Get Yourself Optimized
host: Stephan Spencer
Creative process, authenticity, vulnerability, feeling untethered from your country of origin, belief, spirituality, interpreting reality.
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Transcript:
Stephan Spencer
Derek, it's so great to have you on the show.
Derek Sivers
Thanks, Stephan. I admire what you're doing and I'm honored to be here.
Stephan Spencer
You know, I'm honored to have you on. I mean, it's just, I've really enjoyed what you put out there in the world. For example, it's a hell yeah or it's a no. You know, that book is on my bookshelf. Actually, it's in storage right now because we're in transit. But, you know, it's like I was just having this conversation with my wife yesterday as we were looking at houses. She says it's not it's not a hell yeah. And it's like, exactly. Then it's a no. And, you know, and coincidentally, I'm having Derek on my podcast. It's the author of that book tomorrow. And she's like, yeah, no coincidences. So anyways, you've made a lot of impact in people that you probably have no clue. So like, for example, that whole conversation that helps bring clarity in the lives of couples like us who need that kind of clarity around it. It's either a hell yeah or it's a no.
Stephan Spencer
And I'm curious, how do you come up with these book titles and the ideas for the books? Do they kind of come in as a download? Do you just get, I don't know, how do you get inspiration for the books and the creative works that you do?
Derek Sivers
I have talkative friends. The core of my friendships are curious people. We talk about life. "What do you think of this? Why do people do that? What do you think is the underlying motivation behind the reason that people do this thing?" Just constantly analyzing life. And so in those discussions, when I say something to a friend and they say, "Oooh, that's really good. You should write that down!" I say, "Oh, really? Okay." And if I say some phrase and they say, "Oh, that's really catchy. You should remember that!" I say OK. And that's where my book titles come from.
Stephan Spencer
What's your process for creating a book? Because a lot of people have a book in them and then they never write it.
Derek Sivers
My main advice for anybody - if you feel like you have a book inside you, my main advice is to just start blogging. Take each individual idea. Stop thinking of it as a book. Start thinking of the individual ideas that you want to get across to someone else. The main key then is to focus on each idea one at a time. Make each idea its own separate article or blog post. If a blog post has two ideas in it, well, then split it apart so that it's two separate posts. That way, each idea gets its own spotlight. Each idea gets people's attention. You can send it to everybody you know, post it on every account you have. And you can start to get feedback on each individual idea, because you'll never know which idea you have will really reach people. You might have an idea on how to get hired, but it was point number 3 out of 5 that really reaches people then it's less likely to become shareable if it's item 3 out of 5. Whereas if you would have made that its own separate article, it would really travel better.
Derek Sivers
So my main advice to anybody with a book inside of them is to just start a WordPress blog or actually the best one I found lately is BearBlog. Do you know about Bear?
Stephan Spencer
No.
Derek Sivers
Oh, spelled Bear like the animal. bearblog.dev It's free. It's run by one sweet, amazing guy in South Africa, who - I love his work so much, I told him that I am happy to be the godfather of his site. If he ever wants to retire or give up, I'll take it over for free as well. He's a guy like me that's just doing it for the right reasons, not for the money. BearBlog is such a great service. It's free. It's no-nonsense.
Derek Sivers
You can just put a blog up and just start posting your ideas one at a time. After you've posted your ideas, you do that 50, 80 times, you realize that you've already written your book. And then you can just compile these ideas into a book and share it with the world for the kind of people that prefer to lay down on the couch and read a book. So that answers both of your questions. What is my process? That's what I've done in the past. And that's what I highly recommend for anybody else.
Stephan Spencer
So what do you think about AI as a companion or tool to assist with the writing process, with the ideation process, with the editing and so forth? You could completely write a book with AI. I don't believe that's integrous to do that and put your name on it. But I'm curious where AI sits in your toolkit and in your values as far as utilizing it for your writing.
Derek Sivers
It's a beautiful, helpful bag of words to reach into. I think it's a shame that we call it artificial intelligence because it is not that at all. But it is a wonderful bag of words that we can bounce ideas off of. So I love it for that.
Derek Sivers
We shouldn't let it write for us for the same reason that people don't go to a concert to hear a robot make music. And they don't go to a ballet performance to see robots dance, even though I'm sure Boston Dynamics would like that. They want to see real people doing these things. So don't think that just because one of these bag-of-words LLM tools can write a paragraph better than you, don't think that that's what people want. I think you should still challenge yourself to do it. Again, for the same reason that you don't take a taxi to the finish line if you sign up to run a marathon, having it done is not the point. It's the doing it yourself. You want to explore yourself through your writing, not just press a button and have it done.
Stephan Spencer
Yeah. And I think also that your inspiration, your divine kind of connection is present in all your creative works, even if it's in an email. And, you know, you wrote an email decades ago for CD Baby that Joe Polish - I'm in Genius Network since 2018 - still talks about, you know, it's like, this is the gold standard in writing an email that makes people feel something. You want to share a little bit about that campaign?
Derek Sivers
Thanks for telling me that Joe still talks about it. That's really sweet to hear.
Derek Sivers
It was 1998. I had just started my little online record store. and by default, the shopping cart had a default email that said, "Your item has been shipped to the following address. Thank you for your order." And I looked at that and I thought I can do better than that. Notice there's a lesson here with the AI stuff, since you asked. That's impersonal. That's just a robotic announcement. This is just a record store. I should do something fun. So it took me literally 10 minutes to whip up a silly little thing: "Your CD has been placed onto a satin pillow and our private jet is flying it to you right now in des moines iowa. Your picture is on our wall as customer of the year. We can't wait to hear from you again. We're all exhausted but what a fun day it's been shipping your CD on this day, Friday the 19th of July." I wrote it in 10 minutes, made it the default shipment notice, and people loved it so much that they forwarded it to all of their friends, and thousands of customers came my way just because they heard of me, because of this silly email that I wrote in 10 minutes.
