Reframeables
host: Rebecca and Natalie
Fun conversation about reframing (of course), creativity, empathy, living a full life, and collaborating instead of just talking.
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Transcript:
Derek Sivers
I'm in Wellington, New Zealand, where winter has begun in May. They officially call May 1st the first day of winter here for some reason. So it is 8 in the morning, so it was dark just 20 minutes ago. It's a chilly winter morning.
HOSTS
And for anyone who doesn't choose to see this, like if they choose to go with this as an audio text, Derek's wearing a turtleneck. which is a winter gear kind of thing whereas becca and I are just outside on the patio. And it's it's nice finally nice weather here in toronto and we're taking it.
HOSTS
Derek, I heard you first on the Tim Ferriss podcast and you were building a house - you were building essentially a very simple house, you decided you needed something very simple and I was very interested in it because my husband and I like to renovate and you just had to figure out where to put the toilet and all that kind of stuff you weren't just doing anything based on the renovator or the architect says the toilet should go here you were like how do I use the space what do I want. So is that house done and have you decided where to put the toilet?
Derek Sivers
It's not done they're still building it but But even things like, "Where do you want the lights?" And I say, "I don't know. I haven't lived here yet." I have to first live here and then I'll know where I want the lights. I'm trying to not predict.
Derek Sivers
That's one of my favorite ideas from the book that I'm following, the book called "How Buildings Learn" by Stuart Brand. I so highly recommend that book to anybody, even if you have no interest in architecture. It's just one of those books. You have to get the paper book. It's like a coffee table kind of book with pictures of how buildings evolve over decades and how people who live in them adapt the building to their needs. He says the problem with these buildings that win architecture awards the day they're built, the day before people move in. That's missing the whole point. The way that we should judge a good building is how much the people who live in it love it. And often the people who have to live in these architecturally designed, award-winning buildings hate living in them because they might look amazing in photos, but they are a drag to live in. Whereas the most beloved buildings are the ones that you can adapt to your needs, where you can just quickly knock out a wall or put a hole here or hang something there. Those are the buildings that people love. The book starts out with a beautiful sentence that says: All buildings are predictions and all predictions are wrong.
HOSTS
Tell me more about that. What does that mean to you?
Derek Sivers
Well, isn't it clear that when somebody says, "I want a walk-in closet here and I want lights here", they're predicting what they're going to want because they don't live in that space yet. It might be an idea they've had for 20 years that they told themselves as a teenager, someday I will have a walk-in closet. Maybe it's an old outdated thing that you don't actually need anymore. But you wouldn't know it until you do it.
Derek Sivers
So the big idea that I'm following his advice and doing with the space is to just get a plain rectangle and start living there. And once it's begun, I'll know, "Okay, now I know from being here for a few days, now I know where I need the lights to be. I've been here on sunny days. I've been here on cloudy days. I think the lights need to be here."
HOSTS
Super embodied, like an embodied way of being in a space. Yeah. But you're really letting the body dictate. That's interesting.
HOSTS
That's partly what I'm listening to you on the Tim Ferriss podcast and talking to my husband about you. I've been really interested in your thinking, which is so sort of, I mean, not to use the word, but outside the box, even though you're in a box. But it's just like, because, you know, you could say, like, it's true about that design. But I would also say that people would go, I want a walk-in closet. And then they would say they love a walk-in closet because walk-in closets seem fancy. And why would you not want a walk-in closet? So how would you even be able to step back from that and say, maybe I don't like this? Like, that takes a lot of clear self-reflection and clear thinking to be able to do that.
HOSTS
So I think that's what I find really interesting about you is you're really, it seems like you're really able to step back and take this macro view of living, which is very unusual, I think, because we're all sort of trapped in our 24-hour busy days. So I don't, that is particularly what I find interesting about you is how you how you've decided or how you are able to be so self-reflective even about your house.
Derek Sivers
I think you just said it! I'm not busy! It comes down to that. I've set up my life in such a way that I'm not busy and I spend hours just daydreaming and hours just journaling and thinking, which leads me to find maybe unusual solutions to things.
HOSTS
Wow. Yeah, that's great. Okay. So we should start with this reframing thing, because that's kind of something we have in common, is that you're into reframing, we're into reframing, because we call it the Reframeables Podcast. But let's find out if we think the same about reframing. So Nat, my sister, is really the one who brought me to the concept of reframing. And I don't know, Nat, if that came out of academia for you or you just stumbled upon it because you had some trauma in your life. And you're like, I need to reframe if I'm going to be able to be positive in this life. I don't know. Nat, you tell us. And then, Derek, you say if that's how you see it.
HOSTS
Okay, well, for me, I think it's probably like for so many folks, ideas that evolve over time. So I don't know that I could pinpoint it. Like if I were to go back to the first episode where we ever talked about what reframing came from, for me, I would say probably I started gaining some language around it as I moved my way through like academic kind of maneuverings. But I would say that it was definitely trauma-based when you get sick, when you go through divorce, when you have all these various things and you somehow still have to live and you want to live a life that feels full and has like you know nuance and not just sort of meaning per se but like more than one meaning then for me I found that the idea of reframing hit home as a way to move through various challenges. So challenge was definitely connected to the notion of reframing, but I was very quick to want to push back on anyone that would be like, oh, that's, you know, just trying to put a positive spin on things. And I was like, no, that's definitely not what it is. There's no putting a positive spin on my body having changed because of having survived sepsis, like I am different now, but I can reframe how I move through the world this new body based on some tools that I have gathered over time for kind of navigating life now so I would say that reframing is a process for me as opposed to an end goal so that Natalie's reframing ish and I I just do what Natalie says so I don't I'm older. Well, a little bit. She's just smart. So I try, I try the things she suggests.
HOSTS
How do you see it, Derek?
Derek Sivers
Putting a positive spin on things is not the worst way to see it.
HOSTS
No, it's not.
Derek Sivers
You could call that finding a positive spin *in* things. As if you were to see a painting with a big collage of colors and say, find green in here. And even though it's mostly red and black and gray, but, well, actually, in between, see, there's kind of a green here. So it can be like that in life.
