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Why does Game of Thrones cost $70,000 to watch? What happens when you choose to believe that everything is your responsibility? And why do smart people not think that others are stupid?
Welcome back to How They Get Stuff Done. Today I’m speaking with Derek Sivers.
Derek Sivers has been a musician, a circus performer, an entrepreneur, and a TED speaker. He’s the founder of CD Baby, an online distributor of independent music. He’s written several books, including How to Live and Hell Yeah or No. Most recently, he’s been working on his latest book, Useful Not True.
Derek and I discuss choosing your beliefs, taking radical responsibility for whatever happens to you, the benefits of not having a to-do list, walking away from what doesn’t work for you, and more. Enjoy the conversation.
Find Derek over at sive.rs.
Find Derek over at sive.rs.
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Why will it cost you $70,000 to watch Game of Thrones? What happens when you choose to believe that everything is your responsibility? And why do smart people not think that others are stupid? Welcome back to How They Get Stuff Done. Today, I'm speaking with Derek Sivers.
Peter Akkies:Derek has been a musician, a circus performer, an entrepreneur, and a TED speaker. He's the founder of CD Baby, an online distributor of independent music. He's written several books, including How to Live and Hell Yeah or No. Most recently, he's been working on his latest book, Useful Not True. Derek and I discussed choosing your beliefs, taking radical responsibility for whatever happens to you, the benefits of not having a to do list, walking away from what doesn't work for you, and more.
Peter Akkies:Enjoy the conversation. Hi, Derek. Welcome to the show.
Derek Sivers:Thanks, Peter.
Peter Akkies:You have created quite a few things in your life. A successful company, you've written a bunch of books, not just books, but also a lot of articles. You've made a lot of music, and you're currently writing a new book and it's called Useful, Not True. What I got from your announcement page of this book is that it's about choosing beliefs that will get you the actions and the behavior that you want. Yeah.
Peter Akkies:Is that more or less right?
Derek Sivers:Yeah. Great summary.
Peter Akkies:Excellent. And one belief that you seem to have adopted is a very peculiar belief, one that I think people will find controversial, which is that everything that happens to you is your fault. Or maybe a softer way of saying it is that everything that happens to you is your responsibility. And if I were to project that onto me, I'd say everything that happens to me is my fault or my responsibility.
Derek Sivers:Why did you adopt that particular belief? Okay. I think that you can run through mindsets in your head. There are different ways of thinking about anything. Like, if somebody wronged you in the past and you're still angry at them, you can you can be angry and you can see how that feels, Or you can say, maybe they were trying to do the right thing.
Derek Sivers:Maybe they thought that was the right thing to do, and you can see how that feels. You could say, maybe they had no choice. Maybe there's some other information I'm unaware of here, and you can see how that feels in you. And you'll notice that a certain way of thinking about things will either make you feel better or improve your actions in some way. So, I think of the word useful as meaning whatever helps you do what you need to do or be who you wanna be or just feel at peace, to make peace with the past.
Derek Sivers:Right? So there were some situations in my life where I I found that I was thinking of everything is other people's fault. Like, how dare they do that to me? Those bastards, you know, or that jerk. I'd get mad at people that did things that seemed like they were against me.
Derek Sivers:And then when running through different ways of thinking about this in my head, one of the many ways I tried was thinking, what if it was my fault? What if I'm the one that created that scenario that made them act that way? And I went, oh, that actually feels good because that's something I can do something about. Right? If somebody's just an asshole, there's nothing you can do about that except be mad at them.
Derek Sivers:But if you say maybe I created the environment that made them act that way, well, now that's something you can do something about. Now you're not a victim. Now you can, be the opposite of helpless. You can be empowered thinking that. So I just noticed that thinking of everything as, as my fault, like, I'm the one that created that situation, that feels better.
Derek Sivers:And in fact, you can take it as far as you want. You can say the the fact that, there's a politician in office right now that I don't like, that's my fault.
Peter Akkies:Mhmm.
Derek Sivers:I could have done more work to, to help people think otherwise or or vote otherwise, I should say. The fact that there's a crime horrible crimes going on in India right now, that's my fault. I could do more to, you know, Gandhi did it. I can do it. Like, it's really empowering if you take that idea all the way.
Derek Sivers:And sorry. I know this is gonna sound so cheesy, but I was just telling my kid about, I'm sorry. My kid's 12 years old, and we were talking about, Gandhi. And it kinda blew my mind when I thought back about a lawyer in South Africa knowing that his country of a 1000000000 people is owned by England and him going like, yeah. I think that's my fault.
Derek Sivers:I think I can do something about that. I think we can get England to leave India. Oh my god. That's so amazing to think of that kind of empowerment or that that feeling that internal sense of capability. So and for me, the phrase everything is my fault is completely empowering.
Derek Sivers:But since I published that article on my blog a few years ago, some people have told me that this does not work for them. They say, no. I have a horrible guilt complex. I grew up with parents that told me all the time that that, this is your fault. This is your fault.
Derek Sivers:So I feel, crippled through life thinking that everything is my fault. And I say, okay. Great. So this belief doesn't work for you. All of these are just completely personal.
Derek Sivers:None of them are true. That's that's the reason my book is called Useful Not True is because, of course, it's not empirically, objectively, absolutely true that everything is your fault. It's a mindset you can choose to think if it works for you, same as everything else, same as believing that everything happens for a reason, same as believing that you're going to go to heaven when you die. None of these things are empirically true. They're not proven.
Derek Sivers:It's not conclusive. So instead, you just pick a mindset that works for you
Peter Akkies:for now. I was going to until you said the final bit about this may not work for some people ask you about that because so many advice givers where, you know, whether in person or online, they have discovered something that works for them. And now they go and shout from the rooftops. You should do this. And you and it will be great for you.
Peter Akkies:So I appreciate you pressing that point that it's got to be a useful belief for you. Yeah. I still think a lot of people are gonna hear what you say and say, but, Derek, I'm not responsible for all of these things. Right? This is just not true, and it is important to me to believe things that are true.
Peter Akkies:You disagree.
Derek Sivers:I have so much to say about that. There's almost nothing in this world that is true. Okay. So there are raw facts. So, yes, I just clapped my hands.
Derek Sivers:That's true. The words that I'm saying out loud, I have spoken them. Those are the words I just said. If I say, Peter, I hate you, does that mean that I hate you? Is that true?
Derek Sivers:No. It just means that all that we the only facts are I spoke those words in that order. Mhmm. The meaning is not true, the meaning imp what seems to be the clear meaning is not true. Any meaning you project onto it, like, Derek's being cruel right now because he said this or Derek is being ridiculous right now.
Derek Sivers:That's your personal meaning. So we live in a social interpersonal world. Almost none of what we say are raw facts. Raw facts are as boring as dirt. So people don't communicate raw facts.
Derek Sivers:People communicate perspectives. They're sharing their internal, mindset with somebody else. That's what what people feel and need to, communicate, is their internal mindset. Because if we're just talking raw facts, you can just point. You know?
Derek Sivers:You could just say, like, alright. Look. Here are the election results. This is how many people voted for this candidate and that candidate. There they are.
Derek Sivers:Just point. We don't need to talk about my feelings about this. That's just a raw fact. Any perspective that people share on this, is not true. It's just one way of looking at things.
Derek Sivers:So I define true as being objectively, absolutely, necessarily, empirically true. Anything short of that, I say is not true, which doesn't mean it's false. It just means it's not the only answer. So, when people say I want to believe things that are true, that's bullshit. You don't.
Derek Sivers:You want to believe things that support who you want to be. Or you wanna believe things that make you feel justified in your identity and how you think of yourself. Thinking that you're pursuing the truth is bullshit because almost nothing is absolutely true.
Peter Akkies:So perhaps people want to feel right like they they are right?
