Abundant Thinking
host: Elan Gelfand
Reframing, choosing new beliefs, balancing self-conviction with others' opinions, consistency vs change, expiring your self-definitions, manufacturing urgency, helping others change.
listen: (download)
watch: (download)
Transcript:
Elan Gelfan
Derek, welcome to the show. It's amazing to have you on. You wrote an absolutely incredible book called Useful Not True. Could you give us a very brief description about what it's about?
Derek Sivers
Useful Not True, in short, is about the importance of reframing. Anything that you think of as a situation that, say, feels hopeless, or you feel stuck, or you think this is just the way it is. "A Chinese woman can't be president." "I'll never get famous from this town." There are these things in life that feel like facts to you, but they're not. And hence the title, Useful Not True, is pointing out the distinction between things that are absolutely positively necessarily true for everyone everywhere always, and then everything else, which is subjective. And once you realize how much in life is subjective, you realize how much you can reframe things and find a more useful way to think of them.
Elan Gelfan
Yes, 100%. I couldn't agree more. I mean, this book really opened up my eyes. I know you define true as absolutely, necessarily, objectively true, which is important before we get into this, just so everybody's on the same page. And then not true being not necessarily doesn't mean false, but it's just not necessarily, absolutely, objectively true, like you mentioned. So that was very interesting. Derek, how do you think about beliefs, perspectives, and actions? I know that's a really big part of the book.
Derek Sivers
Could you narrow that question down a bit?
Elan Gelfan
How do you think about beliefs?
Derek Sivers
Whenever you catch yourself saying, "I believe...", or whenever somebody else says, "I believe....", then whatever they say next is not necessarily true. Because if it were absolutely necessarily true, there would be no need to say, "I believe...." You could just point to the facts and say "There!" So it's a good indicator to watch out when you hear somebody saying, like, "I believe it's really important to go to college." "I believe that everyone should respect their roots and honor their heritage." It's like, well, that's not true. And nothing you said there is necessarily true. Because you said "I believe...", it's just showing that it's a perspective. It's one way of thinking about it. So even really firmly held beliefs are generally like recipes in a family household. They're well-beloved recipes, but they're not the only way to make that dish.
Elan Gelfan
Sure. So you mentioned about how people saying, "I believe" this thing is usually false because if they actually believed it, it wouldn't have to be said to begin with. So do you have a framework or a way of knowing how to know if somebody else truly believes in what they're talking about?
Derek Sivers
Oh, they can truly believe it in their heart of hearts 1000%. But you, as the person talking with somebody that has strongly held beliefs, you've just got to keep a little bit of arm's length distance to realize that their strong belief isn't necessarily true for everyone, everywhere, always.
Derek Sivers
I don't mean it to sound like this is a nerdy, wonky, academic, philosophical concept. It's more about negotiating life. I noticed the difference between people that are successful and seem to make things happen versus those that sit at home and make excuses for why they can't happen. The people that make excuses for why something can't happen have all of these true sounding reasons. Like, "I can't do that. I'm not qualified. Nobody's hiring in this economy. There's no way I could do that." They believe these things as if they're absolute facts. Whereas people who are super successful look at limitations and go, "I don't think so. I'm not going to believe that. I can challenge that. I think I can do that even though everybody says I can't." So that's really most of what this book is ultimately about, is getting you into that mindset where you can see through the apparent barriers of life and realize that they are not barriers.
Elan Gelfan
Yes, that's amazing.
Elan Gelfan
I know in the book, I'm going to quote you here, you said, "beliefs create emotions, emotions create actions. Choose a belief for the action it creates." And then you said beliefs can shape actions and the actions reinforce your belief, which shape actions and it can go over and over and over again. So just an example. Let's say you believe you can work hard enough and you can achieve anything. Therefore, knowing that belief, you take the action. So you work super hard, which gets you results and further reinforces your beliefs. However, I think it works both ways. Right. It could be for the better and for the worse.
Elan Gelfan
So how can people escape the negative loop? You just talked about, you know, people making excuses for themselves compared to those that are, you know, limitlessly inspired.
Derek Sivers
You can deliberately adopt a new belief. Say, for example, the classic that says this room full of strangers are just friends I haven't met yet, that these people are all waiting for me to break the ice, and then they're going to be friends versus looking at a room full of strangers thinking, "Oh, God, these people are all judging me." Each one of those can become somewhat self-fulfilling. If you deliberately just decide, "I'm just going to choose to decide that this room full of strangers is friendly", then it becomes self-fulfilling. If you act accordingly, You could just be psyching yourself out in the parking lot outside. Just decide. "This is it. These are my future friends. I'm going to make this happen." And you just go in with a new attitude and it becomes true. Whereas if you avoid going to the event because you decide that nobody there is going to like you, well, in a way you kind of make it true because you don't put yourself out there. And so nobody gets to know you and nobody likes you. So you can just choose to adopt a belief that will support the action you want.
Elan Gelfan
Where do you think people go wrong over-complicating this?
Derek Sivers
I've been surprised that this message hasn't been out there very much. It's done in some little vague ways like whatever you believe you can achieve. It's too vague. But we don't talk about the specific techniques to do this, the techniques on how to adopt a new belief. Which, by the way, we didn't get to. But for example, if you know you should believe something, but you don't currently, then you can journal or just talk to friends, talk to your cat, whatever it takes to find a way to believe this. You can stack up reasons why this is true or find enough examples where this is the case and just stack it up for yourself and just decide, I'm going to adopt this belief. You start to tell some friends about it. Friends give you a social echo, like the echolocation of a bat that helps you realize where you are. And it updates your self-identity. It updates your beliefs just to talk about these things with people or just write about it enough in a journal.