Derek Sivers
We're all challenged with something almost every day. There's a challenge. There's an internal challenge. If you're just mad or resentful inside, even if it's not a physical roadblock, there are emotional roadblocks. The only way through those is reframing. You have to find another way to think about this.
Derek Sivers
Like if you're feeling, that person wronged me. That was wrong. They were bad. They were evil. They did a wrong thing. I was right and they were wrong. And you might feel clenched up about that for years, until you find a different way to think about it. Whether that's I was wrong and they were right, or they were just operating under the operating system that they were given, and it wasn't their fault, or this whole thing might be a misunderstanding, or whatever it takes.
Derek Sivers
Reframing in your head is the only way to get past these mental hurdles, whether it's being upset or even feeling like you're in a dead-end career-wise or that there's a glass ceiling of your success in what you want. Often these things are just in your head and there's a different way of thinking about it that will change you from thinking you are trapped to thinking that there is a trap door in here somewhere that I can escape from.
HOSTS
And for you, was it one incident that helped you foster this thinking? Or you have spent this time of self-reflection, the fact that you make space for thinking that has sort of just nurtured this?
Derek Sivers
When I was a teenager, I heard the question, "What's great about this?" The idea was anytime something goes wrong in your life, even you drop a plate of food on the floor, you ask yourself, what's great about this? And your first impulse is to say nothing. This is just bad. There's great about this. And you ask again, like, no, there's something, there's something great about this. What's great about this? And you find it. That was the first introduction to this idea. I started putting that into practice.
Derek Sivers
And then I heard this idea: "Whatever scares you go do it." That in itself was a reframing in one idea. That it wasn't even telling you to reframe. It was just in itself saying, if it scares you, you should do it.
Derek Sivers
Or 30 years later in Mark Manson's book called "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck", he said, whatever is the most painful thing to do, that's what you should be doing. That's so counterintuitive, but when you hear the explanation why or if you just think of your own explanation why it's so beautiful to realize that sometimes you can use the what seems like the obvious thing to do. You can flip it. So that in itself is a reframing.
Derek Sivers
I guess I've been exploring with these ideas since I was a teenager.
HOSTS
And I appreciate that you're exploring. Like I just want to say, I think that's pretty cool that it can continue to grow as a way of being. We started talking about architecture as like an embodied, like your experience of architecture as like a more embodied experience. And I think that that's pretty cool. If your experience of reframing can also be that, something that is iterative and ongoing and lived.
HOSTS
I read in like sort of exploring your different works, would you say you're a fairly extreme person? In the sense that as you've explored ways to live, you've tried, you know, I'm going to have this company and make a lot of money. And then I'm going to now try living really simply, or I'm going to have, I'm going to, you know, go all local. Like you have that idea of local and global. I'm going to now have like, like really international friends or if I picked it up right. So it just seems like you, you explore the spectrums, like either end of the spectrum in terms of how you, you know, this experiment of living. So I guess I was curious where you've, where are you falling right now?
HOSTS
What is the best way to live since you've tried many things?
Derek Sivers
No, there's no best way!
Derek Sivers
Let's back up. So Nat said earlier something about living a full life. To me, that's what it comes down to, is I want to live a full life. I'm only here for a little while. I want to see the world from as many different perspectives as I can, and ideally not just see it, but live it, embody it. I want to inhabit these philosophies, not just hear of them. I want to go live them.
Derek Sivers
I love that word spectrum you just used. That's a good one of imagining that it's all a spectrum that you can take different angles on. But yeah, more importantly, I want to understand the points of view that come least naturally to me. The natural ones are easy. For whatever reason, our upbringing or DNA, nature, nurture, we have a way that we tend to be and tend to think. So that's a given. I don't have to give those much effort.
HOSTS
What's easy for you? What is your natural? What is something that you go, yeah, that's where I go?
Derek Sivers
Oh, introvert, individualist, being casual, not following rules. I don't know. Blame my California birthplace. Blame my 80s rock and roll upbringing. I don't know. Those are just some that come to mind. Nobody's ever asked me that before. Thank you. I don't know who I am.
Derek Sivers
But then I put more effort into trying to go against that, to push hard into the things that do not come naturally, such as completely surrendering to rules or living in a culture that is against individualism. I'll just stop at those two because that's all I've got up my head right now. But those two do not come naturally to me. Therefore, those are the things I want to go try.
Derek Sivers
When I meet somebody that thinks so differently from me that everything in my instincts is repulsed and I think that they are so wrong, that to me is a reason to go that direction and try to learn more about it.
Derek Sivers
Because like Nat said, this is part of living a full life is to try to see, really see other points of view and to understand them until they don't feel wrong.
HOSTS
Well, and you really built like a whole book on that. Because in Useful, Not True, you talk about this, right? Like this idea of understanding, I wrote this down for myself, understanding others and their beliefs. That's sort of like a subheading that you've got there.
HOSTS
And you say, "People share perspectives, not facts." And I was like, wow, that's a very quotable line. That's something to use. And then I, but then you go further a little bit and they tell you how to see things. They tell you how they see things. But maybe I inserted the word "to" there because I actually wonder if that actually is part of it. Right. They tell you how to see things from their perspective because that's actually part of it. That's so fascinating to me because the next step I would go with that is okay well then what are some of the if that's all about belief and how belief can in many ways just be perspective.
HOSTS
What are some of the beliefs that you've let go of in this effort to to see the world from other people's perspectives?
