Kyle Thiermann
host: Kyle Thiermann
Different than most! Ping pong, surfing, waves and trains, asking bold questions, anti-role-models, expanding self-identity, making a habit of philanthropy, what's loyalty?
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Transcript:
Derek Sivers
I am so curious how and why did you get into ping pong?
Kyle Thiermann
Oh boy let's let's start it off right now! OK so I grew up in a small surf town called Santa Cruz California and every year there is a surf competition called the Coldwater Classic that comes to town. So surfing in Santa Cruz is a religion because it's in this scalloped bay where there are just tons and tons of waves, right? So you just grow up breathing, surfing, and skateboarding, right? And every year, there's this big contest that comes into town called the Coldwater Classic where the best surfers in all the world come to town and they surf your local wave, right? So you get to, it's one thing to see surf videos of the top guys in Indonesia or Mexico, these perfect waves. But to get them to see them at your local wave is something else, right? This is going to get back to ping pong sooner or later. And every year, a friend of mine hosts the Coldwater Classic Ping Pong Tournament, where all the best surfers, world-class surfers to local pros will come and join this ping-pong tournament, right? Including a UFC fighter who is from Santa Cruz named Luke Rockhold. He was actually the champion of the world at one point, who's a really incredible athlete and ping-pong player. Now, I'm no slouch myself in the table tennis game, But there was one year where I made it to the quarterfinals of the Coldwater Classic Ping-Pong Tournament, and Luke Rockhold kicked my ass and went on to win the tournament. So I looked up ping-pong lessons in Santa Cruz and found that there's a spot that is literally underground called the Portuguese Hall. So it's like in this basement area where the top table tennis players in Santa Cruz, in San Jose, like all the surrounding communities come to practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And what I didn't know at the time was that there is a big difference between thinking you're a good ping pong player among your friend group and people who actually take it seriously. So I started going to the Portuguese Hall every Tuesday and Thursday in secret. I didn't tell anyone. And slowly these guys like took me into their tribe and like taught me, okay, you always, the number one thing that gets people is you get them on their heels, right? That's the, that's what ultimately will, will smoke someone in a ping pong game is you always want to stay on your toes, right? And you always want to essentially before the ball picks up too much spin, you want to get it back on the other side, right? So if there's a, if you can get someone on their heels and back, you essentially have them, right? So if you look at a professional ping pong player, they're always down like this on their toes and really close in because they don't want the ball to pick up too much speed. And I went back the next year and smoked the competition.
Kyle Thiermann
And I think the prize was $100 and a bag of weed.
Derek Sivers
How Santa Cruz.
Kyle Thiermann
It was very Santa Cruz. Yes. So that is how I got into ping pong.
Derek Sivers
Wow. And did you continue after that win? Or was that enough accomplishment?
Kyle Thiermann
I think that was my year of ping pong. And every now and again, I'll go to a barbecue. And there will be a ping pong table, and I'll feel the ferocity come out again. But no, that was my year of table tennis, and that's just about everything you need to know about me.
Derek Sivers
I wonder if part of the conscious or unconscious motivation of the local organizers that set up that competition, I wonder if it would hurt your feelings a bit think that you knew your local waves and then surfers come in from the outside and are better than you. I wonder if the ping pong was a way of kind of humbling them.
Kyle Thiermann
I think that there needed to be some level of dignity reclaimed.
Derek Sivers
Dignity reclaimed. Great term.
Kyle Thiermann
But I will say the biggest difference that you tend not to notice about world-class professional surfers and local pros is the velocity with which they go on a wave. And you don't really see that difference in video because it's always just a great surfer, a great surfer, a great surfer. you don't get to see them compared to a pretty good surfer, which is where I would put myself. I'm a pretty good surfer. But I always found that it was incredibly inspiring to see those top, top-level athletes at a mediocre wave just to see what was possible at your break.
Derek Sivers
So growing up in Santa Cruz, I wonder how just being around those waves affected your worldview. And what I mean is:
Derek Sivers
I grew up from the age of 6 until 17, right next to the train tracks in suburban Chicago, where these big freight trains full of commodities would be going cross-country and pass through my town. Like every, let's say, 20 or 40 minutes for 11 years of my childhood, you'd hear ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. And the arm would go down - ding ding ding ding ding. And then - ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding, and the arm would go back up. And it was such a core part of my childhood was the daydreaming about where those trains were going. What was in them? Where are they going? And this big, giant, foreign thing passing through my town for 30 seconds every 20 minutes.
Derek Sivers
So in a similar way, how do you think growing up around the waves affected you?
Kyle Thiermann
There's a wonderful parallel here between growing up with trains and growing up with waves because waves come in sets, which is kind of like a train, right? And they come from very far away. So once a wave hits your shore, chances are it has come from thousands of miles away. It's spun off the Aleutian Islands or the Kamchatka Peninsula, or if it's a south swell, maybe all the way down in New Zealand. And it's traveled across the world, literally, to reach your shore. And depending on the angle of that swell mixed with the local weather patterns, that determines which waves are good, right? So over time, every wave has a combination to it. It has its own unique combination of what direction swell it needs, what tide it needs, what local wind it needs to make a perfect day, which don't come around all that often. But you get really good at knowing how weather patterns affect waves. The way that I think growing up in such a surf-centric town affected my worldview was I thought about time horizons in increments of two weeks because you can't really see a swell coming from longer than two weeks out. So I really oriented my life as much as I could around being at good waves around the world or in Santa Cruz. But it's just that was a top priority, right, was where the wave's going to be. So it made thinking really far ahead difficult because it was so centered around these two week increments of when the waves would arrive.
Derek Sivers
I didn't even know they could predict them like that. So do some people watch the news, climate, wave reports, swell reports, and say, "Ooh, look at this. Let's fly to Lisbon in five days to catch that!"?
Kyle Thiermann
Absolutely.
Derek Sivers
I didn't know that.
Kyle Thiermann
Most of my friends growing up - and myself included - our goal was just to get sponsored and become professional surfers so that we could get a company to do that. Pay for your flights to hop the best waves. And it's like, if you can do that, you have made it, right? If you can see a swell in Chile a week out and you can actually get there, it is, for me, I mean, I've had a few, a range of experiences in my life, but chasing a swell to a far-flung location and surfing perfect ways with just a few people around is one of the best things I've ever felt. But it can also be hugely distracting from building any kind of long-term career or company or anything that requires routine and just diligently showing up again and again. So I've found that my perfect blend now is to do one or two of those trips a year. But it has taken a much further backseat to my life. And writing has come much more forward. And I find that I'm much happier with those kinds of routines.