Derek Sivers
So the lesson learned is that, yes, an AI could write something more professional than you, but it's not the professionality that we love about something. It's the humanness. It's the quirkiness. I think any writer now should take it as a challenge to write something that an AI would not write. We can do better than that. They're creating the average because they have digested the average of all of the words of the internet. And so they're able to generate a perfectly fine average. But you can do better than that. You can make yourself weirder or more vulnerable than that.
Derek Sivers
Same reason, the reason I liked the artist Sheryl Crow back in the days of "All I Want to Do is Have Some Fun" and the song "Leaving Las Vegas", I heard it once on the radio in the background while I was at a restaurant with a friend. And at one point in the song "Leaving Las Vegas", her voice cracks! And I just did a double take and I looked at the speakers like, what? Her voice just cracked and she left that in. That was so charming. Who is this artist? I've never heard of her before. Sheryl what? Sheryl Crow. Okay. How do you spell that? And I looked her up because I wanted to know who was that artist that left the crack in her voice on that high note. Because it was so vulnerable and so human. Whereas somebody else might have evened it out with autotune and made it perfect. Same thing with our writing. If we leave in these vulnerable human bits and say things that an AI would never say, I think people really connect with that so much more.
Stephan Spencer
You know, I actually see a connection between the "hell yeah or no" and this concept of being vulnerable and out there and putting your personality into stuff. Like if you are going to use AI for, let's say, a sales email or for a customer service response or something, then that's not a hell yeah. That's just a, "Me too. I'm like everybody else. I'm doing the same old, same old. This is just par for the course."
Stephan Spencer
So it's like I love Seth Godin's definition of remarkable. And it's just so simple: worthy of remark. So if we're worthy of remark and our content is worthy of remark, then we will be remarkable and we'll create remarkability in our experiences, whether it's as a family member or a business owner or a cog in a wheel somewhere deep in the large corporate enterprise.
Derek Sivers
There is a tech writer named Steve Yegge. He has a funny, verbose style where all of his writings were rants. And they would usually begin with something like, "All right, I'll admit, I'm two beers in, and the kids have gone to bed, And I'm still angry about this thing in the Python programming language, so I'm just going to rant until my wife tells me to turn off the light." And that's how his rants would begin. And they were so charming because they would give you this picture of somebody that just has something that's so burning to say that he's just even going to paint the picture for you. "My wife's scowling at me right now, but I just have to get this off my chest." What a great way to begin. Somebody that's burning with something to say.
Derek Sivers
But I love these vulnerability moments of wonderful humanness that, yeah, like you say, whether it's a hell yeah or just really connect to our humanness in a way that computers won't do.
Stephan Spencer
So how do you reconcile that with the need to get straight to the point and lead with a hook and then foreshadow to the payoff at the end and keep them on this crazy wild ride for the full minute and a half or whatever that you have in your short or your real? And then you end abruptly so that they want to watch it again because they feel incomplete. You know, it feels so engineered to just hijack their dopamine reflexes or their neurological pathways to keep them hooked, to watch more and more of your "viral content". And that is just so antithetical to what you just described of, you know, I'm just on a rant because I'm really pissed off about X, Y, and Z. Like, they're already gone. You just blew your first three seconds. You know, they've already swiped. So how do you reconcile all that?
Derek Sivers
Well, for one, luckily, I'm not trying to please the algorithm. But you could make the comparison that what you're describing is like a perfectly engineered Hollywood blockbuster - a Marvel superhero movie that hits the three point story action line. I don't even remember what those screenwriting tricks are. But we've grown numb to having the perfectly engineered story delivered to us with the perfect ending that got the crowd ratings by the Marvel Hollywood research groups. And when a movie comes out that blows those expectations, it ends up doing surprisingly well when suddenly the hero or who we thought was a hero gets killed at the beginning. You go, "What? Wait, what? Huh? That just threw me off." That's what some people love about foreign films is they often defy the Hollywood expectation. But even if it's a Hollywood film from a bold filmmaker or screenwriter that does something radically different it gets the attention of those of us who've grown numb to the formulaic stuff doesn't it?
Stephan Spencer
One movie i didn't really enjoy but i'm gonna give it as an example because it did defy all the standards at the time was the Blair Witch Project. I'm not recommending that movie no disturbing here yeah but not a great movie but it it was different It stood out. It really stood out. And it did sort of defied logic. It defied the standards of the day. And now I think it probably started a genre of kind of somewhat hyper realistic, you know, do it yourself kind of movies. I think that's probably even a genre now because of them. But, you know, I think being different just for the sake of being different isn't the answer here, but it is to, I don't know, share your light, for lack of a better term.
Derek Sivers
I think of it in musical terms of what song hasn't been written. If you're just going to be making a song that's exactly like every other song, there's really no point for it to exist. We could just listen to the other song that's already done it. You try to find something in yourself that's never been said that way or never been sung that way or a beat that's never been put together that way. Then you've created something unique in the world. Don't do what everybody else is doing.
Derek Sivers
If you look at my book covers, I overthought the process of what I wanted my book covers to be because I knew I had five books in me that were going to be coming out over five years. And I wanted them to have a common theme. And I spent probably nine months working with 10 different designers to make the ultimate book design cover. And in the end, I didn't like any of them. Just wasn't right. And I went to a friend's house that had some old library books, like 1930s library books, where maybe they used to have an outside dust jacket. But now all that's left was the linen hardcover book, plain solid color, that just said, book title, author name. And I looked at that and went, Dan, that is so cool. That is so badass. It's so confident. It doesn't need to wow you with its pizzazz of its graphics on the cover. Just the title and the author's name should be enough to intrigue you. And I felt that there was something there that would be my unique contribution to the current world of book design covers. And so I have these non-cover covers where I decided to make them linen hard covers like a library book without the dust jacket. There is no artwork on the front. It's just title, author. And I'm so proud of them. They make me so happy. I beam with happiness when I see my linen hardcovers like that. I thought it was such a confident choice that added something different to a crowded market.