Derek Sivers
If we had 10 minutes of silence I could come up with more, but only one comes to mind right now. I know there are many more, but the only one that comes to mind is when I first moved to Singapore from California. And I was immersed in the world of startups and entrepreneurship. I had just sold my company and everybody was calling me an entrepreneur, even though I thought of myself as a musician that was helping other musicians. But hey, because I sold the company, they called me an entrepreneur. So I moved to Singapore because I wanted to learn Chinese and live in a very different culture. And after I arrived, the Singapore Management University asked me to come speak it to a class. So I went to go speak to a class full of 50 Singaporeans and I said, "Who here wants to start their own company? Raise your hand." And no hands went up. And I thought, maybe they misunderstood the question because of course people want to start their own company. In California, if I were to ask that question to a room of 50 students, 51 hands would go up because somebody would run in from the hallway to raise their hand. That everybody wants to start their own company in California. How could it be in this room that nobody wants to start their own company? Surely they must just be too shy to raise their hands. So I started picking on individual people and said, "Why didn't you raise your hand?" And she said, "Well, my parents took a lot of risk so that I could live a comfortable life. I just want to get a good salary job. And I asked somebody else, and she said, "I think it's embarrassing. What if it fails? I would be humiliated." And I asked somebody else, and everybody had their own reasons why they didn't want to start a company, and I was blown away. I really thought everybody on earth wanted to start their own company if they could. This was a universal desire. But it wasn't.
Derek Sivers
And so as I continued to live in Singapore for two more years, I ended up meeting hundreds of Singaporeans that would tell me things like, "I wanted to be a musician, but my parents said no, I had to go to law school. So I went to law school and I don't make music anymore." And by my American values, I thought, "No, that's so wrong. You need to be making music. You don't have to do what your parents say! You have to follow your passion." It took me a couple years to realize that I was not right and they were not wrong. That these are just two different approaches and one is not better than the other. Both are equally valid.
Derek Sivers
Then it took me more years to look at fundamentalist Islam and realize it's not wrong. And to look at the Chinese government and realize they're not wrong. And to look at hedonists that go to Burning Man and realize they're not wrong. That these are all just different embodied philosophies that people are living. And they're just different. They're not wrong.
Derek Sivers
You can get all judgy about it, but then you have to realize you're judging it according to one set of values, and that's not the only set of values in the world. That's one that you might have been born into or trained into, but it's not the only way to see it. And it ends up being an incredibly empathetic, loving, accepting way of seeing the world to realize that these different philosophies are not wrong.
HOSTS
So would you, like, could you, you could extend that to politics and stuff. Like if you were sitting in a room with Trump, would he rile you up?
Derek Sivers
Of course.
HOSTS
He would? Okay. I have to just see how far this goes. He would.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, we all have instincts. We all have reflexes. We have our initial reaction to things. And in the end, you can still say, "Even though I understand your point of view entirely, I still inside prefer this point of view. I do not prefer that point of view." You can still have your personal preferences. You're not just becoming a complete blank slate, Although, who knows, maybe that would be the ideal.
Derek Sivers
We still have emotions. We have biases. Daniel Kahneman, who wrote the famous book Thinking Fast and Slow, said even though he's studied this work for 50 years, which is about biases, he said, "I still have biases." He said, "Even though I'm the expert on the subject, I still catch my...I'm just as caught up by these cognitive biases the same as everyone else." So yeah, I still have my preferences.
HOSTS
Okay, that's a good answer.
Derek Sivers
But it's an interesting challenge to make yourself really wholeheartedly try to understand a very different point of view.
HOSTS
Yeah, that seems like a very important exercise in our world, particularly.
HOSTS
So, but now, so I guess that sort of empathetic way of viewing the world i don't know if you would say that but you seem very genuinely open to people and I was attracted to yours i think you say you said it on the podcast the Tim Ferriss podcast maybe you say it on your website too but that You answer every email. I wonder is that still true?
HOSTS
Can you hear my poor cat i have to let her out. Oh Coco. It's about time for dinner for her so she won't stop now.
HOSTS
How do you not get jaded by people? Because I feel like I'm a fairly open person too but the idea that I would answer every email with sort of the this openness and maybe you would say that's because I have time I have space to not be irritated by people but I think it's a really beautiful and unusual quality to be open to people and like regular people like you're just talking to like you know what I mean Like just me and my annoying, you know, mundane things that I like.
HOSTS
You're just like hanging out. Just, I don't know. So I don't know, Nat, is there a better way to say it? But I was just thinking of how, like, how do we foster that? Or how do you foster that openness? No, I like how you said it, though. I don't think you're annoying, but. Just like regular things.
Derek Sivers
Most of my current best friends are people that reached out to me by email in the first place, just as a stranger. Hi, my name's Jeff in Perth, Australia. I read this thing you wrote. I really like it. This is me. And then we start talking and become great friends. We end up meeting up in person when I'm visiting their hometown or they're visiting mine. And really, if I were to look at my six or seven best friends in my life. I think five of them came through my email inbox. And some of the great loves of my life, some of the great relationships in my life have come through my email inbox. So of course, I am very open hearted to my email inbox.
HOSTS
It serves you well.
Derek Sivers
It does. But also, okay, that's just one aspect. But people ask challenging questions! For years and years, on the front page of my website, it said, "Hi, I'm Derek Sivers. I am an entrepreneur. I'm a programmer. I'm an introvert." And I got a tiny two-sentence email from a stranger in Germany saying, "I don't think you should pigeonhole yourself like that. You are more than just an introvert. There must be more nuance to that." And my first impulse was, "Screw you, stranger! How dare you?" But seconds later, I thought, oh my God, he's right. That's an oversimplification. I'm not just an introvert. Sometimes I'm an introvert. Sometimes I'm not. There's more nuance than that. Why was I limiting myself in that way to say I'm just this? It's like choosing to climb into a box and lock it. So thanks to this two-sentence email from a stranger in Germany I never heard from again, I opened my mind and reconsidered that aspect.
Derek Sivers
And people push back on things I write. Sometimes strangers just offer their services. Sometimes it's like, "Hi, my name's Such, I'm a guitar builder in Slovenia. I love what you're doing." I think, oh my god, I know a guitar builder in Slovenia! How cool is that?