Derek Sivers
So I wonder if there was a similarity in Santa Cruz to when 10 years ago I lived on a wharf here in Wellington. It used to be the international shipping terminal where the big giant cargo ships would come in and park and unload their cargo. And it was getting old and decrepit. So they decommissioned it, moved the cargo port to a different part of the city. And somebody turned this old wharf into apartments. And just as I moved to Wellington in 2014, those apartments had just opened and there was one for rent out. Well, the very, very end is the penthouse. But I was the next one back from the penthouse. I was in a tiny little two-bedroom apartment. Number two, not number one. But I was facing out towards the ocean and I was in the ocean. And that was the coolest thing. I was thinking about there are homes that are ocean view and there are homes that are ocean front. I was ocean in. I was all the way in it. It felt like I was living on a ship because I was so out in the ocean that it was like a two minute walk from the end of the wharf to the shore. So I was like out in it. And the chair where I sat and worked and wrote all day long every day, like 12 hours a day, six days a week, was facing out this big giant window towards the water. So I knew my bay very, very well. I could tell if something was amiss, if the ripples were not as they should be, and there must be something coming. The other thing I could tell is just at a glance look out the window I see blue sky but I see that the ripples are moving south to north which down here means from Antarctica to the north. Or if they're coming from the north that means they're coming down from the equator. So what that meant is I knew what to expect when I stepped outside if it's coming from the south, that means the weather's going to be a little colder than I think it would be. If it's coming from the north, it's going to be a little warmer than I would think it would be today. And I just felt very in tune with watching those ripples on the water or noticing if something, I was like, I think something's coming. And sure enough, there would be a dolphin or like, the birds are acting weird. I think there might be a whale here. It was really cool to know that bay so well. I don't live there anymore, and I miss that. But you knew your bay very, very well, I take it?
Kyle Thiermann
I knew my bay very well, and you're pointing out something which is, I think, a larger metaphor, which is that if you stare at something long enough, layers of detail begin to appear.
Derek Sivers
Nice.
Kyle Thiermann
And when it comes to something like the ocean, if you haven't spent too much time there, you just see blue, right? But if you look at that same patch of ocean again and again, just as you did, you can start to predict when a storm will come in. You can start to predict when a swell is coming.
Kyle Thiermann
I once interviewed a writer named Tim Cahill, who was one of the founders of Outside Magazine. He's got a great sense of humor. I think you'd really enjoy him. And he said when reporting stories, I would sit in one place and look at one thing and write about that one thing until I formed a point of view about it. So I would just stare at a statue and then I would think, okay, well, there's a statue. And then I think that's a very imposing statue. I don't like that statue. And then layers of detail would appear around the statue. And he said he could build an entire scene from looking at just one object for an extended period of time.
Derek Sivers
You know what would be fun? Have you ever had anybody from the Middle East or someone who's lived in a desert on your show to ask them about the similarities with the desert?
Kyle Thiermann
Oh, that's really good. I once went to Morocco and interviewed a historian who told me all about the history of Morocco. but I never made that connection of the similarities between desert sand and the ocean, which also forms waves, right? Sandbars on the bottom of the ocean are largely, largely determine the shape of those waves.
Derek Sivers
I was just last night looking up where can I go have a Bedouin experience to go live with the Bedu for a while and learn what I can. I know it would just be like a tiny little introduction. It wouldn't be like I'd go live there for a year. But I think it would be amazing to try to see a desert through their eyes.
Kyle Thiermann
What initially sparked that interest to go live with the Bedu?
Derek Sivers
Oh, well, I mean, I went to Dubai for my first time about two years ago. And it was a place I was initially very prejudiced against because the only thing I had heard about it was this millionaire, Instagrammy, hedonistic, luxurious, indulgent crap, which is the opposite of what I want out of life, you know. But then I went, or more importantly, I also read three books about it before I went, and had my opinion flipped over that the whole area is fascinating, and the Bedu culture is fascinating, and their attunement to the desert, and their ways of surviving in the desert are fascinating. And then I spent a little more time there and love it so much. And now, especially because the time we're in right now, Dubai in particular, is like the most international trading port, crossing point, east meets west, the grand bazaar that everything passes through that port. I think it's now officially the world's busiest airport. And so when you go there, it's just jaw-dropping inspiring for a multiculturalist amateur anthropologist like me. I just go, "Ah.... This is the culmination of everything I've been wanting for decades." I love how international it is there. So I can imagine making it my home and wanting to get to know not just the internationalness of it, but also the local history that it sits upon.
Kyle Thiermann
That sounds like a trip you must take.
Kyle Thiermann
I know a guy who is a really funny character who's an art dealer who was doing business in Dubai. And I was once having a conversation with him about the culture there. And he said what allows you to make connections there is owning a camel. Like they take huge pride in these camels. And he's a young guy who's just getting into the art scene and like trying to make deals, you know, really good hearted dude. And I said, wow that's incredible. He said, yeah, I think I've got to buy a camel. And I said, do you know anything about camels? He said, no, but it seems really important to them that I buy. And I said, how much are these camels? He's about 40 grand for a good one. And I said, I don't think you need a camel. He's like, in order to do business with these people, I think I need a camel. But so maybe the lesson in that is rent a camel before buying a camel. I think, yeah, I think that goes with any big purchase like that.
Derek Sivers
But also, I mean, oh, come on. That's so insincere. They could see through that in two seconds. "Oh, tell me about your camel." "Camel? Uh... Can we do business now? Come on, do a trick, camel. Camel, please. Roll over." "Sit! Impress the man. I'm trying to get a deal done here. Do something for the man."
Kyle Thiermann
Oh, my God. That's funny.
Kyle Thiermann
So you're in New Zealand now. Have you been locked in New Zealand? Or do you feel like you're in a routinized time in your life right now? Or have you been traveling a lot?
Derek Sivers
Routinized. I like that that has a double meaning. Rooted and routine.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I would rather be anywhere else. In particular, I'd rather be in UAE and China and India right now. But my top priority is my darling boy, who is 13 and so cool. And we are such good friends. So close. We spend so much time together. He's in high school. His mom works for the government here. So, yes, rooted and routinized here now. But he and I are actively talking every week about what's next and whether he can go to a boarding school or something to get out of here. I think he's also feeling that itch to be out in the world.
