying, ‘Hey, I’ve got a shipment of 2000 more cans of beans.’ I’ll say, please don’t give those to me.” There are plenty of people in the world that need beans. I don’t need any more beans. Yeah, send them to Belgium. I’ve got plenty of beans. Please, I don’t want any more. And somehow when I said that, the guy went, “Wow, that was very rationally explained.” He said, “You’re not being altruistic. It’s just a logical choice.” I said, “Yes, it’s just a logical, rational choice.” So there’s probably a way that if somebody is saying that your life decisions are weird in a critical way, you might just want to put in a little more time to think of how to explain it in a rational way to a stranger.
Jellis
Yeah. Okay. that’s good. This next question builds a little bit further on that previous question. You strike me as someone who is really fluid in their identity. Like, you don’t hold on to something that used to be something, you know, a part of you.
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Jellis
You don’t hold on to that forever. And correct me if I’m wrong with anything that.
Derek Sivers
Saying, my gender stays pretty constant. The other things change.
Jellis
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I would say that that’s very hard for quite some people, I think people, many people hold on to, you know, something being a part of them. And even if it doesn’t make sense anymore ten years later, they still hold on to it. But you seem to be very good at letting that go. Have you always been good at that in life? And why do you feel it’s important to be fluid in life and not hold on to your identity so much?
Derek Sivers
Okay, well, first, kind of like the weird question. I say that I’m not recommending that everybody needs to be more fluid. A lot of people get a lot of deep happiness from saying, “This is who I am, this is where I live, This is what I do. This is what I value. That’s that.” And that makes them really happy. And in fact, it can make them really productive and effective and flourishing. Because it’s almost like a solid foundation, no earthquakes. And then they can flourish up at the higher levels because the foundation is solid. So please don’t think that I’m saying that everybody should be so fluid and live on a marsh, but it doesn’t come naturally to me. Or maybe I should say it didn’t, to challenge the deeper set stuff. But because I value personal growth so much, when I would catch myself feeling really attached to a certain identity like, “I am a musician. I can’t do something that’s not music because I’m a musician and that’s that.” And I would catch myself saying or thinking that and go, “Whoa, hold on. Really? Is that really, like, all I am? Like, I can’t do anything else because this is what I am.” And so I’d stop and deliberately challenge that. And when I say challenge, I mean through actions. I would try to disprove that.
Derek Sivers
I’d say, well, let’s see what it feels like to actively pursue something interesting that is not music, because I feel that I can’t do anything else. Let me try to disprove that. Selling my company was like that, when I started CD baby in 1997/98. I felt that I was going to do this thing forever. I felt, this is it. I’m going to do this for my whole life. And then ten years later, I was really feeling done. I was just over it. I felt I had said everything I had to say, done everything I wanted to do, but that was really messing with my identity because I had decided early on, I’m doing this thing for life. And so once again, I had to challenge go, “Wait, really am I? Am I really going to block the personal growth that would come from doing something new?” I went, “Oh, okay, I’m going to sell the company because I don’t want to. It’s because I feel that I can’t now I must in order to challenge that limiting belief.” Even if it’s the wrong answer, it will guide me towards more personal growth. I could have made more money by staying, but I had to personally challenge my self to grow my self-identity, to be somebody that would leave the thing I thought I would never leave.
Derek Sivers
I still do that. Yeah. Even I mean, again, earlier I mentioned a programming language or programming. I really enjoy computer programming. And I caught myself feeling like, “Well, this is the way I do things. I use Ruby, I use PostgreSQL. That’s me.” And I go, “Wait, hold on. Why am I so stuck on those two things?” I just ten days ago erased my computer and reinstalled a new operating system on it that I had never used before. And that was a fun challenge because I felt like, “Well, I use OpenBSD. That’s my operating system.” It’s like, “I’m pretty stuck on that, aren’t I? All right. Well, let me challenge that. Let me try this version of Linux called Void Linux.” So wiped my hard drive, installed from scratch, pulled my files back over. And I’m loving it lately. So it’s like, all right. I just expanded my self-definition a little bit. I am now a guy who uses OpenBSD and Void Linux, you know? It’s minute, but I think we can all relate to our own version there are these ways of doing things that we get stuck on. And I think it’s healthy to challenge yourself and to get unstuck from your preferences.