Stephan Spencer
And now that you mention it, it is one of the few covers that comes to mind that I can remember. I don't really remember a lot of book covers. Even a great book that I really enjoyed and that I recommend to many people, like The Alchemist or whatever. It's hard to remember what that book cover looks like. Super easy to remember yours.
Derek Sivers
Thank you. I don't do YouTube videos, but if I did, I would certainly not be doing the O-face on the thumbnail. I don't care if that drives more viewers. It's just the wrong thing to add into the world to do the exact same thing as everybody else. And honestly, I'm really impressed that in the video version of your podcast that you're not sitting in front of a bookshelf right now. I really appreciate that. When everybody starts doing the same thing, it feels so worthless.
Stephan Spencer
And now with AI creating music and it's so easy with the prompt to use a tool like Suno, how do you continue to stand out when it sounds so good already? It's just, it's weird. It's so weird. Have you tried Suno or any kind of AI music platform like that?
Derek Sivers
I haven't, but I've been around long enough that I recognize that this was a similar conversation that came up when synthesizers first came out. Somebody with no skill could just literally press one button and hold their finger down on it, and it would give a beautiful string orchestra or a great drumbeat with no skill. And then Photoshop came out and a lot of these same conversations were being had then. "What does this mean? Photoshop can make any photo look good." And eventually it still comes back to doing the things that the computer can't do, and reaching people on a human emotional level, not just polish.
Stephan Spencer
Yeah, and being authentic and vulnerable. And, you know, auto-tune exists and some people use it and some people use it in a very distinctive, unusual way. That's cool. But if you try to fake people out, then you don't look authentic. And even if you don't initially get caught out, you know, you don't have a mess up with the lip syncing or something. And it's still you don't have that presence, the same presence that you would have with that confidence of, hey, I'm putting myself out there, the real me.
Stephan Spencer
So I know you're recording this in New Zealand. I'm curious about New Zealand. For one, I'm very passionate about New Zealand. I lived there for seven and a half years.
Derek Sivers
Where?
Stephan Spencer
For the first four years, I was in the North Shore and Hibiscus Coast area of the North Island above Auckland. And then I moved for the second half to Christchurch area. I was in Corsair Bay. And it was magical. And I love New Zealand. I'm not there anymore, obviously. But now I'm in Israel in the Holy Land. And that's a whole different sort of thing. And I love it here, too. I'm curious, for me, New Zealand was an inspiration. Before I had my spiritual awakening, I was agnostic and I didn't believe in all that sort of stuff. But something came in that was so strong, like New Zealand. And I had no idea where it came from or why. But I followed that intuition and I applied for permanent residency and I got in. I'd never been there. And I convinced my wife at the time and my kids that this would be a good move. And when everyone was moving from, so I was in Madison, Wisconsin at the time, everyone was moving from places like that to Silicon Valley, to San Francisco, so that they could build up their internet company. And I had an internet company, I had an agency. I went totally the other direction. This was 1999. We went to New Zealand and it was absolutely incredible and wonderful and life changing. So I'm curious about the New Zealand thing for you.
Derek Sivers
Well, it still hasn't changed much, I don't think. By the way, do you still have permanent residency?
Stephan Spencer
Yeah, it's permanent. So I could go back anytime. But the thing is, that was a chapter in my life. My wife, Orion, that we've been married since 2016, she doesn't have that pull to New Zealand. So we're here in Israel. This is where she's from. And I love the Holy Land. I love the connection here and everything. So this is our home now.
Derek Sivers
She's from there. Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or where?
Stephan Spencer
Yeah, Ramadgan, which is a suburb of Tel Aviv. So that's where she's from. So it was my first wife that I had to convince to move to New Zealand. But, yeah, my wife, Orion, I'm married to now and for the rest of my life. She's not interested in reactivating that permanent residency that I have. So which is totally fine because I feel complete. Like that was an incredible chapter in my life. And I love it. And I wouldn't change a thing about it. And now I'm here in the Holy Land. So it's all good.
Derek Sivers
Let's connect this to the previous subject. We could all move to Austin or San Francisco and do exactly what everybody else is doing in the search of trying to recreate someone else's recipe exactly. "Let me do exactly what this top viewed YouTuber is doing. Let's do exactly what the top podcaster is doing." But that's a recipe for sameness. And I think it's so much more interesting to pursue a different angle. Think of the different view on life you get from living in Israel.
Derek Sivers
Israel, which, by the way, I love that place. I spent 10 days there in September 2023, just meeting with people. I sat down and met with 20 or 30 people in 10 days. I was staying just outside of Jaffa, and I got to eat Abu Hassan. It's the best hummus ever. I had it for breakfast every morning. It's part of why I was staying next to Jaffa was just so I could have that for breakfast every morning.
Stephan Spencer
Did you make it to Jerusalem?
Derek Sivers
I didn't. I wanted to. There were so many people I wanted to meet in Tel Aviv this time. I thought I'd come back in a few months and go to Jerusalem. But then October 7th happened and I haven't been back yet. But I really want to. I really love my Israeli friends and it's a special place. I adore it. There's actually - in my new book called Useful Not True - there's a chapter about Jerusalem and my thoughts on it.
Derek Sivers
But so connecting this back to what we were saying before, when I was living in Singapore and my boy was born, I wanted to move somewhere where I could give my son my full attention because Singapore to me was a hyper-social place. I had hundreds of acquaintances and friends in Singapore and everybody I knew I was, everybody knew I was there and everybody passing through Singapore wanted to meet with me, which is wonderful. I met some amazing people, but my boy was born and I just wanted to say no to the whole world and yes to only him. So I thought where on earth would be a great place to give my kid my full attention for his childhood. And I chose New Zealand, even though I had no previous connection to it. I felt that it was probably the best place on earth to raise a baby. And it has been. He's a total nature boy. He grew up here entirely. We moved here when he was nine months old. Now he's 13. And total nature boy. It's been a great place to raise a kid. So I really just moved here for him.
