Newcomers
host: Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Unlike any other interview I’ve done: we talk just about the immigrant experience, as the host moved from Nigeria to Canada, and I talk about lessons learned moving to a few countries since America.
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Transcript:
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Welcome. You were talking about Fela Kuti and I'm just like, wait, wait, wait, wait. I want to hear that story properly, but let's get to it.
Derek Sivers
All right. So when I was 17 years old-- now, keep in mind, I'm 55 now. 17 years old: this is before the internet. I went down to New Orleans by myself with my guitar on my shoulder. And a taxi driver in New Orleans saw the guitar on my shoulder and he said, "Oh, you play music?" I said, "Yeah." And he said, "What kind?" I said, "I don't know." He said, "You need to hear Fela Anikilapo Kuti." And I said, "What?" And he wrote down on a little piece of paper, actually, I don't know why he wrote Fela Ransome Kuti. I don't know why Anukalapo versus Ransome.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Because I think his mom's name is Ransome, but Anikulapo Kuti, yeah that's the name we know him for.
Derek Sivers
So with this little piece of paper that the taxi driver wrote down for me, I went back to Chicago where I grew up. And the reason I mention this is before the internet is because if you wanted to hear some music, you had to call around records stores to say, "Hi, do you have anything by Fela Ransome Kuti?" And they said, "What? No." Another record store. "Do you have something by Fela Ransome Kuti?" It took three or four phone calls before one said, "Let me check. Yeah, we got a couple of things here. Come on down." So I had to drive 45 minutes to the record store, and I got this record called ODOO, which stands for like "Overtake Don't Overtake Overtake" or something like that. So I put it on! I was hooked. I love Fela Kuti's music so much that I went to go see him live in person twice in Boston and New York City.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Are you serious?
Derek Sivers
I saw him in Harlem, New York City, and I saw him at a little club in Boston where I was right up there next to the stage, my elbows on the stage, Fela Kuti sweating on top of me. And it was amazing. And of course, ever since then, I've been so curious about Nigeria, but I have still never been there. But for 38 years now, for 38 years, I've been wanting to go to Nigeria, and I still have not been yet.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
You should you should. It's interesting. I use "interesting" not to cover things, but because I'm trying not to label things that much these days, but I, yeah, it's because when I feel like when you label things, your mind literally becomes very inflexible because then you can't see beyond the labels you put on it.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
And so I think Nigeria is an interesting country because so much beauty and then there's still so much stuff we struggle with. Some people are causing me great out of it. But there are people who are doing really interesting work. But yeah, our culture -- our musical culture is one of the things I'm extremely proud of. Fela. There's a ton of other great musicians right now. And then there's a ton of people who are doing great music now. Rema, Fireboy, Temps, a ton of really good people. So we, I'm proud of it, to be honest. I'm proud of that part of my heritage.
Derek Sivers
And I like what you just said about saying "interesting" instead of giving a frame. As soon as you give somebody a frame and you say, "Oh, Nigeria, it's a dangerous country." "Oh, Nigeria, it is a friendly country!" Either good or bad, both of them are frames that as soon as you say it, especially if you're in some position of authority or knowledge, then everybody who hears you say that will now view this place through the frame you've given them!
Derek Sivers
Which is really dangerous if you tell people something like, "Oh, everybody in China is rude." "Oh, everybody in Vietnam, they're just cutthroat." And so somebody that otherwise knew nothing about this country will go there with your frame around it and they will look at everybody just living their lives and say, "Oh look, they're being cutthroat because Dozie told me so."
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Yeah, I think that's a good way to segue. So today we'll talk about your personal beliefs, culture and a bit of identity as an immigrant because you've been away from America for like 20 years now, which is pretty interesting.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
And talking about frames: There's something in your book, Useful Nut True, that's what I mean. Thanks for giving me that book to read, honestly, because it, it broke my reality in a way, in a good way, actually. You said moving somewhere surprises you every day, it keeps your mind flexible. That thing about surprises you every day, inherent in that is kind of linked to what we just said now. Because when you have to accept surprise, you have to have an open mind, because surprise means could be good. It could be bad, but just it surprises you. And then you approach it with an open mind about like, "What does this mean?" I just want to explore that - unbundle that theme with you - from the lens of an immigrant and what people can learn from that, who are thinking of moving, who are just moving, who are struggling with the existential crisis called immigration.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. I am so excited to talk with you about this subject. I think about this all the time.
