WanderLearn
host: Francis Tapon
What we learn from travel, Useful Not True, empathy, embracing discomfort, modern China.
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Transcript:
Francis Tapon
All right. Welcome to the Wanderlearn show. I'm your host, Francis Tapon. I'm here with Derek Sivers, who's the author of this brand new book, useful, but not true. But he's actually written several other books. But this is the one we'll talk a little bit about today. But in true Wanderlearn fashion, we'll wander all over all sorts of different topics. So welcome, Derek.
Derek Sivers
Thanks. And audience, I am a huge fan of Francis. I'm the one that reached out to him after I read his book and I went, "Dude, that was brilliant. That's amazing!" And so that's how we know each other - because I reached out to him as a fan.
Francis Tapon
Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. That touched me a lot. That was amazing.
Francis Tapon
So your book, though, this new one that you've written, I think it rang so true to me because of the fact that when you travel, you kind of learn that a lot of things are useful but not true. Explain what you mean by that. I know what you mean by that, but why don't you help other people catch up to you?
Derek Sivers
Well first we have to clarify that word true because that could mean different things to different people. So I could over and over again say "not necessarily objectively empirically true for everyone everywhere always" but that would be too verbose. So instead on the first page of the book, I said, "All right, please understand, for the rest of this book, when I say the word true, what I mean is observably, empirically, absolutely, necessarily true for everyone, everywhere, always." The reason it's important to make that distinction is because in your life, you're going to hear people say things like, "Francis, you can't do that". But that's not necessarily objectively empirically true for everyone everywhere always - it's just one way of looking at the situation. And then even in your own head when you tell yourself something like "oh man i'm screwed" or "this situation sucks", well that's also not necessarily objectively empirically absolutely true. So it's really important to notice that most of what people call true are just one way of looking at it. So that's the explanation for the title. You can see now when it says "useful not true", it means that all of these beliefs we hold and the way that we see the world, it's useful to us, but it's not necessarily true.
Francis Tapon
Right. Any kind of surprising reactions people have had to that? I mean, it's such a, in some ways, simple argument, but very, very profound at the same time. And for some people, I imagine they very much resist it. Like, "No, Derek, this is just true. It's the way it is. You know, Jesus Christ is the Savior" or whatever. It could be any kind of topic. Or the fact that it's right to bomb Iran or wrong. You know, right or wrong to bomb Iran, all sorts of things that people take very strong issues with. And they just think it's objectively true. So how how does how do you deal with those kind of people who may not who struggle to understand what you're trying to say?
Derek Sivers
I said it the best I could. I tell some little tales and make some little metaphors. Like, for example, you are in Vietnam right now, right? Correct. I'm in New Zealand. So if I were to ask you, hey, Francis, what time is it? You'll tell me it's 7 a.m. I'll say, no, it's not. It's 12. And if you say it's summer, I'll say, no, it's not. It's winter. It's not that you're wrong. It's just that the truth you're describing is true for you, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's true for everyone else. And that's what traveling teaches us, isn't it?
Francis Tapon
Absolutely. Tell us about a lesson that you learned from that. One of the things that was pretty poignant is when you got into an accident when you were young, I think around 18 years old. And then for years, you harbored this idea that you ruined somebody's life because you gave them a, they were paraplegic. You made them into a paraplegic. And one day you somehow tracked them down and then you met her. And then she told you what?
Derek Sivers
That it was a misunderstanding. That yes, she broke her vertebrae. So I heard that she broke her back. And the person that communicated it to me told me she'll never walk again. But it turns out that no, she broke a vertebrae, and she's fine. So she thought that the accident was her fault. I always assumed the accident was my fault. We both assumed that accident that day, 18 years earlier, was our fault. And that makes me think about how many other things in life do we hold as a true story, such as, I was bullied as a child, my parents neglected me, that relationship of mine was abusive. How many of these sob stories aren't necessarily true? That we latched on to one side of the story that wasn't based on complete information, and we hold it as a true fact. But it's powerful to realize that even these stories that you've held as fact for decades might also not be true. And it might be a good time to let go of them.