Elan Gelfan
On page 83, you said, we know ourselves through others. If people say you have nice eyes, you must have nice eyes, right? I know you mentioned, I was listening to you on Chris Williamson's podcast. You talked about Stoicism for a little bit and how you got into it very late. But I know an amazing quote from Marcus Aurelius that says, praise is extraneous. He says, if no one admires an emerald, does that make it suddenly flawed? So in the same way, here's how I'm thinking about this. You may have the prettiest eyes in the world, but what if everyone in the world is blind? Does that not make them as beautiful?
Elan Gelfan
So my question to you is, how much can we really trust others to gauge our thoughts and beliefs?
Derek Sivers
I just had this conversation last night with a friend. How much do you believe and respect others' opinions versus holding your own opinion? In fact, she was saying this about herself, that she's always had a high self-esteem, but she grew up in a family that didn't appreciate her and grew up in a place where she was a complete oddball and nobody at school liked her. And only later in life found her people that appreciated her. And I asked if that hurt her self-esteem. And she said, "No, I just knew that someday I'd find people that appreciate me. I always thought I was great. It just took me years to find other people that agreed with me." So it's probably a mix. You can be bullheaded and just hold your own opinion even though everybody else disagrees.
Derek Sivers
Or, for example, if you're a songwriter, and the whole point of songwriting is communicating, or even say if you write a blog post or do a video that you think is great, but everybody you play it for or show it to goes, "Eh, I don't know, Elan, it's not very good. It's not one of your best." Well, then, in a sense, you have to listen to them. If enough people say that, Maybe it's just coincidence that the first 20 people you played it for didn't like it, but maybe you should listen to their criticism. Maybe the thing that's inside your mind is not getting expressed outwardly correctly. You know what I mean? There can be that difference between in your head it's perfect, and in your mind you knew what you meant, But the person receiving it was just seeing the external stuff and couldn't see inside your mind. So sometimes we do need to heed the opinions of others.
Elan Gelfan
Wow, Derek, this is like such an interesting concept. It's opening up my mind. It's like, you know, perspective and open-mindedness, you know, being like, I trust these people's opinions versus kind of betting on yourself and knowing that this is what I need. It's like for this podcast, I know who my main audience is, so it doesn't make sense for me to listen to somebody who doesn't know who that is. However, there could also be a factor, like this person's been listening to my podcast and he knows who they might be, so you've got to keep thinking about it. And it's this whole loop. I think it's just so interesting.
Derek Sivers
Wait, before we change the subject, I heard a beautiful example of this. Okay, I've got a song in my head right now. I'm going to tap out the melody and see if you recognize it. You ready?
Elan Gelfan
Okay.
Derek Sivers
[Tapping...] In your head, if you're singing that melody while you're tapping it, and you do this to friends, you're thinking "Come on! You know this one, right?" But your friend is just sitting there hearing some taps, and they have no idea what's in your head. All they're hearing is some taps. Almost nobody will recognize a melody being tapped out. But to you inside your head, it seems so obvious. Like, "Come on, come on, you know this one!" Tap, tap, to tap, tap. That's actually a nice metaphor for any creating we do. In our head we have this vision, whether you're presenting a startup idea or an article or a song or anything, artwork. You have this idea in your head of how great this is, but what the other person sees is just a little sliver of this full imagination in your head. That's why most people don't get it. There's a huge difference between this beautiful idea in your head and how it actually gets expressed externally.
Elan Gelfan
So then how can we know who to trust with advice if you're saying many people won't understand the melody in their head, they can't read your mind?
Derek Sivers
With advice in general, I think it's best to listen to all of it. Ask anybody and everyone for advice. Listen to all of it, and only some of it will ring true with you. You might hear 99 bits of feedback on something you've made and disagree with 98 of them, but then one of them will make you go, "Ooh, that hits home, that's a good point." And so that's the one that you take action on.
Elan Gelfan
Yeah, that's so interesting. And I love the whole idea of, I guess, recognizing both sides. I think that's something that your book did such a good job of teaching me, the fact that there's multiple perspectives in everything. And I believe that, you know, like I was telling you today, I was sitting in the coffee shop, and I was thinking about a lot of things. And I realized there were like 20 people in front of me, right, sitting in different chairs, not that they're all friends, but random strangers. And I was thinking, I was like, it's crazy that they're all having their own conversation. They all have their own thoughts. They all go to their own family at home. And all their perspectives and beliefs on life are different. But I think it's such an important skill to recognize this to begin with because a lot of people are so tunnel vision on the thing. They're like, okay, it's my way or the highway. This is what I think. That's the only way. And if you don't agree, screw you. You don't know anything.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Those people will find out the hard way. Going through life like that can eventually give you enough negative feedback that you'll learn to take a different approach.
Elan Gelfan
As far as opening up your mind to different perspectives, how how do you see that whole idea? Because i know it was a huge premise of your book but i wanted to ask you personally how do you open up your mind to different perspectives?
Derek Sivers
Meeting lots of different people. Mot just meeting but becoming friends with people that see things very differently, and yet you stay their friend. Someone who has the opposite political views of yours but you're still their friend. Someone who has a completely different approach to life than you and thinks that yours is wrong and theirs is right and you think theirs is wrong and yours is right but yet you still remain friends. It's really good practice to really deeply realize that there are truly just different ways of seeing the world and just because you disagree with it doesn't mean it's wrong. It's shooting for something different. Different people have different values. You might be living a recipe for a life of adventure, while a friend of yours is living a recipe for a life of safety and security. Because what they want in life is safety and security, and what you want in life is adventure. So to them, you're crazy, and to you, they're crazy. But it's just because you're pursuing different things. You're not wanting the same life.