Derek Sivers
So let me give your audience a little context. Most people move for money or for love. Some for a brighter future for their children, that they will leave their home country to move to a country with more opportunity for their children, even if they know that they as parents will not really be able to partake of this opportunity fully, they know that their children will and that's worth it for them.
Derek Sivers
So in fact, I'll touch on that first. A friend of mine said that I was a great entrepreneur. And I said, "No, no, no, no, no. I'm not a great entrepreneur. I just got really lucky." And he said, "Bullshit, there's no such thing as luck." I said, "Bullshit, there is." I said, "You were lucky to be born white in America. How about that?" And he said, "That wasn't luck." I said, "Okay, good luck proving that. How is that not luck?" He said, "Dude, my grandparents left Armenia knowing nobody and having nothing. They stowed away in a boat for months to get to this country of opportunity, came in as illegal immigrants, not speaking the language, and never did assimilate, but they endured that so that their children could have a better life and their grandchildren could have a much better life." And he said, and sure enough, my parents are middle class, whatever, in Lincoln, Nebraska. And that's where I grew up. And now I've been lucky to have the dot com boom of America." And he said, "So my grandparents dream came true. But that was not luck. That was their sacrifice. Let's not discount their sacrifice and call that luck. I owe everything to my grandparents that made that difficult move for me." I went, wow, okay, I didn't think you were going to talk me out of luck, but congratulations, that's really interesting.
Derek Sivers
So with that in mind, I left my comfortable America for very different reasons, because I was too comfortable. I had run a successful company, made a lot of money, and I was sitting on the beach in Santa Monica, California, feeling like this is the end of the rainbow. This is paradise on earth. There's no place better on earth. And when I caught myself thinking that way, I thought, "Oh, that's dangerous." That's the kind of thinking that gets us stuck in a rut, thinking that we know best, thinking you're right and other people are wrong. And I thought that this is a big world and this world is my home. It's not that Santa Monica is my home or even America is my home, but this world is my home and I'm a fool to not get to know my home. These people that live in Estonia or Tanzania are not weird. They are my cousins that I haven't met yet. And I should feel just at home in Peru or Cambodia as I should in California. This is all our home. We should all try to feel a connection to people from other parts of the world and try to understand it. So I left my comfortable Santa Monica on the mission to go try to feel at home in as many parts of the world as possible. So that's what I'm really pursuing.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
I really like that idea that they're your cousins. Cause it's something someone said. There are no strangers. They're just friends you haven't met yet. There are no strangers, just friends we haven't met yet.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
And I think that's a really good frame to look at the world because if we look at, look at the world that way, like a ton of the arguments would die.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Politicians wouldn't be that popular to be honest. I make this argument that politicians use what I call cruel language. They say to you, "I need to do this good for you." "I need to do this bad to that person or else." And then so we say, yes, we agree. But that's cruelty at its core, because what we're saying is we're just saying, oh, this is good for me, but for me to get that good, the other party has to suffer, you know?
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
You know, but thinking about that is, and how have you successfully, you know, been able to keep your mind that way, like keep your mind flexible, reframing your mind around the fact that, look, you've moved across countries, you're meeting new people who are literally your distant cousins and cultures are different, different nuances, you know, things are never the same, you know? And like, how do you do that? Like, how do you keep yourself going? Like switching between causes? 'Cause I think you lived in London at some point and then you now move, you now live in New Zealand. How do you do that?
Derek Sivers
Well, okay, as soon as I left America, I moved to Singapore and I really internalized it. I did all the paperwork to become a legal resident of Singapore. I became a permanent resident. I thought that was going to be my home base for decades. My boy was born in Singapore. We made him a permanent resident too and thought, "This is it. This is where I'm going to stay for 20 years as my next home base. I will travel, but this is my legal home." That was my plan. And so I deeply internalized the place. I took it into my identity as this is my home.
Derek Sivers
Once I arrived, I encountered a couple really unhelpful shop clerks that were quite rude. And I mentioned this to a friend of mine. I said, "Why do you think Singapore has bad customer service?" And he said, "What? You think Singapore has bad customer service?" I said, "Yeah, well, this woman today at the store, I asked if she could help me find this product and she said 'No, you go find it.' That's so rude. People in Singapore are rude." And he said, "Wait, wait, wait. Never let one person represent the country."