Kyle Thiermann
Talk about asking the bold question.
Derek Sivers
You are writing a book about the importance of millennials interviewing their parents, so I thought about this.
Derek Sivers
When my grandfather was on his deathbed, it was generally understood that he doesn't have long left, not in a general sense, but a really specific sense. Like he was on medications and hospital-assisted stuff that he said, take it off, I'm ready to go. So my mom said, you should go see him. He's just got a few days left. So I went to go see him. He was laying in bed. He was dozing in and out of sleep. And we talked small talk for a bit. I was actually living in Santa Monica at the time. And I was telling him how they feed the homeless there, and he liked hearing about that. But the whole time, I had this big unaskable question in my head that was too bold to ask, too sensitive. (I can't ask that. That's unaskable. You can't say these things!)
Derek Sivers
The question was: What's it like to know you're about to die? So I got up the courage and I asked him and his face lit up. Like I said, he had been kind of falling in and out of sleep. But as soon as I said that, his face lit up and he said, "It's wonderful! It's so exciting. Every baby born is going to die. It's the most natural thing of all. Everything else in my life has been great. So I think this will be great too. I'm so excited." Then we changed the subject and drifted on to other things and then he fell asleep and he died the next day. So i was really glad that I asked that too-bold too-rude unaskable question.
Derek Sivers
It ended up being a good example for me! I do that now, in the future, when I'm sitting there talking with somebody and I have a burning question and I think, "I can't ask that!" I think, "Well, here I go again." And I try to ask that thing.
Kyle Thiermann
In what tone did you ask your grandfather that question?
Derek Sivers
In a ridiculous French accent. (joking) No, sorry, I don't know what you mean.
Kyle Thiermann
Well, I think that you have a very genuine tone to you. And I've thought about this before the interview because I've followed you for a long time. And another guy who I've followed for a long time is David Sedaris. Do you know who that is?
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Kyle Thiermann
And you both have this kind of, this tone, like, "Isn't life just wild? I'm so happy and curious to be here." Often the tone in which you ask a question says a lot about the person's response to that question. It probably made your grandfather feel a kind of permission to answer in the way he did. Is that something that you cultivate?
Derek Sivers
No. That's just me being me. In fact, I think I've been slapped down for it a bit, but I persist. People often misinterpret it as exhausting, over-exuberance, or they just assume I'm gay. I've heard both. So I don't care. It's just sincere. I'm an excited, passionate, interested, curious person.
Derek Sivers
I feel confused by the people that are so droll. They always just talk like this (droning) at the bottom of their range, and everything is just kind of this drone to them. I don't understand what that would be like to go through the world that way.
Kyle Thiermann
Keep doing it, please.
Derek Sivers
No, thank you!
Derek Sivers
You know, it's funny. I was listening to an interview between Rick Rubin and Trent Reznor. And I like Trent Reznor's music, but this is who I'm thinking of with that last example - somebody that just speaks so droll. I was wondering how his voice reflects his worldview. It just sounds so down so bleak! And that was even when being on for the microphone!
Kyle Thiermann
Yeah "You wouldn't you wouldn't want to see me when I'm not on a podcast!"
Kyle Thiermann
I think that you just said what I was getting at, which is that your tone of voice can reflect your worldview. And if someone is asked a question and the person who's asking it seems to have a worldview that is judgmental, that will elicit a different response than if the question is open. That's my take on it.
Derek Sivers
Agreed.
Kyle Thiermann
Do you often ask your kid questions?
Derek Sivers
Oh, yeah.
Kyle Thiermann
Are there any questions that you particularly enjoy asking him?
Derek Sivers
Well, that would imply asking the same question repeatedly! No, it is so fun to stay in questioning mode instead of lecturing mode. It can be tempting for a parent to think, "I'm smarter, I have things to tell you, now listen to me." But instead, if you just stay in listening and asking and questioning mode, you keep your kid talking. And it's so much more enlightening and so much more fun. I almost always say something like, "Like what?" Or "What's an example of that?" Or "Hmm, what do you mean?" Or "Why do you think that is?" Encouraging him to go deeper. I've been doing this since he was one year old. He is so talkative because he and I spend so much time together. We spend at least 20 hours a week, usually 30 or 40 hours a week, just talking one-on-one, no devices, just talking. And he is so talkative that it's actually a little alienating when he meets the typical teenager that doesn't know how to talk. They only know how to tap buttons and screens. But he's just grown up talking so much.
Kyle Thiermann
So the book's going to be out this winter. And I went up and I gave a copy to my mom for her to read. And I then was on a walk with my dad. This is just two days ago. And he is a lovely man who sometimes will go off on a few. He's a very passionate man to say that. And sometimes he delivers some sermons. And I told him, "I think that it would be really useful for you to ask me some more questions." And it was the first time I had ever said that to him. And I said, "I feel like it'll make me feel like you're paying attention to me." And he stopped. We were on this walk. And he said, "Well, why don't I interview you? Let's make it official." I had written this whole book. I had not even thought about the possibility of a parent interviewing their kid. And then the next day we set up my podcast gear. I don't think I'm going to release it. He came with all these really thoughtful questions about just about me and my take on things. We had this great hour and a half long conversation where he kind of just gave me the floor, and man it felt good after that interaction.I think that parents asking kids questions and kids asking parents questions um it leaves room for the unknown in a way that statements don't.
Derek Sivers
We have a mode that is our default mode in the relationship between us and another person. We all probably know that experience where you have a friend that just kind of dumps their stuff on you. Every time you talk, they do most of the talking. Which means probably there has been a situation in your past where you've been that friend that does more talking than listening, more telling than asking. And it's interesting how when you first meet somebody, this dynamic falls into place pretty soon. Somebody is inherently a little more interested in the other. And it sets up the dynamic, which tends to stick.