Derek Sivers:Yeah. Or they want to yeah. That that's a big one. They want to feel right in their past, or they want to feel, congruent with statements they've made in the past, or they wanna feel aligned with their social group because think, for example, if somebody think of somebody who you, say, like, a public person that you hate, whether it's, like, a politician that you strongly disagree with I can think of that. Or or a or a celebrity that you think represents everything wrong with the world.
Derek Sivers:Right? Now imagine that person saying something you really like. It's really hard to imagine, isn't it? Because that would kinda mess you up if you you had a congruent worldview that this person is bad. And suddenly they say something you like, it's like, oh, well, now what do I do with that?
Derek Sivers:If I start liking, does this mean that I now like this person? That's the problem with ideology is we want to we want this, like, congruent ideology instead of just taking ideas piecemeal, and I think it has something to do with the social implications of what we believe. That if we suddenly think that that evil politician said something good, oh, no. Does that mean I'm gonna lose all my friends? Does that mean I like the evil politician now?
Derek Sivers:Yeah. These these things have social implications.
Peter Akkies:Yes. And to some extent, it's neat and clean to be able to have things that you think are, I believe these things. These are true. We all need to believe these things. Yeah.
Peter Akkies:I am curious because you said for some people, for example, people may who maybe grew up with a lot of guilt and who are constantly beating themselves up. This is not a useful belief for them. Mhmm. Who is this a useful belief for? The specific belief going back to everything is my fault.
Peter Akkies:It's clearly working for you. What sorts of other people do
Derek Sivers:you think it might work for? Great question. If you find that you're constantly blaming other people, then this belief could help counteract that.
Peter Akkies:Okay. That's great. Let's let's let's stick with that one. I'm I'm gonna try it out for a while and and see how it feels. It's almost like put putting on a jacket.
Peter Akkies:You know, you you should be wearing a very nice jacket. 1 of one of
Derek Sivers:the suits you
Peter Akkies:and the other one doesn't.
Derek Sivers:And it's only for now. It doesn't have to be your final answer. In fact, nothing should ever be your final answer. You should always stay open to the changes in life, the time in your life. You know, sometimes it's winter, sometimes it's summer, and I mean that metaphorically in your life that there are beliefs that would be really useful for you to adopt right now that a year from now are no longer useful or maybe even a week from now.
Derek Sivers:Maybe there's something you need to believe this week. Oh, god. We're talking about productivity, such as the belief that this is the most important thing I need to be doing right now. Nothing else, but this matters right now. I need to focus on this 100% or it won't get done.
Derek Sivers:Everything else can wait. That's just a belief. That's not objectively, absolutely, empirically true. It's a belief that you choose to adopt to get the results, the actions that you want.
Peter Akkies:Right. And I noticed that you wrote on your website at some point also that what you say at any given point is what you believe at that time, and that people should not be surprised if you later on find yourself having a different opinion or an opposite opinion. I noticed this even in my work sometimes where I'll tell people, like, a certain tool I'm a big fan of or a certain workflow really works for me, and you should check it out. And then later on, I changed my mind on that. And, people seem to hate it, right, when we change our minds.
Peter Akkies:People seem to really not like that. They're I think people often think of I don't know if hypocrite is the right word, but people somehow feel that if you have a stable opinion for a long time, you're doing something correctly. I get the feeling that you this is not necessarily the way you think about it. You you seem like someone who wouldn't judge me for changing my mind on something.
Derek Sivers:I would judge you for not changing your mind. I mean, isn't that the whole point? Otherwise, you know, we'd still be babies eating baby food if we never changed our mind. For sure. For sure.
Derek Sivers:So I think that we should popularize changing our mind. I think it should be, culturally valued to change your mind because it's acknowledging the changes in life. Sorry. I'll use that metaphor again. Can you imagine if you only wore heavy winter clothes all year round?
Derek Sivers:You'd be an idiot. Or if you only wore hot summer clothes all year round. No. You change your clothes because the weather changes. So you should change your mindset and change your opinions because the situation changes.
Derek Sivers:See, this is the problem with thinking of things as absolutely true. We have this weird pull towards ideology of wanting to subscribe to a whole collection and say, this is the right answer. I am following, atomic habits because this is the right way.
Peter Akkies:Right.
Derek Sivers:In instead of just taking ideas piecemeal that work for you right now, people have this weird, almost religious desire to buy into a whole system.
Peter Akkies:Right.
Derek Sivers:And I can understand its temptation because it's simplifying to say, I follow atomic habits. That's what I do. I follow getting things done and atomic habits. That's my methodology. It it's simple, but it means that you're not thinking critically.
Derek Sivers:It's like you've jumped to a conclusion which is my definition of stupid by the way. I think most of what we call stupid is when people jump to a conclusion because they don't feel like doing the work of thinking so yeah, when somebody's being stupid, it means that they've jumped to a conclusion. So when people see that Atomic Habits is a bestseller and getting things done as a bestseller, and they say, I'm just gonna do that, it might be the belief that they need for now to help get over the, paralysis of indecision, but I think it's, it can be a problem for them when they don't acknowledge that the situation has changed. Their life circumstances have changed that now their job is a different kind of job that they had before, and so their previous methodology was better suited for their previous job.
Peter Akkies:Right.
Derek Sivers:And now they need a new approach. Something in their life has changed, you need to constantly update and not think of, not think of these things like a religion.
Peter Akkies:But I think you and I would make because I agree with you on these things, but I think you and I would make lousy politicians Because first of all, politicians who say that they're changing their mind tend to be seen as weak. And also saying, you know, the situation is more complicated than this. It's not the story is not that simple. You know, this was a great story back then. But right now, there's nuances.
Peter Akkies:I think I say that we would be lousy politicians because I think communication is much easier when you do make things simple for people. That's why, for example, Getting Things Done, Atomic Habits, those are very popular methodologies frameworks because David Allen and James Clear went out and said, this is how you get stuff done, and this is how you build better habits. And there's, like, a x point system, and you have to go and do it. It is easy to communicate it that way. It when you say, you know what?
Peter Akkies:It really depends on your personal circumstance. I think that is, first of all, more difficult to put into words, more difficult to put into a book, and harder to teach people. So I do think there's value in simplifying sometimes. Right? Would you disagree with that?
Derek Sivers:I agree, but there is a way to communicate this simply. I don't wanna be a politician, but if I had to be and I was in a situation like this, I would just say simply, that policy was the right response to that situation. We've got a new situation now that requires a different response.
Peter Akkies:Right now we need this.
Derek Sivers:Yeah. And it's taking the framing away from I've changed my mind, which just sounds whimsical, you know? I'd like chocolate ice cream. No. Wait.
Derek Sivers:Never mind. I think I want vanilla today. No. Yeah. Oops.
Derek Sivers:Yeah. Well put. But instead, it's just saying, like, previously, I said that the correct response was this because that was the response to that situation. The situation has now changed and requires a different response. The best, business book I've seen about this is called What Got You Here Won't Get You There.
Peter Akkies:That sounds familiar. Who is that by?
Derek Sivers:I think it's Marshall Goldsmith.
Peter Akkies:Okay.
Derek Sivers:Which he says very simply, the skills and approach you took to get from, nothing to the high level you're at in your career now. He's actually writing to executives. Like, the target audience are executives. The skills that got you from nothing to where you are are a different set of skills than you'll need now to get you from where you are to where you want to be. Said you need to change your approach.
Derek Sivers:And so for example, he said a lot of people get to the top by being selfish. They do things all themselves. They're extremely, effective, powerful. It calls attention to themselves, which makes them stick out of the pack. Once you are the leader, that same technique will destroy you.
Derek Sivers:It is absolutely the wrong thing to do. It will be your downfall. You need to start thinking more community. You need to start shining the spotlight on your team more than yourself since you are already at the top. You need to change your approach, and he goes into wonderful examples that he's learned from decades of being a company consultant.