Stephan Spencer
When you have an exit like you had and you end up with what some people term FU money. I don't really like that term, but I don't have any other alternate at the moment to use. But so we'll kind of use that. So that allows you to live anywhere and so forth. And I remember people telling me that in New Zealand, are you moving to New Zealand? Like, what are you thinking? or some would say that and others would say, "Wow, I wish I could do that." Why can't you do that?
Derek Sivers
They can. Anyone can. It's just opening your mind to, sorry, I guess I got distracted talking about my boy, but I forgot to mention that I was a little concerned because I wasn't feeling done in my career yet. And speaking to a friend in Singapore about considering moving to New Zealand, And he said, "Wow, New Zealand, man, everybody wishes they could live in New Zealand. So if you were doing what you're doing as a writer, speaker, thinker, author kind of guy, but from New Zealand, man, that would be probably a little bit of a career boost to you. It makes you a little more enigmatic, a little more enviable." And I went, "Wow, never thought about it that way." But I get that. So instead of thinking of moving to Israel or New Zealand or Peru as something that would mean you've dropped out of the game, it could end up being your competitive advantage. You'd be the only philosophical author in Peru or the only SEO optimization guy in Mauritius. Something like that that could give you an interesting angle on life.
Stephan Spencer
Yeah that's true it ties back into what we were saying earlier about being remarkable.
Derek Sivers
The game is to stand out not to fit in.
Stephan Spencer
To take up space in the world - to to not be afraid to polarize because if you are not polarizing you're you're not standing in your truth and you're not you're not taking up space in the world you're hiding you know it's
Derek Sivers
Something that's changed in my writing in the past year or two is I started saying the things I used to be afraid to say. I was afraid to talk about my old divorces. I was afraid to talk about how I renounced my U.S. citizenship. I was afraid that a lot of patriots would hate me forever. And I noticed that when I very gently mentioned these subjects, people didn't seem to care that much. So I just decided to boldly start talking about these things that nobody else talks about. And I get more thanks from readers in my email inbox for these things that I was bold enough to say, because a lot of people feel that they're also keeping that hidden inside. An example is saying I don't love my family. Not my existing boy, but like, you know, my parents. I don't love them. They're fine. I don't hate them, but I don't love them. And nobody says that. I just decided to say that on my /about page and I got more feedback and emails thanking me from that one section of the page than anything else I wrote there. From so many people saying "Oh my god thank you for saying this. I feel so bad for feeling the same way, but it always felt like I was the only one. And to see you just put that out there publicly is so redeeming, satisfying. Thank you."
Stephan Spencer
Yeah. You know, there's stuff that, you know, under the, under the surface, people who have this Instagram worthy lifestyle actually go through a lot of pain and suffering and difficulty. And that's not what they put out there. I mean, I've put some of this stuff out there. Like, for example, I've had episodes where I've spoken about the fact that one of my three grown daughters doesn't speak to me or my wife or my son, my little one, and actually has never been in his life by her choice. And it's painful, but it is what it is. and everything ultimately is a blessing as far as I believe it. So I'm not blaming her or directing any negative energy towards her. I still love her. I still want the best for her, but we haven't spoken for years. And it is what it is. So I think you have to be real. And it's not airing dirty laundry. It's just being truly human so that people can feel like they can relate to you.
Derek Sivers
And it's often the stuff that isn't usually said is the stuff that needs to be said. More people need to hear it.
Stephan Spencer
When I interviewed Sheila Gillette, who's a famous psychic, and we talked about this fact that one of my daughters doesn't speak to me. I got a number of comments on YouTube and other communications people saying, you know, I don't have this family member in my life. I don't have a child in my life either that chose to cut me out or whatever. And, you know, I'm sorry for your loss. It is a loss. And I'm also feeling a little bit more healed because of your episode that I watched.
Stephan Spencer
So where does it stand with your parents now? Are they still alive? Do you feel like there's anything more there to do?
Derek Sivers
No, it's fine. I feel about my parents the same way that I feel about my grade school teachers. They did a fine job doing what they needed to do at that time.
Stephan Spencer
Yeah, that's the thing. It's like people do what they're going to do based on the tools and their belief systems that they have at the time. And if you had the exact same belief system and history and context and, you know, wiring that they had, you'd probably do the same thing because that's the nature of being kind of on autopilot.
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Stephan Spencer
So what has been an example of this being turned into a blessing for you and maybe for your readers or for your tribe?
Derek Sivers
Untethered. I am thankful that I feel untethered to my birthplace, untethered to my country of origin. It has allowed me to go out into the world freely and make new ties and feel connected to Singapore and connected to New Zealand and connected to Oxford, England. I loved Oxford, England. I would still be living in Oxford, England if it weren't for COVID that sent us back to New Zealand. I also love New Zealand. But man, I really loved living in Oxford, England. We had just moved there in 2019. And then, you know, what happened in 2020. And we were New Zealand citizens by then. So we used the golden ticket to go back to the COVID-free land of New Zealand. But man, I've really made some great connections with people around the world. Great friends and loves of my life from India and China and Singapore that I never would have met if I had stronger family ties that kept me close to where I grew up.
Stephan Spencer
So what book are you working on now that, you know, you're probably keeping some of it close to your chest, but were you comfortable sharing about what you're working on?
Derek Sivers
No, nothing, none. I honestly, those last five books might be all I have to say for a while. That last one, especially called Useful Not True, felt like it wrapped up something that was in me that needed to come out. How to Live, the book right before it, really compressed everything I've learned in my life into 115 pages, extremely succinct, like poetry. But I just put it out of the world with no explanation. And while writing my newest book called Useful Not True, I realized it was kind of a prequel to How to Live that explains the mindset that can help people put that into action. And I finished writing Useful Not True a year ago. It just came out on Amazon and everywhere else a month or two ago. And I have nothing else in the works. I'm spending a lot of time learning Chinese and a lot of time being with my boy who is a teenager now and wants a lot of my attention.
