Derek Sivers podcast

Latest Episodes:

Be a famous pioneer. Dec 12, 2021

Show notes

Here’s how to live: Be a famous pioneer.

Nobody had ever run a mile in under four minutes.
It seemed impossible.
But one day, Roger Bannister did it, and the news spread worldwide.
Over the next two years, thirty-seven people also did it.

This is the power of the pioneer:
To enable the impossible.
To open a new world of possibility.
To show others that they can do it too, and take it even further.
Explorers used to find unknown lands and bring back stories of unfamiliar cultures, which encouraged others to go exploring.
The old finish line becomes the new starting line.

Debussy, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix, and Rakim pioneered new approaches to music.
Rosa Parks, Harvey Milk, Sally Ride, and Malala Yousafzai broke the glass ceiling, encouraging others to rise.
Modern explorers like Tim Ferriss, Neil Strauss, and A.J. Jacobs, instead of finding unknown lands, are finding unknown lifestyles.
Each of them shows new possibilities for the rest of us.

These pioneers were valuable because they got famous.
If someone else innovated in obscurity, they didn’t make an impact.
Marco Polo wasn’t the first European to reach China, but he was the first to write a book about it. Then his book inspired Christopher Columbus, and so on.

Millions of young adults today are living a life their grandparents didn’t know was possible.
They have more options, thanks to the brave adventures of a few people who broke through boundaries.
Pioneers have a massive impact on the world because their stories help people do things they wouldn’t have dreamed of otherwise.

A famous pioneer does more for human progress than a billion others who live a normal life.

So if you want to help humanity while having the most exciting life, then the way to live is to be a famous pioneer.
Go to new extremes.
Try new ideas.
Visit undiscovered cultures.
Show what can be done.

Your job is not just to act, but to tell a fascinating story of how you did so, and inspire others to do it.
Make great adventures, but tell greater stories.
Pursue massive media attention, not for vanity or ego, but so your stories can open minds, spark imaginations, and lead to further explorations.

Here’s the best way to do it:

First, make a stage name.
Create a company with the same name, and have it own all the rights to everything you do.
Never reveal your real name.
This is to manage the trappings of your upcoming fame.

Find a writer and a publicist to create your first pioneering adventure.
Collaborate with the writer to make a great story arc before you begin.
So, for example, it’s not just a story of how you escaped a cult, but how you joined the cult, uncovered a surprising history, fell in love, were almost discovered and captured, then escaped by changing the mind of your captor, and finally learned some interesting counter-intuitive lessons along the way.
Consult with the publicist to make sure it’s interesting to the media.
Then begin.

Record everything on video.
Find ways to make the story arc happen in real life.
When you’re done, have your writer make it a fascinating story of various lengths for various outlets — making it a great article, book, video, screenplay, stage talk, and more.
Have the publicist get it everywhere — on every popular platform of the day.
Hire a business manager to turn the attention into profit.
Keep half of your profits in the business, and put half into your private savings.
While your team is promoting your last adventure, you and your writer prepare the next one.
Once fame hits, your biggest challenge is to keep creating — to keep momentum.

Repeat this process as long as you’d like.
Your fame will open new doors, making it possible to do even more incredible things.

So how does it end?
One of two ways:

If this life is really your destiny, do it until it kills you.
Always pushing to see how far you can go, if you die during an adventure, you’ll die happy, knowing you pushed it as far as you could.

But if you start feeling you’ve had enough, then write the ending.
Build the death of your public persona into your last story.
Since you’re famous, this will take some planning.
This is why you used a stage name and company from the start.

Secretly buy a house under your real name in a mundane place nobody would expect you to be.
Buy some second-hand clothes and practice changing your appearance and voice.
Make sure your company is in good hands, run by a team you trust.

Then, when the filming of your final story is done, rent a boat and disappear near the ocean, letting everyone think you died.
Escape anonymously into your new life.
Since your private company owns the rights, it can license your stories, shows, books, and more for years to come, funding your anonymous life.
A benefit of fame is that it carries on without you.

As you watch the world in the following decades, be glad if many people surpass you and belittle your pioneering adventures.
Your final act of generosity is your absence.
It leaves a void for others to step into.

Do whatever you want now. Dec 11, 2021

Show notes

Here’s how to live: Do whatever you want now.

The past?
That’s what we call our memories.
The future?
That’s what we call our imagination.
Neither exists outside of your mind.
The only real time is this moment.
So live accordingly.
Whatever benefits you right now is the right choice.

You know immediately whether you like something or not.
But if someone asks why, you start making up reasons.
The truth is you like it or you don’t.
That’s it.
That’s life.
Do whatever you like.
You don’t need explanations.

When people ask the meaning of life, they’re looking for a story.
But there is no story.
Life is a billion little moments.
They’re not a part of anything.