Derek Sivers
So it's part of why I travel - is to put myself into a big question mark mode where I go meet with people I don't know. And I'm the one asking all the questions. You might have seen on my website, there's a whole page for the hundred something people I've met. Maybe it's 200 by now. https://sive.rs/met That's where I'm going to keep posting all of my in-person meetings, which are actually more like interviews. Because I'll go to a place like Tel Aviv or Buenos Aires, where I've never been, and I'll meet up with a bunch of people that have emailed me in the past. But one-on-one, we sit down for one or two hours each. And I think they think they're going to meet me. But really, it's already started out lopsided because they've read my book or they've heard me on a podcast. They know more about me. I know almost nothing about them, except that they seemed just interesting enough by email for me to go spend an hour or two with. So then we meet up at some restaurant and I'm the one asking all the questions. And after an hour and a half, it's very common for them to apologize. Like, "I'm so sorry. I'm talking so much." I'm like, "No, this is exactly what I want! I don't want to come to Buenos Aires to talk about myself. I'm here to learn about you!" And it's so fun and healthy for me to stay in that questioning mode. I learn so much that way.
Derek Sivers
But then I stand in my recording booth like I'm doing right now, and I'm usually in the opposite mode where somebody wants me on their podcast like this because they want to ask me a bunch of questions. And I also like that, but it can be a little dangerous. Because if people keep asking you questions all the time and awaiting your answers with big anticipating eyes, that creates a habit in you that you think, "Oh, this is just how the world is. Everybody wants to hear my opinion on everything." And that's the problem where you meet famous people - especially this must happen a lot in Los Angeles - where they've got nothing to ask you. They're just used to being the one that will tell you their thoughts on everything, even if it's the most banal, silly thoughts on spirituality or whatever. They'll spout it because they're just used to people listening to everything they say with big eyes.
Kyle Thiermann
I once saw a New Yorker cartoon of two guys sitting in a bar, and the quote was, "That reminds me of the thing I was going to say next regardless."
Derek Sivers
That was a better punchline than I was expecting.
Kyle Thiermann
I'm going to bring up Sedaris again. I've once heard him say, "When people are mean to me, it's like they just gave me money. Because I get to take that experience and I get to write about it and turn it into something really funny." He spends something like six hours a day walking and picking up trash around wherever he is. And he actively does things that are low status because it's great for his writing. And his life is almost opposite that, right? When he's then going on book tours, he's an author who can fill up huge theaters. And he's doted upon. And millions of people love him. And I see a parallel again between you two in that you seem to have actively responded to that danger of being seen as high status and the good feeling that can give you and the dangerous place that it takes you ultimately.
Kyle Thiermann
You seem to have lived your life very consciously aware of what that can do to people. Am I on track there or is this not something you've thought of a great deal?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, you are on track there. I lived in New York City for seven years. I lived in Los Angeles for seven, eight, nine years. And I met a lot of famous people that were insufferable. And they have been very good anti-role models.
Kyle Thiermann
Tell me more about the anti-role model.
Derek Sivers
Oh, anti-role models are so driving - such good fuel for your engine. We're supposed to have positive role models, but so much of my drive, especially at the beginning, came from anti-role models.
Derek Sivers
My first anti-role model was the best musician in high school that we all looked up to. He was such a great guitarist and even had the look and everything. This guy was just set to be a rock star any minute now. He graduated high school and got some dumb job like laying pipe for the village of Hinsdale in our stupid little suburban Chicago town. I couldn't believe it. And I went, "That's not going to be me. I'm never going to give up and get some dumb job!" So I was so driven to never live a normal life. I never want to follow that normal path and just get a job and just get married and just have kids and just get a dog and just pay the mortgage, just get insurance and all that crap was the opposite of what I want. In fact, I'm going to avoid it to make sure I never get stuck in its little Venus flytrap. I'm going to deliberately cultivate a life that is as far from the normal life as I can so that I don't get sucked into its siren song. I'm using too many metaphors now. But yeah, the normal life, especially personified by this formerly best musician in school, was a great anti-role model for me for many years. And then ongoing little ones.
Derek Sivers
You meet a successful person that's so full of themselves that they blather on for 30 minutes on some silly, trite bullshit, and the only reason they're getting away with it is because they're famous for something else, for acting in movies, being a model, and you experience how annoying that is and almost embarrassing that is. You're almost embarrassed for their sake. Like, oh, you don't realize that you're being awful right now. So you internalize that and think, okay, that's now another anti-role model. I'm not going to do that. And then there's the "I'm more important than you" person that is rich and powerful. And you just see the way they interact with others in a restaurant, barking at underlings. And again, I think there's an anti-role model. I'm going to deliberately do the opposite of that in order to never be like that.
Derek Sivers
But this all has to do with your own personal values, too, because some people actually do want to be the powerful one barking at underlings. And there are some presidents that like being mean on Twitter, that like being awful. And maybe that's their vision of who they want to be. They see that as a positive thing, to be awful. So it's all about who do you want to be, I guess.
Kyle Thiermann
I find it interesting that there can be people, say famous people, who are insufferable, and most people generally don't like being around them, but they fawn over them, not because they like them, but because society tells them that these are the kinds of people who we should value. And I wonder what it would take for society to stop valuing those people and instead value a different characteristic. Like if all of this stuff is just abstract values through culture, right? And surfing in Santa Cruz, if you're a really good surfer, that shit matters. If you go 20 miles east, it doesn't really matter anymore. But globally, fame and wealth are two things that generally matter to a lot of different cultures.
Kyle Thiermann
Is there any culture that you see that really values people and puts them in a place of high status that you think that more of the world should do that on a global scale? And is there any way that we could flip this model and stop caring about those people and start, you know, being fangirls of the Buddhists or, you know, people who subscribe to a totally different set of values?
Derek Sivers
I think this is out of my league of having anything interesting to say about it. I've only spent a few weeks in Iceland, but in Iceland I got a sense that it's cool to be humble and has this worldview that we are all just mates here. There's something in Scandinavia, the Nordics, called Jante Law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante There was an author that coined a law that said nobody should be better than anybody else and it's often used in the negative by ambitious Nordics that say "I had to get out of that place because of the Jante Law - because everybody tries to pull you down to the average." But it does create more social harmony, I think, than places that would celebrate the inequalities. René Girard talks about how deeply ingrained in us, in the human psyche, is this idea of mimetic desire and feeling more competition with somebody that's near to you and one step away, but just admiration and no competition with somebody that is seen as way out of your league. That idea of idolizing a movie star but feeling competitive with your neighbor. You don't feel competitive with the movie star, but you can feel competitive with your neighbor. And it's fascinating stuff if somebody listening to this actually wants to know more about that subject than I can talk about.
