René Vidal

host: René Vidal

Tennis coach and I talk about beliefs and the power of anti-role-models, performing even when not at your best.

recorded 2025-02-11

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Transcript:

Rene Vidal

Derek Sivers is an author of philosophy and entrepreneurship, known for his surprising quotable insights and pithy, succinct writing style. Formerly a musician, programmer, TED speaker, and circus clown, he sold his first company for $22 million and gave all the money to charity. Derek’s books, Useful Not True, How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Your Music and People, one of my favorites, and Anything You Want, and newest projects are at his website, sive.rs. Derek, welcome to Down40 Love.

Derek Sivers

Thanks, Rene. Good to see you again.

Rene Vidal

It’s good to see you. So why did you decide to write this book Useful Not True?

Derek Sivers

I have so many friends with limiting beliefs that are held back by things that feel true to them, but are not actually true. It helps so much to differentiate between what’s in your head, or society’s head, versus concrete absolute reality. So, for example, anybody saying, “You can’t do that,” or somebody saying, “Here’s what women want,” or all of these limitations that you hear from people are stated as an absolute reality. “This is just the way it is. You must be loyal to your parents. You can’t climb that ladder before paying your dues.” Whatever it may be, these social realities are presented as absolute realities, but they’re not. They’re just norms or beliefs. This always bothered me when I caught people not living the life they really wanted to live because they’re held back by these things that feel real. And I was constantly pointing out, like, “But that’s not real. That’s just a belief.”

Derek Sivers

And on the flip side, I’d often deliberately choose beliefs that serve me well, and occasionally people would say, “Well, that’s not true.” For example, my little book called “Anything You Want,” I talk about how business is all about generosity, that the point of starting a business is to make a utopia where you have your own set of rules. And somebody would say, “But that’s not true.” I’d say, “I didn’t say it’s true. I said it’s useful. This is useful for me to believe.” So, blah, blah, blah. Point is, I decided to write a book about the subject distinguishing between what’s useful and what’s actually true.

Rene Vidal

I’m in the world of peak performance. My job is maximizing the potentials of the athletes that I work with, and I do my best to extend that to everybody that comes into my orbit. So I want to make you better through this conversation and all of my friends and so on and so forth. So I wrote down a couple of athletic peak performance theories. I want to run them by you, and just feel free to chime in with your thoughts as it relates to how you went about putting your book together.

Rene Vidal

The first theory is a team must be cohesive to maximize its potential.

Rene Vidal

The second one is athletes must feel good to play good.

Rene Vidal

And the third is the best leaders are great coaches.

Derek Sivers

I’m going to jump on the second one, because that hits me hard. Many people have said we should move forward in life based on positive motivation. It’s all about what you’re going towards, not what you’re going against. Think of what you want in terms of positive statements, not negative statements. And I can hear somebody say that, and I can think, “Hmm, well, that’s one way of doing it.” But you can’t say that’s the way of doing it. You can’t say that you must do this, because that’s just one approach.

Derek Sivers

I have been extremely well served in my life by negative motivation. Nothing gets me going more than what I don’t want. I was propelled out of my little town of Hinsdale, Illinois with great force, because I did not want to be like those lazy fuckers in Hinsdale, Illinois that I knew that got out of high school with great potential and then just got some job laying pipe for the village of Hinsdale. And I saw this happen a few times, and I went, “Oh, hell no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I am not going to be like that.” And I would stay up all night practicing. I would work harder than anybody else worked, because I was so propelled by the negative anti-role model that I did not want to be. And that served me for years and years and years. So it works really well for me. We don’t need to declare it universal. Conversely, I’m not going to tell everyone listening that you must be propelled by negative motivation. That’s the answer. No, I’m just saying this worked for me.

Rene Vidal

I live in the greater Chicago area now and I’m familiar with Hinsdale and I must say Derek let’s go easy on Hinsdale I think it’s grown to have a lot more CEOs and CFOs not necessarily people that are laying down pipes. It’s a pretty nice suburb, just outside of Chicago. I actually have a player on my team that’s not too far from Hinsdale. He’s right next door so we need to be so careful because I would not want to offend him. He’s in Oak Brook, Illinois, so I think it’s like, yeah, it’s like 10-15 minutes away.

Rene Vidal

But anyway, you’re absolutely spot on, in my opinion. You look at the top athletes, Michael Jordan was so motivated by naysayers. You look at the Kobe Bryants of the world, the same thing. Tell them they can’t do something, and here comes the volcano erupting. You’re going to get everything and more out of them. When you challenge them in that way. I think this is bullshit that athletes must feel good to play good.

Rene Vidal

Deion Sanders who’s in the media quite a bit right now for the work that he’s doing coaching the football team at the University of Colorado. He had like nine to 12 surgeries as a football player. He wasn’t feeling great every day he was out on the field, but he was still able to put up Hall of Fame numbers. So is it useful to think from maybe from a coaching standpoint, if my athletes feel good, then they’ll play good or play better? It can be, but there’s no absolute truth there. You can put your best performance out there to the public and be feeling like complete shit on the inside. That’s what that’s why it’s called performance.

Derek Sivers

Well, let’s also not forget that we have conflicting beliefs every day. There’s a certain belief that tells you, “You need to get out of bed now.” And you have a certain way of thinking in the morning that says, “I need to get up and go.” But you have a different way of thinking at night when it’s time to shut off that screen and go to bed. You have to tell yourself a different set of beliefs. “It’s time to shut down now.” “It’s time to go to sleep now.”

Derek Sivers

Similar with this thing we’re just picking out about, “You need to feel good to perform well.” I can imagine that’s a useful belief if you’re telling your players, “You need to get a good night’s sleep tonight because you need to feel good to play well.” But, okay, maybe that belief helps them get a good night’s sleep tonight. And that’s the belief that was necessary to help them sleep well. But then if you’re in a situation with an injury that it’s too late but you have to perform anyway, well, hey, you don’t have to feel good to play well. It’s like, “But coach, you said....” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just said that to help you go to sleep last night. But now, come on.” So, let’s not forget that any advice you hear on podcasts like this or from books or from very famous gurus, they’re just spouting stuff that’s intended to help you do what you need to do, be who you want to be, or feel at peace. It’s never an absolute truth. It’s just a perspective that might be useful or not.

Rene Vidal

So did we just segue into operational definitions because I think you just defined useful for us so.

Derek Sivers

I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking about this phrase a lot. Okay, so, yeah, let me back up. You asked at the very beginning, “Why did I write this book ’Useful, Not True’?” It’s a little phrase that came out often in conversation when people would challenge my beliefs by telling me they’re not true. And I’d say, “I know they’re not true. They’re useful, not true. I choose my beliefs because they’re useful to me in this moment, not because they’re absolutely true. They’re useful, not true.”

Derek Sivers

So, when I decided to write a little book about this, I thought, “Well, huh, what do I mean ’useful’ and what do I mean ’true’?” It’s because I had to think more about this before writing a book about it. So, the best succinct definition I could come up with for ’useful’ was whatever helps you do what you need to do, be who you want to be, or just to feel at peace. Because sometimes feeling at peace is the desired end result. Usually it’s making something happen, doing something, but sometimes it’s just, say, making peace with the past. And so then I had to think about my definition of ’true’. And this one is important because my definition of ’true’ is whatever is necessarily, absolutely, empirically, objectively, observably true for everyone, everywhere, always. Meaning, like, an alien from outer space or an earthworm could look at the situation and all agree that it’s true. And if it’s not true, notice that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s false. It just means that it’s not necessarily, objectively, absolutely, empirically true for everyone, everywhere, always.

Rene Vidal

Like gravity.