Jellis
The people that you’ve met in your life. Right. Maybe to use them. You say most have trouble with being fluid in life and attaching too much to things, being a part of their identity.
Derek Sivers
I think most people don’t care about this subject as much as I do. I think it’s a particular interest of mine. I think I nerd out on the subject of self-expansion, expansion of self-identity. So most people I know, whether it’s acquaintances or even my best friends, are really just more interested in doing good work finding a romantic partner, being happy, just that kind of stuff. I’m their friend that nerds out on the subject of expanding my self-identity.
Jellis
Because the reason why I said that this question builds a little bit on the previous one is because the previous one, you know, what can stop people often is, you know, this fear of internal or external judgments. But I also think here, what can stop people from actually pursuing what they really want to do is that they’re stuck with an identity that’s not serving them anymore.
Derek Sivers
Right. Yeah, there are plenty of role models if you want them, in the music world where musicians like Bob Dylan, Madonna, Paul Simon, David Bowie would constantly reinvent themselves and change their musical genre. Miles Davis did this. Change their musical genre, and every time they did, fans of their previous genre would get upset and they’d say, “That’s okay. I know a lot of you will be upset by this, but I need to keep learning and growing and trying new things. I need to keep trying different musical styles. I need to never get stuck in a rut.” I mean, you know, even painters that have changed their style over the years, like Picasso most drastically. I see it as kind of the artistic challenge to yourself to keep moving on past your expertise. Fuck, that’s a good line. I gotta remember that. I like that a lot. Keep moving on past your expertise. I love doing interviews like this where every now and then when you challenge me with a question that I haven’t considered before and I kind of here, like improvising on the spot, it’s really fun for me because I also have to be succinct and not boring, because I know people are tuning in for a limited time. They don’t have an unlimited attention. So I need to think of how to say this thing and communicate it well for my head, but also in an accurate and succinct way. And that’s a fun challenge. And every now and then, it’s really rewarding for me to come up with an idea I hadn’t before. So thanks for that.
Jellis
Cool. Well, yeah. Awesome. Yeah, that’s awesome to hear. Let me give or throw a few last overrated, underrated questions and.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, great.
Jellis
I have one final end question. The desserts for you. So, responsibility, overrated/underrated?
Derek Sivers
Overrated. Let’s put it in the category of “Useful Not True”. When somebody says something is your responsibility, that’s not a physical fact. That’s their moral value system that they are telling you that you should also subscribe to this thought process that exists in their head. And it’s not an observable, absolute reality. So you should challenge it, question it. But if agreeing to that responsibility helps you do what you want to do, be who you want to be, or feel at peace, then great. Adopt that responsibility because you like the way it affects your actions, but never thinking that it’s absolutely an absolute reality truth.
Jellis
Yeah, yeah. I have to ask. Romantic relationships, overrated/underrated?
Derek Sivers
Depends who you are. For some people, it is their entire reason for living. And if that works for them, if they have the deepest meaning in their life by what they give to their partner and get from their partner and grow and all that kind of stuff. Great, if that works for you. I spent 35 years of my life finding and minding relationships, and I have just recently, in the last 20 months, been extremely invigorated and flourishing because I am not doing that. It feels great to not have and not want a romantic relationship. I love it so much. So yeah, but then maybe that’s because of my previous 35 years. I don’t know,
Jellis
Maybe. Or because it gives you so much time for yourself to do, create the work that you find play.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. And it’s also my situation where I have a 12 year old boy who is my best friend, and we are very close. And I put basically all of my non-working time into him. I give him my full attention and it’s very rewarding for both of us. So maybe that’s all I can do right now.