Francis Tapon
Right. And the real mind fuck that you have in your book is that you can say, well, you can actually turn this into a powerful tool. Because all of a sudden, just as you told yourself a certain story, there's no reason you can't just flip that story and turn something that is you're the victim. as all of a sudden you're empowered.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. So let's pick a real one that my sister got upset about last night. I was talking to my sister and I said, I'm in the last quarter of my life. And she instantly got upset at me saying that. And I said, well, look, just statistically, it's very likely I'm in the last quarter. And she negotiated me down to a third. She made me admit that, okay, statistically a third. But I said, look, the point isn't the fact of when I'm going to die. The point is that assuming I'm in the final quarter gives me a wonderful sense of urgency that helps me stop procrastinating. It helps me narrow down my plans. It helps me let go of some things like triage that I'm probably never going to learn to play drums, for example. I'll just let that one go. It's fine. It would be nice, but it's like 30th priority. So it's a belief.
Francis Tapon
And focusing on your child as well, your son.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, of course. Yeah. So this is a belief that works for me, that I'm in the final quarter of my life. It doesn't matter whether or not it's true. There's no point arguing whether it's true or not, because that's a prediction of the future. I might live twice as long as I am right now. I might still be in the first half of my life for all I know. But it's a beautiful assumption. That belief works for me.
Derek Sivers
So my advice to anyone listening to this or anyone who reads my book is to notice in yourself which beliefs work for you. Meaning, what helps you be who you want to be, do what you want to do, or just feel at peace? That's my definition of useful, by the way. I already defined true, so there's my definition of useful. Whatever helps you, do what you need to do, be who you want to be, or feel at peace. So if holding a belief that is even deliberately fictional works for you, then use it.
Francis Tapon
Right. it's also a powerful tool in working on your empathy. That's one of the things I've been working on my own life is trying to become more empathic. I think it's one of my weaknesses, and this book really kind of focuses you and trying to teach you to turn to perspective and look at other truths that people have out there and i think that can be useful also in geopolitics and analyzing the world and looking at Republicans versus the Democrats, you know, their team, your team, and all sorts of stuff. You can all of a sudden have more empathy, whether it's on a kind of a bigger scale like that or a micro scale where, you know, just getting along with your spouse or your girlfriend.
Derek Sivers
You know, that is the reason I turned to your book. What was the official title? Hidden Europe, Eastern Europe?
Francis Tapon
The Hidden Europe. Yeah, the Hidden Europe. The
Derek Sivers
Hidden Europe book. I was browsing to go find a book about that because I wanted to understand the point of view of these countries I had never been to. I wanted to understand the Slovakian point of view, the Hungarian point of view. And your book did that so well. You told your stories of the people you met and what they told you, how they see the world. They shared their worldview with you and then you shared it in the the book. And I love that. So I think you've been practicing empathy for decades.
Francis Tapon
Well, thank you. I never realized that, but you're right. In that sense, I am. I guess I need to, I want to work on a more holistic sense and every single level, but thank you. I appreciate that compliment.
Francis Tapon
So what about this? One thing I heard on the Tim Ferriss show, you talked about, you have a, you're building a house that has no bathroom. And it's like, can you describe that? And what's the stage? Give us an update of where that is in the middle of 2025.
Derek Sivers
You know, it's funny. You never know what people are going to find interesting. I mentioned that as an offhand remark, and it's funny how many people ask me about that. I don't think it's that interesting.
Francis Tapon
Come on, Derek. You got to say it's unusual.
Derek Sivers
What I'm doing is based on a book called How Buildings Learn by Stuart Brand, which I read decades ago, and it's my most gifted, most recommended book. I love this book so much. If you find it, please buy the actual paper version, because the Kindle version is not sufficient. It is filled with photos of buildings. You have to get the photos. So get the paper book called How Buildings Learn by Stuart Brand. And in it, he gives some beautiful philosophies of building, from the point of view of a non-architect, but looking at the subject of buildings, like the simpler the better because what we want to do is change buildings to adapt to our needs. We don't want to have to adapt ourself to the building. That's the problem with award-winning architectural genius buildings is that we have to adapt ourself to this damn award-winning building that we can't touch because it's won awards. But he said the buildings that people are happiest with are simple buildings that they can adapt to their own needs. So he also said that buildings tend to rot from the bathroom out, that it's water that ultimately destroys any building. So I started simple. I got a 4x8-meter rectangle of a well-insulated cube. And I decided to put the bathroom and shower outside. So there's no water inside the building. Bathroom and shower is a separate, like outhouse and shower, bathhouse outside. And I'm just starting to live there a little bit with nothing in it and then just deciding as I go what's needed.