Stephan Spencer
That's great. Well, at that age, a lot of the teenagers don't want their parents' attention. So that's a real gift.
Derek Sivers
We're really close. It's really sweet. We're setting up a new home that he and I have both designed together in the forest by a creek, half an hour north of Wellington New Zealand, off grid. It's been a wonderful experiment to build our own home like that. So that's what we've been spending a lot of time doing.
Stephan Spencer
That's cool. So what's your favorite of your five books and why?
Derek Sivers
"How to Live" feels like such a masterpiece for me that if I did nothing else with my whole life, but write that one book, it still feels like it would have been a life well lived.
Stephan Spencer
So somebody who hasn't read the book and who's listening to this or watching this, what would you tell them as the whole point or kind of the biggest wisdom nugget in just a minute or two?
Derek Sivers
Well, first, you got to know that my books are very, very short. All of my books are around 100 pages. They're meant to be something you can read in an hour. But How to Live is 27 tiny little chapters. The subtitle of the book is 27 Conflicting Answers and One Weird Conclusion. So the word conflicting is key there, that every chapter thinks it has the answer to the meaning of life. "This is it. This is how you should live. This is what you should value. This is how you should be." And the very next chapter disagrees with it. "No, no, no, no, no. Here's how to live. This is it. This is what you should value. This is what you should do." And the next chapter disagrees with the rest. And that goes on 27 times, which then can really scramble your system, making you question your own sense of having the answer. And makes you question all of the other books and pundits that claim to have the answer. It puts it all into perspective. And the book finishes with a picture of an orchestra seating chart with exactly 27 instruments in the orchestra, no coincidence, suggesting that you can play the different philosophies of life, the different approaches to life, the way that a conductor or a composer can play an orchestra.
Stephan Spencer
Do you believe that, so one of the kind of precepts in The Alchemist is Maktoub, which is Arabic for it is written. Do you believe that your life was already written out, that the screenplay, the script is already a finished piece of work?
Derek Sivers
That perspective can be useful for things that are out of your control, like other people. So I think of all philosophies, all approaches to life, or ways of looking at the world, as never necessarily true, but a point of view that can be useful to you or not. It can be helpful or hurtful. It can bring you peace or bring you anguish. It can improve your actions or hurt your actions. This is how we should measure it by. So if the idea that it is all written brings you tranquility or somehow improves your actions, then that perspective is useful to you. And if it doesn't, then it's not. I think this is a better measure than debating or arguing whether that point of view is absolutely, objectively, empirically, observably true for everyone, everywhere, always. That's not the point. The real point is, is it useful for you?
Stephan Spencer
Do you find it useful and true for you that this idea that your parents chose you and you chose them before you guys all incarnated?
Derek Sivers
No. I've thought about it a lot. I've considered it. But I didn't find the tranquility or wisdom or love or connection that that idea was meant to bring.
Stephan Spencer
Got it. You know, there's something that I don't remember where I heard it, but it's bandied about in new age circles, at least, is that, you know, if this concept fits, if it works for you, great. If not, just discard it. And I think that's true in this case for you.
Derek Sivers
It's also about using time. That's the other reason for the orchestra metaphor. There are times when the composer wants all the trumpets there. And there are times when the trumpets should stop and a single flute should play for a while. And then maybe a clarinet joins the flute. So it's the same thing with philosophies. The approach that everything is written, looking at the life through that lens might be just what you need next year, but not this year. Right now, you might need to believe the opposite, that "If it's going to happen, it's up to me. Nothing's going to happen unless I make it happen. My intervention is needed in a severe way right now. It's all up to me. I'm making it happen or it won't happen." That might be the point of view you need right now. Next year or in 10 years or 10 years ago, the idea that whatever's going to happen is already written, toss your hands up, it's not up to me, that can be an extremely beautiful and useful point of view. at some points in your life. It doesn't have to be at all points in your life. And same thing with the opposite.
Derek Sivers
Hence the How to Live book. Some of those chapters say, "Here's how to live, live for the future." And another chapter says, "No, here's how to live, live for the past." And another chapter says, "No, no, no. Here's how to live, optimize for money. Money is just a neutral indicator of value. If you want to be useful to the world, use money as a measure that you're being useful." Something else, another chapter says, "No, no, no. Here's how to live. Do nothing. Let it all pass." And each of these instruments can be played by you when you need them.
Stephan Spencer
I have the book. I haven't read it yet. So that definitely inspires me to read it.
Derek Sivers
It's only an hour. You'll find an hour.
Stephan Spencer
Yeah, that's true. I just have to find it in my storage unit.
Derek Sivers
Where are you moving to?
Stephan Spencer
We're staying in Israel, but we're in between houses right now.
Derek Sivers
So will you stay in the same area?
Stephan Spencer
Yeah, within an hour. Yeah.
Derek Sivers
It's all within an hour. My Israeli friends love this about living there. A few of them have moved from America and they say the families here are so much tighter because grandma or auntie is always just an hour away at most.
Stephan Spencer
Yeah. Well, there's, it's cultural too. It's not just because everybody's nearby. Like I met the lady who was the inspiration for the Amber alert. And she had made a trip to, she's elderly. And my friend's mother, it's my friend's mother. So she made a trip to Israel. And when she was there, a kid got lost. And everyone galvanized, the whole crowd of people all were looking for this little kid. And they did find the kid. But it was so striking to her that it was like one big family. Even though these people didn't know each other, it was just a seemingly random crowd. They all galvanized to find that kid within minutes. And she's like, we need that in America. And she was telling somebody in Israel, like, this needs to happen in America. Why is it not happening in America? And the friend or the acquaintance said, it'll never happen in America. Because you guys aren't wired that way. You don't have that sense, that cohesiveness and that sense of community that we have. And you never will. And she's like, I'm going to find a way to replicate this. And so she went on a mission to try and create something and it became the Amber Alert.