Derek Sivers:So that's a wonderful simple way to communicate that idea is what got you here won't get you there.
Peter Akkies:Flexibility is something that we are
Derek Sivers:Yeah. That I am responding to the situation. The situation has changed. I have the responsibility to update my response to this changing situation.
Peter Akkies:Yeah, this is giving me very stoic vibes Derek is that something that you resonate with?
Derek Sivers:That's just another fucking ism.
Peter Akkies:I see. I believe to adopt at some point,
Derek Sivers:sort of. You can if some of the beliefs inside stoicism, are useful to you, then you can cherry pick the ones that work for you for now, and let them go when they don't.
Peter Akkies:Okay. You said earlier, or you defined what you think stupidity is, and one of the things that really struck me that you've written about in the past is you wrote smart people don't think others are stupid.
Derek Sivers:You saw that. Good. Yes.
Peter Akkies:I saw that, and that resonated with me because I went through so much of my life thinking that most other people in situations are stupid. I remember one time I was in college, and I applied for a job. We had, like, a a writing center where you could come there and bring in a paper that you'd written, and then people who work at the writing center, they would sort of help you, you know, make it into turn it into a better paper. And so I've been working at the writing center for a while, but there were a couple of students that were sort of like, I don't know, the chief of the writing center or whatever the whatever the title was. And I was applying for that job.
Peter Akkies:And I did not get that job because during the interview, I said the previous people who held that position were stupid. They were stupid and they did not know how to properly me more lessons than just this one to stop thinking of other people and other situations as stupid.
Derek Sivers:But
Peter Akkies:let's start with why did you write this? Why why did you feel the need to to go out and and and make this point that smart people don't think others are
Derek Sivers:stupid? For one, it's just a good title.
Peter Akkies:It really is. It's it's it rolls off the tongue.
Derek Sivers:Sometimes you start with an idea and the title comes later. Sometimes you start with the title.
Peter Akkies:And then you're like, I have to say something about this.
Derek Sivers:Yeah. Well, so in this case, I just noticed that it was okay. It was a situation where I was at a dinner with some friends, and one of them brought along one of her friends. And this woman was, like, at our dinner bitching about politics, and she was just saying, like, those people are just so stupid. And it's like, my friends and I usually have good conversations.
Derek Sivers:And once this woman was there just kind of declaring basically a quarter of the world to be stupid
Peter Akkies:Okay.
Derek Sivers:I just felt I felt like the I felt like the level of conversation dropped.
Peter Akkies:Mhmm.
Derek Sivers:Like, alright. If you really think a quarter of the world is stupid, I think you're not thinking this through. I think you've jumped to that conclusion because you don't feel like thinking this through. It feels better to you to just say those people are stupid, and then you can just feel righteous and good like you're smart and they're dumb and that's that.
Peter Akkies:And if only people listen to you Yeah.
Derek Sivers:And now I'm just gonna get back to, you know, eating my meal and watching a movie, and that's it. I've put it out of my head. So it takes a little more thought, but I believe anybody can think things through a little further and say, you know that people in China have a different belief system than people in Netherlands. You know that cultural thing different cultural values are rewarded in different places, and so the way that you grew up is not the only way of being. You know that, right?
Derek Sivers:And and you could ask anybody to think, well, okay. Yeah. I do know that. So could you see how, for somebody growing up in Beijing, that doing things this way would reward them in the same way that you get rewarded for being the opposite way in Netherlands? And and anybody could see that.
Derek Sivers:So I'm not even going to dismiss this woman at the table as being stupid. Oh, sorry. I'm not gonna dismiss her as stupid. I can rightly say that she was being stupid in that moment Mhmm. In the same way that I'll bet that even Einstein did some stupid things.
Derek Sivers:There are times when he was being stupid, and I'm sure we could probably read his biography and find examples of Einstein being stupid. So and there are times when somebody, has done very smart things. So first, I wanted to take the focus away from labeling people as a stupid person or a smart person because, again, I think that that's like a helpless belief. It's almost like just saying, well, that's
Peter Akkies:it's like
Derek Sivers:somebody's height or even worse, like their race. Like, well, that's that. You know?
Peter Akkies:Right.
Derek Sivers:Nothing you could do about that. But it's more encouraging and useful, I think, to think of stupid being stupid and being smart as things that we do. They're ongoing actions, not categories. So anybody can be smart and anybody can be stupid, and therefore it's our personal challenge to ourselves to be smart and help others try to be smart too.
Peter Akkies:This is yet another great belief that, I I as as I mentioned, I I I started adopting this at some point, this belief that other people are not stupid. It still requires practice sometimes. I appreciate the reminder.
Derek Sivers:Yeah. Yeah. It's who knows? Okay. There was a thing that happened this week in Northeast India about a couple touring on a motorcycle.
Derek Sivers:Oh, I heard about this. And I gotta admit, it made me quite sad yesterday, and I found myself being mad thinking that the people that did this crime are just bad people, and I I had to catch myself after just a few seconds and just go, okay. Hold on. Like, under what situations would people get into this belief system that would make them do this and, just think it through a little further instead of just, condemning people as just stupid or just bad, you know, so I have to keep reminding myself of it too.
Peter Akkies:Yeah. I worked with a coach once who said, Peter, just assume by definition that everyone is always doing their best. And as soon as I heard that, it, like, clicked for me. And from that point onwards, I've actually you know, you you have more compassion because Yeah. You think the reason people are acting this way is because of the way they grew up, because of the experiences they've had.
Peter Akkies:And do I wish they acted differently? Absolutely. But you can understand even if you don't approve, of how they how they acted. Still, I think your, you know, belief of don't not thinking other people are stupid is is a good one to put on. So let's let's do that.
Derek Sivers:Which, by the way, sorry, that that belief of everybody's doing their best, I would say that's one of those beliefs, like, that person maybe that person has a child in the back seat, and they're rushing to the hospital. It's like most people are not actually doing their best. They could most people could be doing a lot better. I think that that is too generous and not objectively true to say that everyone is doing their best. But, hey, if it makes you, if it changes your internal motivations and actions to believe that everyone is doing their best, then that's a useful belief for you.
Derek Sivers:Same as another one that I've heard people, really argue on behalf of is saying that everything happens for a reason. Oh. Like, no. It doesn't. They're like, yeah.
Derek Sivers:It does. Derek, everything happens for a reason. Like, no, it doesn't. Like, yes. Oh, yes.
Derek Sivers:It does. I'm like, alright. You know what? This clearly this belief works for you.
Peter Akkies:Right. If you
Derek Sivers:want to believe that everything happens for a reason, go for it. It's not objectively true. It has not been empirically proven, but go for it if you wanna believe that. So I think the same thing
Peter Akkies:with me as weird because Yeah. Sort of in a deterministic sense of the world, like, on the level of atoms, perhaps this is true, but certainly not at the level of a reason that you could, you know, divine. Right? So and randomness exists. So but, yeah, like you're saying, if that I think this is what we were talking about earlier.
Peter Akkies:Right? If you put on the belief, for example, that everything happens for a reason or that everybody else is always doing their best or everybody, including myself, is always doing their best, that for me putting on that belief actually improved my actions and my behavior, which is which is, I think, the the the point of your upcoming book. Right? It's like if you I find myself being more compassionate towards others by putting on that belief. And who knows?
Peter Akkies:Maybe at point, I won't need that anymore, and then I'll start putting on a different belief.
Derek Sivers:Once that compassion is not serving you and it's time for you
Peter Akkies:to be a cruel dictator. Exactly.
Derek Sivers:No. I believe that everybody's doing their worst. Exactly. Get back to work, all of you. This is my current belief.
Derek Sivers:I was wrong before. I've changed my mind.
Peter Akkies:Let's be more generous and say when the compassion comes more automatically. Yeah. Okay. So you seem like quite an intentional person. Right?