Francis Tapon
Kind of reminds me of Steve Jobs when he was struggling to find that one lamp. He only had one lamp. You know what I'm talking about. It's like that. Absolutely. What about tell me about how useful, not true has helped in your parenting journey. You have a son and how do you teach him this concept? Because the earlier you figure this thing out, the better off you are as a human being, I think. But I think a lot of children might struggle to kind of grasp a concept that truth is kind of a relative thing for when people declare truth. It is relative.
Derek Sivers
Actually, because his mom and I were only together for a year. It was a very short-lived relationship. She got pregnant and here we are. So he's grown up with separate households his whole life. Two very different households. She's born in South India. I'm born in California. We have very different belief systems and household rules. So he's grown up living in two realities half the week each his whole life. So I think he didn't need me to preach it to him.
Francis Tapon
Interesting. Okay. But I would think that for kids, it would have to be a paramount lesson if you can somehow grasp it early. But you're saying that he did.
Derek Sivers
I think so. I think he's already lived that. that it's seeing that there's different realities. It's like the concept of a third culture kid, right? That has, I guess you could say he's actually grown up in three cultures because he's got my California American perspective on the world. He's got her Indian view on the world. And then he's grown up in New Zealand, which is not completely dissimilar. It's not like we're in Saudi Arabia, but it's a different worldview slightly than either of his parents hold. So he's grown up inhabiting three worlds and he's only 13.
Francis Tapon
Yeah, I grew up the same way because my mom was from Chile. My father was French. And I was born in San Francisco. And so same kind of thing, you know, basically living in three cultures. So actually they call that a fourth culture kid.
Francis Tapon
So what about how can you, if you want to reframe a situation And how can you move past some obstacles that you might have in your head? What techniques? Because you're not perfect either, Derek. So there's probably some times where you succumb to the same things that you advise people not to do.
Derek Sivers
It's just journaling. For me, journaling gets me out of it. For anyone listening to this, it could be talking to your friend. It could be talking to your dog. It could be drinking yourself into a stupor. But at some point, you've got to force yourself to consider other ways of seeing it. And I do mean force because your instinct and everything in you will say something like, this situation sucks. That person screwed me over and now I'm screwed. And that will just feel like a reality. And if you try to challenge yourself to see another point of view, your instinct is going to be to say, no, there's no other point of view. This is just how it is. So you have to force yourself to ask useful questions like, what's great about this? And go past your instinct to say, nothing's great about this. It's just bad. But force yourself to find something great about it. And then once you do, force yourself to find another way of looking at it. Just keep going. And at some point, you'll realize that no way of looking at this is right or wrong. It's just different ways of holding this 3D object in your hands and looking at it from different perspectives. And then you can choose one that helps you take the right actions or helps you feel at peace.
Francis Tapon
Why, Derek, do you think that people confuse feelings with facts?
Derek Sivers
Oh, because it just, that's how we experience the world, right? Our senses take in a situation and we immediately judge it. There's a rat on the floor. Ew, that's gross. That's disgusting. How scary. I have pet rats right now. And part of the reason I have pet rats is because my initial reaction to getting a pet rat was, "Ew, gross. Are you kidding? That sounds like the worst idea ever." And when my boy said, "No, look at YouTube. Look, they're really cute." It was because I felt such an initial repulsion to the idea that I decided to do it. I thought, yeah, this is a prejudice I can reverse.
Derek Sivers
That's the same reason I went to China for my first time last year. That's the same reason I went to the Middle East for my first time two years ago. In traveling, I notice I have a prejudice against places. I decide in advance without even going there that I don't like that place. We all know that feeling. And when I notice that in myself, I use that as a compass to steer towards it. Ideally, I would keep doing that for my whole life, steering into my prejudices to go towards them, get inside of them, and get to know them. Because I think the prejudice usually just means I don't understand it well enough.