Derek Sivers
I received enough emails from people in Bangalore, India, that I got on a plane and went to Bangalore, and I met one-on-one with 50 people in Bangalore. And it was amazing. I just got back from two and a half weeks in China, where I did the same. I went to Shenzhen, China, and Chengdu, China, and Hong Kong while I was there, And I met with a bunch of strangers that had emailed me over the years. And we sat down for two hours each, just one and one over tea. And I deeply got to know a bunch of people that are born and raised in China. And it's so wonderful.
Derek Sivers
I'd almost say this is what I'm doing at this stage in my life is I'm writing on my blog and appearing in podcasts and inviting people to email me. So that then I can go travel and meet them. It's amazing. What a life.
HOSTS
Yeah. Okay, so invitation to email Derek.
Derek Sivers
Yes, please do.
HOSTS
You know, it's funny because I, when I think, I taught for 20 years, public education, I had a very good job. Everything was very kind of ordered. And then instinctively I made, I knew I needed to make a shift. So I hit sort of that 20 year mark and I'd always been participating with Rebecca in her art world. But sort of as this, you know, again, so that the older sister, I can help you. You know what I mean? That kind of vibe. And finally she said, Nat, just come work with me. Like stop talking, you know, like about ideas and come live these ideas out in this company with me. And it's funny, it took a long time to get to that place. But I would say that the people I have met exiting the world of education proper into this world of, but not just art, like art and producing and creating and bridge building has been so changing of me as a person because of those conversations. But what I would say I'm feeling different from what you just described is that you are just having conversations, perhaps for the sake of the conversation. That's what I just heard you say. Like, I just want to get to know these people. And I would love to get to that place because right now I'm still in the I'm bridge building and meeting people. But it's always in service of a project. Like that's still where I'm at at this stage of Natalie. And I would like to get to down the road. It will be cool to get to what you're describing, because I think there's something really beautifully genuine and pure to go back to Rebecca's initial comment about what you've done with your life. Like to really just be in relationship with people is in service of simply the relationship is different. That's a very different way of being as opposed to it being this reciprocal kind of, oh, you know, scratch your back, you scratch mine kind of thing.
Derek Sivers
Well, so, Nat, let me push back on that. I wouldn't say that what you're doing is lesser than what I'm doing. Because in fact, I was just last night thinking I would like to do it more like you. But I thought, I'm spending hundreds of hours sitting at coffee shops having conversations with people. Maybe I should be collaborating with these people. Maybe we should be making something! I think that my value system that says that creating something is very high in my list of important values. I think it's really important to keep creating, not just consuming. I want to create. So I realized I think I'm getting a little out of balance where I'm having wonderful conversations but not creating enough out of them. Wouldn't it be interesting if when I meet up with these people for conversation, I meet up and say, "Hi, nice to meet you. While we're talking, let's collaborate on writing something together. Let's come out of this little 90-minute conversation over coffee and come up with something we're going to write out of this." So I was just last night wanting to do more of what you're saying about meeting people in order to work on a project together. So it's not better or worse.
HOSTS
I appreciate that because that fits with your very specific philosophy of openness. Yeah, I think I just have to keep wrestling all the time with it not Creation getting to be Beautiful and not just a product so it's fine right that right so Okay, Becca look I offered something to Derek.
Derek Sivers
Do you both live in Toronto?
HOSTS
Yeah
Derek Sivers
In Los Angeles, I lived there for six years and I met somebody who said, "I love LA culture because people are honest about the fact that they're meeting you for their career." Meaning it's a town where you're supposed to go meet everybody because it's a city full of freelancers. A lot of people are in the entertainment industry where there's no steady job. It's all project work. And so you have to go know lots of people in order to keep your career healthy. You have to know as many people as possible and keep in touch with them. It's an imperative in Los Angeles. Somebody said, I like that this city is honest about that. I feel in other places it's not done overtly. It's done secretly. Or you're not supposed to say that that's what you're doing. But here people are very open about it. And I like that. And I liked it too because it was creative. It was almost like we all moved to Los Angeles to make something. We want to make movies, make music, make art, make businesses. And so, yes, I want to go meet lots of people in the service of making something together.
HOSTS
How beautiful. And you know what? It can actually be. Sometimes I find with my friends where they don't see themselves as artists, but I kind of see everyone as I feel like I could make something with anyone. I'm always like, you should write about that. Like, let's write. And they'll be like, whoa, I'm not a writer. And I always find that a little bit disappointing because I'm like, well, but we could and not everyone wants to. So that's, I would wonder, Derek, if you started to say to people, would you, is it possible people wouldn't be as interested? I mean, I guess you would look for the people that are, but could that be a disappointing experience too? To be like, hey, I thought you were, I thought I was meeting more of a creative or like, I don't know. Is that possible?
Derek Sivers
I do think that most people have a hang up as soon as you call it writing. Or as soon as you say that this will be public, they freeze up because they imagine a million judgmental eyes. But instead, you're right. If I don't say it up front, like, "Hi, nice to meet you. Let's write something together." That would probably be a terrible thing to say. And instead, just in my mind as we're talking, maybe I'm scratching some notes. And near the end of the conversation, I'll say, "Hey, you brought up something really interesting today that I think I want to write something up about this and give you credit for that." So they don't ever have to think of themselves as needing to stiffen up to write. But I could write something and co-credit it with their permission to say, this was your idea. I'm going to write it up. I call that a collaboration. What do you think?
HOSTS
Yeah, that's a good idea actually to say it that way yeah I suppose you love that yeah I love that because citation is such a an art and it's an art that is under uh resourced in terms of like who gets to sort of have their name on things like the ideas in the world that are out there and then whose name gets to sort of lay claim to to an idea the idea that you might or we might back like I know you would do that with anybody. My sister is the most creative mind I know and she would take anybody's cool idea and with them want to move forward and then that naming of their work in it would benefit everyone including herself. So yeah there's there's a lot of really wonderful work about citation out there that I think is okay well anyways that's our job team. We're gonna as we at the end of this we're gonna write our own little trio piece about the importance of citation and community building.