Kyle Thiermann
I know that in a lot of hunter-gatherer societies, it is very common for the hunter who comes back with the biggest deer to be heckled and made fun of by the rest of the tribe. Like, "Why did you bring back that little bag of bones? I thought you could get something bigger. Like, oh, come on. It took you that long to get that thing?" And it's common among apparently a number of different tribes, the purpose being social cohesion, that no one person will rise to the point of grandiosity. And in those tribes, showing up and helping out and the knowledge that you are part of a community and necessary to that community, heckling and making fun of each other provides a kind of fascia to that dynamic.
Derek Sivers
So cool. I never heard about that. I love this stuff. I think I said earlier, I consider myself an amateur anthropologist. It's the subject that continues to fascinate me, this intercultural psychology or whatever you want to call it. I love it.
Derek Sivers
There's a book similar to what you're talking about called Guns, Germs, and Steel, but another lesser known one called Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches, where they go into this stuff, like the big man theory, this idea that the big man is supposed to spread his wealth. And that's where this idea of showing off your generosity came from, being the guy at the bar to say, "Drinks are on me!", or to throw the lavish party. It's supposed to show "I've got so much that I'm going to spread it with everyone." But he also said, this is where this idea comes from, that you see if you go to, let's just say, the average peanut gallery internet forum like Reddit, where people say something like: that guy's rich, therefore he should give it to all of us. And there's that whole idea, which kind of comes from this big man theory, that, "Hey, you're the big man. You're supposed to be spreading it around to everyone! Do your duty! You made a lot so give it to us!" It's fascinating stuff.
Kyle Thiermann
When you sold CD Baby did you have the idea that you were going to give away so much of your money prior to that?
Derek Sivers
No.
Kyle Thiermann
When did that insight come about? Can you just bring me into that feeling and that insight that caused you to do something fairly unconventional with your wealth?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, it's just logical. I'm not a big altruistic, sappy-hearted, hyper-empathetic person. It was just logical because I was about to be given more than I would ever use. Because I don't want to drive a Lamborghini. I don't want to live in a mansion. I don't want a boat. You couldn't pay me to own a boat. It would be a drag.
Kyle Thiermann
You want a friend with a boat.
Derek Sivers
Yes, exactly. Better to have a friend with a boat.
Derek Sivers
So it was just some soul searching in the months after I had the handshake deal. There were eight months in between the handshake agreed upon price of $22 million and the actual wire transfer - about eight months in between, so I had time to think. Lots of time to think. Lots of time in my diary going, "OMFG, now what? What am I going to do with this?" And I really did a lot of daydreaming and a lot of soul searching and a lot of imagining and thinking. And I came to the conclusion that I'm just not going to use it. I don't want to use it. That is more money than I ever want to spend. And yet there are people on earth that need it. So what the hell would I hoard it for? That's just illogical.
Derek Sivers
So luckily, my lawyer, who was helping me close the deal, had a background in tax law. And he just casually asked one day, "So what are you going to do with the money?" And I said, "I'm going to give it all away." And he got really serious. He said, "Wait, how serious are you?" I said, "Very serious." He said, "Like, irreversibly serious?" And I said, "Yeah, I've thought about this for a couple months now. I do not want that money. I'm just going to give it all away." And he said, "Well, then, before we finish this deal, let's restructure it. Let's make it so that the 22 million never even touches your hands. You could donate your company into a charitable trust now and the entire 22 million would go to charity. Instead of you receiving 22 million, paying 7 million in taxes and having 15 million left to give away, we can structure it so the entire 22 million goes straight to charity." I said, "Yes, that's what I want." It just made me happier. It eliminated the mental stress of a daily decision of what I should be doing with all this money. Maybe now in a lucid moment, I don't want a yacht, but maybe in 15 years I'll be depressed after a bad breakup and I'll think a yacht will make me happy. This prevents me from ever doing that. So it was just logical. And even my choice of who to give it to was just logical. It wasn't like there was some bleeding cause that was bringing tears to my eyes. I just thought, well, who needs it the most? That's where it should go then. So it was just logical.
Derek Sivers
I have to explain, though, the company had already been profitable for years. So I had $4 million sitting in the bank. So to me, $4 million invested into the general stock market ETFs will return 8% a year. And that to me was just enough to live on for a long time. So that's where I was coming from. I already had money. I had paid off all my debts, all that stuff. So I just didn't need the $22 million.
Kyle Thiermann
Do you have any thoughts on - or are you familiar with - the organization Giving What We Can? Sam Harris is a champion of this. And it's the idea that you give away 10% of your wealth every year for the rest of your life. And the idea being that whether or not you're making $50,000 or $50 million a year, it sets up a habit of giving for people. Have you had you heard of that organization?
Derek Sivers
I hadn't.
Kyle Thiermann
Yeah it's cool i i like the idea of philanthropy as a habit.
Derek Sivers
Islam has that built in it's actually right there in the prescriptions of how one should live - to give away a percentage of everything you've got, every week I think. I don't know.
Kyle Thiermann
I've heard you say, "When it comes to disappointing people, I walk away to a fault. I'm not a fighter. When someone's not to my liking or something gets too confrontational or antagonistic, I just leave. Since I'm happy being alone, the bar is set really high to make me engage with a person or situation that I'm not enjoying." When will you decide to engage with someone you disagree with versus walk away?
Derek Sivers
If it seems educational, if I think that this person has a lot to teach me or I have a lot to learn from this person, And also if I'm up to the expensive energy. It's an effort to ask good questions. It's an effort to try to extract motivations from people that might just be the way they are because they've always been that way. And you have to dig deeper to try to understand why. What's the belief system? Where is that coming from? It takes effort and energy. So there are many times that somebody's just yelling at me on the street. I'm not filled with curiosity to run up to them and expend the energy to say, "Now explain to me this yelling." I just walk away. And sometimes even with exes that maybe you've been romantically linked for a few months or a year, and then you break up and they start spewing all of the things that are wrong with you. "Here's what's wrong with you. And another thing I don't like about you." And in that moment, I'm actually not very curious because I don't trust their judgment. I don't think this is an accurate judgment of my soul. I think it's fueled by revenge and hurt feelings and anger. So, yeah, you have to decide when it's worth spending the energy.
Kyle Thiermann
When do you feel loyalty to people?
Derek Sivers
[Long pause.] Hmm. I mean, when? I really think there's a small handful of people that I feel it for. So when is actually who. So I wonder why. Why do I feel loyalty?
Derek Sivers
The obvious one is my boy. I mean, at first I was going to say I only have loyalty to one person, and that's my boy. But I also have a few dear friends that I feel it for.