People think they’ll do something later.
They think they’ll have more time in the future than they do today, as if later is a magical time when everything will happen.
Forget the whole notion of the future.
There is only today.
If you want to do something, do it now.
If you don’t want to do it now, then you don’t want to do it at all, so let it go.

Doing whatever makes you happy now is smart.
When you’re happy, you think better.
More of your brain is engaged.
You’re more open to possibilities and connecting ideas.
You learn better and are more creative.
So forget the future and past.
Focus fully on whatever fascinates you now.

You don’t need a schedule.
Just pay attention to what excites you.
If you’re not excited about what you’re doing, move on to something else.

You don’t need plans.
Plans are just predictions about what you might want in the future.
But your future self shouldn’t be bound to what your past self predicted.
So never make plans.
When someone asks, just say you can’t know until that day.
All you know is now.

Live like a frog sitting on a lily-pad.
When it feels like it, it jumps to a different one, and stays until it feels like jumping again.

Your feelings are wise.
Bad feelings mean you need to take action.
Good feelings mean you took the right action.
Following your feelings is the most natural and rewarding thing to do.

Most problems are not about the real present moment.
They’re anxiety, worried that something bad might happen in the future.
They’re trauma, remembering something bad in the past.
But none of them are real.
If you stop and look around the room, and ask yourself if you have any actual problems right now, the answer is probably no.
Unless you’re in physical pain or danger, the problems were all in your head.
Memories and imagined futures are not real.
The present moment is real and safe.

People with severe amnesia are surprisingly happy.
They can’t remember the past, and they don’t try to predict the future since they have no trajectory.
They have only the present moment, so they enjoy it without burden.
Follow their example.
Forget the past and future.

Happiness is something to do, someone to love, and something to desire.
Heaven is not what’s at the end of the path.
Heaven is the path itself.

Doing whatever you want, at every moment, is how to live.

Pursue pain. Dec 10, 2021

Show notes

Here’s how to live: Pursue pain.

Everything good comes from some kind of pain.
Muscle fatigue makes you healthy and strong.
The pain of practice leads to mastery.
Difficult conversations save your relationships.

But if you avoid pain, you avoid improvement.
Avoid embarrassment, and you avoid success.
Avoid risk, and you avoid reward.

Anyone can be their best when things are going well.
But when things go wrong, you see who they really are.
Remember the classic story arc of the hero’s journey.
The crisis — the most painful moment — defines the hero.

Improvement is transformation.
It brings the pain of loss of the comfortable previous self.
It brings the pain of a new set of problems.
Wealth brings the pain of responsibility.
Fame brings the pain of expectations.
Love brings the pain of attachment.
If you avoid pain, you avoid what you really want.

The goal of life is not comfort.
Pursuing comfort is both pathetic and bad for you.
Comfort makes you weak and unprepared.
If you overprotect yourself from pain, then every little challenge will feel unbearably difficult.

People say they’re not doing the work because it’s hard.
But it’s hard because they’re not doing the work.

Comfort is a silent killer.
Comfort is quicksand.
The softer the chair, the harder it is to get out of it.

The right thing to do is never comfortable.
How you face pain determines who you are.

Therefore, the way to live is to steer towards the pain.
Use it as your compass.
Always take the harder option.
Always push into discomfort.
Ignore your instincts.

Pain’s power relies on surprise.
If you expect it, it’s weaker.
If you choose it, it’s gone.

Choosing pain makes it bearable.
It loses its power to hurt you.
You become its master, not victim.

Pain is coming anyway.
Don’t get a shield.
Get a saddle.
Tame it.

Don’t wish for good luck.
Good luck makes you complacent.
Practice thriving with bad luck.
Bad luck makes you resourceful and strong.
No matter what the world throws your way, you can stand worse.

Choosing pain means pushing past your instincts.
Food that tastes good is bad for you, and vice-versa.
So don’t use your feelings as a guide.

Choose pain in small doses to build your resistance to it.

A daily ritual of hard exercise gives a great perspective on life’s other pains.

Put yourself into stressful situations.
Eventually, almost nothing will seem stressful.

Socially, try to get rejected.
Learn about “rejection therapy”.
Make audacious requests that you think will be denied.
This removes the pain of rejection.
And you’ll be surprised how often they say yes.

The best way to learn a foreign language is to stop speaking your mother tongue.
No matter how embarrassing or frustrating, communicate only in your new language.
Necessity is the best teacher.
But it hurts.

Practice taking on the various kinds of pain.
Attempt something that seems impossible — something that terrifies you.
Give a speech.
Do a ten-day silent meditation.
Quit a habit.
Apologize to someone you wronged.

Don’t congratulate yourself if your attempt avoids failure.
Remember: you want the pain.
The sooner you pay a price, the less it costs.

Be absolutely honest with everyone.
Stop lying, completely.
You lie when you’re afraid.
You lie to avoid consequences.
Always say the truth.
Take the painful consequences.