Derek Sivers
I particularly love Jerusalem. I like Tel Aviv, but I love Jerusalem. Tel Aviv is where my friends are. But when I go to Jerusalem, it's just such a special place. I really want to live there someday.
Stephan Spencer
There's a special special area near king david's tomb - there's a wall there it's very nondescript it's actually a portal like a thin place between this world and the upper world. I've had experiences there and you know family members have gone there and had experiences there. And it feels really kind of otherworldly in a very positive way. Like you're peering into some sort of dark energy or anything like that. It feels very heavenly. So, yeah, if you make it back to Jerusalem, I'll tell you exactly where that spot is.
Derek Sivers
Thank you.
Stephan Spencer
So one name that popped in my mind that I want to ask you about when we were talking about how to live, and that's Marcus Aurelius. I'm curious what your take is on him and his wisdom.
Derek Sivers
I don't have much to say. I read Meditations. I liked it. But I don't think of it that much. Sorry, that's all I have to say.
Stephan Spencer
You know, we all stand on the shoulders of giants, and I think he, too, stood on the shoulders of giants. Fun story is just a trivial thing but it was impactful in his life and actually and to a lot of people's lives so he had a really good friend a jewish rabbi a very wise rabbi um and that was seemingly unheard of right but he kind of kept it under wraps uh because it wouldn't have been it It wouldn't have gone over well. So this rabbi, Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, Judah the prince, they would send kind of secret messages to each other if it wasn't appropriate for them to meet in person or anything. And he sent his, I don't know, soldiers or representative to get some advice from this rabbi one time because the coffers were running empty and he didn't know what to do. Like you're running out of cash. You better do something. And the cryptic message that came back, the rabbi said nothing. But as the people who were sent there by Marcus were watching this guy, he was doing some strange stuff in the garden. He was pulling out some perfectly good plants and replacing them with other plants. And so when they went back to the emperor and explained that he didn't actually give a message. Like, what, no response? Like, I need to figure out what to do here about this issue. And he's like, what did he do? He didn't just sit there or stand there. Well, he was doing, he was gardening and he took the stuff out of the garden and he put other ones back in. And he's like, ah, okay, I know what to do now. So in his inner circle, he figured out that he needed to replace, I don't know, three of them or whatever. He didn't feel right about them or something. And then he put new people in and then the coffers started filling up again. So they were stealing from the treasury and he was able to replace them. So, you know, it's like you might see something in meditations that actually has Jewish origins because it was ancient wisdom that was just passed on to that particular rabbi, Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi. And then it made it into into his his little journal, which he never meant to publish. It was a private journal for him.
Derek Sivers
It makes me wonder whether the plants were a very savvy message that he had a lot of insight into the management team of Marcus Aurelius and who might have been stealing, Or if it was Marcus Aurelius that brilliantly interpreted this otherwise neutral action.
Stephan Spencer
Oh, it wasn't neutral. It was very precise. Because there's so many other stories of Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi and other sages from the past. Like there's one story I love about the Bel Shem Tov from hundreds of years ago, where he was at this very holy time when you're sitting at the Shabbat table on Friday night. And, you know, the prayers and the singing and then the eating, it's all very intentional. And it's very quiet and they're eating and he's with a bunch of his students. And then he just erupts into laughter in the middle of it, which is very strange. And they didn't ask about it because it wouldn't be appropriate. So they waited for Shabbat to finish and then they did ask. And he's telling them that, you know, something happened in the heavens that was really magical and adorable. And he was able to see it because he had that special kind of sight. and so he's like we're making a trip we're going to this uh town far away uh and we're going to see about that event and they didn't know he didn't give all a lot of details but they showed up at this this shoemaker's door uh hours and hours away and uh knocked in the i think it was the middle of the night or something like that the guy opened the door and he's like wow this is the bell shent like one of the most famous Jews in the world at the time and come on in. And it's like, why are you here? Like, I'm just a shoemaker. He's like, what happened on Friday night? It's like, what do you mean? Friday night, what happened? Something happened. Tell me about it. It's like, well, you know, we're very poor. And usually when I come back from the synagogue, there's really no food for us to eat. You're supposed to have a kind of celebratory meal. I didn't have any expectations that we'd have anything, even bread, because we're so poor. But the table was all set. And I didn't get angry thinking that my wife took charity, you know, begged for the money or anything. I just, you know, started to, you know, come in and and be not reactive. I'm totally paraphrasing this, but basically what happened was the wife told, the husband, the shoemaker, that she found a glove with a gold button on it. And she was able to sell the gold and buy enough food for a really nice Shabbat dinner. And he was so joyful. He was dancing around the table over and over again, just like the most joyous thing. Like he just won the lottery or something and all the angels noticed and everything. It was a really beautiful thing. And The celebration that was happening in the heavens.
Derek Sivers
There's a tiny story in my newest book called Useful Not True about a prisoner in a jail who's told, this is Alcatraz, nobody's ever escaped from this prison ever, you'll never escape. and he has this hopeless approach versus telling a prisoner there's a trap door in here somewhere. Good luck. And just by telling somebody that there is a trap door in here somewhere, it makes them look at everything differently. Suddenly every little brick is a potential exit. I think about this with this idea of messages coming through, that if you tell somebody there are messages or this has a meaning or look at this photo or look at this world in front of you, it has messages for you. They'll find them if they're expecting them and they might not find them if they're not.