Derek Sivers
I don't know. What does loyalty mean to you? That's a real question.
Kyle Thiermann
Well, I love what you just did with where you took the question of when, and turned it into who, and turned it into why. I thought that you very naturally just pulled back the layers and made it way deeper. So that's the reason why I've wanted to talk to you for so long and have been such a fan. That right there. What you did was question the premise of that question and rethink it. So thank you for that.
Derek Sivers
Thank you.
Kyle Thiermann
I think that to me, loyalty means continuing to show up for a person or a situation despite not always wanting to.
Derek Sivers
That's a good one.
Kyle Thiermann
That's because loyalty for me implies a sense of that my mood isn't really in it. I'm not feeling necessarily energized to stay involved in this relationship right now. And I might be willing to just walk away. If it was someone who I just met and the ties to the relationship were so thin that a few bad interactions could....
Kyle Thiermann
It's like a first date. "I don't feel a lot of loyalty to you, Miss Hinge." You know, which would be funny. It's like, you know, "Look, we've we've known each other for 20 minutes, which is a long time in my book! And this date isn't going well, but I'm ready to stick it out for another five years!" Which actually seems to be more common than not. You get three dates in and then you're like, well, I can't....
Kyle Thiermann
I used to do a lot of stand up and I had a bit about how people will stay together way longer than they should because they have a good story of how they met. And you're like, "Ooh, dude, you got to break up with her." And he's like, "I can't. We met rock climbing. It's just too good of a story." Because people will always ask you the question, "How did you meet?" Like it has any bearing on the relationship now. It really is not a good question to ask people. But it's just a way to open it up, right? But if there's a good story, like, well, we got to stay in this.
Kyle Thiermann
So I think that to get back to your question, yeah, it's a sense of staying in a relationship
Derek Sivers
Besides the obvious with my boy, most of the expression of loyalty in my life is being loyal to mottos. "Whatever scares you, go do it." I've been very loyal to that motto. There's probably a better term for this. Recipes? I don't know. I've been very loyal to that motto since I was a teenager. I keep following that. Whatever scares you, go do it. Abraham Maslow, the psychologist who coined the pyramid of self-actualization, had a phrase where he said, basically, 100 times a day, you're presented with the choice between safety and risk. And he said, make the growth choice 100 times a day. And I heard that when I was 16 and really took it to heart. And I think about it all the damn time. Every time there's a tiniest little fork in the road. I could do the safe thing. I could do the growth thing. I choose the growth thing, which is usually the riskier thing, but that's where my expansion of self would come from. So I'm loyal to missions like that, expanding my self-identity, doing what I haven't done before, trying the thing that seems unnatural to see if I can adopt it and therefore expand who I am, expand my sense of home. I'm very loyal to these things. In fact, I think a lot of the decisions I've made in life that seem weird come from being loyal to these missions, mottos.
Kyle Thiermann
I like that a lot.
Kyle Thiermann
What you said about where it's not a matter of mood, the first thing I thought of when he said that is how I will often follow that mission, even if I don't feel like it. There'll be times when I want to do the safe thing, the easy thing. And I go, "Whatever scares you, go do it. All right, here we go!"
Kyle Thiermann
Can you think of the last big one in your life that wasn't as easy as, okay, I'm going to go just jump in the cold water for a moment, but one that you felt genuine fear around?
Derek Sivers
I'm shaping my life around them still. I will probably apply to be a legal resident of China, which scares the hell out of me. But that's why I'm doing it. I would like to live in China long enough until it does not scare me. Same thing with India. I'm actually a citizen of India now because my ex was born there. And so through marriage, I also got citizenship in India. So India is very uncomfortable. And therefore, I would like to go live there until it is comfortable. Until all those confusing, frustrating things make sense to me. And same with China.
Derek Sivers
I steer in big directions. Steering a cargo ship, not a canoe - in those directions.
Kyle Thiermann
I identify with that a lot. I'm the big wave surfer dude. For my whole life, I've found a certain sense of getting to know myself better in a way that doing things that didn't scare me just couldn't deliver. So on some level, I think I try to do things that scare me because it forces a more personal conversation that otherwise is not available in pedestrian realms. Do you identify with that at all?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Well-put. I love that.
Kyle Thiermann
Oh, man, this is so fun. I'm not going to pretend that I haven't wanted to talk to you for a really long time. You're one of the dudes who I've just been like: that guy's got some very cool things figured out, and he's living life to the beat of his own drum. And it's done with, again, it coming back to tone.
Kyle Thiermann
There are a lot of people who would say, "I do shit that scares me!", you know, and they're the Navy SEAL, like, "We've got to go back to how it was! Pick up that kettlebell!" You know, like it's very, like, like pleasure is a bad thing, right? And it feels like there's a sense of like they're running from something by running through the hard thing, if that makes sense.
Kyle Thiermann
But I don't get the sense that you are anti-pleasure in all in this pursuit of doing things that scare you.
Derek Sivers
I left Santa Monica because I loved it too much. I used to live at California and 3rd, right off the 3rd Street Promenade. So every day about lunchtime, I would close my laptop and just go on a stroll down the promenade to see the buskers and pick a random restaurant to grab lunch from. And the only area I loved more than mine was where you are, over there by Montana.
Kyle Thiermann
Oh, it's a great zone. Super walkable. I go, you know, bike up into the hills all the time, run down, do some swims. It's fun.
Derek Sivers
I loved Santa Monica so much that I felt done. I felt I had landed at the end of the rainbow. This is it. There is no better place on Earth. And I was feeling that in my early 30s. So I caught myself thinking, what the hell? I can't be done in my early 30s. It's a big world out there. And as of now, I'm thinking that I'm in the best place in the world. So clearly that is some faulty thinking. So I need to go fix this. I need to go out into places that seem strange to me now. Don't just go for the obvious - don't go for Tuscany, Monaco - the places that people already think of as fantabulous and great and I'm going to move to this wonderful place. No. Can I move to India and love it so much that I'm happier there than I was in Santa Monica? That I could feel that in fact no maybe this is the best place on earth? And then keep finding these best places on earth until one day I'll be able to spin the globe and feel that every part of it is like home to me. Southeast Asia is home. East Africa is home. Australia is home. Wouldn't that be nice? So I'm still pursuing that. That's why I left. But yeah, not doing it out of a sense of the yelling kettlebell man, but it's wanting to feel at home anywhere, which then to me means it's like a more slow definition of strength, which is the emotional and identity strength.