Derek Sivers

Like gravity! Gravity’s a good one. A square has four sides. Gravity is a real physical reality. And notice that I’m not talking about stupid, contemporary pop culture references like vaccines or voting counts, because those are observably true. You could look in a microscope and see a vaccine doing its job, or you could have access to the actual number of people that voted for who. So I’m not talking about denialism.

Derek Sivers

I’m talking about distinguishing between what’s real and what’s just in the mind. And that’s the key point. It’s because there are so many things that to us, as social creatures, growing up in the cultures we grew up in, we feel that this thing is absolutely true. You must be loyal to your country. You must not say something that could hurt somebody’s feelings. These are said like they’re absolute realities, but they’re not. It’s just one way of looking at things. If you go visit another culture on the other side of the earth where they do things in a different way, you find that they have a completely different point of view on these things. And so suddenly you have to distinguish between what’s holding you back in your head versus what’s actually, absolutely, physically holding you back in an observable empirical sense, which is usually almost nothing.

Rene Vidal

So Derek, you grew up in the States, and I know you spend quite a bit of time here. And you’ve lived three or four countries. So, is it just us in America who have this overwhelming sense or need to feel right all the time like to be right? Or is that a global pandemic?

Derek Sivers

No. It’s a global thing. It’s fascinating spending more time in India and China, and seeing people say these things that are just absolute truths. “You have to do what your parents want you to do. You can’t just not do what your parents tell you to do. I mean, they’re my parents. I owe them my life. I really wanted to be a musician, but my parents told me I had to go to law school, so I had to go to law school.” And I’d say, “But no, you could have been a musician.” They say, “No, that’s not an option. You don’t understand. This is China. I can’t do that. You have to do what your parents want.” And they just say that like it’s gravity, like it’s Pythagorean’s theorem. It’s just an absolute reality of nature. But then it’s the same thing. I just point out that no, there’s another way of being. That’s just one way of looking at it.

Rene Vidal

So when did the lights turn on for you? Was there a specific incident or life experience where the world sort of opened up for you from a perspective standpoint, and you started to see things differently? Was it more gradual over time? How did it happen?

Derek Sivers

Okay. If we’re doing the origin story, I think growing up in Hinsdale, Illinois, yeah, it’s a pretty upper-class suburb. There were 16-year-olds that I was in high school with whose parents gave them a Porsche for their 16th birthday. And I was just, eh, ambivalent. I just roll my eyes. It just seems stupid, but I wasn’t angry about it. But what did bother me is this universal assumption that what we’re all here to do is to get into a good college. And you want to get into a good college so you can get a good job. But I had already decided by the age of 14 that I was going to be a professional musician. I was really determined about this. And so suddenly it felt like all of these truisms around me were moot, that they were applicable to people that had different values than me. That if what you want is to get a job at Motorola, someday, as a vice president, well then, yeah, you should get a good degree from a good college, which means you should do well in this class to get into the good college. But that doesn’t apply to me because that’s not what I’m after. So it felt like it was all moot. So I think I felt like these rules don’t apply to me. Not because I’m so special, but because I have different values and goals than the people around me.

Rene Vidal

I love that. Can you talk to us a little bit about the art of reframing maybe define it for us and share just how you put that into the book.

Derek Sivers

It’s looking at any adversity as an advantage. It’s taking anything that initially seems horrible. “Oh no, I’ve just had this horrible thing happen. This is terrible. This is a disaster.” And you have to make yourself ask the question, “What’s great about this?” And your first response will be “Nothing! This is terrible. This is just objectively bad. Fuck your self-help. This is bad.” But no, keep asking. Because like we learned about brainstorming long ago, brainstorming is all about not stopping at the first answer, not stopping at the second or the third or the fourth. But you keep going and you reach out into the ridiculous to come up with many, many different possible ideas to answer this question.

Derek Sivers

So using that in the most useful way that affects everybody’s lives very directly is when you catch yourself in a situation that feels bad. We don’t even need to say adversity. It could just be like you dropped something on the floor that smashed all over. You have to pick it up. You can ask yourself in any moment, “What’s great about this?” And there’s always an answer if you keep asking. And don’t don’t stop at the first one either, because there have been times that you could take what seems to be objectively bad and turn it into your greatest success. So to me, reframing is all about that.

Derek Sivers

It’s just looking at things from other points of view. I’m holding a little thing in my hand now, a microphone case that I could look at it this way and say that it’s oval. But if I look at it this way, it’s a rectangle. I could look at it this way and it’s like an open clam. You could do this with life. You could do this with your romantic relationship. You can do this with money. For example, I think as an entrepreneur, it’s a huge advantage to not have any investors to force you to prove the worth of an idea without any investor money. It’s your location. If you’re trying to be famous as a musician, you could say that your location in Peru is a downside, but you could turn that to your greatest strength to set you apart from all the wannabes in Los Angeles. Any of these things. Prince turned his shortness and shyness into a great advantage. There’s so many examples of this. People turning adversity into their greatest success. To me, that’s what reframing is all about.

Rene Vidal

Yeah, I love it and, and you’re absolutely correct about it being right up my alley, I have these conversations with my coaching colleague. You know, I say to her, every day we’re getting information back, whether it’s practice or it’s competition, we’re getting data like we’re in the data collection business, and it’s our job to sift through all of this data and get rid of the bullshit and get rid of the initial emotional reactions that are heavily weighted towards the negative, especially if things aren’t going the way you want them to go. And it’s our job to just get to the root, if there’s a problem, attack that problem or approach that problem with with clarity and I know you talk about clarity in the book and how important of a skill if you can put it in that classification. You know, clear eyes, I think you wrote in in useful not true having clear eyes, because the reality that we all faces, whether it’s an official adversity and adversity is different than tragedy. And, or a problem, but I think one thing that’s common for all of us is we face problems every day, if you’re in my business, there’s some shit that happens every single day, it could be something tiny as a player coming late to practice or deciding that he wants to go rogue, and not, not be compliant with our culture, and our values and and sort of do do his own thing. But we face sort of these micro challenges every single day and the better we are at reframing the better we’re going to be at life, the better we’re going to be at whatever it is we do, at least that’s that’s my perspective. You have any thoughts on that?

Derek Sivers

I totally agree. I think that reframing is maybe the single most important life skill anyone can have.

Rene Vidal

I wrote, as I was taking some notes, on your book, which again, I love and I recommend like everybody pick up a copy that I think is available on on your website. You define reframing as simply changing how you think about something like how practical is that? And I love it. It’s six words. It’s like, boom, if you don’t get it, like, go back and try again. Like, there it is. Just change how you think about something. And I wrote down the goal because when I when I read I’m always looking for the action step. You know, where, the one takeaway, the one or two takeaways that I can download into my life each day. And this is what I wrote down as the goal of your book. And it’s just my perspective. And it says, “Choose a perspective that’s useful to you right now.” And these are exactly your words: “Whether or not it’s universally true. Choose a perspective that’s useful to you right now, whether or not it’s universally true.” And I think that that’s great. And everybody should have that skill. And it’s such a worthy goal to have. It’s so interesting you said right now, like the perspective that you choose right now. That it matters right now, but like a year from now, it can be completely different. And now I’m thinking about your previous book, How to Live, where you’re just you’re taking us on a pendulum, like one side to the other. And just if you if somebody wants to get super mentally fit, they need to pick up “How to Live”.

Derek Sivers

But you got the connection, right? I don’t know if you noticed, those books are meant to go together as a pair, and so the inside cover of Useful Not True has the exact same paper that’s used as the cover of How to Live. It’s like the two are meant to segue into each other.