You weren’t meant to be idle.
You weren’t built for sitting and staring at screens.
You live to push, pull, climb, and grow.

The most exhilarating experiences in your life so far were daring.
Your proudest moments were overcoming a struggle.
The best happiness comes after some pain.

The best waves on the beach can knock you over.
That’s the best kind of play.

Since you can’t avoid problems, just find good problems.
Happiness isn’t everlasting tranquility.
Happiness is solving good problems.

That’s why we play games.
Games are challenges.
Any challenge can be turned into a game.

The English word “passion” comes from the Latin word “pati”, meaning “to suffer or endure”.
To be passionate about something is to be willing to suffer for it — to endure the pain it’ll bring.

But don’t be a masochist.
Be a scholar of pain.
Every pain has a lesson inside, and a reason why it hurts.
Analyze it.
Understand it.

Ghosts don’t leave until you’ve understood their message.
Problems persist until you claim them and solve them.
Face them directly and they’ll disappear.

First we figured out how to fly, then how to get to the moon.
After you conquer the little problems, you’ll face the better ones.

Facing pain helps you relate to others.
Your problems are never unique.
Whatever problems you’ve had, many other people have had the same problem.
We empathize with someone who’s struggling.
It opens our hearts more than seeing someone win.

Most people don’t get to choose how they suffer.
Once you tame pain for yourself, tame it for others.

The easy road leads to a hard future.
The hard road leads to an easy future.
Steering towards the pain is how to live.

Let randomness rule. Dec 09, 2021

Show notes

Here’s how to live: Let randomness rule.

We think we see patterns and causes.
Really there are none.
We think events are meaningful.
Really they’re just coincidence.
We’re not used to the logic of probability.
Life is more random than it seems.

Identical twins were separated at birth and raised on opposite sides of the world.
They met later in life, and found that they had freakishly identical preferences and circumstances.
What you think is free will might actually be your DNA.
Where you go, what you do, and what you want are accurately predicted by algorithms.
You are less random than you seem.

So randomize your life.
Use a random generator — an app, a roll of the dice, or a shuffled deck of cards — to make all of your life’s decisions.
Choose a life where you choose nothing.
Let the random generator decide what you do, where you go, and who you meet.

It’ll scramble your habits.
It’ll break the myth of causality.
It’ll guide you to see places you’d never ordinarily see, and do what you never would have done.

Randomness keeps your mind open and observant.
You can’t predict, so you see clearly.
You can’t use old solutions and rules-of-thumb.
You can’t blame karma, astrology, demons, saints, anyone or anything else.
You can’t think there’s a master plan.

Instead, you’ll calculate probability.
You’ll be hyper-aware that statistics apply to all of us, and we’re more average than we think.
Life is determined not by causes, but by randomness and odds.
By taking a minute to do the math, you’ll have a clearer understanding of why things are the way they are.

Let your random generator choose what you wear and how you cut your hair.
Let it send you to events you ordinarily wouldn’t have attended, including classes to learn skills you ordinarily wouldn’t have learned.
You’ll become a member of groups you never would have chosen.
Eventually, you’ll look, act, and socialize very differently than your previous self.
You won’t define yourself by these things anymore, since you didn’t choose them.

When talking with people, ask deep open-ended questions — like “What’s your biggest regret?” — that will lead to unexpected stories.
When ordering in a restaurant, ask them to surprise you.
When doing creative work, let the random generator make your artistic decisions, shaking up your usual style.

Let your random generator decide where you live every year.
That increases the randomness of everything else.

Ask anyone “Why?” on any subject, and they’ll make up explanations.
They think everything has a reason, and won’t believe it’s random.
You’ll know everything is random, and won’t believe it has a reason.

Randomness helps you learn acceptance.
You can’t take the blame for failures.
You can’t take credit for successes.
You can’t regret what you didn’t cause.

How liberating to not decide and not predict anything.
Stoics and Buddhists work hard to feel indifferent to outcomes.
But you’ll feel detachment as a natural side effect of every day being random.
Since nothing has consequences, you’ll greet everything with healthy indifference.
Neither upset nor joy — just seeing it as it is.
Thanks to randomness, you’ll know that none of it has meaning.

You’ll be living a lesson that everyone should learn.
Random stuff happens.
All you can control is your response.
Every day, you’ll practice how to react to chaos: with dignity, poise, and grace.

Master something. Dec 08, 2021

Show notes

Here’s how to live: Master something.

Be a monomaniac on a mission to be truly great at something difficult.

Pick one thing and spend the rest of your life getting deeper into it.

Mastery is the best goal because the rich can’t buy it, the impatient can’t rush it, the privileged can’t inherit it, and nobody can steal it.
You can only earn it through hard work.
Mastery is the ultimate status.

Striving makes you happy.
Pursuit is the opposite of depression.
People at the end of their life, who said they were the happiest with their life, were the ones who had spent the most time in the flow of fascinating work.