HOSTS
But you okay, so I wanted to get my question right because we had some good ones. I wanted to ask you about the idea of the present because you really seem very present-minded like you are somebody that's not rolling about in the past or rolling about in the future That's my interpretation of you based on how I've kind of been navigating through your through your links and who you are on your website. And though I do note that your, what did it say? Your website hasn't been updated since 2024, some specific date. And I was like, that's very up to date because most people's websites haven't been updated in like five years. So just to say you're pretty good. But the, but the idea of being so, so like in the now, is that me observing that of you? Or is that actually how you feel you live? Like are you uh are you a now man which okay can i add before you answer that because our dad that expression rolling around in the past our dad is a pastor a minister and that is a that is an expression he uses like i think like a spiritual sort of stop rolling around in the past rolling around in the like your like grievances of the past the future like be in the present like now So maybe that's why we, that's where that came from. But anyway.
Derek Sivers
What is the etymology of the word pastor? Because you just said rolling around in the past, he's a pastor. And I didn't understand it. You meant pastor. I thought you meant past-er. Like he's a person that does the past. Like a baker, a past-er.
HOSTS
Good question. Although you could say reverend, which would be completely or like a minister. I don't know what pastor. Oh, pastor is like sheep. Pastoral.
Derek Sivers
Pastoral. Yes!
HOSTS
This one would be more like reverend.
Derek Sivers
Wow. Okay.
HOSTS
Good side topic though.
Derek Sivers
So check this out. I get to answer two questions, a past question and a new question.
Derek Sivers
20 minutes ago, you asked me what's the right way to live? And I took a tangent and I didn't answer that. And now you ask if I'm present-focused.
Derek Sivers
So the underlying message of my book, How to Live, with all of its conflicting directives, you know, one chapter says live for the present. The next chapter says live for the future. The next chapter says focus only on what has lasted for a long time. And et cetera. Each chapter disagrees with all of the other chapters. Some people read that book and they say, so which one is the right answer? I say, no, no, no. I disagree with the question. There is no right one. The reason that at the end of the book, there's a picture of an orchestra seating chart with 27 instruments in the orchestra, not coincidentally to match the 27 chapters of the book, is to say that each one of these approaches to life is like an instrument in the orchestra. And if you were the composer or the conductor, you choose. Sometimes you want the trumpets, and sometimes you just want the flutes, and sometimes you want to combine the harp with the oboe. That there's no one right answer, and it doesn't have to be just one. There's no right one right instrument. You use these instruments at different times in your life, sometimes even at different times in your day.
Derek Sivers
There are times in my day when I am completely present focused with my boy. So when he comes home from school at 3.40 p.m., I just shut down everything. I turn off my phone. I turn off my computer. I turn off my dreams. I turn off my plans and I give him my full attention. I'm completely immersed in whatever he wants until bedtime. Or until he runs off to do something by himself and says, okay, I'll be back in two hours. Then I turn on my plans, I turn on my computer, and I get back into my own future-focused work. But when he's at school and I'm not with him, I'm usually very future focused. I sometimes have to remind myself that I'm still here and now because my thoughts are very often years in the future as I do things now to create the future I want.
HOSTS
So I wonder why then I, like, not that your job is to get into my head, but why would I then have asked that question? Like, what do you think about your, do you think it's like that you're inspiring something in me to want to be? Like, you know, in the now, like, I'm just trying to understand how I would have taken that forward, because I don't want you to think, okay, Natalie completely misinterpreted me. But I don't think it's like that. I think it's maybe a perspective in terms of how I'm entering your work.
Derek Sivers
Maybe. Or also you've seen me more on podcasts and you've heard me talk about my going and meeting people. But podcasts are another thing. Right now. I'm completely present with you guys. And when you asked me a question about like, who are you? In the past, I had to go like, like, what? Huh? I have to like think about my past now. Who am I outside of this moment? Shit. I forget! So you saw that was actually a really hard transition for me when you asked me a question about who I am and I had to suddenly call up my past I think when I'm in conversation with somebody.
HOSTS
Writing feels very reflective and I feel like people who are like it seems really in tune I I think you can be in tune if you're future focused, right? You can be. Oh yeah. But yeah, I'm, I'm about rules. Is that possible? That's interesting. Yeah. But you don't, so you don't, you're not judging yourself for being future focused in moments. You're saying sometimes I need to be and sometimes I want to be. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
I think actually some of my greatest satisfaction has come as a result of being future-focused ever since I was a teenager. I practiced my instrument for hours and hours and hours, every single day, diligently, declining requests to hang out, declining requests to sit and watch a movie. I said no. And I kept my fingers on the fretboard, practicing my scales, my arpeggios, my technique, my picking. And then years later, people said, "Wow, you're a great guitarist. That's amazing. How do you do it?" It was the result of the years of being future focused.
Derek Sivers
So same thing with the fact that I'm a New Zealand citizen right now. I love my New Zealand passport so much. I love this country. I love that I have the legal right to live here and that so does my kid and so will his kids in the future. That's amazing to me. And that was the result of first nine months of paperwork and then six years of being here 220 days per year for six years in a row, whether I felt like it or not, I made sure that I was here for that minimum number of days because I was on a six-year plan to get citizenship. I really wanted that passport. I wanted that for my kid, and for his kids. That was really important to me, and that was a six-year plan where I had to not just be in the moment, but be in service of that future plan. And there are other things I've done in my life like that.
Derek Sivers
Say somebody who learns a language, unless you just happen to be plopped into a foreign country and just happen to pick up the language accidentally, most people who are fluent in another language are fluent because they did the work for months and months or years and years to get fluent. And fluency in two languages is the great reward of years of future focused thinking. So I love the future focused things I've done in my life.
HOSTS
Except the best practicing, right? Instrument practicing, like your future, your vision focus, but you're also in the moment of being with that instrument. So very in the moment.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, and I guess you're right. It should be the same too if you're learning a language. In the moment, you have to be fully present to get this word or phrase or pronunciation into your head.
HOSTS
Can you talk a little bit about your, I've read this in different ways in your writing, that our first instinct is not always right or probably isn't. And that we need to look past this first response, which seems to go against the idea of my instinct. I'm just listening to my instinct. So can you talk about that?