Derek Sivers

Anyway, the whole point is to realize that your thoughts are tools, that your thoughts are there to shape your emotions, and your emotions are what drive your actions. So you have a certain thought like, “That person wronged me.” And you think, “Yeah, what they did was wrong.” And so now it’s affected your emotions. You say, “Argh! What a jerk! What an asshole! Argh!” And so that’s going to affect your actions like, you might hit something or lash out at the person to release your anger onto somebody that you’re mad at. But it all started with that initial thought that said that, “That person wronged me.” But now if you rewind and you use the brainstorming and reframing, you can say, “Okay, well, that person wronged me. That’s one way of looking at it. What’s another? That person severely wronged me. Okay, that’s another. What’s a third one? That person wronged me but didn’t mean to. It was an accident. Okay, that’s another. What’s another? That person didn’t wrong me at all. I was being tested.”

Derek Sivers

This is where religion often comes in really handy is to say, “Ah, anything that’s happened to you that’s a challenge, God is testing you.” And are you going to rise to this challenge? You’re being tested. You’re being observed. How are you going to handle this challenge? You go, “Ooh, I’m going to handle this challenge by rising up and being above it. I’m not going to let it bother me. I’m going to let that flow under the water under the bridge. And I’m going to stay above it. And I’m going to be kind and calm no matter how I actually feel.” Okay, well, look, it just changed your emotions too, just thinking that way, thinking of option number five in that little example, made you calmer and go, “Ah....” It made you feel elevated. It made you feel lucid. It made you feel righteous. And then your actions will be kinder and calmer as a reaction.

Derek Sivers

None of those thoughts were wrong or right. They were just different ways of looking at the same thing. But they absolutely affected the end result in a huge way. And we’re presented with this 100 times a day. 100 times a day something comes up that you can choose how to think about it. And we have our default reaction, but so what? Your default isn’t reality. It’s just some knee-jerk reaction based on some crap your parents told you, or TV told you. We’re so affected by everything we’ve taken in since the age of three. It doesn’t mean it’s reality. It’s just the first impulse. We should diminish the importance. Our first thought is an obstacle. That’s one of my favorite sayings.

Rene Vidal

Your first thought is an obstacle. I love it because one of my core beliefs that tends to help me, I believe, both on and off the tennis court is that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. I think it’s a quote by Da Vinci. But as you know, I mean, it probably can be attributed to 50 people from back in the day.

Derek Sivers

Maybe Da Vinci’s less famous cousin said it to him.

Rene Vidal

But. Yeah, exactly. And he took credit. Who knows? And I didn’t read Isaacson’s book on him, so, maybe I need to get more informed. But. What I love about your work as an author, because if I know you at all, it’s through your books. Right. And it’s through a couple of conversations that we’ve had like this is your ability to do deep thinking and to do the deep work. And then share it in a way that is truly understandable to them, to the widest group of people possible. I really think that you take big, somewhat they can be to some complex ideas because people who are stuck are not thinking straight. You know, people who don’t know what their next step should be. Are confused. Yes. So, a book like this that really distills powerful ideas into digestible bites is super useful. If I may say so myself. You reminded me a little bit just about one of the challenges that I have right now as a coach. I went into this one of my goals as a coach for this year, for twenty twenty five was I wanted to. Lead with a certain level of calmness during crisis because I kept reading in this. This theme kept coming up last year that. You know, leaders are the best leaders are calm during a crisis, and I believe that that’s a useful belief at the end of the day. OK, now there’s there’s a time and place for what Pat Riley, the famous basketball coach, called temporary insanity. There’s a time and place for temporary insanity. But on a day to day basis. The face that your team needs to see is one of calm, a steady hand. And of course, since I set that goal for twenty twenty five, all of those challenges are coming into service every single day because the team that we’re coaching now and that we’re developing now is different than last year’s team. Last year’s team had more experience. They were more seasoned. This year’s team is just as talented, but they’re younger. They’re less mature. So the problems and the challenges are a little bit different. And for someone who’s not naturally patient like myself, it’s you know, it takes that that mental discipline to stay true to the goal and to practice the art of reframing every single day, every single day. And to build up that, quote unquote, reframing muscle. Now, you talked about how our initial reactions a lot of time with people is like, man, they piss me off. They what a jerk for saying that or doing that. And I’ll give you a super relevant example that I shared with you right before we got in the podcast. So, as you know, I sent you questions ahead of time, as I do with most guests, because I think it’s great preparation. You know, why not give you a little bit of the game plan so you can get ahead, and you can feel like your best self once you know, once we get started. So you are super proactive, which is great. And I woke up at two thirty this morning and I checked my email, which is, not something you’re supposed to be doing. I don’t know who doesn’t, though, like who doesn’t check their phone like in the middle of the night if they wake up. But I see that you answered all the questions. So my initial reaction was like, gosh, just another podcast guest trying to take control of the conversation. This was my initial reaction. OK, it lasted five seconds, so don’t worry about it. And here’s another guy who is just trying to sort of dictate where the script is going to go, instead of just waiting until, we hit record and just going and just sharing the answers. Then I’m getting them ahead of time as if I need the preparation work, blah, blah, blah. This is a two minute conversation at two thirty in the morning and I have a drink of water and I say, OK, how can I look at this differently? Like what other reasons? I know it’s crazy, right? But this is the stuff that goes through. And this is a real life example. And I’m not above sharing something that is so tiny. I don’t care. I don’t give a shit. So, two minutes later, I’m thinking, well, one of the reasons why Derek probably wrote back is it probably helped clarify his thinking, like so he could be his best self. Like, why wouldn’t you want to be your best self? Why wouldn’t you want to hit a home run, on the podcast and put your best foot forward? You know, and then the other was, yeah, maybe he earnestly wanted to just give me this data so that it would make me think and then I can come back with even better questions than what I sent, initially. And we can just make this the best that it can possibly be. So, after five minutes, I mean, I completely reframed it and turned it around. I was like, I’m still excited about being on the call with Derek. It’s going to be amazing. Blah, blah. And I go, I tried to go back to sleep as possible, but that’s the kind of mind fuck, that I don’t know where the root is from. I’m from I always blame it on I’m from New York. You’re from Chicago. I’m from New York. We see the worst in people initially. We’re the quickest to go tell somebody to go fuck themselves. It’s just that’s just part of being from New York. That’s the story that I share tongue in cheek wise. But so often it comes out instinctively. And thank God. Yeah, I’ve gotten to the point where I can pause and say, hey, like that’s not that doesn’t serve me. You know, it’s not going to serve Derek if I bring this kind of energy to our conversation by any means, and putting my guests in a box like that is not going to it’s not going to help anybody. So that’s what when you shared just some of these initial negative reactions we have to things that sometimes are just unexplainable. But the skill of reframing can just totally turn it around. And like I’ve loved our conversation, not that I ever doubted that I would like it’s been so much fun to be with you. And hopefully it’s beneficial for the audience as well. Any thoughts on that before we move into some Derek isms?

Derek Sivers

That’s amazing. Thank you for honestly and vulnerably sharing that. That’s amazing to hear. I never thought in a million years that my email could be taken that way. I was just clarifying my own thoughts. You emailed me five questions that will probably come up today. I thought, oh, all right, well, let me get ready. So in my own private notes, I answered them that in my thinking, well, why keep that secret? Maybe it would help him to know where I’m going to go with that in case it sparks a follow up question in advance. Whereas if I surprise him with that while we’re recording, maybe he wouldn’t have time to think of the follow-up. So I was just trying to not hoard what I had. I’d never thought in a million years it could be taken negatively. So, yeah, thanks for sharing that. That’s so interesting.