Concentrating all of your life’s force on one thing gives you incredible power.
Sunlight won’t catch a stick on fire.
But if you use a magnifying glass to focus the sunlight on one spot, it will.
Mastery needs your full focused attention.

The more you learn about something, the more there is to learn.
You see what normal people don’t see.
The path gets more and more interesting as you go.

The pursuit of mastery helps you think long-term.
It keeps your eyes on the horizon.
You resist the temptation of what you want now.
You remember the importance of what you want most.
You spend time intentionally.
Every month has a milestone.
Every day has a goal.
The most rewarding things in life take years.
Only bad things happen quickly.

Decisions are easy when you have only one priority.
Your destination is a huge mountain peak on the horizon.
You can see it from everywhere.
Yes to that mountain, and no to everything else.
You’ll always know where you’re going, and what you’re doing next.
All paths go either towards that mountain or away from it.

Because of this perspective, problems won’t deter you.
Most people look down at the ground, upset by every obstacle.
With your eyes on the horizon, you’ll step over obstacles, undeterred.

If you haven’t decided what to master, pick anything that scares you, fascinates you, or infuriates you.
Don’t ask, “Is this the real me?” or “Is this my passion?”
Those questions lead to endless searching and disappointment.
People don’t fail by choosing the wrong path — they fail by not choosing.
Make your choice, then make a lifetime commitment to constant improvement.
The passion comes after you start getting good.

Define “success” for yourself.
Describe the outcome you want.
You can’t hit a target you can’t see.

You need to understand something very counter-intuitive about goals.
Goals don’t improve your future.
Goals only improve your present actions.
A good goal makes you take action immediately.
A bad goal doesn’t.
A goal shows what’s right and wrong.
What moves you towards your goal is right.
What doesn’t is wrong.

When you first start learning, you improve massively every week.
Beginning is fun.
But real expertise comes only after years of hard work.
The challenge is staying on the path.

You need ritual, not inspiration.
Every day, no matter what, you must practice.
Your practice ritual is your highest priority — an unbreakable commitment.
Stubbornly protect this time against the demands of the world.

Once you get momentum, never stop.
It’s easy to continue, but if you stop, it’s hard to start again.
Never miss a day.

When you’re not practicing, remember: someone somewhere is practicing.
When you meet them, they will win.

During your work time, do nothing but work.
Keep your hands on your work, and your mind will follow.
If you get stuck, just stop and close your eyes.
The vacuum will extract your actions again.

How many push-ups could you do right now?
But how many could you do if you took a ten-minute break between each set?
Many more.
That’s the secret.
Take tiny breaks when working, to go longer than most.

Focus means head down.
Big picture means head up.
The more you’re doing of one, the less you’re doing of the other.
If you’ve been head-down on a task for too long, lift your head up to make sure you’re going the right way.
Don’t do well what you shouldn’t do at all.

Pursuing mastery is ambitious, which helps your chance of success.
Most people fail in life not by aiming too high, but by aiming too low.
If you aim high and miss, you don’t actually fail.

Move to the most ambitious place in your field.
(Actor? Hollywood. Tech? Silicon Valley. Etc.)
Expectations there are so high that they’ll help push you to be the best.
You want the pressure.
You want the stress.

Don’t live somewhere pleasant surrounded by normal people.
Live among your fellow freaks, where obsession is normal and ambition is rewarded.

You don’t get extreme results without extreme actions.
If you do what most people do, you’ll get what most people get.
Don’t be normal.
Society’s guidelines are for the lost — not for you.

You don’t need a spouse or kids.
You don’t need to hang out, make small talk, or join in common rituals.
You don’t need to sleep at normal hours, keep a tidy home, or even relax.
Be sharply focused, not well-rounded.

Think of the legendary achievers: the geniuses, brilliant artists, record-breaking athletes, or self-made billionaires.
Do you think those people were well-balanced?
Of course not.
They focused all their energy only on one thing.
That’s why they were great.
Pursue your mission at the expense of everything else.

Nobody cares what you’re bad at, and neither should you.
Amplify your strengths.
Nobody will see the rest.

Keep the rest of your life boring.
Drama is a distraction.
Your personal life and other concerns can shrink to almost nothing.
Focus everything on your work.

Mastery is not about doing many things.
It’s doing one thing insanely well.
The more you take on, the less you’ll achieve.
Say no to everything but your mission.
This is your one contribution to the world.

You don’t need new ideas.
You need to master the idea you’ve begun.
That’s why you can ignore all distractions.
The world has no information that you need.

Resist the urge to branch out into something new.
You can do anything, but not everything.
Remember the saying “jack of all trades, master of none”.
That’s the opposite of you.
You are master of one.

Your focus will almost certainly lead to success.
When you live, dream, and work with one single mission, you will achieve that mission.
But beware of money and fame.
Money can pull you towards your mountain, but sometimes it pulls you away.
Fame tries to pull you out of the deep path of mastery into the shallow gutter of flattery.
The best response to fame’s endless requests is a simple mantra: “No. No. No. No. No.”