Jellis
Yeah. But let me ask you, what is something that you feel is overrated?
Derek Sivers
Oh, it depends on the person. Sorry, dude. I wish I could have, like, a snappy answer for you, but I know too wide of a variety of people. Any word I could say now would be the opposite right here. So sorry.
Jellis
But is there something and you can elaborate on it, right? It doesn’t have to be the truth for everyone, but just to hear your thought process and insights into why you feel it might be overrated.
Derek Sivers
I love it. You’re kind of like, “Hey, sing us a song.” I’m like, “Well, I don’t really have a song to sing.” You’re like, “Oh, that’s all right. Sing us a song anyway.” Okay.
Derek Sivers
I’m gonna pick a good one from two years ago, then. Consistency. I had been underrating consistency because maybe I was so focused on personal growth and exploration. I met somebody romantically two years ago that said that her most important value was consistency. And that bowled me over. I went, “Whoa, consistency.” Like, of all of the things in life I’d never tried that. I’ve never tried consistency. So that was really interesting. We were together for two years. And for those two years, I was very consistent for her because she told me that’s what she valued, and I’d never consider that before. It was all the way underrated for me, it was zero rated. And to bring that up to a level of importance felt really new and interesting to me. Because I think I had learned from maybe watching too many dramas in my teen years that to be tempestuous and unpredictable and wild and, you know, dramatic was a good thing. When in fact, it just makes for good drama, which makes for good, you know, keeping people glued to watch advertisements in between commercial breaks. But it’s not the best in an actual real romantic relationship. So that was a new idea to me. So there.
Jellis
Consistency might sound boring in a way, right? But it’s actually very stable. And that’s not bad.
Derek Sivers
It can give a great foundation of security in a relationship so that you can flourish in other ways.
Jellis
Yeah. Let me also ask then, what is something that you feel is overrated?
Derek Sivers
Status. I would like to understand why Chinese culture is so focused on status. Why that’s like the ultimate value or the primary importance. Because to me, I can’t relate. I don’t get it. I don’t understand why people would care so much what other people think. You do your job, you do it well. You’re great at what you do. You give objective, observable results and value to others through your actions. What does it matter what somebody thinks of you? And isn’t status in your own swagger and your own confidence? Let’s say. Not a thing that you could by any idiot can buy a thing. How does how is buying a thing give anybody status? I don’t get that at all.
Jellis
Well, it shows, I guess if you buy something expensive that you have money. And that’s quite yeah.
Derek Sivers
But it doesn’t even show that. It shows that you put something on your credit card.
Jellis
Right? On the outside. But then it shows that you have a fancy car, so you must have a lot of money, maybe.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, but you’d think that people would see through that and also realize that some of the most miserable, awful, despicable, disgusting, terrible people on Earth have bought expensive things. It should say nothing of a person’s status. And even then, I love this idea that nobody looks at a person in an expensive car and says, “Wow, what a cool person.” At best what people say is, “Wow, I wish I had that car.” Like, really, nobody’s thinking about you. Nobody cares about you. To me, that’s so liberating, to know that it’s like, really, ultimately, nobody cares about you. Everybody just cares about themselves. So why would I do a single damn thing to be thought of better by others? It’s the most irrational thing to do.
Jellis
Yeah, I guess because it gives you options where money is valued or status is valued so high. In societies like in the Western world or in China, It gives you options, and that improves your survival rate.
Derek Sivers
Maybe. Yeah.
Jellis
All the way down to that.
Derek Sivers
See, I like that you’re arguing against that. And I’d like to dive deeper into understanding that mindset.
Jellis
Super interesting topic. Absolutely. Yeah. But you okay. So you would say that’s overrated status.
Derek Sivers
For me.
Jellis
Yeah. Yeah okay. All right I have the dessert for you Derek. Are you ready for it?
Derek Sivers
Sure.