Derek Sivers

It comes up in interpersonal ways all the time. I share a little story in the book about an English woman who went to live in China for a while, and at the table with her Chinese host family, she was constantly saying please and thank you. May I please have this and thank you. And finally, her host mother said, “Deborah, stop it. You’re being rude.” And Deborah said, “Wait, what do you mean? I said, please. I said thank you.” She said, “Yes, that’s rude in our household. That’s what you do to strangers. To strangers, you say please and thank you. You’re part of our family. You eat with us every night for nine months now. Stop it with all the please and thank you. You’re treating us like strangers. It’s rude.” Whoa. What an interesting reframing of manners. That manners are for strangers. I just I love that kind of stuff.

Rene Vidal

I’m with you on that. And thanks for being such a good sport for letting me share that because it’s like nothing personal. It’s all me. Like that’s all my story. Just whatever is going through in my head has nothing to do with you. And even if you were writing it, from more of an antagonistic or like ego place. Right. Even if you were coming like it’s still about how I want to interpret that, like you write in the book, whatever meaning what you know, what’s the meaning you want to attach to this event or this email or this conversation? It’s completely up to you. And it was just it’s so funny that I had that experience. I mean, I’d love to blame it on it being two thirty in the morning. But I guarantee if I got your email at two thirty afternoon, I would have had the same initial. So I’m not hiding from anything. There’s no excuses whatsoever. But I will say this. And I think it’s a little bit PTSD from some guests that I’ve had more recently. Let’s just say in the last couple of years where the sense I got was there was a little bit too much ego involved, and not coming from places just having a genuine conversation, and leading with authenticity. And I think I’ve been a little bit more, let’s say, aggressive around and maybe proactive around who I want to book on the show, and the kinds of thinkers and the approach.

Derek Sivers

There’s an interesting angle on this. When my last company, called CD Baby - it was a music distribution company. When it was at its peak of success, I moved to Los Angeles just because my girlfriend had moved there to go to film school and I wanted to be with her. So I moved there, too. And it had this lovely side effect of being in the heart of the music industry when I was at the peak of my music success fame. Everybody in L.A. wanted to take me out to lunch. I felt like toast of the town of the music business. Everybody knew me. Everybody wanted to meet me. And so everybody that met me was leaning forward and wanted to hear everything I had to say. And they would laugh really loudly at any attempt at humor I made. And they were all kissing my ass because they could get something from me. I was in a position where I could make them famous if I wanted to because of my platform. And it had this unfair dynamic because this. But I noticed that during that time, during that year that I first moved there, it got to me in such a way that I it fucked with my ego. I really felt like any time I was in a conversation with somebody, it felt one sided. It’s like, “Well, you’re all here to hear what I have to say about things.” And I finally caught myself in that situation when I met some stranger like a friend of my friend who had no idea who I am. And I was almost shocked that they didn’t just want to hear my view on everything. And then I realized, “Oh no, I’ve been conditioned by my environment over the last year to think that I’m super special and whatever I’m thinking is important. Whoa, that’s messed up!” And so luckily, I caught myself after a year. I’m sure I was just an egotistical ass for a year and I caught myself.

Derek Sivers

But now I recognize it in others. I met with a Grammy Award winning musician and he requested that we go out to lunch. We had some mutual friends. He wanted to meet up. And so we met up and oh god, he was awful. He was rude to everybody around him. He didn’t ask me a single question. He said it was like so nice to meet me, but no, it was just he just wanted another audience. But instead of being mad at him, I kind of pitied his situation. I’ve been there. I get it. You’re still in the midst of that thing where everybody around you is kissing your ass and it’s messing with your view of reality. So even people who were being egotistical assholes, I try to not see it as that they are a jerk, but they are just currently in a situation that is messing with their view of reality.

Rene Vidal

Absolutely, Derek. I mean, I think, but at the same time, we have a responsibility to guard our time and our energy and you have to, I mean, you have to ask yourself, like, how much of myself do I want to give to this person? Like, do I want to spend how much time do I want to spend with this person? I’ll give you another example. Really quickly. I mean, I had a guy who I really admire. He’s a prolific author. He’s done great work. I won’t say what space. It’s not necessary, but he’s a fine entrepreneur. I mean, he’s been, in business, well over three or four decades, and I admire him a lot. And we’ve had a relationship, a distant relationship for some time and, I asked him to be on the podcast. And I sent him questions. He felt the need to write back and say, hey, I don’t do questions, so I threw them away. So I wrote back, hey, like, I get it. I get that the questions don’t work for you, but what doesn’t work for me is that you felt you had the need to tell me that you threw my questions away. So for that, thank you. Adios. And that was it. You know, I mean, I got a couple of angry emails after it just, slandering me like I’m an idiot. It’s all me, blah, blah, blah. But it’s just like I made a decision a long time ago. It’s like I don’t want to hang around with certain types of people. So for me, it was like a very it took me two seconds to write back. It’s like thanks, but I’m good. Like, it’s just not we don’t need we don’t need to go forward if you feel like you need to let me know that you discarded my questions and blah, blah, blah. It’s just it’s not going to be what it can be. And that’s not why I do this. You know, I’m not doing it to to interact in that manner. But I also think that being said, because I think we’re talking about a lot of different perspectives, people listening and watching. 80 percent of them will be judging me like crazy and maybe even yourself for your story that you shared, for that one year in L.A. Like, God forbid people are, they’re lifted you up on a pedestal and for a brief moment in time, you thought you were all that like that period’s dead and good for you. You put your you put yourself in a situation where people can look up to you. And it offered it was a challenge for you, is something that helps you grow at the end at the end of the day. And it’s not your fault that here’s here’s something that’s definitely probably not useful and probably not true. You know, but they say, in L.A., the first question everybody’s asking is either like, what’s your car? Like, what kind of car do you drive? Or when’s the you know, what’s the last vegan burger that you had? Like, it’s just not you know, there’s a reputation for maybe not being the most deep, or philosophical bunch. And that’s just what I’ve heard. I love L.A. I love being out there. It’s my kind of vibe. And I know that you actually I think you wrote in the book that L.A. was one of your favorite places where you come alive. New York. I got two and I’m not looking at New York, L.A., maybe Singapore. I’m not sure what the third.

Derek Sivers

London was the third one that I said, just those are the three places that inspire me the most, because that’s where my heroes have created their greatest works in New York, L.A. and London. So those places when I’m there, oh my God. Brilliant musicians and authors. Living in Union Square for a while, I just felt like, wow, right around me to the left and right of me are some of the brightest minds in the literary world or some of the best musicians are right here next to me. I just I want to rise to this place.

Derek Sivers

Oh, man, we opened up a can of worms. There are so many interesting things to talk about before we close the subject and tangent away. You said that in L.A., everybody asks “When did you have your last vegan burger?” OK. Even the person that says that, how is that belief useful for them? How, if they believe and if they actually think that, and they’re not just trying to make you laugh, but if they actually believe that people in L.A. will say, “When have you had your last vegan burger?” How is that belief useful for them? Are they holding that up as like a fake anti-role-model? Like, “I’m not that way. I’m not shallow like that. I don’t judge people that.” It doesn’t even matter that people in L.A. don’t actually do that. They just want to feel maybe a self definition of what their values are. And maybe by telling you this, they want you to see them in such a way like “I need you to know I’m not that kind of person.” And that’s why they find it useful to tell somebody in conversation, “Well what happens in L.A....” It’s so interesting to me when you hear people spout all kinds of stuff that is just a perspective. You think, “Why is that useful to you?”