Derek Sivers
He said, "Where did you grow up? You grew up in America?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "If in America you went down to the supermarket and there was one clerk there that was being rude, would you say everyone in America is rude? No, because you know that she's just one person. You have a bigger sample size." He said, "Never make the mistake of going to a country, whether to visit or to move, and letting the first few people you encounter shape your impression of the country." He said it's human nature to do that, but you have to fight against it because the first few people you encounter do not represent the country.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Why do we do that in our heads though? 'Cause I hear you on that. It's such a easy thing to do. It feels like back home, we give excuses for people back home, but once we step out, then we don't give those other people the amount of levity we give people back home. You know, I mean, again, it kind of goes back to, maybe if we adopt the frame of, like I'm just meeting my cousins out here in Singapore, maybe that helps us to approach it much better. When you explain that way, I feel so sad inside, because I feel like sometimes I've done that!
Derek Sivers
Yeah, we all do! I think it's because of sample size. If the only Brazilians you've ever met are a crazy couple that never does what they say they're going to do and they promise that they'll be there Thursday and they never show up and then they say, "Oh, sorry, I'll see you next Saturday," and they don't show up, you say, "Man, people from Brazil never do what they say they're going to do!" Because your sample size is only two people. That's all you know. Whereas if instead you had been inside a university at Brazil and met a bunch of brilliant people, you'd say, "Wow, everybody in Brazil is really smart." It just depends on your sample size. You have to understand that. We do what we can.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Yeah. It's work, though. I think I feel like what one big thing you're saying here is that it's so easy to get into heuristics and just adopt frameworks. But human relationships, especially if you're an immigrant, are a deliberate thing. You have to break it with or else you get sucked into mindsets that limit you mindsets that limit the amount of friends you make and all that kind of stuff.
Derek Sivers
Right, right, Dozie. So every time I'm sitting on an airplane that's taking off, I think, "Oh, it might crash, it might crash, oh, this might be it, I might die."
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Me too. Me too.
Derek Sivers
And I have to remember that statistically, I am more likely to be hit by lightning than to die in a plane crash. And I have to remind myself of the zoomed out statistics of this situation. I have to override my emotional instincts and remind myself the objective facts. So I think it's the same thing with meeting people in a new culture. Your emotional instincts say that those first few people you run into represent all people of this nation. But statistically, you have to remind yourself, they don't. It's just a few people. For every type of personality you meet, the opposite personality also exists in abundance. For every cruel person, there are extremely generous, kind people. For every rude person, there are extremely kind people. You just have to remind yourself statistically zoomed out the facts.
Derek Sivers
Oh, so I have another interesting story for you. So the same man that reminded me of this point when I first got to Singapore and I said I thought it had bad customer service. Later, I asked this same man, you should interview him actually, brilliant guy, I'll introduce you after this phone call. He was originally from France, but he had lived in China for five years, Korea for five years, Japan for five years, and now was in Singapore. And I said, okay, you know a lot about these cultures here. What insights have you got into doing business in Asia." And he said, "Wait, wait, wait. That's too big of a subject. Here's what you need to know to begin with. Even though everybody might be using English as the international second language, the cultural lens is so different that the same English word can mean different things in different cultures." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, you're American, right? When I say the word 'quality,' what does that mean to you?" I said, "Quality. That means it's built well, it's strong, it won't break." He said, "Ah, you're American, so I knew you were going to say that." He said, "If I were to ask that question to somebody in China, everybody in China agrees. 'Quality' means what gives you social status. It's a good quality item if it gives you social status. That's what quality means. And in Korea, you can ask anybody and everyone agrees, "What does quality mean?" Quality means it's brand new. If this is a quality item, it's the newest model. That's what quality means. And in Japan, quality means no flaws, zero defects. If a company in Japan orders an entire shipping container of items from America and they arrive and if even the shipping container is damaged, even if all the products inside might not be damaged, if the shipping container is damaged, the Japanese company receiving it will say that it's not a quality shipment. We need a discount. Because quality in Japan means zero flaws, zero defects. So it said, "You can say a word like 'quality' and it's an English word that people understand, but the cultural underlying meaning of this word is so different." And he said, "And guess what? I picked one word. It's the same with all words." Everything has a different cultural meaning everywhere you go.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
I like that. I get that because you know, I'm Nigerian, so you say we speak English in Nigeria. So we understand English and stuff. And so you move to Canada and everyone is speaking English. So I'm just going to assimilate, you know, integrate easily. But then you start to notice that things go over your head because you don't really understand them. You know, there are things that are said to you and you're like, okay, what are they saying? Like, you know, I'm learning, for example, like how the Canadians can say no, Canadians don't tell you no. They probably going to write a four paragraph email. You need to read that email. And be like, okay, she's actually saying that she's not going to do this. That's what she's saying to me. But she's not going tell you no outright because to them no is gonna offend you and they don't want to offend you and you know I'm for a Nigerian who just say no and move on what are we doing here you know so it's something I feel that I feel that in my bones honestly because culture is such a I love it but it's a lot of work like it It feels like it's a lot of work, you know?