Peter Akkies:So you're you're literally thinking about what should I believe to be to, like, behave better, essentially, to to put it crudely. And since a lot of the people that I connect with are really into productivity and improving themselves, I wanted to ask you about how you are intentional in that way. For example, do you have goals for yourself? Do you have a list of things where you say, you know what? This is what I would like to achieve, whether it's this month, this year, or in your lifetime, or is that not the
Derek Sivers:way that you operate great question alright listeners I'm going to challenge you to try I'm sure everybody here has made lists before. I'm going to challenge you to try something to see how it feels which is to destroy the list and just keep the most important thing from that list and get rid of everything else, toss everything else in a virtual box.
Peter Akkies:Blasphemy, Derek.
Derek Sivers:Blasphemy. Crate that you can open up later when you are done with the one thing you have chosen as the most important thing, on that list. Take the one thing and destroy the list. For me, that way works much better. I hate the way a list feels.
Derek Sivers:Anytime I'm operating in the mindset of a list, I'm too aware of the other things on that list. I know that I'm doing number 2 right now and that number 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 are there. Or I'm doing 1 now, but damn it. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are waiting for me. Or this is number 5.
Derek Sivers:I need to finish this to get back to number 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. I hate that mindset. I hate, being aware of the other things on the list. It's the opposite of the state of flow. So to me, I do not use lists.
Derek Sivers:It was strange. I was actually at a dinner with a bunch of really smart people. Actually, some 5 of my favorite authors on Earth were at a dinner that I was invited to, and, everybody was talking about how they use lists, and every single person at that table was talking about their methodology for using lists for everything, and then they turned to me, like, how about you, Derek?
Peter Akkies:What did you do?
Derek Sivers:I just I just had this look on my face as if, you know, everybody was sucking oysters through their nostrils. I was just like, oh, god. This sounds awful. All of this. I hate it.
Derek Sivers:No. I don't use lists for anything. I hate lists. And apparently, I was the only one at the table, but that's what I'm saying. Listeners, viewers, try this for yourself.
Derek Sivers:Try destroying your list and just pick the one thing. Do that one thing to completion, obsess on that one thing until it's done, and then open up the virtual crate. See what's in there now next, and pick the one next thing, and take that out of there. Close the box. Put the crate in the virtual attic or basement, and do that one thing to completion again.
Derek Sivers:This way of working is so much better to me. It's so much more rewarding to pick one thing and do it all the way instead of spreading yourself too thin and piddling on a bunch of little things on the list.
Peter Akkies:So I'm going to push you on this because I find this a fascinating topic I there are 2 different things here right one of them is what what is on your list? What are the things that you think deserve your attention at some point? Which is presumably why you're putting them on a list. The other thing is how you work through a list or how you work generally. So I think a lot of people would say it does make sense to focus on one thing at a time.
Peter Akkies:And I certainly shouldn't half finish one thing on my list, then a third finish another one, and so on. But I think you can focus on one thing at a time and still have a list of things that you're working through which perhaps for you doesn't feel good but people like you and me we do have I think a lot of flexibility in terms of what we can work on each day And I often hear from people who say, well, I'm the CEO of a medium sized company. I have a lot of different responsibilities. Or people say, well, I'm a parent, situation for a lot of people lists help them feel like okay at least I know what needs doing I can't do everything I certainly can't do a little all at once I'm going to do this first and then that Whereas I think people who have a lot of different responsibilities and not so much flexibility in their schedule might say, this sounds great, and I can work through things 1 at a time. And when I'm focusing on one task, really focus on that, while not thinking of all the other ones that still need to happen.
Peter Akkies:But I cannot just shred all my lists or even put them away for too long because then I'll forget to get the medicine from my mom. Or if I'm a CEO, like, I'll completely forget about this department, and things are gonna go up in flames there. So what would you just say to someone who has those concerns?
Derek Sivers:Well, first, your situation that you're in is under your control. That it's not like, oh, I can't help it, that I'm in this situation. You can it's all under your control, you can change your situation, you can let go of responsibilities, you can tell people sorry I'm not going to go get your medicine, you'll have to do that, and hey department I can't be in charge of this anymore. I've got to focus on my main responsibility, which is this one thing, and, you're gonna have to take care of this by yourself or find somebody else to do it. Sorry.
Derek Sivers:I I haven't worked inside a company for many many years, so maybe the wrong person to ask about working inside a company, but see even that was a choice. Long ago I did work inside a company, and I said I don't like this. This isn't working for me. I'm going to make the change, and it took a couple years of hard work to extract myself from that and be completely independent, but I did the work to change my situation. So that's the that's the main idea, but the other main idea is that nobody really cares about the other little things that you're bad at.
Derek Sivers:I don't put brush my teeth and eat on a list, but yet they get done anyway. And I don't put go to sleep and wake up on a list, but they get done anyway. And I think that you could destroy the list and have just your one thing that you're doing, the one thing that you've decided would make a big difference. If you did this one thing well, you would be greatly benefited, and you would be rewarded, and it would be worth it. And all the other things can just fall down to the importance of, just brushing your teeth.
Derek Sivers:Like, maybe you do it, maybe you don't. If you miss a day, it's not the worst thing, or, yeah, I was trying to gonna try to think of other day to day examples, but let's just say I'm I can't even think of them because they're just not that important to me. I don't focus on them. I don't put them on a list. If they don't happen, it's fine.
Derek Sivers:My house was really messy for the last 2 weeks because I was just focused on something. And then when a friend called, actually our mutual friend in Bangalore called, and while we were talking, I just put the earbuds, and I cleaned the house for an hour while we talked, and then the house got cleaned without me paying attention to it, because I just did it in the background while we were talking, and, it wasn't on a list. It was just, anyway, so that's that's my take on it for what it's worth. This is the mindset that works for me. Maybe having the list works for you, but anyway, I I definitely challenge anybody listening to this to try destroying the list and just thinking of yourself as focused on one and only one thing, and do that one thing any chance you get just do that one thing and when it's done it'll make a big difference for you maybe for a lot of other people and they won't care about those other things you did not do.
Peter Akkies:I certainly want to ask you a little bit more about focusing on the one thing, But you got me thinking of something that happened to me the other day. I actually, just last week started experimenting with having a much more minimalist kind of list. I didn't quite throw away my to do list, but I decided to choose a different tool to write down my my list. And the and this tool really forces you to be really minimal with the number you know, you can put maybe 6 things on there a day and other otherwise, it's too much. And I realized 6 is already a lot more than 1.
Peter Akkies:But I'm used to using tools where I keep track of what I want to do in great detail. And so one of the things I needed to do is buy some olive oil, because I run out of olive oil when I wanted to make dinner. And so I put that on the longer to do list, but I switched to this other tool, this other app where I'm forced to only put top priority items and and buy olive oil was not one of them. So when it came time to cook and I was sort of halfway through cooking, I was like, wait a second. I've ran out of olive oil, which is quite inconvenient.
Peter Akkies:And I have this tendency where I want to be on top of little things like that. And I think a lot of people really want to be on top of little things like that. And it's the use the example of brushing your teeth. I always use the example of going to the dentist. You know, I I think
Derek Sivers:Okay.
Peter Akkies:This is I just set up repeating reminders to do this like, you know, at least to go to the dental hygienist every 6 months. Like reminders like, make your next dental hygienist, you know, appointment. Okay, fine. But I think if I were not to do that, I might not go every 6 months. Months.
Peter Akkies:I might wait a year and then realize, oh, I should really go. It's the kind of thing that I like to be on top of, and I think a lot of people care about that as well. So are you essentially advocating for not sweating the little things so much?
Derek Sivers:Definitely. But this is just off the top of my head. I've actually never thought about this. There are times in my day when I'm working, and there are times in my day when I can't work anymore. I'm done.