Rene Vidal

Right. And they get you thinking about the potential meanings behind it because there’s always something behind it. The person that’s complaining about, the vegan burger thing, probably has some issue with class classes like class status, economic status. And maybe they’ve got something against maybe they’re not where they want to be financially and they don’t think highly, they’ve got these disempowering money related beliefs towards those that are doing better. I mean, who knows? But I think what you get at very clearly in your book is the importance of attaching meanings to life events, conversations that are in our head that are useful to us. And I think as an extension, sort of the holy grail is that we come from a place where we’re useful to others, like how you defined you defined useful again as do what you need to do, be who you want to be, feel at peace. You know, so the question is, how can we be that person to others? How can we help people do what they need to do? How can we help people be who they want to be? How can we help people feel more at peace emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, at work, help them feel more connected to their purpose, what they’re supposed to be doing on this earth, whatever their assignment is, maybe helping them connect more with that. I think to this to this aside, and I find it sort of hilarious conversation when we’re talking about, LA and some of these things in my idiocy at 2.30 in the morning. One of your Derek isms, I think speaks very relevant to this, you say, judge the contents, not the box. Can you share a little bit more into what you meant by that? Okay. Despite the box and never mind the box. Let’s go for the contents. So. That was the inspiration for that.

Rene Vidal

In coaching, we say listen to the message and not the messenger.

Derek Sivers

Coaches are a great example. The best life coach dude I ever hired was not a success in himself. He was five years younger than me. Never particularly successful at anything he attempted in life. But damn, he was a great coach. He helped me so much. When people contact me saying they’re looking for a mentor, they want a mentor that’s like Richard Branson. They don’t want anybody that’s less than a billionaire to tell them what’s what. But I say, no, no, no, no, no. Somebody whose box is not impressive can have beautiful content like never mind the messenger. Notice how it affects you. It doesn’t matter what the person’s CV or background or net worth is. Just listen to what they’re saying.

Rene Vidal

Yeah, I’m, I’m with you. I mean, 1000% on that. And it’s interesting last summer, we talked about Notre Dame before we hit the record button, which is where our team was this this past weekend. And when you talk about mentors, the former men’s coach at Notre Dame is one of my mentors has been one of my mentors for the last 25 years. He’s retired now. But last summer, I took the weekend, and I drove because South Bend’s only two and a half hours from Chicago was less than that. But it was a quick drive. You know, Bobby Bailess still lives in South Bend. I hadn’t seen him in person in a while. So, I wrote down, a list of questions when we had coffee, we got lunch, basically spent the day with him. You know, he picks me up. I mean, he’s done very well over the course of his career. He’s got a beautiful family, most most of whom I believe lives in Chicago. And it was it was humbling. In the best sense, he comes he picks me up and up and not a fancy car at all. You know, this is someone who’s in a different stage of life. You know, wasn’t the billionaire, whatever, BMW convertible or anything like this, like, which would look kind of strange in South Bend. You know, you’ve been there anyway. But the wisdom that he shared and just the practical insight into what’s important. And I think he sensed he definitely sensed that I’m still on this mission, right? Like maybe how I don’t know how you were on a day to day with CD Baby. But my guess is, you don’t build a 22 million dollar company without being focused at at a high level. Let’s just put it that way. You know, so I’m sharing with him what I plan on doing right now with the team where I plan to be three years out, professionally and sharing some big goals. And he just kept bringing me back down. And in my mind, I was like, why is he bringing the dream back down to, just make sure you’re having fun, and that you’re being fulfilled and you’re taking care of the kids that are in your stead now. Like, just those sort of old school values that never change that serve as the foundation. And I remember initially, because you know this about me now, I’m frustrated. I’m like, what the fuck? You’re like, you’re supposed to be kind of like my mentor and you’re supposed to affirm everything that I want. Just everything I say, you should be agreeing and being like, that’s amazing. And that’s no, no, that’s so wrong. It’s so off base. And, for a couple of weeks after that, I really, I reframed it, and said, hey, like, what is he really, what was he really trying to get across to me just in terms of what’s important about what I do, who I am, what my vision is. And he didn’t say like, don’t have big goals and don’t be ambitious. He was just saying, look, remember what’s truly important, as a coach, remember what really matters in life. And I haven’t forgotten it. And those are the lessons of a great mentor, they’re going to share with you something, or nudge you and poke you in a way that doesn’t always feel good. But yeah, you can’t judge the contents, not the box. I love two or three more and then we’ll peace out and maybe we can have another conversation at some point. Because this has been a lot of fun.

Rene Vidal

In the book, you talk about going from exploring to becoming a self leader. For business owners and entrepreneurs, these folks that just work as maybe one person operations, can you talk to us about switching from exploring to self leader, what that means?

Derek Sivers

Think about the metaphor of the classic old British explorer with the pith hat dressed in khaki going off into the jungle of Africa or South America or something and with a machete in hand and and just exploring. “Let’s see what’s here. Let’s see what’s in there. Let’s see what’s up that hill. Nothing. Let’s go back here. What’s down that river? It’s a dead end.” They’re just exploring. That explorer is probably pretty annoying to follow. If you’re on his little team, carrying his bags, you’ve got to constantly be reversing and and getting to dead ends. But every now and then that explorer finds a beautiful harbor that could be a great place to start a future city. So he sends notification to the Queen, and the Queen then assigns a captain to lead the expedition to that place to to go establish a new colony there. So then what that leader does is a very different mission. The leader says “This is where we’re going. This is how we’re going to get there. These are the benefits of going. This is why you should go and what you can expect to receive. I’ve got my blinders on now. I’m not open to any other ideas. We’re going there!” That’s what the captain does on that mission to go there. And if somebody on that ship across the Atlantic said, “Oh, captain, what if we went down over there instead?” The captain would say, “Shut up. We’re going here. I’m not asking for input. I know where we’re going.” Now, you have both of these personalities inside yourself. You have a side of yourself that just wants more information. You want more distraction. You want to find something new. Like the explorer. And you have a side of yourself that knows where you need to go and just needs to say, “Shut up. Get down below. This is where we’re going. Ignore the distractions.” And there are times in your life where you need to be the explorer and find a new place to go. But there are times in your life where you know where you need to go, and you need to shut up the explorer and shut up the curiosity and shut up the “What about this and what about that? And hey, what if we try this instead?” You just have to say shut up so you can get to your destination.

Rene Vidal

Do you think that we live in a time where one hat is more valuable or useful than the other?

Derek Sivers

No, I think it’s dependent on the person and the day and the time in your life. I think there are literally even times of the day where you need to be a leader, a self leader. You need to be that captain. And there are times in your life or maybe even your day where you need to lift your head up and try other things.

Rene Vidal

As an author, where are you exploring right now? What areas?

Derek Sivers

I am in full Explorer mode right now. Not even anything in particular I’m intrigued and curious about.

Rene Vidal

What are you reading?

Derek Sivers

I’m not reading anything right now. I’m actually more closing loops. I’m actually being I’m actually being more of a leader, not an explorer right now in the bigger picture.

Derek Sivers

I’m talking about on the micro level, like even a dear friend of mine in China wants me to come visit. Just last night we were talking about it. I said she actually invited me to come next week. And I said I just I just want to finish what I’ve started here. I’m feeling more like that leader that’s like, no, no distractions. I need to finish this. So it’s tempting to take an invitation to go.

Rene Vidal

Do you mind sharing what specific project or projects that you’re working on? Is this something professional?