Francis Tapon
Right. You embrace the discomfort you love. It seems like that way. I mean, I've never met anybody like you that really like you think all my body, all my soul is telling me not to do that thing. I think I'm going to go do that thing.
Derek Sivers
Well, but see, you still hold some things in your comfort zone that to me are still in my discomfort zone. Your stories of sleeping in the graveyards at night. I thought that was a beautiful travel hack. But, man, I would just do anything I could to just find anybody's couch to not have to sleep overnight in a graveyard. And Francis goes, "Hey, here's a graveyard. Good place to sleep."
Francis Tapon
It's quiet. It's really quiet. Nobody else is there. And you've got some built-in company, I suppose, at least spiritually to some of the globe.
Derek Sivers
So, hey, your listeners might appreciate this in a way that most wouldn't. I mean, most other general public wouldn't, but the people that tune into your podcast. All of this started for me in 2008 when I sold my company. And for the first time in my life, I was just kind of free, unbound to anyone or anything. I didn't have to be anywhere. I didn't have to do anything. I could just go. And my goal was to keep following my mystery points, keep going to the parts of the world I knew nothing about and staying long enough until it felt like home. Because I had felt that feeling just once with New York City. I grew up, I was actually born in Berkeley, California, but then I grew up in a pleasant little suburb of Chicago called Hinsdale, Illinois. And so when I went to New York City in 1990, it was scary. It was overwhelming. It was terrifying. But I had to go there for work. So I went and within two years, it was my comfort zone. It's one of my happy places on earth now. I know every neighborhood. Here's where my friends are. New York City is one of the most homey places on earth to me. I thought, how cool would it be to go through the world and keep doing that in places that right now to me still feel terrifying, like Beijing or Rio de Janeiro, or I don't know, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Each of these places to me feels unthinkably foreign, how cool would it be to go to these places and stay long enough until it feels just as home as New York City does? That's my goal.
Francis Tapon
Right. And do you think you could do that almost anywhere or you've got limitations?
Derek Sivers
I hope I could do it anywhere.
Derek Sivers
I'm so eager to someday read your book about Africa.
Francis Tapon
I know.
Derek Sivers
Hurry up, man.
Francis Tapon
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I will definitely do it. It's a challenge, though. I'll be honest with you. I mean, one of the challenges is that I tend to write in a very blunt style and I find myself self-censoring myself sometimes because critiquing, making fun of and just pointing out the idiosyncrasies and funny things about the Eastern Europeans, no big deal. You know they can take it whatever but once you do that with africans then all of a sudden you've got a whole part of societies that say oh you know you're making fun of poor people you're making fun of black people you're racist and all that kind of stuff or you're and if you take a contrarian perspective which i often do and and all of a sudden dare to think of something like maybe colonialism wasn't 100 000 all bad maybe there was something good about it you know which is a very controversial idea, then all of a sudden you get lambasted for that. And so that's one of the struggles I'm having to writing the book, staying true to myself, the message I want to say, the contrarian things I sometimes think, and at the same time, not getting the book just destroyed and vilified the moment. But maybe controversy is good. What do you think?
Derek Sivers
I do think that extreme opinions are useful to others and people don't care as much as you think they do. I've said some things that I thought people were going to react really negatively to and I might get one or two blog comments that go, "hey, I disagree." But most people just go, "huh, that's interesting." And by sharing an extreme opinion, you've just helped broaden their horizons a bit. Like an explorer going to the South Pole. Nobody had gone there before. Oh, wow, that's interesting. Somebody's gone there. So Francis's opinion on Tanzania? Interesting, huh? Nobody's ever said that before. Nobody's ever looked at it like that. How interesting that somebody's taken that stance. I think it ends up just being more useful to people than offending.
Francis Tapon
And not necessarily true, though.
Derek Sivers
Right. Well, look, you can give all of the disclaimers you want. Hey, this is just my perspective. What do I know? I'm just a guy from California. But I think it's more useful to people to just say it directly. It's assumed that anything coming out of your mouth is just a point of view. We don't need to fill all of our public statements with precursors and apologies. Just say the damn thing. And smart people will put it into perspective. You are not their guru. You're just one voice in the chorus. Might as well be an interesting voice.