Derek Sivers:And I think a lot of the little things get done during those times when I'm not working, so I would never put buy olive oil on a list. I think that when I'm at the grocery store, I go, oh, yeah. I think I need olive oil. Like, that's when I would think about it, and that's fine for me. And it may be that the visual metaphor that I'm thinking of of the trunk in the attic or the basement is maybe you could argue that everything in that trunk is a list.
Derek Sivers:I disagree. I think it's the wrong metaphor, but somebody could say that, oh, that's the way I think of my list. The the one thing I'm doing now or on that list is my fills my attention and everything else on that list is not there. Clearly, you know, David Allen, the Getting Things Done takes that approach. Right.
Derek Sivers:But I just to me the the feeling of a list, didn't feel good. So I but I do have many things that are in the trunk, in the virtual attic or basement that are locked away, and when I am done with this thing, which by the way this thing might take months or even years, but when I'm done with that thing I will open up that trunk or sometimes I will just browse through this virtual trunk, and it's not so literal. I'm just using that metaphor for this conversation. In those moments when I'm having downtime, you know, I'm done working for the day. Maybe even I'm, like, having a a beer with a friend or whatever, just sitting in the backyard and looking at the or taking a walk in the forest, which is something I do every day.
Derek Sivers:Maybe it's during those times that I will think about those other things, but not when I'm working. So I think maybe just the whole idea is that I just keep the other things far far locked away. And by the way, when I say it may take years, my company that got very successful, it was called CD Baby. I did it for 10 years from the age of 28 to 38, and it was such an obsession that all I did was this one thing. Nothing else got done.
Derek Sivers:I did not, learn a foreign language or start a workout program or whatever, and I guess I guess I went to the dentist a few times. It's fine. But for 10 years, I obsessed on this one thing. 7 AM to midnight, 7 days a week, I did nothing but this one company. It was like a the one single thing on my, my to do was was a one item for 10 years, and it was intensely rewarding, hugely rewarding.
Derek Sivers:Personally, financially, professionally, etcetera. Every adverb, was rewarding. And then when I sold the company and I was done, I kinda lifted up my head and went, okay. So, the rest of life. At the age of 38, 10 years later, I got back to the rest of life, but it was a 10 year obsession.
Derek Sivers:Same thing with, my last book that I wrote. It was called How to Live. I did virtually nothing else for 4 years but write that book. And it was so rewarding. It's such a great book, and I'm so happy with it, but it's because I obsessed on it and did nothing but that for 4 years.
Derek Sivers:But just work on that book, and, damn, it's good, and I'm so happy with it, but if that was like a thing on a list I don't know that would just be a different mindset to me, so anyway this is what works for me for now.
Peter Akkies:Yeah. Let's I really want to ask you more about how you got such singular focus, But before we
Derek Sivers:make Sorry. So I'll I'll just answer that quickly. It's just for 1, just from experience, from just noticing that if I had this list of, like, 9 things, I'm like, I gotta do a little bit of this, or that mindset of, like, well, every morning I wake up and I do this for hour, and then I do this for 30 minutes, and then I do that for 1 hour, and I do this for 2 hours. I hate those days. My least favorite days in life are the days where I spent a little bit of time on this a little bit of time on that My favorite days in life are when I spend my entire day doing one thing I wake up at 5:30 in the morning and I bounce out of bed because I've got this idea of the thing I was working on yesterday.
Derek Sivers:I have a new insight. I sit down at 5:40 after a cup of tea, and I do this one thing, and next thing I know it's midnight. And I've been doing it for 18 hours, and I go to bed going, goddamn, that was a good day. Like, I love those days so much where I focus on one thing all day long, maybe even forget to eat. That means it was a great day.
Derek Sivers:Maybe you've got a different definition.
Peter Akkies:Is there again a sort of privilege here that as creators we have this, which is not easy to do for people that are in, say, a more corporate setting doctor.
Derek Sivers:Nobody forced you to take the corporate setting. Nobody for you know, you chose that shit because you thought you wanted that. And if it's not working for you, if you're listening to this going, oh, yeah. I wish I could be like that, but I can't. Well, it just means that maybe the choice you made in the past is not working out for you then, and it's time to update your plan accordingly.
Derek Sivers:Nobody's forced into their situations that they're in. Yeah. I've had some bad jobs in the past where I had a lot of responsibilities, and it's because I noticed that I hated having lots of little things to do in the day that I quit. Even though I had no money and no savings or whatever, I quit because I said I can't live like this anymore. And I quit my job and I figured out something else.
Derek Sivers:So, yeah. I'm I mean, we we that's that's the responsibility thing. Right? Everything's my fault. I chose this.
Derek Sivers:This job I'm in, this job I have or my or even my situation. Sorry. I'm I'm speaking, like, of of my past self. Like, if I am responsible for a bunch of people and a bunch of things and I have to walk the dog and I had it's like, well, I chose to get a dog. Maybe is this choice not working out for me anymore?
Derek Sivers:Maybe would this dog be happier with somebody else? Because I'm pretty grumpy when I have to walk the dog and pick up its poo every day. I don't think I wanna keep living like this. I think I thought I wanted a dog, but I don't anymore. Well, there's something you can do about that.
Derek Sivers:You can find somebody else that would be happier to have your dog than you. Find somebody with that would be happier to have your job than you. There are things that you can do about this.
Peter Akkies:So I find myself tending towards your end of the spectrum on on on, you know, radically changing your life to live in a way that works better for you. I did it myself at some point. I was working as a consultant actually in Silicon Valley, where I I believe you also live for some time. And at some point, I was like, this is not working for me. This is too stressful.
Peter Akkies:But, you know, I have friends who are, let's say, in their thirties or in their forties, and they're doctors or lawyers. They've been doing that for a long time. Their whole identity is wrapped up in being a doctor or a lawyer or whatever. And it's really the only solution to not feeling like you have a 1,000 things going on to just quit?
Derek Sivers:What do you think I'm gonna say? Yes, Peter. That is the only way.
Peter Akkies:That is the only way. That's
Derek Sivers:there is no other way. Now look there are, I think it's the the root of philosophy is thinking of how to be okay with your situation in life. I think that's definitely the root of Buddhism, it's the root of a lot of things is saying well, okay my leg was blown off I don't have a left leg. There's nothing I can do about that. I could be angry about it, or let me think of another way of thinking of this to where I can be okay with it.
Derek Sivers:Maybe I can be grateful for it. Maybe I can think of other benefits I get from the fact that I don't have a left leg to bother with, so there are many things in my life right now. If it were completely up to me, I would not be living in Wellington, New Zealand right now. Mhmm. I re I phrased that sentence wrong.
Derek Sivers:It is completely up to me. Is it is it
Peter Akkies:too windy there? I've heard that that's one of the windiest cities.
Derek Sivers:I love the wind. Oh. You know? I love the way it blows my hair around. So, yes, it is the windiest city in the world, and it's one of the things I love about Wellington.
Derek Sivers:But there are other things I don't love about Wellington, but I'm here because I love my boy, and his mom has a job at the government of New Zealand, which is based in Wellington, so she needs to be here. And I need to be where she is because she needs to be where he is, and I wanna be where he is. So I live in Wellington, which I'm not thoroughly happy about. So instead I have to find ways to be okay with this situation. So this is all answering your question about the doctor in their forties that's very established and is not going to quit.
Derek Sivers:So it's like well then okay, so this, is not for you. Then you take a different approach which is to find a way to be okay with your situation, find a way to be okay with the fact that, you can't focus on just one thing and that everything we've talked about is moot here. Yeah. I think This doesn't apply to you.
Peter Akkies:Yeah. I think of what you say is, for some reason in my head, it's called radical responsibility. Because that's what it sounds like to me. Right? It's just radically taking responsibility for everything that's going on, not complaining that as a doctor, you have to work too many hours or whatever it may be.