Elan Gelfan
I know you mentioned in your book that beliefs exist to guide your actions. If you're not acting in alignment with your beliefs, you've kind of missed the whole point of beliefs to begin with. Is that something that you feel like you see a lot when it comes to beliefs? People might say they believe in something kind of like we mentioned earlier, but they don't act on that thing per se.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. You see that a lot in the media you see that a lot in politics where people say whatever's going to get the clicks even though it's the opposite thing that they said a year or a week ago but they'll just say whatever gets the clicks gets the votes, gets the fans it's very incongruent to keep saying stuff just to please others. I think that's where I see it the most.
Derek Sivers
How about you? What do you think?
Elan Gelfan
Oh, ask me the question. I appreciate it. I totally agree. I was talking to one of my friends about this today. I thought it was an interesting concept, so I asked him. I took a picture of the exact page on your book of this, and I was like, what do you think about this? And he said he's more religious, and I'm not, but he mentioned how a lot of people will say they have faith, but they won't really act on it. like just the belief in itself. He even mentioned, he was like, I don't think it's enough. Like you can say you believe in this thing.
Elan Gelfan
And that's even one of the questions I asked you yesterday when I emailed you. People can say they believe in the thing, but if they don't act like it, like what does the belief do for you? I know, you know, that's a huge thing you talk about. The fact that beliefs like make you act on something.
Derek Sivers
Oh, I heard a beautifully harsh example of this from the economist named Bryan Kaplan, where he said, ask anybody if they believe that inequality is wrong. And a lot of people will say yes. And then say, "Well, are you then going to move to a poor neighborhood to help reduce the inequality?" And no they won't because the truth is they don't care that much. They're a little bit mildly against it if you ask, but not against it enough to go really up and move to the worst neighborhood in town to help reduce the inequality. They don't care that much. This is true for a lot of things. People complain about America. So are they moving to Italy or the country of their choice? No they're not. So their complaints aren't strong. They obviously are somewhat satisfied with how things are going. Because if they really, really weren't satisfied, they would leave. But they're not leaving. So I can just look at their actions instead of listening to their words.
Elan Gelfan
Since we're always asking each other questions and trying to shift how we think, do you believe that all of our thoughts and beliefs are temporary?
Elan Gelfan
How do you mean a big thing that i took away from your book is constantly questioning your perspectives your beliefs is the thing that you're thinking about right now actually working against you're working for you like how can you make this you know better for yourself and not hurting people in the process of all this stuff and in this whole i guess i'll say process of like progress that we're making from going, you know, from a limited thinking to more of a, you know, high achieving, optimistic thinking. Do you think that since we're always trying to revert and get better and better, our thoughts and beliefs are always changing and in like in turn, all the things we're thinking about are temporary?
Derek Sivers
Yes. A journal can be a really helpful tool for your future self to see which of your thoughts have persisted the longest. There's some that stick around. Like if you're journaling right now at age 20 and you go back at age 30 to look at your journals from now, it'll be fascinating to you to see what things you're shocked that you used to think. But also surprising to see what things have not changed. There are some preferences and values and thoughts or even wishes and plans that don't change, that have stayed constant for years. I use those as a guideline. Those are the ones to me worth heeding, worth acting on. If I've been thinking this for a long time, if I've been wanting this for a long time, it's time I act on this now. This thought has persisted. This wish, this desire is not going away. But some of them you should just let them go like the river of time. Let those sticks float away down the river and you'll never see them again. There's some interesting thoughts and wishes and even plans that you might have right now and when you notice they start to fade you should not fight to keep them around but just let them fade.
Elan Gelfan
That's interesting. Do you think those things that you notice are changing are very obvious? Or it's more things you have to dig to find out what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I think it's subtle. You just slowly notice things like "I used to love going out on weekends, but, you know, more and more, I just like staying home." Or vice versa. "I used to really love just being alone all the time, but, God, you know, A friend of mine dragged me out the other night, and I'm really enjoying it. Now I just want to go out more and more. Even though I've told everybody I'm an introvert, I've gone and declared to the world I'm an introvert, but I feel like going out a lot." Maybe it would behoove you to not declare your personality type so loudly because then you feel some loyalty to your past utterances that you have to stick with what you said before.
Elan Gelfan
I love that idea so much. What is the threshold of keeping the character that you said you were versus changing? Like let's say you are the person who you know he had a good time he's he's an introvert but he he went out to the club and he had a good time so like how easy is it to change who you are or are you stuck to the past version of yourself
Derek Sivers
Well, it depends on different aspects, right? We have so many different aspects of our personality that some of them will stay the same and some of them will change. Some people get great security in not changing. They say, "No! This is who I am!" And they stick with it. And they take great pride in that, in being solid and predictable. And there is a big benefit to that. Say, for example, in romantic relationships, if you're really thinking in terms of a life partner especially, consistency can be a really powerful love language. To not be mercurial, to constantly show up and be predictable can really help a relationship. Whereas if you're constantly unpredictable, it can be really worrying and lead to an erosion of a sense of trust and security. So it depends what you're after. For others, I think other people usually want you to be more predictable and reliable. but then for your own sense of growth and living a full life, you might want to be more changing and get more variety of approaches in your life.