Stephan Spencer
One thing that kind of a core corollary to that is if you get messages like intuitive hits or whatever, and you don't act on them, then you'll stop getting them because that's disrespectful. Like you got a gift from above. I remember my number two guy in the company here was sharing in a team meeting that he was driving. His wife was in the car, son in the backseat. And his wife says, get in the right lane, which was weird. Just out of the blue, get in the right lane. And she repeats herself, get in the right lane. And he still doesn't do it. And then she yells at him, get in the right lane. And guess what happens just a second after he got over into the right lane, a crash in the left lane. So you have to take those messages and do something with them because it's disrespectful otherwise.
Derek Sivers
That's what I love about your show. And what you're doing is helping people notice these things around them, calling their attention to this. In a way, you are the one saying, look around or listen to those messages. Look for them. Listen to them.
Stephan Spencer
Another way to think about it is to show up and say, I'll go first. I was at the Genius Network annual event years ago, sat next to an elderly gentleman who I didn't really know. This was at breakfast on one of the days. And we just, I strike up a conversation. I share some of my crazy stories with him. And he's like, oh, I got one for you too. And I don't know how often he shared it or if he ever shared it or whatever, but I'm anonymizing it. I don't even remember his name. But he was in a grocery store and the guy in front of him who was checking out turns to this guy and says, your mom wishes you a happy birthday and she loves you. And he pays and he leaves. And guess what? It was that guy's birthday. And his mom had passed.
Stephan Spencer
People are not willing to shout these things from the rooftops because they don't want to be marginalized and considered crazy or charlatans or anything like that. So they keep it to themselves unless you go first.
Derek Sivers
Do you know who Darren Brown is? The British magician?
Stephan Spencer
I've heard of him. I don't really know him.
Derek Sivers
If you look him up on YouTube, he's got a video. Maybe you'd have to search for Darren Brown Lucky or Luck. He went to a working class, or let's just say like a sad kind of factory town in Northern England somewhere where the economy was not doing great. And he and his team pulled around and did some research to find somebody who was self-described lucky and somebody who was self-described unlucky. And then he hung around this town for a week doing some experiments, hiding little messages, like literally like leaving messages on sidewalks, putting signs up in storefronts to the people that were self-described as lucky and self-described as unlucky. And you won't be surprised to hear this, but the person who was self-described as lucky noticed all of these little messages. And the person that was self-described as unlucky not only didn't notice any of the messages, money left on the street, on the pavement where he was walking. Eventually, they had to put his sign on a giant advertising truck that drove around in front of wherever he was with his name on it saying, No, Jeffrey, call this phone number. If you just call this number, there's a reward waiting for you. Just call it. He didn't even notice the truck with his name in giant font as high as he is. And he was shown the video later and he was just like, "oh, well, you know, what can you do?"
Stephan Spencer
"What can you do?" What a perfect response.
Derek Sivers
But had he called that number, they were going to give him, you know, 10,000 pounds or whatever it was. All he had to do was just call the number. But they put out ads in the paper that he reads every day. They put signs in the shops that he went to every day. He didn't notice any of them. And granted, I mean, these things can be played up for the sake of making entertaining television. But there is a great message that often the difference between lucky and unlucky is just paying attention.
Stephan Spencer
Was it Henry Ford who said, or Thomas Edison, I don't remember who, but if you're, oh gosh, what's the quote?
Derek Sivers
Whether you think you can or you think you can, you're right.
Stephan Spencer
Thank you. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right. I love that. Because you make your own reality. You make it true by your belief. And if you believe you're going to be lucky or you're going to be unlucky, so be it.
Derek Sivers
Could that apply to spiritual stuff? Could you say, "Whether you think there's a heaven or you think there's not, you're right?" Or "Whether you think there's a deeper meaning to life or you think there's not, you're right?"
Stephan Spencer
I think your belief is setting the parameters of your simulation. But I believe outside of the simulation.
Derek Sivers
Whoa, please explain. How do you mean?
Stephan Spencer
So, you know, you get this illusion. Some cultures call it maya, some call it samsara, or just an illusion. Nothing's real here. None of this. At least that's my understanding of it. That's what I was shown. And I have other episodes where I talk about my spiritual awakening and being shown the matrix and all that. But this reality that we live in is not reality. It's just hyper-realistic. So if you set your parameters by programming the simulation to have a very unlucky life because that's what you believe you deserve, order up. There you go. so yeah your belief and your worthiness and and your um your desire to create or do or be or whatever all that all that is already set up that's my understanding but this is some deep jewish kabbalistic wisdom is that the fulfillment actually came before the desire because you wouldn't have the desire if you didn't have the fulfillment and whether that fulfillment materializes into the physical plane or not is up to you right so if you if you desire so badly to have a successful business with eight figures in revenue and nine figures that's in your vortex that's already fulfilled it's just do you bring that into the physical reality or not. And that has to do with faith. That has to do with, you know, other, uh, other kinds of limiting beliefs and things that you might have that prevent that from actually materializing, but it's already been programmed into your simulation. Otherwise you wouldn't have the desire for it. Who has a desire for, let's say some strange Indian dessert that you've never heard of. Uh, and you're just some American guy, right? You don't like somebody said, offers you that dessert and says, would you like it? And I've never heard of it. And I've never seen it before. No, it's okay. I'll have the ice cream instead. It's like, well, that's because you never received the fulfillment. You never tasted it in the non-physical. And so you don't have a desire for it. Yeah. So that's my understanding of how this universe works.
Stephan Spencer
Yeah. All right. So what's the wisdom nugget we can leave our listener or viewer with to wrap the show up with a nice bow?