Jellis
So, as the desserts, I have a question about death. In my relatively young life, I’ve been confronted a lot with death. I’ve lost my dad when I was, like, four years old. I have been diagnosed with a life threatening heart disease when I was six years old. I struggled for years with suicidal thoughts when I was a teenager and about three years ago. Maybe you don’t know it, but I survived a sudden cardiac arrest. So it’s also called a sudden death, where my heart just stopped when I was asleep. Through a chain of luck I survived that, because you got to be just so lucky. So I’ve thought a lot about this topic. I find it a very interesting topic. I don’t mean with that that I have the answers about it, but I’ve thought about it a lot in my life as the thinker that you are. I also wanted to hear your thoughts on this topic. How do you feel about death and what’s over these years of being alive have you come to learn about death that had a profound impacts on how you live today?
Derek Sivers
Well, by the way, that was probably the best setup for a question I’ve ever heard. Congratulations on that. And it’s interesting now thinking about like how earlier you were asking me about luck and then, yeah, the sheer luck of you making it through that night.
Jellis
Yeah.
Derek Sivers
Okay, so I’m going to frame this through the lens of “Useful Not True” beliefs, not because I’m trying to sell a book, but I already think that way. And the last two years, I’ve been very focused on thinking this way. So here we are in August 2024. You’re going to get Derek’s “Useful Not True” lens on death, which is, by the way, I’m not saying death is not true. It is very much. But I’m saying that the how you look at it, a perspective on death isn’t necessarily true. It’s just one way of looking at it. So I find it very encouraging, it works for me wonderfully to keep death right outside my door, to think that it is right on my tail. And I’ve got to be smart, be healthy to keep it away as long as possible.
Jellis
Yeah.
Derek Sivers
I need to appreciate the few moments I have now before it comes, before it catches me. I love this idea that a disabled woman said, “Don’t forget that we are all temporarily abled.” And she explained that by saying, “Unless you you die a sudden, shocking death in your perfect health. Almost every one of us will become disabled in some way, whether it’s mentally disabled with dementia, physically disabled with your joints and arthritis, not able to do the things you used to be able to do.” She said, “So let’s just appreciate that we are all temporarily abled.” And that thought to me makes me go, ooh, that gets me out the door running. That gets me lifting weights. That worked for me in a way that other ideas don’t. Same thing with death to think-- I’m assuming now that I am in the final quarter of my life. Uh, I’m 54, and I do have an inherited DNA thing that makes me, like, way more likely to get cancer. And I’ve actually had cancer, like, four times in the last four years.
Jellis
Really?
Derek Sivers
Yeah so I’m not going to assume that I’m in the better half of the statistics. Like, “You know, most people die at 72, but I’m going to be 100.” No, I’m just assuming that the statistics apply to me. And in fact, I might be on the bottom half of those. So I’m assuming that I’m in the last quarter of my life right now. And this belief really works for me. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. I’ll never know until it’s too late, but I’m going to assume that I’m in the final quarter because that beats procrastination. That stops procrastination, that makes me do things now. If I say that I want to do them someday, it’s like, well, don’t have many somedays left this is it. Got to do it now.
Derek Sivers
And those things that I might be putting on to a list of like, “Oh, I really want to learn to become fluent in Hungarian or play drums or something like that.” I can say, “Well, I don’t have much time left. So what’s it going to be? Am I going to actually do this now, or am I going to take this off my list?” And so for a lot of things, I get to just take them off my list. I’m like, “You know what? That’s not going to happen.” And that’s all right. So that’s how I think about death, and that’s how it’s worked for me, for anybody listening to this. I’m not suggesting you adopt my way of thinking about it, but you should ask yourself what way of thinking about it works for you. Which way of thinking about death makes you take the actions that you would like to take, or feel more at peace.
Jellis
Yeah. I mean death can be a super powerful source to do stuff. So it sets a deadline. And, I mean, it is the deadline, right? But using death. Yeah that can be super powerful.
Derek Sivers
Wait, by the way, so I’m now I’m just curious because I never thought about that word deadline before. What is the literal Dutch translation of deadline? Is it the same?