Derek Sivers
This has been one of the biggest life lessons I've learned in the last few years, is that we should not honor our instincts! Because they are either a knee-jerk reaction, like the doctor hitting your knee with a hammer and it just reflexes like that, Or it's something you told yourself long ago that you're still holding on to as your preset answer that you can just say or do without thinking, without considering.
Derek Sivers
So this first came up years ago when somebody asked me, when I say successful, who comes to mind first? And I said I'm not going to answer that question because it's not interesting because first means you're just going to hear my reflective answer you're going to hear my non-thinking answer you're going to hear my stupid answer it's just going to be the reflective one it's going to be some information I held on to long ago I told myself who does who do I think of when I think of successful well now you're asking me again years later I'm going to echo the answer that I stored years ago without thinking. I said, kind of like if you were to say, name a famous painting, the Mona Lisa, name a beautiful city, Paris. It's not interesting because it's the default reflective answer. It would be so much more interesting to think deeper about a city that you might actually find more beautiful, even if it's not commonly thought of as beautiful.
Derek Sivers
Okay, sorry, I'm taking too long, I'm making lateral connections here.
Derek Sivers
But emotionally as well, you have your instinctive reaction when something happens. Somebody says, hey, you don't look, green doesn't look good on you. And you think, hey, screw you. That's so rude. How mean. How terrible. Why are you being so mean? But then you can stop and consider it and get past your first reaction to think of another way to think about this. So this applies to jealousy. This applies to the news. This applies to so many aspects of life where our instinctive reaction should not be revered, but should be seen as an obstacle to get past. Because the more interesting stuff lies on the other side. Even if you get past that first instinctive reaction and you explore it further and find out that you still in fact agree with your first response, well then now you can come back to it with more confidence. It's coming from a more solid, thoughtful place instead of just impulse. So yes, I think we should devalue our first reactions.
HOSTS
I try to teach my students that in create like in scene writing that don't go with your first idea. Keep searching like that first idea is not the most interesting idea yeah search deeper let's you know let's brainstorm 20 and I get a bit annoying about this I think in that with that when I'm writing I'm like the first idea that comes to us no no no we gotta see what else is there and I like what you're saying we could come back to that one but let's at least come up with 40.
Derek Sivers
Yes. And then we'll see. I love that.
Derek Sivers
You could expand that beyond the screenplay, beyond the canvas and take it into life itself. And I love that idea of brainstorming about not stopping at the first, not stopping at the second or third, but pushing yourself into the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth idea, where you might even start to get ridiculous, but isn't that fun? And you might find a brilliant idea as your fifteenth idea that really did not come naturally, but oh my God, it's beautiful. It's so much more fun and so much more interesting because probably other people also would never have thought of that first. And most people do just stick with the first thing they think of.
HOSTS
Yeah. And by the time I think you get to the 15th, then you're starting to combine things and then it just starts to get a bit more, yes, more original and more crazy. And it can be, it's just more fun. And a lot of that kind of ideating, certainly in our work in the arts, happens in community because like writers rooms are groups, right? I mean like that has, and that's because then the best ideas emerge out of all of that kind of back and forthness. You have written about how some of your best ideating has come Like your productive times now, maybe I'm imposing ideating in onto production But some of your most productive times have come from time alone. Is that something that you see as like kind of butting heads with the idea of community building which is very much what you're doing right now Now you're talking about wanting to go and, you know, spending time with people in conversation in different countries just to like be and learn and do in that way.
HOSTS
But would you say that that aloneness piece is still really key to how you put work out into the world? Or would you say that it's a bit more of a combo?
Derek Sivers
Nice challenge. Thanks for that. I honestly hadn't noticed that contradiction. That you're right, I thought that disconnection and solitude is key. But yet I'm pursuing connection. I don't know.
HOSTS
I'm not sure it has to be a contradiction just to say I think that things can work in balance, but I am curious.
Derek Sivers
Right. I love solitude for reflection. And reflection is so important to me. Learning is not the moment you take in the information or hear the information. Real learning doesn't come until later when you reflect on that information and you adopt it as your own instead of just holding it out as somebody else's. You bring it into yourself and you weave it into your own fabric and make it really a part of you. That happens in reflection. That, I think, happens best in solitude for me.
Derek Sivers
Although I understand some people are such social extroverts that everything I'm saying happens in conversation, that their whole identity is built up in conversation with their friends as they echo back and forth, like echolocation, like a bat puts out its subsonic sounds to get the reflection back, to know where it is. Some of us do that socially. We have to echo our thoughts in order to hear them bounced back off of others to know who we are.
Derek Sivers
But maybe the reason I emphasize disconnection in my writing is because I feel like it's the underrepresented perspective in our current world. that most people are over-connected and are not giving any time for disconnection. And I feel like I have to be the one to champion disconnection just to add a little balance for its benefits.
HOSTS
Derek, what threatens your equanimity? You seem like genuinely, you know, open to changing your mind, open to other opinions, which I feel like is so beautiful and I think it's like a role model but then what's the thing that just makes you go ah and you're and you you know just give us just that little insight into yourself where you know where you're really challenged.
Derek Sivers
First I need to ask you what the word equanimity means because I don't know that word.
HOSTS
Oh you know what okay okay it's again it's you know what's so of our reverend pastor word he uses that word a lot doesn't he not our dad yeah equanimity it's i don't know if it's a buddhist word he's i think that's where dad's but it's like calm like your sense of that's how i have associated it like your what challenges your calm sense of calm your happiness in the world right like how you can kind of just move through without getting your rough your feathers ruffled
Derek Sivers
I don't like the outrage culture of headline news. I don't like when I accidentally come across headline news or social media headlines that are designed to outrage. That's their whole point, is to make you upset, to hijack your attention. I wish I would never see any of it. But sometimes you accidentally come across some. That upsets me.