How long will it take you to become a master?
It doesn’t matter.
Imagine getting to a mountaintop after a long hike through a gorgeous forest.
Achieving your goal would feel like taking off your backpack.
That’s all.
You do it for the journey, not the destination.

Pursuing mastery is how to live.

Make memories. Dec 07, 2021

Show notes

Here’s how to live: Make memories.

You recently had a day, or even a month, that you can’t remember.
If I asked what you did then, you couldn’t say.
There was nothing unusual about it.

What if you have many more of those?
What if, when you’re older, you can’t recall entire years?
If you can’t remember something, it’s like it never happened.
You could have a long healthy life, but if you can’t remember it, it’s like you had a short life.
What a horrible way to live.

When you’re young, time goes slowly because everything is new.
When you get older, time flies by, forgotten, because you’re not having as many new experiences.

You need to prevent this.
Monotony is the enemy.
Novelty is the solution.

Go make memories.
Do memorable things.
Experience the unusual.
Pursue novelty.
Replace your routines.
Live in different places.
Change your career every few years.
These unique events will become anchors for your memories.

Remember them all.
Document everything, or you’ll eventually forget it.
Nobody can erase your memories, but don’t lose them through neglect.

Journal every day.
Write down your activities, thoughts, and feelings for future reference.

Video everything.
Compile and edit them, so they’re appealing to watch.

To enjoy your past is to live twice.
Nostalgia links your past and present.
Nostalgia protects against stress and boredom, and improves your mood.
Nostalgia makes you more optimistic, more generous, more creative, and more empathetic.
Nostalgia is memories minus the pain.
Being nostalgic makes you less afraid to die.

Turn your experiences into stories.
A story is the remains of an experience.
Make your stories entertaining, so people like to hear them.
By telling good stories, your memories can last longer, because people will echo them back to you occasionally, or ask you to tell them again.

Make a story for the things you want to remember.
Never make a story for the things you want to forget.
Let those disappear with time.

Your memories are a mix of fact and fiction.
Your story about an experience overwrites your memory of the actual experience.
So use this in your favor.
Re-write your past.
Embellish adventures.
Disempower trauma.
Re-write your stories into whatever works for you.
Remember only what you want to remember.
You have the right to reframe.

Summarize a painful time into a tiny story — under a minute.
Tell this belittled version a few times to make it stick.
This is the version you’ll remember — stripped of pain and power.

How you feel about anything is based on how you look back at it.
Your memory is influenced by how you feel now.
In a bad mood, you might see only the dark side of events that are actually neutral.
In a good mood, you might see the bright side of trauma.

The more something means to you, the more you’ll remember it.
Give moments meaning to remember them.
Take away meaning to forget.

You remember what’s important.
The first time you were burned, you didn’t try to remember that fire is hot.
It hurt, so your brain remembered it effortlessly.
When you make a big mistake and want to learn its lesson, deliberately amplify the pain, the deep regret, and the consequences.
Keep the bad feelings vivid and visceral.
Make the lesson memorable, so you won’t do it again.

Without memories, you have no sense of self.
You have to remember your past to see your trajectory.
You use your past to make your future.

Making memories is the most important thing you can do with your life.
The more memories you create, the longer and richer your life feels.
Making memories is how to live.

Intertwine with the world. Dec 06, 2021

Show notes

Here’s how to live: Intertwine with the world.

We’re all cousins.
Everybody on Earth, no matter how far apart, has a surprisingly recent common ancestor.
Go meet your family in the Middle East, in Asia, in Africa, in the Americas, and in Europe.
Understand that there is no “them”.
It’s just “us”.
Feel those connections.

You have kindreds scattered around the world.
People who are weird like you are spread out everywhere.
One of the best feelings in life is to meet someone who grew up in an opposite culture but has your same humor, thoughts, or taste.

If you want a successful network of connections, what matters is not how many people you know but how many different kinds of people you know.
Building relationships worldwide brings more opportunity, more variety, and more chance for circumstance.

Moving across the world makes you smarter, because you stop thinking you’re always right.
Those who shout, “my country is the best!” are those who have never left.
In Icelandic, the word for “idiot” means “one who has never left home to journey abroad”.
Only idiots think they’re always right.

You can’t see your own culture while you’re inside of it.
Once you get out and look back, you can see which parts of your personality actually come from your environment.

Traveling makes you better at communicating, since you can’t assume familiarity, and must speak simply and clearly.
You’ll get used to speaking with people of different religions, worldviews, and communication styles.
You’ll know when to be formal, when to joke, when to reference tradition, and when to swear.