Derek Sivers

Oh, sure. You can go to sive.rs/i and look at the transcript of all my past interviews. And that’s something I’ve put hundreds of hours of work into. You are the first person I remember telling this. I haven’t even told my friends, really. What I’m doing with the transcripts of all of my interviews is dissecting our conversation and separating the utterances into categorizations of a statement, a question or an answer. And if an answer, an answer to which question? Or is it just idle chatter? And the reason to categorize into those four types, is for training future A.I. on these interviews. If I’m going to train an A.I. on how I would answer this question, then say, for example, you might speak a few sentences and then ask your question at the end. And I might actually say a couple paragraphs of other things before coming back to answer your question. And I would like the A.I. to know which part of what I’m saying is the actual answer to a question. And of the things you said, what was the actual part that I’m answering in there? So I’m dissecting transcripts to train future A.I. That’s one example.

Rene Vidal

That’s cool. I like it. A lot.

Derek Sivers

Like a lot of people, I’ve bought more books than I’ve read over the years. And I took a few days to categorize all of my unread books. There are unfortunately 505 of them now: books that I have bought, but not yet read. So I started realizing I don’t even remember what this book is. I bought this like six years ago. I still haven’t read it. So I went through and put the 505 books into a database. I categorized them into topic. I have like eight books about math. If I did buy the physical book, I went and found the e-book version so I could have them all in one place. And it’s especially handy.

Derek Sivers

I’ve been feeding these books into an A.I. tool. Gemini is the one that has the largest input size so you can actually feed the entire contents of a book into your prompt, the entire book and say, “Please tell me what this is about. What is its gist?” I’m trying to figure out if this is worth reading. So what is this about? And so there is a book on economics that somebody told me was a great book. I bought it six years ago. Haven’t read it yet. Looking at it, I know nothing about it. I fed the entire contents into Gemini A.I. And I said, “Please give me the main points that this author is trying to communicate.” And once I read the main points, I went, “Oh, that’s not something I want to read.“ So, one less thing. But then on the other hand, there were some books that I did not realize were going to be so interesting. And when it told me the summarized points, I went, “Oh, my God, that sounds really interesting.” OK, so I’ve now prioritized I want to read that book in whole. So I’m doing stuff like that, that I’m in the midst of.

Rene Vidal

I feel like it’s helped me big time. You know, I’ve never been the person that, in like, I don’t need 5000 people at my funeral. Like, that’s not why I’m playing this game. Like, I don’t care about that. You know, and I think the more clarity that we can gain about what’s useful and not true, the more we can just live our own authenticity, own form of authenticity. And these are some of the lessons I do my best to pass on to our student athletes, because what we do is tennis is just the vehicle. You know, it’s a vehicle for them to become the best version of themselves. A couple. This has been it’s so funny because you said, what’s your sweet spot for podcast? I said 30-35 minutes. We’re in and out. We’re over an hour. I’m feeling like Tim Ferriss and I’m entering into Joe Rogan mode.

Derek Sivers

Well, sorry, dude, you keep bringing up really interesting things and I’ve been interrupting and saying, wait, we don’t change a subject yet. This is a really interesting point. Let’s keep talking about this. So that’s my fault. Sorry about that.

Rene Vidal

No, no, there’s no fault. I’m absolutely loving this. I want to hit on maybe two or three more and then we’ll piece everybody out. I think that this is a huge, a huge one. You write, I’m going to say both of them back to back because they’re really related.

Rene Vidal

You say your outside doesn’t need to match your inside. And then you follow that up with your self image doesn’t matter much. So maybe you can talk to us a little bit. I think about this myth and going back to the belief that I shared with you earlier about good. You know, if you feel good, you’re going to perform good, right? That’s saying like if you if you have a high self image, you’re going to do better as a belief. Talk to us about maybe the myth of self image, which is prevalent throughout self-help literature, like for years or decades and decades. And just talk to us about this relationship between the outside and the inside.

Derek Sivers

I’ve gleaned this from Seth Godin, who has a beautiful rant against the concept of authenticity, where he says that in our current culture, for some reason, there’s a trend of wanting to show your authenticity by expressing your inner fleeting emotions externally. So the barista is surly to you when you’re ordering your coffee because she’s had a bad morning. She’s just being authentic, man. Just “I’m not in the mood today. Here’s your coffee.” And some people value that. They say, “Wow, she’s authentic. That’s cool. I wish I could be more authentic instead of being an ass kisser.” And they reframe being polite as being inauthentic, not being your true self. So Seth’s beautiful rant against this said something like, “If I’m having surgery, I don’t really want the surgeon mid-surgery to say “what, just not in the mood for this shit” and walk out. “Somebody else, sew him up. I’ve had it.” Or you don’t want your airline pilot to say, “I just don’t want to live anymore. You’re all going to die now because I’m depressed right now.” No, you want your airline pilot and your surgeon to just be professional. Your personal emotions are not my problem. Don’t go spewing your authenticity on everyone and in the name of, “Hey, look, I’m just being honest, man.” Instead, we separate what’s going on inside, which is often fleeting, with how you behave outside.

Derek Sivers

And one of my favorite sentences about this about bit of life advice I put in the top 10 life advice for anyone is be calm and kind, no matter how you feel. Even if you’re angry, even if you feel that this person does not deserve your politeness, you behave calm and kind, no matter how you feel in that moment. Because then you also realize that our feelings are just the result of a thought and that thought came from came from who-knows-where and you your first thought is an obstacle anyway, so maybe you’re still feeling the first thought, nevermind all that you just do the right thing. You behave how you know is the right thing to do that your highest self would do, or is just rationally it’s the right thing to do. So even if you’re irrational emotions are feeling another way you behave like this.

Derek Sivers

So these two things are related about your self image. It doesn’t really matter that’s your own internal shit that has nothing to do with me. Ultimately, both of those points are about being considerate to others that if you think about it from the other person’s point of view. They don’t need to know how you feel inside. They don’t need to know how you see yourself. They just want the end result. They want you to be kind. They want you to do your job well.

Rene Vidal

Well, your outside doesn’t need to match your inside and your self-image doesn’t matter much. I love these so much. You know, I think, and I love what you said about being calm no matter how you feel and kind. I need that. I already told you. I’m from New York, unabashed, like, can be a complete asshole at the drop of a hat.

Derek Sivers

What neighborhood did you grow up in?

Rene Vidal

I was born in Queens. My dad had a business in Jamaica.

Derek Sivers

What part of Queens?

Rene Vidal

Jamaica, Queens, so like five minutes from Kennedy Airport.

Derek Sivers

Alright. Number 7 train.

Rene Vidal

Yeah, maybe. But we commuted. My dad had his own business in Brooklyn. So we commuted from Queens to Brooklyn every day, and I went to school in Brooklyn through eighth grade. And then, my dad passed away when I was 13. You know, I moved in with my mom and my stepfather on Long Island. So then I moved to Floral Park, which is just like borderline still Queens County and Long Island. And then moved out to Dix Hills, which is very Hinsdale-like and lived out there for my last couple of years of high school. So, I mean, between Long Island and Queens and Brooklyn, it’s just a mishmash. And as a junior tennis player, traveled all through the Northeast and sometimes nationally to play tennis tournaments. So that’s just kind of, that. I use it as an excuse. I mean, I’ve been living in New York for forever. It’s been so long, but it’s a convenient excuse for my lower self, when it gets the best of me.

Derek Sivers

So beautifully put.