Derek Sivers
I swear I'm not just trying to sell a book. I don't care if anybody listening to this ever buys any of my books. But I've been thinking of this so much this past year, this idea of "Useful Not True" being the best judge of anything you hear. So even some of the stories you told today, instead of somebody arguing about whether that is absolutely, objectively, empirically, observably true for everyone, everywhere, always, you could just ask yourself, is this useful to me? Which puts the agency back onto you, and it presents the question to yourself of what am I going to do about it? Even if do means feeling at peace or being prepared to let go of something that was bothering you before. If you hear a story about a rabbi, if you hear a story about messages left for somebody unlucky in a British town, maybe that whole thing was a staged bit of TV. Maybe the rabbi's story was exaggerated or it's a fable. It doesn't matter. There's no point arguing whether it was absolutely true or not. Just ask yourself, so what? Meaning, not dismissing it, but so what am I going to do about it? If it's true, what would I do? If it's false, what would I do? Which of those choices is more useful to me? That's the real question.
Stephan Spencer
And a way to think about this in a kind of similar vein, and I use this all the time, is it's the willing suspension of disbelief.
Derek Sivers
That's beautifully crafted. Did you come up with that?
Stephan Spencer
I don't know.
Derek Sivers
That's really good. That's almost comic timing, especially the fact that the word disbelief is the last word in the sentence, which is it completely upends our expectations in a powerful way. That's really good. I really like that. Hey, you asked how I come up with my ideas. It's exactly a moment like that. Somebody giving you the feedback going, "Oh, Stephan, that's good. You should use that. Keep that. Write that down." The willing suspension of disbelief. I love that.
Stephan Spencer
I forget who said this, but I love the expression. That's a writer downer.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Yeah. You know, the song Yesterday by Paul McCartney, when he first came up with it, he could have sworn that somebody else wrote it. He went and asked everybody, who wrote this? Who wrote this? And everybody said, I don't know. So he said, well, I guess I did. So who knows? Maybe you just wrote that thing. If you don't know who came up with it, maybe it was you.
Stephan Spencer
One of my favorite useful, not true quotes is what gets measured gets managed. It's part of a longer quote, and it's actually misattributed to Peter Drucker. And I forget who actually said it, but it actually kind of goes counter to what you think it would be. But I still love what gets measured gets managed. So, you know, wear your aura ring if you actually want to do something with that data and take some actionable insights from the reports that you get and maybe change some behaviors. If you just kind of wing it without the data, then I mean, you're probably relying on something, whether it's intuition or what. But, you know, what gets measured gets managed. I like that quote. All right. So that's a great wrap up here.
Stephan Spencer
So if our listener or viewer wants to read your books or learn from you, even if they just want to look at your "what I'm doing now" page, which I love.
Derek Sivers
Thank you.
Stephan Spencer
Yeah. So maybe you should just for 30 seconds explain what this is, because I don't think I've ever seen any other personal website provide that kind of insight into your thinking and your priorities and your passions in the way that you do it.
Derek Sivers
Well, you'll see thousands of them now. About 10 years ago, I wondered what my friend Benny Lewis was doing. He's kind of a popular online guy, hard to track down, but he's somebody I cared about. and I would go to his social media and it would show me what he was eating today or an enviable photo from a travel. And I thought, no, but in the bigger picture, how are you doing, Benny? What's going on? I don't, there are hundreds of people like me that are wondering how you're doing. Wouldn't it be really useful to just have a page on your website that says, here's what I'm doing now. Here's what's going on in my life. The kind of thing that you would tell a friend you hadn't seen in a year. For those of us who have a personal website anyway, it's a really useful page to keep updated so that your random friends and acquaintances that might have met you once at the Genius Network or whatever might be wondering, hey, how is Stefan doing? That they could just go to a page on your website and read something you wrote last week about, in the bigger picture, here's what's up. Living outside of Tel Aviv, we've already packed up our stuff, we're moving a new home, not sure where yet. My podcast is going well. This is what's up with me. So I started doing that in 2015. I put a page on my personal website at Sivers slash now. Had it there for a couple months. And a guy named Gregory Brown noticed it and said, wow, that's really cool. I want to have that for my website. And so he put it up there. I tweeted the fact that somebody else did it. And by this, later that day, six more people put it on their personal websites, a slash now page to say what they're doing. And then I emailed my list about it. And now there are thousands and thousands of personal websites that have a now page, it's called, which is just a page to say what they're focused on now. It helps you remember your priorities. It helps you point people to that when you have to turn down a project or an invitation. You could say, sorry, you know, check out my Now page. I'm just really head down and focused on this. And it can be really great for all of your acquaintances that might just wonder how you're doing without needing to call you or text you to ask you. So I ended up putting all these pages together on nownownow.com. If you browse it, you can see the thousands of people from around the world that have a Now page on their personal website.
Stephan Spencer
Oh, that's cool. I'll check that out. But I was just looking at your sive.rs/now And I didn't know you had pet rats. So now I do.
Derek Sivers
Oh, they're so adorable. I took them on a walk today. I stuck them in my hoodie pockets and I went on a long walk in the forest for an hour. Just rubbing their little bellies the whole time on the walk. Rats are great pets. But to be clear, I hated rats until a year and a half ago when my boy asked if we could get rats as a pet. And I thought he was kidding. And he told me he was serious because I hate rats so badly. I killed many rats when I was living in a basement apartment in Boston. And rats were my nemesis, my vicious enemy. And now I love them so much. I cuddle them. I kiss them every day. They're such sweet pets. They curl into my lap and sleep while I'm working. They're so sweet.
Stephan Spencer
That's awesome. I love it. And it's unexpected. It's kind of the surprise and delight, you know, where people don't know what to expect. And then you drop a cute, fun thing like that into your now page that you're taking my watch.
Derek Sivers
It's not written by an AI.
Stephan Spencer
Yeah, right. What AI would ever think to talk about rats as little hand warmers? I don't know. Probably only the Derek Sivers clone.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, set up a Derek Sivers personality at chatgpt.com. Anyway, Stephen, thanks so much for having me.
Stephan Spencer
Thank you. And thank you, listener. Go out there, make the world a better place. I hope you got inspired from this wonderful interview and do something with it. Take some inspired action. We'll catch you in the next episode. I'm your host, Stefan Spencer, signing off. All right.