How far should you travel?
Look to nature’s example of floating dandelion seeds and sticky burrs.
Plants and trees spread their seeds as far as possible.
And so should you.
Spread your DNA worldwide.
Not just your biological DNA, but the other things that make you who you are: your ideas, values, and relationships.

To live a full and rewarding life, intertwine yourself with the world.

Move somewhere far away.
Plan to stay.
Bring no baggage.
Leave your expectations and certainties behind.

This new strange place will feel wrong.
You’ll find fault in most of its ways.
The clothes you arrive in are not suited for its climate.
The beliefs you arrive with are not suited for its culture.
Replace both with locally-made clothes and beliefs.
Eventually, they’ll fit you well.

Ask questions until you understand why things are the way they are.
Culture is often historical.
Like a person’s outlook on life is shaped by what they’ve been through, a culture’s values are shaped by its recent history.
Learn the local mindset.
Don’t ask how “they” do things.
Ask how “we” do things.
That small difference is important.
This is your new home.

Once a place really feels like home, move somewhere new.
Pick a confusing or scary place that you don’t understand.
Repeat the process.
Make it your home.
Try to make the connection official by getting visas, residency, and citizenship.
Do this until no part of the world feels foreign.

From Brazil, learn to live in the present, and embrace every stranger as a friend.
Leave before you forget about the future.

From Germany, learn rationality and directly honest communication.
Leave before you start scolding strangers.

From Japan, learn deep consideration for others, social harmony, and intrinsic perfection.
Leave before you get so considerate that you can’t express yourself or take action.

From China, learn pragmatism and the multi-generational mindset.
Leave before you get superstitious or prioritize social status.

From France, learn idealism and resistance.
Leave before you oppose everything in theory.

From America, learn expressive rebellious individualism.
Leave before thinking you’re the center of the world.

From India, learn to improvise and thrive in complexity.
Leave before feeling a divide between what’s inside versus outside your circle.

In all cultures, avoid the madness of the crowd.

Have a child with someone from Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe.
The greater the variety of races, the better.
Raise your kids with many influences, many parents, and many families.
Help raise other people’s kids for the same reason.
Make voluntary families.
Make wider and inclusive families.

Some say “blood is thicker than water,” as if only your immediate relatives have blood.
But everyone has blood, and you’re related to all of them.

If you eventually need a permanent home, choose the place you’d want to be if everything goes wrong.
Choose a culture that values what you value.

When you die, you leave behind your genes and ideas.
The atoms in your cells will disassemble and become plants, animals, dirt, and oceans.
Bits of you will eventually become part of the whole world.
The way to live is to spread your seeds widely before you die.

Think super-long-term. Dec 05, 2021

Show notes

Here’s how to live: Think super-long-term.

In 1790, Benjamin Franklin gifted £2000 to the cities of Philadelphia and Boston by putting it into a 200-year trust, and by 1990 it was worth over $7 million.
If you put $2000 into the stock market for 200 years at the average 8% return, it will be worth over $9 billion.
If you can do $100,000, it will be worth over $483 billion.

Live like this.
Serve the future.
Do small things now with huge benefits for your older self, your descendants, and future generations.

Actions amplify through time to have a massive impact on the future.
Let this fact guide your life.
Use a time machine in your mind, constantly picturing your future self and your great-grandchildren’s world.
Act now to influence that time.

The actions are obvious.
Put money in an investment account and never withdraw.
Eat mostly vegetables.
Exercise always.
Get preventative health checkups.
Make time for your relationships.
Do these, yes, but let’s look at less-obvious ones.

The biggest challenge is to think long-term when life is pulling you around.
You need a constant vivid reminder.
So use an age progression filter — the software that takes a photo of a face and realistically makes it look thirty years older.
Run it on some photos of yourself.
See your elderly face, and take care of that person.
Run it on photos of the people you care for.
Save the results and put them where you’ll see them every day.
These future people are your responsibility now.

Imagine your future self judging your current life choices.
When making a decision, ask yourself how you’ll feel about it when you’re old.
What would your future self and family thank you for?
Simple actions now will compound to give them a better life.

Delay gratification.
Today’s discomfort brings future rewards.
When you have a clear view of the future, you won’t mind the small sacrifice.
You never regret not indulging.

Only spend money on things that do long-term good, like education.
In other words, never spend, only invest.
The earlier you start, the better, since time is the multiplier.

Many huge achievements are just the result of little actions done persistently over time.
Cities began with just one building.
Walmart was one little store.
People with incredible skill just practiced every day.
Put $25 a day in your investment account, and in thirty years, you’ll have over a million dollars.

We overestimate what we can do in one year.
We underestimate what we can do in ten years.
If you take up a new hobby at the age of forty, or whatever age you think is too late, you’ll be an expert by the age of sixty.

Be extra-careful of habits that seem harmless.
Imagine each choice continuing forever.
Eat a cookie, and eventually you’re obese.
Shop for fun, and eventually you’re deep in debt.
When you choose a behavior, you choose its future consequences.