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
And I'm curious from experience, do you actually argue sometimes that I think it's a two-way street in the sense that the immigrants need to do their work of trying to understand the culture? I wonder, do you think that the natives themselves need to be also open to the new stories, new ways of looking at the world? Or is it a thing of, it's a one-way street, the immigrant has to do all the work?
Derek Sivers
I don't think the local has to do any work because they didn't sign up for that. It's not their job. For somebody just living in their hometown, which is the same place their grandparents lived and their parents lived, and they're just trying to get through their day, they're in a bad marriage with a bad job. They didn't sign up to try to understand this refugee that's there. They just want to say, "No, you need to assimilate to me. You're the one that moved here." I can understand it from their point of view. I wouldn't say they should try to. That would just be putting a task on somebody that they didn't ask for.
Derek Sivers
But that said, I think you can open their minds a bit unrequested. You can help somebody from the local place that you have arrived, to see that people where you're from are not as bad as they thought or more welcoming than they expected or kinder than they would have guessed. I do see it as a bit of my job when I'm in other places to be extra nice and try to connect with people to show them that people where I'm from are not so bad, or to help them see the world from my point of view, even if they're not asking to, but just by being nice and making a connection instead of being standoffish can help them feel a connection to where you're from, unsolicited.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
That actually is a very interesting point. It reminds us of something I saw somewhere, some guy, I think it was a video clip on Twitter. On this interview, he was talking about Japan and he was telling the lady that, he said the same thing, that when you move to a place, you shouldn't expect that you wanna come lay out your culture on them. You know, you're the one who's there and so you should try to understand them.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
And maybe what I'll add to that is from how you explained is that by you doing the work of being a cultural ambassador part of the world they don't know because I think it's people don't know what they don't do and so expecting them to understand you from day one is probably not being fair to them like oh yeah I don't I don't know how you all do things but if you invite me to your parties that I understand how you do things you know and also my part is if I go to your parties I try to understand how you do your parties and I do like they say. When you're with Romans you - when you're in Rome behave like Romans - that sort of thing.
Derek Sivers
I like that. It's funny, you have to be careful when you catch yourself thinking you should to someone else because whatever you're about to say next is not true. It's just your opinion. When somebody says, "You should bring a gift when you meet somebody for the first time." That's not true. You're saying, "I want you to." "You should try to understand my culture." That's not true. "I want you to understand my culture." That's more true. Don't put it on somebody else saying that they should do something to please you. Just admit what you're really saying is I want, not you should.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Yeah, that's a good frame. That's a really good frame, honestly. Gosh, yeah! I like that! Because we get so selfish at times, in our heads, and we don't even know why we're being so selfish. We just talk and we just do stuff. Because we're not thinking about the other person. Yeah "you should" is really "I want you to do stuff". We say "You must do that" we mean "... because that's the way I get happy."
Derek Sivers
Yeah, exactly. Let's admit what we're really saying here. I want you to please me.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
How has moving between cultures defined how you see home?
Derek Sivers
Ooh, home. Dozie, you opened that one. Home, I have put a lot of thought into that word. In fact, I'm going to show you what a nerd I am. I have a journal that I write in every day. It's on my computer. And when there's a subject that I keep coming back to often, instead of putting it in my main daily journal, I have a separate little journal just about that subject. Since it's all on a computer anyway, it's pretty easy to do. So that this way I can go back over years of my thoughts on that one subject to see how my thoughts have evolved or to just immerse myself in my history of thoughts on that one subject. And as you can imagine, the word "home" is one of those subjects that I opened a separate journal for because I thought about this subject so much.