Elan Gelfan
One of my favorite things that you mentioned is how important thinking is. Just kind of crazy, crazy idea, right? Thinking, actually, like making sure we sit silently and just think about how we do things, why we do things, et cetera, I think it's so important because it allows us to know ourselves. And similarly to how you're talking about your relationship, like not your relationship in general, if you notice something is working for you or something didn't work for you and you leave the relationship, you have to understand why something was the way it was. You can't really be on autopilot and those things because a lot of very important aspects of our life require us to take a step back and assess why did this happen, what was good, what was bad, So then we can climb the ladder essentially and see in our next relationship or our next experience the things that we liked we take with and the things that we didn't we get rid of.
Derek Sivers
I like that. Yes, totally agree.
Elan Gelfan
I think I also – I will say I have a lot of empathy for people because they – like their bad beliefs could lead to bad experiences and their bad experiences could lead to bad beliefs, right? It works both ways. And I'm saying I have a lot of empathy for these people because in a way they're in a cycle that's bad and they don't know about it. Like for me, I've always been somebody that's a lot more optimistic, you know. So it's like, yeah, something bad happens to me. But I try to take something away from it, right? I try to at least see if like this bad experience can help me in some way. But other people, you know, and for better or for worse, right? They kind of exactly what you said, stick with the same cycle they're in. They're okay. Like they get stagnant, essentially. Do you think that this is an internal thing or – that's my question. Do you think it's an internal thing?
Derek Sivers
How so? How do you mean?
Elan Gelfan
So I can see myself like I – my friends go to me for advice, for example, and I can see how sometimes I'll tell them something and they'll be like, Elan, I didn't even think about it this way. I appreciate you saying that. I'm going to do this thing. I can also see on the other side of the coin where it's like you say stuff, but only they can be the ones to change themselves.
Elan Gelfan
So do you think for people who've had bad experiences, bad beliefs, this is something that I, as somebody who's given them advice, can get out of them? Or there's got to be an internal belief that they want to change?
Derek Sivers
There you go. Good question.
Derek Sivers
You can always help someone realize something, especially by pointing out where they are being inconsistent with their own beliefs or values.
Derek Sivers
I'll give a real example of this. It's a little embarrassing. So for 14 years, I had the same haircut. It was a shaved head here with long braids in back. It was very unique. It was my signature look. It's what people recognized me for and knew me by that guy with the shaved head and the braids in back. I was the lead singer of a band for 10 years. That was my look. And then I started CD Baby. And I was speaking on stage at lots of conferences. And I was that guy with the shaved head and the long braids in back. And some girl I was dating said, "Huh, you know, that's really unlike you. You're such a constantly changing, growing person. It's kind of weird that you'd have the same haircut for 14 years." And in the moment, I rebelled. I went, "What? No! This is my look. This is my thing. I don't want to change my look. I love this haircut! This is what I'm known for. This is my thing." I pushed back in the moment. But a couple days later, I thought, "God, she's right. Why am I holding on so tightly to a haircut? Who cares? Am I scared to change? Well, I have a life motto that says whatever scares you, go do it. And I seem to be scared to change my haircut. So, huh." In that moment, ten seconds after thinking that, I stood up and grabbed the scissors and chopped all my hair off. And I went, "Wow, I just did it." 14 years of the same haircut. So she helped me realize that I was acting incongruently with my values.
Derek Sivers
I think that's one of the most persuasive ways that you can help a friend change is to show them how they're being inconsistent with their own values. Not to tell them what they should be thinking or should be doing, but to just point out how they're being inconsistent with their values.
Elan Gelfan
And you mentioned that beliefs are like tools, right? So how can we know when our quote-unquote tools are getting dull? How can we know when it might be time to change our beliefs?
Derek Sivers
Just look at the results you're getting. If you say you want to be successful at something, but you're spending a lot of time on the couch playing video games and you're not as successful as you want to be in this thing, then you need to look at your actions and see if you are acting the way you want to be. And if not, well, then what are the beliefs that are keeping you there or holding you back? What beliefs are holding you back? And what beliefs would your ideal self hold in order to be who you want to be? And do what you really want to do what would you need to believe to do that? And if in some quiet reflection you can think of what that ideal you would need to believe even if it's something that feels weird to you right now like "I deserve to be a billionaire." Maybe right now you don't believe that, but the ideal you would believe that, you just have to find a way to adopt that belief.
Elan Gelfan
That's interesting. I think it's kind of the idea of reverse engineering it. That's super cool. I've never even thought about that.
Elan Gelfan
You talked about actions very briefly, and I wanted to quote you on something you said on Modern Wisdom because I thought it was absolutely gold. So you said, our mind focuses in on tiny moments we want to extract to tell the stories we want to tell ourselves or others. You said if somebody chooses to adopt the idea that there's no good work and no good jobs out there, what actions does that bring out of you? So if you flip that around, I wanted to ask, is this a premise of useful, not true? Adopting ideas that may not necessarily be factually correct, but it allows you to take meaningful action?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. That's one of the core ideas that got me to write this book, is that I deliberately adopt beliefs that lead me to take the actions that I want to be taking. Even though I know that this belief is not necessarily true, I'm choosing to hold this belief because acting in accordance with that belief are the actions I want to be taking. So, for example, I thought it was important to write this book and that people would like this book and it would help people and it would help me express an idea that was so important for me to shape and express myself because I've thought it vaguely for years and I wanted to solidify it and shape it and express it well. This was so important to me that I just decided this was the most important, urgent thing I could be doing in my life right now. And that's the belief system that helped me jump out of bed every morning at 6 a.m. and do it. Whereas I could have just as easily argued that it doesn't really matter. "Eh, few people read it. Who cares? It's fine. Never mind. Yeah, I'll do it someday after I play this video game." That set of beliefs would have been equally valid, but yet the book wouldn't have been written. So I chose the set of beliefs that had urgency to it so that I could get it done.