Thinking of the future doesn’t come naturally.
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors had to live moment-to-moment, so our tendency to focus on today is built into our biology.
But times have changed.
Now the surviving fittest are the ones who plan ahead.

You owe your quality of life to people in past generations.
We say someone is lucky if they are born into a rich family, in a stable country, full of opportunity.
But that luck was created by the grandparents that moved to that promising place, then worked hard and saved money for the next generation instead of spending it themselves.
Make your grandchildren lucky like this.
Move to a place with good values that’s headed in the right direction.

Climate change might make everything between 40° and -40° latitude quite unlivable, so start getting legal resident status in a country outside of that, like Canada, New Zealand, or the Nordics.
These might be the last livable places on Earth.
Make sure your grandchildren will have citizenship.
Be a great ancestor.

Plan your death.
Write your will now.
Make sure your heirs know where everything is, and who to contact.

Short-term thinking is the root of most of our problems, from pollution to debt, both personal and global.
Easter Island used to be filled with trees, but early settlers cut them down, and they never grew back.
Greenland used to have grass, but early settlers let their sheep graze, and it never grew back.
A few short-term decisions can lead to centuries of destruction.

We treat the future like a garbage dump.
We dump our debts, pollution, junk, and responsibilities on the future, as if it’s a problem solved.
It’s the most psychopathically inconsiderate thing we do to our children, since it’s their world, not ours.

Your future self is depending on you.
Your descendants are depending on you.
Our future generations are depending on us.
Use the compounding amplifier of time.
Thinking super-long-term is how to live.

Do nothing. Dec 04, 2021

Show notes

Here’s how to live: Do nothing.

The ten commandments said what not to do.
Most of being a good person is not doing bad.
Don’t be cruel or selfish.
Don’t lie or steal.
Just do no harm.

People always think they need to do something.
One action creates a problem, fixed by another action, so they react and counter-act, creating more problems to fix.
All of this can be avoided.
All actions are optional.
You don’t have to act or react.
You don’t have to do anything.

Criminals justify their crimes by saying they were in a crisis and had to do something.
People mistakenly say yes to work, people, and places they don’t like, then need to escape to get away from their mistakes.
People make bad decisions because they felt they had to decide.
It would have been wiser to do nothing.

People destroy relationships with an angry over-reaction.
The metaphors for “blowing off steam” or “venting” are wrong.
Expressing your anger doesn’t relieve it.
It makes you angrier.

Actions often have the opposite of the intended result.
People who try too hard to be liked are annoying.
People who try too hard to be attractive are repulsive.
People who try too hard to be enlightened are self-centered.
People who try too hard to be happy are miserable.

So the best way to live is to do nothing.
Stop all the thinking and doing.
Be still and silent.
No actions and no reactions.
No judgments and no conclusions.
No craving and no fixing.

Change your need to change things.
In your most peaceful moments, your mind is quiet.
You’re not thinking you should be doing anything else.
When everything feels perfect, you say, “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
So, live your whole life in this mindset.

Don’t hope.
Hope is wanting things to be different than they are.
Wanting to change yourself is self-loathing.
There’s no deeper happiness than wanting nothing.
Desire is the opposite of peace.

Most of what people say and do is unnecessary.
Most talk is just noise.
The English word “noise” comes from “nausea”.
Say nothing unless it must be said.

People will appreciate your silence, and know that when you speak, it must be important.
Shallow rivers are noisy.
Deep lakes are silent.

Silence is precious.
Silence is the one thing that all religions have in common.
Silence is the only way to hear quiet wisdom.

Most trouble is caused by action.
No action, no trouble.

Most actions are a pursuit of emotions.
You think you want to take action or own a thing.
But what you really want is the emotion you think it’ll bring.

Skip the actions.
Go straight for the emotion.
Practice feeling emotions intentionally, instead of using actions to create them.
You don’t need marriage to feel security.
Marriage doesn’t make you secure.
You don’t need recognition to feel pride.
Recognition doesn’t give you pride.
You don’t need a beach to feel tranquility.
Places don’t make emotions.
You do.

Your whole experience of life is in your mind.
Focus on your internal world, not external world.

When a problem is bothering you, it feels like you need to do something about it.
Instead, identify what belief is really the source of your trouble.
Replace that belief with one that doesn’t bother you.
Then the problem is solved.
Most problems are really just situations.

You make decisions to feel forward motion.
But it’s a treadmill that takes you nowhere.
When someone asks you to decide, just refuse.
The longer you go without deciding, the more information is revealed.
Eventually, the choice is obvious and made without an agonizing decision.

Just because somebody asked you a question doesn’t mean you have to answer it.
Dramatic people are fueled by reactions.
When you stop reacting, they go away.

Same goes for yourself.
Your emotions insist they need you to respond.
When you ignore the urges, they go away too.

Observe yourself.
Your own mind is the best laboratory.
It’s also the most private and peaceful place to work.