Derek Sivers
Then there's the usual: Extremely bad drivers that are going out of their way. Like the other day, it was 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning. This is just two days ago. 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning, my boy and I had just gone camping out in the middle of nowhere in nature by a creek in a state park where it was only us and one other person like a half mile away.
Derek Sivers
And there we were with a babbling brook and the silence and so many beautiful birds. Oh, my God. New Zealand has a few different birds, three birds. The bellbird, the two-ee, and the warbling magpie, all three of these birds have two voice boxes. They make the most complex bird sounds. It's just, it's like beyond a song. It's like ripping a portal into another dimension. I can't even try to imitate it with my meager single voice box. It's so beautiful. And I just, that's how I woke up six, seven in the morning, or six in the morning. We woke up surrounded by the babbling creek and these beautiful birds. And we packed up the tent and we rolled up the sleeping bags. And we went to the nearby little village where the grocery store opened at 7 a.m.
Derek Sivers
And there in the car park of this grocery store was a guy in his, like, Trans Am at 7 a.m. with sunglasses on and a cigarette out of his mouth going VROOM VROOM VROOOM! And I just, it was just in this quiet little village where everybody was asleep and he was sitting there intentionally revving his engine to make noise. I was just like, it shook me for maybe like half an hour. I was just like, why? Why did he do that? Like, I wish in a way that I could talk to him. I wish I could talk to him in a way that he would actually tell me if there was some kind of situation where I would try to understand his mindset.
Derek Sivers
In the same way that I want to understand the mindset of somebody in the Chinese government or a fundamentalist Islam or something like that, I want to understand the mindset of this guy at 7 a.m. deliberately revving his engine. Why? It seems so deliberately ugly. Where does that come from? So, yeah, that's something that shook me this week.
HOSTS
I empathize just to say I have a neighbor who's actually just a really wonderful human but for whatever reason rolls in at like five six in the morning sometimes with the volume up really really high so the whole street wakes up to this and I think he's just announcing his presence to his partner like I really think that's what's happening but it could be to all of us I really don't know he's announcing is what he's doing but it's so loud and it's so early and i do want to go out but he's a neighbor so i can't be mad at my neighbor because it's still a neighbor that at some point is potentially going to benefit the community right i mean we're all trying to live together so it's a funny one because i have a reason in my head for him so i give him that excuse but when it's a stranger it's even harder like in that moment to give them like a you can't get their perspective quite there because all he gave you was the revving engine i really like how you go to why why would he do that because that's what i do and my husband gets so mad at me or irritated when i want to understand i just want to know why like what was that person thinking and he just kept so you're never gonna know well that's not a but how do you answer that because people will say that's not a useful question why haven't you all heard that or is that only me that that got said to. That's not a useful question asking why.
Derek Sivers
One of my best friends, one of my best friends is all about the why. It's almost all we talk about. I think a comparison is Seinfeld and Larry David both based their comedy on questioning social norms, saying, why is it that we do that? Why do people do this? What's up with that? Where does that come from? And I think anybody who lives in two cultures, even if you grew up in one household, say with Indian parents growing up in Vancouver, you question both. You can say, why is it that my parents do that. Why is it that the place I live does that? I think why is so much fun. So one of my best friends and I are all about the why, but then I have another best friend who is so intelligent, so curious about the world, but refuses that question why. Whenever I ask her, Why do you think people do this? She always shuts down the question right away. She says, "Oh, Derek, people don't think. They don't know why. There's no reason why. They just do it. That's just what they do." I said, no, but there's always a why, even if it's subconscious. And subconscious really does mean below your consciousness. You don't know why. I'm not saying that they have a deliberate knowledge of why. I want to get to the subconscious reason why. What is it in their cultural values that leads them to do this thing? Or what is it in their upbringing or their situation that would create that behavior, that would incentivize it? That's what I want to know. Even if the person themselves doesn't know why, I want to know why, even if they don't.
HOSTS
That's good. I'm going to say that. I want to know why, even if they don't know why, and you will discuss it with me.
Derek Sivers
But isn't that, from what I understand, I am no anthropologist, but I think I am a passionate, amateur anthropologist. That's kind of what this is, right? Like if you go into some foreign culture, you go off into a jungle in Peru where people do things in a certain way, they're not questioning, this is just the way, this is what we do. And you as an outsider are saying, yes, but why? So I think it's like that with even everyday people.
HOSTS
Well, and it does go back to empathy. Like, if we can understand the why, then maybe we can live more humanely with each other, which is how we started this whole conversation. So, yeah, absolutely. Then when you meet that truck driver in the coffee shop, you can... Smile. Or my neighbor. Right. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
Sometimes I think that your neighbor might not realize that anybody else can hear it. It might just feel like he thinks that this is just him, that he's just enjoying this song and feels like, especially because out on the highway, he is the only one that can hear it. And maybe when he pulls into the road, he forgets that now everyone around can hear. I wondered that about loud talkers on the bus. Those ones who are having loud conversations, the entire bus is looking over their shoulder like, what the hell? We're all listening to every word you're saying. This whole bus is on your conversation now. And I wonder, do they know it? Do they know that they're speaking to the whole bus? Or do they really not realize their voice is projecting that much?
HOSTS
Or is there some part of them that really wants for everybody to hear it because they're so lonely? It's like their ability to connect with the community. It could be. See i have friends.
HOSTS
So all of this that we've been sort of talking about today is there anything that you would apply just naturally or has somebody ever asked you to apply this to um parenting like a hot kind of parenting tip based on everything you've gleaned in all of your self-reflexive ways?
Derek Sivers
Reframing and parenting are almost synonymous!
Derek Sivers
Your one-year-old falls down and goes splat on the ground. Their first instinct is to cry, but they look to you in a way to know how to react. Your response in that moment when they've plopped down onto the ground is going to tell them how to think about what just happened. And I've heard that some parents that do the, "Oh baby, oh baby, oh poor baby, oh come to here, come here to mama, come here, it's okay, oh baby!" That you think you're being caring, but what you've done in that moment is shaped your child to think that when anything goes wrong, they are helpless and need the help of a parent. But instead, even at that young age, like one year old, walking toddler goes on the ground, you can smile and say, "Hey, good job! You could do it. There you go!" And they look to you, and that shapes how they see the world.