Elan Gelfan
Sure, and I think that's so interesting how, well, first of all, you reverse engineered it, like you said, but also you thought about the goal that you wanted and then you thought back with it and you said okay i want if i want to write this book and i want it to be the best it could possibly be how would i do it and then you said to yourself okay like i would prioritize it it'd be the most important thing and that's when you thought you're like oh wait this is the most important thing and you kept that going until the very end and i think that is a very good lesson for anybody even listening to this whether they have a goal or they want to do something it's first of all prioritizing it focusing on it like removing the distraction is the first thing but also really understanding i mean wow you're really making me think about this because it's making me think about how i prioritize things and the things that you know i want for my life but you know taking the thing that you want and making it the most important thing because a lot of people will say they want something but like do they like they don't they don't act in accordance with that same thing you're talking about the belief to the action it doesn't doesn't fit the right thing so it's interesting how that whole premise works it's like for my brain right now it's a very simple way of thinking about it but it could be an extremely important factor to somebody's success just like it was for you in this book.
Derek Sivers
Last night a friend asked me how I focus. She said "I'm so distracted all the time. I'm always thinking 20 things at once and doing 10 things at once. How the hell do you focus like you do?" And I said because my internal monologue at the time is a angry, cursey mouth person. It's just like, fuck everything else. This is all I need. Nothing is important as this. If I don't do this, I'm going to fucking hate myself for the rest of my life. And if I don't get this done in the next few days, I'm a pathetic piece of shit. I get deliberately extreme angles to get myself to get something done. And I'm often literally kicking and screaming while I'm doing it. I don't always love what I do, but I will literally scream at the computer and literally stomp and kick and then do it anyway. Because, bah, I have to do it. And I refuse to do anything else until this is done. I'm going to let these emails sit unanswered. I'm not going to turn on my phone. In fact, I'm not even going to turn on the internet. I'm going to go shut off my broadband modem in the closet, and I'm not going to turn it on until this is done, even if that takes days. I'll just force myself with this big manufactured sense of urgency to finish this thing. Often that's the only way I seem to be able to get it done. It's an intense mind manipulation I do.
Elan Gelfan
Sure. Yeah. It seemed very intense from what I just heard. I think this matches your idea of your outside not needing to match your inside. Like, you know, you can be thinking about something. It's like, you know, I'm not good at this thing, but I'm still going to do it. But then by definition, if you do it, you're doing it. And like, you could be good if you do it enough times.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Okay. So yeah, sorry for listeners. Elan just said about your outside doesn't need to match your inside. The idea is your self-image might not be the most confident self-image, but if you just put yourself into a situation and pretend to be confident, then you become confident by doing that. Or pretending to be social is being social. Pretending to be a writer is being a writer. It's amazing to me that just doing the actions, whether you feel like it or not, ultimately is what matters. It's the doing, not how you feel about it inside. Same as you were talking about earlier with the religion. It doesn't matter if you feel religious, If you're not following the doctrine of your religion, then you're not being religious. The self-image is moot. It's your actions that count.
Elan Gelfan
My apologies for getting ahead. I just, you know, the listener should have read your book. It's their fault. They should have already known what that meant.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Shame on you if you haven't read Useful Not True yet. What are you doing? Pause this recording.
Elan Gelfan
I was going to say, Jocko has a very similar example where he says, you can be scared for your life in war, but if you run and bring your injured friend back to safety, by definition, you're heroic. It doesn't matter what you're thinking in the moment. It matters the action that you took. And this, again, is reinforcing the ideas of your beliefs and then the actions making you go into your beliefs. Because a lot of time, I think people – it's funny because I'm thinking about it right now, And a lot of people have beliefs and it'll shape their actions. But I also think actions can shape your beliefs.
Derek Sivers
Totally. As you would say, 100%.
Elan Gelfan
Yes, yes.
Derek Sivers
By the way, you know what's funny? Every time I hear 100% now, because my whole take on useful not true, is we shouldn't be so certain. Every time I hear somebody say 100%, I think 90%. Come on, let's leave some room open for doubt. 90%.
Elan Gelfan
Yes, yes, 1,000%. That'd be funny if you're just talking to somebody and you just correct them. It's like, no, not 100% You never know.
Elan Gelfan
And I think, so going back to what I was talking about, the example that I thought is you can be lazy for 30 years, but if you go to the gym every day for six months, which is the action, you'll form new beliefs. So it's like you're doing the thing, and by definition, if you're doing the thing, you're going to form the beliefs. You could be the first 30 years of your life, you thought you're lazy, you thought you can't do this thing, but then once you got up and did it, you change. This is similar to what we were talking about earlier with how people stay the same and they don't, you know, change their characteristics and their structure of who they are and their personalities. But I think you got me thinking that like the action is kind of the biggest thing, like with all of this. It's like if you're not taking action on the thing, first of all, you're not changing how you think, but also you're not changing like everything. I think everything revolves around action. That's what I'm trying to get at, although I'm not speaking English. but you get the point, Derek.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. I think about this a lot with people who call themselves an entrepreneur and they're not actually starting a business. But if you're not actually starting a business, you're not an entrepreneur. That's the definition of what it is to be an entrepreneur. It's starting a business. Being a good friend, you might say that you're a good friend, but unless you're doing the actions of being a good friend, You're not being a good friend. Saying it doesn't make it true. There's so many things in life that people say because they like the public persona that gets reflected, especially through social media or whatever, just by saying something. But any idiot can say something. It's doing the actions that really counts.