Peter Akkies:They never give you enough minutes per patient or anything like that. And I like the Buddhist flavor of gratitude that you introduced there. I wanted to backtrack a little bit to something that you said earlier, when we talked about the fact that I that I forgot to buy olive oil. And you said that what would probably happen to you is you'd find yourself in the grocery store and you'd be thinking, oh, I need to get some olive oil. This, I think, requires a degree of mindfulness that for some people is very difficult.
Peter Akkies:Because I think a lot of people are in the grocery store and they're thinking about work or they're thinking about their mom who needs medicine or they're thinking about other things. And they're not really they're thinking about, oh I'm gonna make a meal I'm a join what do I have in my cupboard and and I think that tools like lists are essentially crutches for when you cannot devote your full attention to something because you've got other things that you're trying to juggle at the same time. Would it be fair to say that you don't really feel a need for lists because you've just designed your life in such a way that you can really focus on work when you're working, on dinner when you're, you know, need to make dinner, and on your your son when you want to be spending time with him?
Derek Sivers:Maybe. Maybe again, it's just a different way of thinking of the same thing, the way that at that dinner with my favorite authors, they told me that the things I have in my virtual trunk are a list. And I'm like, ew, no. They're not a list. And they said, oh, I think of that as a list.
Derek Sivers:I disagree, but okay. So I do mostly follow the getting things done methodology, but the the things in my, projects file are kept very out of sight. They're really practically a someday. Like, I think of all of my project files like a someday. There's really just one thing for me and everything else is someday, but the olive oil if I was just at a moment on a Tuesday thinking oh I'm going to need olive oil this weekend well then kind of GTD style I just oh I go to the local grocery store website, olive oil, click, click, click.
Derek Sivers:Okay. Done. You know, it's just it's out of my head. It's done. Same thing with, and that's what I mean.
Derek Sivers:Like, that's before I even start either that's before or after my my working time. That's in the moments where I'm just sitting there, you know, taking a break, stretching my legs, walking in the woods, cooking a meal, whatever. I'll do these little things like, oh, I need to close that bank account. I'm like, I'll just do it right now. Send the email.
Derek Sivers:Close the account. Okay. I send the email. Okay. I need to close my account.
Derek Sivers:Alright. It took 30 seconds. It's done. I just do those things and get them out of the way, but then like the advice of getting things done if it's going to take more than a minute or 2, well, then it's a project, and I'll put it in a projects folder that I have on my computer that I almost never look at the but if because like I said, I really do think of it as a someday. Yeah.
Derek Sivers:So it's like, yeah, I'll I'll do this sometime. It's written down somewhere, but I'm really just doing this one thing I'm working on this book to completion when this book is done I will look at other things in the projects folder and say, okay, what is worth my full attention now? And I'll do or or maybe I'll say, hey, before I start a new thing, let me quickly bang out these other things that will take 1 to 3 days each, and I'll just get this done. I'll get that done. Okay.
Derek Sivers:I'll take care of this. Alright. It's Monday. I can just take care of this for few days, and it'll be done for good. And then I'll say, alright.
Derek Sivers:I've got this. I'm starting a new building a new application. This is going to take like 6 months of work. Everything else is going to wait. Nothing else matters, but this, you know, and now I'm focused on this one thing which I will do to
Peter Akkies:completion Yeah Do you subscribe to the belief that if something is important enough it will come back to your mind without having to write it down?
Derek Sivers:I guess not I mean, a little bit. There have been times when I've like I said, I do walk in the forest for about an hour a day. I live at the edge of a forest, so every day almost without fail I go on a long walk in the forest, and I do not bring any devices or anything. No phone. No nothing.
Derek Sivers:I don't even have house keys. There's a number pad on my door, so I love that. I just bring nothing and, that's on purpose and if I think of something on the walk, I have to just trust that if it's important or interesting enough, I'll remember it when I get back.
Peter Akkies:I ask that because you've mentioned the getting things done framework, the atomic habits framework, another one, productivity framework that's been really popular in recent years is the Building a Second Brain framework by Tiago Forte, which you may have heard of. Heard of it. Yeah. A lot of people ask me what I think of that. And I always wanted to say I think I have a pretty good first brain.
Peter Akkies:Like, my my first brain does a pretty good job. I completely understand the tendency, though for people to just want to capture, like, any thought that seems important. Right? It's like, oh my god. I have an insight.
Peter Akkies:I have to capture this.
Derek Sivers:The reason I haven't read this book yet is because I feel it's preaching to the converted. Okay. My my fingers are on a typewriter most of my waking hours. I have a nice keyboard at a, upright, what do you call it, desktop? And it and, most waking hours, my fingers are doing this.
Derek Sivers:I just write, I'd say God at least at least 12 hours a day often 15 16 hours a day my fingers are typing something and I stop to read things and that's and except for my walk in the forest every day or of course hanging out with my kid that's my life, and, so yeah while while my fingers are on the keyboard I capture everything, every little daydream, every little, like, you know, what's what's the 3rd biggest city in Turkey? Like, if I wanted to get to know Turkish culture, but I didn't want to be in Istanbul, where might I go someday? Every I don't know, yeah, that's just, Yeah, I have so many of those things and I write them all down. So I journal like a motherfucker. Where does this go?
Derek Sivers:Yeah. I I have journal that's, like, I have a daily diary, but then I also, after years of a daily diary, going like, you know, over and over and over again in my daily diary, I am writing on the subject of, let's say, whether to get a dog or not, or should I move back to Singapore again or not, or what are my thoughts on romantic relationships? I keep coming back to the same subject. So finally, I said, you know what? I think I need to put these recurring subjects into a separate folder.
Derek Sivers:So I made a new folder called thoughts on that has, god, I don't know, a 100 something subfolders, which are, like, thoughts on dog, thoughts on Singapore, thoughts on relationship. And whenever I'm sitting and sometimes there's specific people, so if, for example, if somebody's a major person in my life, whether romantic or not, and if I have a lot of ongoing thoughts about that person that I wanna write about instead of just including it in my daily diary, I have a separate folder for my thoughts on that person. So I made because I do everything in UNIX and the terminal, I made a little shortcut where if I just hit the letter t space, say dog, it goes into the dog folder and
Peter Akkies:Dog's dog. Opens up a
Derek Sivers:new file with, year year year dash month month dash day day dot txt. So if I am sitting here going like, I don't know. Should I get a dog? T space dog. Start typing.
Derek Sivers:You know? What are the pros and cons of getting a dog? You know, my friend has a dog and just loves a dog. Like, you know, that's your responsibility, but this how could I mitigate that responsibility? I just sort out my thoughts in writing, and I work through things.
Derek Sivers:And, Peter, I think that this has been the most powerful, meaningful, transformational thing in my entire life is how much I journal. I feel it is the greatest superpower. That combined with my daily diary where I write down what I did today and what I was thinking, what was on my mind, has been so useful. I wish that I would have started it all the way back. I wish I would have been doing this since I was 5.
Derek Sivers:You know? Instead, I didn't start till I was 42, and that's a minor regret. I'm 54 now, so I've been doing it for 12 years. But at least for the last 12 years, I have a near perfect log of my days, so I can tell you what day I, flew to Madrid and where I ate that day and what day I met Alicia the first time and what we talked about and what was the last time we talked and what we talked about and, was I actually feeling a month and a half ago? Or let's see better.
Derek Sivers:How was I actually feeling 5 years ago when I was deciding to move to England? Was I moving out of excitement on the destination, or was I moving out of a aversion to my current place? Let me look back because I don't remember it very well. God, that my diary and journals are so useful. They help my they help me see my past clearly which helps me make future decisions better.
Derek Sivers:They help me work through subjects. Say for the I'll just give the dog example because last week I was thinking of getting a dog, which is a subject I've been thinking of off and on since 2017. And to have all my thoughts, the pros and cons of a dog in one folder that then I can just read through all of my thoughts since 2017 about getting a dog or not. Sorry. That sounds so trivial.