Derek Sivers
An example I remember vividly because it was so dramatic is with my three-year-old. We were playing on the playground, and another kid fell off and started crying. And the parent wasn't around. The parent was off chatting or smoking or who knows what. And so as soon as another kid fell down and was crying, I told my boy, "Go give him a hug right now. You got to go give him a hug." He went, "OK!" And he walked all over and went and he said, "It's OK. It's OK." And he gave the boy a hug. And then it happened again, say, six months later, a kid in the playground. Oh, no, I know it was a kid in a chair in a restaurant. And he leaned back too far and he fell off his chair. And I instantly said, "Oh, go give him a hug!" And he instantly got up and, like, went up to this other kid and gave him a hug. He said, "It's okay!" So those are the only two times I ever did it. Then, like, a year or two later, we were somewhere where some kid, like, fell off a table. And instantly, his instinctive reaction, he leapt up and ran over and gave him a hug. And I was just like, wow, I shaped that behavior. That's really cool.
Derek Sivers
And so, yeah, I think parenting and reframing, it's almost synonymous. It's almost our job as parents is to help shape our kids' worldview through trying to create a great frame for them to see the world through.
HOSTS
I like that, to create a great frame for them. Yeah, because we can't change the world necessarily at every step. I mean, certainly we can guide our kids to think that they can participate in being the change, right? What is that like? Be the change you want to see in the world. But the reframing of living in it in terms of how we interact with those that we engage with, whether it's like that moment on the playground or in the restaurant or in a classroom or in our families. like all those moments mean so much if we can see it through a different through a different lens
HOSTS
You're so easy to talk to man yeah i could do this for three hours but like okay so i don't think it's therapy but it's like something!
Derek Sivers
i love this i love love love this so much it's uh it's so fun to talk ideas you know it's like when we're doing a podcast it's almost our job to think of interesting ideas for the audience which then challenges us to be interesting and then I give myself a personal challenge to not repeat myself. So even if you were to ask me the most common question I get my challenge to myself is to give a different answer than I've ever given before so that if somebody wanted to listen to all of my podcast appearances ideally they would never hear me repeat myself that's my challenge
HOSTS
All right i like that that's really good okay you guys can i just very quickly i know we're almost wrapping up here but i wanted to go back to that present tense thing because i had actually written that question but what i was thinking was that you're um what i what how i see you is that you're pre like the idea of this reflection is that you're like what do i like now what's the title i want now for myself like am i an entrepreneur like you go you kind of go into that right does this so I was interested in that sort of fluidity that's what I was seeing you as like sort of present tense living which I now see contradicts this idea of like future oriented but anyway that's where I was going and then I was also curious then if that means because you're like somehow I associated it with does that mean you can sort of let go of grievances or sort of like you're very like who am I now I'm not so do you not somehow there was this leap for me that you must you know not hold grudges not hold grudges there was a leap for me but I was like that makes sense he doesn't hold grudges and so then maybe I was starting to think like boot it I don't know you can you can answer any of that
Derek Sivers
Let me try to give a complex answer succinctly.
Derek Sivers
Imagine a wise person said to you, "You are the culmination of everything you've done in the past. That is who you are." That's that cliche in the movie "Moana": "Never forget who you are!" And the implication is your past is who you are.
Derek Sivers
And imagine a different wise person says, "The past is gone. The only thing is right now. Nothing you did till one second ago matters at all. There's only this moment. You are nothing but right now."
Derek Sivers
Both of those people are not wrong. They're also not speaking in absolute truths because there's another way of seeing it, so it's not an absolute fact.
Derek Sivers
So the only way you can judge this then is to say, "If this is true, then what actions would that create in me? And if that is true, then what actions would that create in me?"
Derek Sivers
Judge it by the actions it creates instead of trying to judge the idea itself as objectively true or not. The point is, "How can I use this? Does this work for me or not?"
Derek Sivers
So this idea that you are the culmination of your entire past and it is all you, It makes me feel a little stuck. It keeps me more past-focused than I want to be. For somebody else, they might want to be more past-focused. For me, I don't. What I want out of life is to be ever-changing.
Derek Sivers
So as Nat said at the beginning, to live a full life, I want to feel like every part of this sphere that we live on is home. And every perspective that I can possibly take on this complex object that has many ways of looking at it. I've looked at it from so many different ways. Wow, what a full life I've lived. So for that goal, it benefits me more to let go of my past, to not let my past define me.
HOSTS
Yeah. That's a good answer.
Derek Sivers
I'm not saying it's right or wrong, clearly. I just want to emphasize that this is just what works for me for the path that I'm pursuing. But for somebody else, like...
Derek Sivers
I live in New Zealand, which has a lot of Maori culture, the native indigenous culture, the people that were here first, is a very past-focused culture. If you see somebody with the tattoos on her lower lip, that's a tattoo showing her family lineage. "This is who I am. This is where I come from." To me, that's the opposite of what I want. I do not want my past tattooed on me. That's the reason I have no tattoos. It's philosophical. I want no ink from the past to be embedded in my skin. I want to always be a blank slate for my future. That's why I refuse to get tattoos. It goes against my pursuit and what I'm searching for.
HOSTS
Thank you for this. Thank you for just talking ideas with us. It's so refreshing to just kind of sit. I mean, we had a vision. Obviously, we asked you on because we wanted to talk about reframing at some level. But it's so nice to not have it feel so niched down, which is what can happen in this world. I'm like, if I have to talk about another... It's like, this is so, it's so much more fun. And such new, cool things can emerge from big conversations, right?
Derek Sivers
I agree. You asked me some questions today that... I'm going to race back to my notebook right now and try to write down some of the things you asked me because I think it's so interesting and you sparked so many ideas. So thank you.
HOSTS
Oh, yeah. And if you're ever in Toronto, we're here for you.
Derek Sivers
If you're ever in New Zealand.