Rene Vidal

I mean, but I think when you talk about being kind and you talk about being calm, it puts any aspect of personal importance to the side. You know, you’re tossing it in the trash because when you bring this, “Hey, do you know,” you know, like the famous Hollywood line, “Do you know who I am?” Like, you picture some, Hollywood producer, in a restaurant gets bad service and then he’s screaming at the waiter, “Do you know who I am?” All, this bullshit stuff. I mean, it just throws that to the side. And I think, I don’t think I know the work that you do and why it resonates with me so much is because it always brings, it brings me back to center. You know, the statements that I make to myself about who I am and what I value, your work brings me back to center. Like, you call bullshit, like on all the stuff that I’m saying that I am and I want to be what I’m aspiring, to become. And coaching is a great example. You know, like I always say, “Look, my mission is to maximize potential,” right? So if I’m coaching you, I’m going to make you the best athlete you can possibly be. And if I’m lucky, I’m going to help you grow personally as well, right? I mean, but from a tennis standpoint, you’re going to become the best tennis player that you can possibly be. When you extend this philosophy of my purpose, outside of sports and out into the world, I want everybody who comes into interaction with me to have a positive experience. Now, that’s what I want. Now, what they get, I am sure that there’s a big gap there. But you cannot go wrong with that one piece of your top 10 for life advice, which is be calm and kind, no matter how you feel. I mean, if you can get that right, people are going to have a positive. They’re going to feel good when they leave your presence. And I think that’s what I’m saying. Like, that’s what I’m after. Like, that’s my personal development goal, sort of like holy grail is like everybody that comes into contact with me will be better off because they’ve been with me. They’ve spent time with me. Like, for me, that’s a worthy goal to have. And your life advice plays right into that. Certainly not, the take that I am being judgmental, two seconds in reading an email or something crazy like this, and acting on that, which you don’t want to do. It’s super helpful. And, not to beat a dead horse, but I just find it super useful. I’m going to pick one more so we can end on the cause. There’s so many. I’m just going to run through a few. You don’t have--and then you can just pick out something that you like. Here are a few more Derekisms.

Rene Vidal

It’s better to be curious than correct.

Rene Vidal

What matters are your actions.

Rene Vidal

You can’t control people’s feelings.

Rene Vidal

The hero takes in reality with clear eyes.

Rene Vidal

Here’s one, and this will be the last one, and then you can go crazy till the end.

Rene Vidal

The more emotional the belief, the less likely it’s true.

Derek Sivers

All right. I have a bad memory when it comes to aphorisms, because the most recent one always sticks with me. So...

Derek Sivers

The more emotional the belief, the less likely it’s true. It’s a funny thing I’ve encountered with people that strongly hold a belief, and they get really mad if you challenge it. Like let’s say patriotism. It’s important to be loyal to your country. And if you challenge that they’re like, “What? No, it is the most important thing! It must be! This is your country! My grandparents died in the war.” But that to me seems to be an indicator that what you’re saying is not just a fact. That it’s something that you’re holding very dear. It’s tied to your values and who and how you want to be in the world. If it were just a fact, there would be no reason to get mad. I don’t strongly believe that it’s February right now or hold that near and dear. I just like point to the calendar. It’s like dude it’s February. Beliefs that we have, that people may challenge, around ideas of what’s right and wrong in government - what’s right and wrong in family matters - how people should behave. People have really strong opinions on this. But just the fact that you get all worked up I think is an indicator that you should even catch in yourself. If I’m getting really emotional about this subject, this is probably more tied to my identity. And that’s why I’m feeling threatened and upset. Is this because you’re threatening my identity and my values? If it was just a fact, there would be nothing to get upset about. Just point.

Rene Vidal

Oh my God. You mentioned the word that could take us going on and on. One of my favorite, if you want to call them, lessons from you, and I think it’s in Hell, Yeah, or No, is you talk about updating identity. Let’s wrap up on that one. Let me just share how it’s affected me, and then I’ll let you. In that book, you share the story of how maybe you had a coach at some point, or you had somebody that was holding you accountable, keeping your feet to the fire, just around your goals and your values. You share this story of how for years and years, you kept saying that you’re going to do something. Your coach said no. You don’t want to do it because you’ve been talking about doing it, and it hasn’t gotten done. We’ve all been there. We’ve all been there. That’s why it resonates with me. You’re talking about updating your identity. Even a couple years ago when we initially connected and we were talking about, gosh, I think Hell, Yeah, or No, and then How to Live came out shortly after that or around that same time, you decided to not call yourself an entrepreneur anymore. Maybe you can share with us that and talk a little bit about the importance of updating identity. Because in my life, I did that. I did that at the end of last year when you talked about closing loops. And with the move to Chicago, I had a business in Chicago that I could no longer serve anymore because I wasn’t there physically. It required my physical presence. I would have “entrepreneur” in my tagline, whether it’s on social media or whatever, and after a few months, I was like, “What are you doing? You’re not ”entrepreneuring.“ This is bullshit.” It’s great to have the identity. I am an entrepreneur. It’s in my soul, but I’m not “entrepreneuring” right now. What I have out to the public, it’s bullshit. It’s just like I’m putting out something that’s not real. It’s not authentic. It’s not authentic to me, which matters most, and it’s bullshit to the public. And I just pulled it down. I said, “What are you doing now? You’re coaching. You’re a coach. Embrace it. It’s beautiful work.” It’s just like this ego stuff, and it helped me so much streamline my actions. It helped me feel lighter. It helped me stay more connected and more at peace, more useful. It could be its own book. I think identity is huge, and it can work for us or against us. If I see myself in a positive sense as the best coach in the country, and that’s my identity, and I take that to practice every day, that’s probably going to help us. If I set the bar that high, my actions need to live into that, and it’s going to feed off to the folks that I work with. It’s much better than thinking I’m a shitty coach. If it’s binary, going the opposite way and thinking that I suck and I’ve got so much to learn. What kind of presence is that going to bring in front of a team or group? Talk to us about updating identity. I love this concept so much, and I think it transcends everything. Reframing is amazing. I’m with you on that, but identity and updating it is huge.

Derek Sivers

Honestly, Renee, I think you said it better than I could. I think that was the most beautiful example. It’s so hard to let go of something you’ve identified yourself as. I don’t yet have an empty nest. I have a 13 year old boy that is such a huge part of my life. He’s always been that way since he was born. And I kept thinking once he was 7, 8, 9 that this was going to stop. But no, he’s 13 now and we’re still spending so much time together. At some point soon in a few years, he’s going to go off into the world and I probably won’t hear from him very much. And I’m going to need to self update my self-identity.

Derek Sivers

I’ve had to do that a few times in the past. I was a full time musician from the age of 14 until 29. I didn’t care about anything else. You couldn’t get me to read a book. You couldn’t get me to hang out, go to a party. You couldn’t get me to travel. I had no interest in traveling outside of where I lived. All I wanted was to make music. That is it. Nothing else. And when I accidentally started my company and it was taking over my life and I just had to notice that I was more interested in doing this than I was writing another song or playing another gig. I had this huge sense of, whoa, but this is who I am. And I had to update that and go, well, that’s who I was, and I’m going to do something else now. I just completely left it behind. I made music from the age of 14 to 29, and that’s it. Haven’t made music since. That still blows people’s minds. It’s usually that you learn how to do something and you hang on to it for life.

Derek Sivers

So then from the age of 29 to 38, I was an entrepreneur. And it took a couple of years for me to realize that I’m not that anymore. That one took a few years for me to realize that I haven’t started a company in years. People keep calling me an entrepreneur. They tell me I’m an entrepreneur. And I think the fact that I wrote a book about it helped extend that category for myself. But it took me a few years to realize that I’m not starting businesses. In fact, I don’t even think about business ever. I have no desire to ever start a business again. I hope I don’t. So I think it’s time to stop calling myself an entrepreneur. And yeah, like you said, it’s liberating. It keeps me focused on what’s next instead of what was. All of our identity is based on what was. You just if you woke up with amnesia today, you would not be that. You would just be a blank slate. So, yeah, it’s a painful but powerful thing to redefine.