Elan Gelfan
Yeah, I think it's also – it's interesting what you brought up that if you're not constantly helping your friend, for example, you're not a good friend by definition. It's like a constant – I wouldn't say fight, but it's always like you can't be set in stone for who you are because who you are changes by what you do.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. I actually haven't done much public writing in months. And I was starting to notice this difference between my definition of being a writer, and yet being a writer means being a public writer. If you're only writing in your diary even for hours a day, that's not being a writer. That's journaling. Being a writer means writing for the public. So I need to do more public writing or stop calling myself a writer. There's your challenge. It's like either you need to make your actions match your words or stop saying those words. Stop calling yourself an athlete if you're not actively doing it every week. Stop calling yourself an entrepreneur if you're not starting a business right now. Maybe if you started a business three years ago, you're a manager now. You're managing your business. You might own a business, but you're not being an entrepreneur. You're not starting something right now.
Elan Gelfan
That's an interesting way of thinking about it. And also for the people listening, just because you were on the varsity football team 40 years ago does not make you an athlete.
Derek Sivers
Even three years ago. If three years ago you were on the team and now you're not, you're not an athlete anymore. We should expire our definitions quickly. Here's a good one. The quicker you expire the definitions, the better. What if, in my case, I have a kid, if I call myself a good dad, but I haven't seen my kid in six days, am I still a good dad? Or is it just that I was a good dad last week? I think the faster we expire them, the better. Keeps us on our toes.
Elan Gelfan
Sure, I was going to say, it's kind of like you either have to live up to it or go down to it. A lot of people don't want to change who they are, so they'll want to keep it going. I mean, I know for me, one of my hobbies is I train MMA. And last summer I was like kind of wrestling with the idea of training MMA or not. So I was like a little bit in between. But I kept telling people like, yeah, like I train MMA. But I thought to myself, I'm like, do I? Because like in the future, it's funny because in the future. So like I go to school, like I go to college, right? And I train at a gym down there. And it's funny because I knew that like a couple months ago I was training MMA. And in a couple months I'm going to be training MMA. But I had my summer break and I wasn't training. So it was this weird moment where I was kind of like in between these things. So I was kind of feeling a little bit like, what am I? Who am I? What am I doing? But ultimately, it got me to join a gym like closer to home. And it was nice. You're bringing it up. And it's very interesting, this idea that like you're talking about being a good dad, being a good friend. It's either you have to live up to these expectations, which is going to make you a better person, or you have to stop associating yourself with this characteristic.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. If you look at my homepage, sive.rs, at the very top, it used to say I am an entrepreneur, a musician, a programmer, a writer. It used to say all of these things in present tense until I realized this thing we're talking about. And I instantly put almost all of them in past tense. It says I have been an entrepreneur, a circus performer, a musician. All of these things are past tense. It was very liberating. I think it's really helpful in a way to let some of these past tense things just be past tense and say that's what I was. It opens up the space to be something new.
Elan Gelfan
Yeah, one of the things I had written down today when I was doing my deep thinking session in the coffee shop was I wrote down that people are too focused on others perceiving them as virtuous and how they think, but their actions don't reflect it. I said the person who is giving relationship advice who says you need to be the guy that somebody wants to date and then he goes out to drink, smoke, and manipulate girls. So it's interesting, I guess, this disconnect that people have between the characteristics, the people that they say they are versus who they are, the beliefs that they have, again, about who they say they are versus the actions they take. I feel like the book, and I mean, this is, at this point, this is probably an advertisement for the book because I think it's so good. But, like, for anybody listening, it really, it really shifts your life. Like, it really makes you think about everything you're doing, everything about how you think. And you got four more books, dude. I haven't even read them because there's so much in this book.
Derek Sivers
Oh, you should read How to Live next. Even though I wrote How to Live previously, as I was writing Useful Not True, it became clear to me that I am writing the prequel to my previous book called How to Live, which I just put out into the world unexplained. It's a very weird book where every chapter disagrees with every other chapter. And then it just ends with two pictures and no explanation. And I put it out into the world in a very artistic way. You know, artists don't explain. They make a painting and they put it out. Whereas business writers on LinkedIn, they always over-explain everything. And I really liked taking the more artistic approach, just putting out this weird book into the world called How to Live with no explanation. And then as I was writing Useful Not True, I realized that it explains why the book called How to Live is the way it is. So that's the one you should read next.
Elan Gelfan
Yeah, I appreciate the suggestion. That's actually the one that I was going to read next. So that's very cool. I mean, I can't even, dude, if this is the book that I read, all these ideas I have, I'm excited for How to Live.
Derek Sivers
How to Live is even more chock full of ideas. It's more dense. The rough draft was 1,300 pages, and I condensed it down to 112. It's intense. You'll see.
Elan Gelfan
That seems very intense. Wow, 1,300 pages. That is crazy. Wow.
Elan Gelfan
Would you ever write another book?
Derek Sivers
Oh, yeah. I hope to. I've got no particular idea in mind now, but I usually don't until one shows up. I don't try to write a book. Same as the reason if anybody here subscribes to my mailing list, I'll be silent for nine months. You won't hear a thing from me, and then I'll have something to say. People say, "Hey, man, where's your content?" And I'm not trying to please any fucking algorithm. Fuck the algorithms. Fuck YouTube. Fuck Amazon. I'm not trying to please any corporate algorithm. So I just, I don't share something unless I feel it's worth your time. And if I don't have anything I think is fascinating, I won't say anything. I'm not going to churn out content to please an algorithm.