Derek Sivers
What does it mean to me to be home? The best definition I've come up with after many, many, many years of thinking about it is that home, for me, is the place with no obstacles. And by obstacles I mean, if a place is too uncomfortable temperature-wise, there's too much cultural misunderstanding, if everywhere I go every day nobody understands anything I'm saying and everybody misunderstands me and thinks that I'm meaning ill when I'm meaning good, that would be an obstacle. But if it's a place where I'm not feeling obstacles, even if, say, the heat doesn't bother me anymore, or the noise doesn't bother me anymore, then to me it's no longer an obstacle. Whenever I'm in a place that has no obstacles, I feel at home. And so my goal to feel at home in every part of the world is to go to a place and try to understand it so I can appreciate it so that its friction is no longer a friction and its obstacles are no longer obstacles to me. Then I can feel at home.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Why I find that really interesting is because it feels like you've unlocked something a lot of we immigrants struggle with, which is: People talk about heritage, identity and home, and they tend to link all of them together. And I feel like one of the things, just listening to you now, something that just happened in my head was, and this is a follow up on a conversation I had with a lady some weeks back, is that we need to separate heritage from home! Because a lot of times what what happens is that people - immigrants - for us, home is our identity and we hold on to it. And then we start to struggle with, when we move to a new place, we start to struggle with the concept of who are we.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
And again, it kind of goes back to what we said about, you should understand my culture, is because we're holding on to the self that we had back home. We are back home because to us, home is our identity, where we're coming from. And that's the self. And then when we're in a new place, we're not saying to ourselves that I'm in a new place and I need to spend time to understand that new place. So those two things are no more obstacles anymore. And when I do that, my whole self is really be the person I was before and the person I am in this new place right now. And my whole self is always changing. You know, it's never, it's fluid. It's depending on where I am, you know, it's, It's a concept that I've tried to put together in my head at the same time.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
And I've talked to talk about with different people, but just you saying it that way, because one part of struggle with a lot is that thing about home that how do you separate, how do you separate home from heritage? Because heritage itself is what's passed on down to you from your parents. And like my kids now, their heritage is a mix of what I'm bringing back from Nigeria and everything I'm going to learn here. But we tend to always hold on to one of them and just like, Oh, that's my heritage. And that's the one and then we go everywhere else and we are now battling with the themes and then we call this is obstacles. So we never feel at home because we are always battling the obstacles and we refuse to accept the obstacles.
Derek Sivers
That was brilliant. That is such a good insight. I never thought about that.
Derek Sivers
You might like this story that for years living in New York City and Los Angeles, most of my best friends were Jewish. Maybe through circumstance, I don't know. But what that meant is I've attended six weddings in my life and five of them were Jewish weddings. And they were Jewish weddings in America, which means that they were very traditional Jewish weddings with lifting the chair up in the air, and the smashing of the glass. The I forget what it's called, the special thing that you hold up over the bride and groom as they're doing the ceremony. All very traditional Jewish weddings in America. And one friend in Los Angeles was from Israel and he asked me to attend his wedding in Israel. I went, "Wow, Israel!" So I fly all the way to Israel for my friend's wedding and I'm expecting a really super traditional Jewish wedding. But instead, it was the least traditional wedding I'd ever been to. It was just some rock band and everybody was just talking over and it was zero tradition at all.
Derek Sivers
A few days later, I got the nerve to ask him. I said, "Hey, thanks for inviting the traditions?" And he had such a good cultural insight about this. He said, "Oh, man." He said, "The farther away you are from the homeland, the harder you hold on to traditions." He said, "We're in Israel, man. There's the Sea of Galilee. There's the River Jordan. There's the stones that held up the cross. There's King David's wall. We have no need to hold on to our traditions here. We're living in it." He said, "It's the people that move far away that need to hold on so tightly. That's why they have these traditional weddings as a way of preserving their heritage and holding on to traditions because it's they've got. We don't need to do that here. Man, that's a good insight.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Gosh, that's such a good story and that's so true. Damn!
Derek Sivers
You were brilliant in pointing out that we should not conflate that with home. That if you loosen your idea of home to say home is where I am, then you can think of that other place as your background. In the same way that wherever that is that your grandparents lived might not have been where their grandparents lived. At some point, their grandparents had to let go of the old idea of home to make a new home. And that's the place that now you're calling home but you've moved somewhere that's going to be your children's new home. And you can't force heritage definitions onto home to say that home is only the place where my heritage from.