Rene Vidal

I love it, Derek. We talk about self-reinvention, reinventing ourselves, and that’s the image that I got as you were sharing this and sharing your thoughts on updating identity. It’s like you’ve got to take the old robe off and be willing to put something new on or maybe not put on anything at all for a time.

Derek Sivers

Yes, there might be a time where you’re naked. You’re not wearing a costume that people can recognize.

Rene Vidal

There’s so much ego involved. I once heard the definition of ego as “edging God out.” I thought it was like a really--whatever that means as an acronym, like “edging God out.” Whatever that means to anybody.

Derek Sivers

Otherwise, that’s a that’s an amazing but surprising sentence. But OK, if you see the acronym, sure. All right.

Rene Vidal

Yeah, and all of this stuff just around ego. I mean, Ryan Holiday would be the best on this because he wrote a book on it. I mean, “Ego is the Enemy.” I mean, great book. And it’s so true, and you see this when we’re talking about the downsides and all the disempowering self-talk and emotions and things like that. So much of it is tied to that ego piece and that identity piece. Just aligning ourselves, just finding that center or intent, as we say, the sweet spot, the racket, just finding your sweet spot of what works. As we bring this conversation to a close, I just want to thank you. I mean, your work is--this was not an easy book for me. My favorite book, I have to admit, is “Hell Yeah or No.” I think because it’s pretty black and white. It’s like, this is what’s worth doing. I mean, I think it’s just so universal. I think in today’s age where there’s so many options, you turn the TV on and it has 5,000 channels. I think the ability to focus is really a superpower. It’s like the master skill of success. And that’s why I love “Hell Yeah or No.” Anyone who’s looking to elevate their focus game, their mindset around eliminating distractions needs to hop on your website or maybe get it on Amazon. But like I said, I mean, you in your own way through your writing helped me become better as a coach and as a person. And I just want to thank you for that. I want to thank you for the time that we spent today. I mean, 90 minutes. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I mean, just--

Derek Sivers

That’s what you get for being so interesting, Renee. But and thank you for that compliment, too.

Rene Vidal

No, no, no. No, this has been so much fun. And we talked about how harried we were before getting on the call. And then it’s like, boom, then you have this unbelievable conversation and just talking about all of these different things. You mentioned earlier the experience in L.A. where you felt-- there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance. And you shared that you may have been moving into that arrogance piece. And I could totally see how that would be a challenge for you because your intellectual firepower is, I feel, quite unmatched, at least in this genre and as an author. I mean, you’re a smart guy. I mean, you’ve done coding. You do all this stuff that’s crazy to me. Look, I’m just a coach. You know, we’re hitting tennis balls. It’s just very fun and airy-fairy. But no, seriously, I can see how that would be. You know, how all of it could go to your head because you think differently, which is why I love your work. You think differently. You write differently. And you’re not afraid to stand out. You know, all anybody needs to do is just go to your website and see how simple it is and how unassuming, yet informative, yet useful. And there’s a ton of great content there. So, again, I would recommend that anybody go and visit sive.rs. Is that it? Yeah. I just thank you. I really appreciate your view and your work and I hope that we can do this again at some point.

Derek Sivers

I’d love to. There’s so many tangents that I had to bite my tongue to not take things that you brought up.

Rene Vidal

There’s so much, I mean, but maybe we can talk about Hell, Yeah or No. I can go back and dig into that at some point. And I’m happy to put a spotlight on everything that you’ve done, from an authorship standpoint. I mean, “Your Music and People”....

Derek Sivers

I was surprised that you said you liked that one. Thank you for that. I think it’s my most underrated book.

Rene Vidal

Well, it’s so it’s a mate. It’s an amazing book. It’s about marketing. So I didn’t get the title like at first. I was like, what is this? I’m not really into like you mentioned Richard Branson earlier today. He’s a fascinating guy. And I’ve read some of his stuff. I hate reading about the airline industry. It’s not interesting to me. 90 percent of his stories are not interesting to me. There may be an actionable step or some takeaway, but it’s not worth the effort of going through 500 pages to get to it. But and now I totally lost my train of thought. Your music and people. Yes. So I didn’t get the title initially, like at all. But then I started reading it. And then the color of the book is a gorgeous purple. Right. Which actually plays into marketing a little bit. And so this is a marketing book. This is about understanding the needs of people and what they want and how to communicate and how to, dare I say, sell yourself or promote yourself when you’re in that time of your life where that’s vital to your well-being. It’s a great book. And anybody who’s interested, who’s running their own business or is in the business of marketing, I think would be really wise to pick that up as well. That was one that and hell yeah or no. Anything you want is great too because it’s all about, I mean, being an entrepreneur, which I feel like is the soul that runs, that’s my DNA that runs through me. That’s always humming. You know, that’s a great book in terms of helping readers expand their horizons and think of things in different ways versus being trapped or conditioned into this employee mindset that all I can speak of is here in the US of how that is just drummed into kids from day one, from preschool, getting you ready to work at Motorola, like you said. And it’s like, my world opened up when I started learning about entrepreneurship and then I started learning more about myself. I said, hey, I’m actually kind of creative. I’ve been writing and interviewing and having conversations with people that I admire since I was 23 years old. Maybe there’s a creator inside somewhere. Maybe there’s someone who wants to solve a problem or wants to be innovative and do something new. And that’s how I became familiar with your work was really through, like, oh, wow, like the initial fascination is, oh, here’s this entrepreneur who built a 22 million dollar company. I want to learn from him. So what do you do? You go and you pick up anything you want. And then little did I know how you would evolve as an author and as a person and start writing great books like this and that are really helpful to how we live our lives. So thank you again. You are amazing.

Derek Sivers

Thanks. And hey, so to pull it full circle, my favorite metaphorical book like that, Your Music and People should be read metaphorically. If you’re not a musician and most people aren’t, it’s meant to be it’s meant to be read metaphorically. Just apply it to whatever you want. I could have removed the metaphor and just spoken generically, your mission and people or something like that. But it’s it was more fun to me to leave it as a metaphor. So my favorite book to be read metaphorically is “The Inner Game of Tennis.” You’ve read it, right?

Rene Vidal

Yes, I have a long time ago.

Derek Sivers

Okay. Okay. I thought that would be weird if you didn’t but so the “Inner Game of Tennis” is read by many musicians because it’s the best book about being present and being in the moment and quieting your self-criticism. And yes, the author uses tennis as his example, but it applies to anything that we’re doing. So I often it I went to Berkelee College of Music in Boston and a lot of musicians read the book called the inner game of tennis and they just have to learn to read it metaphorically.

Rene Vidal

And I think that that how great of a takeaway to finish up on in terms of reading metaphorically in terms of what’s useful. I mean, seriously, like most people would dismiss it because they think it’s a tennis book like I did initially with your music and people like I don’t get it. I don’t care about musicians like I’m not into that. And then I just decided to read the first page and then that was interesting. You read the next page. Like, huh, this feels like this can help me with my business. This can help me think more like a marketer, and do things more efficiently and effectively. OK. And then I mean, I just ate it up after that. Right. I could put all the dots together. But reading metaphorically and not judging the book always by its cover, I think is is a great takeaway for our audiences. And I’m not sure I’m looking forward to going through the entire transcript of this close to two hour conversation. But there’s so much. Yeah, I think it’s so cool to have, have that passion for, I think, learning and that cure to be led by the curiosity, and sometimes I judge myself. I’m sitting in the morning and I’m reading and I’m writing. I’m like, of course, you want to translate this passion into some actionable item that’s going to advance your life, like make you better, help somebody else get better. But the process of asking and answering questions for ourselves. Is so useful and you help us do that, Derek. And until next time, my friend.