Elan Gelfan
I love that. I think a lot of people, they might just need to hear that to have like the permission essentially to think this way because for me i you know i have the podcast i think a lot about my actions i'm gonna start thinking a lot more about my beliefs now but like i think about a lot of things and what occurred to me was that this like whole idea that you're talking about was like something that i feel like i I lost my train of thought but
Derek Sivers
About the algorithm you know what as long as we're on on the subject then I'll tell you a little story from before you were born kid in the 90s by the way you live in Chicago right?
Elan Gelfan
Yeah.
Derek Sivers
I grew up in Hinsdale, Illinois, in the west suburbs. In the 1990s, the music business was like a stranglehold gatekeeper. The only way you could put your music out into the world was to try to pitch your music to a record label, which if they believed in it, then they would give you some money to record an album. And then they would release it if they felt like it. And often they wouldn't. Then they would put it into record stores. And that was the only way to get your music out to the world. This is before the internet, right? Before MP3s. And then in the late 90s with MP3s, it was a revolution in the industry because now you didn't need to kiss anyone's ass anymore. You didn't need to kiss up to some stupid music executive at Warner Brothers or EMI. You could just put your music out directly to the fans. It was this revolution that was so inspiring for so many musicians because of this main thing that you didn't have to kiss somebody's ass anymore. You just did whatever you want and put it out directly to your fans.
Derek Sivers
And what's amazing to me now is that the lessons of the revolution have been forgotten! Everybody's back to kissing ass. But instead of kissing the ass of David Geffen or Jimmy Iovine, now they're kissing YouTube's ass. And they're kissing Amazon's ass. And they're just trying to please their corporate masters. But they don't have to. You could just forget all that stuff. You could just go directly to your fans. And yes, you'll be a little less popular. But you'll be so much happier and so much more independent - to not feel this icky feeling of trying to kiss the algorithm's ass.
Elan Gelfan
I did a lot of thinking and I kind of formed my own thoughts on things. And that way I gave myself the permission that I needed to think my own way, do my own things. Like in school, if something happens, I think about why that thing happened, how could it be different. It's similar to your concept that you said in your book about how, you know, oh, there's a guard standing at the end of the bridge. It's like, we can't go there. And then somebody else says, no, we can't. Like, watch this. There's always a way around something. So I think a lot of people are, I'm not going to say program, but they're just so used to "following the rules" and not thinking about things more from an outside perspective that they don't realize that these rules can be broken. You know what I mean? Like you talked about the fact that you can upload on something that's not YouTube. And when you say that, people are like, oh, what did he just say? Are you kidding me? You could do that. But it's like you literally – you have free – you can do whatever you want. And same thing. You can think your own thoughts. You can make your own beliefs. I know a lot of times – so like I'm young obviously, right? I haven't had a crazy amount of experiences. So I might consume content that might indoctrinate me and I might not know anything about this thing. But now maybe I know this one perspective. But then I think about it from another perspective. And then over time, you start to form your own beliefs and you start kind of understanding the thing you're talking about and how rules can be broken. One thing I love that actually I heard this Chris Williamson says this he says in order to break rules you first need to know them. So like first you got to play the game first you got to know how it works in order for you to know that okay I spent three years on YouTube I built all my subscribers but I'm not really that happy you know so maybe I could just not do this like why is that such a huge thing why is it such a big belief that I have.
Elan Gelfan
What do you think about giving yourself the permission to just do your own thing and like be your own person?
Derek Sivers
You can predict what I'm going to say about that. I disagree with the idea that you have to know the rules to break them. That's a saying that's been around for decades. Musicians have said it. Painters have said it. They look at young Picasso in the late 1800s, painting in a very traditional way before he went radically cubist in the 1900s. Anyway, but I disagree. With anything you're setting out to do, you can ignore the whole world and say how you'd like it to be in a perfect world. To just think with a blank slate how you think it should be, how you'd like it to be. Never mind anyone else. Forget everything else. How do I want it to be? And then just do it like that. And if that's weird, well, maybe that will hold you back, but maybe that will make you stand out of the crowd. Everybody else is doing it the normal way. We need people to do other things that are not normal.
Derek Sivers
This is what I do with the pricing of my books, for example. I have a weird pricing scheme because I don't think that you should ever have to pay for the content more than once. So if you bought the paper book from me, well, now the audio book is free. Or vice versa. Let's say if you bought the audio book from me or the e-book and now you want the paper book, well, it's only going to be a couple dollars to pay for the paper itself for the printing to get it to you. I'm not going to make you pay another $15 because I don't think you should have to. You already paid for the content by buying the audio book or the e-book.
Derek Sivers
When I started my business, I was in my 20s, and it was 1997, and I had accidentally started an online record store called CD Baby. And once I realized that I had accidentally started this thing, I just said, well, how would things work in a perfect world? And I just ignored the whole way that things were done in the music industry, came up with how I think they should be, and that's how I made the business happen. And then it was a huge success because I was doing things so differently. And a few years later, media magazines were writing me up as having revolutionized the music business, which was very flattering. But it was really just me asking this green-field question of how should it be? Never mind what anybody else does. How would I like it to be?
Elan Gelfan
And you believe that you can do this in any circumstance, any situation in somebody's life?
Derek Sivers
Yes. Even things like romantic relationships. Just because most people are in a monogamous relationship in such and such a way you could be any way you want to be you could approach your relationship any way you want you can parent any way you want you can live location wise any way you want there's so many ways to live life. I think we'd all do better by ignoring the norms and just asking ourself how you'd like it to be.
Elan Gelfan
Yes, I could not agree more at all.