Derek Sivers
As a weird connection, somebody said the definition of technology is everything that was invented after you were born. Everything that's invented before you're born is just a part of the natural world. After you're born, everything invented is what we call technology. So maybe it's the same thing with heritage and home. That once a place is home, everything in that place becomes future heritage. And it's only the stuff before you were born that we consider heritage. Anyway, boy, we opened up some interesting subjects.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Yeah. You know, I'm kind of still on this topic a bit. We're talking about your kid and moving across cultural contexts. Like how do you handle that? 'Cause I feel like he's lived in different worlds and that's so beautiful, but like, how do you, are you very deliberate about it? How do you manage that process with him?
Derek Sivers
Very deliberate. I've always made a point of letting him know that the way we do things here is just one of many valid ways. And hey, do you want to hear about some other interesting ways they do it? So it's really interesting to see that he picks up things he likes wherever he goes. So he eats with chopsticks and with his hands. His mother is from India and he just personally likes chopsticks. And so he is actually not good at using a fork and knife. It's great with his hands to eat like an Indian. He's great with chopsticks. He's born in Singapore. So for him, chopsticks and hands are the norm, even though he's growing up in New Zealand, which is a very British culture that uses forks and knives. So he's just adopted his own favorite ways of being. And I do make a point of always keeping him aware that this is just one of many ways of being. And even subconsciously, repeatedly told him ever since he was one year old and could start speaking, I would tell him about someday you'll be living in China, someday you'll be living in Africa, someday you'll be living in Europe. I just included that in his worldview as just a normal thing so that as he gets older and goes out into the world, I really wanted him to even subconsciously feel just at home in South America as he would in Scandinavia.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
I tell people that it's hard, no doubt, but if you immigrate, I think it's a superpower, because what you really become - if you allow yourself to become that global citizen - you become a person of the world, because you understand the world. I think was David Perrell that said in his podcast, when you move to a city move there like a local, don't go there like a tourist. When you go like a tourist you go to all the touristy things so you would never really go through the city. If you're able to immigrate to different countries and leave those countries, you, you literally become part of that country. You said earlier about Singapore, how you spent time there and you said, you know what, I'm going to take on this place. You move away from Singapore, but part of it stays with you and shapes your world view in its own way. And I think the spot power of being an immigrant is that the way you see the world is very different because you have different worldviews that come into your brain. Every single time you're looking through a situation. That is a superpower like that. We should be proud of where we move across countries
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I like that.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
You know, we're rounding up right now and I will talk about something that I find very interesting Which is we talked about this a bit in the pre-show, you know American culture American identity. How that kind of rules the world and stuff. But you know you write about reframing memories and perspectives like as an immigrant That's part of one thing we need to do. And so the question for me is how do you maintain your conditions to your American roots while building your identities in other cultures considering the fact that The American culture is almost like mainstream world culture?
Derek Sivers
So, that's a trick question, because it's not like I come from Lithuania, where I need to make an effort to hold on to my Lithuanian culture. I come from Chicago and New York City. I grew up in just absolute mainstream America, which is so broadcast to the world that I can be in a supermarket in Mongolia and playing over the sound system is background music that a friend of mine in New York City made in the 1980s. Like, I know that guy! And now his music's playing in the supermarket Mongolia. So my past is shoved down my throat! I try to lock my jaw to keep it from entering, and it's shoved down my throat anyway.
Derek Sivers
So in fact, I'm trying to do the opposite where, for example, when my friends in Los Angeles say, "When are you coming back to visit?" I say, "After I go everywhere else!" I have not yet been to Lagos. I have not yet been to St. Petersburg. I've not yet been to Brazil. After I go everywhere else, then maybe I'll come back to visit Los Angeles. That might never happen. If I never step foot in America ever again, that'd be just fine with me. So sorry, trick question.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
That's okay. I totally get it. Cause I know, like I know what you feel say about the thing about everything is American. Like even back home in Nigeria, like sometimes it's something like, well, this is America. This is not us. Like this is the American culture where appropriated as our culture.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
I think the last question I have for you is considering all you've talked about and you know, cause I feel like that your book - Useful Not True - was really a book about immigration. Even though you say it's not about immigration, I think it's a book on immigration in a way. Like what are the three tips you would tell someone who's just moved to a new country and who's looking to settle into that country?