Jellis
Deadline. Ooh. Whoa. We use that word all the time in Dutch, too. I’m completely blanking now on what we say, but I don’t think we say it like that.
Derek Sivers
Okay.
Jellis
No, I don’t think we say it like that.
Derek Sivers
That’s so fun to get into etymology sometimes where you learn, say, like the Chinese word for something and you go, “Ooh, that’s interesting. So wait, your word for this is that. Oh, wow. What an interesting way to think about that.” Yeah, you just suddenly said deadline when talking about death. And I went, “Oh, wow. I never thought about that dead-line.” You crossed this line. You died. This is when you die. That’s the deadline.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Cool.
Jellis
It’s even deeper than I imagined.
Jellis
Hold on. You said that you had cancer before.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I mean, it’s fine. There are some chunks cut out of me in four different places.
Jellis
All right. Actually, I will add one thing that-- I mean, this is something that I feel after that experience of my sudden death, my cardiac arrest, every day that I go to bed, you know, before I’m like, closing my eyes because it happened in my sleep, right. I’m always like, “All right. Am I going to wake up tomorrow?”
Derek Sivers
Wow.
Jellis
It’s not with, like, with fear or something, right? But it’s more like a-- it’s a strange feeling, maybe to exactly put in words. I have an ICD in me. So like, which is an internal defibrillator. So it will be shock if it would happen, but still yeah, I have that feeling very strongly. And then if I wake up the next day I’m actually very excited. I’m like very grateful. I’m like, “Holy fuck, I woke up.” And this so far over the last three years has happened almost every day. Which I actually like in a way. I guess way more grateful to still have a second chance at life. So yeah.
Derek Sivers
Dude, have you ever shown your scar on camera?
Jellis
Oh, now on a podcast?
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Jellis
No.
Derek Sivers
You should do it. I’ve seen it before. Can you? I haven’t seen yours, but I’ve seen others. Can you show? Because it’s really badass.
Jellis
Yeah. Let me just see. Because I can completely see myself right now. So. Yeah. ICD here right?
Jellis
How can you see that? With the lighting. That’s not so good.
Derek Sivers
Yes.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, you can see now. You can see the outline. It’s like a rectangle, right? You see the corner of it. Yeah. Under the skin.
Jellis
Yeah. It’s like a little box.
Derek Sivers
Wow.
Jellis
I’m a cyborg. Yeah. All right. Derek. That was the last question that I had for you. I have one final.
Derek Sivers
I just got an extra dessert out of you. That was cool, like most people have never seen one of those. I’ve seen one before, but that’s really cool to see.
Jellis
All right. Okay. Yeah. All right. I got a little bit naked.
Derek Sivers
If anybody listening, you’re gonna have to go search to this one hour mark in the YouTube and or one hour and 12 minutes into this on YouTube and find that.
Jellis
Exactly. I got one end question that I asked all my guests that I like to ask you as well. But before I do that, what’s the best place for listeners to connect with you to check out your work? Where in general would you like to send people to?
Derek Sivers
Anybody listening to this should email me. I love meeting people around the world. I have an open inbox. I get emails from people every day. I love it. I like meeting people that have listened an hour into a podcast like this. I think it’s really cool to meet those people. And then when I travel, I end up meeting up with those people in person. So please, anybody listening to this, go to my website, sive.rs, and you must send me an email and say hello and introduce yourself.
Jellis
Cool. All right. So for everyone listening, I’ll put that in the show notes. Derek, the final end question that I have for you. And you can make it super short. You can make it as extensive as you want from everything that you’ve seen, experienced, lived, and learned in your life. What’s the one thing you know to be true?
Derek Sivers
There’s always another way to look at anything.
Jellis
Yes. Derek Sivers, thank you so much for being here on the show.
Derek Sivers
Jellis, thank you so much for having me. It was a really fun conversation.
Jellis
Awesome. All right.