To be wise, shut out all media and opinions.
No news, no gossip, no entertainment.
Most of it is not worth knowing.

Junk may reach your senses, but don’t let it reach your mind.
Don’t accept the false stories people tell.
Things are neither good nor bad — they’re as neutral as a rock.
When people give opinions, add a question mark.
If they say, “Immigration is bad,” change it to, “Immigration is bad?”
Let the questions drift away, unanswered.

The unintelligent jump to conclusions.
The wise just observe.
Wisdom comes from removing the junk, lies, and obstacles to clear thinking.
Instead of learning more, get wise by learning less.
Keep an empty head, so you can observe clearly.

The less you do, the more you can see.
Observe and learn.
Watch the world.

Live where nothing is happening.
Move to a quiet place with lots of nature and no ambition.
Doing nothing is normal there.
Walk and appreciate nature for hours a day.
Your life and mind will be tranquil and serene.
Peace is the absence of turmoil.
You won’t need the media, the internet, or a phone.
Your cost of living will be hardly more than local eggs and vegetables.
Doing nothing is the ultimate minimalism.

If you need money, be an investor.
It’s the only career where you profit the most by doing the least.
It should take no more than an hour per month.
The stock market takes money from the active traders and gives it to the patient.

If an action feels necessary, and you can’t let it go, just write it down for later.
Everything seems more important while you’re thinking of it.
Later, you’ll realize it’s not.

But if it still feels necessary, adjust your time frame.
A year from now, will it be important?
Ten years from now?
Zoom out as far as you need to make it unimportant.
Then you’re free of it.

But you may think the world needs you to do something.
That line of thinking makes it upsetting to die.

Let go of feeling needed.
Let go too soon instead of too late.
The world doesn’t need you.
You’re relieved of your duty because soon you won’t exist.
Do nothing now to show that life goes on without you.
Be selfless.
Be free.

Doing nothing is how to live and how to die.

Fill your senses. Dec 03, 2021

Show notes

Here’s how to live: Fill your senses.

See it all.
Touch it all.
Hear it all.
Taste it all.
Do it all.
Appreciate this wonderful physical world.

If you knew you’d go blind tomorrow, how intensely would you look at the world today?
If you knew you’d go deaf tomorrow, how intensely would you listen?
Fill your senses as if this was your last day on Earth.
One day that will be true.

Maximize your inputs.
See all the places.
Eat all the food.
Hear all the music.
Meet all the people.
Kiss all the beauties.
Be insatiable.

Life is short.
How to experience it all?
Here’s the key:
Here’s your mission:
Nothing twice.
Never eat the same food twice.
Never go to the same place twice.
Never hear the same thing twice.
Everything only once.

Be systematic.
Follow guides.
“Top Places You Must Visit”
“Greatest Movies of All Time”
“Best Restaurants in Town”
Go through them all.
That’s the optimized way to experience the most, without repetition.

Always forward.
Never back.
Push yourself.
Always be a stranger in a strange land.
But don’t rush.
Savor every aspect of everything you take in.
Notice the nuances.

Find places that bombard your senses.
India.
Burning Man.
Festivals.
Museums.
Celebrations.
Funerals.

Skydive.
Scuba dive.
Run with bulls.
Swim with sharks.
Float in space.

How to pay for this wonderful life?
Only two choices.

The bad choice is a travel writer.
Looks glamorous and easy, so everyone tries it.
May be possible, but every rich kid does it for free.

The smart choice is sales.
It will always be valuable.
Learn to sell, and you can go anywhere.
You’ll be paid well at any age.
Always in high demand.
Get a job on the road.
Always talking to strangers.
That’s what you need.

Simple decisions help avoid repetition.
Don’t have a home.
Never sleep in the same place twice.
No kitchen.
No cooking.
Every meal somewhere new.
Never go down a road you recognize.

Simple systems help force change.
Every month, get rid of your existing clothes.
Get new clothes in a new style.
Do this while traveling, so one month your clothes are from Morocco, next month from Italy, next month from Japan.

This is good for you.
The variation in diet is good for your health.
The new situations are great for your brain.

Never have the same thought twice.
Keep nothing on your mind.
Just take in what’s around you now.
Have no expectation of how something should be, or you won’t see how it really is.

How amazing that everything you’re doing is both the first and last time.
The thrill of the first.
The sentimentality of the last.

There will be things you’ll love so much you’ll want to stay or do them again.
But no.
Remember your mission.

Experience pain, anger, sorrow, and more.
Don’t judge them as bad.
Notice how they really feel.

Practice seduction.
Be with a different person every night.
Every lover is different.
Don’t allow relationships.
Remember: no repetition.

But after decades of this, you’ll need something radically new.
Stay in one place.
Be with one person.
Buy a home.
Raise a baby.
It’s terrifying, but if you don’t, it will be the one experience you never had.