Kyle Thiermann
Let's talk about that in a second.
Derek Sivers
The identity strength that you could feel comfortable and at home in an autocracy or a monarchy or with a communist government, you could feel totally at home with that. That takes an expanding sense of self and identity to not just stick with your initial birth agenda and declare the rest to be enemies, but to expand your sense of self so that you can imagine yourself living in China, like I said, and being totally at home there.
Kyle Thiermann
Let's talk about the expansion of self-identity. So there was a line here that you wrote in "How to Live", which is "You aren't supposed to be easy to explain. Putting a label on a person is like putting a label on water in the river. It's ignoring the flow of time."
Derek Sivers
Fuck, that's a good book. I love when I hear that book quoted back at me. I catch myself thinking, "That is the most beautiful quote I've ever heard. Oh, my God, I wrote that!" Oh, that's so nice. I'm not supposed to admit this, but there you go.
Kyle Thiermann
No, well, thank God you are. I once heard Jerry Seinfeld. People criticized Seinfeld because they're like, well, Jerry looks like he's self-satisfied when the bit is working on Seinfeld. And the interviewer of this comic, Neil Brennan, who I really like, is like, "If he can't be happy, who can?" Nice. So I'm happy that you're able to say that. Yeah, I thought that I loved that you wrote that book in declaratives. So it wasn't like, maybe you could do this or maybe you could do that.
Derek Sivers
It's so efficient. I was trying to find the most efficient way of delivering information from me to you.
Kyle Thiermann
And to do it with all of your conviction in every chapter and then say something that's contradictory, I found was, I thought it was useful beyond just the lessons in, and it was useful. I thought there was a bigger point around how when someone says something with a lot of persuasion, it's really easy to start nodding along to whatever it is that they're saying. But the joke is then you would do another chapter and it would be like, well, wait, that contradicts that old idea right there. But he's saying it with just as much power in these words. So I thought that it was a great lesson in how you need to be able to just try on all of these ideas without subscribing to them immediately. Because most books will just make 400 pages and it's one idea.
Derek Sivers
A friend of mine thought that I was spoofing the genre. He said, "Dude, well done. You totally spoofed the self-help genre. That's what you were intending to do, right?" I went, "Oh, maybe?" Because each book thinks that it's got the answer. This is it. This is what you all need to be doing. Start with why. Get your atomic habits. It's the subtle art of not giving a fuck. It's your second brain. This is the answer. And I just think, okay, well, that's one way.
Kyle Thiermann
...in six minutes! Do it all in six six minute abs! Yeah the three-day work week!
Derek Sivers
Sorry we got we got off on a tangent. What were we talking about? Self-identity! Expanding self-identity.
Kyle Thiermann
Let me pause for a minute right here because i do think that we're in a moment especially with instagram algorithms where people can kind of feel like they they can build their personality off of just having a few books and influences in their lives you know whether it's like "I listen to joe rogan and i have read atomic habits and i'm on the peter attia diet" and like it's it's just all been subscribed for you. There are a few people who i think for the millennial off the list with these few people and influences and many of them are very good ideas and good influences, but i i think that the writing that you do expands a little bit beyond that and doesn't serve it up just so directly. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Derek Sivers
Oh, yeah. It's the same part of our personality that's drawn to religion. Just give me the answers. Just tell me what to do. What's the right way to live? Just, "OK, you know what? Peter Attia, that's it. I'm just going to do what he says. Atomic Habits, yeah. I'm just going to follow this exactly." It's not the worst thing to do. It's better than just aimlessly watching TV, I guess. If you actually do it, if you actually follow what Atomic Habits says, then you'll be in a better place than if you didn't. But yeah, I think it's a part of us that's all a little inherently lazy, that we don't want to do a lot of questioning. It's a pain in the ass. It just brings up insecurities and bad feelings. I don't know. What do I know? I'm an idiot. This guy seems to be smart. Famous podcasters had him on their show. He must be good. I'm just going to do what he says. That's it. Just follow that.
Derek Sivers
And I've done the same myself. That's what I do with investing. I don't care about investing that much. So when I had this money that I had to invest, I kind of went, ugh. I'm just going to read these books that everybody say are the best books of investing and just do what they say. These people nerd out about this and dig into this subject. I don't want to. So William Bernstein, I like what he says. I'm just going to do what he says. So my money is just invested the way that William Bernstein said it should be. And that's it. I didn't question it. So we all have many different aspects of our life where we just follow the gurus.
Kyle Thiermann
And when it comes to creating your self-identity and doing things that are continuously expanding it, label on: "You aren't supposed to be easy to explain. Putting a label on a person is like putting a label on water in the river. It's ignoring the flow of time." So when it comes to you continuously doing things, we're getting back to doing things that scare you so that it is continuously shaping your self-identity. Let's talk about the internal dialogue when deciding to make this decision. So you're going to become a Chinese citizen, right? "Okay, that scares me. I feel that fear somewhere. Ooh, okay. But it's in service of me wanting to be a global citizen, feel like I'm home everywhere." What happens next with that feeling?
Derek Sivers
You mean what do I do next with that feeling? Or does the feeling change?
Kyle Thiermann
Yeah, how quickly then do you make a decision based on that?
Derek Sivers
Oh, sometimes it's overwhelmingly the right obvious thing to do right now. Usually it's an idea that won't go away. I like this measure of heeding the ideas that won't go away. It's kind of like instead of asking yourself, "What do I love doing?" Ask yourself, "What do I hate not doing?" That's a better question. I'd heed that more often. If there's something that I just feel awful if I don't do it, that's worth doing.
Derek Sivers
To me, expanding my horizon is something I hate not doing. I'm just not happy staying in one place. I get this icky, itchy feeling. I need to go somewhere I've never been. I need to expand. I need to learn something I don't know. I need to understand a point of view that seems crazy to me right now. I want to understand that. That to me is my favorite kind of learning, is a perspective that seems so crazy or confusing to me right now. I want to understand that and perhaps even adopt it. At very least, understand it so I can choose to both understand it yet not adopt it. I understand it, but that's not for me. And maybe, upon understanding it, I'll decide to adopt an aspect of it for myself. That is so exciting to me because it's expanding your comfort zone. It's then taking what was mysterious and making it understood. And taking what was uncomfortable and making it comfortable. Especially taking people that seemed so foreign and having them be your dear friends. It's such a great feeling. To me, that's the most fulfilling, deep, nourishing joy. That's the combination of those things I just said. So that's what I'm constantly in pursuit of.