Elan Gelfan
You mentioned in your book that no choice is the right choice. The only right choice is making the choice to begin with, and it works itself out. Could you expand on that?
Derek Sivers
Hmm. There are so many ways to see anything, and there's so many secondary effects that you can't predict later on. So you could say, "I got into Yale, therefore it's the best school, the best choice is for me to go to the best school." But what if you get to Yale and it destroys you because of the pressure or you just hate the snobby kids around you? And in fact, weirdly enough, if you could do some counterfactual for your life, it might have been the best thing for you to get a job as a mechanic at the local auto place because you'd end up being the owner of that, and you'd get some insight that leads you to start a whole new chain of auto mechanic shops. You can never tell what choice is going to be the best choice. There's so many knock-on effects that keep happening. So, therefore, it can lead to a fuller life if you just throw yourself out there and just keep doing lots of stuff and keep making choices instead of avoiding life.
Elan Gelfan
Sure. And using like college as an example, and this whole idea of like doing what you want and like going one step at a time, making the choice. I can see that a lot of people might have some external factors to why they're going to college. Let's say that they're like you say, why are you going to college? And somebody says, oh, you know, my parents just always believed in it. It's kind of my parents. They wanted me to do this.
Elan Gelfan
What role do other people's opinions play in perspective and how can we learn to see and do the things that we want?
Derek Sivers
Hmm. There's no right answer to that. When I was in my 20s in America, I was very individualistic. I said that everybody should do whatever they want. Screw what anybody else wants. Doesn't matter. And then I moved to Singapore, where I met a bunch of people, Singaporeans, that were telling me that they were living the life that their parents wanted them to live, even though it wasn't what they wanted. And at first, maybe like the first 20 times, I kept railing against this, saying it's so wrong that you have to just do whatever you want to do. It doesn't matter what your parents want. And finally, through having enough Singaporean friends, I started to understand the mindset, which is very different than the one I grew up in, which is that your personal preferences are whimsical and naive. And you'd be better off doing what your parents suggest for you because they are older and wiser and they know you very well. And they want the best for you more than anybody but yourself. So it is actually the smart thing to do, to do what your parents say you should do. Let your dreams of being a poet fade away. Go get a degree in law. Trust me, you'll be happier. I get it now that that's an equally valid approach. Neither one is necessarily right or wrong. They're equally valid, and they lead to different outcomes. So there's no right answer. You've got to ask yourself which works for you, which inspires you, what makes you take the better actions, and just judge it by that criteria.
Elan Gelfan
Sure. And I also think, you know, what's more useful to you? That's what I feel like you're getting at. Just do you think it's about, like you mentioned, you know, your parents have a lot of wisdom. They've been around for a lot longer. Is it about what's useful to you? What's useful to your parents? Or who is it supposed to be useful for?
Derek Sivers
I think ultimately it's supposed to be useful for you. By the way, not all of us have the wisest parents. Not every parent is wise. But the idea is that even if your parents are saying, screw what you want, do this instead, ultimately, ideally, they're doing what's best for you. I actually learned something interesting a couple years ago. I went to Israel, and I met somebody that had an arranged marriage. And I asked him about that. And I learned something new that I never understood about this before. I always thought when you hear about an arranged marriage, that it's just the parents say, this boy and this girl, we've decided that they're going to get married. because it serves us as a family, because that will get us linked to this other family that will be strategically good for us, and it'll get them married off. They're the same age. It's fine. But he said, no, no, no, no, no. He said, arranged marriage is done by two groups of people that know the involved boy and girl very well, and they know this boy very well, and they know this girl very well, And they say, we know that you two would make a good couple because we know you very well. We know what you want out of life. We know how you are. We've known you your whole life. We think that you two will be a very good fit. And that's when they introduce the couple with a load, almost like the ultimate matchmakers, to say, trust me, you guys will make a great match. And then they meet. And the couple, of course, has the right to disagree and say no. But that opened my eyes to a different approach to these things. But it's the same thing as we're talking about. Pleasing others versus pleasing yourself. Sometimes the people that care about you really do know best.
Elan Gelfan
That is super interesting. I mean, you even taught me about that. It was interesting because I was talking to my mom about something similar - arranged marriages, she was telling me how, you know, in hindsight, having like somebody do like an arranged marriage, exactly what you're talking about could be a better idea because they know you better. They have the wisdom. They know like everything you're talking about. I thought it was very interesting. It linked up. And actually I was talking to one of my friends and he was recently in Texas for this one girl's arranged marriage. And I asked him and I was like, cause also, I don't know. Uh, I asked him, I was like, yeah, like, does she like the guy? That's what I asked him. Like, genuine question because, you know, I don't know that much about that stuff. I don't – I have a problem admitting I don't know it. But I asked him that, and he's like, yeah, like, they're cool. Like, they knew each other before. Like, their family thought it would be a good fit. They like each other, all this stuff. And it was a similar experience. I think what you said just now made me think a little bit more. But in the time when my friend told me that, I was kind of like, oh, that's interesting. Like, maybe I don't know everything. Maybe I don't understand how this works. So it's very cool.
Elan Gelfan
Derek, dude, I love your ability to pivot how you think. You think about both sides - you think about, I mean, like everything, you're amazing. Where can people find you at?
Derek Sivers
Just my website, sive.rs I'm not really on social media as of today. Who knows? Maybe I'll do it again someday, but just go to my website, sive.rs and email me. That's how I met Elan, he just emailed me out of the blue, and you should too.
Elan Gelfan
Yes, this is correct. For everybody listening, thank you so much, and I'll see you guys next Tuesday.