Derek Sivers:I should have picked a better example. I do have these on much more meaningful ones. Like, what is my definition of home? What what do I want home to be? That's a much more philosophical one, but okay.
Derek Sivers:Yeah. Let's pick that instead. It is so useful for me to look back on years of thoughts on that one subject, how I was thinking of home 6 years ago, 2 years ago, 1 year ago, to see recurring themes that have persisted the whole time that never go away or to see how I was thinking so about it 5 years ago until I tried being nomadic and now I think differently about it. It's just oh God. It's so it's just like my journaling is just the greatest thing in my life.
Peter Akkies:So you've been building a second brain for many years now. Maybe before it was cool to do this in a a very straightforward way in a journal. Would you ever consider letting an AI loose on it so you can ask, hi, Chat GPT. What was the first time I thought of this person, and what did I think of them?
Derek Sivers:I don't need to. I could just I type the word grep. Okay. They're all they're all plain text files. I don't need to get all complicated with an AI.
Derek Sivers:You could just that's part of why I keep everything in plain text instead of paper journals or some silly, you know, online system where I have to pay some business to journal, and I have to be online. No. No. No. I I do a lot of my work offline.
Derek Sivers:I do I intentionally disconnect from the Internet, and that's when I get my best work done anyway. So I will never use an online tool, and so all these are in plain text files. So they're just built in tools to any computer, whether it's command f on a Mac or, the word grep on a Linux terminal. I can just say show me every occurrence of the word Erica in my diary, or show me the first occurrence of Erica the day we met. Show me, how many times I've ever mentioned Erica in my diary.
Derek Sivers:When was the last mention of Erica in my diary? Diary. All these are you don't need to pay some company for a giant, 10,000,000,000,000 bytes of, information to do that.
Peter Akkies:I just had to get AI into the conversation because that's what generates clicks these days. There are cops. Oh, yeah. Right.
Derek Sivers:Peter needs clicks.
Peter Akkies:You've mentioned disconnecting a few times now, and I've I've been wanting to to hear your thoughts on this. Because first of all, you mentioned that you like to go on a daily walk in the forest for about an hour. You have written quite a bit on your website about how much you enjoy disconnecting. I'll briefly quote you. You said all the best, happiest, and most creatively productive times in my life have something in common being disconnected.
Peter Akkies:No internet, no TV, no phone, no people, long uninterrupted solitude you've also said that you say no to almost everything you've written a book that's called hell yeah or no and and I feel like those things are related right I feel like those things are related You're a big fan of disconnecting. Should we all disconnect more often? Who who should disconnect more often? Or is that just something that works for you?
Derek Sivers:Yes, Peter. That is the way. That is the way. Everyone must disconnect all the time, everyone, and I do mean everyone with no exception. Okay.
Derek Sivers:I mean, look. It's like the other answers. It works for me. But like I've said 1 or 2 other times today, I highly recommend it to everyone, at least trying it. There is a symbolically powerful action, of shutting off your phone completely, holding down the power button for you know 3 seconds swiping that little thing so it's powered down it is off maybe even walking over to your Internet Broadband Modem and going and turning it off unplugging it from the wall so there now it's like the reason that people go to an Airbnb in a remote location, they're like, oh my god.
Derek Sivers:I just need to get away. It's like, yeah. It's really easy. You just shut off this button, you unplug that button, and now there's no way to reach you unless somebody shows up at your door and knocks. That's it.
Derek Sivers:These are the ways that people reach us is through our, phones and computers, and if you take those things off I guess some people have a TV. To also turn off your TV. No, but nobody can reach you through your TV. That's it. So they can reach you through the phone and through your computer and that's it.
Derek Sivers:So if you unplug those two things, you might as well be in a cabin in Northern Norway right now. There is no way to reach you unless somebody shows up at your door. I find that action of disconnecting to be like a powerful declaration of, like, okay. I've just shown that nothing else out there matters as what is right here in front of me. Like, this thing in front of me is what is all is the most important thing right now.
Derek Sivers:No matter what happens on the news or what somebody's chattering about or saying or somebody wants something from me, everything will have to wait until I'm ready to turn my devices back on. Until then, this is it, and hopefully that, proud declaration of priority can last for hours that you can unplug at a certain hour and work on that one thing for hours, and it's just it's powerful. It's symbolic it It's an action that's showing to yourself that this is the most important thing this matters more than everything else out
Peter Akkies:there. I'm getting Eckhart Tolle vibes be here now. And last summer, I spent some time in Athens and Greece, and I took some baby steps of disconnecting. I I I don't disconnect quite as much as you do, but, I started one day. I was like, you know what?
Peter Akkies:I'm really tired of being on my phone all the time. I'm gonna leave it behind and and go to my favorite restaurant, which is about an hour's walk. I had to walk over the Acropolis, which is not a not a bad walk, And walked to my restaurant or walked to the restaurant, ate there, walked back, and it was very peaceful. And I was like, I should do this more often. So I did a couple more times, and then, of course, I stopped doing it because it's difficult to disconnect these days.
Peter Akkies:There's a lot of things going on. People want to follow the news. You know, we have friends all over the world, and you think it's easy to disconnect?
Derek Sivers:Well, it's like people want to follow the news. I just I just think you should catch yourself thinking that, and you should see that that's just like it's like wanting to eat sugar or something. Like, okay. I understand that it's tempting. I'm not saying I don't get it, but hopefully you should just catch yourself.
Derek Sivers:Like, if you're eating a 100 cookies a day, you should stop and go, I probably shouldn't you know, I'm going to just allow myself one cookie at the end of the day, or just ask yourself where is that coming from? Is it just a distraction? Do I need a distraction? Is I mean because I do get this thing, whether disconnected or not when I'm working on something, especially whether I'm writing or I'm programming, I do have these times of just like my brain just feels like it's hit a roadblock. It's not a hit it's it's a it's run out of fuel, whatever metaphor you want.
Derek Sivers:And I know that I would flip over to a browser tab and just pull up some dumb website full of new dopamine. Yeah. But instead, I just realized that I was doing it. And I I caught myself, and I asked, wait. Why am I doing this?
Derek Sivers:I said it's because I'm feeling, like, mentally exhausted for a minute. And so instead I just tried something else which was to in those moments, instead of popping open a new browser tab and typing some dopamine URL, I just stand up and I like I go over to the actually what I tend to do is, like, I would go to the living room and either lie flat on the couch or lie flat on the floor with my feet up on the couch, and I would just let myself kinda like just doze off and maybe just maybe just sit there and think about whatever I was just doing that was making me feel stuck, and sometimes I'd lie there for maybe up to an hour. More likely, it would be, like, after maybe 20 minutes or so. I'd kinda go like, oh, oh my god. I just realized I need to set like this.
Derek Sivers:Oh my god. Okay. Hold on. I okay. I got it now, and then I'll go back to my computer with renewed inspiration.
Derek Sivers:But It's like giving yourself the time to step away from the device instead of just like more of the little screen more of the same I just found that to be a a better, What much I say? Better, response? Better better method of getting the same result, which was I need a little break.
Peter Akkies:So why does it help to not go for the dopamine thing? Is it because you need Because that's silence?
Derek Sivers:I think it's just putting more shit in your head instead of getting okay. There is something to be said for the subconscious, unconscious background processing of something. So you could say that, like, hey. Whenever I get stuck in my writing, I'm gonna go play a video game or I'm gonna go look at Instagram. And, yes, maybe something in the back of your head is continuing to process the thing that you needed to break from in a good way that that laying down but laying down in silence or taking a walk or something, would have the same benefit but without any of the downsides.