Derek Sivers
But back to your question. There's some moments that I know I need to act on this right now. Sometimes to get over that "scares you go do it" thing. If I sit on it too long, maybe I won't do it, but I can tell it's the right thing to do. Everything in me says this is the right thing to do, but damn, it's scary. I'm going to initiate it right now. Even if it's just the first step, you know, just book the flight or just click the little signup form and begin.
Kyle Thiermann
Yeah, you can't look down off the cliff too long before jumping off sometimes.
Derek Sivers
Perfect example.
Kyle Thiermann
Right. And I'll give you a personal example here, then we can wrap up. I so enjoyed this. This is just a blast for me.
Kyle Thiermann
For someone who has maybe a more negative self-talk and thinks, "Well, that's cool that this guy can just jump off the cliff of life and just do all this stuff, but I don't have the self-talk to be able to do that." It's just a more negative and self-flagellating voice, I suppose.
Kyle Thiermann
And I'll tell you the personal example. I was thinking about this actually just before the podcast. I had the thought, man, I'm such a more confident writer than I am speaker. I wish I could talk to Derek just by writing to him because then that would impress him. But I'm a guy who's done nearly 400 podcasts, bro. I do this like once or twice a week and have for the last seven years. Like I do this and still before this podcast thought, yeah, but I always get tongue tied at some point in the podcast. And that's just always going to be like the thing. It's just always me. And I, but I'm good at that thing. I'm good at the writing thing, but the podcasting thing, I'm just like, I'm okay at that. And it's still a voice in my head that I want to get over, and I find incredibly limiting and still, and sort of akin to what you're talking about here of just like expanding beyond the old idea into the new idea. Save me, Derek.
Derek Sivers
We don't need confidence. We need evidence. And sorry, that sounds too catchy to be true. But if you, I'm saying you, but actually means whoever is listening, think that it would be crazy to jump off the cliff. Well, no, you don't jump off the cliff. You find a little tiny example.
Derek Sivers
Somebody just a week ago told me that he heard me on a podcast talking about this kind of whatever scares you go do it thing and he said "While I was listening to the podcast I went searched the web for local dance school and clicked the sign up form right there as you were still talking in the podcast!" He said, "Being a dancer is the opposite of me. I am so not a dancer that it seems so completely out of character for me to do that. I can't imagine myself dancing. So that's why I did it." And he said, "Now I've had four or five lessons, and I can think of myself as a dancer. I'm not a great dancer yet, but I've done it now. I am a dancer." He said, "So that was just the littlest thing." You know, that wasn't moving to China. That was just clicking the sign-up form on dance lessons and then making yourself show up nine days later when the lesson time comes. And then just making yourself do the thing that the teacher says to do, even though you think there's no way in hell I can do this.
Derek Sivers
Dude, surfing. I've only had a few surf lessons, but I've watched. Living in Santa Monica, I watched surfers and I felt like they were like a different breed of person. I'm not that kind of guy. And even just taking a few surf lessons, I kind of had this feeling like, "Wow, I'm acting like one of those guys. I'm looking like one of those guys right now in my wetsuit on my surfboard." Similar when I went into my first comic book shop. You know, we think of comic book guy from The Simpsons. Like, that's so not my world. These are not my people. But a friend told me, like, hey, you know, if you liked that movie, I think you would like graphic novels. And I said, you mean comic books? And he said, yeah, comic books. Go on. You should go down to this store and ask them for something by Brian K. Vaughn. I was like, wow. I walked into my local comic book shop. And I felt like I might as well be walking into a women's lingerie shop or something, right? I felt so out of place. So I walked in and said, do you have something by Brian K. Vaughan? And they steered me right, and soon I'm into graphic novels, and I love them. And I love the art form, and I love so many of them. I ended up getting hundreds. I love this thing of these tiny little baby steps that you can take to do the thing that seems so unlike you. Take the thing that you think you hate and question it. If you think you hate opera, if you think you hate sports, if you think you hate, I don't know, caviar, something, then go steer towards that. Steer into the things that you're prejudiced against because it's the deepest joy when you learn to appreciate something you used to hate.
Kyle Thiermann
So when it comes to something like becoming a Chinese citizen, you will look back at your past self and find evidence that you've done something like this before, therefore you can do it again?
Derek Sivers
Yes. You start small to make little evidence that you can do this. I said that I've been following some mottos, like "whatever scares you go do it". Those things start really small, like "I'm scared to talk to this girl. So therefore, I'm going to do it." And "I'm scared to sign up for this thing. Therefore, I'm going to do it." And just little tiny small ones you keep doing and then you try some big ones. And then it just each past thing you do that no longer scares you. Now, by the way, that's the second half of it. Whatever scares you, go do it because then it won't scare you anymore. That's the whole point! If you keep following what scares you soon you have almost no fears left and the world is your oyster.
Kyle Thiermann
Derek Sivers, this was not a disappointment, and just like total total joy for me so thank you for coming on the podcast. I appreciate you being so open and just such a deep thinker.
Derek Sivers
Thanks, Kyle. It was a blast. I loved it. And thanks for reciprocating and tell me some of these things about your life too that made it even better.
Kyle Thiermann
If you ever come to Santa Cruz and want to play some ping pong....
Derek Sivers
Hell yeah. We didn't even get into the ping pong thing on my side, but I've thought for a long time about getting one of those robot butterfly things to practice with.
Kyle Thiermann
My dad got one from the flea market. He called it the pterodactyl and it like sets up on the other side of the ping pong table. So tell me, what's your ping pong story?
Derek Sivers
John Medina in a book called Brain Rules, and then I think another one called Brain Rules for Aging. He's a neuroscientist at the University of Washington. He writes about how to keep your brain healthy, says that ping pong is one of the best things you could do for your brain. It's fast twitch reflexes, yet it's not physically dangerous, like football or even, you know, water skiing or whatever. So he said, ping pong is the ideal keep your brain healthy sport. And I read that and went, "I should learn ping pong." And I might. We'll see.
Kyle Thiermann
Yeah. It gets pretty dangerous when I'm across the table, though!
Derek Sivers
Ha! Perfect ending. Thanks, Kyle.
Kyle Thiermann
Thank you so much, Derek. Appreciate you. See ya.