Francis Tapon
Thank you. All right. Well, you've motivated me. I will get on it.
Francis Tapon
By the way, Derek, so what are some of your next steps? You have you've reinvented yourself a few times. What's how are you going to spend the last? We're going to say the last 10th of your life because, you know, maybe you think it's the last third, the last quarter. Two weeks left. It's the last. You've got a couple of weeks left. That's all you're going to die next Thursday, actually.
Derek Sivers
I don't know. Honestly, I really gave that last book everything I had. I worked hard to say something really difficult to communicate in just 90 pages of fables. And that was a lot of work. And I'm not sure what else I have to say right now. So I have no books planned. I'm spending hours and hours a day learning Chinese because I've been there three times in the past year. And I just love it. It's just my happy place. It's just when I'm there, I don't want to leave. I just find it so pleasant.
Francis Tapon
What would you tell somebody, what is surprising about China that is not obvious from somebody who's just observing it from afar? By the way, I've been to 127 countries, but I've never been to China or India. So to me, it's a mystery. Yeah, it's like half the human population lives practically.
Derek Sivers
Actually, before I get to the answer, I'll tell you that I am currently laying the groundwork for those two countries to be the majority of the rest of my life. So I am already a citizen of India through my kid's mom. Since she was born there. I'm a citizen of India, and I'm right now in the process of becoming a legal resident of China so that I have the right to just go spend as much time there, or India, or both, back and forth between the two, as I want. Because both of those places are so opposite. They're so yin-yang. China is so top-down orderly. India is so bottom-up chaotic. I mean, chaos is the easy word to reach for, but it's more like complex. Dynamic. There's probably a better word that means lots and lots and lots of moving pieces. Maybe complex is the right word.
Derek Sivers
Anyway, China surprised me because I assumed it was third world. I assumed it was rough. And living in Singapore in 2010, mainland Chinese people had a reputation in 2010 for being rough, rude, loud, uncouth, spitting, shoving, shouting. They had a bad reputation. What's fascinating is that was correct at the time. But China changes so fast that when people are getting to know each other in China, they'll often ask, what year were you born? Because it tells you something about the person. People born just five, eight years apart grew up in different cultures. And so you need to know what year were you born. 1982 or 1988 are very different upbringings in China because things change so fast. So when I went there last year for basically my first time, I was surprised how polite and quiet everybody was. And so I asked some people about this culture of shouting, spitting, pushing that I knew from 2010 and they said oh yeah people used to be like that but that was 15 years ago that was a different generation everything's changed since then and conversely it was fascinating that two different Chinese people I met with had this observation about traveling one of them went to a year of university in Melbourne Australia and then went back seven years later and he said I went back seven years later and it was the same nothing had changed and he was so surprised that Melbourne Australia had not completely changed in seven years and then it I told a friend of mine or told a guy that I met that I used to live in New York City he said oh let me ask you something about New York City he said you know I went to New York City 10 years ago and I went again last year and it's almost the same. What's wrong with New York? Why is it almost the same?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, it hasn't changed in 10 years. I mean, one or two buildings are different, but almost everything's the same." I said, "You know, I think you're living in one of the only places on earth that radically changes in 10 years. Most places on earth are not like that." He said, "Oh, right. Okay. You're right. I take that for granted." because he lives in Shenzhen, where the Shenzhen of 10 years ago is unrecognizable from the Shenzhen of today. And so what's really surprised me is that the culture has changed that much too. That yes, 15 years ago, people were rude and spitting, and now they're not. And 10 years ago, the government was pouring lots of money into factories that were emitting lots of smoke. Now they're not. Now they're the largest supporter of green technologies on earth. And if you go into a city like Shanghai, it's silent because all of the cars are electric. And the air is clean because no matter what you heard 10 years ago, it's moot now. Anything you heard about China that's a few years old is moot. It changes that fast. So the China of today, of 2025, sorry, the cities of China. I haven't been to the countryside yet. Who knows? It might be a cesspool. But the cities of China right now in 2025 are pristine, so pleasant, so easy. I think they're just one of the prettiest, most pleasant, highest quality of life places on Earth right now.