Derek Sivers:I think the shit that we put into our heads with this constant, reading of the news or taking in more social feeds, it's the opposite of what I said about the benefits of disconnecting where when you shut shut down your phone, unplug the, the broadband modem, which is yeah. As you can tell, it's something I do often. It's, like, a symbolic act for me. Like, right, I've answered some emails, time to work, I'm, like, hold it down, swipe off, go over to the broadband modem, and in band modem, and in New Zealand here we have the power switch on the wall, you know, with every power outlet has little toggle switch on the wall like the UK, and, so I go up and I go click so that's it. I am now unreachable, and I cannot reach out to anybody and and that's it's a symbolic declaration to self.
Derek Sivers:This is what's important. And so browsing the Internet, surfing your social apps is a powerful declaration that whatever the fuck comes through the screen is important. Like, you're you're telling yourself that this is important through that action. Like, you are declaring to yourself that every anything that comes into my eyes right now is important. I just disagree with that declaration.
Derek Sivers:I think it's it's, like, I think it's powerfully harmful.
Peter Akkies:You remind me of Cal Newport in his book, Deep Work, which you've read this?
Derek Sivers:I think I'm in it.
Peter Akkies:Oh, you're in it? Oh, no.
Derek Sivers:I think I maybe it was his previous book, So Good They Can't Ignore You. Yeah. Sorry. I was in his previous book, and then, yeah, it was sweet. Somebody just told me he just mentioned me in an interview last week, and he held me up as a, a good example.
Peter Akkies:So Oh, you've gotten the stamp of approval
Derek Sivers:from Cal Newport. Yeah. Congratulations. Yeah. Yeah.
Derek Sivers:That was that was nice to hear. Yeah. Cal and I, I haven't talked to him in a long time, but, we've talked.
Peter Akkies:Good. Good. Good. There's there's one other topic I would love to ask you about, and it is it is a bit related to what we've been talking about. We've talked about how you enjoy disconnecting, how you enjoy or not how you enjoy, but how you are good at saying no to things how you're good at focusing on one thing at a time.
Peter Akkies:One thing you've written about is that you easily walk away from things that are not to your liking. Specifically, you say you walk away to a fault which is a strong statement. People, I think, find that difficult to do. So we talked, for example, about the doctor who doesn't like doctoring that much and the choice is to accept the situation that they're in or to leave. But we can think of perhaps easier example, someone who's a friend of yours that you're not getting along with.
Peter Akkies:Maybe someone like you or someone like me is quite quick to say, you know what? This is not working for me anymore. I'm gonna spend time with someone else. I think a lot of people have difficulty doing this. And I'm curious if you have any sense of why this is so difficult for so many people and what you tell yourself to actually be able to walk away for things that are not working for you right now or not working for you anymore?
Derek Sivers:Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, We all have archetypes of how we're supposed to be. And maybe your parents when you were 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 years old said it explicitly or maybe they just showed you, like, this is what it this is a good person. This is a hero. That's a villain. This is what we're gonna reward you for, and this is what you're gonna get punished for.
Derek Sivers:And different cultures around the world have different archetypes, for this. So it's interesting. I was just actually reading a book by a Dutch, cultural psychologist saying in, she's Dutch but living in America now, and she said that here in America, I'm raising my kid, giving him self esteem, telling him that he's a very good boy for for the thing that he did today and and telling him that I'm proud of him. He said, so I was initially horrified when I learned about Taiwanese mothers that are constantly shaming their child saying, you're a bad child. You're very bad at that, and, and you should be ashamed.
Derek Sivers:I I I wish you weren't here, so go away right now. And he said, but as a as a psychologist, I interviewed these women, and I found out that they were deliberately rewarding, humble shame that in Taiwan you are culturally rewarded for feeling shame and being humble. And so she said, no. I'm trying to teach my son shame. I love him very much, and I want him to be successful in life.
Derek Sivers:So I tell him that he's a bad boy, and I don't want him here right now, because I want him to get along in the world, to not think that
Peter Akkies:he's so special.
Derek Sivers:Yeah. I don't I want him to think that he's not so special because if he thinks he's special, he's going to have a very hard life here in Taiwan. So we all have different role models that we're rewarded for, and ever since I was 14, I wanted to be a a successful musician. I was obsessed. Ever since I picked up a guitar at 14, I was like, oh, this is it.
Derek Sivers:This is what I'm gonna be, And, yeah, I mean, from the age of 14 through 29, 15 formative years of my life, all I did was music. Nothing else. I obsessed, as you can tell, is maybe a theme for me. So in those early days, 14, 15, 16, 17, I read everything I could about the great musicians. I read every interview, every biography, every book, every everything.
Derek Sivers:So Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, David Bowie, all three of these quite, famously left behind what they were known for and walked away from success because it was the creative necessity to bring on more success, in a different field. So Bob Dylan was known for being an acoustic folk musician with a harmonica around his mouth and acoustic guitar and the Woody Guthrie model of, like, the classic folk singer by the railroad tracks, the music of the people. That's what got him famous, and he was invited to headline the Newport Folk Festival at the peak of his fame, and he showed up on stage with a rock band, and people were horrified. There's a recording where somebody in the audience yells out, Judas, like, as if you you betrayed us. You bastard.
Derek Sivers:And, that was what he had to do to move on creatively. He had to challenge himself to keep writing great songs, but now with a new environment. Miles Davis over and over again stylistically would leave behind the genre that he that he was, known for. He was a bebop trumpet player in the 19 fifties, let's say mid early fifties, and then he developed the new style of cool jazz walking away from the bebop that he was known for. And then he walked away from cool jazz to do the more kind of electric fusion thing.
Derek Sivers:And each time, he alienated some people, some of his fans from his past genres, but it's what he had to do to creatively challenge himself to to this feeling that there is I can be more. I can do more, that I'm not stuck in the past. And David Bowie, of course, also changed personas along with his styles, every few years, and these people were my archetypes. So I think if it applied to regular life, not just music that when I've been doing something for a while or even if I've lived somewhere for a while I've been taking a certain approach for a while I feel like alright, time to change, time to take a different approach, so that's where that comes from.
Peter Akkies:Thank you for that explanation, that story. I think that's actually a wonderful note to to leave people with to sometimes you need to walk away from some things, even things that have served you well to go on to better things to the next part of the path. Something that you're working on right now is your upcoming book, useful, not true. I won't ask you when it's coming out. I don't want to ask that pressure.
Peter Akkies:I wouldn't know anyway. Nobody knows.
Derek Sivers:It's some sometime soon, so I'm, anybody interested? Yeah, go to my website. Go to sive.rs. I don't really do social media. Surprise, surprise.
Derek Sivers:Everything's on my website, sive.rs. There's a link to contact me there. So, I I actually really enjoy answering my emails every day despite what, that's actually part of my daily ritual, kinda like people wake up and make a cup of coffee. I wake up, make a cup of tea, and I check out my emails from the world. And I especially love, like, meeting people from around the world.
Derek Sivers:I I this just this morning, I got an email from a fascinating dude in, Karachi, Pakistan and a woman in Tunisia and, oh, what else? And and the guy that wanted to talk about the Ruby versus the Go programming language, which was fascinating to me. And, I just love it when people email and introduce themselves. It's actually one of the favorite parts of my day is going through my email inbox because it's, it's really cool to meet people from around the world. So that's how I met our mutual friend in Bangalore.
Derek Sivers:That was just somebody who kinda reached out to email one day.
Peter Akkies:So yeah. That's that's wonderful.
Derek Sivers:So it's often these people that email me out of the blue. I end up meeting them in person later when I'm traveling, which I also love too. So I actually really hope to go to Tunisia, and I really to go to Karachi Pakistan someday and I would meet this bookseller that emailed me but yeah anybody listening to this if you made it all the way through to the end go to my website and send me an email say hello
Peter Akkies:I Love that invitation. It's very different from the usual check out my thing So this is, this is great. Go to Derek's website. Send him an email. Introduce yourself.
Peter Akkies:Thank you very much, Derek, for coming on. It was a wonderful conversation. Really enjoyed it.
Derek Sivers:Thanks, Peter. Me too.