Derek Sivers
Ooh. First, it really helps to constantly remember that you don't need to be friends with everyone. You don't need to like everyone. Even if you disagree with most things about this country's culture, if you just find one or two people that are cool, then it really helps you feel connected to a place. That's the huge number one. Maybe that's number one, two and three.
Derek Sivers
Making a deeper connection to even one person helps you feel connected to a place. If I know nobody else in Spain, but I've got one friend from Spain, that helps me feel connected to Spain. That's all it takes to feel more connection to a place, is to have one good friend from that place that you like. Suddenly that shapes all of it through a different light. Through that one friend, you can ask them to help explain everything else to you. And if they get you, they can help everything else make sense.
Derek Sivers
That's what I had in Singapore, for example. When I first arrived, I did not understand it at all. I was butting heads with Singaporean culture every day. And even though I met up with literally hundreds of Singaporeans over my two and a half years there, I would meet up three or four days a week, I'd meet a stranger over coffee just to get to know my new home. But it was just a couple dear friends that grew up in Singapore that knew me well, and we had spent many, many, many days together. They're the ones that finally helped explain a lot of things about Singapore culture to me, that helped me finally get it and thoroughly understand it and internalize it.
Derek Sivers
Now I'm the one defending it when other people go visit Singapore for the first time and they say, "Ah, this place, it's so shallow." I say, "No, no, no, no, no, you don't understand." And I try to explain it from my imported Singapore point of view. When I say imported, like I'm using a tech term when you go into your file menu and click import CSV into your spreadsheets. It's like it is in me now. The Singaporean worldview is in me now. I really internalized that place. I love it with all my head. It really got into my soul.
Derek Sivers
Same as New Zealand now. I came here intending to just go to a nature paradise for a few years when my son was born. We moved here right after he was born because I just wanted him to grow up here and have a safe haven and a nice nature paradise to spend his young childhood in. But it got into my soul. And now the New Zealand culture is thoroughly native to me. I almost feel I'm more from here than I am from America.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
That's interesting.
Derek Sivers
The year that I left America, George Bush was still president. Has anything happened since then? I feel very disconnected. I voted for Obama and then left. So I feel very disconnected with all the changes that have happened since then. I've been in New Zealand for most of that. So I feel more Kiwi than American now.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
That's right because like America was a growing up into yourself. New Zealand is growing up for someone else in a way, because now you have a kid and that's a different world view entirely. I have two boys and I know like with my two boys, I live for them. And then so the world I used to live in before I had them and the world I live in now are very different worlds. you know, so I get that.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
I'd again, thank you so much for that point about finding someone, because I think it speaks to something which immigrants is just finding belonging. And really one of the big parts of finding belonging is not just finding your community, like maybe people who understand you, so you don't have to code switch so much, but it's almost also finding people who help you understand what's going on around you. Because then also, you also don't have to code switch much like so it's almost like yeah it still solves that problem for you one just keeps you code switching every single time one gets you to reduce the amount of code switching you need to do because now you understand what you're doing and you don't need to switch between cultures like because you understand the culture.
Derek Sivers
Beautifully put. Dozie, I love this conversation. I've been so looking forward to this, and it exceeded my expectations. So thank you. And hey, seriously, anybody that listened to the end of this podcast, as you can tell, I'm not here to promote anything. I really, really love meeting people from around the world. It is my greatest joy. Like when I I got an email from Dozie a few months ago. I was like, oh my gosh, look at this substack. Look what you're doing. This is so cool. Look at this podcast. I really like meeting people. So anybody, please go to my website. It's sive.rs I don't even do social media. Everything you'll see, it's on my website for free, sive.rs and just go click contact me and send me an email and introduce yourself like Dozie did.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
Oh, yeah, please do that. Because that's all I did. I just sent that email. You responded. I was like, oh, shit, he responded. I was like, yeah.
Derek Sivers
I answer everyone. I love it. I put aside about an hour or two a day to answer emails from everyone around the world, and I really love it. So anyone listening to this, please send me an email.
Nnadozie Anyaegbunam
I'm gonna be walking on clouds for the rest of the week.
Derek Sivers
Me too. Thank you.