Francis Tapon
Where do you think you would live if you got your residency?
Derek Sivers
Shanghai. I actually had to decide that in advance because I'm doing it through incorporating a company. So you have to, like a U.S. state, you have to choose which state you're going to incorporate in first. And then that gives you the right to become a resident of that state. So I just chose Shanghai. I love Shenzhen. I love Chengdu. But I chose Shanghai, which I also love.
Francis Tapon
Are you also learning to write Mandarin?
Derek Sivers
Yes, you should see me. I'm getting good. I'm not just handwriting it. I'm typing it. I'm learning to type like a Chinese, which is, it's really, it's something I've wanted for 20 years. And I'm really pleased to be able to.
Francis Tapon
Is it easier to type on a, like a little keyboard, like, you know, that identifies what you're going to do kind of thing? Like, I've seen them type on their little, on their, what's called their phone.
Derek Sivers
The keyboard kind of like changes as you're typing, basically. Yeah, you have to know the pinyin romanization of things in order to type on an A to Z keyboard. So like if I say, "我是你的朋友," I have to know that that is wo shi ni de peng you, and then by typing "wo", up pops all of the Chinese characters that are spelled with the romanization "wo", and I have to pick the one, because there's way more than one. I have to pick the one that represents what I want, which might be numbers one through nine. So if I type like, okay, number one, sure. Number six, that's number four or five. That's number seven, number two. And so that's how you type. It's like the combination of letters and numbers to select the right Chinese character. It's fascinating.
Francis Tapon
Yeah, I once read, I did an ask of one of the AIs, maybe perplexity, and I asked it, like, if you're a native speaker in both languages, a native typer in both languages, which one can you type faster English or Chinese or Mandarin? And it did say that English is more efficient. In other words, you can pump out words more quickly than on the same size keyboard. So I don't know if that's true, but you'll find out. You're not a good example because you're not fluent yet.
Derek Sivers
I will always be slower. Yeah. But learning to read is so important now because when you go to China. Everything is done on apps now. So many restaurants you'll walk in and there is no person to take your order. You have to do the app. So speaking is almost less useful than reading and writing.
Francis Tapon
Well, you've been very useful. Maybe not true. Maybe not true, but useful. That is the name of Derek's book, Derek Sivers' book, Useful Not True. It's a very short book. Like all his books are packed with wisdom, diluted. It's kind of like you take a bunch of grapes and you squeeze them and you just get the juice and that's it. And you don't put any fluff whatsoever in your book.
Derek Sivers
Zero. So it's very densely packed.
Francis Tapon
Yeah, it's all removed. And that takes a lot of work. somebody who as a writer myself that has not perfected that at all.
Derek Sivers
I'm glad you have it. I love your style. Your style is so loose and conversational. At least from what I've read of your stuff so far, it feels like everything is like Francis when loosened up by a beer or something, you know, it's like, you're very honest, unfiltered and that's, what's wonderful about your writing. So please don't change that. Don't write like me.
Francis Tapon
Okay. Okay. All right. Derek. Well, it's been a pleasure to remind people how to find your books. And by the way, one real quick tip about your books I really enjoyed is the fact that when you buy it from your website, not only are you supporting you, but you can also get multiple copies for just a tiny bit more. So like, I'm putting numbers here, like $27 for one book, $30 for two books. I mean, it's not those numbers, but it's, it's basically so incremental to get four or five books. And that's, so that's why I ordered three books. I was like, you know what, Hey, I can gift these, It's our gifted one. And they're also so nice. I brought this to Vietnam with me from California. I would, as a lightweight backpacker, I would never carry books. But just because it's thin, I can actually carry. It's lighter than my Kindle.
Derek Sivers
Love it. Thank you.
Francis Tapon
So go to your website, Derek.
Derek Sivers
Go to sive.rs
Francis Tapon
I'll put that down.
Derek Sivers
I don't really do social media. I just don't like it. So I'm entirely on my website. Go there, email me, say hello. I would love to meet any fans of Francis like I am.
Francis Tapon
Okay.
Derek Sivers
Thank you again, Derek.